Damien had the intake area for arrivals set up in Atrium D. It wasn’t the best pce to set something like this up, it was just the easiest pce to put it since A was heavily poputed, B was blocked off, and C wasn’t near any of the nding zones.

  He gnced around at his officers. Two of his people wore the light-augmehe engineers had mao fabricate. They also carried the modified flechette mini-guns. It was hard to call the rapid-fire flechette guns, mini-guns anymore sihey only had a single barrel with a rotating drum that fed it.

  Whatever the engineers decided on calling the thing, it was light enough now to be carried by a single person in the light-augment gear. He k was overkill for this operation, but he wasn’t taking any ces. Plus his people o get practice walking around with the new suits outside of a training area. The rest of his people were equipped with body armor that you would be hard-pressed to identify as such, and the ubiquitous pulse rifles and stun sticks.

  The individually tailored armor was much lighter and much easier to move around in thaandardized pte carriers they used to have. It did mean each person had to be fitted, and the armor built to their size, which took longer a nobody else could wear it, but it was worth it in his eyes. They still kept some standard pte carriers around just in case though.

  Damien gnced up from one of the booths he was manning and looked down the newly extended hallway. Alex’s robots had pced temporary walls to help fuhe rants into the intake area and prevent anyone fr to skip the liogether. He looked over at the booth, ihe small box was Jorvin Morrow, the man who had made a big stink when he first arrived months ago.

  Jorvin had e to apologize to him shortly after he settled in. The man had been afraid of being turned away if he didn’t make it seem like he was someone important. The man apparently learhis at his job as an immigration officer ba his homeworld of Zarinsk where the rid powerful liked to pull that stunt. Most of the time, someone higher up in his of and came down ahose people bypass the normal routines. Jorvin said he hated the thought of pretending to throw his weight around but wasn’t willing to let his family suffer if it might be used in their favor.

  Unfortunately, he ran into Damien, who didn’t give two shits about who he was. That iion spurred the man to find some pride again. Once he did, he offered to help Damien with anything he needed assistah.

  Not trusting the man at first, Damien had given him the shittiest jobs he could e up with. Jorvin did them all without pint or the normal feet dragging he might have expected to see. Over the months, Damien gave the man more work aually a position within the security force as a sort of secretary and manager.

  The man had prove at keeping tasks on schedule and patrols pnned out and orderly. Prior to his position, Damien had just been telling his teams to patrol wherever. The only thing he had scheduled was the guard rotations. Aed doing those.

  Now the man was heading up the intake process. He had eveed identification cards, simir to the ones Alexander handed out. A special terminal had to be built to ehe DNA profiles into the cards without needing t them to the puter room, but Alex hahat.

  The other two loudmouths had been a little bit more of a nuisance. Both had been locked up at least ohey quickly learhat Eden’s End didn’t py around. Ohat got through to them, one found a job as a farmer’s assistant and the other joihe work crews repairing the facility. The other arrivals hadn’t made much of a spsh, even that stist's bratty grandson. If that held true for the batch, he would be happy.

  As for why Damien was in a booth, he was here to check for criminal records. Normally he would relegate this sort of check to one of his officers, but with so many people arriving, he wao see to it in person.

  Dust started to fall from the ceiling and Damian yelled loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room. “Look alive! Our first set of guests are arriving!”

  Sure enough, a few mier, people started appearing from the hallway. The first person Damien reized was Team Leader Travers. Behind him was a younger woman and a few kids.

  Signs and arrows pointed everyoo where they o go, so people started lining up in front of Jorvin’s booth. The man quickly processed their entries and hahe adults their ID cards.

  It had been decided not to require ID cards for children uhe age of twelve.

  The group headed over to his booth and Travers gave a lopsided smirk. “Funing you here. You finally take that stick out of your ass?”

  Damien just rolled his eyes. “You wan in or not?”

  Travers chuckled but handed his ID over and stood there as he sed him.

  “Is this your family?” Damien asked as the s rocessing.

  “My sister and her kids. No father,” the merary responded.

  “You look a little underdressed,” Damien ented as he sed the man’s sister .

  “My tract . Figured I would try something new. Don’t suppose you’re looking for some new blood?”

  Damien was looking for some new security people. They never mao repce the ones lost in the pirate attack. “Depends, do you like training people?”

  Travers ughed. “I’ll do it if that’s what you need but I would prefer a more active role.”

  Damien grunted and oward Jorvin. “Speak to Jorvin after we finish processing everyoell him I sent you and what your qualifications are. I have him handling most of the administration work.”

  Travers smiled and tapped the side of his head. “Now that’s smart. I knew I liked you for a reason.”

  Damien just shook his head. “Get out of my face before I ge my mind. One of the officers in the back will show you to your housing unit or units if you choose to live separately.”

  Travers gave a salute before following his gring sister toward the group of officers behind the booths.

  The up was Captain Matthews. He had only met the man briefly after the pirate attad during the questioning of the traitor.

