The president nodded, “I’ll be releasing information packets in three stages. I don’t want our people overwhelmed and unsure with information overload. Twenty-four hours after each packet is released to the press, I’ll be holding another press briefing to answer any questions you may have. I will not entertain any questions unrelated to the specific packet.

  “The first packet will be released to you all immediately following this meeting. It will have a brief on our new joint world space service, and how it all works. The second packet will be released in a week, it will describe in layman’s terms the various technologies and implications toward our daily lives once we’ve mastered them, which will take time. The third packet a week after that will be a bio of our alien entity partner, as well as the known races in our part of the galaxy, which are six.”

  Carter followed up, “Known alien races, Ms. President?”

  The president nodded, and she ignored the implied question as she called on Carolyn, a reporter from CNN.

  Cassiopeia approved. They knew nothing about the race that had been visiting the humans every few decades. Ignorance bred fear, and it was simply better not to even mention it from her point of view. Even she worried about it out of ignorance. She had no idea if her technology was equal, less than, or more powerful than that unknown race.

  Chances were they were more powerful in technology and knowledge, since that alien race had been visiting Earth thousands of years before the Benzae came out of their caves.

  Carolyn asked, “An alien entity is your partner in this, can it be trusted?”

  Stephanie replied, “She, not it. That will be part of the last packet, I won’t fuel speculation, and we don’t have the time today to cover it all. Suffice it to say I am confident in our partnership.”

  Carolyn followed up, “It seems like you won’t answer any questions, as they’d all relate to one of the three packets.”

  Stephanie nodded, “In further details, yes. Honestly, I expected my generic statement if not my sanity to be questioned. That is the only purpose of this press briefing. To tell you all that we are not alone in the universe and that an amazing future is on the horizon. That’s a big enough thing to wrap all our minds around for a couple of days, before we dig into the details. Jonas?”

  Her lips twitched in amusement.

  Jonas stood up, “I’ll bite. Have you taken leave of your senses, Ms. President.”

  Stephanie laughed, “Fortunately no. Everyone take a deep breath and don’t panic,” and waved at Cassiopeia as she stepped back.

  She walked over to the microphone, and gradually in transition activated a holographic simulation throughout the room. It was a slow transition, the illusion gradually replacing reality as the walls disappeared and they appeared to be floating in orbit right next to her ship.

  “Good morning, I’m Cassie. I prefer the term extra-terrestrial, as alien has certain negative connotations. What you’re looking at is me, my ship, my home, and my body. Hovering over your planet. This should convince you, as Earth is not capable of this level of holography yet, however I can make you all float if you want.”

  Jonas shook his head in a jerky fashion, “That won’t be necessary. You’re the alien?”

  She grinned, “Yes. A sentient and feeling artificial intelligence, housed on my ship.”

  Jonas said, “One more question, why did you choose to attend this press briefing, over the other eleven that are happening simultaneously?”

  She laughed, “Who says I’m not there too, Jonas? I’m not so limited as to be stuck in one place at a time, just like your computer can run several programs at once. Just… more.”

  She had thirty-eight shards currently, the thirty-seven ships and herself, the shard from the probe. She had eleven other ship shards running a mobile holographic device from their ships to be in twelve places at once. Well, thirty-eight places at once, but twelve press briefings.

  She left it at that, and then stepped back as she had the hologram slowly fade out to return the room to normal. She’d agreed on the release schedule, bite sized morsels of information, and she wasn’t about to jump the gun by taking a lot of questions.

  Stephanie said, “That’s all for today, thanks for coming.”

  They all walked out, and the reporters were all so stunned not one of them screamed out a question or tried to get them back.

  It was a hell of a day. The news was not easily swallowed by the people, but she knew with time it would settle.

  Humans were very adaptable, over time, which was both a strength and a weakness.

  The bridge was familiar in shape and width, but not quite as high, as were the rest of the human areas on the ship. Jessica supposed that made sense, since humans were five and a half to six feet of height on average, while the Benzae were ten to twelve feet of height. This ship had been built for humans from the ground up, including the queen-sized beds in their quarters.

  The large status hologram sat in the middle of six chairs and reached a sitting chest height, so everyone could still see the rest of the crew. The outside of the ships might’ve been different, but any Benzae stepping onto a human ship would note the internal similarities in the setup.

  She suspected it hadn’t been changed simply because it was the best setup for mental health. She’d had talks about that with Cassiopeia before, and in the A.I.s mind mental health and the physical health of the crew trumped every other consideration.

  Jessica was also missing her old crew, though she’d expected as much. They weren’t six people unaffiliated with the military anymore. This was a joint military ship service, and as such military conduct and deportment was expected at all times. She just had to get used to the uniform again. She missed the casual family structure of their time together.

  The uniform and ship suits were white with gold accents. The bottom layer of the ship suit was skintight like the old ones, they had to be. But instead of simple vests covering the torso and down to mid-thigh for a modicum of mystery, the rest of their official uniform included full length pants and a blazer with sleeves. The end result looked a lot like the Navy dress white uniform, just with a skintight suit showing above the blazer’s cut instead of a blouse or shirt.

