“Report,” Vitor said, trying to keep the exhaustion out of his voice. While the air ihe facility was breathable, uside, he still wasn’t used to how thin it was pared to bae. It wasn’t enough to harm him or his people, but it did make w extra tiring.

  Then there was the pervasive smell of rotten eggs. The smell made it hard to sleep, pounding the issue of living in this pce.

  Of course, none of the locals were outwardly hostile towards them. In fact, the drifters of Eden’s End were more than happy to point out the exits to his people, ughing while they did. One of them even offered a breathing mask to one of his crew and said, “Good luck!”

  It wasn’t a very funny joke, despite the man’s uproarious ughter. He had briefed his people about not leaving the facility. While they could survive with the mask food few hours, it would only take one disgruntled local log the door behind them to seal anyone's fate that stepped outside. Vitor didn’t think that was likely to happen, but he preferred not to take that ce.

  “…We finally entered the smuggler with the FTL ship,” his officer stated.

  Vithed. “I’m assuming by your hesitation, that the enter was not a pleasant one?”

  “It was not, Captain. The man spat at the Marine apanying us, almost causing a brawl. If it wasn’t for the local guards trailing us, there likely would have been a fight.”

  It had takeo track down the visitor. Kaainly hadn’t mentiohe man, but sidering the smuggler’s rea to a simple question, maybe there was a reason Kane hadn’t spoken of him. He mentally marked that route of egress as a st resort.

  His people could storm the smuggler’s ship and take it, he was certain of that. He was also certain that Kane would shoot them down if they did. If something didn’t ge withi months as Kane had initially predicted, he was going to look for a more direct approach to getting out of there.

  “What about Kane?” Over the weeks, his people had caught glimpses of the man, or more specifically the robot. He had debriefed each of his crew after the attack. What he learned was rather shog.

  He only had vague memories of shooting at somethiering the Dawn’s bridge, but those fleeting memories matched the robot’s description. He was bck, headless, a feet tall with long segmented arms and legs. There was also a report from one of the surviving Marihat the robot was strong enough to overe the augment gear of a full bat suit.

  The robot thing wasn’t too surprising, Vitor had seen the man’s dossier. Supposedly some sort of disease kept him in a stasis pod, although the analysis notes in the record all agreed that it was likely a cover story for something. They just didn’t know what. With Kane’s skills, and money, it was a good ce he was some sort of engineering genius and wao remain off the corporations’ radar. sidering his run-in with Omni, and his subsequent flight from STO space, it seemed like he wasirely unjustified.

  By now, Vitor knew Kane was avoiding him, but he couldn’t uand why. The robot suit and the story about him being sid in a medical stasis pod werely well known on Eden’s End, but they weren’t secrets either.

  Most of the locals just assumed the man was some rich etric who transferred his brain into the body of the robot to extend his life. That was certainly more pusible than the siess excuse. Vitor khere were some experiments to extend the human sciousness past death by transpnting the brain. As far as he was aware, those experiments were only successful for a few months before the brains shut down.

  Not that it mattered, Vitor needed a face-to-face with the man, and he knew how to make that happen. He hadn’t do yet, because he k was going to cause fri.

  ***

  Alexander was making his way to the unch trol room when he spotted one of Captain Krieger’s people. Without missing a step, he turned down a side passage. It was annoying and would mean it took extra time to reach his destination, but he felt it best if he avoided them while they were here. It had been almost three months, but not a siO vessel had shown up looking for them. Not even a scout ship.

  The entire system had been quiet sihe battle, which was a relief. It had giveime to plete the defensive envelope around the p and move on to other projects.

  That was one of the reasons why Alexander was heading toward the un. He wao notify the engihat there would be no more unches after today. It was time to redirect their efforts to the sed shuttle, which had been stripped weeks ago in preparation for the new parts. And he couldn’t wait to see how well they performed.

