Astra Pt. 04

Jack nodded, "Yes, they said they had them all off the planet. Ops, they missed one. You did your job."

She laughed, "Alright so long as I did not create a galactic incident."

Jack sighed, "I might have but I hope they just got the message. They have a 15-year return trip to their people so that is not a concern for today."

He looked over, "Contact him, Astra."

The line went to the operator and then to the President. He looked across, "What the hell just happened. I was told we had a battleship under guard in space."

Astra looked over, "Call is secured."

Jack looked at him, "They were using a lot of stealth technology and they hacked into technology centers at the patent office and the military.

We recovered and purged that data from there system, We got a complete copy of their technical and military capability, and updated our biological profile on them. There hybrid just found out how perilously close he was to getting the Drakor's wrath, and the destruction of his people.

I created some charges to disable the cloaking devices on the backside of the moon. There 6 fighter drones and a battleship got exposed on top of the shuttle we were waiting for. This all started with his two hidden guards who decided sneaking onto my scout was a good idea.

We captured them. I will have Astra confirm that there is nothing too over the top in the technology archives we pulled and get it sent to you for military R&D. Stealth shields and suits are in there.

I had Astra update all Lancers and Starbase sensors to detect them. They have a 15-year return trip and they have a lot to think over because their approach to technology gathering would have gotten them killed by the Drakor. That is my warning to the Terran government.

You find a technology cache and you will want us to go through it to ensure there is nothing in it that will cause the Drakor to be knocking on our door with world splitting bombs. I did negotiate one deal on behalf of the entity known as Meltora.

The ambassador's people hunted his species out of the area for food. I got what research they did on them so we have a better idea of how to help our guide if the need arises. I had them sign a treaty on Meltora's behalf. As they had no more in their area, I flat out told them.

The Terran government would likely not intercede. The hybrids aboard the Excalibur would! Meltora is a member of our family. Attacking his family is attacking us. Meltora had a long mental conversation and dumped the brains of at least 3 of them so he knows a lot more about that species than we do.

The Drakor got involved and told them flat-out if they had been caught with Drakor technology that it would have been the end of their species. The way I answered that question could have ended our species or at the very least all the existing hybrids. The Drakor are very hung up on protecting their technology. That warning is extremely serious for the sake of humanity. Which is why I am repeating it.

The one ship that exploded in Death Blossom's tractor beam was a pod with an assassin in it. In case we did not return their Ambassador. It was at the Capitol when we picked it up. We told the Ambassador we would not stop the military from interdicting or destroying the craft as they had ensured us they were all off the planet before we upgraded the sensor software.

Those sensors will pick up the suits as well as the ships. Probably the stealth tech used on the black-ops machines. The short answer is you gained big because you left the diplomacy with us and we had to determine how honest they were being with us. Not very."

He sighed, "You saved us from a third alien issue."

Jack shook his head, "If I had done nothing there would have been no issue. They would have had all our technology and been gone. They tried to hack Excalibur to get her computer core as well. I saved you from getting killed. I saved humanity by safeguarding our technology.

I am turning most if not all of that over to your Military for R&D purposes. I could try and patent it all but that is what people would expect me to do. I will restrict something if it's too over-the-top. By that, I mean to stick it in an alien folder in our future technology section and have Astra stand guard over it.

I say that because I know what is coming. Or was coming. They were not threatening to attack directly and they were too far away to get any sort of help. I would like to get a group of your computer security experts together to read over changes that should be done across the globe to better secure our infrastructure.

This would be Astra providing a written guide and tutorial on safeguarding our systems better. It would include an early warning network if something enters our system."

The president shook his head as he hung it down and then looked back, "Thank you for watching my ass again. Have Astra send that when it is ready and I will get the community leaders in computer security together to work through her suggestions."

Jack nodded, "I tightened your border for you. I found you a new way to find hidden threats. Please do not ask me back to the White House for a couple of weeks. We will be working on building a new Merlin. One I can land at any pad at the Capitol."

