LOCATION: EDEN’S END

  SYSTEM: Y6X-3H2

  DATE: 2399

  “Alex, what color is the sky supposed to be?”

  “Hmm?” Alexander paused his work to look over at Yulia who was sitting at a little table he made for her in his shop. “Why do you ask?”

  “When I told Sarah and Cire they were c the sky wrong, they looked at me funny and said the sky is supposed to be blue, not yellow.”

  He made a holographid appear on his avatar’s faake it look like he the thought. Yes, he had repced the emitter yet again. This time he had harde agaironiterference as well as damage by c the ehing in armor. Was it overkill? sidering he had lost two of them in the span of a year, probably not.

  “It depends on the p you are on. On Eden’s End, the sky is a hazy yellow from the sulfur in the air. On most terraformed ps, I suspect it would be blue like Earth. But that’s only a guess on my part. I’ve only ever been here and oh.”

  She dug around in the box of crayons and pulled out a light blue. “Like this?”

  “It certainly could be. The sky ges colors depending oime of day. I’ve even seen a pink sky.”

  “Ew,” she stated matter-of-factly as she went back to c her picture. Alexander watched her trate on her drawing, her touck to the side of her mouth. He chuckled internally. As it turns out, Yulia wasn’t much of a fan of pink. That would have been good to know before he bought all of her bedding and decor in a pink flower motif, but the girl hadn’t pio him at the time.

  She had no reason to pin back then, she was simply happy to be adopted. It seemed kind of obvious now that he thought about it.

  He gnced over at the picture she was c in. It was an image of a house on a hill. A dirty brown hill. Apparently, she didn’t know about grass either. The c books and crayons had been a donation of his to the pseudo-school that the residents were running. He called it a pseudo-school not out of disrespect. They actually did a fine job teag what they knew. And that was the issue.

  Until Alexander arrived with his learning modules, the people taught the kids what they knew. sidering how expehe modules he purchased were, that wasn’t much. Instead of relying on the modules, the residents of Eden’s End passed down knowledge learned from geion to geion. He was impressed when he learhat most of the people on Eden’s End were literate. It sort of made sense, all of the information they had was on tablets or the aging soles littered throughout the facility. If you couldn’t read the ss, you weren’t going to get very far.

  Introdug paper to them had been a fun challehe people teag didn’t know what it was supposed to be used for until Alexander showed them. At the moment, it was just being used by the younger kids to draw pictures with the crayons he made from some syic wax. Eventually, he hoped the teachers would embrace the idea of tests that he had floated to them.

  He wouldn’t push them though. He just wao ehe people here were getting the best education they could. Part of that was to help them. The other part was to help him. Yes, his reasons weren’t pletely altruistic, but he didn’t care.

  The attack a month ago had been a rather rude wake-up call to everyone on Eden’s End. Sihen, more and more people have been accepting jobs from the job board. Most of those jobs catered toward improving the living ditions pside. That still worked in his favor. The issue was what happened after that? He needed skilled workers to grow, which is why he was iing so mu the younger geion.

  The adults could still earn access to the learning modules, but most of them were already set in their ways. The ohat weren’t had already been trained up as much as possible by the Hawks. There was still a lot of work to be doo the facility before it was restored to its previous glory so that issue was a long way off.

  He was just gd the bulk of that work was off his shoulders now. The less time Alexander o spend personally fixing the facility, the better. Speaking of not wasting time, his watch beeped to remind him he had an appoi. The spring wound timepiece was a pletely unnecessary accessory since he had an inbuilt clock, but he liked it. The wristwatch reminded him he was still human ihis monstrous body of unknown ins.

  “I have to go meet with some people. Do you want to e along o py?”

  It was not really a question for the little girl. “I’mma go py!” Yulia yelled in delight as she grabbed her picture and raced off to find her friends.

  After Yulia’s speedy departure, Alexander made his way to atrium A. It was the main atrium used by the people of Eden’s End. As he walked, people actually waved and greeted him. He either waved or nodded iurn. While not everyone had warmed to his presehere had been a signifit shift in attitude toward him after word started to spread of what he did during the attack.

  Nobody was calling him a hero, thankfully. The heroes were those who gave their lives to stop the pirates. He made sure t that point up anytime someoiohe attack. But it didn’t stop the rumors about him. He sighed internally aered the noisy cmor of the atrium.

  Being the rgest spa the most occupied se of the facility, this atrium saw a lot of use. Today it was being used as a sort of farmers market. He wasn’t here for that, but he certainly could use some fresh vegetables. Maybe he would barter for some on his way back.

  Alexander weaved his way through the crowds. Mostly people just stepped aside when they saw him ing. The few who didn’t notice his passage were usually too busy with something and he skirted around them.

  Soon enough he came to ay plot of nd, much like the one where he built the pyground. Only this one was filled with tilled dirt.

  A group of people oher side of the marked-off area were arguing with each other and pointing at the dirt.

  “-not going to grow alongside the squash. How many times do I have to tell you?” an older woman stated.

  “And you're the expert now, Shei? Last I checked, my plot produced the most yield. What did yours do? Oh, wait, never mind, you didn’t pnt anything st year.” The man crossed his arms with a smug look of triumph.

  Alexahought the two would e to blows until a third man whistled sharply to get their attention before nodding in his dire.

  The three of them turo him.

  “We’ll see what Alex has to say, Sorin, then we’ll see who’s smug,” the woman replied.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know why you three requested this meeting,” Alexander said.

