In the end, the implied threat was enough to make the man talk, which was a relief. Alexander had already done enough things in the past few days that he would rather fet. If he could trade these new memories for some of his lost ones, he would have done so in the blink of an eye.

  The man’s reason for doing what he did was as disgusting as the man himself. He was a degee gambler who had fled STO space after rag up a debt he couldn’t afford to pay back. When he realized there was a ce to pay off that debt aurn to STO space, he jumped at the opportunity and reached out to an old tact of his who acted as a go-between for him and the pirates. All it took to get the man to turn on everyone here romise of a ride home and what amouo fewer credits than it would have cost Alexao rent his small shop spa Petrov station for a year.

  Alexander found it hard to believe that someone could be so cold and callous to do such a thing. Or how he thought it was a good idea to trust pirates to actually keep their promises. Not that Draven came across as very smart. He came across as a sad patheti, whose only goal in life was to get babling.

  Alexander didn’t stick around to watch the remaining interrogation but he knew what the e would be. The man willingly worked with pirates, what did he think would happen? Alexander didn’t feel so much as an ounce of remorse for what awaited Draven, which surprised him. Not that he thought he should care about that useless waste of oxygen, but his feelings had been jumping bad forth pretty hard since his run-in with the pirate who threatened Yulia. It had gotten so bad he almost wished he hadn’t awakehem. …That wasn’t true. While these emotions were inve, he felt more human now than he ever had before.

  He still couldn’t tell if he had a full range of emotions, but some were certainly better than none.

  Having these emotions brought about an intense feeling of disgust for the as he took to break Draven. Alexander knew logically that those feelings were mispced, but he never wished to have to do something so vile again. Ag like that, even for a short time made him feel dirty, like he had somehow stooped to the level of the pirates. He should have left the questioning to Damien and Matthews, but he had a personal stake in this matter. With Yulia’s safety on the line, he wasn’t willing to be a bystander.

  Matthews stepped out of the room a few mier. “Are you ok?”

  “I–” He was going to feed the man some empty ptitude but decided against it. “I will be, eventually.”

  The Captain of the Talon gave a single slight nod. “You did what o be done. Nobody will fault you for that.”

  “I know. I just wish it hadn’t been necessary in the first pce. All I ever wao do was find somepce safe for my daughter a away from the corporations. And now pirates are after me.”

  “I would like to tell you everything will be fine, but I don’t like to fill people with false promises. Your defeat of this group will certainly leave this area of space rather quiet for a time but the name Draven gave us is a well-known pirate. Arkonis Anazi irate royalty and the brother of Harlow Anazi, an infamous pirate warlord. I doubt the two were close or anything like that so it isn’t likely he will take the death of his younger brother personally but you never know with pirates. I was more surprised to hear someone from the Anazi family was even out in this sector. The Char family are the ones who are usually found in this area of space, specifically, Katalynn Char. The Anazi family trols Haven, which is on the opposite side of STO space. If I had to guess, they are probably the ones who attacked Petrov Station.”

  “This Arkonis Anazi was here? Whie was he?”

  Matthews pulled up his tablet and flicked to a picture. “Here’s a picture of him. The DNA ser said this was his armor.” The man flicked to the bloody armor worn by the man who threatened Yulia.

  The man got what he deserved then. “What now?” he asked. Alexander’s only real pn was to rebuild the defenses, improve them, and try to get ba track with his other projects. He could certainly use the opinion of someoh experience.

  The man put away his tablet. “Now… now you get to cim the bouhere were quite a few that the STO will be more than happy to knone.”

  “ you cim them?”

  Matthews quirked an eyebroould you want the Hawks to cim them?”

  Alexander gestured around. “I don’t want to draw any more attentiohan I already have. Arkonis may have e here for me, but I don’t think he did it on his own initiative.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “No. But I find it highly suspicious that all of this seems to lead back to Petrov Station. Someohere must know what I do. For all I know, the entire Anazi family could be after me.”

  “That seems like a bit of a stretch, Alexander. But then again, I have seen you do some remarkable things in nine months, so maybe it isn’t as impusible as I think. I’ll make you a deal. I will only agree to turn in these bounties if you provide your corporate at to send the moo.”

  “’t you just use the moo pay what I still owe you for your services?” That seemed like the best option to him. It also didn’t leave a trail straight to Blue Star Enterprises.

  The man chuckled. “I think you’re uimating the bounties on these pirates. These are people who have been stalking the spaes for decades. Arkonis alone was worth a hundred millios. You also took down his sed, third, and fourth in and. Those all total up to another hundred million. Add in the small fry that got tagged by ship cameras during their past raids and you might be looking at yet another hundred million, it's hard to say. That’s three hundred million just in bounties. If you sell that armor that Arkonis was wearing, that would probably you ahree hundred million.”