He nodded, "Alright, "You work your new ship design." Jack nodded, "Heading for Jupiter. To let things calm down some more."

The President nodded, "Again you mean." He then chuckled at that.

---

Jack was glad to have the ladies back into Jupiter's orbit. Ash and Tim were out of action as he finally came back with the right answers, including the fact that both of his ladies were pregnant. He got one of those ovulatory devices done as the wives got him to trick out his cock some so they were having more fun. Spirts came to Jack, "We had enough material to build a new shuttle already."

Jack nodded. "I also want to build up another Lancer decked out and a new 2-3-man shuttle with light armaments on it to go with the Manta II design. The 8-man shuttle. The 2-3 design is for Carol. The fighter is for you to fly."

She looked at Jack, "You are building me a fighter?"

He nodded, "A Lancer 2 model. An extra 4 meters longer and a good 1.5 meters shorter in height on that oval.

More retro engines for more aggressive turns."

She looked at him, "Why?"

He smiled, "FTL Drive. It will allow you to fly point scout one day. You will have the sensors and the ability to get back to a convoy. It will be a modular design so we can drop it out and tie it to the bay floor. For when you will run it with the original baffled engine design at up to 2.75 in airspeed at the races on Terra on the weekends even.

We can pull the rail guns and ammo when you take it racing as well to lighten it up more. The new Gatling laser cannons are more aerodynamic for air-breathers flying as well. I will spec that one out for the use on air-breather air patrol units. A new fighter design for those air-breathers with the Treven engine with those new Lasers and a single double barrel rail gun with, 2,000 rounds in it."

Sprits looked at him, "Why the engine change on those?"

Jack smiled, "Lighter."

She nodded, "This was about getting rid of the rocket and Red mouser you talked about." He nodded. "It even has a slot for your music."

She groaned out. "All right you sold me."

She sat in his lap and hugged him as Astra popped up on the Monitor, "Terran Military Admiral Gonzales for you."

He hit the button, "Hello Admiral. How can we help you?"

She chuckled, "I had expected you alone but this is fine. We went over your numbers and got them to reduce costs by over 25% on the larger ships. They understood the atmosphere numbers when I asked them how were they going to survive it if is slowly falling into Jupiter because the engine core is out.

One of them pointed out that they are multiplexed. I just turned it on him, 'The multiplexer is out.' They shut up at that point and added in the additional support bracing. Now they are saying they cannot get them off the ground."

Jack nodded, "The power cores are multiplexed. Their engine cores are not. That was a valid question and they tried to muddy the water on you. Short term, until the space docks are ready, have them build up and put enough plates on the nose to make it aerodynamic. Finish plating it in space. Same for weapons.

You can have them orbiting the moon or land on it. You can put a couple of squadrons flying cap over them. That was why I left the landing gear on them because you could land them on the moon or any moon for that matter and do the work there.

You are going to want to set up a new course for testing weapon accuracy. Cannot do it at any ground-based facility. The dark side of the moon when they are ready. They can do stationary, at speed and inside a low-level gravity well. Enough data to configure the software to react to the extremes of the moment."

She nodded, "That is a workable short-term solution. What are you building right now?"

He sent her three pictures and she looked at it, "Another Lancer variant?'"

He smiled, "A one-off for Sprits here to do weapons testing for fighter craft. It will be a long-rang scout with an FTL drive when we deploy toward Tau Ceti. We got that repository of alien technology and we will have to test it on something. The other is for your airbreather fighters.

Smaller, lighter, single shield, and using the Treven engine because it is also lighter. No system engine. Drops power requirement and lets us do some interesting things like add retros to your airbreathers. That way your pilots can get the heck out of the wide banking turn business. Make it easier for your air-breather pilots to transition to space flight. They can also fly the corridor and should eat up the Death Valley course."

She nodded, "Not a tank, like our army wanted. But an improved aerial support plane as well."

Jack nodded, "I discussed when humanity goes back to trying to kill each other again I wanted no part of that. Any word on the Black-ops guys who attacked me?"

