Aurora, Wayward Pt. 05

He looked over, "This is classified until we bring on our first Pennan fighter pilots. Those ships are shaped that way and called arrows for a reason. We could launch off in squadrons.

Then impale into a ship's interior, cause decompression, and move section to section in self-sealing EVA suits. As we fought internal security turrets and the occasional shipboard marines. He highlighted one where he got a distinguished flying medal. "We just brought down the shields on the ship and I impaled the bridge of the ship.

Thus, ending its fight against us and allowing it to be captured as I had the others go into the engine room and decompress it. It was their latest battleship design, Drisan during the conflict. We wanted to study it and learn from it. We did and we adapted. It destroyed two of our battleships in the process. Nobody won the day but we did capture one hell of a prize. Now does it make sense why I wanted a Marine in Space Governor?"

The Pena Governor looked back and nodded, "Yes it does. This is a type of force we do not have."

He nodded, "Yet. You will get them. I wanted to talk about the Home Guard Treaties. We are missing one. When we get it, we will work to deliver the five destroyers we promised. The next ship MAY be a battleship class ship of a similar design, just not the same framing as my ship. There will be parts of engineering missing and some of the extra pylons you see will not be there. Those are part of a wormhole drive. Weapons will be slightly better than what we deliver on the destroyer. The reason being is each of your militaries is going to have to learn how to use it. I get my pilots trained for the fighters then I will see that those are the second ships sent out.

Then you can have the arrow design in an era-appropriate configuration in engines, inertial dampeners, and weapons. Your technicians' job is to take what we deliver on the second ship and incorporate it into the smaller destroyer. Find what changed and what was incorporated.

That will give you space fighters that are shielded, and your first two squadrons of fighters. I will then build a space-based fighter carrier. One. Not assigned to any military or the Home Guard.

It will be manned by the Home Guard, Sentinels mostly. It will be kept away from the systems. It will not be deployed without the home guard and all of the governors agreeing to use it on an external threat only.

That is our cross-colony fighter training ground. They will be flying fighters like mine except for the metallic framing because of the shortage of titanium in this system. This school will be outfitted with the newer composite to protect students better than the ones assigned to your systems. I will want the 6 best; drawn from your marine corp sniper units and your fighter pilots, 3 of each!

They will get training in hand to hand, combat tactics, working in cross colony teams. They are not to know why they have been selected for this training, expect it is to head up a new unit using new fighters.

Then I will take the 6 best from that and send them against my fighter in a live-fire exercise. I will have them working without the computer targeting and the sensors telling them where everyone is located. If we are fighting a stealth ship they need to know how to manually target that ship."

The Penan governor looked over, "Why are you doing this for our militaries?"

He smiled, "They are feeding grounds into the Home Guard. Some will be straight out of college and some will be right out of your militaries. We connect you into the net to track a stealth target you should have a means of getting that information to your fighters and new ships to address threats to your worlds if we are out of position or moving a colony. I told Aurora to get us to 30 shipyards out there at full production.

Between farming ships, colony ships, in system transports with faster engines, and military ships for you. I will be expanding the Home Guard fleet. Soon I will stop taking hybrid applications. They will be sent into crew applications. All hybrids would come in from the crews. After they have proven themselves and excelled in ship systems.

Then they will get labeled candidates. We will work on their skills to find out their temperament to try and calculate what type of blade they would be. Our blue blades have to be in balance with our red blades. Purple blades are supposed to be rare 16% in Terra and we are at 45%.

We are at 9 hybrids. Those numbers are based on our Terran ancestors. Red blades are the sword but the shield comes first. Too many red blades and they could overwhelm our own shields. Too many shields and our swords may never deploy. They have to be kept in balance.

The Justices dictate the switch from the shield to the sword in a battle. You might ask about our Sentinels. Their moral codes are hard-wired to where they are justice types. Able to work with anyone willing. That is how I can have a Sentinel captaining a ship. They always run the decision past, is this justice."

