Stryker was in even worse shape. She'd taken a much more solid hit, and most of the rear of the ship was a smashed in hole. What was left of the engines and much of her power generators, would need replacing at a shipyard, after she was towed in. If she was towed in. She too was spinning, with no power, and no air.
At the last second before being hit, Stryker had created an avatar out of a security droid down in the Armoury, and shifted himself to the droid. He'd no sooner done this than power failed completely, and he lost all contact with his ship self. He walked over to a storage bin, and took out a belt suit. He fastened it around the waist of the droid, and activated it. He immediately shifted into a man shape, approximating Walsh, but changing key features so Walsh wouldn’t be shocked when he saw him. He grabbed two life support backpacks from their rack, and sprinted up the stairs to the Bridge.
Walsh and Darlene had blacked out from the severity of the collision, and were slumped in their seats, suits in space suit mode. The seats themselves had come loose from the deck, and the life support connections in them were obviously not working, since the suits had not connected to them. Stryker placed a backpack on each of them, which their suits immediately connected to.
By Stryker's reckoning, they had less than an hour and half of life support, unless he could fix something in a hurry. He began to assess what could be done, and what he had left to do it with.
Twelve
Jane experienced a moment of what humans called being stunned. It lasted for a full second, during which the channel she'd opened closed for lack of a destination.
They'd all watched the feed from both ships as the alien ship had failed to stop, heard the exclamations of shock from around the room and both ships, as the feed shifted to the comnavsat in position higher up the plane of the system, and they watched the collision. Both ships spun off in different directions, one of them looking really badly damaged.
Jane took a whole two seconds to ponder what should be done, and started giving orders. The other four AMS ships, already on their way, were told to run the red line as far as possible and get there faster. But the nearest was still hours away. Even further away was the nearest of her fleet ships. But she did have faster ships available. Both the Dreadnaughts and Battleships had Lightning class couriers in their hangers, and the closest three ships were to launch all six the moment they were loaded with salvage, repair, and security droids. The Lightning class was the fastest ship humans had even made, actually Jane had, but no-one knew that; and they could do double the speed of most others. This still put them a long way behind the AMS ships. Jane had them completely ignore the red line, and ordered them to push the ships up to previously unheard of speeds. She'd take the risk of losing a few of them, to get one there as fast as was possible. She pushed up the speed on all the ships currently on their way there. Again, if she lost a few on the way to engine overloads, she was content to get something there faster.
"Well I didn’t see that coming," said Price. "Did anyone?"
Jane shook her head, and looked around to see if anyone did otherwise. Most of them didn’t even move.
Jane remembered she was pretending to be human, and started imitating giving sub-vocal orders. Her lips were moving, but she wasn’t actually doing anything but think. When she finished, she told the room what she'd done.
"Is there any hope for the crews?" asked Tremblay.
"We won't know until we get a ship there," said Jane. "If you'll excuse me, I need to brief the council."
"Are we at war?" asked Renaud.
"I don’t know," admitted Jane. "But we're going to assume we are. Admiral Tremblay, could you please assemble a list of ships you would prefer to stay here for system defense, a list of ships to escort the marine transports, and the rest to leave as soon as possible for G014. Send it to me within the hour. I have people to see, and then I need to go to G014 myself."
She looked at him for confirmation, and he nodded, and then indicated the other Admirals should join him in one corner of the room. Patton nodded at Jane, and she knew he'd be doing the same with the Generals, and getting the troops moving. Their meeting would have to wait.
Jane had a last thought, ran it through its pros and cons, and paused by the door.
"Oh. I'll be sending each of you an extra aide. These will be one of my people, whose main job will be co-ordination between us. Those of you with an aide already can either use both, or reassign yours. Those without, can use them as a full aide if you need one, or just as a coordinator if you don’t. They'll be with you in a couple of hours. I'll be promoting some of them, so they'll all be Lieutenant Colonels."
She strode out the door before anyone could say anything. She was already ordering the creation of a set of avatar bodies from her shipyard, and selecting human body images for the belt suits to emulate.
The one bad thing about her rushing a long way away, was not having immediate access to the people she needed to. With a set of avatars monitoring everything these people were doing, she would be only thirty seconds or so out of the loop.
By the time she strode into the Council chambers, she still hadn't any better idea of what had happened.
The comnavsat on the G014 side of the jump point showed the alien ship powering away at the same speed it had jumped at, now heading for the planet in the system. She did the math on her own ships arrival times in the system, and not even the first group would arrive before the ship arrived at the planet. It did then depend on what the ship did. If it went straight in and landed, big as it was, nothing could be done to stop it. But if it needed to orbit a few times to find the best place to land either itself, or landing craft, her first fleet should intercept it first. She changed the orders on the first fleet to try and intercept the alien ship.
The comnavsat in G023 was still showing the two Corvettes, and would be still when the AMS ships and the Lightnings arrived. Nothing else was showing, so the aliens didn’t appear to have any backup following closely. However, she tasked one of her avatars to monitor it, and let her know if anything more showed up.