She sighed and shook her head, "They were picked up by military transport to be taken into custody and someone sent a doppelganger and picked them up and got them out."

Jack looked at her, "Down to the transponder, right?"

She nodded, "Yes."

He looked over, "They determine the flight it was on before it became the prison transport?"

The Admiral looked over, "The tower in that area had its records wiped they are just now getting it back up."

He held up a finger, "Astra, access Station sensors on Terra-2 and 3 for the time frame the admiral is calling out. Get all craft ascending into space at that time frame."

The Admiral looked at Jack, "How do you know they went to space?"

Jack looked at her, "I don't but I know you are talking the DC area and there are not many places for them to land a military prison transport shuttle that would not be noticed. They did not appear on other tower records outside of that area as you would have checked that for any stray flights and where they went. Up into space and docking with a military vessel that is disloyal is the most likely location."

Astra replied, "Jack you are wrong. A military prison-style transport vessel with ID of TMP-45993 docked in the military hangar on Terra-1."

The Admiral sat back, "We got a rogue Station commander."

He nodded, "With rogue fighter support as they would have interdicted and seen the difference on the external tag number for the doppelganger."

She nodded, "What do I do?"

He smiled, "Do you trust me?'

The Admiral sighed, "Am I going to like this?"

Jack laughed, "Get the station commander and the wing commander at that station to meet me in the military hangar. I will go in with King Arthur, pull them on board and take them to the Excalibur. For a classified secure meeting with the admiralty.

To go over illegal and treasonous activity going on around the outer edges of Terra and into the Starbases and Spaceports. You can question them. Have your briefing on what was captured. Pull up the tag numbers of the fighters that intercepted them.

While I have those two going you send in military ops extraction team with fighters from Terra-5, the new ones to get those fighter jockeys and bring them to Terra-5 to join in on the questioning.

What the 2 onboard will not know is that Meltora, the entity surrounding my ship, will read their minds and provide us the who, what, when, and where. If they are not involved then those 2 fighter pilots will. I will have Astra contact you and tell you which way we need to go with it.

We return them back to Terra-1 monitor all communication, and then when you have everything in a bow. You got all your players and which ground base they are operating out of or which ship(s)."

The Admiral shook her head at Jack, "Another option?"

He smiled, "I dock Excalibur on Terra-1 awaiting supplies for a good week. Give them a chance to come at me head-on."

Jack thought, *Astra how hard would it be to hook up a secondary docking collar onto the existing docking collar so we can use hard shields in port? *

She thought about it, * We can have one ready and added on in 4 hours. You want to keep hard shields on and provide a one-way tunnel into the ship? *

He thought, * Yes with a standard present-day airlock on the outer ring. Easy for them to crack. We can unclamp from the interior one if needed. *

She laughed, * A smuggler's ring. *

He thought back, * Yes. *

The Admiral looked at him, "You sure they will not hurt your ship?"

Jack nodded, "Not a chance."

She nodded, "Dock then."

He nodded, "We topped off Astra?"

She laughed, "Another 4 hours Captain."

He smiled, "Thank you."

He disconnected and Sprits looked at Jack, "We don't have the mining rig going."

He nodded, "Correct that is how long until we have the smuggler's ring in place. We will have hard shields in place while docked."

He nodded, "Ladies and crew, briefing room."

---

Jack got to the briefing room and told them what they would be doing and why. He assigned everyone roles according to their skill sets. Ash would still be out of the action but Tim would be in hybrid form by then with little sword training, yet. Jack ran him through the blade selection process and he generated a red serrated blade but he got a Scottish claymore design.

Jack looked at him, "How did you get a claymore design from Scotland?"

Tim smiled, "My mother had family from there. My father as well on his mother's side. I heard all kinds of stories about Wallace and the movie 'Brave Heart' when I was a kid."

Jack looked at the name, "Tempered Vengeance."

He pointed him toward Aiko, "You got a style that will work for something that big."

She laughed, "We talking swords or something else?"

Jack shook his head, "With him, the sword. With me, something else."

