Admiral Jane (A.I. Destiny Book 1) Read online

  "Received. You will fit into our standard merchant bays."

  A screen popped up, showing a schematic of the docking areas around the station, with a blob on the station, and another in space.

  "Do you understand the graphic, unknown ship?"

  "I understand the graphic. The name of the ship which will be docking is Concorde. We represent a species called Human."

  "Welcome. We do not have either your species or your ship in our computer store."

  "It's our first time here."

  "You will be met by substance control officers. Do you agree to the cargo area of your ship being searched?"

  "We carry no actual cargo at this time. This is a diplomatic visit."

  "Diplomatic ships are not required to pay docking fees. But do need to be inspected. Do you agree to be inspected?"

  "Yes."

  "Proceed with docking."

  "Thank you station."

  The channel closed.

  Walsh's face lit up.

  "No."

  "You don’t know…"

  "Yes I do. No."

  "Spoilsport."

  "What was that about?" asked Barf.

  "Walsh wants to use full speed to round the station to the docking port," said Darlene, knowing her husband's sense of humour, "and stop perfectly still next to the airlock, after having given everyone on the station a heart attack."

  "Please don’t do that."

  "We're not going to," said Jane.

  Concorde dropped neatly out of the hanger of the Dreadnaught, and coasted towards the assigned docking area. Concorde's Ride behind them, turned rapidly towards clear space, and moved further out, finally turning to face the station. It was far enough out now that anyone looking at it wouldn’t find it a threat, while still actually being one. The station was well within the range of the Battleship guns still. If something went wrong here, they could do a lot of damage very quickly. Jane wondered if anyone realized it yet.

  Docking was interrupted by a frantic fuzz-ball, who insisted they were about to crash into the station at their current angle. Jane ignored it, and the ship stopped just before any contact was made. The main airlock's outer doors opened, and repair droids proceeded to inspect the station's docking clamps, before designing, building, and installing, a new set of docking clamps which would work with the station's, without compromising their normal ones.

  It didn’t take long. The repair droids disappeared back into the ship, and Jane completed the seal of the two airlocks, the new docking clamps working perfectly. The outer doors of Concorde's airlock were able to adjust to the size of any airlock, and they adapted themselves automatically.

  They all rose, and Jane led them to the access shaft, where they jumped in one by one, drifting down to the cargo deck.

  At the bottom, Barf looked back up.

  "How did we do that again?"

  "Gravity control."

  Jane had on her serious face. Walsh hid his in his hand again.

  "That’s what I thought you said. Is there anything you people are not more advanced than us in?"

  "How would we know?"

  Even Darlene was grinning now.

  Jane waved them all forward, and they walked the length of the cargo deck. Jane went to a control panel on the side of the airlock, and keyed the inner doors open. They all walked in. Inside, Jane made a show of checking the air on the other side.

  "It's quite safe," said Barf. "Our species seem to share the basic requirements for life. Not all of them we know of do, but most."

  Jane keyed the outer airlock open. The doors opened only partially, and instead of the normal ramp, a smaller one bridged the distance to the deck of the station.

  On the other side was a red faced sort of crocodile, and a group of three not quite bears holding up a blue fuzz-ball.

  The fuzz-ball was all business, and it had itself carried into the cargo deck, where it proceeded to confirm there was nothing there. It demanded to see their food stores, so Jane led them further into the ship. The storage areas were quickly looked at, a few cooler units opened, several boxes examined, and all that was found was food.

  They were given a seal of approval, shown where to stick it next to the airlock, and left alone with the croc.

  "I'm Admiral…" and the name failed to translate again.

  "Names do not translate into their language at all," said Barf.

  "No matter. I am to guide you to the Council chambers. Please follow me."

  The airlock doors quietly closed behind them as they left the docking area. Inside, a platoon of combat droids took up position. Behind them were six combat suits. They were all armed with Pulse Rifles.

  They made their way to a moving walkway, and allowed it to carry them inwards. They took moving staircases down three levels, and entered a small park, with almost familiar looking trees. The path took them to a set of large doors, seemingly standing among the trees by themselves. Jane took a close look at the sides, and found the trees on each side were in fact an illusion, and nothing more than cleverly done paintwork designed to give the impression there was no actual wall there.

  But before the doors could be opened, the sound of shots rang out.

  Fifty Two

  Jane, Walsh, and Darlene, shifted to AI mode the moment the recognizable sound was heard. They braced themselves for the hits, while scanning around for the source.

  "The trees," said Walsh.

  "Six slugs inbound," said Jane. "It appears only we are the targets."

  "What do we do?" asked Darlene.

  "Chest areas are the target," said Walsh, "and the aims are pretty good."

  "We take the hits," said Jane. "Switch to stun. Walsh, you go right, I'll go left."

  "What about me?"

  "Look pretty Hun," suggested Walsh.

  "I brought a gun."

  "Can you use it?" asked Jane, who was mentally kicking herself for making the assumption Darlene wouldn’t be armed.

  "I'm using the same combat routines Walsh is."

