“My plan is to take your three ships and make hit-and-run raids on the enemies. If you don't wish to take up this challenge, tell me now so I can replace you.”
“So if we say no, you will just steal our ships?”
“Steal? Isn't that a funny word? It's like this: you can have your ships, and when the world ends, you can take those precious ships of yours and see how far you get as a G grade because I know for a fact that as an F grade, the longest I would survive out there is two fucking years, but you, I don't think you would make half that time. Now, would you like to die fighting for the planet's survival, or would you like to run like a bunch of chickens? Make up your mind and come get me.”
After Jake said this, he simply walked off to a large open field to summon his ship. As Jake waited, a group of people walked up behind him.
“Emma, what brings you and these nice people out here?”
“We came to see what this huge object that just appeared out of nowhere is. Also, these nice people will be your flight crew, and this is your chief engineer, Kerry.” Jake turned to greet the group. “Nice to meet you all. This is my soul ship, and yes, I know it's very rusty, but that can't be helped. But let me tell you, this ship is brand new, so don't let it fool you; a small mistake can kill you. On its first shakedown cruise, a lot of people were badly injured, some even died, and all of that was caused by firing the main cannon five times. So now you know this, will you still climb aboard the rusty bucket?” Jake said. The group just stood there, taking in what was just said when Kerry's gruff voice sounded out. “Ha, a ship so powerful that even firing the main cannon could kill you. I can't wait to check it out.”
After Kerry spoke up with abundant excitement, the rest of the group followed suit.
“So which one of you is going to be my 2IC?”
“That would be me, sir,” a beastfolk of the more K9 appearance said.
“Well, do you have a name or what?”
“York, sir.” But just as he said that, one of the other bridge crew said, “Your name is not York; it's Yorkie. Don't lie to yourself.” Jake turned to look at the other man and asked, “So what's your name then, and what do you do?”
“My name is Steve, and I am your science officer.”
“Steve, a bit of a funny name for a former Jack Russell. You were a Jack Russell, right, or are you some crossbreed? Such a small dog that doesn't know what it is.”
Jake turned back to York. “I'm going to be leaving the rusty bucket here for a while to get everyone together and begin conducting familiarisation training, but make sure you don't take it outside of my territory. We must keep it as a surprise for our enemies.”
Jake then walked over to the other people he knew. “It's been a while, but it's good to see you all well.”
After Jake had talked with them for a while, Emma walked over with a piece of paper in her hand. “This is the roster for all the commanders that will join you.” Jake looked at the paper.
Bridge crew
Orange job pilot
Alan job shields
Frank job navigation
Harrison job weapons
Joel job communication
Steve job science
York job tactical and bridge 2IC
Offers
James
Lewis
Mary
Space marines
Team one
Annabel aka Nightwitch; she uses stealth to assassinate her targets
10 others
Team two
Peter
10 others
Team three
Gordon
10 others
Fighter Pilots
Mark
Alberta
Kay
Sparks
Maintenance workers engineering
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Kerry lead engineer
10 others
Other
Scientists and the like
“So the main members consist of 58 members; that is already a lot, and you want me to take more? I will only take 2 more; otherwise we would be packed in like sardines. The ship may look big, and it is, but the more people we take, the more will just die.”
As Jake was talking to Emma, the nine crew members from the ships Jake was going to borrow exited the hangar and walked in Jake's direction with a determined look in their eyes.
“We will not allow you to take our ships; we worked for them.”
Jake looked down at the piece of paper in his hand; after all the names on the paper, it had one short sentence, basically saying to banish the nine.
“You are aware I was going to compensate you for them, but if that's what you've chosen. Now that we are out of time and I can't make any more ships in time, York get the crew ready; we're going directly into battle. All training is cancelled; I will see you on my ship in one hour.” Then Jake turned back to the nine ladies. “Pack your things and get out of my territory; I'm pretty sure the US will welcome you with open arms.” Jake then turned back towards the rusty bucket and teleported away.
Emma looked over at the nine with disappointment. “You all better leave. Now that we are going to war, I don't think you want to be around here any more.”
“But my lady, we only did what is best. After all, what has he done for us?”
“What was best? Did you know when Jake left the tutorial, he had stats higher than you could imagine? But after constantly working to make a safe place for you to live in, his stats went from over 350,000,000 in all four stats down to 1,000,000. That's only one thing he has given up for you bunch of leeches,” Jayne said as she walked up behind them before looking over at Emma. “I believe you should get back to work while I go talk with my husband.”
Jayne entered the ship and headed directly for the bridge. When she entered, Jake was hunched over in his seat. “What is with this place? I come back here for a couple of hours, and I'm right back to wanting to kill them all. Once this fight is over, I'm leaving this place.”