  Alexander was ready to test this fifth-geion engine design on an actual ship instead of just the test site. The numbers were promising. He finally had a design that outperformed the Omni ehanks to Dr. Lund’s help. He might have gotten to this point on his own, but it would have taken years of trial and error to figure out what he was missing without Lund’s optimization formu.

  As he neared another interse, anroup er’s people ehe end of the hall. Hiding his annoyance, he turned and walked dow another path.

  While he followed the new route, he focused oher project he was happy to start. Eden’s Fury had finally been stripped down to the frame. All the holes and cracks were patched in the old bones of the ship and it was time to rebuild the vessel from the ground up.

  He didn’t simply want to rebuild it, he wao make it the best ship he possibly could. That meant sers as the main on. These new sers were based on a modified design that took inspiration from his initial design as well as the STO oudied. He was still w on missiles, but the ship would have missile tubes that incorporated his railgun improvements into them. It wouldn’t ge them much, but he thought he might be able to unch them slightly faster thaO’s design.

  Of course, ons weren’t the only improvement. An even bigger one was the puter. As much as he would like to dedicate the same puting power that Epsilon’s Dawn has to his ship, he wasn’t in the position to waste two superputers to make that happen. That meant Fury was only getting one superputer, which was more processing power than all four of the pirate frigates had inally if you added them together. This leap in processing power meant the ship would need far fewer crew to operate its systems. Which would be a wele thing since he didn’t have any crew at the moment.

  The rest of the ship's systems would be state-of-the-art, or as stately as Alexander could make them. They probably wouldn’t e close to some of the fancy corporate ships, but that was fine. He was going for ease of use and simplicity, not opulence.

  He couldn’t fet the armor. After pleting his geion of printers, Alexander was finally able to produ eleicroscope. After studying the tiny fkes that came off of his body against the armor from the STO ship, he realized they weren’t the same. They were close though.

  The STO had defiried to mimic a material very simir to what Alexander was made from, which was enough firmation for him to decre that his body was alien in in. Not that he had expected anything different by this point but it was o finally have proof.

  The armor and Alexander’s body were made from pure carbon, but the material structure differed. The STO armor was posed of thin yered sheets of pressed carbon in a straice structure that almost looked like crystal. It looked almost like Lonsdaleite, but not quite.

  Alexander paused. How did he know what Lonsdaleite was or what its crystal structure looked like? He hadn’t entered any material like that since awakening as far as he could recall. It seemed to be just another random memory that came to him.

  After testing the material, he realized why it was desighis way. The material spread heat and pressure across its surface, dissipating the energy before shattering and fking away, leaving an undamaged yer underh. It looked to be a form of abtive armor. It also seemed to have an i ability to absorb all sorts of sensor pulses and radiation which is what made it nearly uable by modern sers. It was a very iing material and he would love to do more testing on it.

  That crystal structure was mirrored in his own armor, but his version was so much more than that. The first thing of note was that the yers that posed his outer skin were not separate. It was in fact a solid ttice as far as he could tell from the much smaller samples. The oddity was the evenly spaced intervals which had a different structure that wheur just right, allowed him to see through the piece.

  He finally uood why he could see from his entire body. The thin tubes of clear carbon, probably diamond or something even more bizarre, interspersed throughout his armor acted like fiberoptic fiments to pass light through to whatever processor was inside. If it was fiberopti nature and those els were damaged, it also expined why that area went dark.

  As for why it repaired itself, he wasly sure, but he had an idea. If it was all desigo have a crystal structure, there was nothing that would prevent it from growing back. He had no idea how that ossible and whatever system performed that magic must have been hidden deep within him. The STO’s armor didn’t have anything that poio self-repair. If it did, he would have seen some ge, even if small, to the overall damage to the Dawn.

  Their armor was impressive, but it was ultimately a cheap imitation of the real thing. Despite that, it was better than anything he had avaible. The problem was that he had no idea how to even begiing the stuff. The crystal structure of the armor outside of the diamond pathways wasn’t normally found in carbon. So printing it wasn’t an option. sidering the armor's ck of use on other STO ships, the process robably extremely difficult and required very specialized processes.

