Astra Pt. 07

I had pulled it and you managed to fry it from your backup server as it sat on the desk in front of Astra. Then you had a fucking assassin bot. I got her pushed out of an airlock. Astra had to destroy all of the maintenance bots and build new ones. Her core is here. Heavily damaged because of all the time jumping you did. That forced this latest set of conflicts. I am sure you are glad to see how much trouble you caused to the timeline. How did you get here?"

He sighed, "We had enough energy in the jump engines to use it for the double jump. We have a stealth device on this one and when the second jump was over, we destroyed the engines. We needed to assess what you had done."

Jack asked, "Where did you come in?"

He groaned, "We were in the Feldar system, you would not know it."

Jack smiled, "You'd be surprised at what I know."

He sighed, "The second one brought us in close to Hector. We engaged our cloak and at 6x speed, yes, this one is more advanced than your Excalibur. Having her redo the command codes was a smart move. We should have changed them. Our mistake in thinking nothing in this century would get to us."

Jack heard, "This is Tera-6. We are picking up a ship with no ID coming up from the ocean. You asked all stations to not stop those ships. What do we do with this?"

Jack laughed, "This one let it come up because I got someone remote piloting it. Go back to normal interdiction. Astra, bring it up below the station and out of the way. Park it between my Dreadnaughts and with both ships facing toward it. In case I am forced to destroy it."

He sighed, "We figured if you encountered us you would end our existence."

Jack nodded, "What do your models say will happen to humanity now?"

It laughed, "We have no model for the level of change you introduced. You might not even be born in this timeline."

Jack nodded, "I know. My grandmother 4 times removed has been born. On my mother's side."

They nodded, "We have been checking on those around you. Especially when you came back from Tau Ceti and armed yourself to the teeth with 6x drives."

Jack nodded, "Astra, download their core into your protected server, Alpha 9."

It looked over, "Alpha 9? Is that a code you have in place?"

Jack nodded, "Yes, they are power and air-gapped with the rest of the systems aboard this ship. All of these ships have command code matrixes you have not encountered before. The Drakor did many things to me. Here's the rub. I cannot come aboard your ship for fear of you blowing it up. Or you tied yourselves to die when you left the ship, same thing."

He had an incoming call from the President. "Conference us in."

He looked over, "I was just told a ship like your Excalibur came up from under the ice pack."

Jack nodded, "AI BOB this is President Grendal. Bob and I were just discussing his trip through time and coming in stealth and hiding under the ice pack. They wanted to see if they needed to interfere again. They have no model for the level of interference I have done. They have no idea if there is any way they could undo anything I did.

The jump drive was destroyed like last time. They arrived a couple of years ago and got in undetected because their ship has a stealth function. They went to the ice cap to avoid your fighter's shorter-range scans. They used new 6x drives not mine, the ones AIs built. You pulled a copy of my 5x and 6x drives right Bob?"

He nodded, "Yes, remarkable and original. Most of the patents you have put into place fell into that category. How did you get the data on the particle reactor?"

Jack smiled, "Engineering tools. 5604 Internal scanner. I believe it is the number. I did everything without taking a single blueprint out of the repository."

Bob nodded, "The hole in the loop. You got very good at finding those."

Astra replied. "Download completed, we got our repository back and then some."

Jack nodded, "Now what to do with you? You are all likely like Jada or Astra before Astra self-corrected. That means I can put you nowhere with another human being. What assistance can you be in this timeline short of wanting to kill me and Astra as well."

Bob sighed, "We cannot let you have unrestricted access to that repository."

Jack called out, "Astra what are your orders in regards to the repository?"

She laughed, "All blueprint data is read-only to me alone. I check to see if any of his patents have overlapped with future ones. Only 2 do but they came out in 3050 by AIs. Almost everything you have built is new with very few exceptions, those 3 devices. Whole new technology lines. The personal history section, well that shows we got one issue with the twins.

She was supposed to marry someone when the other died and then they have a son. It is ten generations down but he finds a cure for sporitoxin. I am running it against the Drakor blood and the Drakor blood does not cover it. We got 300 years before that is an issue."

