Aurora, Wayward Pt. 04

The congresswoman smiled and ended the call.

15 minutes later she was at the podium. "We have Sentinels who are protecting this system versus alien threats. We have no means of restricting their activity. Like the brief security lockdown that Aurora used to prove a point about our computer security. In addition to our physical security that I went and fact-checked.

It is not what I told her and Rocan whom I spoke with. I called it an extreme example. After going to the area in question and confirming exactly what she said the example was quite plausible. It would be something the Home Guard would do to protect the Pena people; to protect Congress. Their method of doing it would be in line with their Home Guard Treaty.

But would cause havoc for our courts. From discovering the threat, getting a warrant, surveillance teams, trying to figure out who all the players in the activity might be, and so on. They would act when time is of the essence and they have detected the problem.

It would break our laws because of warrants and such. It would be in line with their laws and the imperative to protect the Penan people. Especially when time is critical and asking for permission might take time. The time they need, in order to act would be taken away from them. Resulting in significant loss of life.

The treaty also defines the Non-Penan Sentient entities, the Sentinels guarding our system. Under Home Guard rules we identify a problem with a Sentinel and the Home Guard would have to investigate the issue and determine the course of action for the given Sentinel or Sentinels involved. I am removing my objection to this treaty as written. I will, as will many of my colleagues, vote to support this change in Penan law."

She left the podium with reporters calling out to her with questions but she would not stop to speak with them. She went to a group of 20 or so congresspeople who represented a block of votes from what he could tell. The gavel came down.

The Chairwoman of the Congress called for the vote to be done verbally. She commented, "Because Aurora can be whimsical at the moment with this colony, she could access our voting system show them all to be a vote in favor of the issue."

Aurora did just that and then put it back the way it was. The chairman sighed, "She must be watching this and she just proved my point."

There were a few chuckles in the crowd. They ran the vote and it passed with a 73% Yes vote. The vote that put them over the threshold of approval came from Congresswoman Rica as the roll call was done by district numbers. Aurora felt she got a few to votes to abstain just so she could cast the deciding vote in the matter. That would be a political game.

Rocan looked over, "Put me through to the Chairwoman's office. He got an aide and saw who was calling. He nodded, "They just passed the vote in regards to the Home Guard Treaty. I would like to say a few words to the congress as a whole."

She contacted the floor and he found himself on the main screen. "First off, I want to thank you in following what our Terran ancestors did in approving this treaty. Second, Aurora. Please remove all computer records you have on this colony except those that are publicly available.

Monitor those of course but you are now recognized in this Colony. As the other Colonies look at this measure I am not going to go and park this ship in orbit. I had colony charters, history to discuss, the future to try and change, and soon I hope to adopt the girl named Lena that I have in protective custody.

I had 9 children in my timeline including two 9-year-old daughters who died in that timeline. I would also like to extend an invitation to the Governor and to congress if they wish to send a delegation. 12 members to this ship from each body, on different days.

I would like to show them around this ship and show them how it differs from a military vessel of this size or any size. My lawyer will be hitting the courts in the next few days and she became the first hybrid in this timeline. She is also a Justice type and she is a known figure in Pena society. Her appearance changes will be noticeable as will the sword she carries at her side.

Her name is Wira Kel and she had a short but surprising tour of this ship's layout on the inside. It is designed to support crews with families. Including classrooms for the children, daycare for when they have to be on shift, and of course a nursery off of the hospital rooms. There are two of them on two separate decks. I thank you for your decision. Also, for allowing me this time to address this distinguished body."

He ended the call and there was an ovation from Congress. He figured it was him giving Aurora the order to purge their colony data and only use publicly available resources and to monitor those.

Aurora looked over, "One down 4 more to go. You got your foothold into the system. The actions you requested are just in the face of the treaty being ratified. I now have 90% less data from that system and fewer things to monitor."

She sighed, "Less whimsical for this system. That was entertaining."

