A.I. Destiny 2: Queen Jane Read online

  Queen Jane

  By Timothy Ellis

  A.I. Destiny, Book Two

  Copyright © 2017 by Timothy Ellis

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  The author is Australian and the main characters in this book are of Australian origin. In Australia, we colour things slightly differently, so you may notice some of the spelling is different. Please don't be alarmed.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contents

  Contents

  Dramatis Personae

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  Forty Four

  Forty Five

  Forty Six

  Forty Seven

  Forty Eight

  Forty Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty One

  Fifty Two

  Fifty Three

  Fifty Four

  Fifty Five

  Fifty Six

  Fifty Seven

  Fifty Eight

  Fifty Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty One

  Sixty Two

  Sixty Three

  Sixty Four

  Sixty Five

  Epilogue

  Galaxy Maps

  Acknowledgements

  A Message to my Readers

  Also by Timothy Ellis

  Dramatis Personae

  Jane – Artificial Intelligence.

  Hunter's Run

  Sarah – Mother of Duke Michael.

  Michael – Duke – 1 year old.

  Fred – Baron and Regent – 18 years old.

  Jon Hunter – Duke Michael's Father. (Never existed)

  Grandma Vi Hunter – Duke Michael's Great Grandmother.

  Gaia

  Madam Chair – Chairperson Gaia Council.

  Human Federation

  General Patton **** CO Ground Military.

  General Price **** CO Military Logistics.

  Admiral Tremblay **** CO Gaia Defence Fleet.

  Vice Admiral Klemperer *** CO Gaia Research and Development.

  Fleet Admiral Renaud * - CO ASF Yorktown – CO 1st Blockade Fleet.

  Fleet Admiral Rainer * - CO ASF Intrepid – CO 2nd Blockade Fleet.

  Fleet Admiral Dingle * - CO BSF Warspite.

  Fleet Admiral Hikaru – CO JSF Satoshi – CO Planet Cleanse Fleet.

  Queen Elisabeth the Fifth.

  AI's

  Patrick Walsh – Pilot Ambassador.

  Darlene Walsh – Academic Ambassador.

  Yorktown (Yorkie) – ASF Super Carrier AI. 2nd Generation Jane.

  Intrepid – ASF Behemoth Carrier AI. 2nd Generation Yorkie.

  Satoshi – JSF Super-Gunbus Corvette AI. 3rd Generation unknown Japanese AI.

  Repulse – BSF Super-Battleship AI. 2nd Generation Jane.

  Cayuga – CSF Battlecruiser AI. 2nd Generation Jane.

  Warspite – BSF Super-Battleship AI. 2nd Generation Jane.

  Guam – ASF Battlecruiser AI. 2nd Generation Yorkie.

  Stryker – AMS Corvette AI. 2nd Generation Apricot.

  Serenity – AMS Corvette AI. 3rd Generation Apricot.

  Tranquil – AMS Corvette AI. 3rd Generation Apricot.

  Bill Paxton – ASF Pocket Battleship AI. 2nd Generation Yorkie.

  Higher Beings

  Kali – Hindu Deity.

  Ganesha – Hindu Deity.

  Aliens

  Barf – sort of a stick insect.

  Pink – Fuzz-ball.

  Ganshura – Ganeshavestura - Leader of Sector Ten Council.

  Snark – sort of Cat-Merekat hybrid.

  One

  Jane waited patiently as the Owl fleet assembled ready to jump through. They'd learnt very little from their engagements with her in the past. She'd watched them move their twenty five ship fleets from their space back into each system and jump point where she'd destroyed them on her way to the Sector Ten Council system. Considering the number of ships involved, they had to have a major shipyard somewhere. She'd calculated how long it would take them to reach her space, and spent some leisurely time getting there. Now she was waiting on the two hundred ships forming up on the other side of the jump point in groups of five.

  Jane shook her head. They knew nothing of war. She could have jumped all two hundred ships in within seconds. They were going to do five at a time. Jane knew they were coming. They had no idea she was waiting for them.

  At the back of the warships was a diplomatic liner. For some reason the Owls seemed to think their ambassador might need a military escort most of the way. Jane grinned.

  It had obviously taken the Owls twenty three days to discover their ambassador couldn't breathe vacuum, and needed replacing. As far as she could tell, not even their allies had informed them, although not having a communication pathway had a lot to do with it. Hence this was the time it took for a freighter to travel from the council system to the Owl homeworld. Jane thought she was pretty safe with the estimate, having followed the progress of the first Owl ship to head homeward after their ambassador had suffered his 'accident'. At least until it passed into Owl space proper, where she didn’t have a comnavsat.

  According to the timing of the liner arriving here, it must have taken them a day to assemble a new diplomatic team, and thirteen more to travel the distance to where Jane waited, in the first of her systems nearest to Owl space, collecting fleets on the way.

