Astra Pt. 04

Grace sighed, "Something like that."

Jack nodded and they put him in a robe and took him to his office where a steak dinner was ready and a couple of bottles of his mead. "From General Parker and President Grendal. The President covered the Admiral's bet with you."

Jack shook his head as he sat down and ate everything and finished the first mead. He went through the weapons contracts and shook his head, "No. I want them all revisited. I want the markups that would come to me to be cut in half for the military. That half applied as a discount to the military on the per-unit cost. The initial sale is enough on weapons. These 4 here dealing with the extra patents are to be rejected. I told you they are not for distribution at this time."

Grace sighed, "I told the President you would say that."

Jack contacted the Capitol switchboard. The operator smiled, "Just a moment."

He saw President Grendal and he appeared to be in a cabinet meeting. The President looked over, "Jack, glad to see you are back on your feet."

Jack nodded, "I took some time working out long-range plans after our last discussion and what we would need to accomplish."

President Grendal nodded, "I am hoping you will put off Tau Ceti for a while yet."

Jack looked at the contracts, "I rejected 4 contracts here to arms manufacturers who wanted access to patents I have not allocated to any design. They are on components."

President Grendal chuckled, "They stated they could use those to make the weapons more powerful. Especially for handheld weapons."

Jack nodded, "When the patent expires then they can pursue that line. Until then they will have to pursue other avenues to create those 'upgraded' weapons. Particularly the handheld rifles and pistols. I told your people I would consider it when they're not used in human-on-human conflicts. These patents were put into place to keep them from being used in the next upcoming civil disturbance I mentioned before. 1 of 3 that will occur over the next 250 years."

President Grendal nodded, "Army General Braxton was hoping you would reconsider."

Jack smiled, "No. The next item is the scout. I see you got him down to 108 million TCs as configured for those units."

President Grendal nodded, "Yes, he did point out fairly that he has some labor costs and insurance costs that you did not have to consider." Jack looked at the number, "Accept." He signed that one.

Jack ran through the others, "I have submitted all of the weapons contracts back to Grace. I want the per-unit costs on the government side, what they are paying me to be cut in half, with the rest applied to the military as a discount. The contract to upgrade the shields and sensors for the Starbases I see is going through finally. They will be able to tell you when I am in the system for a change."

Jack heard the cabinet members chuckle at that. He looked at a couple of others he had just seen. "I will get these numbers back to you on the ship designs. I see my people ran the modeling data against the design and the destroyers up to battleships are still not high enough."

Jack saw Admiral Gonzales sitting there and she asked, "What is the issue with the numbers on the designs?"

Jack smiled, "They are now assuming that because they will have to build in space that they do not have to consider the atmosphere in the equation. That answer is wrong. Planets still have gravity wells as do large asteroids. Engines, especially in the past, have been known to fail. The hulls must be able to survive for at least a reasonable attempt to get repairs done and back into a safe orbit. No escape pods, they are missing from the designs. If they wish to forgo that route.

Then those escape pods would have to be able to survive those pressures and have enough food, fuel, thrust, and atmosphere to reach Tera or another Starport or Starbase in the worst case from the outer rim at a minimum. It depends on how often you wish to replace your crew, Admiral Gonzales. They just had a big turnover and training crews can get very expensive. The good news is they left the landing gear. It will be needed for landing on a planet's moon in an emergency or for scientific study. They still have gravity wells to deal with."

Admiral Gonzales nodded, "You do have a military background. I would also like to say you are one hell of a pilot. I saw the holovid from Death Valley and the flight recorder data on your corridor run you did in a scout!"

She shook her head. "The fighter pilots are liking the new fighters and they are starting at Tera-4 and Tera-5 and working around as they get delivered."

Jack nodded, "Sprits, my wife, has a good family and they will treat your pilots right with those fighters. The first 3 have one feature the others do not. They have tractor beams." She nodded.

Jack looked back, "That is all of the different contracts I have in front of me."

President Grendal looked at Jack, "What about the consulting contract for the design reviews?"

