“Fight checks, ok,” Branston said over the radio.

  It had been a few weeks since Alexander had met the man, and his speech had improved quite a bit sihen. His ‘fight checks’ were the startup flight checks for the first verted shuttle.

  Everything had been stripped out of the ship, repaired, or repced. This wasn’t the first ship he had ied. The reactor on that ship was far too badly damaged to repair. But two out of the sixteen shuttles had reactors that were in repairable dition. That wasn’t great, but two were still better than none. Right now, he focused all his efforts on a single shuttle since he only had a single pilot.

  A few of the other shuttles might see repairs when Alexander’s ability to manufacture more sophisticated parts improved, but he wasn’t holding his breath. They were so bad it might just be better to start from scratch. He learned his lesson about trying to fix stuff that was far too gone from his attempts at trying to fix the low-orbit uncher.

  While the small craft’s reactor had been repaired, almost everything else was repced. The only items left from the inal shuttle were the frame and the flight system. Some of the flight system pos were pulled from another shuttle because Alexander didn’t have the resources to manufacture the eleics from scratch. He could have cobbled together enough w pos from the other shuttles to make a sed shuttle operational – that seems to have been what the pirates had done – but that simply wasn’t acceptable. The only reason he agreed to trahe flight system pos this time was to speed the process along and the fact Branston said the rept system was w properly.

  While most of the pos were repced with reverse-engineered duplicates, the thrusters were an inal design based on his other thruster work. It was a bit of a risk using a set of experimental thrusters, based on a third-geion design of the ones he tested a few months back, but he had high hopes for these. They still didn’t match up to the Omni thruster as far as output, in his tests, but Alexander’s new engine design was nearly ten pert more effit than the Omni one he was paring it to.

  It seemed he was slowly but surely figuring out what design tweaks worked and what didn’t. His fen design was already in the works. With any luck, he would finally figure out the piece he was missing to surpass the Omni design. It would be a month or so before he got to test it though.

  “Launch at your discretion, pilot,” Alexander responded.

  Despite Alexander’s reservations about using the thruster, Branston had been thrilled about getting to test an experimental engine. He said the only thier than flying, was flying experimental ships. He may get his wish one day, but designing and building aire ship was a ways off for Alexander and Blue Star Enterprises. A new shuttle design might be something he could plete in a more reasoime frame though, so that went on Alexander’s list.

  “Copy that, trol.”

  Alexander focused on the holovid showing the nding pad. The shuttle’s thrusters sputtered to life for the first time, going through a quick cycle test before the takeoff thrusters all came to life simultaneously, pushing the craft slowly off the nding pad.

  The ship hovered in pce for a moment before rotating away from the facility. The nding thrusters tipped backward, sending the ship angling up. Ohe shuttle was far enough from the facility, Branston fired up the main drive and streaked toward outer space.

  “How's it going?” Alexander asked.

  “Faster than expected,” he heard the man grunt over the radih the sustained acceleration. “Redug speed.”

  “I did warn you,” Alexander admonished. “We removed nearly half the weight of the ship to make room for more cargo.”

  “I o know what it was capable of,” Branston replied back.

  “O’s full though, you’ll likely experiehe exact opposite. It's going to feel really sluggish. Try not to break it or run into any debris.” Most of the debris left over from the battle had fallen into the p's gravity and burned up, but they knew some pieces were still out there thanks to Lucas’s satellite cameras. The shuttle’s static field should protect it o is outside the atmosphere but that transition zone was where most of the danger y.

  Speaking of satellite cameras, the view on the holo switched from the facility camera to one of those as the shuttle got close to exiting the atmosphere.

  They also had a view from the Hawks’ gunship as it fed them a sed ahe ship was on standby in case of a critical failure.

  It wasn’t hough. The ship that Alexander had simply renamed Shuttle 1 exited the atmosphere without issue and tio its rendezvous with the refueling station.

  “Dog successful,” Branston stated happily.

