Chapter 17: All to battle stations!
Areana had just come out of the temporary sleep that had been forced on her so that her body wouldn't be strained as much. Being asleep, her body was more forgiving. According to the computer, it had been subjected to almost 18 times the normal gravity pull of earth. Most of the jet planes, before the supporting forceshielding of her time, would subject their pilots to about 12 times gravity. Amazing, even though the forceshielding held, it reduced the force of the launch by a factor of ten, meaning that if she had pulled this stunt about thirty years ago she would be soup on the back wall of the cockpit.
The old space shuttle would have made the old NASA pilots puke. The entire interior was torn apart, and instead of the seven-crew seats; there was now one seat. One seat with one screen in front of it, and the control stick. The windows had been covered with special plastinum to be a hundred times stronger than the glass that had been present there. They were also charged, which meant that the special light bending shields were brought up (aka the cloaking device) the windows would tint so that the outside world would not see her. Unlike what had been thought when the shields had been first invented, the only thing you couldn't do with them was fire the engines. She could sit here for the next year and not even have been noticed.
But she couldn't do that, she had a mission, and Jedi was depending on her for her support. Her part in the mission, apart from the support role in re-entering the atmosphere, was to be there for surveying the ships, making sure that they hadn't done any real switch ups, and to be here in case Jedi needed to repair. He had told her that it would take a lot of damage for him to resort to that, but there couldn't be any chances taken, too much was at stake.
The engines were on. That was the sign that something hadn't gone right, and that she should wait for him. This was going to be a boring time. After making sure that she would have enough inertia to continue slightly forward, in this case to the moon, she shut down the engines, and turned on the shields. The windows tinted, she was safe.
For now.
"There is severe damage to all defensive systems. That means that the shields and protective outer coating are gone. The drainage was successful though, 90% of the antimatter is now in storage."
"BETH, if I ever try that stunt again, I want to you, er, well, can't think of anything at the moment, but just remind me not to do it, okay?"
"How....can you.....still....be there?" 002 had the look of a person exhausted. Evidently she had put a lot more into that blast then she had back in Vegas.
"Its called absorbing your attack. Before you could even get the shot off, I had already zipped over there, now this was all in BETH's control, since I can't even begin to think that fast, and siphoned off a great deal of the antimatter before you let it go. Oh, and by now you are also beginning to feel the effects of my friends."
"But...........you.........can't..."
"But I just did, don't worry, I'll be back for you when the time has come. BETH, now that we have fuel to get up there, how about we get going?"
"Course set for the Phoenix. Speed will be 0.05 c. If the Phoenix is where it is supposed to be, our arrival will be in two seconds."
"Let's go then!" Jedi's legs folded back and the feet ignited into a burst of flames. On his own, he was going to be going into space. He still remembered that near his eighteenth birthday, how the first private space ship had gone into space, and now, well a person was going to be doing it on their own.
"Black Ghost sir. 002's beacon has gone out. We have also lost track of the 001 prototype."
"Good, that means that they have destroyed each other, and that I won't have to worry about either of them being a thorn in my side anymore!"
"You won't get away with this you know. You can't just destroy every single person on Earth, it just isn't possible." Beneath the floor of the bridge was the brig. There were several people down there, those whom had helped him these many years, others who had been tested on, and a few other types.
"General. The Phoenix is in position to be our radio bridge to the moon. Do you wish to begin the launch sequence?"
"Tell her to get the weapons ready, have the robots there fuel the rockets and open the launch hatches."
Jedi had just reached the lower atmosphere. The air was getting thin here, so he was able to see only a little bit of the blue hint of the earthly glow that he was used to. The Dortde vessels were now looming over him, only a matter of miles away from him. Just within range, if, that is, he chose to fire on them.
"BETH," He thought, since there was no air, the verbal conversations he usually had with her were now having to be done entirely in his mind. A little confusing for him sometimes, since it was difficult to distinguish the voices. "I want you to begin to lock-on and compute the best way to invade the lead ship. I also would like you quietly try to raise the Phoenix and see if she would be so nice as to open up the door. We should stop and tell her what has gone on. It would also give a chance to do a few small repairs if necessary."
"Jedi, that's all well and good, but repairs will be next to impossible. The nanobot count is dangerously low as it is due to the invasion of 002. If you shut down to minimal power for an hour or so, the shields could be repaired to about 50% or so, but I wouldn't bet on it too highly."
"That bad huh? How long would it take to replenish the level of nanobots? What materials would it take to do that?" Jedi knew that he had a big problem on his hands. But he couldn't second-guess himself now, the deed was done, 002, er, Julie would either recover to her old self, or well not. He would have to try to do his best to get those levels back up, if he could that was.
"Well, provided that the right materials were available, and that you were at minimal power, production of nanobots would be 5,000 per minute. We would need about 2 billion of them to be at full readiness, but about half that would give a good repair crew. That would take about 11 hours."
"We don't have that kind of time.... but what else can I do? I can only give two hours to this. That would give about 10 million nanobots, that wouldn't give me a good repair crew, but it would be better than nothing. Maybe I should just repair the shielding and go from there."
"Jedi, good to hear that you are still alive. When I awoke I found the ship guiding itself, I thought the worst might have happened. The doors open and your welcome to come in and keep me company for a while." The voice crackled in his head. There was still some interference, even at this close a vicinity. At least she would still be able to communicate with the base via the laser communications system. You could block radio waves, but light was a whole different story.
"BETH, you heard the girl, take us in."