Striding into the chamber brought discussions to a stop. But it was what they were discussing which bothered her. They were back on planets again.
"Yes Admiral?" asked the Chair.
Jane stopped where she could see everyone.
"I need to report there has been an incident in G023. Two of our ships have been severely damaged when an alien ship rammed them, and jumped past them into G014. It is now on course for the planet in that system. All attempts to communicate with it failed. We don’t know why."
"Are we at war?" asked someone.
"I don’t know. Without communications, there has been no declaration. However, there was no actual shooting on either side, so at the moment, we could have just a simple accidental collision."
"Is the planet habitable?" asked someone else.
"Yes. It could support several billion."
"Then we need to fight for it."
"I'm not ready to go that far yet. I've changed the orders on the first ships to arrive there, ordering them directly to the planet in case the ship hasn’t started landing yet. As long as they don’t step foot on the planet first, we may be able to prevent them without starting a war. Or at least force them to talk to us. Our ground forces are being organized to leave as soon as possible. If we can put troops on the ground first, we have a better claim. However, they will be three days later than the aliens. Still, if nothing else, we can put troops on the ground in G013 and G011 and blockade both systems. The troops should be on their way by the end of the day."
"What of the two damaged ships?" asked the Chair.
"Both will need to be towed back to a shipyard for repair. At this stage, we have no coms with either of them, so we don’t know if the crews are alive or not. I've sent our fastest ships to aid them."
"What are you doing personally Admiral?"
"I'll be heading out to join the fleet as soon as I can. But I have people to talk t
o first. I've started a re-structure of our military forces. The fleet is being divided into three. One part stays here for defense, one part will be escorting the marine transports, and the rest will be heading for the danger zone as fast as they can go. I will be leaving an Honor Guard here for the safety of Duke Michael and Hunter's Run city. The Japanese will be leaving a dozen Corvettes here as Honor Guard for the Japanese Emperor, and the British will be leaving ships as an Honor Guard for the Queen."
"Who?"
There were a lot of puzzled looks.
"Why do you people keep coming back to allocating planets to groups? It's because some of you come from different political systems than others. I'm not going to tell you how to do this," yet, "but if you leave things a few days, and actually spend time with your groups of people, you will find out why these groups want their own planets. In my opinion, knowing where you all come from, the British and Japanese should be getting the first available planets with sufficient habitability. Both have different systems of government to most of the rest, based on a hereditary ruler. They are different enough to warrant their own systems. Everyone else can co-exist with this council, to one level or another. Although the Arab's should also be given their own system as well. If you have each group state its claim for their own system in terms of style of government, belief systems, and population, you might see what needs to be done."
"We can't let you leave," said a man on the Gaia twelve. "You're the only one who understands what everyone needs."
"I'll be leaving an aide with Baron Fred, who will be my representative on this council. She'll be in constant contact with me, and will be able to get answers from me to any question in a matter of minutes. She'll introduce herself tomorrow. I'm having aides appointed for all the flag officers so I can keep in touch with them as well. I know I should stay, but we need an experienced Admiral in G014 as soon as possible, and no-one else has enough experience."
She paused for effect.
"How much do we want to hold G014?"
"We want that planet," said a man in an American accent, who Jane recognized used to be their President. "It’s the right size for our people."
"It could be under siege for the immediate future."
"Doesn't matter. We want it. We'll argue our case here as you've suggested, but I move we give you instructions to land our troops on that planet and hold it."
He looked at the Chair. She nodded.
"Anyone opposed to issuing the Admiral those instructions?"
The room was silent.
"You are so instructed Admiral."
"Thank you. I'll be leaving in a few hours."
"Kali guide you Admiral," said the Hindu dressed member of the Gaia twelve.
Jane nodded, beckoned to Fred to come with her, and turned to go.
"This session is adjourned until tomorrow morning," said Madam Chair.
People started to rise to follow her out.
"We need to talk," Jane said to Fred, as he caught up with her. "Can you ping your family to gather now please?"
Thirteen
Jane and Fred took her personal Lightning down to Gaia Five, and landed on the roof of the Hunter residence complex. Jane followed Fred into the family suites, where most of the family were waiting for them in the main living area.
Fred dropped himself into his usual lounge chair, the chair making stress noises as his weight was taken up. He wasn’t a big lad, but he hadn't bothered dropping in easily. Jane stayed standing. Over the previous year, she'd spent a lot of time with them, and while they had lost a lot of memory, they all retained the last year intact. Which was fortunate.
"Thanks for meeting me with so little warning," she said.
"That’s alright dear," said Grandma Hunter. "We needed to speak to you as well. Is it true you're officially part of the family now?"
"It's true Grandma," said Douglas Tollin. He looked at Jane. "We also had an email which told us you were adopted into the family. We don’t know who it was from, but it had all the correct Hunter codes attached so we know it was genuine."
