“You sure you’re up for this?” Alexander asked the older woman.

  Eva gave him a dirty look. “Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I’m senile. I’ve probably fotten more about ship systems than you even know.”

  Alexander held his hands up in a pg gesture. “It wasn’t a ent on ye. Just the time you’ll be away from Markus.”

  She didn’t look like she quite believed him. “My boy will be fine. I should ask you the same. We’re both going to be up there for at least a month. You sure Yulia will be ok without you for that long?”

  Alexander gnced back toward the facility and sighed. “It paio have to leave her here by herself, but I trust her friend’s parents to take care of her while we are gone.” As it turned out, one of the people on the barricade with Eva during the pirate attack had been Sarah’s father. The man had held a bit of a grudge after Yulia got Sarah in trouble with the Hawks. He didn’t bme the man, he would have probably felt the same way if their positions were reversed. But any animosity the man and his wife had held before the attack had melted away after Alexander had saved him and everyone else at that barricade.

  Yulia also had Dog with her.

  The robot couldn’t protect her, but if he got ahat she was injured, you best believe he was tag Damien and demanding he find out what was happening immediately. And his call would be for Branston to pick him up and bring him back.

  He spotted Shuttle 1 ing in for a nding. It had been pig up some other passengers at the refueling station.

  When the ramp opehe crew of the Destiny stepped off, looking rather worn out from their extended mining trip. They had just spent two and a half months mining. Normally, six weeks was a full tour before a crew got some downtime. Alexander hadn’t asked them to do this, they had do to repay him for letting them stay here.

  Three people approached him, while the rest of Na’s crew headed for the facility entrance.

  “Alexander, Eva, it’s good to see you are both still well,” Na smiled tiredly as he offered his hand.

  Alexander shook it, but Eva only snorted and pulled the man in for a hug. “It doesn’t look like you’ve been taking very good care of yourself, boy. What will I tell your father when he arrives?”

  The man rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. “He and the rest of the family haven’t yet agreed to e out here. Father in particur is still mad that I lied to him to get him off Petrov station.”

  “Bah,” Eva waved dismissively. “You tell your old man that if a washed-up old first mate like me find a pce out here, he shouldn’t have any issue. That should kick him into gear finally.”

  Mingyu chuckled. “It might be better if that came from you.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry, I’ll be sending him a strongly worded letter of my own.”

  “Sorry to interrupt the reunion, but we should get introdus out of the way, and the aboard the shuttle. There is going to be a lot of work ahead of us.”

  “Sorry,” Na stated. “Alexahis is my Chief Engineer, Mikhail Yun, and his Primary Systems Tei, Li Ming. They have agreed to assist us with the repairs. Although I’m not sure how much you expect of us, we’ve seen the ss of the ship. It's pretty torn up.”

  “That’s what these are for,” Alexander patted one of the five rge crates o him. “The four robots will be able to cut away the damaged ses, and the shuttle will fly everything to the station for processing while bringing new pos to us to fix the damage.”

  “And the fifth crate?” Na asked.

  “That’s the printer. I pn on installing it oation.”

  “Why don’t we just move the ship and dock it to the station?” Li Ming asked.

  “It ’t move us own power, and we don’t have any ships capable of towing it. The Hawks towed it to the Lagrange point with four drop ships. So until we fix the ship's structure and safely bring the reactor bali’ll have to stay right where it is. So the faster we get loaded up, the faster we get this done,” Alexander said with a smile.

  The Engineer and his assistant walked over to the first crate and tried to lift it. “Just how big are these repair robots,” the Engineer grunted.

  “Twice the size of the ones putting the station together. The crates have wheels, so they should be easier to push.”

  The men put the heavy crate down. One pushed while the other pulled a ha made a racket as it rolled across the pitted nding pad, but it was easier than trying to lift it.

  Mingyu and Eva moved to the one. Alexahought about telling the older woman that wasn’t necessary, but thought better of it when she g him from the er of her eye.

  He gave himself a mental shake and moved to the massive crate that held one of his precious printers. Produ down here would slow for a bit, but he already had the Engineers printing up his geion of prio repce the one he was taking. He really hoped the printers didn’t give him the same issues as his engine designs had.

  Alexander extended his arms to either side of the crate and lifted it with only a modicum of effort. The printer wasn’t as heavy as the stru robots, it was just big and unwieldy, even in its unassembled state. The five of them quickly got the cargo loaded on the shuttle and secured. Ohey strapped in, or in Alexander’s case, magized, they left the surface.

  This was his first time off Eden’s End since arriving a little under a year ago. He hadn’t figured he would be ba orbit so soon aainly not to fix a captured pirate ship.

  After the shuttle arrived at the station, it took a bit of maneuvering to get the rear of the shuttle in pce. Everyone sealed their suits and the air was evacuated from the cargo ssh passenger partment.

  From there, Alexander deftly maneuvered the crate off the ship and unpacked it. After ensuring everything was w correctly, he stepped back aboard the shuttle and they headed toward the pirate ships.

  “That body really is quite unfair,” Eva muttered so quietly only Alexander could have heard her, and he was right o the woman.

  As they grew closer to the ship, Alexander got his first good look at the damage. He made his avatar wince.

