Aurora, Wayward Pt. 03

At which point she started breaking down crying again while Rocan held her. All of the ladies were this way it appeared. He lost all of his children, friends, colleagues, and those he looked forward to having some type of future with besides just these five. Six if he counted Aurora.

He was just still in shock by the fact and images from Astra that Aurora played showing the worlds destroyed. It frightened him as much as any of the others. He had started to look forward to solving the social issues to get his people accepted as another race in the Alien Alliance. Now he was working at keeping this fractured society alive long enough for the Drakor to return and see if they had any answers on a way forward.

---

Aurora was online and Borealis asked her, "You will be adding these to me as well?"

She synced with the unit and looked at her back up, "You will get upgraded processing as well. I have to fabricate it all first."

She had seven cores now but six had no internal processes to monitor or interaction to do. They could run all the research she needed to be done and freed her to be her. She took Borealis offline and updated her memory files to show she was getting an upgraded processor as promised. But she removed the extensive list of mods she had done to her own body.

Her backup unit would likely not need it. But if she did, she added it to her archive so she could make the decision in the future, depending on what happened. She started assigning bots to work on the Caterpillar unit in small groups installing various components. Networking them together into the rudimentary design she had in mind.

She had battleships starting to pull the satellites in question and schematics for the communication satellites used by the Home Guard and working up a merged model for a future design. She stopped for a second and considered her actions.

She just took on some of the roles Jack Travus did after losing his wives to that sneak attack; building weapons and defenses. Also, the role of the AI units who built Astra and sent her on her mission. She knew by her course of action she would essentially be playing at being a Goddess if she succeeded. Yet she had a plan for that as well.

---

Terra was in chaos when Johnathan returned as he essentially just killed all of the commerce links being used by all business with other alien nations. He walked into a near militarized zone at the Capitol trying to get back through security took almost an hour and he was expected. He walked into the room with Becca on his heals. This table had the local Ambassadors for many Alien nations in addition to the President.

He looked at a wall and threw the display up. And took it from the point Aurora had given it to him up until the console. He froze it. "The Drakor knew of this alien race but had not seen them in millennia and thought they had been destroyed. They are all AI units without a moral compass. That screen you are looking at was captured in Astra's Quarters aboard Admiral Franklin's battleship.

Immediately after that, Astra shot off her own head as the AI units attempted to hack into her, her model, and the satellite network. She destroyed the satellite by shutting down the shields. She was in communication but not with her backup. She worked hard not to do a sync with her backup. She succeeded with that. She was fighting some type of implanted virus into her to try and break her moral code and disseminate that.

At the moment she and all of her backups are offline. That virus could be sent through our network to any computer and any AI if she had not taken action. He threw up another image of the system as it went to Super Nova. "Many of the ships they brought were destroyed. The Drakor lost a least 100 if not 200 of their largest ships in this fight; not counting thousands of the smaller ones.

They are actively hunting the AI units who escaped. They believe a small group succeeded in getting out. They likely picked up on the resources of this system from our broadcasts of the Alien Alliance Drakor meeting on this system. Their ships fold space, they do not have wormhole drives. Some ships came in inside of planets.

He flashed the image of the moon, "Or in this case, Pena's inhabited moon which took it and Pena straight into there star. Exactly what we warned about! The outer plants may or may not have activated their contingencies. Once that image hit Astra, using her admiral rank, she ordered all ships to 5,000 km above the midline and to jump to FTL in the system immediately! We all know the dangers associated with FTL in a system. She ordered them to head for Incar or use wormhole drives if feasible.

She did not know if her message made it out. Ships on the outer system were saved by the warning of our AI unit and her actions saved every AI in every member race. The analysis showed that a direct access code was on the screen as were the satellites she was relaying her communication through when this attack started.

If, as we suspect by the way she grabbed her head, she was struggling to maintain her control to do it. She immediately blew her head off after she destroyed the satellite and her blowing off her head took out parts of two decks inside Admiral Franklin's ship. Those ships stop outside of the area.

Experiencing communication issues and systems that acted like they had been hit by an EMP. Some ship computers and communication systems had been infected. He took a shuttle from his damaged Battleship to a Dreadnought. Docking rings were offline. The ships were taken cold; all systems brought offline. All memory cored being replaced and then destroyed."

He held up a pad, "We used the Princess AI and full end to end diagnostic to clear Astra's back up as not being infected or any others in her line. She remains offline because if they jump in the system, they will try it again.

Your best bet at communications in the HG bracelets the Home Guard gave all of the leaders. Those will get distributed to various battleship commanders. I will maintain the one for the council, Alien Alliance, and system presidents. Others will be assigned out and they can cross coordinate with us.

Messages can be sent to our ships with wormhole drives and they can transmit on your behalf when they get to the destination. This was a galactic emergency and we had a contingency in place to bring that network down if it was ever needed. All of the satellites we built have had this occur.

Some in Tau Ceti remain because other Home Guards had put them in place. We will contact them and let them know the ones in Terran space will be destroyed to ensure these machines do not get ahold of our systems remotely, easily, and unchallenged."