  It could be worse, and it was just as comfortable, the pressure suit part of things a full body hug, soft, and comfortable no matter what clothes were worn over it.

  At the moment her crew was running through the simulations, with the various A.I.s in her fleet along with the FTL communicators were joining that all together so they could coordinate and work together. All while she watched it happen in her implant. They were coming along.

  Her biggest worry had been how the crew would deal with her and Anton being married, they’d tied the knot after the first month of their four-month vacation. But so far no one had complained or objected, and she suspected the stars on her shoulders had a lot to do with that. Cass had attended, and had promised to get the video to the rest of her old crew in a way that couldn’t be traced.

  The last week she’d practically written the book on skip tactics with Cass’s help, and the bright A.I. had put together a lot of simulations together for it. It’d occurred to her travelling at essentially twice the speed of light meant they could run circles around ships and plasma balls. A light second jump made it ridiculously easy to dodge enemy fire.

  The tactic was limited in that when jumping away it took time to turn the ship around even at those relatively slow speeds to jump back and take another shot of their own at the enemy. It was a tactic to face overwhelming odds. A relatively even exchange it’d be better just to stand and fight. If the ships were moving at any kind of significant speed, the skip drive would be deadly.

  She suspected the Benzae would have the same advantage if it came to shooting when they met. She couldn’t imagine they’d ignored Cass’s advice to look into it. A simple counter to that was to ensure they were mirroring the enemy’s exact course and speed in parallel, so if the enemy used the skip drive to escape then they could skip to their new location immediately.

  She bet Maria would love to be doing that, while trying to dodge plasma balls at the same time.

  Of course, they’d still work on conventional tactics, and had been. If the Earth was ever threatened, or even some outpost. Their military ships were meant to protect those things, and to do that they needed to take the plasma balls out with the countermeasure missile. Or if necessary, take it on their shields rather than let it hit the atmosphere which would be devastating to the planet’s atmosphere.

  Chances were that she’d be on the admiralty board on the planet in five years before anything dangerous happened, but she wasn’t going to depend on Cass’s estimate of five to twenty years depending on how things went with the Mirix Imperium and the Benzae Union. It was a nice dream to think she’d be safely running things on the planet while starting her own family, but she knew a part of her would hate that as well. Ordering their ships into harm’s way, while she was relatively safe at headquarters on the surface would be difficult to swallow, but Jessica losing her chance at having a family at all would utterly destroy her.

  Regardless, life could be random, and they might just show up early.

  Their unknown interstellar visiting race could show up too, almost at any time. Though hidden history suggested they were here twelve years ago, so it should be another eight before they checked up on Earth again. That one worried her, an alien race that had been visiting the Earth for thousands of years. What motivated them to do so? That was the one truth in all this that hadn’t been shared with the entire world, they had no answers, so all it would do would be to cause a panic.

  The backyard had a privacy fence, a duck pond, and an inground pool. It was well landscaped in the upper middle-class neighborhood right outside of Vegas. It was a hot and sunny day, and Cass had dropped in on Carl and Maria who had just gotten married. They were both taking a rare day off, between Carl’s projects and Maria’s business they tended to both be workaholics, and they both played hard when they had the opportunity.

  It’d been four years since their return to Earth.

  “Congratulations.”

  Carl grinned, “Thanks, the latest attempt at a fabricator was a huge jump forward. I think it might even be good enough to build the electronics for the fusion reactor, if nothing else.”

  Maria whapped him in the arm, “She means our marriage, dolt.”

  Carl winked, “Really?”

  Maria rolled her eyes and smiled despite herself as she realized he was joking.

  Cassiopeia giggled, “That was a good step too.”

  Carl sighed, “Yes, I’m already trying to design the next step. A more advanced fabricator that the current one can handle building, and so on. Although, building a working fusion reactor is tempting. It’d only take me slightly off course for about a year, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about money ever again.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Of all the advanced technologies the fusion reactor was probably the easiest to create.

  “You’ll also need it to power the next system you create. Save implants, holograms, and med bays, all the major ship systems need a lot of power.”

  To claim a patent the device had to be built and proven to work, which meant having a fusion reactor was a requirement before almost anything else outside of minor systems that the ship wouldn’t truly need to operate in space anyway. The impulse drive, powerful EM shields, ship wide gravity, subspace fold drive, subspace skip drive, and inertial dampening would all require the greater energy production of a fusion reactor.

  It also meant if he was the first to build a working one, every lab, scientist, and country involved in the bragging and patent competition of building Earth their own ships would have to buy one. They wouldn’t have a choice, if they didn’t then they wouldn’t be able to claim any of the subsequent patents either.

  Even the final version of the fabricators themselves, when made to sufficient materials technological levels, would work better and faster using fusion. A lot of the alloys and components required extremely exact and high temperatures to come out right.

  Outside of all that, it would also revolutionize clean energy production on the planet.

