Astra Pt. 06

He sighed, "Base drop out of warp. XO Dock us, King Artur Dock and in my ready room, Commander Gavin, once we are docked, get to my ready room. Commander Ashton, no need to tell you to need to adjust to 12 operators on that base and to take over is there?"

He laughed, "No Admiral. I got this group. We shove the special droids down their barrels heat them up, and light them up! Base commander, Rotate assignments. I need 12 drone pilots on those targets."

Jack called out, "We are going after the other 80 ships."

He heard from one of his sons, "Admiral, contrary to what was just said, that does sound like a suicide mission."

He called out, "Stay focused on your mission and always assume I have a plan." He looked at the XO, "We docked?"

He nodded, "Just docked."

He called out, "Astra Ready room, Need your navigational skills."

He went into his office which was a lot nicer than the one on the Excalibur. He threw up a large display. Zack, Gavin, Michael, and Astra walked in and he rotated the map. "Astra, location of the Victus?" She pointed He looked at it, "Best time to get to the belt?"

She looked, "From here, almost 24 hours. He looked at her, "Time for them to clear the belt?" She looked, If they are moving at 2x, maybe 16 hours. Jack looked, "Think outside the box, Astra. Safest point for us to FTL from this location near that target. She looked at me, "You want to WHAT?!"

He nodded, "I know you can compensate for the Sun. This is a Short burst on FTL to get us closer to where we need to be. We need to catch them in the corridor and do an 'admiral' fly by."

She looked at him, "You wanted the second for?"

He rotated the map, "From up here. One in front, and one in back. Crossing the corridor at an angle."

She nodded, "Well you are not flying right at them." She pointed. "18 seconds." Gavin called out, "Flight control change heeding to 234 set the up angle 10 degrees. Move hands away from controls. Astra, activate FLT." She nodded they jumped across but it shook violently and she stopped. "Sorry, 15 seconds. I was getting a little nervous at the shaking."

Jack nodded, "All stations, Hull inspections. We just used FTL in a System."

Set up the next location to get us in position. She nodded. This point. Jack nodded, "Change heading and Contact Ceti. Let them know we got two groups here. Two-thirds of the next group could end up there."

She looked over, "They just arrived."

Admiral, "Commander Ashton reported in. Plan Oscar worked like a charm. Blew all of their big gun batteries."

He told her, "Transmit plan Oscar to them and tell them to try it. NOW!"

She nodded, "Sent. Paul said to tell you thanks. It might help. I told him it worked here."

Not a minute later, "He literally screamed for joy as the drones did what they were supposed to do. He said you are a fucking mad scientist!"

He nodded, "It also means we have 100 ships to contend with. Will the first 80 wait for the next 20 and 60 to follow?"

"Admiral to the factory. Load up the next set of storage containers. We might be mining our way back through the asteroid belt!" He heard, "We have three per location. 1 set is full from our arrival. Putting empty bins in place Admiral."

He heard back, "Structural checks done. Ships are fine."

He looked at Astra, "2,000 km up. Again."

She sighed, "12 seconds of FTL Engaging."

The ship shook but not near as bad as they moved away from the sun. He added over 2,000 km of height to the approach with the two jumps and he looked, "They have held at the corridor entrance. Relay us through Saturn station to Terra. Conduct hull inspections again."

She nodded, The President looked up, "How goes the fight?"

Jack shook his head, "You lost the Victus on the other side at corridor 12. Reported a bunch of energy signatures and something exploded in the belt. That is what is holding them up they are working to clear the damage they did to the corridor. I took my base, battleship, and King Arthur. We are going to destroy 100 to 160 ships using the asteroids on either side of that corridor.

If our intel is right then we will still have another 40 coming at the Jupiter location. Connect in Commander Ashton. She nodded. The connection was bounced between Saturn to Jupiter to the other Dreadnaught. He called out, "Force put down, we lost one scout and three fighters. He sighed, "Contact their mothers."

He sighed, "Sorry to say one was one of Sprits sons, Martin. He got hit by three ships at once in one heck of a crossfire. They damaged their own ships badly to kill him."

Jack nodded, "Understood. Let me know when you see the next 40 on the horizon. Any ship too damaged is grounded."

