Astra Pt. 03

He hit a single blast on the aft left thruster to turn the front of the craft out of the crevasse. He waited for the one to come into view from the other side. He waited for the rock as it slowly turned to see the ravager scanning the rock on the other side. He had it in his sight and fired a 10-round burst into the third ravager and blew through his shield and his side with his one working forward gun. Then the spatial charges aboard that craft went off.

---

The Excalibur had better sensors than anything the Tera military might have had. Especially after Jack upgraded them to Astra's amazement. Ash had known this as she flew back. She spotted 4 ravagers lined up waiting for something to pop out of the rocks. Ash left the bridge and went to the shuttle bay. She turned controls over to Sarah. She boarded the Ravager and Ash called up, "Open the doors, or I will shoot my way out, Grace."

Grace growled, "I sure hope you know what you are doing."

Ash smiled as she got her EVA suit on. "I am Vengeance. Vengeance Shall Be Mine."

She launched out of the bay and went wide. She spotted the battleship down the corridor, "Grace you got a battleship heading for you. I am starting an attack run on the other Ravagers."

She punched it up to half remembering what he said and then half again. She adjusted her ship's heading as the framing buckled more. She was plugged into life support at the moment as the ship could not hold an atmosphere after the first round of testing and those holes only expanded. The battleship fired on her but fired behind her when she kicked it to full power.

She approached the first ravager which began to turn toward her when she blasted into his shields and flew toward the next one. She shot out the shields and put 2 rounds through the cockpit windshield. The third and fourth were on her firing into her shields. She had no cabin pressure due to the hull damage from the earlier testing.

She popped the door after setting a collision course and disconnecting from the ship's life support. She set weapons on auto-fire. She flew herself out of the craft using her EVA suit. The 2 ships fired on it until it smashed into the other 2 destroying both of the other craft and her own fucked Ravager. Ash had used her momentum to float close to the side of the first Ravager she had knocked the shields off. It had pursued her and the now destroyed Ravager.

Ash reached out and grabbed the handle and punched a hole in it with her sword depressurizing the cabin. Then used the handle to pop it open. The pilot looked shocked, He went for his gun and she launched her sword at his head like a spear with telekinesis. She went up and pulled the information up on the computer. She found what she wanted to know. They had 'kill orders' for all aboard the Excalibur from the missing Admiral Archer. A coup of some type was underway but appeared to have failed or stalled.

They wanted the admiral back soon. He was on the battleship. They tracked the Nautilus but did not say how. She got into the seat, plugged into life support, and started moving away from the rocks. Just as she saw all the gravel flying out of the field, she punched the engines as they were only 1x drives.

---

Jack got his shields back up but they went down from being bounced around. The hull breached as the roof of the Merlin slammed up into a sharp rock. The rock spun more rapidly now. He plugged his suit into the life support system. Both to recharge and keep him warm as he could not pressurize the shuttle now. He got into the seat and waited until he had passed by the blast site.

He hit the kill switch and shut off his transponder. Lowered the ship from the rock breach and cut the line holding him. He launched out of the crevasse and looked for an opening. He found one as he shot out behind the battleship. He aimed and came in right behind the battleship. He blasted into the shields with the one gun for what felt like 100 rounds with the only working gun.

But it was only 30 or so given the large rocks that took out the battleship's shields had helped. It tried to evade. John rotated around, caught a boulder with the tractor beam, and chucked it into the battleship's engines. Asteroids started closing in on the battleship. Before it closed, he shot back toward the Tera end to put some distance away from the group and further away from the Excalibur.

----

Ash flew away from the rocks and called out, "Astra, I commandeered a different Ravager and am heading away from the rocks. I am not sure they won't catch me first. This ship has shit for engines."

----

The Excalibur had rail gun rounds bounce off the shields. Danyelle took that as hostile intent and fired on the battleship just as the lights went out on the ship. She ripped the nose off the battleship. Astra called out, "I got a fix on Ash. She has a boulder ready to eat her for lunch. You need to turn left 165 degrees and punch it up to maximum. Engaging hard shields for the moment."

