The Zephyr jumped into Y6X-3H2 alongside one of the Hawks’ gunships. He wondered if Alexander or the locals would ever bother renaming the system as they did the p. It just felt so impersonal to call it by the stific designation.

  Jasper was a few weeks behind schedule but that couldn’t be helped. Some of that was due to him being deyed leaving the core systems because of the additional security thanks to the pirate attacks. And the rest was from him l in Varlen until the patrol ship arrived to escort him. With the increased pirate activity, he had decided not to risk the crossing without some prote.

  He was gd he had waited. Two jumps past Varlen, they entered an unknown ship running without a transpohe ship fled at the sight of the gunship, but that was enough to tell Jasper that the outer systems were going to be far too dangerous to fly without prote soon enough.

  As the two ships made their way to Eden’s End, he got to see what his friend had been up to i few months. While he had expected to see the Hawks’ massive troop transport orbiting the p, he did not expect to see the rge mining vessel sitting alongside it. Unless his friend had suddenly been able to produce ships from thin air, he doubted this ship had been built in the system. That begged the question, who had e all the way out here to mine?

  The transponder ping tagged the ship as The Moonlit Destiny, belonging to Captain Mingyu Na. It didn’t take long for Jasper to recall that seemed he wasn’t the only one curious.

  “What is a cil Captain from Petrov Station doing way out here?” Wilkes asked.

  “I’m sure Alexander will fill us in, but I suspect the rumors we heard are true.” While nobody in the core seemed to know the extent of the pirate attacks, everyone was talking about them. There hadn’t been any wheopic was discussed though, which surprised Jasper.

  “Captain, it looks like a station is already being built,” Sierra ented.

  Jasper returned his focus back to the sensor readout. peared to be the start of a small station was ing around the far side of the p. “Well… if that isn’t a surprise.” He hadn’t expected to see Alexander focus on building a station for some time to e. It seemed they had missed quite a bit sihey left.

  “Ping the Talon ahem know we’re going to e along their opposite side from the Destiny.”

  A few mier, they got a reply firming their orbit. A day and a half ter, they coasted in alongside the Talon. They could have been there faster, but he wao serve fuel as much as possible.

  During their journey in-system, the crew got a bit of eai as they watched a live feed of capsules being unched from the surfaly for them to accelerate into a higher orbit and drop their payload he under-stru station. Then the capsules would fall bato the p and burn up. This happened every half hour o. During their passage, the station had nearly tripled in size. sidering it was barely anything when they arrived, that wasn’t all that much but it was still impressive to watch.

  “Is the shuttle loaded?”

  “Yes, Captain. However, we are going to he help of the Hawks t the rger items down.”

  He nodded a a message to Captain Matthews to see if he had any ships avaible. From what he could tell, most of the drop ships were floating around or attached to the station under stru.

  The man replied quickly. “We have one drop ship on standby. I let you use it for three trips.”

  There was only e crate this time, so that wasn’t an issue. The rest of the cargo could be carried down by his shuttle on multiple trips. He respoo the man while Wilkes put the ship on autopilot. Everyone aboard was certified to mahe ship in case of an emergency, so he wasn’t ed about having his only pilot fly the shuttle. He could have flown it himself, but he wasn’t nearly as skilled as Wilkes. When you dealt with pary ndings, it was smart to use the best pilot for the job.

  The ride down was just as rough as he remembered, but Wilkes put them on the pad with a geouch. They both gnced out the cockpit window. Wilkes whistled at the new strus going up just outside the facility.

  “Those look like some nasty ons. I would hate to be some idi to nd here uninvited.”

  Jasper only nodded in reply. He knew Alexander had po build defenses, but he didn’t know the extent of them. “I think those are only the baby ones, look over to the left, that circle in the ground. That wasn’t there when we left. How much you wanhat’s a on empt as well?”

  The circle iion was over half the length of his shuttle.

  “That’s not a bet that I’m willing to take,” Wilkes chuckled as he began the shutdown procedure on the shuttle.

  The entry opened and Jasper saw Alexander wave as he exited the facility to greet them.

  Jasper waved back, but he doubted the man saw it through the auto-darkened gss.

  He made his way to the back, whiecessitated shimmying through the tight walkway betweeacks of crates. His people really had packed the shuttle as full as they could.

  Once free of the cargo, he lowered the back hatch. His friend was there to greet him.

  “Wele back, Jasper! How was your trip?”

  “Exhausting,” he stated as he walked down the ramp to greet his friend. “Sorry about our dey, I hope it didn’t cause any issues?”

  The face Alexander used to unicate shook. “No. I moved some things around and came up with some alternative solutions for other problems.”

  “I see that. I assume the space station and mining ship are quite the story?”

  “You could say that. Na provided the pns in exge for safe harbor for his crew.”

  “So Petrov was attacked?”

  Alexander nodded. “From what Na tells me, it was more an inside job than an attack. Although he was attacked as he tried to flee the system. TheO quaraheir ship, making it impossible to dock at any public station in STO space. Someoold him I was out here, so he came out to see if we would allow them to disembark.”

  Jasper frow that. “Are you sure everything he says is true? I don’t want to sed guess your judgment, Alexander, I just want to make sure you’re safe.”

