Aurora, Wayward Pt. 02

He left the deck and the scout jumped away as the other ships launched. Then they jumped back to their home system to arrange the cargo pickup. An hour later and their scout returned. "He was returned. The Drakor and humans can blame him for giving up the location of the system when the time comes."

12 hours later they jumped their targeted payload to the edge of the system. They left immediately after unloading.

---

Astra walked up to Becca and whispered in her ear, "Gina Vale in engineering, she is 19 and not in the Travus line. She is very infatuated with you and Johnathan. With me as well but they all seem to be that way. See what you can do while I am away."

Becca kissed her while chuckling, "Thank you for that."

Astra sent a mental message to Johnathan, * We will set a satellite inside so I can communicate back to my on-line backup and you if needed. *

Becca smiled as she always listened in on their exchanges, * Good plan. We will send one with you for that system. We will send its mate to Tau Ceti alternate site to set up in the relay. *

Aurora nodded, "I will give Aurora access to the one that already exists in the Samar system; it is marked and claimed as Terran territory. Then she could contact me directly if needed or members of the council."

Becca nodded, "It is listed as a Terran owned system so I see no problem with that occurring. She is still a Terran AI at the moment. It is out of the way; it has a distance of 50 or more light-years from any other systems besides this one and Incar on this far side of explored space. Still no space-traveling neighbors. From the ships, we sent to scout the exterior and interior of that system."

The meeting broke up with Johnathan actually shook hands with Rocan's for a change. He thought to himself how much Rocan reminded him of the tales of Jack. The nearly insurmountable odds he was facing. He thought Rocan might be up to the challenge.

Rocan knew there was a meaning behind the handshake, he had witnessed it before among the crew of the Camelot. For once he felt like a part of something larger than himself. Rocan returned to his ship and sent an encrypted message to the Captain of the Gresan destroyer marked for delivery to the Gresan Governor.

He sealed the message with a kiss. He had always been infatuated with the woman but never made a move on her as she seemed to only be into women and career-focused. They kept in touch over the years and the thought of sliding between the sheets with her and her lover had his mind racing.

Then he recalled he had 5 potential mates waiting on him on the bridge. He made his way through the tubes to the smallish bridge and sat in the Captain's chair. He looked over at Aurora, "Let me know when we are ready to depart."

He saw Victoria Travus but her appearance was far different. He nodded to her, "This is the human Victoria Travus. Lieutenant and Fighter Pilot and daughter of the human Hybrid Command Admiral. The head of the human hybrids. She was volunteered to join us in case any human Home Guard issues arose while we are in this new system."

Victoria nodded to the other ladies, "A couple of corrections. I technically turn 18 tomorrow but as we are leaving today and I had been approved to become a hybrid before our encounter that took place earlier. I am a human hybrid in transition. Any of you become a hybrid will have a similar darken skin for roughly 24 terrain hours before it returns to normal. So, I am Lieutenant Commander Victoria Travus of the Human Home Guard as of tomorrow. My promotion was already pending.

I am here to help if any issues arise because the system we are traveling to is listed as Terran owned. Anyone attempting to subvert that would have to deal with me and the Human Home Guard Eternal Council if needed. I have been made aware of your wandering romantic connections and I am not looking to slide into any of your beds.

I would like to say you are all lovely ladies and I would like to get to know you better. Just not that way. You can come to understand the Human Home Guard better if you have questions. I am a red blade so I am an aggressive defender of humanity. Right now, that includes all of you as Penans are a branch of humanity.

Aurora interjected, "10 hours until our departure. We still have MIDGE's working on AI units. There are a few exchanges among your crew with their home ships that you have to approve and then there are crew assignments upon this ship or one of the others."

He nodded, "Initially we will operate from this one until we get inside the belt. I want to launch half the MIDGE's when we get there and have them spread out on the outer asteroid belt and determine what we have. After we use them all to get us through the belt."

Aurora nodded, "That we can do with our 20 ships."