He got contacted from Brenda, * The alliance is briefed, we gave them 10 minutes to send messages. We detected unusual activity coming in from the Zantar system and terminate the satellite in seconds. We then destroyed the others early. That did not please the Alien Alliance. They are working on getting with their Home Guards. *

He looked over and threw up a galaxy map on the wall and then the Zantar system on the outer edge. "They just tried to use the Zantar system satellites to get into the network! All of them are down in Tau Ceti and the alternate site. We had ships in position to destroy satellites the moment they detected anything unusual.

All of our communication arrays are segregated on every ship we have from any other computer. If they are in the system, they could bypass that. Zantar is likely under attack."

He heard in his head from the Drakor, * They infected the system and fled. They were likely close to this system when they got the transmission. They shifted out as we arrived from hearing your conversation as well as what is left of the Zantra Home Guard. They are down to 12 members who were on planets.

All of their ship's cores went critical. Damaging some of our ships upon arrival. They did not stay to fight. They sent in only 3 ships. They are doing what you call guerrilla warfare. I am working to try and get more assets from the Drakor Home World. This will take time unfortunately as it is quite a distance away.

The ship we sent cannot make that many jumps to get there without taking time for the crew to rest. They relay to another ship in that sector and it takes over passing the word; that is up to the council in that sector to take on that role or our ship has to rest and continue to the next one. We expect a minimum of 30 days before we have a large enough force to work against these tactics. They were unaware of these tactics when they left yesterday; 2 separate scouts on 2 paths.

Destruction of your network was a wise precaution. Now all of the systems are likely known to them. A question came in from Aurora. She asked how a wormhole might affect their folding space. We believe it might trap them in the system if it can be held open long enough and is large enough to be in their field. That would give us time to arrive and deal with the ships in the system. All 3 escaped here before we could respond. *

He looked at the crowd who knew that look. He sighed, "The Drakor confirmed the attack and the destruction of all but 12 members of their Home Guard. All of their ships were destroyed. They only sent 3 ships into that system. They said it could take 30 days to get a large enough force in place to hunt down what remains of this threat.

They fled the system before they could engage. Large wormholes near these enemy ships might trap them in the area long enough for the Drakor to respond. If they attack multiple systems at the same time... The Drakor don't have enough forces in place in this galaxy to address all likely calls for help. We are effectively-known to the enemy now and on our own to deal with it."

The President sat back, "What do we do?"

He sighed, "We put battleships and dreadnoughts into all 10 colony centers. We use scouts as couriers. We shut down all AI units on everything and remove their power cores until this threat is deemed gone. We were unable to defend ourselves from our races' own greed in coveting that system."

He paused and thought before he spoke again, "We keep some in reserve outside of colonies to jump in. A second crew to reopen a wormhole and hope we are one of the lucky ones the Drakor responds too. All power core self-destruct functions should be removed or disabled on every ship. They destroyed all of the ships' power cores in that system.

From the military to the shuttles. We can congregate them; set a honey trap if you will by getting all AI units centrally located as they will want that dammed metal if not the whole AI units for themselves. Dzite is a primary target now. The use of ramming tactics on this enemy is authorized. My recommendations."

She was shocked, "An emergency order to move all AI units to Dzite factory with power cores removed. Leave that in the computers in each colony. One system gets attacked then they will likely try an assault on Dzite after learning of this order. I want the site stripped of this metal and no AI units sent there.

I want you to take the honey out of the honey trap. Setup systems with Princess AI units as you call them. Let them find those. It is the likely next target. I want memory cores removed as well from all AI units. What are you doing with Astra?"

He sighed, "Pulling her power cores and memory cores from those on my ship. Her offline out of system backups are known only to our council and they have all been shut down and powered down. A few have moved. We can recover her at some point we hope. That order should go down to every maintenance bot as well."

She sighed, "People are going to hate this but we are in a de facto state of war at the moment."

He nodded and walked out ignoring the raised hands of the others until he got to the door, "If this is a complaint about what we did I do not want to hear it. If it is a request to go somewhere work through your colony or presidential advisor on getting to one of our scouts. If it is a thank you, we have not won anything we have only minimized and delayed in hopes we can survive it."

He walked out as most hands went down quickly. Becca looked at him, "You know where that system is located."

He nodded. * They're quite a distance away but that did not stop Pena. Dzite is on IO they come in one of our gas giants and that could be spectacularly bad. They come in and hit Terra head-on like that moon in Pena? We got trouble coming. *

She sighed and thought, * Profound Justice. We cannot aid the Pennans but can you make them aware of the threat at all? *

They heard back, * Only if they request an update themselves. Worry about your own people. You have more resources than most and your railguns should have some effect on them; we have no way of knowing. Divide your council. Just in case. *

She contacted Brenda, * You and Doctor in Tau Ceti I will be with Johnathan in Terra, I need the other two council members outside of any of our systems. Between systems as it were. All AI and bots have power cores and memory cores removed. All power cores self destruct functions removed. We are at war. Setup the psi monitoring satellites. They have no tech to connect to on the other end but it will let us monitor our systems. *

She heard Brenda * I will tell the Alliance of our action but not where given council members will be located. *

---

It was a chaotic time for the next few weeks in the Samar system. Aurora put together a couple of housing structures; including one with a medical bay and a few beds. She set up some maintenance bots for farming purposes and turned them over to Jassin, Hira, Gia, and Parsa.