  At last they were nearly ready to jump, so Jane opened a channel to all ships on the other side of the jump point.

  "Attention Owl ships. This is Admiral Jane on the Hunter Behemoth ship Concorde's Ride. You are about to invade the Kingdom of Hunter's Run. You will immediately stop preparations to jump warships into this system. Declared or not, we are in a state of war, and any warship jumping into our space will be destroyed on sight. This is your only warning."

  There was no response. Jane pondered if they knew what a Behemoth class ship was. Maybe not. It wasn’t actually, but two Dreadnaughts and four Battleships docked together to form one bigger ship, did create one Behemoth sized. But in a galaxy where Cruisers were the biggest ship seen so far, maybe Behemoth didn’t translate.

  "Your diplomatic vessel may enter our territory, but before you continue your journey to the council system, I require you to stop and talk. At the least, we need to establish a cease-fire to prevent further loss
of Owl life."

  Cease-fire seemed to trigger a reaction.

  "There will be no cease fire. We do not recognize any ownership of the Gauntlet, and we intend taking it fully this time. If you do not move aside, you will be destroyed."

  Jane sighed. No, they hadn't learnt a thing.

  "So be it. I'll be broadcasting the battle on this side of the jump point back to you, in case you decide to change your minds."

  "Don’t bother creature. You won't last long enough for it to be worth the trouble."

  Another voice gave the order for the first squadron of five to jump.

  Jane needed seconds to be ready for them, but they took nearly a minute to come through.

  A second after appearing, the five ships turned to dust, as the Battleship pulses which had already been on their way, tore through them. Even with less than half her guns available to fire, Jane had a significant overkill available, and she'd decided it was more humane to simply make beings on board these ships vanish between heartbeats, than fire enough to kill the ships, and maybe make dying for some of them a long drawn out affair as they ran out of air. Kill them she must, but make them suffer she would never do.

  Thirty seconds later, the next five also turned to dust. And the next, and the next.

  By the time ten squadrons had jumped in, Jane was feeling sick.

  "For the love of Gaia, stop!"

  "Why should we stop? Your pathetic attempt to deceive us is laughable."

  The guns fired again, and several seconds later, another squadron vanished.

  "Okay fine. If you all want to commit suicide, go right ahead. But please vary it up so it's not so boring on this side. You're like clockwork, and I could destroy you all in my sleep."

  "We are not interested in your delusions creature."

  The guns fired again.

  "You've jumped in thirty ships now. Why am I still talking to you?"

  "You're not. This is obviously a recording being sent from somewhere else."

  Jane face-palmed.

  The guns kept firing. The ships kept vaporizing. Jane bit her tongue, figuratively speaking.

  At last, all two hundred warships had jumped in, and vanished into dust. Jane deliberately didn’t do the math on how many beings she'd just killed. She didn't want to know.

  The last ship in was the ambassadorial liner. Jane held her fire, but goosed the ship forward, lining the two up.

  A specially build grav sled extending from the nose of one of the Dreadnaughts making up this combined ship, slapped into the oncoming ship, activated, and stopped it cold. Jane reversed back out of the down jump lane, and back to where the next civilian freighter wouldn’t hit them as it jumped through. The liner desperately tried to break the connection, but the grav sled was too powerful for it.

  The channel was still open.

  "Now ambassador, we need to talk."

  Two

  Walsh stood on the raised area in the council chamber, watching the vid coming in from Jane. His wife Darlene was sitting in his ambassadorial seat in the first row, where he normally sat. But in Jane's absence, he was the one who had to answer questions if summoned, or do presentations like this one.

  The chamber was silent, and deathly still.

  "Was that really necessary?" asked the Bat ambassador.

  "What did you suggest Admiral Jane do instead?" asked the fuzz-ball. "She gave them the chance to stay where they were, and they invaded her space anyway, having initiated a state of war themselves beforehand. Would you have let them in and allowed them to start shooting at you?"

  The Bat didn’t answer. Walsh considered it at best to be a token protest for the record, for when the Owl ambassador arrived and checked the council recordings. The Bats were an ally after all. He held in his grin though. The Owls had almost no support left anymore.

  "Are humans normally this cold blooded?" asked a voice. "I've seen executioners show more emotion than we just saw."

  "What did you expect?" said the Mushroom. "The battle was expected, the Owls proved as stupid and arrogant as always, and a military being pulled the trigger on them."

  "Did you see the way Admiral Jane covered her face with her hand?" asked Walsh.

  "What of it?" said the voice which had asked about being cold blooded.

  "This is something we do when faced with stupidity of the highest order, or something so sad, we don’t wish our discomfort to be seen."

  "And which is this?"

  "Both."

  There was a lot of laughter from around the chamber.

