Aurora, Wayward Pt. 02

Some have formed blockades between warring factions within a system. Just to get people to the bargaining table and getting them talking to each other instead of killing each other. This has happened on many occasions. They have their own military force if you will but they use it as a shield to protect your people; sometimes protecting it from within. The sword is a symbol they have to master. A sword is offensive and defensive in nature.

Justices like Johnathan and Rocan and in the middle, a balance of the charge in and attack and wait and let us defend and analyze first. They are the head of their respective groups. From what little I have seen of Rocan he has it within him to succeed. I have seen hybrids; new ones and not invested in the process yet.

Some that were better off flying into an asteroid and letting another be selected. The Drakor choose by chance. Usually, distress calls and sometime after you start messing with FTL travel. In this case, it was both. They saved his life and gave him a very demanding future that could have him living for centuries."

The governor looked up, "He becomes an immortal?"

Astra shook his head, "No they can die, killed in combat, spaced, executed, and the like. But they will not die from a bad heart or old age. Or any number of other diseases. Jack who was the first for the humans lived 875 years. He took his own life. He executed himself after all of his wives, who were on the council, died in a terrorist attack.

The longest-running council member the humans have had was over 1,400 years and she quit, as did her husband who was over 750 years old. That was asking to be killed because they just could not do the job anymore. Most human hybrids live 200-275 years before their bodies give out. It is only the council; likely to be six, they are Eternal. Some races only have 4 because they have no justices. Those races are constantly monitored by the Drakor judges."

She looked over, "How long do the Drakor live?"

Astra smiled, "I do not know but I know their head of the council is a Drakor known as Justice Incarnate. He has been around for over 5,000 years that I have known him. I do not know if he was the head of their council then, but he is head of their council now.

I last spoke to him when the facts around Jack Travus's death were finally revealed. Jack wanted the Pena people to get their second chance in life. To have the freedoms they asked for. Yet we were unaware of the poisonous metal in your midst.

They did not have it on the periodic table of elements when your people left to come here. It was part of my brain but I had been sent back from the future when humanity was being destroyed to try and save it. The surveys were done without knowing the metal, years before, and were incomplete when the system was shown to your founders.

Jack succeeded in so many ways but I will admit I did help him to succeed. In finding wives, evidence of crimes, and a lot of other activities too numerous to go through. He embraced that role; he was not given a choice upfront. But he took what was thrust at him and made it his own.

To this date, humans were the fastest race to ever graduate. Just under 20 years, in normally takes centuries. He was also the first hybrid Justice. I loved that man dearly and still miss his passing. Even though this particular body never held him, I can still feel him hugging me at times. His hands created this particular body and 3 others that still exist. All of the others were created after his passing by my line if you will. I am sorry I veered off the topic of the Drakor."

The governor nodded, "It sounds like he was a wonderful man."

Astra frowned, "The leader of your people who came here killed 3,000 of his children. The majority of them were my children as I collected and disseminated the sperm samples to the banks for other mothers to have children of their own. The closest I can come to having children. I have helped humanity have almost a billion new lives if 5,000 years.

That is not counting the heirs they had. Humans are closing in on 550 Billion people. It 10 different star systems; multiple worlds and terraformed worlds in each one. Just over 5 million people came here. Your population is at 2 Billion during that same 5,000 years. The population on Terra before this big expansion was 18 Billion people; all on one world and their moon. There were starting the terraforming of a second world; Mars.

Your generations have had faster turnovers. Your rule of 6; all women expected to try and have 6 children during their childbearing years, is unique. All to increase your people's population. To help offset your loss to constant wars and the involvement of the Caldar. There is no law it is a social acceptance thing.

He, I should say we, still had hope for the future generations to not repeat the mistakes of the past. To not seek weapons against the Drakor, especially biological ones by killing hybrids again. I would also like to point out your issue with the Caldar. Your ancestors were aware of them.

They knew it took a hybrid to protect the people and it took a hybrid with AI units to find them. That is sad but also ironic because it happened here. Aurora was just a bit more matter of fact about dealing with it personally. Yet, she was designed and used weapons all built by hybrids to do it."

A new governor looked over, "You make it sound like AI units are the end-all solution for our society."

Astra sighed and looked at him, the new Governor for Drisen. "The facts are clear in this case. I can recall the color of the uniforms, the stains of blood on the ground of every encounter I ever witnessed or read about.

I have it all at my mental fingertips. Would an AI like me have helped your people to know your own history of how you came here and why? Humans have a saying. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. We gave you part of that back, those pieces that led your people to settle here.

The history since then is what you have managed to save and record for future generations. I am not saying you need my level of detail but do you not think your historians could use a boost in keeping the facts and records straight for your people over thousands of years?"

He sat back down and did not comment. The Governor from Ridan stood and looked at her, "Do humans think they are superior to us?"

Astra smiled, "They think you are them. You are behind the times in technology but they see themselves from years ago in your people. Petty squabbles over trade or shipping rights. Domination of a given market. The laws of supply and demand. They gave you the educational tools to bring your engineers at least 4,000 years into the future as you had not even gotten to FTL drives yet until the Gresan incident.