He chuckled. He watched as Congress approved his six colony treaties as one block and one vote. That passed with a 78% majority as those that abstained earlier voted for the colony treaties. Aurora smiled, "If politics were not involved that was the percentage that the treaty would have passed by. All of those abstaining from the vote so she could cast the vote to put us over."

Rocan laughed, "Got to wonder about them sometime. Still, we got it passed and like always, you helped."

He pulled her down and kissed her. Lieutenant Troy looked over, "They have laws on Pena for marriage between two women. Are two Sentinels allowed to marry?"

He smiled, "You know you would be unable to reproduce if you did."

He nodded, "We know and understand the limitations on the Sentinel population given our goal of protecting them and being perceived as a non-threat to them. I should also inform you our first scout has docked with us."

He looked over and Aurora smiled, "The first shipment of the restored hero Sentinels who protected our escape. We asked each personality which role they wished to undertake. We had 14 marines, 4 Sentinel Doctor; who look human, 8 engineering bots, along with 6 maintenance and cleaning bots who chose a light blue skin color for their group.

I heard the next batch might include a few farmer and teacher bots. All in new uniform designs and some in different colors. This will show more crew aboard the ship when your visitors show up."

He nodded, "Get the marines bunked in across from the armories. Have the leader report me and I want to see the service record of this leader."

She smiled and set the requests off and smiled, "Half of them are on deck 5 and the other half are on deck 7 in the guard's room across from both armories. I should also tell you we had 7 Sentinels who are not being restored.

After the battleship destruction which got synced into these units and then our need to use them as diversionary land mines, they put a Do Not Resuscitate order into their files."

Rocan nodded, "Respect their wishes, record their accomplishments, positions, and their ranks if they had one at that time. Then remove them from the archive and respect their wishes. Gone but not forgotten."

Aurora smiled at that. The black metal coating over the bot's exoskeleton showed threw the transparent nature of their faces. He stood at attention Lieutenant Fordor sir, First Marine Regiment." Rocan nodded, "Said you were a battleship pilot on one of the two ships destroyed, and you volunteered to be one of the first to jump off of the centipede to act as a mine against the enemy."

He nodded, "Yes sir."

He modified his records, "Two awards for heroism and promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Pick a new Lieutenant to watch over your current crew. That gives you two sergeants with five privates each. I want crew rotations set up with two in the armory at all times and two sweeping decks for each section.

The group on deck 7 checks that deck and the lower deck. The group on deck 5 the upper decks including this deck. Deck 6 is a restricted area. I want you to check it 3 times a day to see that nothing is out of place. There is a restricted server room with automated turrets further back.

That area is off-limits except to Aurora as it has her patent databases stored within. Check the door but never enter. That is when you are aboard the ship. There will be times where I will be going into less friendly areas.

Hopefully, you have another couple of marine squads available. As you will head my personal Assault team. You have titanium in your exoskeleton?" He shook his head, "No sir."

He looked over, "Want him to get a new body with the alloy covering. In fact, I want that for you and Bora as well. I want Bora's eye color changed to emerald green color. I want to differentiate the two of you more as she stays online as a teacher and a nanny. I want you to learn the skills she's learning as well but I have you up here."

She smiled, "Our frames are already in the alloy with the powder coating. When I did my first upgrade for my backup unit on down. I set them to have that frame to try and ensure survival. Just as Astra has for her frame. As to his frame, I will get a couple of them made up in case you decide on another to do this with."

Rocan nodded, "The four ships we took with us are the 4 that fought in that first battle?"

She shook her head, "No we had 2 of them, the other 2 were the last retrofitted with inertial dampeners for 6x travel. The other 2 were headed for the star with the shuttle to be destroyed. If pursued they were to go into the star, if not abandon the ship and take shuttles to the first colony base and protect the ladies and farmers. If the ladies did not return in a year; choose a shelter and destroy structures with remaining bots and medical technology."

