“That’s the gist of it,” Mingyu said after reying what happeo him aboard the STO ship.

  Alexander was a bit irked by the treatment hrough. It also seemed like the STO wasn’t nearly as cohesive as he had once believed. This divisioainly expiheir ck of respoo Dawn vanishing and some other insistencies he had noticed. He wasn’t sure their ck of unity was a good thing though.

  An undivided entity would do much better against a threat like the pirates. Unfortunately, people had short memories, and the st time they o be unified was during the Coalition war. Hopefully, ohe Q got installed at Eden’s End, he could keep track of the war more closely.

  It wasn’t his pce to get involved in a war betweeO and the pirates, but he would be doing a disserviself if he didn’t at least stay up to date on the flict. Especially sihe pirate family responsible had already sent one person out to capture him. It would be the height of foolisho think they didn’t already have pns tain.

  “I won’t be dog at the STO station to visit this Vice Admiral in person. The risk isn’t worth anything they could offer us.”

  “I would have to agree. What if they simply ban you from STO space like they did with my ship?” Na offered.

  Alexander shrugged. “It would certainly slow down the projects I have going on, but I’m fident it won’t e to that.” At most, it would cripple his ability to purchase advaeologies and medical supplies. Then again, he wasn’t alone anymore, he had Jasper and the Hawks to lean on if the STO bcklisted him.

  “I assume you have a reason for this fidence?” Na asked.

  “I do,” he said with a smile. “Oh, while you were gone, we detected aealth vessel. This one was much smaller, which is why we missed it initially.” Alexander pulled up the puter’s best guess of the ship yout on the ship’s feren holo. “It’s impossible to tell exactly what it is due to the stealth armor, but I don’t think it’s a ship.”

  “Hmm,” Na said, zooming in on the image. “I believe you are right. At least it doesn’t resemble any ship I’ve ever seen. It's also smaller than our shuttle. It could be a single-seat craft, but I don’t see why the STO would bother.”

  “I think it might be a Q satellite,” Alexander said.

  Na jerked in surprise at his statement. “That would certainly warrant the stealth measures. But why do you think it’s a Q satellite?”

  “When the Admiral first reached out, there was a dey in unication. That dey gressively shorter. You spoke with him on the Blueridge. Did you experieny dey?”

  Na shook his head. “No. I thought maybe he was aboard one of the other ships or the other stealth ship. But now that you mention it, that ship wouldn’t have been close enough to unicate iime.”

  “And there would be no point asking for us to dod speak in person if Fletcher was already out here.”

  “There is that as well,” Na frowned. “That doesn’t expin why the STO won’t try to ban you or try to impound the Fury.”

  Alexander chuckled slightly at that. “First of all, I don’t think they have the firepower to impound us uhey get that other stealth ship involved. That would be messy for everyone here, and I don’t think they want to risk a sed stealth ship when they don’t know what we are capable of. As for your other point, The satellite likely sed our ship. If the STO had any AI in the system, they would have realized we weren’t running standard engines. I specifically made my design distinough to differentiate it from our petitors.”

  “You think he wants to make a deal? Seems like a bit of a stretch, Alex.”

  Alexander shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But like I said, we won’t be dog. In fact, we’re going to sit far enough away from their station to intercept any possible ordhey could send our way while being close enough to send Qessages with as little dey as possible. I would take advantage of that vely pced satellite, but I don’t want to tip our hand that we know about it or the other stealth ship.”

  Na agreed and they returo the bridge where he sent their response. If the Vice Admiral was disappointed, he didn’t show it.

  “Your approach has been approved, Mr. Kane, Captain Na. Please follow the fleet to the station.”

  Following the fleet was essentially the Fury being hemmed in by twates with the cruiser in the lead and the stealth ship following far behind. Alexander wasn’t too worried. He knew his sers were far more powerful than the ones oealth ship, and the other ships only sported Gauss ons, which judging by the age of the ships, had probably beerofitted at some point in the past.

  The trip in was a bit te otherwise uful. Before they arrived, the stealth ship broke off its pursuit. Fury still tracked it on optical sensors until it passed behind the moohe Naval station orbited.

