Blue Star Enterprises

Alexander didn’t bother watching the man drift into space to die a slow and hopefully agonizing death. Not killing the man outright was probably not the most logical choice, but he didn’t regret the decision one bit and he would do it again without question if they tried to harm the people he cared about. Did that make him a monster? Maybe, but he would gladly become the monster if it meant Yulia was safe.

He closed the cargo ramp and hurried over to the stasis pod to ensure it was still functioning. It was. His sigh of relief was lost in the vacuum of the ship. He didn’t even want to comprehend what might have happened if the pod hadn’t been on board. To think that their attacker had a manual system to vent the air on his own ship, just what kind of monster was he?

The thought of coming so close to losing her like that was such a bleak one that he simply stood there to process it. When he finally worked through those emotions, he moved to the room he rescued her from to see if the damage could be repaired.

The far wall was charred black from the explosive, but his concern was with the ragged hole blasted in the side of the ship. Armor should have prevented a breach like this from such a tiny explosive, but the hull in this room looked like it wasn’t even armored. He did his best to bend the panel back in place, but he wasn’t able to seal the hole and there didn’t appear to be an emergency seal kit in the room either.

Instead of wasting time searching the ship for some quick seal kits, he made his way to the cockpit. It was a good thing the man had fired the laser pistol at him and not the hull or he would be dealing with multiple hull breaches. The first thing Alexander did was cut the engines. Then he located the radio and sent a text message about the situation.

A quick reply came from both Fury and Resolve, letting Alexander know the ships had trailed them. He was only able to send and hear the response because he was directly connected to the ship once more.

The mental block, which was essentially an intrusion prevention program Alexander had assembled on the fly, was still in place, preventing anything from going to those unknown nodes. That was a good thing since the computer was attempting to send encrypted traffic to them. It must have been some failsafe tied to Dalton. Even after the computer stopped trying to send the unknown commands, Alexander left the block in place.

Alexander was happy to see that his new crews were quick to react to the situation, although, he wasn’t sure what they planned on doing. Any attempt to disable or board the ship probably would have resulted in Yulia and his deaths or damage to those other ships when Dalton returned fire with his hidden weapons. He would very much like to know how the man had hidden those systems from scans. Now that he thought about it, the breached wall might lead to one of those weapon sections. It would explain the lack of armor and the space not being pressurized.

While he waited for the ships to arrive, he sealed off the vents that were still letting the air out of the ship as he pondered what he could have done to prevent this attack. Alexander thought Eden’s End couldn’t be any safer.

They had multiple layers of orbital defenses that were continuously being improved when production capacity was available. He now had two fully operational warships in the system. It wasn’t much but it was enough to deter the random pirate that came by. Then there were also the Talon and the Hawks gunships. With all of those, approaching Eden’s End with bad intentions was a bad idea at best.

Then there was the ground security. Damien’s guards patrolled the entire facility and no hallway went unchecked for more than an hour. Any important location was either guarded at all times or checked more frequently, like his hallway, which was patrolled once every fifteen minutes, which was increased from how often it was checked before because of Shall’s break-in.

Damien only had so many people though, and the Hawks weren’t on commission at the moment. They still helped out with Damien’s shortage of security people, but they spent the majority of their time either in space or outside the facility, going through the ships, which had taken far longer than anyone anticipated. It was likely that exact reason was what had allowed the hidden compartments and other items in this ship to go unnoticed.

All of that security should have been enough, but it wasn’t.

This man had snuck in right under everyone’s noses, bypassing every single security measure they had in place. And if the archive Alexander had perused was any indication, the man had done this sort of thing many times before. Having their entire security breached by a professional didn’t make Alexander any more happy that it happened though.

This breach opened Alexander’s eyes, so to speak. He knew he could never make Eden’s End completely safe from every threat out there, but he needed to do better. Improved security measures would need to be taken, and not just to protect his daughter, but to protect everyone. This man could just as easily have been after anyone else on Eden’s End and the result would have been much worse.