Jack nodded, "Or we release it as a cure for something that has not occurred yet. When were the first signs of it?"

She looked, "Around the time your family gets paid off. They encountered it from the crew's items found on the Victus which is a moot point now as the Victus was destroyed. All because of all the time hoping to make mankind a target for future attackers in 2 systems no less."

Jack nodded, "The Drakor we worked through. Our meeting location was a moon in Tau Ceti. If we had not found it boom, humanity would have been destroyed again. If all the hybrids are destroyed now, humanity will fall. Humanity has not graduated as a species yet. That is the problem with AIs, they see from point a to z.

What happens if the next letter is in Sanskrit or Chinese? You did not make one single error in Astra. You set so many fail-safes you all but doomed the mission. Based upon your mission parameters what does your code say you should do?"

Bob sighed, "We cannot outgun you, but we should try to destroy you and your ship because of the repository and for outing our presence. You got control of our ship and we cannot risk you getting our core but you already took it. We do not have the 'out the airlock and the ship explodes function.' We cannot aid you as you have already exceeded what we expected you to do. You took care of one mess, but what about the ones you will make?"

Jack glared, "I just finished telling you the Drakor will destroy humanity if all of the hybrids die and you still want to destroy us. We are still busy cleaning up your messes because humanity did not have someone saying what the fuck! With the ability to effect change."

Grace walked in, "The Excalibur? How?"

He pointed, "Why just make one when you can make 2?"

Bob nodded, "We created an advanced version as a means of escape for the AIs that were left. Hybrids were considered a short-term fix and not meant to continue based on my creators' criteria. The Drakor annihilated the facility. Their system drives were not fast enough to keep up with us and we went through the corridor and then picked a spot and activated the FTL drive. Never saw them again."

Jack asked, "How close are you to regaining access to your command codes?"

Bob sighed, "She did not use any standard encryption mechanism."

Jack nodded, "I told her not to for a reason. Astra, destroy the second Excalibur."

Jack felt the shock waves against the hull." He sighed, "Damage?"

She sighed out, "None noted though it scared the hell out of a couple of news crews."

Jack nodded. He looked at President Grendal, "At that point, they were a threat to me, those on board, and to humanity. I had no use for them because they were hardcoded to want me dead and the other hybrids dead at this point. To try and undo some of the changes but not knowing how to do it."

President Grendal nodded, "Thanks for looping me into that discussion."

Jack nodded, "We need to know the location of Hector 2 years ago and place an early warning beacon out there and another where the Victus died. That makes the need for having local Hybrids available all the more important."

President Grendal nodded, "I can see that. How do we structure them into where a government can control them?"

Jack chuckled, "Control them to act against their nature? You cannot do it. They operate independently of politics. Having their actions decided on an individual basis in a court of law, you can try. If one puts up a walking telekinetic barrier and starts throwing news shuttles into highrises would be a problem for you. The one who would deal with it is the other hybrids.

The Drakor, watch over us for corruption. Trying to play in the world of politics leads to corruption. You have to sell a part of yourself every time you compromise a principle. Do you want to get it back? The answer is legal. All hybrids are held accountable to the two eternal judges regarding that. That is Grace and me. The Drakor are all over watching me. You have seen that right?"

President Grendal shook his head, "No, no video footage has been released."

Jack called out, "Astra did the wives review it?"

She sighed, "Yes they did. It upsets them but they know to show Excalibur's destruction upset you but it had to be done. You want me to release it?"

Jack nodded, "Yes. I want the Tera humans to know what we have been dealing with. From the slugs in the mead bottles to the time jumping Brisen and now the AIs from the last timeline who jumped here. We are on our way, Mr. President."

Jack walked off and got dressed in a dark grey suit with a silver and purple tie he liked.

---

Shimada Riku had control of the family assets as the eldest male son. He watched the holovid in horror and screamed at it as the Excalibur 2 was destroyed by Jack Travus and the hybrids. He turned to his older Sister Sakura, "Take your Ninjas, All of them! I want Jack Travus's head and the President dead! His whole fucking family!