  The facility was massive, dwarfirov Station, the only other station Alexander had seen up close. He couldn’t help imagining what he could build with a station as rge as this one. While it was fun to daydream, he shook those thoughts away. He had a lot of stuff he wao get done before they left and he didn’t want to stick around too long if he could help it. Alexander assumed the Vice Admiral would reach out to him at some point during their visit, so that would likely cut into his time.

  The first thing he did was send a message to Jasper, letting his friend know things were going well. He was iionally vague because he didn’t necessarily trust the Q work. The message went to the Hawks, and they actually responded almost immediately via video.

  “Mr. Ka’s good to hear from you. We hadn’t expected anything so soon. I assume your situation has stabilized?” Anthony Baru, the Hawks Operation’s lead asked.

  “Something like that,” Alexander responded. “How are things on your end? Any ges that will dey your visit?” With Fury fully operational, and the defense grid around Eden’s End up and running, he wasn’t as ed if they got deyed, but it would be good to know ahead of time if that was the case.

  “No, things have beeively quiet out here, and we’re spending most of our time patrolling. Your funds have been transferred into your at as per the agreement you made with Captain Matthews. We are still in the process of fulfilling your st request, but we don’t prediy issues there. Is there anything else you need from us while you are in STO space?”

  He hadn’t specified that he was in STO space, but the man wasn’t stupid and it wasn’t a huge leap of logic to figure out he was near a Q. “I do actually. I have a few more bouo cim, I send them your way?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” the man sighed. “We would he inal device that sed the bodies as it creates a unique identifier. A digital transfer won’t do.”

  Alexander was afraid of that. “I will have to just cim them myself then.”

  “If you think that’s wise. Or you could just hold on to them. There is imeframe to turn bounties in.”

  “I would if I could, but I have a feeling I will he funds sooner rather than ter.”

  Baru nodded. “If you need any assistah the process let me know.”

  The st thing they discussed was the acquisition of persoo fill out his engineering roles. Alexander was surprised to find that the Hawks had gone above and beyond to also find skilled crewmen for him. That news was nearly enough to tempt Alexao fetch these new recruits in person. He held off on that because getting to Ganos was a month-loure. Alexander wasn’t ready to leave Yulia alone for that long.

  When he was doh Baru, he tacted Fidelity Properties again. A man in a well-tailored suit greeted him. “How may I assist you?”

  “Oh… I was expeg Violet.”

  “She is ht now, but if you wish to work with her, I let her know?”

  Alexander shook his avatar’s head. He couldn’t expect her to be there all the time. “That won’t be necessary. I’m looking for ste spaear Ganos, preferably something that any size of ship easily dock at.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard to source. However, most people simply rent. I assume you wish to purchase the space ht?”

  “Yes,” he gave the man the size requirements he was looking for and waited.

  It took less than half an hour to find a suitable ste facility. Alexaransferred the moo purchase it, nearly balking at the twenty millio price tag. If it wasn’t for the half a billios he pulled off of this very ship, he would be close to broke. He checked his bance, findihan thirty million remained of that inal amount. When he looked at the transa history, he wasn’t surprised. Jasper had purchased everything Alexander had asked for. It also seemed like some of those things had gone up in price, the puter chips specifically had taken a huge bite out of his wallet.

  He pulled out his bag of credit chits and pressed them into the terminal. It took twenty mio transfer all of them to his at, but it was now back up over half a billios. He didn’t stop there. He used the terminal to ect to the pirate bounty board. It took a bit of figuring out how to trahe DNA ss from the device to the terminal, but he eventually did manage.

  It was a good thing that they were able to replicate an STO terminal from aboard the Dawn. He wasn’t sure the a hardware at Eden’s End would have been patible with standard STO systems. The bounties added another seventy million. It seemed like the Char pirates weren’t quite as active as the Anazi ones were. Still, he would take what he could get.

  Not wanting to hog the only sole avaible, Alexander quickly finished up his work a. Purchasing the additional learning modules, dropped his bance back down to two hundred million, but those would pay off eventually. He would have liked to purchase the pns for artificial gravity and some other items, but they were well outside his price raill. With any luck, money would start ing in soon.