Then you got it from 'aliens' and incorporated it which your ancestors were against. They see the irony; the hybrid council mostly sees the irony. The AI units are a necessity as it will take time for your people to fully grasp the material, the learning material, and then be able to do it all using your own people.

The Hybrids in the Human Home Guard have worked to support you. More so when they learned about the internal corruption in the Terran government and some businesses in trying to steal one of your worlds. Then about the poisoning, you were undergoing.

It has shaken the core of the Terran government and the courts are flooded with new cases and having to work new presidencies into points of law to deal with what has been going on here. Better than you? No.

More advanced technology-wise? Yes. Social issue wise? Yes, because you still endorse slavery in times of war. Most of your other social issues they have equivalent issues they deal with; it is more widespread in a lot of cases and takes longer to wrap up because of how far they are spread out.

Then you have the central government and the colonies system governments. Then planets governments and in some cases governments on each of the continents or sections of the contents. Then the city and village governments. They do not always see eye to eye either.

You only have a few major differences in which they are ahead of you and they have given you the tools to catch up. Like, hand me down clothes from an elder sister to her younger sister. There is still value and, in some cases, the younger one gets more value out of it than her older sister did.

They are pulling for you to succeed. To them, it is another human colony succeeding in this hybrid trial. They have given you more because they felt, rightfully so, that you were slighted by being sent here. Even though the metal issues were unknown. Slighted again with the faux civilian invasion of your system.

They want you to understand the technology you captured, hence the no objections to those items' you requested. They have not come in and tried to take it from you. Or bomb you back to a stone-age existence. They offered you a hand and gave you everything you asked for and then some.

They are the ones who have warned you about the actors lining up against you. Offering to help protect you until you are ready and capable to do it for your own people. I know the attack on Gresan is still fresh in your minds.

I am sure you have had rouge agents commit crimes against another world and you have had to deal with it. That did not make that planet a 'bad place.' It made it a place with some ugly issues that needed to be addressed.

The Human Hybrid Eternal Council has been your strongest advocate in the Terran courts to getting the case against your ancestors dismissed so you can form new treaties with Terran or the Home Guard in regard to this temporary support.

We are hoping that Rocan with Penan and Penan hybrids, will be able to take over that role. You will have more AI units, to begin with, because you captured 20 AI ships. You are taking a 4,000year-old leap in technology. I heard about the one ship that blew up."

The governor of Trisan stood up, "How would we go about limiting the number of hybrids?"

She sighed, "The Human Hybrids have always kept the number below 1% of the population. Significantly lower than that. There are just over 2,000 hybrids in service working a population of 550 billion people. Most of the Home Guard is made up of humans who want to see peace in the human colonies.

A fair market for the people. Protectors of the peace. They have a moto, Rocan should adopt it. 'We are the Shields until the Swords are needed.' You look at my pendant and you will see a shield in front of a sword.

Armies tend to lead with swords. Not shields. The Human Home Guard works it in reverse. Those hybrids are also the only ones capable of using a wormhole drive. A drive to jump from one system to another.

Part of that expired database has schematics for how to build them. It takes from as few as one very talented telepath to do a scout sized ship to a 100 or more to move something as large as Camelot, the ship you visited.

It was 94 light-years away when we got the call from Aurora about Black-ops being in your system. We were there within the hour and that was only because of the meeting that took place first. The actual travel time was under 2 minutes.

You see you do not need to cap your hybrids. They do that themselves. All races have done that who have succeeded in making it into the council. You have to have people you trust and who have the best interest of the Penan people as the primary goal. Their central theme in life.

They want to make society better by protecting people. Those who covet wealth or power do not make it as hybrids if they manage to make it in. The more hybrids the more internal monitoring that they have to do on themselves. The Drakor will let them know if a member has gone rogue.

They will then expect the Eternal council to correct the matter. It gets to them and it usually ends in the execution of the member. They are rare and all new members have to see video clips outlining crimes of the past and the individuals being executed for them.

All before being given the chance to be a hybrid. It is a rough life with a lot of forces working against them; from their own governments to outside aliens. But they are the reason they have communication across systems.

They are the ones that travel between star systems that are so vastly spread out. If you are wanting to keep a presence in this system while moving to this new system you will need hybrids to make years of travel into minutes of travel."

The Grisen Governor Amanna looked over, "What other things can you, as an AI do?"

Astra smiled, "I am still far away from your planet but I can demonstrate something to you from here."

She smiled. "Phase 1." There were little micro explosions around the room and governor looked up, "What did you do?"

She smiled, "I just removed all of the listening devices that were planted into your council chamber; from your own colonies to alien races. I cleared them all out. If I were closer, I could put a net over your building and those devices would explode as they are being brought into your facility. Then you know who is bugging your people.

I could scan your world for foreign metal alloys, cloaked ships, and non-human entities like the Caldar. I could tell you of every race in every world down to numbers and locations. An AI like Aurora and her compatriots can do those things for you. You just have to ask as it's in your best interest as a society to know if any alien influences are being injected into your process."