  “Alright, time to move on to the sed part of the test. Let’s see if the robots load the processed ore.” Because the initial flight was the most dangerous, Alexander hadn’t wao have any cargo aboard on the . Seeing that the ship made it into orbit without any issues, it was safe to try bringing material back down.

  “Alex, we have a new ta the system,” Lucas stated.

  “Wing One firms tact. We are moving to intercept.” Wing One was the name of the Hawks’ gunship. It wasn’t the most inal name, but they did sort of have a theme going. And it wasn’t like Alexander’s naming sense was aer.

  Before Wing One had evehe orbit of Eden’s End, it firmed the target had an active transpohe facility received the signal shortly after that.

  “Ground and, the ship Captain cims they are transp passengers. A stist by the name of Nova Lund. I ot engage a civilian vessel uhey make a hostile move, how do you wish to proceed?”

  Dr. Nova Lund was aboard this ship? What the heck was she doing way out here, and without any prote? The single gunship provided by the Hawks had bee in the system ever sihey returned from their st patrol. Which had them away while that unknown ship rowling around. Alexander didn’t want a repeat of that feeling of helplessness. The gunship may not scare away a ship like that, but it may give them pause. It was too bad they didn’t have their assistanuch longer. In a little over a month, the ship would o return to Ganos.

  “Rendevous with the ship and escort them to the statiohem know they may have to wait in orbit for a few days until we prepare a shuttle capable ing people down. Uheir ship is capable of nding on its own. Actually, scratch that st point. I don’t want them nding down here, even if they are capable.”

  “Aowledged, ground and,” the Hawks’ pilot stated.

  “Do you wao cut my trip short?” Branston asked. The line en, so he had heard everything discussed in the versation.

  “No. We hose materials. It’ll be a few days before the ship arrives anyway.”

  ***

  Alexander waited on the nding pad as he watched the shuttle desd. He felt like he was waiting for people out here far too often. It was getting quite annoying actually. What he needed was someone who could do it for him. Eva ossibility, but she was quite busy with Markus.

  While he would keep track of people ing and going, he decided he was going to pass this duty off to Damien and his people.

  Uhere ecifically someoo see him, Alexander really didn’t see the o be involved per his agreement with Damien and this cil they formed. With this pce being a sort of drifter haven, he expected more would show up eventually. He suspected the only reason he hadn’t seen any so far was the fact the pirates were so active right now.

  He had gotten a description of Dr. Lund from Jasper the st time they spoke of the enigmatic stist. So when a slightly ht man stepped off the shuttle, followed by a wife and kid, Alexander was a bit fused. A few mroups of men and women stepped off the shuttle, all looked rather tired. They looked more like refugees than drifters.

  It erfect. While Damien had kept the pce retively free of criminals before his arrival, Alexander hadn't seen how he dealt with them firsthand. This would be a good test to see how the ma with outsiders. If he couldn’t handle a few new arrivals, it would be good to know sooner rather than ter. He radioed the security room and told them they better send someo here to sort these people out. While he believed they were refugees looking for a new pce to live, he couldn’t dist the possibility that they were spies.

  If they were spies, they may not even be here for him. They might be here following Dr. Lund. She was a very promiheoretical stist even if she had shuhe STO to create her own foundation of stists.

  The fact that she was here, and not aboard her research vessel probably meant something had ged. Alexander simply watched the new arrivals. They shielded their eyes from the gre of the star as they came down the ramp, panting ihin air.

  Whoever they were, they had not e prepared for the thin atmosphere. They could survive for around half an hour before the reduced oxygen started to affect them, so Alexander left them to wait for Damien’s people.

  The group of people shied away from him but were unsure of what to do until one of Damien’s security people came jogging out of the facility a bit out of breath. “S- sorry I’m te,” he huffed as he caught his breath, which wasn’t easy even with the breathing mask. “If you folks could follow me, you o gh a security s before we release you.”

  Alexaook ihing as the people went past. A subtle smirk here, a slight gre there. Yeah, there were definitely people in this group who were here to cause trouble. Thankfully no Qessages could go out. Not without his say-so. And the gunship only made the trip once a month, with the rip being the st. O was goheir e to the greater gaxy would be cut off for the nine months. That lenty of time to sort out any troublemakers amongst this group.