Jack shook his head, "No. I will get you that data but I refuse to be paid for that work. If anything, use it to teach your government auditors the methods to check a line item by line item cost breakdown of what they are paying for."

President Grendal asked, "What about your Tau Ceti plans?"

Jack smiled, "I have them and I will have the ladies gathering what is needed sooner rather than later. I have a few other matters to attend to they are not aware of yet. I still plan to go but I want to get a few items straightened out with keeping the 'empire' here running if you will. Also, determine some additional crew who might be needed. I see we got approval for the space dock in the pile. I am going to attempt to be humorous. If I asked you. Nice trick. Can you do it again, twice over? What would the answer be?"

President Grendal looked over, "You are wanting to put 3 of them in Earth orbit?"

Jack smiled, "No I would like to put 6 in earth orbit but I figured 3 was a good start."

He grabbed one of his pads and unlocked one of his files and sent a mock-up of the design to President Grendal. He passed it around to those in the room. He looked at it, "This is taking it to the next level. You are wanting to build them into mega Starbases."

Jack nodded, "Civilian Owned Mega Starbases with space docks. Yes, with one geared for the generation of these."As he sent him 3 more mock-ups. "More ship designs."

President Grendal looked through it, "Your refinery and mining vessel, Terraforming colony vessels and colony transport vessels." He sent them another.

President Grendal chuckled, "A hydroponics vessel complete with beehives and a distillery for your mead. Also, a place for your coffee."

The cabinet laughed at that. Jack smiled, "When are you planning on releasing the population numbers that show that Tera will not sustain our growth into the next century?"

President Grendal sighed, "On the agenda today. What are you recommending?"

Jack smiled and threw another image at the President. He looked at it, "Star charts?"

Jack nodded, "Five systems with planets that would need a minimum of effort to make them habitable for humanity. Scouted in the future. Two planets exist in Tau Ceti and they are not in that file. There are requirements for Tau Ceti and that is why they are not on the charts I gave you. Eventually, I plan on settling there. This is important for the whole cabinet to hear. In 25 years, an uprising will occur with a small group of xenophobes if the timeline holds.

The President of that time, who is also in this room if time holds to its course, will decide that humanity needs a cool-off period from alien contact and negotiations. That decision will cause negative issues for a couple of centuries with aliens on the outside trying to work with us. Humanity has been made aware much sooner and in a much more dramatic fashion of the alien life out there. Tau Ceti will not operate in a xenophobic manner.

It will be the arm of humanity to continue those negotiations for when the day the rest of humanity catches up to being a part of a larger universe. If those events hold to that course. If that means Tau Ceti, when this occurs, must declare independence from Tera to do it; then that is the course I will advise those settling in this system to take. I said before, that none of the hybrids wish to lead humanity, which still holds.

That does not mean we won't have a say in a society that sees us hybrids as aliens and thus not humans. The society in Tau Ceti, in its bylaws, will have it as being open to negotiations with peaceful alien species and learning from each other. Also being ready to gear up to be the pointy end of the sword if hostile alien presences make themselves known to protect all of humanity. We will be able to set that in the bylaws as we will be the founders of the colonies in that system.

It will take you, based on history, 400 years to offload 30% of the world's population to other colonies. Those in the Tera system will still be dependent on Tera for hundreds of years after that if they had survived. It will take 300 years to get Mars and the Moon Terraformed under the previous timeline. They are still heavily dependent on Tera up until the end even after they are Terraformed. The outer colonies. Well, let us say many never arrived and many that arrived failed to thrive and most did not survive.

We sent a lot of people to their deaths. These new ships will help to speed up the independence both in the system and in other systems. Some of those systems are far out of the way and even with the new drives, new colonies will be built in systems between them. Some are nothing more than space-based mining communities with Starbases. I would like to say that history shows us to be better than our ancestors but that is not the case.

When it came time to push people out the first ones sent were the criminals and the poor. That, of course, sets up a lot of space-based piracy that your military will deal with forever. Back to your original question. You announce it but also announce the expansion of the space docks for creating the colony vessels needed to address these issues. That the crew of the Excalibur has provided some insight into habitable locations.