  Alexander would have started coughing if he had a mouth, instead, he just stared at the Captain, which wasn’t very effective since he didn’t have his hologram. “Why is the armor worth so much?”

  “I don’t know who made that armor but I tell you that it is state-of-the-art eleic warfare gear. That alone is surprising to see, but that’s not why you could get three hundred million for it. At most, armor like that would cost fifty million to purchase ht, which is a ridiculous sum for something like that, but there are people who pay for that type of stuff. The reason you get three hundred million is because the pany that built it will pay you that much. They will do this just to keep it from being publiowledge that their armor was sold to a known pirate. The STO tends to frown on bck-market arms to the point of arrestiire panies until they sort out who sold the armor. Even if they were somehow i, which I doubt, that would put a bck mark on their pany and nobody would buy from them ever again.”

  “Isn’t that bckmail?”

  Matthews shrugged. “It depends on how you word the request. The world isn’t bd white, Alexander. It is many shades of grey. You just o learn to live within them. If you don’t want to deal with the logistics of it, let the Hawks hahe problem.”

  “That seems like a risky venture. Won’t that get you in trouble if the pany finds out?”

  The man smirked. “No. We have our own bck ops team. We’ll pass it off to them to do the dirty work.”

  “I somehow feel like you shouldn’t have told me that,” he muttered, earning a chuckle from the grey-haired captain.

  “Everything I told you has already been cleared by our leadership. Like I said, they want a close retionship with you. Just don’t go spreading that information around.”

  “I wasn’t pnning on it. You said that armor is state-of-the-art. Shouldn’t I keep it and try to reverse-engi or something? Seems like a waste to just give it back.”

  “I would reend against that. The material might be worth studying, but you only o take a small sample of that. As for the rest of it, don’t bother. Some systems will alert their manufacturers when they get tampered with. For a suit like that, I almost guara has other protes built in as well. Get rid of it, earn a rge k of credits, and be free of the hassle. Besides, knowing you, you could probably build your own suit in a few years given what I’ve seen you do. And it would probably be better anyway.”

  “I’m familiar with the practice of panies hiding shit iheir products,” he said in disgust. “Alright. Have your people take the suit and sell it back to the manufacturer. I already got a good look at it anyway, and I gotta say, I wasn’t impressed. you do something with that money for me instead of just depositing it in my at?”

  “Sure. As far as I’m ed, it’s your money, we’re just holding it for you.”

  He told the Captain what he wahe man didn’t seem all that surprised by the request.

  “Could take awhile. But that should be doable. We set up the delivery for wheurn. With the pirates ag out, I don’t know how long that will be but let's assume a year at the earliest. That will also be close to the time the Taloo go in for its regur maintenanyway. Since you have a station now, we just do that here. And if you happen to have some fanew engines ready to go by then…”

  This time Alexander chuckled. “I’ll see what I get done by then. Thank you again for everything, Captain Matthews. I look forward to seeing you in a year.” Alexander held his hand out and the man shook it.

  “You call me Archie, it's short for Archibald. Stay safe, Alexander, and good luck with your pany.”

  He walked the man to the exit and watched as all the Hawks’ dropships lifted off as one and roared into orbit in formation. Alexander was immensely grateful for having employed the merary pany. He doubted another pany of meraries would have e back after learning of their mistake. Things would have turned out much differently in that case. The pirate ships would have realized sooner or ter that only un was online and simply blown it up. Or destroyed the entire facility and called it a day.

  Alexander gnced over at the crumpled wreckage of a ship about two-thirds the size of the Zephyr. It was going to take months to up the wreckage. At least the stupid thing was off the nding pad. He turo the other distant pads that he could see from his spot. There were four shuttles owo pads within his view. If that stayed true for the other six nding pads around the facility, that meant he now had sixteen shuttles.

  Then he looked into orbit and focused until his vision telescoped to show him the ships up there. He wasn’t sure zooming in like that would work, but he figured if he could magnify an area in his vision, he could probably do this. His view was mostly blocked by the hazy yellow atmosphere but he could see the sun glinting off the ships. Even so, they were tiny spe his vision.

  Captain Matthews’ people had moved them to a Lagrange poiween the p and the rgest of the four satellites that orbited Eden’s End. He wasn’t sure what to do about the ships. They would probably e in handy at some point, but certainly not in their current figuration. And not without serious repairs. It might be best to strip most of them for useful parts ahe rest to the smelter. He would o go up there personally and ihe ships to figure out what would be best.

  He tried sing the sky for the Destiny, but it was either on the far side of the p or too far away to see. He could clearly see the Talon hanging in space even without his enhanced vision. The ship was just that massive.

  Alexander watched the tiny twinkle of lights from the drop ships as they ehe troop transport. He tio watch it as it started accelerating away.

  With his new friends go was time to get back to work. Alexaurned and walked bato the facility, his mind full of ideas.