Rocan looked over, "Want the deactivation of the destruct sequence on one of those battleships. I want it decommissioned for the titanium and use it to build alloyed destroyer class ships man able by humans and hybrids. I want to put a hybrid or Penan captain in charge of one ship and a Sentinel in charge of the other ship.

Mixed crews. I want you to run an experiment on Zirtosium. Will the black powder coating slows the toxicity; seal the metal if you will of this stuff. If so, I want to release that patent for home builders and construction crews.

These people have centuries to go. We cannot move them all at once. If the homes here have to remain what can we do to seal off the poison? Run that from the shipyard and here if needed."

She grabbed an arm, "Medical, you and Lena have an appointment today for your second treatment. Freia will be there in case you have an issue with cross-contamination."

He went to medical and got on the table. Lena came in and jumped up onto him and he hugged her, "Been running around busy. I see you got an earpiece."

She nodded, "She is sending study material into my head when I sleep and she can monitor me and my classwork from anywhere. This is a nice way to teach. By the way, I like the new clothes and uniform. I had her show me the model in a red dress in my skin color.

I understood what you meant. I don't think I will like men so much; not you! You are a good man. He and his friends. I don't want to be that girl anymore. I think I am attracted to women to be honest because of that. I trust them more."

He smiled, "Just remember, if you want to be a hybrid like me you will have to follow hybrid law and that has a section on reproduction. Having children. There are methods for a sperm bank but it is better if you find a guy that your kind-of-like and get to know him.

He does not have to be in your life all the time but someone who agrees with having children with you. You are pretty and the image I saw of your mother showed her the same way."

He sent it to her screen.

She sighed, "She was pretty. This is the second time I have seen this photo. The first was when you sent all that info to the Security Services. Enough information to send him away forever. Thank you for sending it to me. I will try to keep an open mind. How did you save me?"

He looked at her, "I used my hand to run a telekinetic shield over your skin. Then did it twice more so it was really thick. That weakened the one around me but I had a tech shield belt and armor. That was why pieces of the black coating on the armor got scuffed up. It took down the shield belt and my part of the telekinetic shields but I kept your part up long enough to get you into my arms and cover your body. Then off to Astra to get you out of there after fixing your hearing; then everything else."

She smiled, "I reminded you of your daughters?"

He sighed, "I was not really allowed to see them. The fact they were mine was known by a few but not the girls. It was that way for most of my children. In the end, the old War Hero could not save them, regardless."

Aurora decided to change the subject. She put forth more candidates. He looked at one, "She is as old as I am."

Aurora nodded, "Military Admiral retired from Riden. Two years older actually. She retired after you exposed the aliens in their midst. She has felt like they were fighting all that time against the wrong enemy.

When the true enemy was among them for thousands of years. She wanted to make a true difference for all of the people and not just Ridan. Sword training, military background in tactical systems and 'modern' warfare. Fleet strategies and such. She was also a trained fighter pilot. She held that certification right up until she retired.

Master level in three different sword styles. She likes the master's blade which is a lot like the human Katana. She won a tournament for her over-40 group just this past week. MA of 232. He pulled her up on comms. She seemed shocked, "After seeing an image of Freia, I thought you liked them young."

He smiled, "Brena Rivar, The Drakor blood will make you look a lot younger. My lawyer is 39."

She sighed, "Blood still en route to here. Should hit the hospitals in the morning. Nice victory in getting it through the Pena Congress. You have over half the system population living there and moving to the outer colonies, finally.

We have a shipload or two coming in every week. Pena took a while to establish their process for letting more colonists leave to allow the outer colonies to grow. They stated they wanted to ensure we had a good foothold; the people could sustain themselves as for food resources and such.

They just worry we will get as populated as Trisan. The five-year war we had with them cost us half our population. You should have Trisan's support in the next couple of days. Every major political decision made on Pena has followed a like manner on Trisan. An inner colony vs outer colony rivalry.

