"Not at this time," answered Jane. "But we can visit this later on, when things settle down."
"Will you entertain receiving prisoners from the rest of the sector?" asked the mushroom.
"If there is a need, we can discuss it."
"There is a need," said the mouse from sector eleven. "Many planets have overcrowded penal facilities, especially of those sentenced to life imprisonment. A planet devoted to penal use, would take the pressure off individual planet resources."
"Let's add it to the next four sector meeting then."
"What is happening in this regard?" asked the fuzzball. "I was of the understanding the sectors had sent representatives to handle the Brotherhood and piracy issues. It sounds like you intend to expand on this? Perhaps form a super sector council?"
Jane shot the fuzzball a glance. She couldn't tell if it was joking with her or not.
She looked to Ganshura and Fred, and received their nods. She looked to the other sector representatives and also received nods. She looked back at the fuzzball.
"It has come up. While this council was for specific reasons, it has become apparent we share a lot of other issues, and working together in the future has been suggested several times. But I must emphasize there has been no official discussions at this point. Nor will there be until each sector has had a chance to fully discuss it in their own councils."
"We will expect it to appear on the adjenda in the near future then," said the sector ten mushroom.
"So added," said Jane.
The next report had arrived, and Jane began the next briefing.
Fifteen
"Permission to dock," asked Crocatoa, over a station channel.
Havoc was approaching Bhatet's stronghold, now under the control of a council of pirates. The center seat had been changed out for something the big not-croc could actually sit on. So had the rest of the seats, as every bridge position now sat a not-croc. They were all wearing civilian attire.
"Permission denied," said the hippo, doing traffic control duties. "Your ship is human, and humans are not welcome here."
"This ship WAS human. Past tense."
"How do you come to have it?"
Crocatoa grinned, and teeth showed. He interlocked the fingers of his outer hands together, and flexed them palms outwards in a gesture he'd seen humans do when supremely confident of an outcome. For the hippo, the effect was intimidating.
"We took it. It was docked in Hunter Prime, empty, and we simply pretended to be Hunter troops, walked on board through the open airlock, and flew off."
"Are you telling me no one even noticed?"
"There were ships heading in all directions at the time. We simply fell into formation with one group, and once in sector nine, we turned a different way, and came on here. We're officially turning pirate, and need a base to operate from."
"And you expect us to believe you?"
"Of course. Do we look like Hunter military to you?"
"I wouldn't know. I've only seen one human up close, and she was pathetic looking."
"And do we look human to you?"
"No, you look like sector ten military. I've seen vids of you guys."
"That’s because we were. But with human ships making ours obsolete, we took retirement, and started looking for a way of using our skills. This ship is perfect for us. It was there. We took it. What more do you want?"
"I don’t know. Station rules say no human ships dock. Nothing was said about human ships without humans on board."
"Then perhaps you should check with a superior?"
"At this time of the night? You must be joking!"
"Do I look like I'm joking?" The hippo stared at the rows of teeth. "Either you give us permission to dock on your own, or you contact a superior who gives us permission to dock. Which will it be?"
"And if neither happens?"
A bridge full of very sharp teeth grinned at the hippo, giving the general impression this was the desired outcome. The poor creature noticeably wilted.
"You are approved to dock nine. Station rules will be given to you before anyone disembarks. Please abide by them. We may be pirates here, but the station is neutral ground, and we enforce this equally on everyone."
"Thank you. We will abide by station rules. Moving to dock nine at this time. Havoc out."
The channel closed.
Jane walked in from the captain's ready room, where she'd watched the whole exchange.
"Nicely done Colonel," she said in her deep Captain Havoc voice. "Do you intend to lounge there all day?"
Crocatoa boomed a laugh.
"Nice chair," he said. "I could get used to it."
"And you wear it well. Well, maybe one day, but not today. Shall we get on with it?"
"Aye sir." He looked around the bridge. "Saddle up people."
The bridge cleared rapidly. Jane looked at the chairs and sighed. Once the last of the not-crocs had left, builder droids came in to change the chairs back to human ones.
By the time the docking clamps clunked home, Jane was back in her normal chair, with her normal bridge crew in their places.
The airlock cycled open, and the ramp extended.
The hippo delivering the station rules fainted.
Huge metal creatures in the vague form of a not-croc ran down the ramp, and vanished into the station like a tidal wave. The next dock on each side were empty, and these were secured first of all.
Combat droids followed, securing Havoc's dock area, and moving to replace the not-crocs in the adjoining docks. Free to move again, the not-crocs ran on to their next targets. They were boarding ships before anyone knew the station had a problem.
Two more Assault Cruisers moved in.
Behind the combat droids followed human marines in combat suits. These formed up into formations, and started off into the station. The first targets were the station's command areas, its security forces, and engineering sections.