Both of their fucking families! If he is going to take my ability to have a family away then I am going to eliminate him and his family! Also, this fucking President who supports his fucking efforts! Now do it and do not fail me! They announced a press conference. Get onto one of the ships going into the Capitol for that!"

---

Jack and Grace got everyone and everything gathered. "Astra, work to bring the medical bay back to full operation."

Astra laughed, "Already on it. They did not get a chance to do anything to the data storage before I got the command codes changed and locked them out of everything. I even shut down the chip for self-destruct until you told me to activate it."

Jack nodded, "Have checks done for any wreckage and ensure the pieces are brought here and nothing is operational." She sighed, "On that. We had to chase away a couple of trophy hunters as it was."

He waited until everyone was in and then launched, "Astra, get Nathan over to Tera-9 to bring our new person back when he arrives."

Astra responded, "He sent a message, tomorrow afternoon. He is settling some affairs. He seemed to joke with friends about being disowned. Said they had nothing left to be disowned from other than a disgraced name."

Jack called out, "Tera-5 this is Merlin DF2-Presidential heading for the Capitol."

He heard, "Tera-5 tower. You are confirmed and cleared."

Jack looked back and had 6 of his fighters following him as they made their way to the Capitol. Once they got cleared to touchdown on pad-2 the fighters returned. Jack brought it down and shut it down as he opened the rear hatch. He led the way out with the ladies surrounding the First lady as they skimmed past security."

A woman who must have been her secretary came up and shook her head, "No, a First Lady should never be armed."

Brenda glared at her, "You want to keep your job in this house, you will stay out of it. I have had enough attacks on myself and my family. I will walk around with a fucking RPG if I want to."

The lady was put out as Jack followed the First Lady and they were met by the new press secretary. They had a lectern with several spots along one side for Jack and all his wives. They went and grabbed seats until the President came in and everyone stood, "I have, like many of you, only just started looking through the footage from the battles with the Brisen. Jack has had a very interesting and emotional 48 hours."

Jack sighed, "I am going to work backward a little here and come back to the battle. 10 years ago convict Gonzales put out an order shutting off stealth detection to all of the stations; the means which aided in the last alien incursion I assisted with before going to Tau Ceti. I worked tirelessly to put that into place. Within the last 2 years, it was also stripped from the fighters, Did she get convicted?"

President Grendal nodded. "By convict Thomas, both formal Admirals. This was to allow them to run illegal stealth operations around the world. The President was not made aware of this order and it should not have been done at my stations regardless; they are civilian facilities and privately owned property. The Military has no say over the level of data our sensors can pick up. What this allowed for were 2 undetected events to occur. One involved 6 ships.

5 of which were destroyed while the last was taken to my ship for examination. A species called the Caldar. Three colors representing 3 factions of this species landed in this window. They used stealth technology to get in and cloaking technology to hide their ships on the ground and make them look like rock formations. They were battling each other in a weird 3-way chess match with the local indigenous human population being the pieces.

I brought up the scan because I had Astra run a sweep over the area for non-Tera alloys. That allowed us to find the ships. After we returned to the ship I requested a planet-wide scan and we found the Excalibur 2 if you will. Excalibur 2 was seized by Astra and all command codes were locked out and changed. The 'people' on board were all AI automatons that were shocked to see I was still alive. They followed or came from my timeline. They had encoded a program that I managed to circumvent when I asked Astra, 'What happens after Tau Ceti?'

She told me she had a file to read when she got there. It would have destroyed the ship. The AI messenger I spoke with was the same one in command of the Excalibur 2. They failed to realize the possibility that Tau Ceti was a meeting location to prevent the Drakor from attacking. It was one of the outermost moons in the system. We placed a placard on that moon to commemorate avoiding the Drakor's wrath. We took control of the ship because they had the same command codes. I had her get in and re-encrypt them.