His first act once he got back was to try and figure out how to bypass whatever shielding was being used to hide Dalton’s weapons. Not being able to detect ships with hidden weapons was unacceptable.

That would take care of one issue, but he couldn’t plan how to resolve the other issues he didn’t even understand. The biggest one was how the man had gotten the explosive inside Eden’s End in the first place. The security scans were designed to pick up stuff like that.

He would need to speak with Archie and the Hawks to try and figure out how those snuck through. He knew it wasn’t corruption or incompetence that had allowed it. He trusted the Hawks and Damien to run a tight ship when it came to safety.

Alexander looked at the small blood stain on the wall from where he cracked the man across the face with the handheld laser. For a moment, he regretted tossing the man out the airlock only because it made identifying him harder. Hopefully, there would be enough DNA to get a positive ID on the individual. There was no way their kidnapper wasn’t in some criminal database somewhere.

That was another thing he was going to have to ask the Hawks about. Somehow the man had fooled the DNA scanners as well.

In the end, Alexander could have the best defenses money could buy, but that would only take him so far. He didn’t need the kidnapper’s confirmation that this wasn’t over. He knew as long as that bastard Harlow was out there, the man would continue coming for them until either he got what he wanted or he was stopped.

That was unacceptable.

Alexander would not live his life in fear of some scumbag pirate on the opposite end of human space, nor would he subject his daughter to a lifetime of that. Running and hiding to keep ahead of the man and his goons wasn’t an option either. Alexander had built up a life here, and he wouldn’t be chased away like he had been at Petrov Station.

That left one choice. He needed to strike back and get rid of Harlow once and for all. That was the only way to ensure these attacks stopped.

Alexander wasn’t stupid though. He knew Harlow Anazi was not some simple pirate who could be taken out with a few ships and some luck. The man was single-handedly responsible for pushing back the STO. Going up against him with two warships and a retrofitted mining ship was a suicidal proposition, even with his improvements.

He needed more ships, and he needed allies, ones who would be more than happy to see Harlow gone. The STO was the first group that came to mind, but they were obviously already engaged in a war against the man and his fleets. If they could do more, they already would have. At least he hoped that was the case. He didn’t have a high opinion of the STO in general, barring a few people.

Alexander thought about seeing if Vice Admiral Fletcher might be able to use his Erebus class ships to somehow attack Harlow, but he dismissed that idea just as quickly. From the lack of response to the loss of his other ship and his issues with that captain in Varlen, Alexander got the impression that Fletcher’s position and power were not quite as unshakable as the man made it appear.

He could try hiring more mercenaries, but BSE’s finances weren’t bottomless, and Alexander didn’t want to offer other mercenary companies the same compensation as he did the Hawks. From his experiences and speaking with Jasper, he knew most mercenary companies were more like Captain Harn and his crew from Petrov Station, essentially just bounty hunters. Very few had the same morals and ideals the Hawks personified. Even fewer had actual warships.

That left his pool of possible allies rather limited.

There was one he had considered but was on the fence about. The second group of pirates, who had attacked, and been driven off by Krieger and the Dawn. Ever since that encounter, Alexander had mulled over the idea of reaching out to them to try and smooth over any misunderstanding. While their short back-and-forth communications hadn’t ended well, they had at least communicated, which was more than he could say for any other pirates so far.

He certainly wouldn’t apologize for defending Eden’s End, but he was living in an area that had been claimed by them, so they would likely interact more in the future. He would prefer those interactions to be cordial instead of hostile.

He hadn’t pursued that idea very far because he knew being seen colluding with pirates would have prevented him from forming his own nation. Now that he was recognized as his own nation, he no longer had that restriction. With the way the STO’s laws were written, they couldn’t retract the fact that they acknowledged them as a sovereign entity, even if they engaged in piracy or other actions. It was a rather glaring loophole in their law, but it wasn’t like Alexander planned on turning to piracy himself.