  He added finding out how to reproduce it to his list as he rounded another er and saw anroup er’s people. Running into them once wasn’t a surprise, twice was a fluke, but three times attern. Alexander sighed internally. He could simply ast them and ighis attempt, but he khey were bound to try it again sooner or ter. He was hoping the STO was off the base before it came to this.

  Instead of simply walking past the unassuming group, he turned down the only path left to him to meet the man he knew would be waiting for him when he arrived.

  “You have my attention, gratutions,” Alexaated in annoyance as he came to the end of the tunnel where a colpsed se still blocked it off.

  The man looked momentarily stunned by his appearance before replying. “You were a hard man to get ahold of, Kane, but now that I see you in person, I see why… Where did you get that robot from?”

  Alexander crossed his arms. “I didn’t e here to answer questions about myself, what do you want Captain Krieger?” This little detour was taking time out of his day and had soured his mood.

  “I wao thank you in person for saving my crew. And to ask if anything has ged to get us back to STO space?”

  “I would have notified you if it had.”

  “Like you notified us of the cargo ship?”

  Alexander chuckled at the accusation. “Your people met Captain Shall, how’d that go? I ’t say I much like the guy either, but by all means, try to take his ship. Pretty sure that would go quite badly for you though.”

  “Is that a threat?” Krieger asked, not showing aion.

  Alexander shook his avatar’s head. “No. I’m pretty sure Shall has his ship rigged to blow if aries taking it from him. He seems like the kind of guy that would do something like that.”

  “…I see. And the mining ship?”

  “Don’t pretend that you don’t know who that ship belongs to and what the captain and his crew went through. Do you really think Captain Na would agree to any request after being treated like that by the STO?”

  “You could ask him,” Krieger insisted.

  Alexander that. “I could. I’m not going to though. Let's get something straight, Captain. You and your people are guests here. Ohat are straining my patience by digging into my business. I rescued you, healed your people, fed, and sheltered them. I don’t owe you anything else. The sooner I get you out of my proverbial hair, the better. Are you satisfied now?”

  The man looked suitably chastised by Alexander’s words. “I am, Mr. Kane. I will tell my people to stop poking around and annoying you. If there is anything we do to assist, please let us know.”

  “The farmers are always looking for people to help with the fields. If you need something to keep your Marines busy, I suggest you start there. You have a nice day notain.” With that, Alexaurned around and headed toward his destination.

  This was exactly why he wao avoid this face-to-face with Krieger. The man was sharp and instantly reized that his body had something in on with the STO ship’s armor. Despite that, he was finally gd it was over with. Now he wouldn’t o stantly avoid their people and he might get more stuff done.

  Eden’s Fury should be plete soon. If the STO didn’t show up by then to cim their people and ship, he po take them home himself. He wasn’t willing to wait another five months. Normally, taking a pirate ship to STO space would be a bad idea, but he learned how to reproduce a transpohanks to the one aboard the Dawn. He would have asked Shall if he could look at his, but he didn’t want to owe that shifty man anything.

  It turns out that the transponders weren’t all that special. They were hard-coded transmitters that provided make, manufacturer, build date, name of ship, and captain, along with some other info. Since Alexander had a lised pany in STO space, he could add his manufacturer code to the transponder. It would also have a military tag since he was an indepe fa. He learned about that tag from Dawn as well.

  The STO was going to be surprised when they saw that but he didn’t particurly care. The military tag cssified their ship as an indepe military vessel but it also gave them the legal right to switch the transponder on and off, unlike non-military vessels. There were certairis to non-STO military ships in STO space, but not as many as you might think. If there were, the corporations wouldn’t be able to field their own military vessels.

  He still hoped the STO would get off their collective asses and e look for their people, but as the months passed, he realized that probably wasn’t going to happen.