Chapter 96

"You know I wouldn't miss your party princess," I told her.

"Oh, so I'm just a princess now and not a Queen like Gabby?" she asked, as she put a mock snarl on her face.

"Princesses are always much younger, sexier, and more beautiful than Queens."

"You silver tongued lying bastard. Even though I know you are just slithering around for a way out of trouble I'm going to admit you said the right thing this time," she said, and then reached down to give my dick a gentle squeeze.

"You know who is in my first place Nancy," I told her, with as serious an expression as I could muster.

"Shut up. I believe you already and if you say anymore I'll be crying before the cookout," she told me, and this time wrapped herself around me, delivering a near fatal kissing and hugging.

She left for the outside then without another word. I decided I had bested her on points this time and smiled to myself. I started thinking I might look around to see if I couldn't find someone to fuck on for a quickie. Clair came by just then.

"Did you take a tour of the StarCruiser yet Clair?" I asked.

"Yes, and it made me so horny I was dripping," she said.

"It made you horny?"

"Yes, it made me horny. I could practically feel the power of the AI in that thing. Did you know Scotty, Jim, and Bones were the first AIs to ever have a name?" she asked.

This seeming switch of gears in mid-conversation had me wondering what I'd heard. I almost couldn't answer her, but finally did.

"Yes, I was there when Nancy named Scotty."

"They'd all been numbers before. When you thought up Big LightSpeed Bertha Scotty knew your status would be changing alarmingly after he transmitted the details.

"He told the Aliens you had changed his designation from his former number to Scotty and he told them you had also changed the designations of Jim and Bones. They are now officially Scotty, Jim, and Bones to all the Aliens," she told me.

"I see, what does that have to do with the StarCruiser making you horny?" I asked, curious now and not as ready for a fuck as I had been.

"When I took the tour I was by myself and the AI showed me around personally. He was practically vibrating with pleasure since Scotty had just told him he was to remain in the system as your personal protector from now on.

He was also happy since he would be the first StarCruiser allowed to install the new weapon and Scotty had also had his designation changed from a number to Picard.

He is the first StarCruiser with a name instead of a number. His mental muscle was practically bulging and it got me so hot. Now come into your office and fuck me good right now please."

What could I say? I knew Clair had come to me in the first place because men in power turned her on. I guess when she found out I was now in command of the powerful Picard she needed a little relief. Ever solicitous of the welfare of my troops I took her to my study and did my best.

The cookout was a big success. We ate, drank, played, and sang until after two AM. The next day we didn't do anything but recover and on Sunday all that was missing was a football game. Truthfully, I had never been a pro ball fan anyway.

We all went to work on Monday and I made sure I did my time keeping up with what was going on. I had gotten into the habit of looking into things and it felt normal now.

Jim, Bones, and Scotty were now relieved of any duties except those required for our upkeep. Picard was officially in charge of security now and he even took control over all the other drones which arrived.

Scotty had been dead on about the age of the drones being a big factor and in his reports to me he always let me know when Picard, who had taken over the drone procurement duties, managed to exchange a new drone for one which was much more mature.

Picard was sly about it too. He didn't work his way up slowly. When he managed to arrange an exchange it was always for one of the oldest drones in existence. It didn't matter to him what they were doing or how far away they were.

He was able to manufacture reasons for the exchanges somehow and due to my status he rarely got any opposition to a request, and usually didn't even need a reason. This all went on over two or three years though and I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Picard got the okay and the preliminary design specifications for the first of the weapons about six weeks after he arrived in our system. He let Scotty, Jim, and Bones help him with the manufacture and installation. I went with him on several short forays to test them out on unlivable planets.

We mostly used tiny projectiles to keep from destroying them. He was usually just checking to make sure the fire control software he was using performed as expected. I was surprised it required very little tinkering to be right on the money.

Three months after Picard had done the installation and completed the testing on his new weapons the Aliens requested he go to a system and try them out on the perpetrators of a new attack.

It was thought to be the same bandits which had triggered my inspiration in the first place. They were attacking a planet which was now protected by three drones. Most of the drone protection had been doubled or tripled on the Alien experiments now.

Picard invited me along and I decided to go. Jasmine wouldn't let me rest until I agreed to let her come with me and Brenda, Aimee, Shelly, and Sarah wanted to go too. We only took about an hour to get aboard and within minutes afterward we were out of the system and into another dimension.

The drones under attack had been instructed to provide only enough resistance to hold the attackers in stalemate until Picard could get there to test the new weapon system.

They also provided Picard with all the relevant targeting information and he was able to pre-configure his battle plan. It would need only minor changes, which would be made when he was in range with his own sensors.

Knowing the bandits would not have any idea they could be fired on from the other dimension I thought it would all be over in less than an hour.

I was sadly mistaken. Picard perfected his battle plan as he neared the system and when he was in place he began firing, exiting faster than light travel when he had finished his run. All the bandits were already destroyed before we finished decelerating.

The drones which had been under attack had known Picard was coming and knew exactly when he fired. They saw all forty-one of the bandits disintegrate before they even had any sensor returns from the projectiles. They had a perfect record of the projectiles paths, but it hadn't arrived until the bandits were being torn to shreds.

Whoever had worked out the details of the fragmentation had done a tremendous job. There were a few total penetrations that continued on their way but none had retained a velocity of over fifty thousand miles per hour and none were larger than a couple of pounds. This was probably a best-case scenario though since Picard had started with nearly complete data on the number, position, and mass of all the targets.

The fire control system determined the best size and fragmentation design for each projectile as part of its calculations and they were all manufactured by replicators shortly before firing.

The best feature of all was the attack had started and been over in less than a second and there was nothing that survived long enough to send any data to reveal there was a new type of weapon, much less any clue about what it could be.

Picard had robots waltzing in with champagne for the girls and I less than three minutes after the attack was over. It wouldn't have been worth the trip from a visual standpoint if it hadn't been for the excellent recordings made by the drones. My first battle in space had started, been won, and was over before I could even fart. This was the way to run a war.

It was decided the next day the weapon system was a definite go and since Picard, Scotty, Jim, and Bones had done the initial installation Picard had reason to request more drones so he could establish an orbiting facility to do some of the upgrades in our system. After his performance he didn't need to pull very hard on any strings to get it approved.

Scotty told me Picard had scheduled five of the oldest StarCruisers for the first modifications and intended to keep all of them in our system to provide absolute security for the facility and for our system.