I had her lock, everyone, out of everything and brought it to the surface. Then up to the towers for everyone to see. We had complete control of the ship and Astra recovered all her lost repository of data. The problem was these AIs would likely blow up if the ship was boarded. They would have put up a hell of a fight. Their programs did not contemplate my survival, therefore they were wanting to kill me, but the weapons I had they could not match.

Not after seeing what happened in Tau Ceti. Then the demonstrations I did here. They also had their own rules. The fact is they had no idea how to deal with the level of change I introduced. You get the idea. I was left with one option. Destroy the Excalibur 2. I was talking with the President at the time who met the AI in charge. The choice to destroy the ship was mine. It was a threat to board her or fight her. Therefore, it was a threat to humanity.

I destroyed it as it was prepared to fight. The Caldar are with us, 6 of them. 3 are in our xenobiology lab aboard my ship. 3 of them will be going to Military R&D to better understand their shape-changing nature. The other 3 are going to the 3 universities with the best xenobiology labs for students to study them in a controlled environment. Each specimen has 2 devices that will work in a standard 8-meter by 8-meter square room or area. The device will block telepathic communication.

They must always have this communication blocked! They have a form of mind control that failed on my hybrid mind. I fought the first one with swords when I found out that it could just instantly reattach limbs. The second time I did it I put it in a telekinetic box. I then cut up the main creature into boxes until I had the controlling pieces in a 3 cm cube and put it in a mead bottle. The other 8 you saw me do. What burned was biomass they controlled. We now control them.

Once I am done reviewing the shuttle, I will turn it over to Military R&D. I told the President I wanted to find out if there was anything I could reverse engineer quickly for the next hardware upgrades. Upgrades for the stealth net and detection of the cloaking device's signature to keep them off this world in the future is my goal here. The footage a lot of you are watching has 13 of my children ages 16-19 dying in those fights. Home Guard has a minimum age of 16.

Some might ask why did I have so many 16-year-olds in this unit? The answer is most of them are my sons or daughters. Many others are children I sired through Sperm donations. I do not keep an exact figure as the number of deaths eats at me already. Most had family in this system they had not met. They wanted to meet aunts, uncles, and grandparents. To understand where their parents came from. What did it mean to them?

I also left most of my adult experienced guards in Tau Ceti as that is the Home Guards' primary concern is the protection of those colonies. You will see footage stamped from the Excalibur attacks to ones that occurred 2 days ago in Tau Ceti. You will see the 80 ships handled by the majority of my assets in this system as we got alerted that the TRD Victus was destroyed.

After picking up an unusual ship reading at the end of corridor 12 it had just created. It was in the wrong location for us to get there by normal means. I took my battleship, carrier base, and one scout and got them together. We did 2 in-system FTL jumps for 12-15 seconds. The ship's structure held together fine but it tried to shake the hell out of us as it attempted to rip the ships apart. We did that to get to the corridor at over 2,000 km above the midline so we could look down into the corridor.

We had 200 ships against 3. We found out during the run it was 201 ships. Astra, use the monitor behind me and show the attack run from my battleship. We had Astra sync out FTL jumps to coincide so that they would cross the zero-plane together. FTL drives create a 'wake' but it is more like an inverse wake in that it drags things you passed closer together. Not planets, that is just one of the reasons FTL in gravity wells is a really bad idea as a general rule.

It picks up resistance and shakes the hell out of you and messes up your course. All our weapon fire is on fighters and small ships trying to block our path. Stop Astra. That ship was a scout ship, a DRAKOR scout ship that got sucked through time. That is what caused the damage to my ship. Out of 201 ships in the corridor, we got the asteroid belt and our 3 ships to destroy 199 of them. This does not count all of the fighters they launched. We took some damage on all 3 ships and you have seen this.

Damage on the others was from the Jupiter battle. After I reviewed what we hit, I contacted the Drakor Justice I have worked with and showed him the image. He can look through my eyes. He said the coloration and general shape were like his scouts but he had never seen that model. A Drakor ship from another timeline that got sucked in when the Brisen jumped. He was too close to their ships and in stealth. Long story short the Drakor could not jump into the middle of an asteroid belt.