Astra Pt. 04

He went down the line and Sprints gave him each of the rings and he placed them on the fingers the ladies had selected. Left for everyone except Grace.

She smiled, "My mother was from Norway. Their custom was the right hand. I kept the tradition for her." He nodded as she had finally told them why the difference.

The lady nodded, "I present. Mr. Jack Travus and his 7 wives."

Grace and Holly made a beeline for the scout toilet." Jack saw Grace's friend from the patent office and stopped in front of her. "Am I still the playboy you think I am?"

She shook her head, "You did that to me and I would have fallen over dead halfway through. Happy, but dead. She found a gem with you. You obviously know what she likes."

He nodded and whispered to her, "Everything." The lady laughed at him and nodded, "I do not doubt it." He looked over and saw Holly's editor. He nodded to him, "Did not see you back there." He nodded, "My wife Sandra. She now wants to know why I cannot be more like you."

He looked at his wife, "He could. He would just have to visit Astra on our ship and she could outline the list of medical procedures the Terran Government did to me. I cannot turn him into a sex addict, but she could do a lot of things for him and you if that is what you want. Not something I throw out to just anyone."

She smiled, "Ron, you will get us in touch with Astra."

Jack smiled, "He might need a second or third wife when she is done modifying him."

She nodded, "We will deal."

Jack smiled, "Ron, you thought about your camerawoman today?"

Ron looked at Jack, "You are trying to get me into trouble."

Jack laughed, "Sandra have you thought about his camerawoman today?"

She looked over, "Now that you mention it."

Jack smiled, "I recommend you spend a few hours editing our wedding footage and figuring out what you can safely put on the air. It might inspire all three of you."

She smiled, "You inspired alright."

Ron rolled his eyes, "Thanks, Jack. Just what I needed."

Jack smiled, "I already took one of your reporters and a camerawoman. Your turn."

Sandra laughed at Ron about that.

He heard in his head from Astra, "Pralons just past Jupiter station!"

The ladies came back from the shuttle and they seemed to be in a hurry. Grace looked at him, "We got to go now! The President wants to talk with you."

He looked over, "Fucking Pralons!"

Ron asked, "Who or what is a Pralons?"

Jack walked away, "Think 270+cm tall or long rat-like people, not counting their tails that they dress up with electric shock spikes, who are technologies thieves and descend on a planet like locusts. They are carnivores and you're a dish to them.

There is no reasoning with them. They travel in 1-6 ship groups like gypsies typically. They are great at stealing it. Little skill in how to use it. They have better than average sensors for spatial anomalies, not for FTL travel unless it is close by.

They scan a vessel and they can access active computers to grab all of its technological data troves that are online. Excalibur is the greatest weapon against and is highly threatened by them.

They can mine a Planet's data the same way while collecting cattle; us! They just have to get within a few hundred km of the ship to do that. Did she say how many?"

She looked over, "10 ships."

He growled, "Fuck!" He looked at Holly's editor, "Get clearance from the President before you run a damned thing."

He grabbed the man's arm and took them back to the shuttle and hit up the communications to the Capitol, "The president looked over, "Word is all contact with Jupiter station is now gone."

Jack nodded, "They likely took everyone for food and stripped it for parts. Anything they did not take they sent into the planet or had target practice with. I need all Lancers at the Moon. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be allowed to escape. Else they will bring others to this feeding ground."

The President asked, "What about our battleships?"

He looked over, "How many ships you got with 5x drives and new weapons?" He sighed, "Alright. Where do you want them?"

He looked over, "Near the moon, they can form up on my scout and we can bring in Excalibur to play the heavy gun. Ten ships with no size.

They probably picked up the 5x testing, no more likely all the fucking spatial charges the black-ops guys used. Their sensors were not that sophisticated for detecting FTL travel. Once they got there they would have picked up the signatures of it passing through. If they found that battleship, they will think it is an easy buffet."

You know the editor to Terra News. He caught wind as we were leaving our wedding. Any comment for him?"

The President looked over, "Hold on this story. You will get the exclusive from Jack or me. What if they breakthrough?"