Aurora looked over, "The first four farm ships will be coming off the line in days with the dredges and AIs to man them. That was what has taken so long. We have picked locations in your frozen tundra.

Without that metal in the ground. The ice and water are another matter. We will have to run it all through a purification process and then decontaminate the water supply we are pulling. The soil will run through a series of sifting centrifuges to isolate our trace elements of that metal. It is not magnetic so that is not an option.

The dirt going through will be processed over and over again until it is at least 99% cleared of that metal. Then we can look to try and decontaminate that. That will be more hit and miss in the beginning. By the time they finish with these 4, we will have the next 4 waiting for the dredges to relocate to the next harvest site.

This will happen for the next 2 years until Drisan comes out and then we will even the playing field for them. The water purification systems and systems to work your existing crops are en route to Penna.

All transports will be Sentinel driven and scanned for that toxin. Any found and the entire shipment is returned to be processed again. We cannot decontaminate your processing centers as you will constantly be bringing in food with dirt on it. As such everything will have to go through this decontamination process. No food will be harvested from Trisan during this time. We want the planet to recover. The more we dig around the longer it would stay in quarantine.

It is best left under total quarantine except for the listed businesses. It reduces those areas we have to gather from and they can be sealed off; they do not need sunlight and this toxin thrives in sunlight."

Rocan interrupted her, "Have we mapped where the contamination is located?"

She nodded, "Very widespread across the inner colony and then to the north-east, east, and north-west in smaller numbers."

He looked at her, "Our ship shields, Outer layer, Middle layer, and inner layer. The hard shields will block dust and air from flowing into the area. The outer shield could be set to maximum and reduce the light into the area."

She stopped and looked up, "It could reduce the time needed to decontaminate the affected areas, and then we could potentially force them to set up on a new colony site in 5 years. While the old site remains under lockdown. Getting ships out would be problematic."

He shook his head, "We move the facilities after building up enough resources. Take them closer to the extraction sites after decontaminating them or bring in new structures."

She looked over, "New structures. Decontaminating our Sentinels are simple. Then if those businesses are cleared the workers could return to them."

He looked over to Trisan's Governor, "You have too many industries to do this for everything."

She laughed, "You knew what I was going to ask. Rebuild our colony in a new location."

He looked over, "We could put a couple of centipedes in orbit managed by Sentinels but the workers would be Penans. They could build your new structures out of metallic hydrogen. It would be a cleaner environment but still a toxic planet. One of the worse actually. This might balance the health numbers.

The workers should be from all five colonies. With them living in space. This way I do not have every colony to put two centipedes into their orbit. At least until this toxin issue is resolved. We would look at building 3 more for the outer colonies and moving one of them to Pena. So, you each have one."

The Penan governor looked over, "Could you not do this same shield for us?"

He looked over, "Not without killing all of your crops."

She nodded, "We have five years, could the Trisan population just be moved out of the contaminated area?"

He looked over, "We put 5 centipedes in orbit with 40 midges working to stock them with metal' they could work to build a new colony. While the contaminated area is sealed off. We move them from one shielded area to another; set up a mantrap to get through the shields and they get decontaminated at every stage until out of the area."

Aurora nodded, "We would have to have a place for vehicles to be decontaminated to move through. All construction equipment is barred. That will have to be built new. Too much dirt everywhere.

Once a vehicle is decontaminated it is wrapped put on a transport and it will be quicker to get them through than people driving them. We would have to provide shuttle services from one shield point to the next. Unless we took them all into space and decompressed the atmosphere.

We would have to scan and have a hand scanner but we could do all vehicles that way. Pick them up and move them. They might require repairs for any fluids they leave in their vehicle that got frozen in the process."

He sighed, "That is a disaster waiting to happen. We can try this. She already has 4 centipedes working towers; we could make them shield towers. We would scan the planet for anyone outside of the shield areas, pick them up and ensure they have been decontaminated. Then we move them to the new site. If they wish to move further out again that is their choice.