He looked over. "I thought we had 19 battleships?"

She smiled, "Yes I worked out the release of my class V Centipede, fully armed with military-grade weapons to protect itself. I have a couple of ship designs for you to look at. While we are there, they could mine and start building you a real Penan battleship class command ship built to accommodate humans to operate from."

He looked at the designs, "Human designs?"

She smiled, "Base ship designs yes. Then you had the audacity to bring a structural engineer into your crew. I had her go through and make some Penan design changes in her questionnaire."

She looked over, "That was why you put those in there. Some of those systems are super-advanced."

He nodded and went through all of the outbound communications and released them all. He looked over, "We are on a comms blackout for this mission unless I call for communications to be re-established. I spoke with the governors and we, or should I say Aurora, blew open the meeting before it ended by bringing out all the conspirators in the Android bombs."

Aurora looked over, "They are all cleared and assigned to ships. I put 50 assigned to construction and defense on the centipede. We just have to get them docked. We could set it to orbit near this outer gas giant.

The MIDGE's from the asteroid belt can bring in the titanium ore and Vironidite for creating the ship alloy. Alloy needed for the frame and the hull. I took some Penan weapon designs and morphed them into designs for other weapons to give them more power. Something new that humans have not seen or have on record."

Jassin grabbed the pad and looked over the numbers, "This should do some serious damage. Then again, most of these human designs can do serious damage."

Aurora nodded, "Yes but this design is not as damaging as one weapon that is restricted to Home Guard and the Military. It is a few hundred times more powerful than this weapon.

This is a step to creating a vastly superior version without using their design. They have a rail gun that can shoot through a ship from end to end and blow the nose through the power cores. The big difference is in the ammo.

We use your plasma cells encased in a magnetic containment field with your plasma charges inside of it. When it explodes it does not push the front through it literally eats the front of the ship off and all along the hole it makes. We make a more powerful version and it would be that much more deadly when we figure out how to increase the velocity."

Rocan looked over, "How did you get this design?"

Aurora smiled, "By being mischievous. I have the expired patent library available to me. While still technically a Terran AI they had no reason to stop me from downloading it. Now I will only release certain parts of it for now until they agree to my terms. I have it secured in a restricted area; not on this battleship.

Now that we have all of the ladies here let us go over the medical results. They are all running at 27-42% irradiated with that poison. Freia you are 42%. They have all undergone there first treatment. You will have to have 2-4 more to clear your systems of it. I want to take Rocan down to medical and withdraw some blood from him.

By injecting it into you ladies you will not be hybrids but it will kick in some significant changes and help to repair your bodies and make you all look like you are in your early 20's and in great shape. This will hopefully fix any fertility issues. This is of course voluntary."

Parsa looked at her, "What was this about becoming hybrids?"

Rocan sighed, "I was told to take that slow, but in order to make you hybrids I would have to do to you what was done to me. Cutting off a hand or foot and replacing it with one of mine. I can only do the hand they replaced and my two feet. I can only do this once, at least without some undisclosed risk.

I am allowed to make three. I have five of you here and the other two of you could be made hybrids later after the meeting if that is something decided. One of the reasons for the comm blackout. I have to get to a meeting location with Hybrids only in the system we're going too. We will be years ahead on that aspect but behind in a lot of training."

Aurora jumped in, "This would increase your mental acuity (MA) or what humans call your IQ. By 10-20% in general. If you are rated a genius already you would be a phenomenal genius afterward. There are other requirements. The sword. The idea in the questionnaire had a purpose. Two of you answered you were not really interested in swords.

To be a hybrid you have to become a master with a sword. Be working toward it constantly to become one with it. Rocan lucked out as he was already a master with his style of sword. The downside is you would be judged just like Rocan as being different and not totally Penan. You would also gain mental abilities.

Telekinesis, the ability to move things with your mind, and telepathy. Some gain empathy if they are talented telepaths. You would be able to communicate wordlessly with another telepath but not a mundane. I should caveat that by saying hybrid telepaths have been able to send memories and images to non-telepaths of events that have happened.