Ashton replied, "We got a few of those including Steven, Sprits son's twin."

Jack nodded, "Get him on the bridge. I do not want him stealing someone else ride. We both know he would do it."

He nodded, "I will assign him to tactical until his own ship is ready."

He asked, "How goes your plan?"

Jack groaned, "We are in position after two in system FTL jumps."

The President yelled at him, "You what!?"

Jack nodded, "Only way to be sure we could catch them in the corridor. Tau Ceti got hit again so we know we likely got 100 ships out here. My son sees 40 more of them we will know we have 160 ships out here."

He called out, " They are here, 3 hours out if we stay put." Jack thought about is, "Meet them halfway. Do not want them seeing the damage we did to their ships and trying to run toward Jupiter station. Astra, check with Tau Ceti. Find out if they got 20 or 40." She turned around, "20..No wait another 20 just dropped in. He said they got them as their droid pilots are getting better at stuffing the barrels."

The President asked, "What?"

Jack sighed, "You remember me telling you 40mm shells? Those drones are 35 mm around and a meter long with point defense lasers. They have another function to deploy 5mm wide Titanium-H fins. Six of them. We put a few in the barrels, deploy the fins, and when they fire they destroy their own guns. Sword and shield Mr. President."

He nodded, "Yes, you built a counter to there weapon and a copy of their design to hit them with it."

Jack commented, "That last jump put 200 ships in our area with me."

Ashton reported in, "We engaged the droids took care of their big guns. I held fighters back and pummeled them at range with all of the big guns. The second fleet destroyed. Orders?" Jack called out, "Salvage any intel use the refinery to clean up the garbage at both locations. Pushing biomatter out into space if it is not burned off."

He nodded, "Performing search and clean up. What is your plan there?"

Jack sent him the image and what they planned to do." He looked at it, "Fucking brilliant. FTL drives through that corridor."

The President asked, "What does that do exactly?"

Jack sighed, "It means while there is no air in space an FTL drive does have a resonate wake that will move nearby objects like that closer to the FTL drives path. That is why when they do FTL jumps as a group. They are spread out and stagger the jumps to give distance between each wave. Smaller ships have less of an effect than a big ship. They can move closer together for security once they jump. Slow movements."

Astra pointed "They appeared to be in groups of 40!" Jack nodded, "Separate the base, Astra you will be on the base, coordinate my actions with Gavin. Tell all pilots the course, Captain Michael you will shoot in on the front of those ships. In front of group 1. Commander Gavin, the base will go between groups 2 and 3. I will take the battleship through 4 and 5. We will align vectors and have Astra sync our FTL start so we all hit that zero-plane at the same time." She nodded, "Understood. Heading back to the base." He nodded.

"Deploy two observation satellites to monitor. I want to know if anything survives." Zack chuckled, "Mr. President all ships will have all exterior cameras and two overhead satellites. You will have great combat footage from here."

Jack ended the call.

He heard from Astra, "They appear to be slowing. I think they spotted us. Jack nodded, "All ship in positions?" He got three thumbs up. "Align our vectors pilots be ready to adjust course if they get wildly stupid. Deploy drones at FTL to take out those big guns. Have them launch with my ship so they are ahead of the Carrier Base. All droid pilots on the Dreadnought. Drop shields and stuff them all. Astra has the FTL sync. Go!"

She sent the battleship ahead by 1.5, seconds with the drones going as well. Some surrounded the battleship going in. Followed by the Carrier Base, and .5 seconds for King Arthur. He looked down, "They are speeding up again. Adjust course!"

Astra called out, "They are moving fighters in our way!" Jack nodded, "Fire forward-facing laser weapons only. Then crash through the debris. Turn on PD lasers. We got power they do not know about. We will show it to them for what little time remains of their sorry lives. Droid pilots, I expect they will be sacrificed in this effort. Understand that it is an acceptable loss. Do the best you can.

King Arthur, you use lasers but stay ahead of them so you do not have to go shooting through debris." He heard, "Where is the fun in that? Will comply. Still all my fun."

Jack shook his head. Michael was a lot like him. He called out, "I will turn out at 7 seconds beyond Zero plan, Astra tell the commander 11 seconds. King Arthur, 20 seconds. We head for the backside of the field to regroup."