Aurora looked over, "Once these shields go up, we would leave them in place for at least 25 years. Unless we know the toxin is gone."

She sighed and nodded, "Better on our own world than invading another. We could still live under our own rules. You are agreeing to build these two plants for our workers near the extraction site."

He nodded, "You will have to deal with setting up roads from there to the colony site. The new one."

She took notes, "On my list."

He looked over, "That sets the clock on Pena as being quarantined from Trisan for 5 years. You would be responsible for bringing your vehicle to space for decontamination and relocation. Drained of fluids is best."

She nodded, "Got it. Beats total abandonment."

He looked over, "Before you return them to people you might want to spray them down with the black coating to seal the metal."

She made another note, "This will keep a lot of people employed, just working for the government instead of private industry."

He nodded, "Charge them for their facilities you are building on the Centipedes and the MIDGE's resources to help work infrastructure. Five centipedes, five intermixed colony crews. People to learn the hardware. How long for our Colossus with shuttles and fighters?"

She groaned out, "I put another 200 AI units online, we could have it done inside of 3 months."

He nodded, "Then get them to build a fabricator that will fit in one of the large storage boxes."

She looked at him and thought, * You want to take it to Samar with AI's. *

He nodded, "It will take them a while to construct the centipede but then they can build up a few of the destroyers and a battleship out in Samar to provide protection to the survey teams."

He looked over at the governors, "In 6 months, I will need 6 from each colony to work planetary surveys. All will be decontaminated. We can put our marines in place first, and then a couple of ships to defend from space.

One planet at a time. Six areas we have already mapped out on each world as being targets for further exploration. We will be jumping back and forth for days if we get this working. They would be working on the surveys. Expect them to be gone 1-2 years. We will have to build a marine barracks and a medical facility at each site.

They would have to live in tents initially until we can deploy a modular home to each site. We would have to arrange food stores to be delivered every couple of months. That means we need to start building the warning satellites immediately upon return for our ghost planet."

The governor of Gresan looked over, "Ghost planet?"

He nodded, "It is made out of the same material our swords are made from. It is the source of the material. The coating on our shuttle and two fighter craft. We have a means of detecting it so we can put warning satellites into place around it. It has 3x Gresan gravity. Sentinels are the only ones who could spend any time on the planet."

She nodded her understanding, "Any way to get some of that material to try and analyze?"

He looked over at Aurora who opened a small clutch she carried with her. She pulled out the five necklaces and the five syringes of blood. She gave them each a coin made of the material with the logo upon it.

She set one of each in front of each governor. "That is Rocan's blood. Drawn before we left. None of you have taken it as of yet. That is there as an option for you. You could also pass it on to a relative, lover, or work associate who has been wanting to get it. The necklaces he made; like the one around my neck. Mine goes to the Drakor if they want to ask me something privately.

It is their method of being able to talk to an AI or non-telepath. Astra my counterpart has one and now I have one given to me by them. They have been impressed with some of the security measures and my taking on the role of the leader of my race if you will.

The fact I work with a symbiotic relationship with the Hybrids to achieve their goals. If they have a question for me concerning an AI issue in another system, I could give my thoughts on the matter.

Astra, the Terran AI who works there has one as well. She is an AI ambassador and I am an advisor until we graduate the Penan people. Your race fails and so does mine. Those necklaces were crafted by Rocan out of Zero Element. Those coins you can pass along for analysis to your people. Frosted so you could see them and they have our motto on them.

My necklace was done by the Drakor. One for each governor. He is hoping by the next meeting he will have the crystals to put into those so you could contact him directly anywhere, even if he is in the Samar system or exploring another system for us to expand into at some point."