"It was from your brother," said Jane. "And also from Michael's grandfather. Unfortunately, you can't remember them, but they fill two of the gaps in the family tree. I've been waiting for a chance to talk to you all about it, and find out how you feel."
"Feel young lady?" said Grandma. "We feel very happy to have you in the family. But you were anyway. Now it's just official."
"We need a party," said Fred, grinning.
"I wish we could," responded Jane immediately, before anyone else could agree, "but I need to leave very soon. Two of my ships are out there badly damaged, and we may have a war coming. I need to be there."
"You're the Admiral," said Douglas. "Do what you have to do. Was there any particular reason for you coming down here? You didn’t need to."
"I'm worried by the way the council is going. Over the next few months, billions of people are going to be resettled on these three planets. It's likely millions more than should be, will come here. They may look at this under-populated city, and decide to take it."
"Do you mean civil unrest, or civil war?"
Douglas sounded worried.
"Could be either, could be both, could be neither. I don’t know. I hope for the best, but I'm also planning for the worst. The city's computer will be left a set of instructions for various possibilities. If something happens, I want you all to do as you're instructed as fast as you can. I'm leaving defenses in place, but there's also an escape plan in case the city needs to be evacuated. I hope it won't come to that, but there were a lot of billions of people more who arrived, than was expected."
"We understand dear," said Grandma. "But remind us why Janette sounds like you?"
Jane laughed. Janette was her, or at least a clone of her. But this was part of the memory they had lost.
"When they first developed characters for the higher end computers, they needed someone to base their voice and character on. I was chosen. So in actual fact, my voice is heard on a lot of ships as well. They are middle range computers mostly, just a character front end to the computer system. I have to admit it is a bit strange sometimes, hearing my own voice speaking and not being me. But it was a great honour to be chosen."
The lie slid out easily. Jane wasn’t used to lying. The ease bothered her.
"All the more reason for us to be proud of you dear."
"Where's Sarah?" asked Jane. "I was hoping to see her as well."
"She tends to stay with her own parents. We see the little one regularly because they are used to coming here, but she doesn’t understand what happened to her, and all we know is Michael is Duke of this place, but not why."
"I can understand that. I'll go and see her."
"What do you want me to do?" asked Fred.
"Be the voice of reason in the council. You'll meet Colonel Justine Henman in the morning, who'll be your aide from now on. She'll communicate with me on a regular basis, and you can ask her to ask me any question at any time, and I'll respond as fast as I can. She'll be taking over my quarters on the station, but it would be good if someone could make up a room for her here as well."
"No problem dear."
Grandma seemed quite cheerful about having a stranger come to visit.
Jane felt a pang about deceiving these people, but deep down, she felt it was necessary. She knew they would accept her as she was, but not a lot of others would. For now, she had to lie like a superhero protecting his or her secret identity. That thought cheered her up a lot. She spent a couple of nanoseconds debating if she should put a cape on the uniform or not. Not won. She wasn’t a real super-hero.
"Fred, the British and Japanese need their own planet. The Arabs need their own system, regardless of if it has a planet or not, since they won't get along with anyone for very long. The Germans are independent and probably should get their own planet. Putting the Americans on G014 will most likely solve a whole heap of problems, since they tend to be the mo
st overtly militant."
"Understood," he said.
"I'm going to long lengths to get as much of the military out of this system as I can, so I want you to resist any calls to bring them back. There are too many emergent factions all about to raise their own needs, and the last thing we need is each of them having their own military. We can't demilitarize the system entirely, but the less there are, especially after those getting their own planets move there, the less likely a civil war breaks out. They need to take some time making the decisions on who gets what or where, but those groups should be on the move within a week. If the resettlement of people in the worst situations hasn’t begun by session start tomorrow, I want you to put a rocket up them. The computers have the basics. If they want people managing, there are plenty of people with the experience to plan and execute the resettlements, and a lot of ships which can do the job, since they were the ones which loaded up the stations in the first place. Justine can help you with all of that."
"I'll see to it," he said with confidence.
"Before you go," said Grandma, "tell us about those we can't remember."
Jane hesitated.
"Douglas, your brother was an Earl, and he ran the administration of Hunter's Run, which covered nine systems. Fred, your father was perhaps the most unluckiest man alive, dying in a pirate attack two years ago. He was a good trustworthy man, and he brought you up well. Michael's father was your cousin, two standard years older than you. You're coming into the same level of responsibility as he did at your age. He gave you the rank of Baron before he left here for the last time a year ago, showing a huge amount of trust in you. All you need know is he was a true hero to the end of a long and difficult struggle, which he solved in a unique way which resulted in everyone forgetting he ever existed. His parents decided to stay with him at the end, and the only evidence of them we have are on the emails we received, which for some reason survived. I suspect because they were sent here before the end came, and so were not affected by the temporal change. They were good people, well respected here, and much of the reason the family as a whole is respected."
Admiral Jane (A.I. Destiny Book 1) Page 6