Places that humanity can expand more easily than others to help with setting mission priorities. Again, you will find nothing in Tau Ceti in the charts I gave you. We would, after its 'founding', provide additional information on that system. Mr. Sun heads up the Jupiter initiative. We will have to get with him on the changes he needs to make that station viable. Larger engines and his platforms ran through the modeling engines to deal with the stress. Oh my, what a surprise."

They chuckled at Jack. "That is why I did not just tell him how to do what I did when I arrived. He has a 0% chance of success. He fails to listen and it is zero times a hundred."

The cabinet chuckled at that as they took notes. "I would also avoid setting any one company as the sole producer at Saturn or Jupiter for mineral rights. All ships need hydrogen for fuel. Leave that open for free use. As to metallic hydrogen, sorry if that went to anyone it would be me as the first to do that successfully. For Jupiter anyway. I could do it for Saturn as well in a heartbeat. They are big worlds with a lot of resources. Nobody must get greedy to make a nice living from the effort.

Terran colonies and terraforming convoys are going to want to stop there to stock up on fuel especially. Metallic hydrogen is the big moneymaker and you must have the right equipment and know-how to work with it to make it worth your while. The equipment to do the Metallic Hydrogen work will be cost-prohibitive to the average citizen. This is where I see non-exclusive rights to that design and license them out to the big mineral exporters. This keeps them from getting depleted too rapidly.

That makes projects like the Jupiter station, the Titan Starbase, the Saturn mining operations, and all of the future ones outside of the system a cost-productive business model. This is history to me. Things that happened. Titan became a space dock and refueling station which catered heavily to the military. Fuel was brought in from the Saturn mining rig because of all the material in the rings. The hazards of Saturn putting a station with the mining rig will end in disaster. Four times.

Before they took that approach just for fuel purposes. The Jupiter project was on its 12th revision and had gone bankrupt many times in my timeline. Mining of Metallic hydrogen was sporadic at best in the Tera system. I am working to make it viable and consistently available sooner. I had not planned on being in your cabinet meeting today. I hope I provided some insight that has you more happy than anxious about what it is we have been striving to accomplish out here."

President Grendal nodded, "I will leave the talk to Mr. Sun with you. I will drop him a personal note to re-watch the Ravager test flight if he needs further incentive to believe you. We will hold the announcement on the population for another month at least. I want the approval for the other space docks in place before then.

Thank you for giving us a mock-up of what those stations would look like. It makes it an easier sell as we were supposed to go to twelve stations and this would make the next 6 have space-based space docks to work the ships needed for all of our citizens. They would be paid for and run by civilians instead."

Grace walked in, "Here are the modified contracts dealing with the weapons developers."

Jack signed them all for her and Grace smiled, "Thank you for getting them off of my back."

Jack smiled, "I know how you feel. Like you need a shower for a week just to get clean."

His audience laughed at him.

Jack looked at it all, "1.3 trillion TCs from all of those after taxes. Set aside 300 Billion as grants for the 6 new stations at 50 billion per location for the permanent location licenses, in line with the first station's license cost. We will spend 200 Billion on the first 3 stations upfront. We will see how it goes."

Grace nodded, "Expect it to double."

He nodded, "That is why I am setting it for the first 3 now and we will see what the future holds for the rest. Return on investments on the patents per-unit costs. When I said the money I was collecting was to give humanity improved jobs in space, new craft for exploration, and expansion of humanity's capabilities. I meant it. Take care everyone. Thank you, Mr. President."

Jack ended the call and looked over, "Holly, get with your buddies over at Tera News and announce the latest set of contracts and our plans to start building the first of many Starbases with Space-Based Space Docks. Grace, I have another list containing 4,641patents to file. Just because you are bored and conspired to keep me tied down."

Grace sighed and shook her head at him as he typed out a message to Mr. Sun. He let him know what would need to be done including sending him a copy of the modeling software to make his station viable.