  “I appreciate your . And yes. As far as we tell, everything he said is true. His ship even has the scars to prove it was shot at. Not something I would expeeoo attempt just to try and fool us. With our new defenses, I’m not overly ed by a pirate attaymore. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but we are far more prepared than anyone is likely to expect.”

  “I see that,” Jasper stated, gng over at one of the turrets that was being structed in the distance.

  Alexander chuckled. “e, let's get this stuff moved inside and I show you all the ges. I think you’ll be surprised.”

  ***

  It took over an hour to unload the shuttle, even with Alexander, Jasper, and Wilkes all w in tahey would pile the crates onto the transporter and when it was full, it would roll off to his secure ste room near his workshop.

  Since he wao limit who had access to that room, he had installed robotic es that ran along the ceiling. They quickly and effitly unloaded the automated cart so it could return for the load. The es were much smarter thaupid loaders aboard Petrov, thanks to the self-learning algorithm he built into them. He had learned more programming thanks to hanging around Lucas, but he still wasn’t at the level where he could program anything too plex. The robotic arms reused the code from the robotic assemblers, with the addition of the self-learning funs.

  He could have had Lucas just program them, but he o improve his own programming. Doing it himself also ehe code was safe and free of anything funky while also testing the new design he had implemeo build the es. So far the man hadn’t done anything to make him think he would do something fishy, but Alexander was just being cautious by not relying on the younger Laront to do everything.

  His new robots were simir to the old robotiufacturing line, with their inflexible appehat required rotational servos at the base, the elbow, and the wrist. But instead of the old geared joints, Alexander had repced them with rotary actuators, much like he had with his railgun design. The cost in time and materials was quite a bit more, but he deemed it acceptable.

  The accuracy of the actuator was far superior to gear drives because there was little to no backsh to pensate for. And when you had to build parts with tight tolerances, you didn’t want to worry about pensation errors.

  It was plete overkill for the simple es. But after seeing how well the e funed, he was already incorporating the improvements into a new geion of robots meant to repce the engineers w on the space station. The new robots would be needed sooner rather thao plete the station.

  “Now that we have the ship unloaded, let me show you what I’ve been up to.”

  As the pair walked into the facility, the shuttle took off again. It would be a few hours before it nded with another load. Plenty of time to tell Jasper what went on while he was gone, and show him everything.

  “Wele to where the magic happens!” he stated as they walked into the manufacturier.

  “Other than all the maes seeming to be stantly ing out items, I don’t see that much has ged in here since I left,” Jasper chuckled.

  “True. But it’s a good pce to start. I’m currently produg parts for the defenses, parts for the facility repairs, and parts for the station. Oh, and I’m also printing out capsules to unto orbit pretty muon-stop.”

  “We saw them on the way in. Are they only single-use?”

  “Unfortunately. We are rec some of the material when they crash down, but I ’t afford to add a parachute or nding system without wasting even more spaside the small enclosures. It’s annoyingly frustrating, but it's what we have at the moment.”

  “It seems to be w for you though,” Jasper ented as he watched part of the cmshell take shape in the printer. “How are you ung them into spayway? Did you get the uncher operational?”

  “We did. A me tell you, that ain.” Alexaold Jasper about the struggles with the uncher as they walked through the facility and toward the unch trol. They were in luck. They arrived just as the system was readying for another unch. “We could unch faster if the facility transit system was intact. It takes my transporter fifteen mio drive across the facility to deliver a newly loaded capsule. Then aen for the old e ihe un to move it to the loader. Add another four minutes for the bst doors to close, and we just decided to unch every thirty minutes. It works out though, sihe engineers in orbit only work so fast.”

  “I don’t think you know just how impressive this is, Alexander.”

  Alexander shrugged. “Sure, it’s impressive. But it feels so slow. There are so many things I want to work on that I ’t even start until this is dohe facility is repaired, or the defenses are i's frustrating.”

  “Everything you aplished in a little over two months is impressive, don’t get me wrong. That being said, I think you should take a step bad reevaluate your timeframe.”

  Alexander sighed. “I would love to slow down. But it feels like so much is happening beyond our system, I’m afraid if I do, something horrible will happen.”

  Jasper patted him on the arm. “Delegation is your friend. I see you’re doing some of that already but don’t try to spread yourself too thin. Focus on what is most important to you and have others worry about the rest. Speaking of what matters, have you been spending time with your daughter?”

  Anh escaped Alexander. “Not as much as I would like. It turns out all the orphans from Petrov came with Captain Na. So she’s been spending quite a bit of time with them and the few friends she has made here. I didn’t want to take her away from that.”

  “I’m sure she is happy her friends are here, but you are still her father. Take the time to make memories with her. I may not be a father myself, but I still recall the times my father spent with me. And she will too.”

  After they exited the unch trol room and got to a quiet spot, Alexahanked Jasper. “Thanks for tellihat. I sometimes feel like the people here are afraid to tell me something or speak out like I might banish them or something. And the Hawks, while good at their jobs and niough, tend to act like employees rather than friends. Some are better than others though, but I doubt they even sidered what you just told me.”

  Jasper ughed lightly. “That’s what friends are for. You’ll make more in time.”