---

King Arthur came in closer than his father would have liked. He had 144 droids in front of his path firing on each of the Battleships to bring down their shields. Then they headed in for the guns. From the 8 Capital Ships. He got hit by 3 rail guns out of 9 that fired at him. Another 7 of them ate themselves from the droids.

Two shots banked off his armor. The third struck his engine. 5 seconds after 0 plane and his FTL drive was off. He immediately upped his shields and punched it up to 6x system drive as the next round of shells hit. There were 3 fewer than expected as those guns exploded.

He had rotated his ship to put the engines away from the guns once he was up to speed. He was closer to the inside of the rim than the outside. "King Arthur to Merlin. Lost FTL drive. On STD at 6x but am closer to the inner ring."

Jack responded back, "Head for Terra!"

He smiled, "Heading for Terra."

---

Gavin Travus was in the chair but he was getting direction through Astra. Not unusual as she was a big part of this ship. He yelled at the woman at tactical, "KILL the fighters damn it. The other stuff is just garbage. Clear our path!"

The droid commander reported in." We have 6 no 8 barrels stuffed at the moment."

The young tactical officer had not been in real combat before. Tyler Homes who was 17. She liked her commander but he barely gave her the time of day. She knew part of it was her age. The admirals on this mission would kill him for having sex with an underage subordinate. She turned 18 in 3 days; then she would let her feelings be known.

She stayed focused but they still smashed through 7 undamaged fighters and 9 scraped ones. He looked, "Shields went down on secondary. We took several rounds of fire from that." He heard, "Commander, "The droids destroyed 9 guns in that exchange." He called out, "Rearview?" He watched as the ships and rocks started colliding together.

The ship turned out and they switched cameras to get images.

---

Jack had one of his daughters Nancy Travus at tactical. She was crushing it while he handled the PD weapons. He shook his head as 6 of those rail guns struck 4 from one side and 2 from the other. He heard, "Droid commander to Admiral, they got 6 stuffed and destroyed they are going for more in case they fire after you."

All systems showed fine. The pilot screeched out, "FUCK!" She took the nose section of an enemy heavy scout and the Kanata took a lot of damage on the nose. "CLEAR ALL FORWARD SECTIONS 5 seconds for emergency bulkheads! Move! Take us down, slow to 3x. Get us course-corrected. Deploy secondary shields!

She called out, "Everyone cleared. The hull buckled. It would have ripped open if you had not had us slow it down."

He called out, "Dreadnaught base we will not be docking. We need a dry dock. The nose of the battleship is fucked at the moment.

Gavin groaned out, "We can get you in your dock but not the dry dock that is going to take time. They punched 4 shells through one of the hydraulic lifts. Fused a section on the other side. If we had our fighters, they would not be able to land." Jack sighed, "Get us docked XO."

He went into his ready room and pulled up the camera footage. He looked at what the hell happened back there. He thought * Justice, see what I am looking at. It looks like one of your scout ships managed to be invisible until the last second. We could not avoid it. It heavily damaged my ship. *

He heard, * It is like one of our scouts in material and general shape. But this is not a design I have seen. You are thinking it somehow came through with the other ships. We cannot jump into an asteroid field. *

Jack called back, * Don't come to me we can chew through the field and you can check on the scout. *

Justice responded, * Very kind of you. We will be with you momentarily. *

Jack walked over, "Hands off tactical. All stations weapon stand-down. We got company coming. Jonni, that scout you hit was not your fault. It was cloaked until the last second. He sent his mind into the field and felt them. * This is Jack Travus a human hybrid, Dispenser of Justice.' You are in the year 2451. I have contacted my contact in this time is called Justice. We are coming to render aid. *

He heard back, * Humans have not graduated yet. Hybrids are never Justices. *

Jack thought back, * You jumped through time. You are in an alternate timeline. In this timeline, we have graduated. I helped to recover a captured scout ship belonging to your people. I ensured it was returned unharmed and untouched. We used it as an escape vessel.

