"Why?" demanded Maraid. "We have a state wedding to prepare."
"One of two things will happen in the next few days. We'll find a jump point we need to go to the source system, or we won't. If we don’t, we'll have to go there through normal space, and there will plenty of time for dozens of weddings. If we do, the wedding should be able to be held in a few weeks' time."
"We should try and find the jump point ourselves," said Anna.
"Worth a shot," said Maraid. "Show us the map."
Jane used the wall screen, pulled out the map Mouse had made, and flipped it over to show how the lines between systems all fit. She pointed at the system they thought was the source.
"Ready?" asked Anna.
She didn’t wait for an answer, and put a hand on one shoulder of each of them.
Everything turned to ice and snow.
"Comet," said Jane. "Zoom out!"
The ice receded from them, as if they were on a ship blasting out into space from the comet.
"Tactical!" barked Jane, and immediately had a déjà vu of Jon barking the same.
Around them formed a system map. It seemed very lopsided though, with the sun a long way out of the expected position.
"Center."
The map shifted, now looking like a normal system map, sun in the center, with its planets and moons around it.
"Highlight the comet."
Way out to one side, a bright dot shone, with an elliptical course marked over the map. It was well outside the Oort cloud.
"Jump point."
Another highlight dot appeared, even further out.
"Zoom out, local galaxy level."
The map zoomed out again, and there was the other side, in exactly the system mouse had said it might be. They'd already been to the jump in system twice.
"Thank you Anna."
Anna took her hands away, and they were back in Jane's office. The map now showed the system they needed to go to.
Jane smiled at the two women.
"Anna, please stick around until after we get there, just in case I need you. But how about we plan for a wedding in three weeks' time, give or take?"
"I'll tell Jamie," said Anna.
"I'll be back home on yon fast shuttle ye gave Mac," said Maraid. "You send Anna and Jamie on as soon as you can now."
"I will," said Jane.
The two women left, already deep in wedding plans. Jane watched them go, before setting her mind back to the task in hand. The location of the jump point passed to herself on Seasprite, and the fleet began to move again.
Still in her office, Jane shivered. The symbolism of finding the jump point they needed via an ice comet was something she couldn’t ignore.
She knew now exactly what they were about to confront.
She had no doubts about it now at all.
She thought of Jon and the prophecy surrounding him. She thought of what had been seen by the seers of three worlds independently, and together.
She thought of an ice comet. She thought of the name the seers had used.
Cold evil.
Seventy Two
The jump point was exactly where the vision had said it would be, and Walsh once again changed the criteria for searching for jump points to include rogue rocks and ice well out beyond the Oort cloud. It was becoming more and more obvious there were regular jump points defined by the core system and the plane it occupied, and others which were defined by the outer orbit of the furthest travelling object in the system. In this case, the jump point was so non-standard, defined by an orbit which was so rogue, Walsh didn’t think it would have ever been found by exploring.
The fleet down jumped into what was now being called Source system. Oddly, for a jump point so out of the way going in, where they found themselves was bog standard for normal systems.
"Let's assume the worst," said Jane. "Battle formation please."
Concorde's Ride took point, with the other Battleships, Pocket Battleships, and Cruisers stepped back in arrow formation. Behind them came Havoc, Seasprite, Serenity's Cruisers, and the other Assault Cruisers. Above them was Cosmos, and below them the four Explorer Cruisers. At the back came the two Behemoth Carriers, which immediately started launching the four Excalibur squadrons.
Cosmos launched drones, which set off to map the entire system.
The fleet moved in-system, looking for the habitable planet.
The system turned out to be fairly standard, even a tad boring, with seven planets in predictable orbits. They found the habitable planet in orbit three, with a very Earth like appearance. They'd lucked out on the orbit, with the planet on the same side as the jump point they'd come in through.
"All ships stop," ordered Jane.
She sat there looking at the navmap and HUD, and after a long sigh, she pulled it out to get enough detail.