Jack shook his head, "Not likely but if they do. Hit them with everything including ramming your ships into them! Your other fighters are worthless. Assess what you got. They will not be here for another day at least. They do not have our drive capability. We can tell you more when we are in the air."

Holly's editor left with his wife. Jack jumped into the pilot seat, "I got the stick!" He took it straight up and punched it, "Astra, Give me the last known?" She sighed, "30 minutes ago all communication with Jupiter was lost. They are fortunately further away than when we arrived originally. As 2x they would be here in 36 hours."

He nodded, "If they found the battleship then this could be 2 packs working together. I am hoping that is the case."

He shot out of the atmosphere and was Below Terra-3 by a long shot but the moon was another 120 degrees off to the right from where they came out and they gunned it toward there, "Get Sara to move the rocket and mouser to bay 7. Extend the secondary level because we will have a lot of fighters landing."

He hit the button for comms, "This is Merlin looking for Dragon Lady." He heard back, "This is Dragon Lady Merlin. What do you need?"

He asked, "You been deployed to the Moon?" He heard her reply, "Yes, but we have got no orders."

He sighed, "You got one now if you are willing to take it. Rendezvous with Excalibur we are bringing King Arthur in from the surface. We will have an intelligence briefing with the President once I am on board. Have your patrol leaders, if we have room for them, to land with you. All others, form up on the Excalibur's 6 o'clock as we get ready to ready to leave orbit. Sprits you grab Merlin Weapons hot!

Danyelle with Ash on King Arthur! Weapons Hot! Aiko you are with me on the bridge with Sarah, Grace, and myself on the bridge of Excalibur. Those are subject to change. Everyone changes clothes, briefing room on level 2. Astra, escort the fighter pilots who land to the 2nd-floor conference room."

Jack came in hot shooting past a group of 10 fighters as they swung it around and landed in the bay. "Carol medical in case we get wounded."

She nodded, "Alright."

He went to his room and changed into a uniform and Sprits asked, "How worried should we be?"

He shook his head, "We need to see the last images they had. That will tell us if we are epically fucked or not."

He got out of the room and went straight into the Conference room with 7 pilots, "He hit his vid and threw the display against the wall and contacted the President.

The operator looked at him, "Just a moment."

Dragon lady looked at Jack, "They send you right through huh?"

He nodded, "You will see why in a second."

He nodded to the President, "Where are the Secretary of Defense and your admiral at?"

He sighed, "They are at the old Cheyenne Mountain complex for a summit with world military leaders."

Jack called out, "Astra. conference them all in and secure it!"

There were several people to see their secure communications 'hacked' and Jack looked across. "Extreme times people. I need to see the last images from Jupiter that we got on these ships!"

Astra threw it up for them. Jack cried out, "Fuck. Bring up images from Grell Colony Massacre 2349. Display images of ships and compare." She looked over, "Jack there is a 98% chance you are looking at the same fleet of ships from 2349. He nodded, "Compare to 2574 Briss Colony." She brought them up. "Same except the numbers are 99% confirmation."

Jack held his head down. "You will not find out about the Grell colony for another 80 years. Map Grell and Briss colonies in star maps and where we are today.

They looked at the images and he nodded, "Historical records on this species is limited. They are a carnivore's rat-like people who see all races as food or target practice. They are technology thieves. We learn about them in a general context in about 20 years when we are approached by that group of aliens I told you about.

Corridor 3. The general direction they came from. They would have picked up the particle trails of the 5x drives in the system between Jupiter and the corridor and they would be following them to Terra. Their sensors are for crap. They would have picked up on the spatial disturbances from the Admiral in the asteroid belt.

Then they would have picked up the FTL drives and the 5x drives from the engine testing when they got close enough. If they found the battleship, they would have harvested the planetary details. Access codes used by the military should be changed immediately. All ship access codes should be changed immediately.

All transponders should be shut off on those ships going. When we are done with this briefing Astra I want you to bring the repository offline. Historical and blueprints. Air gap the power as the owner on them. The same goes for my lab. All pads shut off. They can be defeated. The odds are overwhelmingly bad but it can be done. Bring up that lead ship and the two next two it and give us a three-dimensional wireframe of the ships."

