Astra Pt. 08

We can aid them in departing the area. I have parts from one of their destroyed ships. My Master Chief said they had a new weapon in the mix. I told her I want military R&D to take that weapon. I hate creating weapons. Let them do their fucking job for a change. Now you are wondering why I bought out your Airframe Manufacturers. The short answer is, that they pissed me off by trying to steal from me. I used legal means and orchestrated the effort to acquire the companies legally.

We are restricting which of the 3 businesses handles the contracts they already have. We are looking to move fighters, shuttles, and scouts together. All can be ground built and sent up. The first business is named Phoenix Airframes, owned by Ash Travus callsign Phoenix after she trounced 2 battleships with a scout because they tried to enter an exercise they were not permitted to participate in nearly 20 years ago. They fired on the scout first. The scout finished it.

Grouping the rest of the ships under a new company named Martina Family Airframes. That is a familiar name to you. He built battleships and left because the designs sucked. Each of those two businesses has at least 3 Martina family members working at them. Three of the brothers are taking over all of the air breather work. I have nothing in that business or the other 2 besides working and financing the purchases.

The one with your battleships is Sprits Martina Travus who has worked with her father on airframes and with me on airframes. She knows her shit. She is a Structural and Communications Engineer. Akio Travus will be working as the Chief Electrical Engineer on your big ships. I am not working at or owning these businesses. 25% of each business is owned by the Martina family you know and love for their fighter work. I gave them the designs for them to build.

Now that leaves one very big hole in your fleet. You have no capability or designs for carriers, dreadnoughts, or larger ships. I brought back one caterpillar; it is in the process of building 2 more. From there we can repair my fucked ship from today's fiasco and we can start building some of the ships you are wanting. I do not price gouge, I fixed that with what your military contractors were doing 20 years ago. Taking a 600 million scout to 100 million.

This new business will be called Hybrid Innovation Solutions Airframes, LLC, this one I own in totality. They will be operational as soon as possible and building the designs my ships have with the armaments my ships have. That way they stand a chance against the next foe. I have another battleship that is almost 'jump ready.' Another dreadnaught they are working. The battleship should be here today or tomorrow. The dreadnought we have never jumped before and it is a big ship.

We will jump it without a battleship to shrink the size. It should get here. We might have to touch up the paint from hitting the curb. I modeled all of my designs at 10x speeds. That gave me the confidence of doing FTL travel in the system while it tried to shake us apart. It did not break us. Only for 15-second shots. But when the battle is occurring on the other side of the system from where your forces are, you take that risk against 200 ships.

Else against 3 Colony ships as it just destroyed them and damaged itself for that move. Every time I have stepped into this place, I have been accused of undermining Tera and humanity. Last time you asked for the truth and I gave it to you and many of your families. Now that you have over 18,000 dead and the loss of 8 battleships and 35% of your fleet from a very small force! I am asked to come here yet again! The short answer is I am tired of trying to tell you I am here to help.

I have decided to just help get things set and working as they should. All existing employees except for most management will remain. Grace, Sprits, Ash, and Aiko will review the managers at those companies together. They will also get a 10% pay increase across the board. They do not care if they make only 1 TC off each ship. You need these fucking ships to defend this system. Now does anyone wish to ask me anything? Please step up to the microphone right here."

One man came forward, "It looks like you are trying to take over our military."

Jack sighed, "I am not taking over for them. I am building new ships! I came to help until their hardware was ready for the fight coming. The fight will continue to come. 5-11 more before the Home Guard will pull most of these ships back to protect Tau Ceti again. This is the hole we discovered and we found an easy solution. As we are the only ones building convoys to the distant worlds we are setting up the charters to accept the Home Guard's help and to incorporate hybrid laws into the systems.

They have worked well in Tau Ceti for nearly 20 years. We have 2 hybrid judges out there and they were elected into office again and again. We are less than 1 percent of the population but a lot of money, time, and effort is being put forth to try and discredit us. For example, I was asked what happens if a hybrid goes rogue. I told you they would be killed. One did. Three others had before him in Tau Ceti. They died; they were all executed. Riku died on my ship, by my hand.

Some still wanted to try and prosecute me for following the laws of the colony where my ship is registered. Once our telepaths know the location the leaders of those colonies get a bracelet. It is tied to a crystal in my necklace. A matched pair of crystals. They can call for assistance at any time and anywhere. We will work to find what we can bring to bear. We are doing the job that your military is incapable of doing because of the distance.

To do that, you would need hundreds of hybrids that have traveled to the location and the drive to get there. Inside your military. Where you do not want us. Where we do not want to be! It is in the patent office and nobody had tried to take that drive and develop it at all to work for non-hybrids. No government-backed colonies have been sent or established. You have a treaty before you.

The President has used this bracelet with me. If I am in Tau Ceti or here it makes no difference. All you must do is ratify it as is. It is not going to change. There is nothing to change other than your fear of me. I am the one sending my family, wives, sons, and daughters to die to protect Tera. What do you have to fear from me?"

One of them came up, "We fear you because of the power you have displayed. What happens when you go rogue?"

Jack sighed, "That should be IF I go rogue and it is covered in the treaty for all 6 members of our Hybrid Council if you will. You are asking me to bring more stuff; bigger stuff forward to help you. That is an increase in power to be able to do it. I cannot change your fears. I just work on my abilities to be able to try and do what is being asked of me.

Out there against alien species that mean us harm. I have done this again and again. What more do you want? To treat me like a weapon that you have the trigger on? That is not happening. When every member of Congress becomes a cyborg would you want me to have a button to control you? No. Against my nature."

