Star Emperor

Andrew was so immersed in his studies, that he missed the moment when his drones gathered enough resources for his next research project.

This time it was a Midsized storage module, capable of storing 500 tonnes of materials.

He needed it as his storage modules numbered almost a hundred but could store only 1800 tonnes of materials.

This was a problem as he only had a few research projects in this range while others required a lot more materials.

The most costly was the military class research and he would need it soon enough.

For now, he decided to continue with what he could afford, but as soon as he could get enough materials, he planned to use one research module for military research only while the other one would be used for everything else.

That however was for the future, right now he just started the research which would conclude in 60 hours.

While he was at it he also got the Component manufacturing module to start making parts for two drone recharging modules and the drone manufacturing module to produce another hundred drones, which he would add to his workforce.

With that done and nothing that would require his attention, he got back to studying.

Before he could get immersed again an alarm sounded, notifying him about an airlock being opened from the outside and another about an intruder on board.

-How the hell did they get this close?

Andrew thought while running to his armory.

He quickly got in and got ready.

The magazines were already loaded and waiting in his tactical vest, which he put on his body armor.

Andrew quickly grabbed the handgun and inserted the magazine, before putting it into his thigh holster.

Then he grabbed the riffle and did the same, chambering the first round and leaving the safety off.

He knew how to use both weapons because he played the games where they were both available and by reading their manuals.

His rifle was an AK-47, a weapon that was reliable and easy to use.

The handgun was also a weapon that proved its usefulness in many wars on Earth.

An old but reliable Colt 1911, except his, was brand new.

Andrew had no idea who was boarding his station but one thing was for sure, they could only take it, over his dead body.

Armed and ready to face the intruders he returned to the command center to see how many opponents there were and where they were going.

To his surprise, there was only one intruder and he was slowly moving toward the command center.

At the pace he was moving, it would take him around five more minutes to get there, which was odd as he entered the station quite close so he should have arrived by now.

-Let's see who it is.

Andrew said to himself and started slowly moving towards the intruder with his rifle at the ready.

It didn't take him long to locate the uninvited guest and as soon as he saw the intruder, he understood why they were moving so slowly.

The alien was a humanoid but it was moving on all fours and with great effort or so it seemed at first glance.

Andrew could not see the alien since it was wearing a space suit but whatever it was, was either wounded or had a problem with the gravity on the station.

Whatever the case was it gave him an advantage if they were to fight and he needed all the advantage he could get, especially since he had no idea what he was dealing with.

Quickly devising a plan of action, he quietly got behind the corner that the alien would need to pass through and waited for the intruder to get closer.

A minute or so later the intruder crawled past the corner without noticing the human as it was solely focused on moving forward which it did with great difficulty.

Once the alien passed him, Andrew got out of the corner and aimed his rifle at the intruder.

-Who are you and what are you doing on my station?

He asked, putting all the authority he could into his voice.

Hearing the voice from behind, the alien slowly turned its head around only to see a barrel of a weapon aimed at its head.

At this sight, the intruder panicked and tried to reach for something on its belt, but Andrew was much faster and kicked the alien in its abdomen.

The force of the kick was enough to throw the alien on the wall.

Seeing the alien's action, Andrew thought that it was reaching for a weapon so he didn't hold back at all.

The intruded slumped to the floor and stopped moving after the kick.

Not being certain if it was dead, unconscious or just playing dead, he nudged it with his weapon but there was no reaction.

-Great, now what do I do?

The human asked but there was no answer.

He also cursed himself for not getting any kind of restraints for the prisoners, and right now he could use some handcuffs.

Left with no other choice he took the safety line from the alien space suit and tied its hands behind its back, and its feet together, before putting the weapon on his back and carrying the captured alien to the medical module to see if it was dead or just out cold.

To his surprise, the intruder was very light as he lifted it without much effort and tossed it over his shoulder to carry it.

Once in the medical module, he placed the prisoner in the scanner and activated it to get some answers.

It took a few minutes for the machine to do its work but soon he knew that the alien had four broken ribs and a concussion caused by his kick.

The only other information he got was that the alien could breathe the same air as him and was still alive.

Considering that it was just a basic medical module, he got quite a bit of information from it.

Knowing that the alien could breathe the air on the station he moved the prisoner to the medical bed and took off its helmet.

Fortunately, the thing worked the same way as his so there was no problem with removing it.

However, as soon as he took it off, he sighed shaking his head.

-Why me?

He asked looking at the ceiling.

The alien's skin was Canary yellow and its hair was Aqua blue, but other than that it could easily pass for a human and a woman to boot.

Andrew was not sure that it was a woman or whatever and he was in no hurry to find out.

Right now he wanted this alien to answer his questions, but even that would be hard to arrange since he didn't have a universal translator for speech yet.

The device was on his list of research projects and it was even in the range of his resource limit, but it would have to wait for at least another day to even begin researching it.

Fortunately, it had a short research time of 18 hours, but even if he did the research he would have to wait for the merchant to buy it since he still couldn't produce electronic devices.

The reason was simple, the module needed for that was way outside of his range for now.

-Well since I captured it, it's now my problem.

He thought and rearranged the bindings, to bind each of the alien's hands to the side of the bed and the same with its legs.

The reason for this action was that the prisoner had broken ribs and a previous arrangement would most likely be painful as all hell once they woke up.

This way of restraining was also much harder to get rid of since the hands were far away from each other and the same was true for the alien's legs.

Once he was done with it, he remembered that the alien was reaching for something when he kicked it assuming it was reaching for a weapon.

Not wanting to take any risks he removed the alien's belt and looked it over.

As far as he could tell there was no weapon on it, only a few devices, it was very similar to his own spacesuit belt, except for a few additional pouches containing devices he had never seen before.

Not knowing what they did he didn't try to use them.

The last thing he needed was to trigger a trap or an explosive device.

Since it didn't look like his guest would be waking up anytime soon, he decided to go back to the command center to use sensors and scout drones to figure out where the hell this intruder came from.