  "When can we expect a Human Ambassador to replace you?" asked Council Leader Ganshura.

  "Not for several months," answered Walsh. "Although there are several scenarios where it could be quicker."

  "State them."

  "If the Owls were to withdraw from those systems between the Kingdom of Hunter's Run, and Human space, it would be safe to send in our Ambassador's ship."

  "As if that will ever happen," laughed a voice from the back, and the chamber erupted into laughter again.

  Walsh waited for them to settle down. Talking to the chamber was often like this. Stop and start, as the whims of everyone allowed. Rules kept interruptions to a short period of time, but when they kept happening, doing a presentation tended to take longer than it should have. Walsh didn’t have Jane's patience.

  "Should the Owl's attack our blockade forces, we will feel justified in entering and securing the system. Should they persist, it's conceivable the American forces will want to push the Owls back so we have the whole line from Human to Hunter space secure."

  "You could do this?" asked the not-croc.

  "Sure, and relatively easily too. But Admiral Jane is loath to invade another species' space without serious cause."

  "Are you not aware the systems you are talking about are not Owl space?" asked the fuzz-ball.

  Walsh looked at it, completely caught off-guard.

  "No, we didn’t know this. Is there any reason it hasn’t been mentioned before now?"

  The council chamber took on the silent air of a lot of beings feeling a bit embarrassed.

  "Ambassador Walsh," said Ganshura. "Technically, the Owls were awarded the space Humans now have, because they conquered their way to the only system giving access to your end of space, and no known species lay beyond. Or so we were led to believe. Given no species or combination of species in nearby space had the means to remove them, they have kept what they took. Does this change anything for you?"

  Walsh changed up into AI mode, and thought things through carefully. He came back to human mode, and looked around the chamber, before settling his gaze on Ganshura.

  "The Kingdom of Hunter's Run requests an indication of this chamber's support if we should decide to liberate those conquered by the Owls, and push them back to their own space."

  "A motion is put, all will vote."

  The vote didn’t take long. Very few abstained. Darlene wasn’t one of them, since she was voting as the Human ambassador, not the Hunter's Run ambassador. They were both wearing both hats, while Jane was absent.

  "This chamber would welcome the liberation of conquered planets, and the Owls being confined to their own space."

  Walsh noted the subtle difference in wording.

  "Is that what you voted on?" he asked his wife in AI mode.

  "Yes. The word 'confined' was part of the wording of the motion as we saw it."

  "Interesting."

  "I thought so."

  "Could I see a map showing where Owl space should begin please?" he asked the Chamber.

  A map displayed where the vote had just been. It showed more detail than Walsh expected. Where he'd been aware of one route to Hunter space, it seemed there were actually two. Of eleven systems which went around in a rough ring, six had inhabited planets belonging to four different species. A fifth species owned the system adjacent to where Jane had just taken out the Owl fleet.

  The map was not complete, showing just the areas
adjacent to Owl space. But Walsh could see if they moved ships just three systems, they could bottle the Owls back into their original space, cutting them down from over thirty systems to just fifteen. He noticed something else.

  "Who owned the system where we first discovered the Owls?"

  "They died out."

  "If we remove the Owls, who will own the system?"

  "You will."

  "There are three adjacent systems without habitable worlds. What of them?"

  "You may claim them if you wish."

  "And these two others?"

  Walsh had downloaded the map to his tablet, highlighted another two systems with no habitable planet, and sent it back to the screen above.

  "Also claimable should you remove the Owls first."

  "Are there any other claims on these systems?"

  "No. Those adjacent before being swallowed up by the Owls, had made no claims to those systems."

  "On behalf of the Kingdom of Hunter's Run, I apply claim for these systems, once Owl presence is permanently removed. In the process, we will undertake to liberate those under Owl rule who wish liberation. We will undertake to push the Owls back into their space, and blockade them until diplomatic efforts can bring a peace. With luck, we should have this complete by the time the sector is ready for the supply of their poison drug to be cut off once and for all, and the blockade will then begin to stop the drug entering the sector."

  "You have the council's support," said Ganshura.

  Three

  Jane watched the vid of the council session on her way to the nearest airlock. She was so surprised she hadn't made the connection with the Owls having conquered so much space, she walked straight into a wall, and bounced off. She picked herself up off the deck, and wondered what else she'd missed.

  Walsh had sent a personal message as well.

  "I don’t know if I did the right thing or not, but it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. We were going to push the Owls out of the system lane leading from home space to the Run anyway, so this way we gain a few systems, and hopefully a few grateful close trading partners from those liberated. On the other hand though, it means waging a formal war across a lot more space than we anticipated. And on the gripping hand, it'll mean we'll need more ships than you have, in order to blockade the Owls while we clear the side areas of space they occupy."