That has been used in several court cases to submit evidence where recordings could not be retrieved. If you became hybrids and choose to do so, you could get outfitted with a communication implant.

It would allow you to communicate with me through your telepathy. I could also record all of those conversations so it a big commitment. I can hear and record all of Rocan's conversations so if you were talking with him, I could hear and record all of it.

From what I have seen all get at least a small amount of telepathy and telekinesis but they usually only master one. It was later made known that Jack, the first human hybrid was talented in all three disciplines. They had a system that went to tier 10. Officially, Jack became a 10 in all three disciplines, made known after his death. In actuality, he was tier 15 in all three disciplines. Release almost a thousand years later. He had an IQ of 242. That is like having an MA of 300 in your society."

They all held their mouths open in shock. "When I say it would increase your intelligence that is not a joke. Three of you have MA's in the 210 to 230 range. One is a surprise because she is an underachiever. The other two are at 237. We will work to correct that won't we Freia?"

She rolled her eyes, "I just never found anything that drove me to use all of that brainpower. I have coasted by even when I knew the answers to some tests that would have sent me to more advanced schooling."

Aurora nodded, "We have a complete educational program in engineering and astrophysics that you will be listening to while you sleep. Everyone will have their own programs that I will kick start for you as you fall asleep in your rooms. It will be a few days before you can have social interactions with Jack. A result of your level of poisoning. Do not want him getting cross-contaminated.

He has had a whole series of educational programs to listen to. From command structures, special combat tactics, and every field you are all covering. We will find out how much of it he retains when working with all of you. I can feed him more because of the mental implant. I can send it to him at a faster rate every night as I have been for the last few nights."

Rocan looked shocked, "That explains some of the weird dreams I have been having. Why did you not tell me?"

Aurora shrugged, "Being whimsical?! Seriously, I wanted to know if you noticed it because I could speed up or slow down the feed for you and wanted to get a baseline from you. That brings us to bridge duty. Everyone will learn piloting navigation, tactical, and engineering stations on the bridge."

Rocan sighed, "Why?"

She looked around, "You talked about dividing them off into groups to do advanced sector searches. If they are going to be captains of AI battleships then they are all going to have to know how they work. From aft to stern. That is front to back. Learning some human jargon will not kill you either. It will help in coordinating attacks especially if your body is turned and not facing the front of the ship."

He sighed, "We should not be going into battle."

She recalled the message she found on the former governor attempting to contact Frenor. Not that the Frenor would know how to get to the system. She did not know if they responded but it could lead to a confrontation. She was glad Victoria was here if that was the case.

Aurora nodded, "Yes the likelihood of an attack is in the Pena system but what happens if we arrive and find an intruder in this new system?"

He sat back, "Why would they be there?"

She shook her head, "Holding a system hostage that you want to move into in order to get rights or complete control over the Pena system that is poisoning everyone? It has a 75% probability of occurring while we are in the system according to my battleship sub-routines for calculating probability." She knew that was with the Frenor potential involvement.

Victoria spoke up, "Human hybrids live 200-275 years, except for the Eternal Council. The eldest one on the human side was 1,432 years. She was tired and quit. To quit being a hybrid is asking to be killed. She did this in a full council meeting.

With her husband of 754 years quit as well. Beheading is the fastest way, driving blades in from the front and back into both hearts have been done on some. Some have funeral rights they wish to observe. Those two chose the second method as they sat in a loving embrace.

Done by there replacements or the head of their blade color line if not the leader of that line. Killing them both at the same time while they kissed each other. They died together in the council chamber. Jack, the first human hybrid lived 875 years. All that time takes a toll."

Rocan looked over at the ladies, "I saw the images of his death in that last meeting. His spirit to go on was shattered. He lost 4 wives in a suicide bomber attack. He took revenge and then judged himself and killed himself aboard his own ship in engineering."