  The man gave a single nod and handed over his ID. “I imagine Alexander is quite busy with everything going on. Would it be possible for me to speak with him anytime soon?”

  Damie out a sigh. Alex had asked him to send a few specific people his way when they arrived. Matthews was one of those people. “You know the way to his workshop. You either head there when I’m done, or you wait to be assigned a housing unit. I assume that’s why you’re out of uniform as well and not here with the rest of the pany.”

  “My retirement was finalized upon my arrival in Eden’s End. I am a normal citizen now.”

  “I bet,” Damien grunted. “You’re clear to pass through.”

  There were a few more meraries that he reized but didn’t know by hey all passed through without issue and the to Alex’s new employees. It was hard to keep the sneer off of his face as he kept seeing the STO record pop up on his tablet as he sed these new people. He knew Alex o hire crews for his ships, and there was only one real option as far as skilled military people went, but it still chafed at him.

  As expected, none of the people from the initial group had any warrants. Damien hadn’t expected to find any, the Hawks would have thhly vetted anyone before bringing them here for Alex. Ohe st of the new arrivals was through, the meraries started to arrive.

  The process for them was a bit more nebulous. They were handed ID tags as those would allow them to access facility resources but Damien didn’t bother with the ss. Instead, he walked out of the booth and greeted team leader Jallen. “I figured you’d have jumped ship like your friend Travers.”

  Jallen shrugged at that. “I still have another year on my tract. I might decide to hang up my hat at that point, who knows?”

  “We’ll I’m gd to have you and your people back. The group is going to be a cluster,” Damien spat in annoyance.

  “So Alex decided to take them in after all, eh? I guess I’m not too surprised. Anyway, repared and brought four full DNA sers instead of the simple warrant ser you were using. The devices will tell you if their DNA was ever at a crime se. They won’t update until the–” he paused and looked around before l his voice. “–Q is installed though.”

  “Yeah, Alex told me about that only a few ho. So keep it quiet.”

  “Shouldn’t be an issue. Only the TLs and above know about it. Everyone else thinks the Arklight ships are here to install the base for an orbital elevator.”

  “I guess that’s fine. As for your people, I think they would be better off stationed outside for the most part to keep people in line as ships and shuttles nd. The rest be deployed io keep the peace while my people find the new arrivals aodations.”

  Jallen saluted. “We are at your disposal.”

  ***

  Alexander greeted Matthews wheered his workshop. “I nning oing with you and the rest of the new hires in a separate room, but I’m gd you arrived early, I wao discuss something with you.”

  “Why, is something the matter?” Matthews asked after releasing Alexander’s hand.

  “Oh, nothing’s wrong. At least not yet. I suspect we’ll have plenty of problems when thees arrive, but I have people handling that so don’t worry. How would you like to head an academy?”

  Matthews paused for a moment. “An academy? What sort of academy?”

  Alexander hadn’t wa this question on the man so soon, but the situation had ged and he decided to push up his pns to build the academy. “Ohat teaches sce, engineering, tactics, and all things reted to spaceship operations and bat.”

  The retly retired captain quirked an eyebrow slightly. “That’s a big ask, Alexander. What if I wao buy a ship off of you and go be a captain on my own again?”

  Alexander smiled. “If you wahat, you wouldn’t have retired from the Hawks in the first pce.”

  Archibald Matthews's stony fa?ade cracked at that. “Fair enough,” he said with a grin. “I’m going to assume you had this whole thing pnned long in advance?”

  “Not as long as you might think,” Alexander responded as he motioned for the man to join him. He pulled up a holo dispy showing an aerial view of Eden’s End. A sixth dome joihe other five, being slightly smaller thaher four atriums.

  The top peeled away in the dispy, showing multiple levels of s and other amenities. What caught Matthew’s eye was the open spa the ter. “What’s that for?”

  “I’m gd you asked. It’s a holographic simutioer that is half a mile in diameter and the rgest ience, as far as I tell. You could do pretty muy simution you imagined in such a space.”

  The man rubbed his bearded . “Simutions are all well and good, Alexander, but nothis practical experience.”

  “I uand that, but people have to start somewhere. This is the safest pce to train people for emergencies, vacuum leaks, bat, etc. I want you to work with Nancy, the Head of Learning for the cil. She has a basic css itinerary, but this would be your academy. As long as people are getting a quality education and training, that’s all I care about. As a member of the faculty, you also get full access to my learning modules for yourself and a paid schorship for any immediate family. So what do you say?”

  The man sighed. “I hardly say no to that. Fine. I’ll agree to head this academy of yours but only until it's off the ground. I do want to retire at some point and enjoy my twilight years with my children and grandchildrehey decide to finally joi here. With this schorship opportunity, I don’t think it’ll be nearly as hard to vihem to take the plunge and move out here.”

  With that issue resolved, Alexander cpped the man on the back lightly ahem to the room where he would be meeting with the netains and crew for BSE.