  “You have all those fancy learning things, don’tcha? I’m sure you even picked up some farming or hydroponies. Tell this idiot over here that you ’t pnt potatoes o squash. Just because one grows above ground and the other underground doesn’t mean they are patible.”

  “…Um. I don’t know anything about farming. But if you three want access to the farming modules, I trade you time with them.”

  “Told you he wouldn’t know,” the sean muttered quietly. But he sounded rather smug about it.

  It would have been too quiet for a normal person to hear from where he was standing, but he still heard it. The woman must have heard it as well because she gred at the man. “I bet you half my harvest year that I’m right.”

  “What!” the man uncrossed his arms and stepped back.

  “What, what? Are you afraid of losing a bet?”

  Sorin’s a the woman’s statement gave him the ce he needed. “Hardly. Fine. Half my harvest. Not like what I’ll make off you losing will be muyway but if it knocks you off yh horse, then it’ll be worth it.” The two shook hands and turo him.

  “What did you want in trade?” Shei asked.

  “Ten pert of your crops and a guarahat you will work at increasing your crop effid yields.”

  “Ten pert!” Sorin sputtered before Shie cuffed him in the shoulder.

  “Don’t be a daft idiot. If Alex here has learning modules for increasing harvest, then you should be able to double or triple your output with little effort. These aren’t little aes passed down from family to family on how to pnt and tend crops. It’s knowledge gained by massive corporations over turies.”

  Sorin spit on the ground. “Who hat shit. If you wanna waste your time and effort, be my guest. But I already have proof that my family's ways are the best. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be the top performer ead every year. And don’t think I’ll take any bullshit excuses when these fanew ideas cause you to fail. We shook on it, if ye I’m going to Damien.” Sorin stomped off after that.

  Shei just gave the younger man a dismissive wave. “Churlish idiot. That’s what happens when you’re a third-geion drifter. You lose touch with reality and the corporations bee the boogeyman. So,” she said, turning back to Alexander. “Ten pert?”

  “And a guarantee you will try to increase your yield.”

  She ughed at that. “That’s kinda what I’m already after, big man. You got yourself a deal,” she stuck out her hand and Alexander shook it.

  “What about you?” he asked the silent man.

  The man g Shie and she gave him a small nod. The man sighed and offered his hand. “Name’s, Frank.”

  That’s all the man said. Alexander assumed that was a yes and shook the man’s hand.

  “Excellent. Do you both know where they teach the children?”

  Frank nodded.

  “No clue, but if that’s where we gotta go, I’ll just follow Franky,” Shei he man, earning an eye roll.

  “Just tell the teachers you’re there to use the learning modules. They will set you up on a terminal.” He hahe two some metal cards he kept in a pou his utility belt. Yes, he called it a utility belt. “These will allow you to access the modules. Give me a day or so to set the correes up for you, then feel free to use them as much as you need.”

  They thanked him a off to till more of the hard ground. The fact they did it all with hand tools or crude implements meant he robably going to get requests to make more effit farming tools at some point.

  That roblem since Alexander didn’t know anything about farming. He sighed and added it to his growing list.

  That damn list was like a hydra, cut off one head, and two grew in its pce. He was starting to get it under trol though.

  With his meeting over, he headed back to his workshop. It had taken a month to up and fix the internal damage caused by the pirates. Most of that damage was caused by the three grenades going off but not all of it.

  With the workshop back up and running, that left the destroyed railguns as the only remaining damage from the pirate attacks.

  Workers were still excavating the pits before he could even think to rebuild them. It was a good thing they still had three w orbital railguns and all the turrets surrounding the nding pads after they were reset. The EMP attack hadn’t actually caused that much perma damage. The only things permaly damaged by the attack seemed to be his crude puter chips. That was a cheap and easy fix. Ohose damaged puters were sed out with new ohe interior turrets and the other devices that used them were ba w order. They would still be subject to the same fw, but he wasn’t about to waste the st supply of porary puter chips he had purchased from STO spa those.

  Whe more time, he would e up with a solution to help protect them better thahin film of copper foil he ehem in now. It would probably work, but it was so delicate it teo tear. The film also caused heat to get trapped inside which would likely cause the chips to fail quicker. He realized he was only sing one issue for another but it was a temporary fix.

  That wasn’t the only problem he was fag after the attack. A week ago, they finally started up unch operations again. The unch went fine and the capsule made it into orbit only to explode when a piece of errant debris struck it. With no way to track the cloud of broken pieces left behind by the destroyed pirate ships, each was like rolling the dice. That was uable because it halted all stru of the space station.

  He was also running into a raw material she issue on the ground as well. The miners simply couldn’t keep up. Captain Na and the Destiny had dropped off a quarter load of unrefined ore and the smelter had worked through it, leaving a huge supply of high-grade material waiting at the station. But if he couldn’t get it pside, it didn’t do him much good.

  That meant the main priority on his list was getting those shuttles up and running or at least one of them w. They were operational, acc to the report Captain Matthews had left him, if you weren’t too worried about sudden depressiine loss. Apparently, the pirates hadn’t been overly ed by these issues.

  The things were hunks of junk. And that was being generous. He was going to have to gh them with a fioothed b and ohey were funal enough for a sane person to fly them, find a pilot willing to do the work.

  Despite all the setbacks and issues he was fag, Alexander was excited about what the future held.