  “Yeah… It’s worse thahe sensors picked out,” Mikhail Yun ented. “You sure you wouldn’t rather cut it apart and run it through the smelter?”

  Alexander sighed, “If we had any other option, I would do that. But we need a picket ship for the system, one big enough to scare off anyone looking to trouble us. Otherwise, I would have gone for the two other pirate gunboats. If pirates e knog again, they may just roll the dice against a gunboat. They probably aren’t going to do that if we have a fully armed frigate though.”

  Nobody argued that point. Especially since everyone khe Hawks gunship would be leaving in the few weeks. Alexander had wao get up here sooner, but he simply couldn’t get everything lined up before today.

  The shuttle docked to the undamaged side of the disabled pirate vessel and Na and his people went through the airlod into the ship.

  “Looks like we still have an atmosphere in a few partments,” Eva stated as she checked a wall sole that was still running on emergency backup power. “But I would not reend removing your vac suit until you’re back aboard the shuttle.” The woman turoward Alexander, her arms floating, but her boots holdio the deck. “I assume yoing to be w outside the ship?”

  Alexander nodded. “I will be.” He handed out four modified radios from his utility belt. “Since I won’t be able to hear you, I added a feature to the radios that will ping mih a color code. Red means to get back to the shuttle immediately, yellow is caution and I will return as soon as I plete something I’m w on. And blue is if you have a question or need my assistanside the ship.”

  They each pyed with the buttons and Alexander could see his little light bar go off, indig which person was calling him.

  “That should work,” Na approved. “I guess our first order of business will be to ehe power and fuel delivery systems are intaless anyone has angestion.”

  “Actually,” Alexander spoke up, “I would suggest you find the on ste and make sure there are no live warheads.”

  He could see the four people's faces pale with realization.

  “That- That’s probably a good idea,” Na replied.

  Left unspoken was what would happen if there was another nuclear warhead onboard. In that case, Alexander suspected he would be getting a red page rather insistently.

  He shut the airlock to the shuttle and secured himself. “Ok, Branston, take me close to the damaged se.”

  “Roger that, Alex,” the man stated before the ship gave a metallik aached itself from the ship.

  The pirate frigate was actually rger than his refueling station, so it took a bit of time to mao the other side. The air had been sucked out of his partment on the way over, so there was no waiting. Ohey arrived, the ramp opened and Alexander began assembling the first robot.

  Thanks to Dog being a test bed to improve the motions of the six legs, the movements of the robots were smooth and precise. He pced the six-foot-long robot oerior surface of the ship, where its feet magized to the outer hull. It sat there for a moment, sing its surroundings before moving off to a damaged se of pting a few doze away.

  It didn’t take Alexander long to get all four robots assembled and w. He would have loved to make more of the robots, but materials, specifically the chips, were in short supply. He could have pulled some from the space station, but he didn’t want to disrupt the tinued stru efforts over there. In another month, there would be an actual hangar for the shuttle if things kept going at the pace they were. It wouldn’t be pressurized at first, but it beat floating across open space or having to try and trahrough an airlock.

  Four robots would have to do for now. It would take quite some time for them to fix a ship as rge as a frigate, but he only he main structure to be inta order to move it. The rest could be finished when it was docked to the station.

  The other issue was of course finding a crew to operate a frigate-sized ship. Alexander had asked Branston if he wao be a Captain. The man had quickly turned him down. He said he liked being a pilot, and if he tain, he couldn’t do that anymore.

  Sihe ship wouldn’t be ready for quite some time, it was an issue he could tackle ter. For the time being, the ship would just be used as an orbital deterrent. Thanks to Matthews, they knew how to sve its on systems to ground trol, allowing Damien’s security people to at least use the turrets aboard the ship.

  Whe robot was released on the ship, Alexander pressed a button on his radio to let Branston know it was ok to return to the airlock.

  It was weird watg the shuttle slowly float away, leaving him stranded aboard the vessel. It was hard not to feel like he was being abandoned. But he knew he wasn’t. They couldn’t actually leave without him. Not that aher than Lucas knew about the recall and buried in the shuttle’s code and lio a remote sitting in his utility belt. Paranoid, probably. A sensible precaution? Definitely.

  Even without that backup, all Alexander would o do is get into a part of the pirate ship with air, and unicate with ground trol or the refueling station. Denying the shuttle dog rights would force it to nd on Eden’s End, and the only pce to go there was the research facility. He trusted Damien enough to arrest anyone involved with trying to strand him out here. The guy might be a dick, but he was a stickler for rules.

  Not that he thought that whole sario was likely. Branston seemed genuinely happy with his role as a pilot and was uo jeopardize that in any way. But not everyone he hired iure might feel the same way, this simply prevented any shenanigans.

  He ged across the surface of the ship, taking in the serey and quiet of space. As he looked out at the stars arrayed before him, he got the feeling this wasn’t the first time he had dohis sort of work. That made him pause. This was the first time he felt any e to his lost past. He wondered if any more missing memories would pop up out here.

  With a smile, he moved over to a brokeion and maneuvered the welding pack he was carrying to cut away the brokeion. He whistled a merry tune inside his head as he worked, keeping one part of his mind on the light bar to ensure he didn’t miss anything.