"No life signs," said Satoshi.
"What about the planet?" asked Intrepid.
"No life signs," repeated Satoshi.
"None at all?" asked Paxton.
"None. There is nothing alive down there at all."
"Maybe they all live underground?"
"Too far away to tell," said Jane, "but we can hope. Mouse, you can ring the doorbell."
"Ding dong," said Mouse, pushing a button on the main isolated computer.
The standard first contact package was sent by radio, from a special aerial now fitted to Dodger's ship. Mouse was in the living area, with Dodgers in her cockpit seat, ready to react if necessary. Snark was with the others on the bridge of Seasprite, although Jane was also in her command chair on Concorde, flitting her perceptions rapidly between the two avatars. Phoenix2 had docked inside Cosmos for safe keeping.
They waited for the speed of radio to cover the distance and back.
"No response," said Mouse. "Oh. Forget that, we're being hacked."
"How bad?" asked Jane.
"Firewalls are holding for now. But it's brute forcing its way in."
"Send the response."
"Sent."
They waited again, watching two sets of graphics. One showed the progress of the hacking of Mouse's computer, while the other showed the travel time of the radio wave response. Everyone wondered what the response would be when their counter-virus arrived. Snark went so far as to hold his breathe as the counter reached zero.
"Movement," said Seasprite. "Lots of movement."
"Ships?" asked Snark, after taking a hasty breath.
"Don’t think so. Rocks more like. Some really big ones too. Hundred plus, and still counting."
"I'll take that as a declaration of war," said Jane. "Looks like we do this the hard way. Concorde's Ride has the lead. Mouse, evict the undesirable guest please."
Mouse looked stricken for a moment, but with a swift movement, pulled the power plug, and the computer died. Dodgers pressed a button on her console, and the external radio aerial exploded, leaving a hole and a scorch mark on the hull. A repair droid quickly filled the hole, before scuttling back inside, while another one pulled the whole cable. A small cargo droid took the whole computer box, peripherals, and aerial cable into the airlock, and cycled through, casting the whole lot into space. Dodgers was waiting, and the whole lot was vaporized by the point defense guns before the airlock closed again.
The fleet moved down out of the line of fire, and resumed heading towards the planet.
Seventy Three
Jane and Anna strode into the council chamber. Anna sat in the first row of guest seating next to Jamie, while Jane moved to the middle of the rostrum. A few of the AI's were still taking their seats, and Fred was one of the last to take his empty number one seat. Both Sarah and Grandma Vi were in the front row, along with Walsh and Darlene. Seasprite was sitting upright between Vi and Walsh.
"News Admiral?" asked Ganshura.
"I thought the council might like to watch the battle which will begin shortly."
"Battle?" asked the fuzzball. "Where?"
"We found the planet where
the control ships came from. It attempted to hack our computers, and fired upon us when we responded."
The wall screen lit up with a flat tactical display overviewing the system from above its plain. It zoomed in to show a planet on the far left, with a fleet spread around it, and another fleet at the far right.
"Explain what we're seeing please Admiral," asked the not-croc.
"The planet has a gigantic station in orbit, which includes ship building facilities. Defending it are one hundred behemoth level ships, each of which launched an asteroid of significant size at my fleet." Jane highlighted a series of grey dots. "None of these will hit us, unless they have engines, which so far they don’t appear to. We moved out of their way as soon as detected. Essentially they seem to be very large dumb missiles." She highlighted another group behind them. "These are several thousand smaller ones, sized from ground vehicle down to fist sized. None of these will hit us either. As you can see, they are passing us to one side, and if I shifted the view, above us."
"Thousands of ships?" asked Fred. "Really?"
"Most appear to be computer controlled drones. We'll be launching our own shortly to counter them."
"You have military drones?" asked the mushroom.
"We have drones," said Walsh. "They're for exploring. But the original ones were modified fighters, and the current version are proper hybrids. Exploring is never done without an expectation of dropping into exactly this situation. As such, everything we explore with is armed."