She pulled it up "I need 4 shuttles with spec-ops marines sent to the moon. Excalibur will play a support and bait vessel. We use it to buy Terra more time. They will pick it up as the largest 5x ship and attempt to pursue it. Back toward Jupiter. They want to capture it and scan it. Which is why we want to shut everything down we can and get into a low Jupiter orbit. But we do not slow down.

As we come out of the backside, we killed power after breaking away from gravity. We can then bring it in from behind. We take Merlin, And the 3 Lancers with tractor beams and we slowly ramp them up to 5x speed. We will run the modeling numbers on your spec-ops shuttles, we may not get them that fast if they cannot hold the load.

This is an external breach and enter operation on these 3 ships. The other 7 will be their collective nest if you will. 3 nest ships and 4 close support ships. The outer 3 and their Capital Ships. We do not know where they got this technology but this is what it does. They fire off a charge into an area. Any ship within the distance of Saturn. Throw a Saturn image over this shard.

Now anything inside of that area will have its power core overcharge and tripped out to shut down, if operational. This will effectively anchor the ship in place. If you turn one on in that area while the weapon is still active the same thing happens. We use the Lancers and Merlin to push your dead in space spec ops ships toward these things. When the fighters are hit.

They will be spread out and coming from wide enough that all three of their Capital Ships will have to fire. When they do that those 4 ships will be disabled for about 2 minutes and be anchored. They will get into weapons range.

They have tractor beams to pull the ships in during that time unless they are otherwise distracted. They can narrow that area or effect as they move closer in order to do this. We take the remaining fighters. Form them up on King Arthur. Take them straight up, fly above this area, kill the power before getting close enough, and then drop down into the middle of the nest. We fight them from the backside.

The spec ops will pop doors, launch grappling guns and reel in their shuttles against the Capital Ships. Then burn their way in. The target. Is this location here. On all three ships. Each one will control a field. They cannot set a new one until they drop an old one. They will want to capture the fighters for their tech and they will want the pilots for food.

The ships are no threat to them in the scheme of things. These guys like to get physical. We destroy those 3 weapons we can destroy all 10 ships. We gain control of one, we could disable and destroy all 10 ships. There are around 10,000 or more rat guys on each Capital Ship and they can hear your heart beating. This will be bloody.

They get to Terra, they will dissect everything in orbit, repurpose it, eat it, or use it as a junk weapon against the surface. They are not opposed to frying the atmosphere and getting a cooked meal. That is what they did to Grell. They hunt in groups of 1-6 except for this band who ran a 10-ship squad until space marines deployed a similar tactic.

The difference was they were 10,000 strong and fewer than 500 returned. We don't have the distance advantage to get troops there fast enough as the front line. That will fall to your protection forces if we fail. Get as many space marines and spec ops guys you have and get them into powered down ships in orbit ready to pounce if they close in. Roll Captain Benjamin Walker's cam footage from that encounter.

If you ate recently. My apologies. This footage is about 30 minutes long from breach to the weapon. He transmitted this back before setting off all the grenades around his waist next to one of those weapons."

He let the video play so they could watch the carnage that occurred during this encounter. He waited for it to finish.

Jack looked over, "The downside. No ship could move in or out of that area for over a year from whatever that weapons destruction did. Ideally. We would send every single Capital Ship into the sun or Jupiter. Or destroy them out beyond the belt! I'm telling you what has worked in the future-past and what we could do now. Anyone else has any better ideas we need to hear them now."

Astra popped in, "I ran the numbers on the spec-ops ships. They are incapable of going beyond 1x. They would need too much reinforcement. Not enough time." He looked over, "Then Ash and I go in Red mouser with EVA suits pushed by Merlin. Else we get one of the fighters to push Merlin in and we use Ash, Aiko, and myself."

The President asked, "Why send the 3 of you?" Jack sighed, "I lost a lot of good friends to these rodents. I am also weapons trained for melee, as is Aiko and Ash is a Red Blade She won't stay out of this fight."

Dragon Lady looked over, "Death Blossom will push you in. I will take my guys in from above. Excalibur coordinates and comes in from behind Jupiter. I will send two other rookies wide enough on either side of Death Blossom to try and draw the other two weapons fire. Give us a chance to get in there."