The first of the Cruisers was able to dock, but the station airlock refused to open. The marines inside used meson streamers to cut the airlocks out. The ramp went down, and three companies of marines ran out, formed up, and headed for their objectives. The other Cruiser did the same thing.
Crocatoa, and his first platoon, met up with the American Brigadier outside of the station's command center. The doors were reinforced to prevent unauthorized access. Barked orders made everyone on marine coms cringe for a moment, and the doors fell inwards, having been cut out. Not-crocs streamed in. Humans followed.
Further down the station, Major Emerson himself cut down the guards at the main door to the slave pens and captives areas, and his company secured the whole level. Within minutes, the hapless beings inside were no longer prisoners, and were being led, carried, or sledded back to the Assault Cruisers. All three had been given augmented medical facilities for this mission, expecting the captives to be needing a lot of medical attention. Doc droids did triage in the cargo bays, and smaller cargo droids moved those in need of care unit time to the medical bays.
Jane monitored the progress. When station command was secure, she cloned herself to the station computer, and took control of the whole station. She started directing troops to trouble spots, some of which contained civilians in servitude to the pirate groups, who needed rescue.
She was too late to prevent a dozen ships from undocking, and escaping into space. None of them made it more than a kilometer away before being destroyed by the squadrons of Japanese Corvettes, which had escorted the Assault Cruisers. Torpedoes proved just as effective as Battleship guns, in ridding the sector of pirate ships. Salvage and search and rescue droids launched to check for survivors, and to begin cleaning up space.
Hours later, the station was secured, the innocent civilians were aboard ships, and Jane was ready to call this a victory.
It came as a considerable shock to everyone, when one of the now crewless pirate ships, exploded.
Sixteen
The chamber went silent as Ja
ne cocked her head unexpectedly, and stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. They waited for her to continue.
She shook her head.
"Bad news?" asked Fred.
"We lost Bhatet's old stronghold station."
"How?" asked the not-croc, who knew an entire company of his own troops had gone in there.
"One of the pirate ships had set up some sort of dead-man switch. When it wasn’t reset, the ship blew up, taking the ships on both sides with it, and a sizable chunk of the station as well. The station then suffered a series of catastrophic failures, mainly due to damage in the firefights to take it. A cascade effect took over, and within ten minutes, the station was nothing but debris."
"Casualties?" asked the fuzzball.
"All the captives and innocent civilians were off. Two airlocks decompressed, leaving the Assault Cruisers open to space, although the ship airlocks closed before anyone was hurt. But the pirate crews, station guards, administration, and general station employee beings, all died. The report wasn’t specific about the numbers, but we are talking thousands."
"The troops?" asked the not-croc.
"No casualties. They were all in combat suits. Most of them found themselves floating in space or clutching hold to large chunks of debris. Some of the combat suits took damage, but the search and rescue droids prioritized pick up according to life support remaining, and we didn’t lose anyone."
"Do the ships have enough life support for everyone?" asked Fred.
"No, but we sent two squadrons of Corvettes along this time, and between them and the few heavier ships in the escort, there will be enough. The troops are being moved at the moment. It'll be a tight fit, but we lucked out. Pocket Battleships which have completed their missions are being re-routed to help as well. The clean-up is going to take some time though."
She looked around the chamber, seeing fatigue on faces.
"We'll break for a while now. The reception room next door has food and drink for all of you, and you are free to use the facilities, as long as you don’t leave either of these two rooms."
"Are we not finished yet?" asked Ganshura.
"Nearly. There are still reports coming in, but several key places are yet to be actioned. For now, we can recess. But it is almost over now."
She made a point of waving everyone to the room next door, where Lyana had appeared while opening the doors. Lyana repeated the gesture, and slowly the ambassadors and their staff made their way inside. They found the rest of Fred's team blocking the exits.
Jane intercepted the bat ambassador, and quietly steered him into her office, which the bat hadn't known was there.
"Ambassador, you have some decisions to make."
"What kind?"
"The biggest single remaining group of Brotherhood are on your home world. So far, both your military and police forces have refused to cooperate."
"Why should they?"
"Because in about an hour, those Brotherhood will be dead. You can either allow it to happen the easy way, or we can do it the same way the valderians did it."
The bat shuddered. Jane went on.
"One way or another, the Brotherhood will be purged from your planet. You decide on what the collateral damage will be."
"How do I do that?"
"I will open a channel for you to your world, so you can send them a vid, and you will instruct your military to stand down. My ships will go in, specific buildings across your world will receive an appropriate sized missile, and my ships will leave as soon as we know all Brotherhood are dead. It's up to you to convince your military not to fire on my ships. If they do, they will be destroyed."
"What class ships have you sent?"
"Concorde's Ride."
The bat shuddered again. Only one of the Dreadnaughts making up the joined ship could take out his entire fleet without taking any damage itself.
"You really expect us to fight, don’t you?"