"The enemy have capital ships," said Jane, "and also fighter sized ships, as well as smaller drones. We'll be deploying the same. In fact, you can see our standard fighters launching now."
Swarms of white dots were now launching from the Carriers. Red dots on the left faced off against white dots on the right, with yellow dots passing the white.
"How did you get Carriers there Admiral?" asked the Federation ambassador. "They were last recorded in HR14. To get them to where they are now, they had to have come through our space, yet they were not detected."
"They accompanied Seasprite through human space. How they did so undetected, is I'm afraid, one of my few remaining secrets, which is not ready to be divulged. For now, some aspects of Kingdom tech need to remain secret."
"We will discuss this later Admiral," said the stick insect.
There was a murmur of agreement.
"Are all your ships under AI control?" asked Ganshura.
"No. The capital ships are, with the exception of Seasprite, where Snark has the command chair. Havoc has a human crew, but I'm her captain. The other Assault Cruisers also have human crews. The Excaliburs are a mixed group of pilots, including a duck, a sector eight mouse, a dozen sector ten mice, with the rest being human. The fighters have mainly human pilots, although there are several not-crocs, one stick insect, two mushrooms, and a fuzzball."
Getting a pilot seat set up for a fuzzball had been more than interesting. The ship in question was a prototype design, although it looked the same as most of the rest. Shoehorning a not-croc into a standard heavy fighter had been an even greater challenge, although they'd fortunately been small for their species, and not much taller than a tall human. Even so, the canopy had been enlarged on their ships to accommodate them. They'd have been better suited to Excaliburs, but hadn't progressed in their training that far, and there were no spare ones. The Carriers had been very short of pilots, so all of those with combat training had been asked to serve. No-one said no.
"Is this wise?" asked a voice from the back. "Can we trust AI's to keep the flesh and blood beings alive?"
Jane looked at the owner of the voice, with an intensity which made the being rear back.
"Nothing is certain in battle. The ship AI's have orders. The squadron leaders have orders. The flight leaders have orders. Walsh has orders for his drones. The orders are mine, and they outline how I think the battle should be fought. But no plan survives meeting the enemy, and there are backup plans for a number of eventualities."
Jane looked around the room with a serious expression.
"Make no mistake though. There are no acceptable losses here, in terms of ships or beings. They have numbers and mass, we have superior tech. We won't know how powerful their drones are until they start moving, which should be very soon now. I expect some losses. The pilots all have the best suits we can give them, and we have search and rescue droids ready to go should they survive the destruction of their ships. All we can do to prepare has been done. Now it comes down to each individual pilot, and each individual ship."
"What was that new white dot at the front of the fleet?" asked Fred.
"That is Concorde, my personal Corvette."
"Why are you out in front?" asked Ganshura, before anyone else could.
"Because I lead from the front. Most of the fleet is tasked with destroying or containing the enemy fleet. My task is to reach the center of the station, and find out who or what our enemy actually is."
"One last question," said Ganshura. Jane nodded. "Could the AI's involved in this battle please raise their hands?"
Jane nodded towards them, and one by one they raised their hands. The last was Darlene, and there was a mutter through the chamber as she did so.
"Civilians are part of this fight?" asked the fuzzball.
"The AMS is a civilian entity," said Darlene. "I'm here because the AMS was needed to find the system, and I go where my husband goes. But don’t forget, Snark is a cat civilian, Mouse is a mouse civilian, and both are here by choice. We play our parts as well."
"And while we're talking about flesh and blood," added Jane, "remember the troops on the Assault Cruisers are human and not-croc. They've already put their lives on the line fighting the Brotherhood and pirates. They may yet need to storm the station. Getting there is always dangerous for troops in a ship battle, since there is nothing they can do until deployed. The fleet is organized to protect them. Now we wait to see if they can be protected."
There was silence for a few moments.
"Admiral?" said Ganshura. Jane looked at him. "Good luck. Please express the council's sentiments to all under your command."