He would need to think about this idea more and speak with people who knew the political landscape a bit better. All he knew was that something had to change.

An hour later, the ship shook as one of the BSE vessels docked with it. Alexander would have turned this ship around, but he was unsure how the damage to the outer hull would react to a deceleration burn.

Two men with pulse rifles entered the central corridor and Alexander waved to them with a relieved smile. He had turned his avatar back on after disposing of the trash so as not to scare people. The men looked relieved upon seeing him. After a bit of pantomiming, he got them to follow him to the cargo hold where he checked on Yulia and unplugged the stasis pod. The men helped him carry the medical device through the airlock and into the Resolve.

Once they were back in a pressurized environment, Alexander started bringing Yulia out of stasis.

"What happened?" the captain asked. "We were told you were kidnapped, and to report to the ship so we could track you. I assume they wanted us to look for an opportunity to capture the fleeing transport, but with such limited information, we were unsure of how to proceed."

Alexander really needed to learn his new employee’s names. "You performed admirably based on what you knew, Captain. There wasn’t anything you could have done. My daughter was kidnapped to get to me. I managed to free her and put her in the stasis pod before I engaged with the kidnapper. He detonated some device, which blew a hole in the side of the ship, but I was able to deal with him."

"I’m glad you’re ok, sir." The man scratched his head in confusion. "If your daughter is in the pod, where are you?"

He had planned on sharing this information with his employees eventually, but it seemed now was as good a time as any. "Since you all work for me now, I’ll let you in on an open secret. I’m inside this robot. I always have been. The rumors of me being sick and stuck in this pod are just that, rumors. I would appreciate it if you didn’t spread this information though. It seems that rumor saved both our lives today."

"We work for you, Mr. Kane. If you wish to hide your situation, it’s none of our business," the man said pointedly as he glanced at the other crewmen who had gathered. They all nodded.

"I appreciate that…"

"Captain Horatio Ramirez, sir."

"Thank you for your assistance, Captain Ramirez. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to borrow the Resolve’s repair robot to fix up the hole in the other ship. I would have turned it around and flown back to Eden’s End if it was just me on board, but I didn’t want to risk it with my daughter."

"It is your ship, sir, we are at your disposal."

The stasis pod would take twenty minutes or so to wake Yulia, he wanted to be there when she came to, so he quickly went to a terminal and activated the repair drone. The instructions to weld a plate over the damaged section of the other ship were simple enough that he didn’t need to monitor the bot.

He was glad he included one of his spider bots and a small print bay with each ship. It was mainly for initial testing, but he hadn’t gotten around to removing the one from Fury yet. Maybe he would leave them in place. They did come in handy.

"Sir… where is the corpse of the attacker?"

Alexander turned to Captain Ramirez. "I tossed him out into space. Why?"

"While I can certainly understand your desire to dispose of criminals in an as efficient manner as possible. He may be able to answer more questions. Assuming you left him alive and in his suit."

Alexander didn’t want to admit it, but the Captain was right. He provided the man with a likely search area based on the ship’s scanners and speed at the time.

Yulia woke up before Fury was able to locate the pirate and Alexander led her to one of the private bunks on the Resolve.

"Why do people keep attacking us?" she asked as soon as the door shut.

He knelt down next to his daughter. "They think they can get to me through you. Unfortunately, they are right. Don’t worry, this will never happen again."

"Ok," she replied, taking his words at face value.

Alexander wished he had as much faith in his ability to keep her safe as she did in him.

Shortly after, a knock came at the door.

"Mr. Kane. We were able to recover the object."

He opened the door and thanked the man for being tactful. "Yulia, wait here, I’ll be back in a few minutes. If you need anything, this fine man will assist you." Her eyes grew wide in fear, and Alexander thought she might refuse to remain behind.

She looked at the man, who nodded. "I’ll wait right outside the door if you need anything." That seemed to mollify the terrified girl.

Once again he thanked the man before he made his way to the bridge.