  "That’s not an answer," said Walsh.

  "It's good enough," said Jane. "Try to pick off anyone we miss."

  "Okay."

  "Are we ready?"

  "Yes," answered Walsh and Darlene together.

  Jane dragged them back to human mode. The slugs smacked firmly into their chests, and bounced off, but they stood firm, already starting to bring guns up.

  Jane had chosen the two Gatling stunners, so her right hand was lagging her left slightly as they came up. She was already sighted in on one of the figures crouching in the fork of a tree branch some twenty meters away. She started firing before she came on target, hosing the pulses across the figure, which started to fall out of the tree. She kept fingers on triggers and continued hosing to the left, adjusting for the next figure being a bit higher, and the one after that being lower.

  Six Owls hit the ground with different levels of thump. At about the same time, Barf and the not-croc hit the ground as well.

  The doors opened, and council guards emerged. Half of the squad headed out to the trees, the other half formed a circle around the group. Their guns were holstered and invisible again, long before anyone was close enough to see how.

  Barf looked up from the ground.

  "How did you do that?" he asked.

  "It’s a kind of magic," said Jane, an instant before she suddenly wondered if that had been a wise thing to say.

  "Everything you do may as well be magic," he said, as he began to pick himself up.

  The Croc looked embarrassed at having dropped, when the beings it was escorting had not. Jane wondered for a nanosecond or two how she could tell the look was embarrassment, but didn’t come up with a good answer. She only knew how she would feel if the situation was reversed, and she was guessing. She might be wrong.

  One of the guards checked the nearest Owl, and looked back at the guard Jane assumed was the leader.

  "This one's alive. No sign of any wound, except where
it hit the ground."

  "What did you do?" the leader asked Jane.

  "Us? Nothing. Why do you ask?"

  Walsh shook his head as he imagined Jane batting her eyelids. A completely useless thing to do, but strangely appropriate he felt.

  The guards were all of the same species, being something like a Centaur, only with the body of a Deer. They had four legs for movement, and three arms. They were dressed in what was obviously protective gear. The leader reached down with its third arm and picked up one of the slugs.

  "You appear undamaged, yet you took multiple shots each. Explain."

  "Body armour," replied Walsh.

  Jane nodded.

  The being considered this for a moment, and appeared to accept it.

  "The council will see you now."

  It indicated the doors, and the five of them walked through.

  The chamber was huge. It was basically an amphitheater design with the doors leading into a raised area, around which creatures of all shapes and sizes sat, squatted, stood, or were held up.

  The two locals stopped beside the raised area, while Jane, Walsh, and Darlene ascended the two stairs and stood in the middle, looking around.

  It was dead quiet. All eyes were on them. A quick inspection revealed to Jane than none had less than five limbs. A fair proportion had the extra arm coming from the base of the neck.

  "Arrest these creatures immediately," said a voice. "These are the ones who have made war on us without provocation."

  Walsh nudged Jane to look where he was. It was an Owl.

  "I dispute this," said Barf. "These who stand before you now are new to us. They rescued me from an Owl cage. I witnessed them repeatedly try to avoid conflict, and every time the Owls fired on them, mostly without bothering to talk first."

  "Present your credentials," said a strong vibrant voice.

  Barf turned and walked over to what looked like a computer work-station. Several forms of scanner plates were there, some flat on the surface, some mounted at various heights. He pushed a hand against one, while allowing another to scan his left eye. It bleeped. Above them, an image of his face appeared to be projected against a wall, with what looked like text.

  "Commissioner," said the same voice. "Of course you are known to us. As is the Admiral of one of our defense fleets. Introduce your companions."

  Barf walked back to the raised area, and pointed to Jane.

  "My I present to the council, Admiral Jane Hunter, of a species which calls themselves Human, who claim space on the other side of Owl territory." This caused a stir. "The Admiral has come here as an ambassador for her people, having only recently come into contact with the Owls, and learning of this council's existence from me."

  "The only thing which needs to be known about these creatures is they are an enemy of the Owl Families, and anyone who helps them will be damned for all time."

  Jane turned to look at the Owl, and gave it the biggest grin she could manage.

  "See? It openly threatens us in your presence."

  Both Barf and red face burst out laughing, and were quickly joined by many of the delegates. Barf made an effort to stop.

  "One day, an Owl will correctly gauge the body language of another species. And on that day, all those who witness the event, will die of shock."

  The chamber dissolved into what Jane fervently hoped, was several hundred plus species all laughing. The din eventually stopped, but no one being made any attempt to get it to stop.

  "Present proof," said a weak sounding voice, from near the top of the chamber.

  "You wish proof of an Owl getting body language correct?" asked another voice, and the noise started up again.

  "Proof the Owls fired first," said yet another voice.

  "Present your credentials, Admiral Jane Hunter," said the strong vibrant voice.

  Jane walked over to the computer, placed her right hand over one of the hand sized scanners, and leaned her left eye up against one of the raised ones. The computer bleeped twice, and both scanners flashed, presumably taking images. It bleeped again, and she stepped back, where another flash must have taken an image of her face. She looked up, and her face appeared, although with no detail other than the word Human, except badly translated.

