LOCATION: ASGARD

  SYSTEM: YGGDRASIL’S EYE

  DATE: 2399

  Kataly down the very expensive crystal goblet that she was holding. The gss was a memento from her father, and she didn’t want to break it in anger. Her father had kept it as a reminder of the excess and waste they fought against. It had been aboard the ship of some rich corporate asshat from the STO who thought they could exploit resources inside Asgardiaory, although outsiders simply called it Char territory due to ignorance.

  She looked at the man dressed in bck who had brought her this upsetting news. He was Loki or one of the Lokis. The Asgardian spymasters ssh historians all took on the same name as a symbolic gesture to the god of mischief, chaos, and transformation. Most Asgardians found Lokis uling, an image the Lokis were happy to reinforce.

  “Who is spreading rumors that the Anazi family is moving into my territory?” she asked calmly.

  “We believe an Anazi man by the name of Dalton was responsible, Lagertha. While most of what the man spouted were likely lies and rumors desigo stir up the unaffiliated pirates in the border zoween our territory and the Anazis, we believe there may be some truth to his words.”

  Katalynn narrowed her eyes and stood from her dining table. Having taken after her father and not her mother in stature, she towered nearly a foot over this Loki. She idly wondered what line of the family he was from. If he wasn’t a Loki, she may have inquired further just to sate her i, but she didn’t want to be pulled down a rabbit hole of history by asking one of them.

  “What truth?” she demanded, ahat she had to even ask. Loki’s were excellent at gathering information, but they sometimes enjoyed parg it out by f you to ask follow-up questions a bit too much. It made her want to punch the man’s smug fa.

  Uhe pirates, Asgardians had ws though. She wouldn’t beat or harm her people just fing in some bad news or annoying her. Her people followed her because they respected her strength, not because they feared what would happen if they displeased her. That didn’t mean she had a ki. When it came to her enemies, she was ruthless. Pirates didn’t respect her, so she made sure they feared her. If these rumors held any truth, it seemed that fear was fading. They would need a reminder of why she held this territory.

  “We questioned a few of the unaffiliated pirate groups and learhat Arkonis Anazi was recruiting on some of the smaller outposts. Likely trying to avoid being discovered by our people while he was lurking in the area. We believe the part of the rumor about there being a big score was true. If he was forced to recruit local crews, that might mean his fleet wasn’t rge enough to hahe job on its own. It's also possible he was hiring them as on fodder. One of the people we questioned spotted Dalton, the Anazi’s pet hound at that station, which is why we believe he was the one responsible for these rumors. Seems he’s looking for Arkonis as well.”

  She cursed loudly. The Anazi family was getting far too bold. They may have had some minor success against the STO, but she wouldn’t stand by ahem viote Asgardiaory without retribution.

  Then there was Dalton to sider. If one of the Anazi’s main fixers was on the young prirail, maybe there was a falling out within the Anazi family. She had no love for those mindless brutes so normally anything that weakehem was good in her book. The problem was, they were doing so in her space.

  If she acted swiftly, she might just be able to take advantage of the situation.

  “Call in all the Jarls. I want to teach the Anazi family a lesson about stig to their own spaobody messes with our territory as away with it. I’ll be mobilizing my fleet to hunt down this prince as well. Is the Valkyrie do?”

  Before taking ole of Lagertha, or the Shield Maiden for the family, she had seen hints that power was shifting through human space, especially amongst the pirates. Once a loose colle of smaller families, the power was being solidated amongst fewer and rger groups. She didn’t know what the result of such a unification would be, but she k wouldn’t bode well for any of their neighbors. And she was right. Harlow unified pirates to attack the STO.

  She had brought her s to her old man back when she first realized this was happening, but he was stubborn and refused to believe the pirates could ever truly solidate into a cohesive nation. She tried to vince him by bringing up the fact that Asgardians had done a simir thing, even if they weren’t pirates, but the argument had gone ignored.

  With no other recourse and a fear that Asgardian space could be the target, she had challenged his leadership over the Asgardian people. Her father’s only option was to accept the challenge by bat or step down as ruler. Her father was irate at the challenge, but he had not stepped aside, even knowing it meant one of them had to die. She would never fet the proud look on his face when she dealt the final blow. His final words to her were, “Keep our people strong!” She would.

  Over the years she gathered stists and engineers, mostly through captured vessels, the crews of which were forced to work off their sentences for vioting Asgardian space. Others were eo work for her, but those she trusted even less because they came through bck-market tracts for people who had burned all of their other options within STO space. She still put them to work but ehat they were watched.

  She set these people to work uplifting Asgard's teological base which had gged behind their terpart, the STeions. With how partmentalized STO society had bee thanks to the mega-corporations, that was easier said than done. A chief engineer aboard a ship barely knew how to fix the items aboard that specific vessel, let alone another model.