---

Jack spun his craft after getting clear and went into low power. He watched the nose get blown off but saw the Excalibur heading away from the disabled battleship in a hurry. He got on comms, "unidentified battleship, surrendered or be destroyed."

Jack heard back, "You just turned tailed and ran. Why should we surrender to you?"

Jack called back, "Because I am not on the Excalibur at the moment. I am on your six about to shoot through your engine compartment."

He checked his shields and they were back at 20%. Jack responded to the silence, "Your funeral."

He went forward 1/5th power and then killed the engines to glide. He looked for any more of those Ravagers.

---

Grace called out, "We are approaching her fast. How do we get her in the shuttle bay?"

Astra laughed nervously, "You don't! Fly by and use the tractor beam to snag her to pull her out of the way. She needs to drop shields. I am dropping the hard shields and going to standard shields."

Ash responded. "Got it shields down bracing for impact."

Sprits took aim with the tractor beam and fired it and grabbed it roughly. She called out, "Kill your engines, Ash. We don't want to tear you apart." Ash threw them to stop. She slammed her head into the side window and was out cold as the Excalibur traveled at 2x speeds currently. Sprits looked, "Sensors say they are seeing her but she is not talking to us. I think she is passed out."

Aiko nodded, "I cannot connect with her mentally. Carol, get an Eva suite on. You can take me out to her and I can fly it back into the bay."

She nodded and they both went to the shuttle bay. They got in EVA suits and got into her Red Mouser. "Ready to launch."

They picked up and zoomed out as they headed to the craft. Sprits called out, "RELEASING! Before you fly into that beam!"

Carol yelled back, "Sorry I did not see it."

Aiko smiled, "I did. Hybrid eyes."

They circled and opened the canopy. Aiko flew out and got to the open door and entered the craft, "She is out cold but fine. Powering up."

They both turned and made the short flight into the Excalibur shuttle bay and landed side by side. Aiko's was rougher as she was not familiar with flying that ship. She looked at the craft, "Black ops. What are they doing attacking us?"

Grace growled, "We are going to find out!"

---

A banged-up Ravager came out, "There is nothing behind you." John unloaded on the ravager and sent it to a thousand pieces, "That was because I was behind your now destroyed Ravager."

Jack put a dozen shots into an engine housing until there was an explosion of the atmosphere being released from the engine room. He called out, "That ends your engineering department. You will be frozen in no time."

He heard a voice, "We surrender."

Jack called back, "Who are you and why did you attack me and my crew?"

The guy responded, "Orders."

Jack asked, "From whom?"

He laughed, "The President."

Jack started shooting again and blew out another engine, "Want to try again? You got 2 engines left."

Another guy growled, "You know who."

Jack smiled, "Admiral Archer! Is that you? I guess we found the hole you were hiding within."

He growled, "You've won nothing here. If you kill me, you will spoil your reputation. I live and my men will free me."

Jack laughed, "The dead ones in the rocks? Merlin to Excalibur." He heard a sigh from Sprits, "Jack, you had us worried."

Jack nodded, "Fly under that battleship inverted and use the tractor beam and pull them back up the corridor. I know the Admiral is an idiot. Was the captain stupid enough to follow him?"

He heard a man sigh, "Apparently I am. He said with you dead he could make the military great again and get rid of this weak President who follows aliens."

Jack nodded, "You're Xenophobic, correct?"

The man sighed, "Never met an alien I did not want to kill. Then again I never met one until you."

Jack laughed into the comms, "I am human, I just have some alien DNA. As far as making the military great again, we are working on that. We are going to do that. Not load the Admiral's pockets with money. He could give a shit about any of you. How long until you can get life support operational?"

The guy hissed, out, "You killed everyone in engineering. Probably a week without help."

Jack nodded, "You got a week's head start we will pull you clear of the asteroids. Then I will destroy all of your guns. At which point we are going to go back to engine testing."

The guy yelled, "We will be dead before then."

Jack sighed, "You were dead as soon as you followed Admiral Archer's order and turned your back on the lawful government! It's called mutiny and is punishable by death. Get your repair crews working. You can reroute power by pulling the power core from central guns and rail guns. They consume a lot of power. Those cores will keep you alive while you attempt to effect repairs. I know those ships better than you do apparently. Did he forget to tell you I was an engineer on military vessels?