  ***

  “Captain, I’m gd you survived. What the hell happened?” Fletcher asked Krieger.

  “We arrived in the system and were going about our normal checkup. A day ter, Char jumped into the system with twenty-two ships.” Fletcher wi that news. “sidering your standing orders, we maneuvered into a position to attack if the pirates engaged Eden’s End. As you imagihey did. We took out a few of their ships, but they turned on us instead of tinuing to attack the space station orbiting the p. We had a close flyby, where we slugged it out, and I was knocked unscious. When I woke up, I tried to scuttle the ship, but the nuke failed to go off. Then I checked on the surviving crew and heard someone b Dawn. I attempted to fight back, but my oxygen was nearly depleted. Luckily it was Kane and his people and not pirates that boarded the ship. Oh, and Kane’s a robot, or acc to rumors, a sick man puppeteering a robot. I don’t believe that for one minute. Mostly because the robot is made from the same material as Dawn’s armor.”

  That got Fletcher’s attention. “You’re sure about this?”

  “As sure as I be. You o see it for yourself to tell for sure.”

  So Kane might be from the same alien species that the ship came from? Hell, for all he knew, Kane might be from that very same ship. It had been heavily damaged when they found it.

  “Thanks for the unofficial report, Captain Krieger. Do you know what yoing to put in your official report?”

  The man sighed and nodded. “That I went awol, took a ship, got attacked by pirates, and was rescued. I assume you have enough pull to keep me from seeing a firing squad at least?”

  Fletcher nodded. “I will have to pull some strings, but you’ll be dishonorably discharged. I’m sorry it has to go down like this, you were a good captain.”

  Krieger snorted. “I suppose you did warhis ossibility before I agreed to join your team.” The man held out his hand and Fletcher accepted the gesture. “I guess this is goodbye, Scott.”

  This time Fletcher snorted. “I’m still your anding officer.”

  “Not for long. If I’m going out, I have no reason to follow protocol anymore.”

  Despite the dour mood, Fletcher smiled. “Don’t give up hope, Vitor, you might find someone who will take you on.”

  The two shook hands and Fletcher watched Captain Krieger walk out of the room, only to be handcuffed by two Marines ao the brig. It was a situation he very much wished he had the power to ge, but he was nearing his limits on what strings he could pull at the moment.

  Instead of dwelling on what he couldn’t ge, he turo the tablet he was holding.

  Fletcher scrolled through the Q log from Mr. Kane. He was hoping for some leverage to make it easier to vihe man to work with him, but it was just routine correspondence. Unfortunately, he couldn’t dig into Kane’s other transas. Those were all highly encrypted. The AI could break through the encryption given time, but Fletcher would need a warrant to do that type of work and that would tip people off that he would rather keep in the dark about this enter. It also wasn’t pertio what he needed from Kane.

  He tapped his fingers on his desk as he tried to find a solution to have a face-to-face with Kane. He to be face-to-face because he couldn’t afford for his versation to be recorded or sent via open radio. He also wao firm what Krieger had just told him.

  There were also too many Omni spies in the system. Wilrd rime example.

  The bastard was caught giving cssified reports to Omni.

  Wilrd only got away with it because he was the son of one of the royal families that trolled a ti on Malis, or Malik. Fletcher fot which of the twins the man actually came from, not that it mattered. The eau Ceti system might as well have beloo Omni, sidering they kept all the royals rolling is. Omni was one of the only privately held panies in that system, as the royals had bought up almost every other industry. It was a testament to the pany's power and reach that they mao stay indepe. Not that they didn’t actively work with the royal families to enrich both sides.

  Even without Omni, having two habitable ps in the same system gave Tau Ceti a lot of power. While Tau Ceti didn’t hold the STO Chairman role at the moment, most of the policy ges i fifty years came out of that system.

  To top it off, they also trolled one of the hypergates.

  There was too much power in one pce. Anything Fletcher could do to wrest that power away from those people, he would. He o be very careful as to how he approached it though. His position within the Navy would not stop an Omni assassin from getting rid of him if they thought he was messing with their iream.