Aurora looked at him, "The first six, two of each color, become eternal. At the time of his death, those 4 were his wives who were on the council. His mates. He had three others who were hybrids and married a few more every 200 to 250 years after the others died. That took a toll on him. Losing the last of his non-eternal wives and then all of his eternal wives broke him. Officially he had 23 wives. 24 if you count Astra in that mix. He truly loved her.

She died and was sent into a back-up unit and has carried his legacy forward for 5,000 years. She is an icon to all AI units. She is always the mate to the head of the council. Including two women who have held that role. The senior justice in the council. Like I am with Rocan. I have been set in a similar role to aid him.

Which is why I am talking with all of you. Sword training begins in the morning for all of you. You have to be able to defend yourself even if you choose not to master the weapon."

Freia looked over, "I put down that I am not into swords but that is only partially true. I have a favorite sword but my father thought they were more of a gimmick. They are a cross between a police baton but with sword blades instead.

I was really good with them but my father did not like me kicking his ass with them. He called them freak weapons. That was 6 years ago. Since then I have not touched a blade."

Aurora looked at her, "Get me a sketch for it and I will get it into the fabricator."

Frei nodded, "For both of them, it is two-weapon fighting."

Gia looked at him, "Mating with you I am alright with, I want to see what this blood does. I will not touch a sword. I am a pacifist."

Aurora looked at her, "There are sword styles that are strictly for defense, blocking and disarming your opponent. We can teach you that, but you have to be able to defend yourself."

Gia frowned at her, "I will see what you can demonstrate with others before agreeing to it myself. I am still not in favor of swords."

Aurora smiled, "A Blue blade."

She looked over "What?"

She sighed, "There are three colors associated with the blades. Violet represents justices. Most doctor types and mentally geared toward the defensive aspect. They usually become blue blades, some exceptions. A blue blade represents the shield.

The protective force of the sword to defend the defenseless and keep evil at bay. The red blades are those who rush in, the adrenalin junkies. Those who crave the excitement. The ones who seek vengeance for the attack. Justices help to keep them all in balance. Who wants to be the first to try an injection of blood?"

Parsa raised a hand, "I am missing ovaries. I want to see if fixes that."

Gia shook her head, "I want to see how this works first and how it changes you. I am the lead doctor aboard. I should have a say over this matter."

Aurora threw an image upon the wall and they watched it course through a doctor over 5,000 years ago. "One of Jack's first wives. She became a hybrid later but she was a doctor and xenobiologist like you. She volunteered to be the first to try it."

She looked at the images, "What did it do to the muscles, lungs, and heart!? Or should I say hearts."

Aurora smiled, "Strengthened them, made it so they were stronger and faster. Two hearts and a smaller more efficient lung are common. Two hearts seem to be a standard across many hybrid species. When you become a hybrid you get to look like this." She threw up an image of Rocan on the wall. They looked at, "What did it do to the bones? Also, his brain?"

Aurora smiled, "It encased them to provide additional protection. That plate over his right side of the head infused into his brain and added additional cross-sections for faster communication between the two halves of the brain. That is a part of what increases your intelligence and hand-eye coordination. Do you notice the off-hand muscles are different? He is at 40% but the extra went into his arm strength.

The other option on humans is a second plate over the head. Used by those who fight one-handed and give more mental abilities instead. A slight increase if you will. It also adds another layer of protection to your brain. Jack's medical records recorded getting shot in the head once and the plate helped to deflect the bullet."

She looked over, "Your kidding?"

She threw Jack's images up after he had gotten shot and she sat there and watched everything heal upon the scan. She shook her head, "Alright as this has been done on a distant relative of our species, I will withdraw my objections of holding off but I want to monitor this changeover."

Victoria looked over, "This is a permanent change to your DNA all of your children will have 20% Drakor DNA even though you are not hybrids. I went with two plates. My IQ was 203 before this and part of that was because I am the daughter of two hybrids.