I know you got a crew in EVA suits already trying to get to engineering. I know you did not have all of your engineers in engineering. You have multiple shifts for them. You got enough time to get your life support on, but you won't outrun us or outgun us. Astra, please be sure to put 6 locator beacons around the ship once it is clear of the asteroids up there."

Astra laughed, "I already placed 12."

Jack went up and shot out the barrels on the rail guns, all of the cannons, then the missile launcher below the ship, and lastly, he went to find the hangar bay doors.

Jack smiled, "I am blowing off your Hager bay doors in 30 seconds. Then all of the craft in the bay. No reason for you to get any idea that an escape craft is going to work to get the Admiral to safety. He is now dependant upon you to live."

He gave it a minute before punching the doors in. Then he shot up all the remaining craft in the bay. "Now to the asshole captain who followed the shit for brains Admiral, you have a pleasant week."

Jack went back to the ship and docked. He looked at the ravager, "Ravager, what a black body you have."

Ash looked at him, "I kind of crashed ours and got us this one."

Jack nodded, "Get working everyone. Astra, we need to find those asteroids all over again."

---

They spent the next 14 days repairing Merlin, the Mining rig, and getting the materials together to complete the reinforcements. Every few days the ravager went over to check on the status of the battleship, Ash handled that check. They had lights but still lacked engines after 2 weeks. Jack and his crew got the engines out and mounted them into the Excalibur.

Mounted the second set for a Ravager into the captured ship. Mounted the support bracing. Then he replaced the sensors, inertial dampeners, retro thruster, power couplers, power relays, power cores, and heatsinks. Jack pulled Merlin's 2 weapons and scanned the one in and fabricated an exact replacement and put it back into Merlin. He looked at Astra, "Just putting it back the way it was. Not for production."

Astra nodded, "I know. I know you are working on scaled-down versions as well for production while keeping the advantage to me for guarding the repository. I appreciate that, truly."

Jack went through the shields on the ships and asked Astra, "Are the shields, regular shields, more powerful than those in this era. If so, by what factor?" She looked at him, "They are by a factor of 16."

He nodded, "Then I can increase their effectiveness. By downgrading the design to 25%. What of the weapons. They are from your era. I never saw anything like some of them."

She nodded, "Significantly more powerful."

Jack looked at Astra, "Compared to the shields."

She sighed, "4 times more powerful than the shields." He nodded, "I need to just cut them down to 10-15% effectiveness."

He went and tested the ravager with the reinforced hull and the new tech. The ship held together. They found minor stress fractures but they could be repaired for now and reinforced separately, for this one ship. It would need a whole new design for the future of the Military fleet. He then used it to test the FLT drive and punched it out the gate. It functioned as expected.

He went back and designed the baffles for the air engines and then went through and modified the schematics he would file to include the greatly reduced air engines to keep them in check without the baffles. He knew baffles could be removed or modified. Then there would be atmospheric fires.

He had to remove the risk upfront and give the warnings to James Treven Senior. They had what they needed. He worked the new shields on the ship and checked out the Excalibur for both the in-system and FTL drives. They headed back to the corridor and could make out the rear of the battleship's 2 remaining engines moving at half 1x speed.

They got past the debris, "Astra, what happens if we use the FTL drive here?"

Astra looked at him, "There is no gravity well but this passage would become...I see what you are saying. Ten seconds only." He nodded, "Pitch up angle 20 degrees. Forward at full." Ten seconds in, "Level us off. Then punch the FLT for 10 seconds."

Ash smiled, "Engaging FLT."

They shot past the battleship and it got pulled end over end from the drive's inverted wake. Then it was slammed by several asteroids before going dark again. They dropped out, "15 days out here 4 to get back with Tera moving toward us."

They spend 2 days fucking around and celebrating. Jack had parts running on the fabricators to do Excalibur upgrades that Sprits and Aiko would perform. Jack was dressed in his office and brought up his messages and sent out all the responses he had queued and then pulled in the new messages. He had one from the President and he went to respond.

