Part 17 Invictus
Synopsis: Jason has consolidated his expanding collective and has sealed his control, but he is faced with the prospects of preparing for a final conflict with Tyco. In the meantime, he has to find ways to accommodate his ever-growing army.
Chapter No.160. Novus
No rest for the weary.
We now have three Intrepid class spherical vessels and twenty-five Explorer types plus the Scath, Myst and Robo ships in our fleet. We have the Helios Station and a Dyson world to house our growing collective. At this point in time we have well over two million androids in our army against Tyco. My priority is the construction of more spherical Intrepid vessels that resemble Borg spheres.
But I have the feeling that my crew is beginning to think that I am not paying attention to them, so I decided to go to the Black Hole bar on the agricultural deck of Entrepd-1. I hadn't been there in quite some time.
I was greeted by Jessica, the leader of the barmaids. She was attired in mesh bra and panty lingerie with stockings held up by thin but bright pink garter straps. Margaret had designed these outfits to entertain us males. However, she had to readjust them to accommodate the fact that these barmaid androids had been physically enhanced to match the new hair-color android types.
When I walked into the bar, my buddies were happy to see me.
"Hey, look what the cat just dragged in," Barney said, grinning.
"Long time, no see," Marty said.
Alex, George, Vince, and Jean-Michele joined in their teasing laughter.
"Yeah, I know I haven't been down here of late, but I'm here now."
Harriet, one of the barmaids, served me a beer, and I thanked her.
I took a sip. "I heard that Helen is pregnant. Who's the lucky father to be?"
Barney raised his hand. "Looks like I'm the culprit."
They laughed.
"Actually, I feel honored to have been chosen." He lowered his eyes. "What's so strange about it is that although it was a pleasurable experience, I really didn't feel as if I had the urge to do it."
"Yes," I said. "We are able to perform with much more stamina than when we were human, but our libidos are not all that fired up."
"In other words, we can get it on but don't feel that we have to," Marty said. "That seems to be contradictory."
"It's the result of being an android," I said. "We were created to service women but not for our own pleasure."
"I suppose this is another punishment we must suffer in this immortal hell," Vince said.
"Think of it this way," I said. "At least we can enjoy it to a certain extent. If we were under Tyco's control, we wouldn't even have that."
"What about the Tyco war?" Barney said. "Are we going to win it?"
"It's coming down to a final conflict," I said. "I don't look forward to it, but I am dedicated to do all that I can to win it."
"I get the feeling that we might lose some of us in this conflict," Vince said.
"Hopefully, it won't come to that," I said. "The only thing we can do for the time being is prepare."
Jessica and two of her barmaids came over to cheer us up.
"You will prevail, Jason," she said. "We have full confidence in your ability to win the war."
"I thank you for that," I said.
The guys raised their beer mugs to express their support and confidence.
When I returned to the command deck, I decided that it was time to take our fleet out to find more of Tyco's discarded androids. "Take us out to a universe that's connected to the last one that we recovered Tyco's androids."
"Do we know if there are any androids there?" Alexa asked.
"We don't, but we need to keep the search up. The more of them we recover the better off we'll be."
After an hour of jumping from universe to universe, we finally entered the universe connected to the last one that we recovered androids. However, universes contain trillions of galaxies, which makes finding a needle in a haystack a much easier task than what we faced. But we had an edge. The Roamers' new shielding technology had a hidden bonus. It has the ability to conduct long range scans for android quantum positronic signals.
After an hour of searching for signals, Molly had a response. "I've detected a sizable amount of quantum signals emanating from a galaxy that's there hundred million light years away."
"Take us there, Judy. Maintain stealth mode when we arrive."
"I wouldn't be surprised if Tyco is enticing us into a trap," Alexa said.
"Yeah, I could see that, but we have to keep trying to find more of his androids if we hope to win this stupid war."
When we arrived at a barred spiral galaxy Judy placed us above the galaxy plane in order for Molly to use her virtual mirror to hunt for habitable planets. However, it didn't take her that long to trace the quantum signals to a planet.
"The signals are coming from a G3 class star system at the edge of the outer arm of this galaxy."
"Take us there, Judy."
We arrived a light year away from the star.
"I'm not detecting any neutron stars or black holes near the star system," Molly said.
"Okay Judy, move us to within a million kilometers of the system."
We arrived at the safe distance from an Earth-like planet orbiting the star in the habitable zone. Everything looked normal, but that was about to change.
"I'm detecting a whole bunch of antimatter missiles coming in at near light speed," Marie said loudly.
I stopped time. "I suppose this is Tyco's welcome call."
"Each of those missiles has an android in them," Margaret said.
I shook my head. "You've got to be kidding me! That bastard did this to present a moral dilemma for us."
"Why can't we transport the androids to our ship?" Marie asked.
"Well, let's see what Tyco has done to keep us from such a simple solution," I said sarcastically.
"They're probably loaded with explosives," Alexa said. "And, I'm sure that we can't just remove the explosives without destroying them."
"I think the antimatter missiles are armed with the androids," Molly said. "They are the explosives."
I rubbed my jaw. "Okay, let's think this through. We can't just make them vanish or remove the explosives. Either action would destroy them. The only way out of this is if we can obtain their personality data and memories."
Alexa smiled. "I think I see where you're headed on this." She turned to Judy. "Can we detect a central core for these androids?"
After a few moments, Judy had a response. "Yes, but we are having trouble penetrating it."
I turned to Alexa. "Let's see if we can break through together."
After combining our thoughts, we managed to penetrate their collective core. We had to use all of our computing power to overcome it."
"We have control of their collective," Judy announced.
"Can we download their data?"
"Yes, Jason. We have commenced a download."
"Let me know when you have all of it."
After several more minutes of our suspended time, Judy nodded.
"Okay, Madison, we're going to start up time. I want you and all of the other ships to target and fire at those missiles as quickly as you can."
She nodded.
I turned to Alexa. "Okay, let's start it up."
The weapon's fire lit up space. Multiple explosions emitted gamma ray bursts that peppered our shields like a hailstone storm. Despite the extreme violence, the battle was over quickly.
"Take us into orbit, Judy. Maintain Red Alert Status."
The planet was far from being habitable. There was little water on a very arid surface. The planet had active tectonic activity with plenty erupting volcanoes.
"Appropriate location for a Tyco trick," I said.
What we saw on the surface reinforced my statement.