Blue Star Enterprises

"Report," Vitor said, trying to keep the exhaustion out of his voice. While the air inside the facility was breathable, unlike outside, he still wasn't used to how thin it was compared to back home. It wasn't enough to harm him or his people, but it did make working extra tiring.

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

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, laughing 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 laughter. He had briefed his people about not leaving the facility. While they could survive with the mask for a good few hours, it would only take one disgruntled local locking 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 chance.

"…We finally encountered the smuggler with the FTL ship," his officer stated.

Vitor sighed. "I'm assuming by your hesitation, that the encounter was not a pleasant one?"

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

It had taken weeks to track down the visitor. Kane certainly hadn't mentioned the man, but considering the smuggler's reaction to a simple question, maybe there was a reason Kane hadn't spoken of him. He mentally marked that route of egress as a last 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 change within eight 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 shocking.

He only had vague memories of shooting at something entering the Dawn's bridge, but those fleeting memories matched the robot's description. He was black, headless, and eight feet tall with long segmented arms and legs. There was also a report from one of the surviving Marines that the robot was strong enough to overcome the augment gear of a full combat 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 chance he was some sort of engineering genius and wanted to remain off the corporations' radar. Considering his run-in with Omni, and his subsequent flight from STO space, it seemed like he wasn't entirely unjustified.

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

Most of the locals just assumed the man was some rich eccentric who transferred his brain into the body of the robot to extend his life. That was certainly more plausible than the sickness excuse. Vitor knew there were some experiments to extend the human consciousness past death by transplanting 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 done it yet, because he knew it was going to cause friction.

***

Alexander was making his way to the launch control 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 single STO vessel had shown up looking for them. Not even a scout ship.

The entire system had been quiet since the battle, which was a relief. It had given them time to complete the defensive envelope around the planet and move on to other projects.

That was one of the reasons why Alexander was heading toward the launch room. He wanted to notify the engineers that there would be no more launches after today. It was time to redirect their efforts to the second 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-generation 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 engine, thanks 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 formula.

As he neared another intersection, another group of Krieger's people entered the end of the hall. Hiding his annoyance, he turned and walked down yet another path.

While he followed the new route, he focused on the other 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 wanted to make it the best ship he possibly could. That meant lasers as the main weapon. These new lasers were based on a modified design that took inspiration from his initial design as well as the STO weapons he studied. He was still working on missiles, but the ship would have missile tubes that incorporated his railgun improvements into them. It wouldn't change them much, but he thought he might be able to launch them slightly faster than the STO's design.

Of course, weapons weren't the only improvement. An even bigger one was the computer. As much as he would like to dedicate the same computing power that Epsilon's Dawn has to his ship, he wasn't in the position to waste two supercomputers to make that happen. That meant Fury was only getting one supercomputer, which was more processing power than all four of the pirate frigates had originally 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 welcome 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 come 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 forget the armor. After completing his newest generation of printers, Alexander was finally able to produce an electron microscope. After studying the tiny flakes 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 definitely tried to mimic a material very similar to what Alexander was made from, which was enough confirmation for him to declare that his body was alien in origin. Not that he had expected anything different by this point but it was nice to finally have proof.

The armor and Alexander's body were made from pure carbon, but the material structure differed. The STO armor was composed of thin layered sheets of compressed carbon in a strange lattice 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 encountered 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 designed this way. The material spread heat and pressure across its surface, dissipating the energy before shattering and flaking away, leaving an undamaged layer underneath. It looked to be a form of ablative armor. It also seemed to have an inherent ability to absorb all sorts of sensor pulses and radiation which is what made it nearly undetectable by modern scanners. It was a very interesting 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 layers that composed his outer skin were not separate. It was in fact a solid lattice as far as he could tell from the much smaller samples. The next oddity was the evenly spaced intervals which had a different structure that when he turned it just right, allowed him to see through the piece.

He finally understood 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 filaments to pass light through to whatever processor was inside. If it was fiberoptic in nature and those channels were damaged, it also explained why that area went dark.

As for why it repaired itself, he wasn't exactly sure, but he had an idea. If it was all designed to have a crystal structure, there was nothing that would prevent it from growing back. He had no idea how that was possible and whatever system performed that magic must have been hidden deep within him. The STO's armor didn't have anything that pointed to self-repair. If it did, he would have seen some change, 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 available. The problem was that he had no idea how to even begin creating 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. Considering the armor's lack of use on other STO ships, the process was probably extremely difficult and required very specialized processes.

He added finding out how to reproduce it to his list as he rounded another corner and saw another group of Krieger's people. Running into them once wasn't a surprise, twice was a fluke, but three times was a pattern. Alexander sighed internally. He could simply walk past them and ignore this attempt, but he knew they were bound to try it again sooner or later. 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, congratulations," Alexander stated in annoyance as he came to the end of the tunnel where a collapsed section 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 can see why… Where did you get that robot from?"

Alexander crossed his arms. "I didn't come 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 wanted to thank you in person for saving my crew. And to ask if anything has changed 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 can'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 any emotion.

Alexander shook his avatar's head. "No. I'm pretty sure Shall has his ship rigged to blow if anyone tries 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 nodded at that. "I could. I'm not going to though. Let's get something straight, Captain. You and your people are guests here. Ones that 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 can 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 can 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 now, Captain." With that, Alexander turned around and headed toward his destination.

This was exactly why he wanted to avoid this face-to-face with Krieger. The man was sharp and instantly recognized that his body had something in common with the STO ship's armor. Despite that, he was finally glad it was over with. Now he wouldn't need to constantly avoid their people and he might get more stuff done.

Eden's Fury should be complete soon. If the STO didn't show up by then to claim their people and ship, he planned to 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 transponder thanks 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 licensed company in STO space, he could add his manufacturer code to the transponder. It would also have a military tag since he was an independent faction. He learned about that tag from Dawn as well.

The STO was going to be surprised when they saw that but he didn't particularly care. The military tag classified their ship as an independent military vessel but it also gave them the legal right to switch the transponder on and off, unlike non-military vessels. There were certain restrictions 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 come look for their people, but as the months passed, he realized that probably wasn't going to happen.