Star Emperor

The scan ended 24 hours after it started and it revealed what he wanted to know.

He was aware that five other beings were currently alive in this system besides him, but he had no idea which stations they occupied, except for the one that launched a drone to try to kill him.

Now he was sure it was occupied and planned to change that once he could calculate the trajectory needed to send the drone back.

Other than that there were four other stations with life signs present while the rest showed no trace of life.

So in less than two weeks, two-thirds of the station masters in this system died in one way or the other.

He had no idea how they died, but it was still a terrifying thought.

Additionally, he was finally able to decipher the messages in the Local group chat.

Most of those were cries for help, informing the others that the sender was running out of food water, or air and begging the others to help them if they could.

Thinking about it, Andrew understood the call for help as everyone wanted to live, but even if he could send supplies, there was a high chance of them being poisonous to whoever got them.

-Whoever they were, they most likely forgot about the different biologies, while they were panicking.

He thought, rereading the messages.

Not that he could send the supplies in the first place, and even if he could send them right now, it was already too late.

Since he could do nothing for the others and one of them even tried to kill him so screw helping them.

Just as he was thinking about it the console started notifying him of another object at a collision course and the proximity alert went off.

He immediately scanned the incoming object and it turned out to be another drone, flying in his direction at precisely the same velocity as the previous one.

Andrew immediately sent his drones to intercept the enemy drone.

-If they want to gift me another drone, then I will accept their generosity.

He said with a smile.

His previous idea was to send an asteroid on an intercept course to destroy the drone, but since he could capture it then why not?

However, there was something in this whole situation that didn't make any sense.

The enemy station was around a light minute away and even if the drone was flying at its maximum speed which it did, it would take a long time for it to arrive, co how the hell did it come and what's more why did it suddenly appear on his sensors?

This was strange and Andrew had no idea how this happened.

He hoped that the drone memory bank would be intact this time as the previous drone had its memory bank damaged and the data was unrecoverable.

If this time he got the data then he might be able to discover the method and maybe even use it to take out his attacker.

A few hours later he had his answers.

The drone recorded everything and to his surprise, the enemy was using a mini wormhole to send his drones over a great distance.

It was too small to send anything bigger than a drone and its distance was limited for a wormhole, but its exit was located only about 1,5 light seconds away from his station.

This meant that at the speed of 65000 KPH, it needed over seven hours to reach him.

After the drone exited the wormhole, all the enemy needed to do was adjust its course and let it fly to its target.

Andrew had two theories about the last part.

Either the signal went through the wormhole or it simply arrived with a minute of lag time at the speed of light.

Whichever the case, this was all he needed to know.

Armed with this knowledge he prepared to take out the enemy.

The newly captured drone was reset and its OS was changed.

Andrew had chosen this drone for the test.

He sent it back as soon as it was fully recharged.

To conserve energy he ordered it to reach half of its maximum speed and turn off the engines.

For the next fourteen hours, the drone made its way to the wormhole.

During that time Andrew continued to gather the resources and even went to sleep.

Once the drone arrived at the designated coordinates, it only took a few minutes to locate the wormhole entry point.

A few seconds later the drone emerged on the other side, but Andrew got its signal back a minute later.

This answered the question about the control method.

On his scanner, the drone was only about 20,000 kilometers away from the enemy station so if it went at full speed it would arrive at the target in less than twenty minutes.

What was more important, there were no obstacles on the way to the enemy station.

He knew it from the data he retrieved earlier and since that was the case he set the enemy installation as the target and ordered the drone to go at it at full speed.

-That was only possible because of the drone control module, without it his control over drones was reduced to setting targets for them and piloting them manually.

Andrew watched with a one-minute time lag as the drone executed his orders and accelerated rapidly.

He was a bit worried since if he could intercept the enemy drone then his opponent could most likely do the same.

However, his worries proved to be unnecessary as there was no drone in the vicinity and his own went straight for the target.

The moment it hit the station it went right through it, piercing four modules and flying out the other side.

Unfortunately, it was also at that moment that Andrew lost the connection with the drone and his drone control screen marked it as lost.

The biggest question for now was: Did he get the enemy or just damage his station?

Either way, it was unlikely that his opponent would be able to retaliate any time soon.

It turned out that his opponent would not be able to retaliate at all as his life signs disappeared from the sensors and there was now one less station in the local group 

Which could only mean that he was dead.

-YES!!!

Andrew jumped, excited that he managed to gain his first kill using his enemy weapon against him.

But his happiness didn't last long as it dawned on him that he just killed a sentient being and it was not in the game where it would be able to respawn, but in reality, that meant that it was gone for good.

He suddenly felt his stomach turn and before he knew it he was puking his guts out in the sanitation module.

When he finally was able to calm down, he didn't feel any joy from what he did anymore.

It was, self-defense and that bastard started the whole thing, but it didn't make getting over the fact of taking life any easier.