By the time Captain Matthews reported to him that Na was in orbit around Eden’s End, Alexander and the engineers had pleted the first railgun instaltion. This was thanks to the additional help from some locals and the simplicity of assembling the unit. He probably could have been halfway plete with the sed if he hadn’t stopped to ensure everything was w properly on the first. It was ohing to model something, but he had learhat until you built it, you really couldn’t know for sure if there would be unforeseen problems.

  It was a good thing he didn’t tihere were issues to work though. The first had to do with how fast the railgun rotated and elevated. The first test stripped out the precision gearing because he had fotten to at for the masses in motion when writing the code that operated those portions. He would have asked Lucas to do that code, but he was busy with a much more important project.

  Thankfully he had five sets of spare parts. After ibalizing one of the unassembled railguns to repce the parts he broke, he reprogrammed the troller to reduce the speed by half. It wasn’t an ideal solution to the problem, but redesigning the entire system wasn’t possible for this instaltion. He also didn’t want to have six different iterations as he was sure to find some way to improve with each assembled gun. For now, they just o work. Later on, he could create upgrades.

  The sed test went much better. The motors didn’t tear themselves apart, and the gun was capable of moving in all the axes that Alexander had wahe issue that cropped up in the sed test was how much the on wavered after it reached its intended angle. With nd-based targets, that little bit of wobble probably wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but at orbital distances, it could mean the differeween hitting the target and missing by hundreds or maybe even thousands of feet.

  Another bit of code fixed that issue. He simply slowed dow few degrees of motion to ten pert speed. That almost elimihe wobble. He was starting to realize designing an effective ons system was far harder thahought. Already he had ideas on how to improve upon the design, and he hadn’t even fired the o.

  Speaking of firing, he radioed the security station. “We are ready for the first test fire,” he stated.

  “On it!” aed Lucas replied.

  A few moments ter, the massive gun rotated straight up. There was a *thunk* as the autoloader rammed one of the sabots into the barrel and the breach shut. Then the gun rotated to point low over the horizon.

  Their first test was simply to fire and see what happened. He didn’t want to fire oo orbit just yet though.

  The whine of the capacitors had already been going since he first activated the gun. The sound dimmed slightly as the on recoiled. There was a boom followed by the hypersonic crack as the projectile disappeared into the distance.

  Unlike his inal test with the small railgun, this o a visible trail of dust kicked up in its wake as well as a line of superheated vapor to mark its passage through the atmosphere. The shockwave was actually pretty tame, all things sidered. He chalked that up to the tapered redesign of the darts.

  Alexander clicked his radio on. “The first test is a success, reload and prepare for the sed shot.”

  “Roger that,” Lucas replied happily.

  The barrel lifted again and the railgun was loaded with a sed round. This time it was aimed higher. Ached as the barrel slowly traversed to follow the target in orbit. That meant target trag was w. It was one of the things Lucas had been tasked to code.

  “Captain Matthews, we are ready for test two.”

  “All ships are clear, yood to go for your test.”

  Alexander was using this opportunity to show Na that he had ways to defend himself if there was any tomfoolery about to go down. Their arget was one of the defunct spy satellites that the people of Eden’s End had unched around the p.

  It would let him know the gun's accuracy as well as its damage potential.

  He had to give the people here credit, disguising their satellites as asteroids was rather ingenious. Even Matthews had been impressed because he hadn’t registered them as anything other than rocks until they took trol of the facility’s puters.

  Alexander gave the signal to fire. The gu its round tearing into orbit and Alexander was nearly knocked off his feet by the shockwave that pressed down on him this time. He probably should be in the observation bunker like the rest, but he wao get a good look at the gun’s ws himself. It wasn’t like he was in any danger from the bst. No squishy bits and all that.

  “Target miss,” Matthews stated. “Looks like it passed a few feet behind the satellite.”

  Alexander sighed. Their orbital math must be off somewhere. He radioed Lucas to che it.

  “Oh, yup. Seems I missed one decimal p the trag code. Wao prepare a follow-up shot?”

  The man knew far more about g than he ever would, but Alexander had learned Lucas could be a bit sloppy sometimes. Hmm, no. Sloppy wasn’t really the right description. Rushed maybe? No, that didn’t really describe the maher. Spdash robably the best description Alexander could apply to the man. Lucas liked to code, but he preferred to move on to another project as soon as he fihe first. The code would be funal but teo cut ers where the man was less ed.

  That was fine for simple things, but when accuracy mattered, it wasn’t. To be fair, Alexander had gone over the math in the code with the man and had missed this issue as well. So he couldn’t be too harsh on Lucas. He was young still, so there lenty of time to get better and Alexander was already starting to see more focus oails from the man.

  “Switch tet three,” he respohe sed target was getting too close to where the Talon and Na were parked.

  The gu down after loading the third round and started trag the arget. Alexander waited until it was within their firing window before he issued the order.

  The guhe round hurtling into orbit and this time Alexander watched the trail it left in its wake as it tore through the atmosphere.

  “Target destroyed,” Matthews radioed him a mier.

  He heard the engineers in the bunker cheering at the successful test. Alexander smiled. “Lucas, round was on target. gratutions! You put the gun in standby mode.”

  He heard some more cheering over Lucas’ radio. It must have gone on for a few minutes because that was how long it took the gun to rotate into standby and the hatch to slide closed on top of it.

  Now he was ready to talk with Na.

  ***

  Had Mingyu been the w type, he would have been pag across his small bridge. As it was, he was sweating slightly. He wasn’t a fool, his sensor operator had picked up the on discharges from the p. And the subsequeru of one of the many asteroids that hung in orbit. It was a decration to tread carefully.