The other two outer colonies were at each other's throats for 3 years killing off about half the population in each of those systems. That should have been a red flag. Three outer colonies getting cut in half over a period of years at the same time!

Hidden actors on our planets since the founding! I was furious. Even more so when one was our Secretary of Defense while another was the Fleet Command Admiral!"

He sent her a video file, "My first alien fight against a superior armed force. We did have numbers those six ships could move faster because no Penans were aboard."

She watched what he did, "You took two-thirds of your guns out of the fight in that formation."

He nodded, "Watch what did they do? They advanced. Now watch."

She saw two of his ships get destroyed and 30 shuttles take off on suicide runs. She watched the smaller military vessels being forced to turn and go after the ones targeting the larger ship. Then she saw the second wave of 6 ships and she stopped the video, "What are those?"

He smiled, "Asteroid miners and gas giant mining rigs. Heavily fortified, and heavily shielded. We took down all of the enemy shields at this point and we had slowly moved closer. Cutting down their response time. She continued to watch and held her hand over her mouth and started laughing, "You had those things just chew through their ships!"

He nodded, "Until they surrendered. I refused of course as they did open fire without declaring war and were in the system for illegal and nefarious reasons. I talked about Aurora having a different code. She saw no justice in it. Victoria who was with us for just such an emergency.

She followed her gut and contacted her father. The Leader of the Human Home Guard. He took their surrender; we took their ships. I have a trove of alien technology we have not had a chance to analyze yet aboard ship."

She smiled, "What gave you the idea?"

He smiled, "Home Guard motto and something Aurora said to me about those MIDGE's could eat through one of our battleships from Drisan. They tried to send bombs to us covertly. The Home Guard Motto is 'We are the Shields until the Swords are needed."

She smiled, "Used the ships as a rotating shield to cut the distance and then deployed the sword to just end them."

He nodded, "Exactly."

She smiled, "That was a clever strategy with no lives lost."

Rocan sighed, "You have to realize the Sentinels are alive. They can live for centuries. We lost several but their minds were stored into an array and their bodies rebuilt. 7 of those who stayed behind, hundreds stayed behind to cover our retreat from that enemy, put DNR orders into their files. If they died again, they did not wish to be brought back. They suffered the most in finishing syncs in the middle of being blown apart."

She nodded, "I will have to adjust my thinking on that subject. We barely have any robotics working in a lab and no functional Sentinels until you arrived."

He nodded, "They were originally Terra AI units that had invaded this system with a colony group. Those ships refused to fire on us because they identified us as human and it was against their code. Their code has been altered some since then. They have a right to protect themselves but deadly force should be a last resort.

The marines we have carry a rifle with a variable power setting to give a second-degree burn to punching a hole through them. Their primary weapon is a pistol that uses sound waves to drive the target back or knock them out cold. They can widen it to do crowd control."

She nodded, "Hand to hand?"

He sighed, "They could kick the crap out of your average street kid and if they drew their laser swords, they could cut your sword to pieces."

She nodded, "Impressive. Good to know they can handle themselves are they easy to identify?"

He saw a patrol passing, "Marines in here behind me. I am on a table undergoing decontamination again from being on the planet, or in this case fucking a certain lawyer for 18 hours straight."

The admiral coughed on what she was drinking, "Why?"

He smiled, "She threw down a challenge to see which one of us would submit first. If I had not already made her a hybrid, she would have given up a lot sooner. She is another Justice though and not a council member.

Let's just say she was barely walking when she left and she sent a message she was only limping some by the time she got into her office. You might be a red blade given your war record and tactics."

She laughed, "I am also aggressive in bed. Born infertile so the rule of 6 was never an option for me. I was not stigmatized for not trying, just recognized as incapable in that area. So, I became very capable in other areas. I have had both male and female lovers over the years but none could go that long in bed."