He arrived just in time to hear a conversation between Ramirez and the other Captain.

"You’re sure there is no way to revive him, Captain Hall?"

"Revive who?" Alexander asked as he entered the room.

Both captains turned to him and nodded, but it was Captain Hall who spoke up. "The man bit his own tongue off and he was dead before we were able to recover him. I’m afraid we won’t be collecting any more information from him. At least with the full corpse, we can identify the man and you can claim any bounties he might have."

Alexander was unmoved by the man’s death.

"What about pulling information from his mind?" There might still be some electrical activity left. If he could somehow map or record it, maybe they could figure something out.

Alexander’s question made both men squirm uncomfortably.

Hall cleared his throat before speaking up. "Mind-altering and mind-reading technology has been banned by the STO for over a hundred years, sir. It was deemed too easy to misuse."

Ramirez added his own point. "We only know about those technologies because it was one of the things we were taught to be on the watch for when we served in the STO Navy."

He wondered what brought that sort of ruling about, but he didn’t really have the time or patience to ask about it at the moment. "Forget I brought it up then. As soon as the freighter is patched up, send a pilot over to fly it back. We have a lot to discuss, and I want to ensure both of your crews are trained and ready for anything. We will not have a repeat of this incident ever again."

"Yes, sir!" came a chorus of replies.

***

After everyone was back on Eden’s End, Alexander tore apart the attacker’s ship with a vengeance until he learned the secret of how it hid its weapons. It turned out, the weapons were easily hidden by a modified static field generator. He couldn’t quite figure out how to bypass the field since it was internal and essentially all it did was mask open spaces. A strong enough pulse from a sensor might be able to affect the field slightly, but he would need to test that.

As for who the bastard that attacked Yulia was, the results were inconclusive at first. It took a full-body autopsy to figure out why they couldn’t get a proper DNA match. The autopsy also revealed how the man had snuck in the explosives. He had hollowed out one of his bones and pushed the items out through his muscles and skin to assemble the explosives and detonators.

The fact that someone would do that to themselves made Alexander sick.

Captain Matthews was the one who brought news of who the unknown man truly was, shocking everyone. "Alex, we finally got a positive ID on your attacker. His name is Dalton, he is a high-level assassin, hitman, fixer, you name it. If it was illegal, the man probably did it. He was employed by all sorts of nasty people, but the majority of his work was done for the Anazi family."

"So, he probably told the truth about Harlow being the one who hired him. And his bounty?"

"Well, that’s a bit more difficult. As soon as we ran his DNA profile over the Qcomm, we have been getting non-stop requests for confirmation from dozens of private entities within STO space. It seems Dalton had a criminal record going back twenty years. The man was single-handedly responsible for the deaths and kidnappings of some very important individuals. They are all demanding a third-party verification before agreeing to pay out the separate bounties. It seems people have claimed to have taken the man out before and even provided a small sample of DNA evidence to prove this, but none of them had ever been able to produce the corpse. The STO bounty was paid to BSE though. I doubt they would have if you hadn’t already proven that you have taken down other pirates. The STO bounty alone was four hundred million credits."

Alexander didn’t react to the information. While the bounty money was a welcome addition, it wasn’t as important as getting rid of one more piece of shit in the universe. "Tell those other private entities that they are welcome to send their own representative to verify Dalton’s corpse. We will keep him in the morgue for six months. If they can’t get someone out here by then, that’s their problem."

Alexander simply had more important things to concern himself with than assuaging the hopes and fears of people he didn’t know.

He needed to speak with Archie and the Hawks’ new captain to come up with a plan. If he wanted to be rid of Harlow and the man’s infatuation with him, he needed to have a plan. While it was a possibility that he could convince Char to work with him, that was a long shot, he should make plans for both eventualities. He would also need to figure out how to sell the idea of working with pirates to the Hawks. They weren’t going to like it. Alexander didn’t much like the idea either, but he would do whatever it took to keep this from happening again.