With only a week left before the Zephyr arrived, Alexander was finalizing a few things.

  “Are you ready to see your friends?” he asked quietly.

  As he had promised, he brought Yulia back to see her friends at the orphanage and say goodbye. She nodded, although she looked like she wao cry. He had purchased a band for her so she could keep in touch with them even after they left. But what he hadn’t noticed until he dug into the research facility pns was that the building didn’t have a Q.

  Alexander didn’t want to break her heart by tellihat she wouldn’t be able to remain in touch with her friends, so he looked into getting one of these systems installed. He wished he hadn’t.

  If you thought a ship was expensive, you were pletely wrong. The simplest and cheapest Q avaible was a text-only variant that cost half a billios. And you still had to pay for each transmission.

  It was far outside his budget at the moment, but in time he hoped to have the moo purchase one. In the meantime, a courier drone was a muanageable option. The Css 1 ships only cost a few million and would only o hop to the system with a Q array to transmit and receive any correspondehen it would simply hop bad repeat this process until it exhausted its internal fuel supply.

  sidering how far they were from STO space, that might be soohan he liked. Alexander sidered purchasing the design specifications for the ships but decided against it. He already had one ship design, and he was quickly going through the basigineering tutorials and study work. Eventually, he would be able to design and build one of the ships himself. He would still o purchase the Q secure buffer to go along with it, but that was a much more reasonable price.

  Yulia his question aively pushed open the door to the orphanage. He had already scheduled this meeting with the Headmaster, so all of the children were here to greet Yulia when she arrived.

  The young girl looked startled when they all cheered and rushed to hug her. He could see the moment she fot her sadness and started ughing and pying with the other kids.

  The Headmaster walked up to stao him, smiling. “It’s good to see she hasn’t lost her enthusiasm.”

  “She is a resilient child,” Alexander remarked.

  “That she is. I heard about what Captain Zhang said to you. There was no need for him to be so crass.”

  “You know? How?” Alexander was actually surprised to hear others knew of his versation with Zhang.

  “The sed ring is a pretty small unity. Rumors spread like wildfire down here. I would be surprised if anyone on the ring didn’t know by now. News of your talk has probably spread to the upper rings as well. Any time a cil Captais personally involved, it's big news. It's also rare to have someone exiled.”

  “That expins the ck of work I’ve had since my little chat,” he murmured.

  “Don’t hold it against the people too harshly,” Wong said as he watched the children py. “The people down here are barely accepted as is. They ’t afford to get caught up in drama that could see them in a situation much like yours.”

  “Fair enough,” he stated as he watched an older boy separate from the group before heading his way.

  “Markus,” the headmaster spoke quietly. “I’ll leave you two to chat while I make the evening meal. You’ll be stig around for that.”

  That didn’t sound like a question, but Alexander made his avatar nod anyway.

  The older boy stopped a good te from Alexander and looked his body over before finally settling his determined gaze on his avatar’s face.

  “You better take good care of her.” With that statement, he turned around a back to the group.

  So much for a versation.

  Before the boy got too far, Alexander called out just loud enough for him to hear. “Thank you for saving her.” He hadn’t had a ce to speak with the boy sihe act, and Markus had never e by his shop.

  The boy didn’t stop, in fact, he went from a walk to a jog, but Alexander had seen the boy's ears turn red from the praise. There was o thing he would do before leaving the station. He didn’t do it now because he didn’t want credit for it. He had set up a sort of college fund for all the current, and hopefully future children of the orphanage. He hoped the ten-millio iment was suffit to ensure none of these children remaiu this level for the rest of their lives.

  It was too bad he wouldn’t be here to see the Headmaster’s face whe the legal paperwork. Alexander chuckled internally imagining the se.

  The meals and goodbye went on well past the children’s bedtime, but her Alexander nor the Headmaster were willing to break it up. It was the children who eventually brought the festivities to an end whearted falling asleep.

  Alexander picked up the sleeping Yulia. The girl opened her eyes briefly before snuggling up closer in his arms. Now that his body was fully repaired, he had learned a few ricks. One of them allowed him tute his external temperature. He raised it to be fortably warm for the girl so she wouldn’t o snuggle against a cold hard exterior.

  He gave o nod to the Headmaster. The man nodded back as he prodded the older children to help him get the younger ones into their beds.

  ***

  The day had finally e. The Zephyr would be here soon. Over the st few days, just to sate his curiosity, Alexander had asked around to see if other captains were avaible to transport him off the station.