  It was also rather pointless. Especially with the massive armed and armored troop transport shadowing them from behind. Like most civilian ships, the Moonlit Destiny wasn’t armed. If it came down to it, they could repel boarders with their pulse rifles but that was about it. The Destiny relied on the fact that mining ships weren’t very profitable targets for pirates to remain safe.

  Even if he wao arm Destiny, the STO was very selective of who they allowed to have ons. Merary ships were one of those exceptions. However, not all meraries were equal, Harn’s ship, the Devil’s Bargain was onless for example. Although calling Harn a merary wasn’t doing the name justice. Harn had been more of a bounty hunter pretending to be a merary than anything else.

  Soon after the tests ended, he got the radio call he had been expeg.

  “I’ll be in my ,” he spoke quietly as he left his chair on the bridge.

  Nobody respoo him as he left. He wasn’t surprised. Tensions had only tio rise throughout the ship as they made their way through STO spad to this system. It had gotten so bad that he had been forced to fine a few people to their quarters after fights broke out. Now there was just an undercurrent of simmering anger and exhaustion among the crew. He was ready to beg or promise just about anything if this pce would allow his people to disembark.

  He pushed his door open, the thing squeaked noisily, something it had never done before. The addition of the extra people on board and their exterip had straihe enviroal systems and moisture had started to build up and rust anythial. There were already a few systems that were on the verge of plete failure.

  The door shut and he walked tiredly over to the terminal and activated it. The holograph came to life and then split into two separate ss. One showed the captain of the merary ship. Matthews if his tired brain was correct. The other s showed Alexander’s avatar face.

  “…You look like shit,” Alexaated bluntly.

  Mingyu couldn’t help but chuckle tiredly. “I feel even worse. I know you probably never wao see me again. But I was given few options after pirates took Petrov station.”

  Alexander frowned. “So they did take Petrov… What of the orphans?”

  Mingyu wao smile, but he didn’t have the energy in him to do so. “They were aboard my ship for a field trip wheation was attacked or more accurately, when it was taken over. We barely escaped the system.”

  He told them what happened and who he suspected had been in cahoots with the pirates.

  “So you’re saying your fellotains were involved?” Na Alexander’s question.

  “You know how this looks, don’t you?” Captain Matthews asked.

  “That I may also be in league with them,” he stated with a resigned sigh.

  The video froze for a bit and Mingyu assumed Alexander and Matthews were discussing stuff they didn’t want him to overhear.

  When it unfroze, Alexander spoke first. “This does expin some of the as Sergei Zhang took against me. I could never quite figure out what his issue was. How did you find me anyway? I certainly didn’t leave a f address.”

  “I may be ostracized from STO space, but I still have some tacts. Oed to me that the Zephyr and Captain Matthews' ship had headed out here.”

  He could see Matthews frown at that. “That information should have been private. Who is this individual?”

  Mingyu shook his head. “I will not be giving that information away. I’m sorry.”

  Matthews’ frown grew even more pronounced and his eyes narrowed. “We’ll see about that. The Hawks have tacts too.”

  “Gentleme's get ba track,” Alexander interrupted.

  Both men focused on Alexander.

  “What is it you waly, Na? And none of this politig nonsehat went on back at Petrov. I have no more patience for that.”

  “I would like you to speak with the leaders of Edeo request they allow my people time to rest. Or at least take the orphans and Headmaster Wong if that isn’t acceptable. I’m willing to iate pensation.”

  The ss froze again for much lohis time. When they came back, Alexander spoke again. “You’re in luck. I own this facility. Before we discuss allowing your people to disembark. What are you ?”

  With that question, Alexander had put all the pressure ba him. If he didn’t offer aig enough deal the first time, there might not be a sed opportunity. This was the worst possible oute for him. He had been prepared for the worst though.

  “I see you don’t have any orbital infrastructure. I’m willing to offer my ship’s services for free for a year. As long as you let my people live at your facility. After that, we egotiate a new deal.” This was risky. It meant Mingyu was shouldering a lot of expenses.

  “Do you have a shuttle?” Alexander asked.

  Mingyu shook his head.

  “Then how do you propose I refihe material you collect? As you have already stated, There isn’t any orbital infrastructure.”

  “Do you have a refinery?”

  “I have a smelter, why?”

  “Eveer. If you get material into orbit, along with a smelter, I will provide you with pns for a simple traation. It won’t be much more than refueling and topping off ables, but you should be able to modify or extend it to include the smelter and an ore delivery hangar. As you grow, you could add a shuttle hangar. That’s probably the extent the design I have is capable of though.”

  Alexander paused again, but this time Mingyu could see movement on the s still. So the man was just thinking.

  “Why are you this to us? We didn’t leave on the best terms.”

  “I care about my crew and the people aboard my ship. Do I need any other reason?”

  “And what of your ship while your crew is pside?”

  “I will remain on board to make repairs.”

  Alexander shook his head at that, which surprised him. “No. Matthews, I think you ahis one.”

  The Captain of the massive troop transport smiled. “The Hawks will ferry you all down and then we will search your ship to ehere isn’t anything we o worry about. If that seares back clear, ineers will effect repairs as needed. Mr. Kane has graciously decided to provide the pos. So long as you provide him with all your design schematics.”

  If he wasn’t so exhausted, he would have appuded Alexander’s maneuvering here. Iroke the man had mao secure pns for a refueling station from him as well as the schematics for his entire ship. The man may not like politics, but he knew how to use it when it suited him. Mingyu agreed to the deal without hesitation.