She had both hybrids reinforcing her quarters and a spot on the bridge of every ship. They finished the fighters and shuttle coating for the 2 fighters. She had them building tubes for stuff they did not know about and boxes with small holes for other things that were connected externally.

Rocan final asked her about those. She looked over, "Conduit and casings on some backup systems in case we are attacked and we have to shut down primary systems. See if that blocks them getting to it. Best I can do. We are still in drydock and some of those are going to dry dock defensive systems."

He nodded, "Alright. We will keep making them."

She smiled, "I got to get the bots to assemble things inside those boxes. You think you have it bad."

He chuckled and nodded. He asked, "What is with all of the storage containers?" She sighed, "They are between the Centipedes legs filled with processed materials from the Midges. As we have several projects going, I am keeping them busy stockpiling what we need. It also adds an extra layer of armor to those ships inside being worked upon in case of an attack."

He nodded again and went and found Freia. The other four ladies had started finding comfort in each other arms, having paired off as he suspected. They still wanted attention on occasion and 2 talked of becoming hybrids someday when these issues passed.

Aurora was on comms with the four of them, "That would have to wait until after you deliver before you could address that option again. Extremely high risk given the numbers you are carrying. We need non-hybrids at the moment to have a viable government. If things change, we could address that.

You will likely be mating with one of the other children in just under 19 years to generate more population. He will need to balance the females in the groups going forward. We will see. I need you all back here in two days for the launch of the new ship and to confirm your rooms, medical, science labs and everything else is up to specs before we pull it from space dock."

The four of them nodded while Jassin spoke, "The farming bots are doing their jobs. I have a better understanding of them as does Hira now. The power cores on the colony stationary shuttle and the two-building next to it make it an official colony and recharge station with a medical facility. A couple of armed AI bots are being guards against any wildlife and before you ask 2 hours a day of sword training."

Aurora laughed, "These two are doing 6 hours a day and overseeing everything I have going on top of it. I have sped up there learning programs and forcing them to sleep to gain more knowledge quickly in case we lose all AI units from an attack. Including me. Something to consider. That shuttle has the education stuff going to you and an offline copy of it just in case something happens up here."

She looked over, "I got an alert on something. Give me a minute." She looked at the images and it was a Terran scout in bad shape. She had two battleships move to intercept it. She looked over, "Rocan, we got a damaged Terrain scout ship in the system. It's drifting. Got two battleships in route to intercept. It just jumped in near planet 6 but it is rolling toward us." She contacted the base camp, "You are scrubbed. Get on your shuttle and leave the guards and farmers. We need a doctor here as soon as possible."

She had been slowly moving toward planet 4 for 2 days, to shorten the journey for the organics. Rocan nodded his understanding as he saw the midges were all back and noted there were 24 of them now instead of 20.

He looked at her, "20 MIDGEs were not enough?"

She smiled, "I have 4 added and they have more of the Zero Element. Between the Virdonite, Metallic Hydrogen, and Titanium if I wanted more of that for your future swords and additional safe rooms then I was going to need to have it on hand. The box on the other ships for a single AI to survive is a good example of needing that extra material for an unknown future. Speaking of which we should head to the shuttle bay and get the Humans on board."

He thought out, * Are we allowed to help a Terrain ship in distress? *

He had not tried to talk to the Drakor for a couple of days and he got no response. The 3 of them hurried to the shuttle bay. It was tractored in and they knew it was bad' there were parts of corpses coming out of some holes in the shuttle.

They could not open the door as it had no power. They started pulling bodies out of the holes instead. There were two still alive. One was Victoria the other was someone they had not met. They got the two of them out and up to medical. Rocan noticed the man had a tear in his suit and was not optimistic about his survival chances.

The new medical bay had four beds. In case four went into labor at once. Aurora put Victoria down and stripped off her suit and turned on the core. She was bad off. Aurora started breaking bones and Rocan looked over, "What are you doing?"

She sighed, "She already started to heal. I have to rebreak these bones to align them and get them set. I have the bed doing the work, including the ribs puncturing her right heart and lung.

He looked at the man, "Hybrid, both lungs, and hearts pierced. His brain activity had gone flat within seconds of getting on the table."

He sighed, "She was the only survivor."

She shook her head, "No she has three children in her as well. Feeding her oxygen. She had taken a lover since she left at the very least."

He nodded, "I will layout the dead in the other lab and wait for the doctor. Thanks for taking care of the bones. I had not realized that would be a problem."

She nodded, "All hybrids need to know how to set bones. I will add it to your nighttime reading. Now that shuttle. All computer cores have to be checked with the princess program on a pad. Any of them infected and the shuttle memory cores have to be destroyed."

They both nodded as she was the only one on board; besides the other AI units who could do it. She would do it herself they knew. She hooked it up to the data recorder first.