Tim laughed at their banter until he spent the next 3 hours getting beaten black and blue for his effort.

---

They pulled into earth orbit and approached Terra-1, "Terra-1 this is TAR-1 Excalibur, Requesting a docking assignment."

He heard back, "Excalibur this is Terra-1 stand by. I am trying to find an open dock."

Jack shook his head, "Terra-1, there are no ships docked on pylons 4-6. What is the hold-up?"

Terra-1 replied, "We are expecting some commercial traffic for those pylons."

Jack smiled, "Terra-1 This is a research vessel and is incorporated into a business. We do not get any more commercial. You have commercial traffic. Put a senior controller on-line. I could bring my scout ship into the commercial shuttle docks instead."

The controller laughed, "You could not ft a scout onto a pad in the shuttle docks." Jack smiled, "That is correct Terra-1 It would take 4 of them clustered. We expect to be here a while and that would back up traffic. I can get onto comms and make a couple of calls planet side and get this resolved."

He heard, "This is the station manager. We do not have enough security to deal with your ship being in dock."

Jack smiled, "Terra-1 station manager. Would you care to repeat that for my wife, business manager, and Lawyer Grace Travus? She wants to be sure we are hearing you correctly; that you have no control over your docks?"

The other operator came back online, "Excalibur dock on Pylon 6." Jack took it into Pylon 6 and docked. He went out to see the agent and he looked at Jack, "How many hours do you need?" Jack looked at him 168 hours subject to extension." He looked at me, "You want 7 days in port?"

Jack nodded, "I still have some credited time from Terra-3 visit. That leaves 152 hours you can charge for that after the first 16 hours are up. This is Grace Travus my wife, Business Manager, and lawyer. If you have any issues. I will be back shortly Grace."

She nodded as Jack walked the dock in his grey uniforms that he liked for this sort of thing. He went up to the second-floor area to see what they had for crew people and there had to be close to a thousand people in the area.

He walked up to the guards and saw 80+ in the section for the debtor's prison. He looked at the guard, "You have a lot of people corralled here."

He hadn't looked up, "These are the scum of the earth vagrants in debt up to their eyeballs. If you are looking for skilled workers you should check another port. Nobody cares about them including me."

When he looked up from his pad, he saw Jack standing there, "Astra did you record all of that?"

She replied, "Always." As she popped up on his vid.

Jack looked at the man, "I would like to see your boss now. Then we will see how much you care. Astra access Terra-1 station records for level 2 those with outstanding debt. Analyze all the charges that have been accrued on this section's population, how much people have been charged for food, and how long they have been here. If they have been paid, that it meets or exceeds fair labor practices. Send the analysis to Grace. My lawyer, so we can show this man that some people do care."

The guy was in shock and Jack looked over, "Astra put me directly through to the station manager's office."

She laughed, "Here you go."

He saw the station manager yelling at someone in the back and Jack looked over, "You have a call over here."

The man froze and whomever he was yelling at dove out a side door. The manager looked at Jack, "This thing is not supposed to answer until I hit a button."

Jack nodded, "You might want to get that fixed. I am up on level 2 and I have the guard on record. Oh, Astra, you play it for him and what I requested."

Astra played the recording of the man recorded through station cameras from 3 different angles and what Jack asked for. The manager looked at Jack, "You cannot just come in here and seize records."

Jack looked at him, "These are accounting files being forward to my lawyer to review each case of documented abuse on this section before I have it filed in the courts and get these people released in a couple of hours."

The station manager looked at Jack, "You cannot walk onto this station and act like you own the place."

Jack looked over, "Is that your official answer to the allegations based upon your own guards' statement? This is being recorded after all."

Grace walked up behind him, "Which ones should I start with first?"

Jack pointed, "Those over there in the section they plan on sending off to debtors' prison. Before you say I cannot do this I will have you know I cleared the entire area at Terra-3 when I arrived and docked. You have 6-7 times the number of people and 40 times the number in the debtor's prison section."

The station manager looked over, "Those prisoners cannot be released they have already been sentenced."