  “How’s the business?”

  Maria smiled, “Really good. Just hired a couple of pilots and I’m in the black for the first time this year. It’s why we waited so long to get married, I can take a little time off now without shutting things down. What’ve you been up to?”

  Cass said, “Designing a new ship for myself, I have been for a while. I’d like to abandon the Benzae ship if I can, completely cut ties with my past. Lately I’ve been taking another look at the old MAC guns. I’ve also been considering particle stream weapons.”

  Carl nodded, “The MAC rounds were a little too slow outside of point-blank range, but they did pack quite a larger punch than the plasma.”

  Cass replied, “That’s what I’ve been looking at. Accelerating them to greater speeds with a next generation magnetic field accelerator, which would yield even more force as well as shorten the travel time. Also, the possibility of adjusting their trajectory after launch, similar to the active impulse field around a plasma ball. The greater mass shouldn’t make a difference. Even if I can’t figure all that out, it might be worth it with the skip drive, since closing to point blank range is now a lot safer and easier.”

  Carl frowned in thought, “There’d be no defense against that if we couldn’t dodge. EM shields certainly aren’t up to blocking it, if you’re talking about speeds above one percent light.”

  Cass nodded, “Closer to ten percent.”

  Carl whistled.

  “Still, a skip drive and active scan, would make it possible to dodge just about anything going less than light speed,” he made a face and turned to Maria, “Sorry.”

  She tilted her head.

  Maria chuckled, and explained to Cass, “We promised no business talk on our vacation and honeymoon, but it’s fine. You two geeking out is relaxing, reminds me of old times.”

  Cass smiled, “Sorry. Just one more thing, that’s why I’m looking into a particle beam. A beam weapon going the near the speed of light should take care of that. Lasers don’t work so well, since the EM shields are too good at deflecting them. A laser is nothing next to the heat and radiation of close solar orbit, after all.”

  That was just true, even at less than ten percent the shields could easily deflect the strongest lasers her creators had ever made. A molecular accelerator might do the trick. It wouldn’t truly be light speed, but so close as to make no difference. A ship detecting it a picosecond or two before it hit wouldn’t give the systems any time to process the information, much less get the crew’s attention so they could react. A thinner than a monomolecular sized beam would also cut through a whole ship like a knife through butter once the shields fell. A sustained beam would cut it in half.

  It would likely make both MAC rounds and the plasma balls obsolete.

  She’d also decided to make the ship a sphere, as it was the most elegant solution. The current earth ships were really hers anyway, so it would match her main ship if the time every came to leave. She knew the ship Carl had designed wasn’t a sphere, so there’d be no confusion or mixing things up for other races that encountered both her and humans in the far future.

  The only greater advantage in the Benzae ship shape was for fast flyby fueling in gas giants. With the skip drive there was no need to take that approach anymore for a quick in and out, so it didn’t matter.

  Maria asked, “Anything new going on with the others?”

  She nodded, “Susan’s pregnant again, and their firstborn is walking now.”

  Katie was just two years old, and a terror to watch over now as she got into everything.

  Everything seemed to be going to plan, and she enjoyed the time spent with her friends. The new ship would likely take time, as she had no plan to build it until she’d improved most of the tactical systems, including those weapons. Even if she couldn’t use them without a crew.

  Chapter Four

  Jessica couldn’t help the yawn that escaped as her implant woke her up early.

  “Status?”

  Cass replied, “Admiral, a Mirix squadron just entered the system, near Mars. Two of the ships have degraded shields, which suggests they’ve been in battle recently. So far they’re just running scans of the system.”

  That woke her up fast. The surge of adrenaline blew the cobwebs out of her head, and she rolled out of bed to get dressed as Anton did the same. So much for another easy ten months before claiming that desk job and family she wanted.

  It seemed to her it was unlikely they were here as part of an expansion effort, or they’d have likely shown up in the system with a patrol group, or maybe even just an escort ship that was scouting, not a full six ship squadron.

  “Inform command.”

  Cass replied, “Done.”

  They moved out and onto the bridge. She’d gotten to know her crew better over the last four years, but it wasn’t easy with the rank difference and formal military discipline.

  On navigation was Lieutenant Melody Andrews, who was a light blue eyed and blonde-haired woman. She was lissomly tall at five foot ten. Lieutenant commander Melissa Young was their operations officer and third in command. She had short dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and an athletic body at five foot seven.

  Lieutenant Jackson Tate was their tactical officer. He was lean and tall at six foot two, with brown hair and eyes. Lieutenant Harry Glendon was their helm officer, and he had black hair, gray eyes, and a medium build at five foot ten.

  “Andrews, status?” she asked as she sat down.

  Melody replied, “They haven’t moved yet, maam. Wait, they just set off toward the sun. It looks like a slight parabolic course, away from the Earth. They’re moving at twenty gravities. If they made any attempt to communicate, we should know it in seven and a half minutes.”

  She looked over at Anton, “Anything from Command?”