  "Your companions as well. Have them state their rank and name first."

  Walsh stepped up to where Jane had stepped back from.

  "Ambassador-Pilot Patrick Walsh," he said, before doing the same as Jane had done.

  "Ambassador-Academic Darlene Walsh," said Darlene and did the same.

  "Do you have evidence to present to this council?"

  For the life of her, Jane couldn’t find where the voice was coming from.

  "We do," she said. "May I use your computer and wall imager?"

  "You may."

  "If you can figure out how to," added someone.

  The Owl sniggered, along with a number of others. Again, Jane wasn’t quite sure how she knew this.

  Jane stepped back up to the computer, examined it for a moment, found an input-output port, and mimed plugging something into it. What she actually did was plug herself in using a finger filament. She shifted to AI mode, and examined the computer from the inside. It was rudimentary at best, but more than adequate for what she needed to do. She uploaded copies of their first encounter with the Owls, both from Concorde's perspective, and the Owl's own recording. She spooled both to the imager, and looked up to it. The council followed her example.

  The first encounter played out before their eyes, with Jane's attempts to get the Owls to communicate, and then her warnings if they continued to fire on her, being taken seriously by all but the Owl delegate.

  Then the recording from the Owl ship began. It was largely silent, since words were spoken only four times.

  "Turn that noise off. I don’t wish to listen to blabbering aliens a second longer."

  "Open fire with the Rail Guns as soon as we are in range."

  "Is there something wrong with our ammunition? Fire the new missiles at them."

  "Oh shit!"

  Jane had added a few stills from instruments visible to the recording and blown them up. One of them showed an entire wing missing from the ship, and the extent of the damage. The images stopped. The last thing Jane showed them was Concorde dropping the damaged ship on the ground, and her explaining she'd deliberately tried not to destroy the ship.

  All eyes turned to the Owl, and a lot of them were openly hostile now.

  Jane sent another recording to the wall. It was short, covering her message to the Owls telling them if they fired on her again, it would be considered an act of war. The last images were of the Owl ships firing on them again. The wall went blank again.

  "Ambassador …" the name didn’t translate, said a voice previously unheard, but almost sounding like a purr, "please enlighten us as to the status of your war with the Humans."

  "We are of course winning."

  Fifty Three

  Jane spent the next few minutes in AI mode, making recordings of every single being in the chamber, with the exception of the Owl, laughing. If nothing else, it would make a good reference for anytime in the future where they might encounter it.

  At the same time, she found their new records in the computer, and filled them out with as much information as she was prepared to release, including correcting the spelling of the species name. At the same time, she downloaded everything else stored on the computer, and went looking for any other computers it was linked to. She worked her way through traffic control, station administration, and found the diplomatic storage facility. She downloaded everything.

  She spent a few nanoseconds debating the ethics of hacking effectively unprotected computer systems, and decided it was worth it to speed up information gathering. She was behind the 8-ball as far as knowing how this galaxy functioned. What firewalls there were, didn’t even slow her down. By the same token, she doubted anyone had the ability to figure out she had hacked their systems. D
id it make it right? No. But at the same time, she wasn’t breaking into anything which was inherently secret. It all seemed to be public knowledge, with just enough protection to stop someone from doing deliberate damage.

  In the process she obtained a good map of most of the galaxy, with species owned systems appended to it. She identified where the Owl homeworld was. The likelihood was, she was going to have to visit it.

  She copied a local section of the map, showing only the systems between A001, and here. On it, she noted each place where an Owl fleet had been destroyed, and flashed it up on the wall.

  As laughter died down, delegates began noticing the map. Once again, silence fell.

  "Are we to gather each of these notations is an Owl fleet?" asked the voice.

  "Was," said Jane.

  "I can verify," added Barf.

  "Where is the rest of your fleet Admiral?" asked a grating sound.

  "If you mean where is my fleet blockading Owl space in order to prevent them entering our space? On the other side of the jump point in the top system shown on this map, which we acknowledge covers some of Owl space. All space from there to the outer edge of the galaxy is claimed by us, although we have found the Owls have seeded some of it with a plague."

  "No," went on the grating voice. "Where is the rest of your fleet with which you destroyed so many Owl vessels?"

  "It sits off this station, although I freely admit that where you see one ship, it is in fact six ships docked together."

  "Six ships destroyed so many Owl fleets?" said a musical sounding voice.

  "Not possible," said another voice.

  "They are larger than anything we have seen before," added another.

  "What you see is the fastest ship I have ever seen," said red face.

  "We saw for ourselves," said a slow drawl. "This ship," Concorde's Ride was now showing on the wall, "fired once, and the entire Owl fleet turned into dust. Our commander wisely fled such firepower."

  Silence.

  "We saw it too," was almost yapped out, and Jane looked around for anything looking like a dog, but not finding one.

  "Neither fleet was in any danger from us," she said. "Even if you’d fired on us first, we would have tried to talk to you before using weapons."