  If someone iO lost their job and wasn’t lucky enough to nd on another ship with the same exact specification, they might be forced to start from scratch or spend years of savings buying learning modules in hopes of getting a berth on a new ship.

  While she didn’t mistreat her prisoners, part of their reparations for vioting Asgardian ws was to share their collective knowledge by teag it to others.

  Her efforts to modernize her people's sd teology had eventually borne fruit, but it had been a long road.

  The Valkyrie was the ing achievement of those efforts. A ship capable of going toe to toe with any two STO ships. It would have been beled a heavy cruiser by STO standards if she cared to use them, which she didn’t.

  The ship boasted twelve missile unchers, six Gauss ons, one main ser, a rapid-fire defeurrets. It had taken over a decade of blood sweat and tears to get to this point. Every spare credit she earned ent s parts from shady STO corporations, the bck market, or simply trying to reverse ehem wheher of those first two tion. She did nret the expense. If the ship performed as well as she expected, the cost would have been worth it many times over.

  “The ship is plete, but they are still having power issues with the ser. All the other ons systems are operating correctly though.”

  She hissed in annoyance. “Did the engineers say why there were issues?” It was never a good idea to trust prisoners and sves with work like this, but she had little option. Most of her people were still behind teologically and it was a slow process to get them up to speed. The few Asgardians who were up to speed on the eologies headed the researd stru projects.

  “The power verter in the reactor is having issues providing a stream of power directly to the on. They believe they remedy the situation with a capacitor bank, but that will take time to implement.” It was always something with the Valkyrie. She had expected some setbacks when she had embarked on this journey of building aire ship from scratch but there seemed to be more problems than there should be.

  The issues were enough to make her suspicious. After she dealt with the Anazi issue, she would look into the problem personally. If some of the iured stists and engineers were trying to sabotage her, they would o be moved to other positions to work off their sentences.

  “That wait until we returhem to get the ship ready and alert my crew, it’s time to hunt for the little Anazi pring and find out exactly what he was after.”

  The man stue arm across his chest and bowed, “It will be do once, Lagertha.”

  Ohe ma her room, she turo look out her highrise window. The city of Asgard glittered below, the remaining rain from the ret storm sending light flickering across buildings and covered walkways.

  Asgard was the culmination of work from geions of effort. It had beeablished early on in the Great Expansion by a group of people who wao escape the bureaucracy of Earth. Her aors had gone far outside of explored spatil they ended up here. She didn’t know why they chose su uninhabitable world to live on, but they had seen something worthwhile about the p.

  For years they were left alone, doing what settlers do and trying to build a life, but theO came and decred the system was uheir jurisdi. Her aors weren’t given a choi the matter, nor did they have any means of stopping the massive goveral entity back then.

  The STO cimed it was to ensure peace throughout human space, but that was a load of shit. It was for trol. They didn’t want ao gre enough to pete with them.

  TheO ran into the Shi and learhey weren’t the rgest fish out here. The war with the Shi made the STO abandon this area of space, effectively cutting off Asgard and its sister worlds for over a hundred years.

  That didn’t mean her people sat around waiting to be rescued. They suffered for a time but her people adapted and grew, leaning on the ways of their a Earth aors to see them through the hard times. She always chuckled at that part of the story when her father told her the history of her people. The fact that Earth was what they were trying to escape, yet the old homeworld was also their salvation had always amused her. Even as a kid, the irony wasn’t lost on her.

  By the time her people finally made tact with the STO again, they had been reborn in the crucible of survival to e out the other side as proud warriors instead of the fccid bureaucratic pile of shit that the STO had devolved into. The decades of having to defend what was theirs from pirates, sgers, and even the Shi during those early times had shaved away any softhey had once had. They no longer saw fit to bend uhe foolish rule of idiots. The STO didn’t like being challenged like this and beled them pirates, either out of spite or misguided fear, she didn’t know which was true nor did she care.

  Her thoughts returo the present as she looked beyond the city and into the vast jungle beyond. The world outside the sealed homes and walkways of the city might be deadly, but that didn’t matter. Her people were hearty, they didn’t o terraform a world to call it their own.

  She was sure the soft core-worlders would balk at how they lived, but she didn’t care. If she cared eople withiO thought of them, she would have tried to improve retions with the puppet bureaucracy to try and remove the stigma that had been pced on her people. Instead, she used their bel as a ve shield to keep interlopers out of Asgardiaory. They would never fet what the STO had doo them and they would not allow it to happen again.

  The harsh life they led on Asgard meant her people didn’t have the rgest popution base, but that was fihey didn’t need endless numbers when her people were the best. She would never let her people devolve into the masses of pathetic wretches who came from the Anazi and Xin worlds, whose ships were more often than not run by sves or fools. Sometimes both.