  After the unknown people streamed past him, a short elderly dy of Afri heritage tromped down the ramp. Alexander immediately reized her from Jasper’s descriptioe her advanced age, she had a different bearing thaher shuttle passengers. Behind her came a skinny teenager who looked less than happy to be here. Both had breathing masks, uhe other arrivals. That was iing. That meant she knew what to expect, and the other folks hadn’t.

  “Dr. Lund?” Alexander asked as the woman strht up to him.

  She took in his form with a steely gaze that defied her advanced years. “Yes. But call me Nova. And you must be Alexander. I must say, I’m fasated by this robot body. I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it. I would ask to study it, but robotics is far from my specialty.”

  “Ugh,” the teenager behind her groaned in a way that veyed his utter disdain for this versation and your existen general. Alexander remembered this as something only teenagers were capable of. “ we move this along, Gran, this pce sucks.”

  “Thomas… I told you to be on your best behavior.”

  “Ugh, fine. I’m going ihis pce better have something iing to do.” With that decration, the teenager dragged his feet across the nding pad.

  Lund cleared her throat. “I apologize for my grandson’s behavior. His deadbeat of a father, my son, did not do a good job of raising him.”

  “So you took him in?” Alexander asked as they slowly walked toward the entrance.

  “Not by choice, I’m afraid. His mother wasn’t much better at raising the kid than my son, but at least she resent in his life until she died in an act. When my sht him to ‘visit’ he simply left without the boy. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “That’s awful.”

  She nodded.

  “So… what brings you here, Nova? I thought everything was going well for you the st time we spoke.”

  She frowned in disgust. “It was. Until we had to stop in STO space to refuel and do maintenance. Some Navy man was waiting for us. They cimed that sihere was a war going on, they were drafting stists to help with the war effort. Anyone who refused was being bcklisted from the stifiunity. My so-called colleagues, who had cimed to despise the STO’s rules and teological stagnation as much as I, flipped at the drop of a credit chip.”

  “I take it that wasn’t the case for you? Also, wasn’t the STO downpying the whole pirate thing as just an attad not a war? When did that ge?”

  “No. Those bastards tried all sorts of tricks to get me to bend to their whims. I simply hired a ship, told the Captain where I wao go, and here we are. As for the art, publicly they deny it is a war, while privately they use the word like a bludgeon to coerce people like myself int for them. Typical STO behavior.”

  “I see… While I would prefer not to have our location publicized, I’m gd you are here. What about those other people?”

  She s his ent. “I would normally agree that maintaining privacy is important. I think that ship’s sailed for you, Alexander. I heard about Eden’s End from a few different stops along our route. They may not have known the name or the location, but you could tell they were talking about the same pce. Face it, Alexander, your secret’s already out there. As for those other people, they were looking for some new pce to settle after losing their homes to the pirates or being prevented from returning home because that home was uhe trol of the pirates. They joined up at multiple different stops along our route, it seems most pces iO aren’t keen on taking refugees in.”

  “Word is already spreading? That’s not ideal. What did you hear?”

  “Not much. Some people were calling it a safe harbor. Most people simply dist the rumors si's so far outside of STO space. But if the flict betweeO and pirates grows any more, you may start to see more people looking for a safe pce. Especially sihe STO doesn’t seem too ed about actually doing anything about the problem anytime soon.” He wanted Edeo grow, but he didn’t want it to bee a refugee haven. He he right kind of people.

  “Thanks for the warning. I might end up turning people away though.”

  Lund shrugged. “That’s up to you. I assume it’s ok if my grandson and I stay so I tinue my work?”

  “I don’t know. What could I possibly gain by having one of humanity's most renowned stists staying at my facility to further her advanced research?”

  She chuckled. “Don’t think I fot what I asked you. I may need your skills to turn my work into reality.”

  He nodded and waved her to ehe facility door ahead of him. When he was finally inside, he was greeted by a whole lot of shouting.