He laughed, "This is where the metaphysical meets the physical. These crystals get attuned to each other through the astral plane. That is what the Terran's call it and it is the method that a wormhole function. A telepath who has visited a world can connect to the location and guide the ship from one point to the other near instantly by driving it through a wormhole generated by the ship."

He thought, * Bring up footage of scout-2. Please get that ship to open a wormhole for them on the big monitor? *

She pointed over, "The ship generates the wormhole. The telepath guides it to its destination." She had it generate one and then shut it down. "Only Sentinels aboard so we cannot send it through. This is what we need more telepaths to accomplish.

One who has been there, others to feed energy into the telepath to make it work, to guide it through. It takes a lot of energy. One person tried to do it without a telepath and they were never heard from again. They tried to fire a probe through and because the probe did not generate the field it broke apart upon impact with the wormhole.

I don't have the specific date of that incident. From the reports, they got it into the astral plane but likely got stuck as they had no way of setting a destination. It is theorized that the plane would crush anything inside of it over time.

It is a means of setting up a corridor, not to hide. Again a theory. It could have connected to another random wormhole and dropped them outside of known space, another theory. Those 2 are the top likely theories, the Drakor have never commented on them, even when asked directly."

Rocan looked over, "Were there other issues you wished to discuss?"

The ladies laughed. The Risan Governor looked over, "Thank you for the necklaces and the samples. I do not know if taking the blood would make me more popular with my people or have them turn against me. I have 4 years left in office. After that, I will seek it out. I know of someone who could use it though so I will take it to them."

He nodded, "The choice is yours."

The Gresan Governor looked over, "You really are from our colony?"

He nodded, "I should be collecting retirement pay from the military in fact."

She laughed at that, "All of those awards."

He nodded, "Mean nothing now. My loss of limbs, all of it. I say that because the Caldar were playing with us like puppets. When I returned from being made a hybrid. I had conducted our species' first FTL flight.

Aurora has to kill 3 sitting Governors and three admirals using the AI battleships they tried to attack us. She had Sentinels on the ground hunt down and kill the last 3. She seized control of them and went hunting.

I was the hybrid but it was her actions then; that freed us from them. It was our actions this time as I directed the activity and exposed them to all of our people. It was still Sentinels behind the guns firing. Sad way to prove a point that you are here to help. They still killed millions if not billions of our people.

I served with Freia's father. He left the service for the mines. We remained good friends and I knew she had a thing for me since she was 16. Then I found out it was since she was 13.

I took her on the mission and she asked for the honor of being made the first volunteer hybrid of our species. Like Wira Kel did for this time frame. Wira saw what she wanted and she came and got it; for 18 hours of sex until she submitted. Her rules. Not mine."

All 5 governors were open-mouthed at that. Aurora reached into her clutch and gave each woman one of the cleaning devices. She then explained how they worked and what they were for. They all stared at the device. "You did all of them. In the ass as well?"

He nodded, "One of the things Drakor blood does is cut the pain receptors in half and turns them into pleasure receptors. It helps with childbirth as well. The secret fantasy of most women. Reduction of pain for those acts."

The governor looked over, "Has anyone ever gotten all pain to stop?"

He sighed, "Yes. One and she is regretting asking that now. We had to demonstrate to her with a sword fight; she was cut across the abdomen. She climaxed from it and charged back into battle. If another hybrid had not stopped her, her guts would have spilled out of her.

She would have just kept climaxing because she can feel no pain in that area at all. She has to retrain her mind that in combat that feeling is a bad thing to feel. She was like Lena, had been molested as a child; she did not face those demons; she tried to hide them away. Now she has to come to grips with that issue.

If you were a masochist and got off on pain one might expect that reaction. But you at least knew it was actually pain. A male hybrid cocks fluid if you will also reduce pain and some of the friction.

Why I could go 18 hours; she stopped to use that 3 times. Her legs, thighs, and pelvis were sore. Not her internals. She walked out at a slow rate and by the time she made it to her office an hour later she was walking with a slight limp.