The Drakor worked the controls when they came in and Killed the Pelnor that perverted your technology into a weapon. I have also been to the moon in Tau Ceti. We were graduated on Titan in this timeline but we were supposed to go to the moon in Tau-Ceti. We have two colonies there. I will give you another shock. There are several others who are Justice hybrids. *

He heard back, * That is unheard of. *

He heard Justice. * Rest easy. Jack Travus's ship can get to you and we just came in behind him. He is not lying to you. He is a justice and leader of the 180 human hybrids they have created. His approach to his people is interesting to observe. His grasp of the skills is remarkable. Like you, he was sent back in time against his will.

Made a hybrid by a machine following the direction of the Terran government. He found the other in this time and saved her from being killed. He truly is unique. He is closing in on the secret to a Wormhole Drive. He knows the keys. He also has thousands of children. *

Jack heard back, * We are injured and our ship is damaged in the middle of a field of asteroids. You sure you can get to us? Jack sent him an image of his ships reentering this system and chewing through the field. *

He heard, * Impressive design and it is a factory to use what you collect. *

Jack sent him the images of Danyelle's death. * Building something to keep from losing a mate like that again. Make it useful to help humanity. *

He looked over, "The ship behind is Drakor. We need to head into the field and get to them quickly. We slammed into him between 4 and 5. We get to the first set of debris then slow down. They will let me know if we need to shut down the miners. Jake took control, "We will damage your ship more."

He looked over, "Lives are more important. We can fix the ship."

He nodded, "Engaging at 6x."

Jack looked over, "Bring up the satellites. Let us see what kind of force is left in there? He looked and saw one of the ships mostly intact. Jack called out, "Taking my shuttle out."

He looked over and nodded as he knew there was no stopping him.

He got in his shuttle, " Plan on a ten degree up angle fire. There is at least one functional Capital ship in that area. Slow down to 4x until we have that last ship destroyed. Information is from the satellite. I am going below the belt to find that shuttle and move it out of the line of fire."

Jack launched and went below the ship by several hundred meters and worked to lock onto their location. He finally found something. He saw parts of the stern of the ship and he narrowed the beam and attached it. He called out to them, * I have a tractor beam on your shuttle. There is still 1 Belan vessel for sure above you. My larger ship is coming toward you but I want to pull you out of the line of fire. Are any asteroids piercing your hull? *

He heard, * No, but we are wedged in here. Engines are offline. *

Jack smiled and thought, * Not for long. *

He felt them open as he started using telekinesis to move the two asteroids out of his way to pull the shuttle down and away from the ship. He heard, * You a mentalist or telekinetic specialist? *

He thought back, * Both. *

He sent images of assembling 6 ships at once. Then his satellites. He heard, * A curiosity very few and highly skilled how many centuries have you worked your craft. *

Jack thought back * Almost 20 years now. That is why justice is interested in me. *

He heard, * Your world looked like it would destroy itself on many occasions. *

Jack thought. * I know it did twice. Failed to find the right person to be a hybrid. Someone who took on the mantle of saving humanity themselves. Sometimes fighting all the way. But we have our supporters as well.

That is what sent all your Brelan craft to us. They jumped into areas used by humans to send me back into time. It failed once and they had video proof and they changed the approach and here I am and here is humanity coming to terms with Hybrids. With the ones in these fields, we have destroyed them all. *

He heard back, * How? *

He sent them all of the images of building the ships, the alloy, the first attack with Brelan and how bad it went and the steps he took to increase the protection. To ensure their survival from a futuristic foe with superior technology. He finally heard, *I will enjoy discussing this further with Justice. *

Jack smiled at that as he brought the ship up to an open bay and slid it inside and backed away, * Out of the line of fire *

He heard Justice, * Again we thank you for the respect you have shown us Dispenser of Justice. *

He watched as they fired a weapon and incinerated the one ship that rose from the asteroid field. *We will check the other battle sites. I will contact your hybrid sons. Let him know we were just checking all of these and ensuring they are truly done. *

Jack thought, * Ask them to send Paul a message so he is aware. Then we can declare it over for them from the Brelan's in that timeline anyway. *

He sighed, * We will likely end them in this timeline as well. The bonding does not work and they are sinister beings. *

Jack called out, "Open hangar. One alien ship rescued. The last ship destroyed. Return to 6x after I dock." He docked, He looked up and used the satellite to relay to Saturn and then to the President. He looked over and sighed, "You're alive." Jack nodded, "We destroyed 199 out of 201 ships here."