Jack nodded, "Keep Excalibur back, she has range. Launch King Arthur from her and have King Arthur come in from the back during this slingshot. Sarah and Danyelle can take King Arthur out for a ride. Carol can fly Excalibur and Grace and Holly can get a crash course on tactical controls. Focus all fire on the nest support ships and the nest. Give us a chance to disable the Capital Ships."

The president nodded, "Very well. Excalibur at range, three Lancers to act as a distraction with one pushing your three-man assault team. Fighters death from above. King Arthur from behind. I don't like the odds but it buys us time to put together marines if it happens to go bad."

Jack nodded, "Grace and the other hybrids know the meeting location and they could take the ship if they had to save humanity if things go catastrophic."

They broke the meeting. Death Blossom and the other two sacrifices stayed aboard while Dragon Lady took her other fighters to get up high.

They gathered the wives and explained what was going on and the division. Sprits looked at Jack, "I am going with you. I know martial arts and have been working the sword. I am also another pilot if needed for the escape."

He sighed and looked at the others and nodded, "You have been pushing hard. Danyelle is irreplaceable on tactical right now and she will be in close quarters fighting."

Carol looked over, "I will pilot the King Arthur. I have run the Death Valley course in record time with Red Mouser and Susan has no battle experience. I can dodge. Danyelle can give directions to me and we can work as one."

He nodded, "Grace that has you in charge of the Excalibur. Astra, I don't make it back and she is the new captain. I say that because the mission must get done. Regardless. Her and Holy are the only two staying onboard. Holly and Grace need time at piloting and tactical while we get there. Start training them just in case.

Especially tactical. Astra. I meant what I said. Shut down archives, I will shut down all tablets in my lab and my terminals. Hybrids wear your belts."

---

They plotted out an intercept course. Astra did all of the coordination as the systems were brought down to reduce what could be accessed. Jack shut down his lab and his tables including the one on how to build Astra's backup server. He shut down all of the power cores as they finished there run cycles of the item they were on.

He packed a pair of pistols, a rifle, full armor, his two metal swords, and his two psi-swords. He ensured everyone had pistols as well even if they did not want them. He explained, "Arms can get tired. Pulling a trigger, not as much. If they are shielded, the laser will be needed. He got Aiko to take a rifle as well. All weapons were powered off. As were all EVA suits until they were close.

They each had a grapple gun. To attach and attack. The shuttle had an anchor function as well if they could get it to launch. He took the portable power supply and a space heater onto the shuttle. They were 3 hours out when the first fighter launch. 30-minutes later. Merlin and Death Blossom left the barn. 20 minutes after the third fighter.

The 2 outer fighters went to flank as Death Blossom pushed them straight down the middle toward the ships. Jack left a comm port open to Death Blossom through a vid and blank pad, "Our hybrid eyes can see things that others cannot. I tell you to release and full reverse you do it. It might buy you enough time to stay out of the weapons range while your core re-initializes.

Again. It also depends on how fast we can shut down their weapons. Regardless we will work to get you freed."

She laughed, "Thanks, Merlin. Just stay alive and kick rodent ass."

Another 10 minutes and he saw the first weapon go off, "The first fighter is hit. 5 minutes, release and pull back."

Astra informed Dragon Lady through the same pad and vid setup, "Right Flank weapon was deployed."

They got cut loose as she turned away the area got hit. The power supply cut out as did the space heater. Now they relied on the shuttles insulation. "Astra, can you hear me?"

He got nothing. It was expected. He pointed and shouted through the space helmet, "We are headed between the center and right flank. They must have picked up Excalibur and started moving. The ladies nodded. It was getting cold inside the craft and they only had a few more minutes needed to clear.

The left side went off and all three weapons were deployed but the right side one went down. Then the center. They brought them down as they moved for the Excalibur. He fired up the low power and hit retros. He angled the ship. He targeted and shot a line into the right one and reeled it in. He looked over, "Power up EVA suits."

They nodded, "Astra, they brought down right and center weapons and are pursuing you toward Jupiter. We are on the right flanking ship and anchored. We are cutting our way in now."