He continued while typing, "Then I want you to get a hold of Driven Construction. They are on the verge of going out of business, however, they have heavily invested in building destroyer class ships for making beams in space. They have 6 rigs. I want to put 4 to work on this Starbase, Sprits can oversee the building of the Station cores while we are here. I will work with her on the computers needed for the station, enhanced security, and the engine housing and thrusters for the station to stay operational.

Now the other two ships I want to buy from them. We need vetted crews by Astra for sound and qualified candidates for those ships. Watching out for xenophobes and AI haters as well. Those 2 ships will get reinforced and new 5x engines and 5x FTL drives built into them. Then I want you to get in touch with Other Worlds Farming Enterprises.

They have the facilities on the ground to build my Terraformer and hydroponic ship that is in that collection of patents. I want 4 of the hydroponics ships, crewed and manned. Including bees and coffee plants. Then contact Irish Mills Mead company. Put them through to me Astra."

All of the ladies looked at him and Danyelle finally said what they were all thinking, "You're building a Terraforming colony convoy to take to Tau Ceti? Within a year?"

Jack nodded, "Within 6 months. I plan to farm some of the work out to Treven Engines. Sprits and I will work the reinforcements inside of the additional ships. Let any single mothers know who happens to be carrying my children if they pass Astra's vetting process. We will include them as passengers aboard these ships and the colony transports that will be built from this first dock. If they desire to relocate to Tau Ceti. No announcement, contact them individually.

After they have been vetted and cleared by Astra. If they have a history, we cannot move them. If they are married to another man or lady and wish to go, vet them all against the timeline and for crew positions aboard the Excalibur before extending an offer. Taking the one ship to Tau Ceti seems like a waste if we can get 2 colonies established on the sister planet that exists in that system."

Astra nodded, "You know the 2 planets are within 12 hours of each other with our new ship engines, at the nearest point and both in the habitable zone. One is a little warmer and the other a little cooler but both have vast flora and animal life. We have catalogs of animal life that are safe for human consumption.

You want to introduce bee colonies to both planets. One will take longer to propagate because of the narrow band the bees can survive within. But if you get bee colonies to survive on even one of the planets without killer bees to invade them then you could save the species from extinction."

Jack nodded, "Pet project if you will. I like mead."

Grace looked through the patents, "A shield light harmonic generator?"

Jack nodded, "Will light up the inside of the shields and give enough 'sunlight' to the crops and animals aboard the other ships to increase survivability rates. It can also be used to get crops and animals slowly acclimated to the sun rays of the destination, including the distance from the star for each world."

Astra looked at Jack, "There is nothing in my archives for this kind of technology!"

Jack nodded, "I had to work on getting it out of my head. Those innovations will help to finance human exploration into space for the poor and the common man. They will finance the rest of the Starbase construction efforts. The mining operation at the asteroid belt on the outer rim will be required to generate all the metal.

This brings me to Danyelle. I want you to get into contact with these 3 companies, and work with Astra on future implications and such. Work to buy into at least 2 of the companies. Offer up ship upgrades and improved ore miners to work the resource collection. Put that geology degree of yours to work. Use the information on the now-closed third corridor mineral surveys Astra did while we were out there.

Then let them know we have improved sensors to aid in identifying metallic substances to do that. Ash, I want you to get hold of Martin's Cryo-Storage and get us another 36 of the 2,000-liter tanks. I want 12 of those that will be moved, once filled into our expanded cargo hold. Those will eventually end up in our scout for the flight to that distant moon."

Ash looked at him, "That was why inside the scout you put the double-cross entrances. To be able to get those tanks into the ship and make them maneuverable. That is all you would be able to take and take the hybrids we have."

Jack nodded, "Only 10. Pyramid with 4 at the bottom. The other 2 are reserved. I need to get James Treven senior, Paul, and his two ladies to make a trip to the Excalibur. If Francine and James come along that is fine and preferred. But we need to hammer out the management of these stations and see which path Paul wants to take. I would like that meeting today if possible. Holly can you contact them on my behalf as my press secretary if you will.