Another asked, "Where did cyborgs come from?"

Jack smiled, "If you want us to all be on an even playing field with these 'powers.' Hybrids abhor politics. It is a lot of grandstanding pomp and circumstance and backroom and backstabbing dealing that occurs. Also compromising. Against all hybrid nature. That leaves technical solutions.

As you want it to be you that would want to have this power, that led to cyborgs. Then there are the court challenges: are you a machine or a human? You hopefully see the parallel irony. You could get there through technical means as you want politics and don't want to be hybrids. Deductive reasoning."

One of them came up, "What happens when you stop being human?"

Jack looked at the man, "At what point do you start being human? How many times have you proven it? Proven it in open court? I have had my humanity questioned since you learned I was a hybrid. I have had it defended twice in court and succeeded both times. To err is human. I just had my dreadnaught destroy 3 colony ships because of their size and your Tera Military classifying them but not scanning for armaments. They called out CAPITAL SHIPS!

To forgive is divine. I am out there leading a humanitarian effort by trying to help them rescue survivors and make at least one colony ship operational. Meanwhile, my guys are sitting near that time rift. Created by man and now it is getting bigger. If you spent half the effort taking on less than one-thousandth of a percentage point of your population. Maybe you will see exactly what the Drakor told President Grendal and other leaders.

'Better to support us because if we fail so will humanity.' They do not make threats. They make statements of fact. They want us to know ourselves and embrace our nature. How many religions and philosophers have we had that wanted the same thing for us? Were they human? Can you prove it? The concept of the sword is to be able to defend or attack our enemies. That should not be each other.

Increases in intelligence, the cure to most diseases that afflicted us for centuries that our medical establishment has not resolved. In many cases finding a preventative measure or medication to get it to go away after the fact. All because you can make more money approaching the problem that way. Just like GS and their engines. They were constantly falling apart. Yet every member of that Congress was invested in them. The Drakor gave these gifts to humanity.

This included psychic communication which brought the current fight to a stop before anyone else lost a life; we saved the last of the military ships you sent! We scanned them and found one with Drakor DNA. That was enough to stop the fighting once I made contact. I have worked to advance sensors, communication, shields, engines, power cores, airframes, armor, and everything inside of these areas.

I have given you more technological advancement in the last 20 years than you have had in the last thousand years. I am one man and you want more, yet you want me to be less. You must remember the Tera government, from the future, decided to change me. Not the Drakor. The Drakor just accepted I was here, I was a Justice, and I was working to help humanity. Tell me where I have failed to help humanity?

No, you cannot control me. You cannot own me. You could support me and my goal of helping humanity. People are going to come up and ask about the money again. Money is a means to an end. I took 250 Trillion from the Shimada family. They had close to 2,800 Trillion in hidden assets around the world. I used it to buy out the corrupted business that attempted to steal from me. We will increase the workforce. We would get the new owners to give raises to the existing employees.

We will run these businesses at a loss and around the clock to get you what you need. Is it everything you want? No, and it never will be. You want everything and yet you cannot define what is as it is constantly changing. I am working to build the defenses for you. When we hit in 10 years what you had calculated for 30 those facilities will keep running. Maybe 16 hours a day instead but that would be putting a third of this workforce out of a job.

So no, as long as we can afford it they will keep making ships the government has not ordered. I will use them for the Home Guard and Tera colonies. Spread them around to keep a reactionary force local to help out until other forces can be brought to bear. In 25-30 years when you decide to give these contracts to others, that is fine. But they better come with their designs and be able to stand up to the craft I built. At some point, you will be at war with yourselves again.

When that happens, you don't want to be at a disadvantage when the antiquated katana is kicking the shit out of whatever is brought in to replace it. They better have teeth. The thing you do not understand is that it is EXACTLY what I want. We have no plans to pursue these contracts beyond what is slated currently, you might wish us to and the owners will take those under consideration.

We want to have our people innovate across the board. That saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Don't make it you can lead humanity to innovate, but you can't make them think. Prove me wrong, focus some of this effort on stopping these time jumps from happening. I cannot do that, fight an enemy out there, and defend myself constantly before you.

I don't need sleep but do it occasionally as it is nice to rest instead of collapse from exhaustion at trying to shoulder the burdens of both systems' defenses. I am working to save 2 systems now, and get more people into other systems. If you cannot find a solution to this problem to save humanity, don't blame me. You got me standing here yet again!"

A woman approached, "You want us to research this time jump issue. I heard what you said about defending yourself here. Is that something you could do if you did not have to defend yourself here?"

Jack sighed, "Sign the treaty. Stop calling me in to defend myself every time someone's pet project feels threatened. Learn to use the words 'thank you,' when I and my unwanted kind, and those that support us who are not hybrids, have saved your collective asses again. Then yes, I could focus my attention there and possibly find a solution. It is not an area I have ever studied. I would look for those who have and work collectively to find a solution.

I find one and the first place it would get deployed is Tau Ceti. We are 5-11 jumps away and the likelihood of us finding one before then is remote. We do it to Tau Ceti and it works. They will show up on the Outer Rim and we remove the distant target. We deploy the solution at Jupiter and then fight our way through whatever came in on the Outer rim and deploy it there.

Then we deploy a net along Hector's path and find if the one time-jump by the AIs into that area is warded as well. Then maybe we can just deal with colonies for a while. Peaceful expansion, getting to know some of our alien neighbors better. In short, other activities."

His holovid went off and Zack stood there, "Admiral reports coming in of another time event."

Jack sighed, "On my way, yet again."