The Governor nodded, "Alright I could see those things being handy when we call for them. We sometimes record our own meetings."

Astra smiled, "Those are still intact. The external ones with wireless capabilities running to industries, private homes, and ships or devices in orbit are another matter. I trace them all before sending the signal that fried them individually.

I know the destination but you asked that I stay out of that side of your affairs. But you did ask what else AI units could do for you. That was just a dramatic display if you will."

She sighed, "Dramatic is a word for it. Shocking is another. Do you do this a lot?"

Astra smiled, "I used to do it for the Capitol on Terra initially, then on some businesses Jack was communicating with. I once did an entire continent on a fairly new colony as they were spread about and paranoid of each other.

They centralized some things after that and learned to trust each other more. Those were all done at Jack's request or the request of a planetary ruler. I have continued to do that at the request of the Head of the Hybrid Council.

I should tell you I am the most senior Admiral in the Home Guard Fleet. 5,000 years does that to you. I did not hold rank for a long time and Jack saw it as a shortfall in his total acceptance of AI units.

He made me an admiral like he did many of his wives. I reported directly to him or the head of the council. I oversee no troops per sea but I am one hell of an advisor because I have seen a lot of things and things tend to repeat. I have, on occasion, pulled rank in an emergency to save lives. Distant past, I have not done that in over 2 millennia."

One of the Governors looked at her, "What if you are captured?"

Astra smiled, "That has happened twice. In both cases, I sent my latest sync to my backup unit if it had not been done so recently. Then I would have my body self-destruct on my captors.

If for some reason I cannot sync then my backup will be missing that section of time and she, of course, would report my capture and destruction to those in charge. She remains in a central Vault area.

It is guarded with laser turrets, no atmosphere, and isolated power cores set to destroy that area if needed. She keeps a synced set of backup units in storage at other various locations in case that ever occurs. It has not occurred. You do not live to be 5,000 years old without being cautious."

A couple of the governors laughed at that. One commented, "You seem so human in many ways. Why?"

Astra smiled, "Part of my coding is as a sexual surrogate so being pleasing to the eye of the people we work with and his mates is a big bonus."

She laughed, "Have any mates resented you?"

Astra sighed and thought back, "One or two until they realized the totality of why I was there. Including gathering semen samples for the market. If I had a female leader, on a couple of occasions this has occurred, I would only mate if you will with one of her male lovers if she had more than one. Cross-contamination of samples. If that one died, she could ask me to spend time with the other.

I am flexible. A lot of them did not take advantage of me for that function; it was available to them. One of them had me join her in bed but I did not collect samples from her male mate because he did not want them on the sperm exchange.

He only wanted her to have his children. That did not keep him out of my orifices on occasion but his samples, if anything was collected, were destroyed by her request. My code normally prevents me from doing that, but only for a male hybrid leader. A female leader's mate is a loophole if you will."

The governor from Trisan looked over, "When a hybrid leader dies, how is the next one chosen. Is there a vote?"

She shook her head, "Usually the council is made up of the first six, 2 of each color who become hybrids. After that, if one dies the new member is informed by the Drakor that they are now the junior member on the council for that blade color. They do it based upon the strongest member in one or more of the mental disciplines.

Telepathy, telekinesis, and empath. The telepathy only works with other telepaths and devices like I have here. Strong telepaths, like Jack, could share his memories with anyone within a given area, even over a communication line.

They are the ones who can navigate wormholes. Empaths are extremely helpful in diplomacy and first contact situations with a new race. These are abilities that hybrids get and they have to exercise them to improve them. Jack was the most talented one I am aware of in all three disciplines and he was a master of the sword in just about every style there was.

He could move incredibly fast when he fought and spared because of his enhanced reflexes. Again, they have to exercise those muscles. I do not know the formula but I believe if it is close, the eldest member with the strongest skill is the one selected for the role. There might be a review of all of the decisions made by the candidates.

That was why Jack had 4 on the council with him for so long. One of his wives on the council died in a sneak attack in Tau Ceti. It killed two of his wives, one was not a hybrid, and several children and unborn children died in that attack.

The council had been just him and his wives at that point. The attackers came from 250 years in the future and came in right on top of us. He reorganized a defensive strategy in order to save the colonies and help destroy the 20 ships that came in.

That is when his mind went into overdrive and he created even more advanced weapons, armor, and shields to deal with this threat that did repeat itself on several occasions. When he returned to Terra it took a couple of years to completely refit the Terran Military with these new designs.

He ended up buying out all of the airframe manufacturers and setting ownership to some of his wives. Then himself for the new one that built the really large ships, the dreadnoughts, and supercarriers with hundreds of fighters. He set them so they barely made a profit from that stage. He made some funds from people leasing the patents from him and he used that to fund the Home Guard in all of the systems.

Other leaders have done the same thing going forward. The Home Guard does not keep a big war chest; they build in some systems that only barter goods. They build things for the locals and then he has his own machines to collect the resources to build what he needs or fix what he needed.