The operator smiled, "Good! You are alive. The President will be with you in a moment."

Not 2 minutes later and President Grendal smiled, "You missed a failed military coup from your friend Admiral Archer."

Jack shook his head, "He destroyed my Ravager, my people commandeered one of his black-op ravagers. We retrofitted it so we could complete our testing. Once we put on our demonstrations, we will return it to its normal configuration and work to return it to your military. It is a crap design for what I need it to do. It will do us no good going forward. When I arrive, I would like to get together with your air-frame designers. I will send a file with a new scout ship design for my use once the patents are in place. I am going to build it. They will be suitably upset."

President Grendal laughed, "What happened?"

Jack chuckled, "10x speed my ass! Stress fractures, broken supports, and plating buckling. It formed hull breaches you could stick your arms through or as Ash said, she could have crawled through one of them. Could not take the stress. Who builds your inertial dampeners for your fleet?"

President Grendal looked it up, "Brima Electronics why?" Jack pulled up the information, "I do not plan to sell the new ones to them. They are six months out from a major scandal that will bring down most of their board. They will get bought by Driskal Electronics. I will sell the patents to them. Your sensors?"

He looked it up, "Pratson Scanners."

Jack nodded, "We will work with them on sensor changes. Weapons I am still going over but I spent enough time on the outer rim being shot at by Black-op Ships and having to restart some testing because of them. If I were in one of your ships, I would be 10 days out."

President Grendal laughed, "So you will be here in 5."

Jack shook his head, "In 2 days."

President Grendal sat back, "That is a major jump forward!"

Jack nodded, "Yes, can you secure this call?" He went secure, "Just myself and my wives."

Jack laughed, "I know how that goes. I wanted to tell you we did some investigating. When we questioned Astra about who was leading the failed Tau Ceti mission and when it would occur, she had holes in her memory. We knew with all the other data like that, we had to investigate. We had her disassemble the backup server to her computer core and found the direction given to us and the last ship that went through."

President Grendal nodded, "What did you find out?"

Jack looked at him, "That AI was ordered to self-destruct once it reached Tau Ceti. Assassinate me and self-destruct. Once the file was opened. We removed it from the backup which we had offline and then off of the primary system before reattaching the backup. While I ran a tracer program and found the process which would restore the file. In short, that direction no longer exists.

There was no failed trip by terraforms to Tau Ceti. That was a lie told to us. It was more than a message. It was a copy of the AI who ordered the ship launch. The Excalibur was launched based on a contingency order. They launched after humanity was wiped out and they were only attacked by the Drakor. There were probably pockets still left, a ship here or there they were passively hunting.

We know how to keep them from doing that. The AI had no chance of talking with them being mechanical and digital. The next time we leave we will be gone for at least 5 years as we head to Tau Ceti on a scouting and reconnaissance mission. It will take just under 2.5 years to get to Tau Ceti."

President Grendal looked at Jack, "They say 12 years to get there."

Jack nodded, "With the FLT drives you are using. Not the new ones. When we get back, we will blow the skirt up again. I have a single-seater rocket with one of the new drives and a small inertial dampener to augment the flight suit. A two-seater called Red Mouser belonging to Carol with an inertial dampener and a flight suit as a precaution we added. It did not have either before. Merlin with some new toys. The Black-op Ravager with an upgraded inertial dampener and a heavily reinforced frame.

Followed by the Excalibur flying through at 5x your normal speed. We increase sensor ranges on the one and two-seater. Range and fidelity for the rest. We had to build new inertial dampeners for the Excalibur even. We are running at what would normally be 465% on the Excalibur so 930% more powerful than your battleships on down with the ID devices; especially for FTL. Every ship that is refitted will have to have a structural frame reinforcement. We had to reinforce the frame on everything except Merlin and the Excalibur.

I have modeling and simulation data. The video data for the Ravager, as well as the blueprints and what they need to do to apply the fixes to the existing fleet. I would like to get a meeting together with the airframe manufacturers, the engine and power core builders, and the shield manufacturer--the one I want. Also, the electronics experts for a talk on recalibrations of sensors and shields. Who do you have doing the last one these days?"