  Once she dealt with the little brother, she was going to push through Anazi territory and bombard Haven from orbit to teach those pirates a lesson that wouldn’t soon be fotten. With Harlow’s fleets occupied with the STO, this would be the best opportunity to strike at the heart of their power. This a wouldn’t kill them off, but it would set their pns baany years to e and make space a safer pce for at least a geion.

  If her people had been more bloodthirsty, she would have already dohis the moment she heard Harlow and the pirates were engaged with the STO, but they didn’t seek war for the sake of battle. It was only the Anazi’s breato their territory that prompted a response beyond their borders.

  Something caught her eye and she gnced down toward the covered streets below. The usual meandering crowds were gone as people hurried to their destinations. She smiled at that. Word was already getting out that a fight was ahead of them. A battle loomed and Odin's eye was turoward them. None of her people would flinch at that because they knew even if they died, Valhal awaited them. Katalynn turned from the window and began her own preparations.

  ***

  LOCATION: EDEN’S END

  SYSTEM: Y6X-3H2

  DATE: 2399

  After pleting his meeting with the survivors, Alexander focused on pnning for Yulia’s party. He would be the first to admit that pnning a party was not something he was good at. But he knew someone who was good at pnning parties.

  “Eva, could I ask you for a favor?” He found the eaking with a group of security people, so he waited for her to be done.

  The woman had taken on a sort of Deputy role to Damien, and even that hard-headed idiot wasn’t stupid enough to push her away.

  “What I help you with, Alexander?”

  “I need help pnning Yulia’s birthday party.”

  “Ah,” the woman smiled. “I would love to help, but I’ve been quite busy since we got back. I give you some words of advice though. Invite everyone you , especially all of the children. And just find a way to make it as fun for them as possible. It’s really that simple.”

  “Hmm. I had hoped for a bit more, but thank you for the advice. I guess I’ll figure something out.”

  She chuckled. “I’m sure whatever you do, Yulia will love it.”

  Alexander walked away from that versation less sure thaarted. He picked his fragmented memories for children's parties. There weren’t many intact memories of fun or childhood, but he did find a few that had promise. No s though, he shivered mentally. Why ahought those things were fun was beyond him.

  He put together some games, a few came from his memories, and some he just made up that he thought the kids might enjoy.

  He even built a bouncy castle. Which was a lot harder thahought it would be. He had known about the bouncy castle back when he built the pyground, but it seemed like a bad iment of materials at the time. Kids teo be rough on things and he didn’t want to be patg it up every week when it tore. But for a single day, that he could handle.

  Invites were sent to all of the kids and their parents as Eva had suggested. He also sent io all the people he knew or worked with as well. Alexander even invited Dr. Lund, although, he wasn’t sure she would attend. He hadn’t seen the woman since he returned but she had left him with some more math equations that he didn’t fully uand. He would o spend some more time brushing up on his mathematics.

  With the party pnned, and the people ihat only left the present. He had spent days mulling over what to give the girl. His first thought was to give her the other pirate ship, and thehought better about that. He feared it might remind her of her past and he didn’t want to do that. She also didn’t seem like the sort that would enjoy people around as a Captain. Yulia was more of a daredevil, which Alexander wished wasn’t the case.

  Whehought about that word, things like stuntmen, racecar drivers, and fighter pilots came to mind. Not that he thought it would be a good idea to give his daughter a racecar or a ship like that.

  That left his options rather limited. He wao give her something she could use for a long time to e, that would mean a lot to her. Alexander looked over at one of his printers.

  Yulia was doing well with his little engineering puzzles. Maybe it was time to push her to make her own items. He would o restrict the prio noallic items until she got a bit older but it might work. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

  While it might be funny to hand the girl one of his industrial printers, he decided against that. A normal printer, like what he inally used back at Petrov Station would be perfect for the girl. It was also paough that it could be pced iheir home, so she could use it any time she wished.

  With a pn in mind, Alexander began sg down the design for his new prio something a bit more manageable. If he was going to give her a printer, it might as well be the best damn printer he could produce. She would be the sed person on Eden’s End with one of these improved printers.

  While one of the newer printers was in his shop, he had still been tweaking the design aing ready for the third prieration to finally start printing the parts to meet Lund’s requirements. He wao try and squeeze out a bit more efficy before he started manufacturing repts for the rest of his industrial maes so he wouldn’t have to repce everything two or three times over.

  Instead of wasting more time trying to find every tiny little improvement, he sent the parts list to the upgraded prihe engineers had built while he was in space. It would take about a day to print that and ao assemble. Yulia’s printer would be the first thing built with that new printer, and then a few days after that would be her party. He couldn’t wait to see her rea.