  Some wouldn’t even speak with him. The few that did either turned him down ht or said they weren’t taking on passengers. One Captain even said they weren’t traveling in that dire, even though Alexander hadn’t mentioned where he was going.

  It retty much a firmation that Captain Sergei Zhang or someone else on the cil had spoken to the docked captains.

  Alexander was once again thankful for making friends with Jasper. Had he not, he would likely have ended up in some STO penal y until they realized the body ihe medical pod was an animal and not human. Then who knew what they would do to him? Nothing good, that was for sure.

  He had reached out to Captain Na to alert him of this situation. Na had responded and said he would look into it, but was off-station so there wasn’t much he could do at the moment. He just told Alexao check every dock to find someoo take him.

  That wasn’t a very f response. He was gd he hadn’t bothered telling anyone of his pns to leave with the Zephyr. sidering what he was running into now, it was likely the cil would have blocked his friend from even dog. They might have figured it out if they got into his traffic, but those messages were secure and encrypted. Or at least that was their big selling point. He could only assume it was true since he couldn’t afford to have it be otherwise.

  ***

  Jasper was uandably ed for his friend Alexahe man hadn’t goo detail on why he was being exiled from Petrov Station. He hoped it wasn’t because of some backsh from his patents.

  He supposed he would find out soon enough.

  The Zephyr slid into the rge hangar and soon touched down on the deck.

  “Excellent flying as always, Wilkes.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” the man stated.

  Everyone was a lot more subdued on this trip. He had expio them that they were back out here to help their friend Alexander. Most of the crew had met the man and liked him. So they were all business during this run. The few new crew members he brought on were quickly brought up to speed and uood the issue. Most spacers were very protective of their friends and family. They had to be because nobody else would do it for them.

  Ohe dock atmosphere normalized, the ramp lowered. “Alright everyone,” Jasper called at the top of the ramp. His entire crew had assembled. “We have a few weeks before we o leave again, but I want the entire ship gone over. We have guests ing with us, and I want to leave a good impression.”

  “Aye aye, Captain!” came a unanimous response.

  He nodded. “Dismissed.”

  As the rest of the crew left for their assigasks, Naomi approached him.

  “You have a guest waiting outside the hangar, Captain.”

  “Already? Who is it?” She turned a tablet to show him the security camera feed. It was a rge man with Captain’s insignia but Jasper didn’t reize him. Naomi must have seen his fusion.

  “It is cil Captain Sergei Zhang.”

  “A cil Captain? Alexander, what have you gotten yourself mixed up in?”

  “What would you like me to tell him?” Naomi asked.

  If he asked her to tell the man to piss off, she would. She would be more diplomatic about it though. But he khat would only lead to further issues. “Let him know I will greet him in a few minutes once our systems are topped off.” That should give him time to e up with a response for whatever the man was likely to ask of him. Whidoubtedly involved his friend.

  A few mier the interior hangar door opeo show a rge man looking bored and annoyed in the corridor.

  “Bout damn time,” the man grumbled. “You o learn to delegate tasks, Captain. One of your people could have topped off your ship so you could meet me instead of f me to waste my precious time.”

  Jasper did his best to smile. “I like to ensure ies are done properly.”

  The man snorted and pushed himself off the wall. “The a more petent crew.”

  Jasper's smile slipped. “What do you want cil Captain?” He was not going to py h someone who disrespected his crew.

  “We have a reprobate oation who is trying to charter a ship off. We simply wish to warn you should an Alexander Kaempt to book passage aboard your vessel.”

  “Do you have evidence of this man’s crimes?” Jasper asked although he khis man didn’t.

  “We are currently building a case, but we do not want the man to escape before we bring him to justice for his crimes.”

  A few choice responses came to Jasper’s mind. His first ination was to tell the man to shove off, and if someone wanted off this cesspool of a station, he would gdly allow them aboard his ship. But that would likely get the Zephyr stu a quarantine hold. He had seen it happen to captains before who pissed off a station manager.

  His response was to tell the man he knew Alexander and the man was nothing but upstanding. But it was obvious this man had some sort of personal grudge against his friend.

  What he actually said was, “I will keep that in mind if this man es to speak with me.”

  The Captain nodded and walked off without so much as a thank you.

  “Right prick, that one,” Wilkes spoke quietly as he stopped o Jasper.

  “Took the words right out of my mouth. I think it’s time I tacted our friend. I want to be off this station before they realize we’re taking him with us.”