"Honestly, I hope you don’t, but I expected you wouldn’t have the influence to get your military to stand down. I hope you do, but I assumed you didn’t. I know your history. Before the sector council, you and the not-crocs regularly had wars. You keep a military now partly in case something causes them to come after you again. Do you really want to be more vulnerable than you've been in centuries?"
The bat shuddered again.
"I destroyed one of your fleets when I first arrived at the council system, and knew nothing about local politics. Do you want me to do it again now?"
"Enough. Open the channel, and let me send the message. They will listen to me, or they will not. But we will know soon."
Jane nodded, and opened the vid. The message went on for ten whole minutes, and Jane listened to a being use every conceivable argument to make warriors decide not to fight.
Message sent, the bat headed for the nearest facilities. Jane followed it out, and found Ganshura waiting for her.
"What did you say to the bat? I've never seen a bat with that facial colour before."
"I pointed out a few home truths, and gave him a choice. I'm happy to say the choice made was the right one, but we will see if those who must implement it agree or not."
"Ah. I think I understand. Will you be joining us for refreshments?"
"No, I need to meet with some of my people. I'll return shortly."
Ganshura nodded, and turned towards the buffet.
Jane left the chamber.
Seventeen
Jane asked Holmes where Anna was, and he told her.
She walked into the restaurant where she was eating with Jamie, and went up to the table. The two of them looked up as she neared, and smiled at her.
A waiter brought over a spare chair, and Jane sat. She waved the waiter away.
"You two look happy," she said. "Is the wedding back on?"
"Not yet," said Anna. "Actually it’s the other way around. We're happy not to be bogged down in wedding planning. Maraid wants a huge Scottish wedding, and we'd rather just elope."
Jamie grinned his agreement.
"I'm sorry to tell you this, but eloping is out of the question. You're staying here where I can protect you."
"We know," said Jamie. "Anna is still a Brotherhood target, and until that changes, we know we must stay here. As a cage, this is quite good though."
Jane looked at Anna.
"Are you still having the nightmare?"
"Yes. But it's not as often now. Is something changing?"
"I hope so yes. Let me know if the nightmare changes."
"I will. Can you join us? We've only just ordered."
"Sorry no. I have a council session to return to."
She rose, and patted Jamie on the shoulder. With her other hand, she touched Anna on the upper arm.
The Talisman activated, hidden as it was beneath Anna's suit.
Power flowed through her, and her awareness opened galaxy wide as it had the last time.
She concentrated on Brotherhood, and the chart of the galaxy shank down to three sectors. Lights blinked at her, showing her where the remaining Brotherhood were located.
Good. Those who were left were those known to be left.
She removed her hand from Anna's arm, and the connection broke. She looked at Anna for a moment, but she showed no sign of knowing the Talisman had been active.
She waved to both of them, and left.
Eighteen
Concorde's Ride down jumped into the bat system at full speed. Jane was on the bridge of one of the Dreadnaughts.
The bat fleet was arranged in formations around the down jump lane, but didn’t fire.
Jane breathed a sigh of relief. She really hadn't wanted to destroy them.
The bat system was a binary. The core star was ordinary, but it had no habitable planets in its inner system. The outer system was all gas giants, with the exception of the second sun, which was only just larger than the largest gas giant, and barely within sun parameters. It orbited the primary sun like the rest did. Around
it, ten moons orbited at various distances. One of them was the bat homeworld.
By sheer fluke, the jump point was only an hour's travel away for Jane. She kept the speed up, and flashed past a series of picket ships which kept the civilian ships from straying from the designated trade routes. She listened to the military channels keeping the home fleet up to date with her progress towards them, and the civilian channels as ship captains freaked out as something large went past them way too fast.
The fleet in orbit drew away from her, and she settled into her selected orbit. The comnavsats went down into a lower orbit, and started feeding her data on the cities and towns below. She compared it to her own data.
Missiles launched.
She completed one orbit of the planet, checked all the targets had been destroyed, double checked for collateral damage and found very little, and satisfied, Concorde's Ride headed back to the jump point.
No-one had made any attempt to contact her.
On her way out, she monitored the police and security channels, as they combed through the wreckage of buildings looking for survivors. Even before she jumped out, she knew all those dead were Brotherhood. A small number of others had died as well, but it was obvious these bats were in the process of becoming Brotherhood.
The feeds went back along the coms network. Jane showed the results to the bat ambassador, and they returned to the chamber to restart the council session.
Nineteen
The system had no name.
There were no habitable planets, moons, or stations.
There was nothing here but asteroids.
It was one of the systems which made up the so called Badlands. There was only one jump point, and there was no reason for anyone to come here.
Concorde had been here for some time now, waiting. Hidden behind a particularly large asteroid, she'd monitored the entire system for movement, and found none.
Jane sat there, monitoring the activity of her other selves.
The feed from the bat homeworld came in, and she smiled to herself.
A.I. Destiny 6 Leader Jane Page 6