"I will, thank you."
All eyes were looking at the screen, as the white dots, now in various sizes, and formations, approached the massed forces waiting near the planet.
Yellow dots appeared on the wall, headed towards the fleet.
"And so it begins," said Jane.
Seventy Four
"Break and Attack."
Behind Jane, Concorde's Ride split up into its individual ships, and she slipped Concorde back into the protection of one of the Dreadnaughts.
Implicit in the break part of the command was for each ship to maneuver as needed to avoid the larger asteroids being thrown at them, and to choose their own targets.
The AI's began exchanging information so fast, most of the target acquisition choices were made as a group, but each ship had to make its own moves.
The large rocks took capital ship missiles and turret pulses until after a few salvos, they knew exactly how much was needed to destroy each one. Precision targeting took over from swarm targeting. Smaller projectiles attracted mosquito missiles and point defense fire.
The one problem immediately apparent was the nature of dirt. Asteroids broke up to become smaller asteroids on incalculable trajectories. These broke up into boulders, which became rocks, stones, and dirt. All of it was mass, and as mass hit shields and vaporized, shields slowly went down.
For the first time ever in a battle, Jane found herself with too much to concentrate on. The capital ships were firing on the Behemoths, and their rail flung asteroids. The smaller ships were concentrating on defense. The Excaliburs were dogfighting the enemy fighter sized ships, and fighters and drones were dogfighting drones.
Space was rapidly filling with different sized ballistic rocks, going in all directions at once. If you wanted to make your own death trap asteroid field, this was how you'd go about it.
&nb
sp; Jane could see Walsh having problems keeping up. He wasn’t combat trained enough for this kind of fight. She was, but there was too much for her to keep track of now.
In the council chamber, Jane went to AI mode for a few nanoseconds, and gave orders.
Warspite walked onto the bridge of Cosmos wearing a combat droid. He and Walsh synced in AI mode, and he took drone control. Paxton, Satoshi, Guam, and Cayuga did the same on the AMS Cruisers, leaving the five civilian AI's to fight and defend their ships.
Repulse walked onto the bridge of one of the Battleships, and took control of all the Battleships, leaving only the two Dreadnaughts for Jane. She began coordinating the fire against the enemy's largest ships. Holmes stepped up behind her, and began tracking all rocks with trajectories which might hit a ship. He began issuing override commands to turrets on any ship in danger of a serious hit, where a response was not already in progress.
Seasprite expanded her awareness to take control of all the Assault Cruisers, and concentrated on keeping them alive, issuing commands to their crews, and sometimes overriding them to move the ship, or change a target faster.
Snark was in the zone, moving his ship as if he was walking through space. He felt Seasprite make changes a few times, but his concentration didn’t slip. He left turret control to Seasprite, but he fought the ship with the front guns and torpedoes.
Mouse was hard pressed to keep himself alive. He was out of his depth, and knew it. When the wingman for the mouse squadron leader pulled out with serious damage and headed back towards Intrepid, Mouse took the opportunity to slide into the vacant slot, and concentrated on keeping his new leader, and himself, alive.
Dodgers was in mercenary duck heaven. Her Excalibur wove a complicated path through the fighters and drones, her front guns and torpedoes spitting destruction at her targets, while her turrets and missile launchers kept random rocks off her shields. She was tuned into the pilot chatter, and was surprised to find she was doing much better than most of them. The mice were doing fine, but their inexperience showed, and she'd had to rescue them repeatedly when they failed to keep track of what was behind them. The human pilots had much better experience, but several of them were thankful to see her ship take out a threat they couldn’t counter. A lot of the fighter pilots were lethal, but the rest, again inexperienced pilots, were not effective against drones capable of the same speed and much faster reaction times. The formations disintegrated quickly, from squadrons down to flights, and down to pairs. Inexperienced pairs lost each other, and fighters on their own started being destroyed.
A.I. Destiny 6 Leader Jane Page 20