“Sure, we can do that. This universe that we are becoming part of is huge. I don't think we will have that much trouble finding work.”
“If it wasn't for that message from Emma, I might have really stolen their ships.”
“I can stay here with you till you feel better.”
“No, I'm going to put the new crew through some training, and that might take a while. Anyway, don't you have other things to do?”
“I do, but...”
“Don't worry about me; just do what needs to be done, then come back later.”
Jayne left not long after.
Emma
After learning the truth about Jake, Emma simply looked over at the nine. “Take your ships and go.” The nine ladies began walking back to the hangar when one of them stopped and yelled back, “You need us.” But Emma just gave them a simple response. “We don't need people so dumb that they can't see what is good for themselves.”
“What? Good for ourselves? That doesn't make any sense! We scouted those fleets; we know better than anyone what he wanted us to do, and you say we're blind. Come on, girls, let's leave before the stupid wears off.”
Emma watched the group of nine leave as all three ships flew in the direction of the US. Only then did Alric show himself.
“Is it done?”
“We now have access to the ship's computer systems. We installed a non-invasive malware, so we should be able to monitor the activities of the US fleet. The malware will also spread over the radio into other systems. Now all we have to do is wait, and we will know the location of every ship within this system.”
“But isn't it wrong?”
“What do you mean by that? If you mean tracking enemy ships is wrong, I can tell you now that in the open universe, this is a common thing. Or if you mean it's wrong to keep our actions secret from Jake, that's what we're for; we are in the background so he can move forward.”
Jake
One hour later, and Jake had brought all the systems to life, beginning the arduous process of verifying each system was operating within parameters and the correct data was being displayed on the correct monitors, when finally, just as he finished setting up the bridge consoles, the crew arrived. Jake instantly picked out the two he wanted to see. “I have finished the startup checklist for the bridge, so get the crew to go over the consoles while I take Kerry down to main engineering.”
Kerry walked beside Jake as he took her through the different areas of the ship, but once they entered main engineering, her eyes opened wide.
“This ship is amazing. I can feel my levels increasing by just standing here.” She kept looking around at the random rust spots before she couldn't take it.
“This ship is new, yes, so what is with the rust? It's odd it doesn't conform to anything I know. Rust on a ship is fine but this, I feel like if I poke it my finger might just go straight through, and look at that impulse engine; it has something rusted on it. I'm surprised it even works. We're going to have to do a complete overhaul of the ship from top to bottom.” Jake just chuckled before saying,
“That would be a complete waste of time.”
“Waste of time? The state this ship is in, I am 100% sure it won't fly. We need to fix this ship.”
“There is nothing to fix on the ship; everything is at 100%. What you are looking at is an issue with me, not the ship, and I don't know how good of an engineer you are, but I doubt you can fix this.”
“What do you mean by the problem is you? I'm looking at rust.”
“The ship is soulbound; when something is soulbound to me, it always comes out like this. The rust and worn-out look of everything I wear is because there is something wrong with my soul, or at least that's what I've been told. But don't worry, the ship may look rusty, but it actually isn't. Just take that engine; in its state, everything should be broken.” Jake walked over to the engine's display and ran a diagnostic. A minute later, the results came back. Kerry looked over the results.
“All green, am I right?”
“Yes.” Kerry replied, uncertainty crowding her mind as she muttered to herself, “There must be an issue with the computer.” So she grabbed one of the portable testers and plugged it in instead. Jake just looked down at the tester and stated, “I'm not going to hang around for that slow thing to finish. So I will be on my way. Oh, if you need any reference materials for any of the basic systems, there are copies up on the bridge deck beside medical. As for the advanced systems, they are locked up, so you will need to get permission from my 2IC or me.” Jake then left as the portable diagnostic tool was at 0.01% complete.
On the bridge, Jake was getting to know his new crew and how well they could work as a team. He ran them through multiple simulations, from battle sims to the one they were running now, which was an FTL jump with all the issues of the current system. This put the whole bridge crew under extreme stress. The navigational issues of tracking every object out in space was one thing, but plotting a safe path to your end goal was another thing entirely. So the crew had come up with the plan to make small jumps. The first would put the simulated ship just above the moon, then a new calculation would be run to take the ship to the next Lagrange point before repeating. This simulation was Jake's favourite, as no matter what they did, eventually they would all die, as no one could track every object down to the size of a bolt. The last attempt at this simulation went so badly that the ship didn't even get to complete the first jump, as it flew right into an old Soviet-era style satellite like the co-wayfarer. But this time, Jake had a good feeling that they would get to the moon, but no further, as the information on anything out that far was very lacking, and even bringing up the scientists wouldn't get them any further.