M.J. Markgraf
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BSE Chapter 3-15
🕑 Added 2024-12-03 13:00:12 +0000 UTCHaving done this once already, Alexander quickly moved through the contract process and non-disclosure document. With no surprise, all of Krieger’s people signed the forms.
“Welcome to Blue Star Enterprises,” Alexander stated happily. “Now that you’re all employees I can tell you something that I’m sure your captain has already figured out. I’m partially alien.”
The group looked at him in confusion.
It was the engineer, Alexander recalled the man’s name was Parson, who realized what he was getting at first. “When you say partial, you mean the robot body right? …It looks like the Dawn’s armor.”
“That’s another thing. I am this robot or inside it.” To head off any questions Alexander raised his hand. “I’m sure you all heard the rumors while you were here last time. I started those a long time ago so people wouldn’t start asking questions about me or deciding I would make a good science project to study. I don’t know how I or more specifically, my mind ended up in this form. And before you ask, I am not in communication with any aliens as far as I can tell, despite what Vice Admiral Fletcher might think.”
“But you don’t know for sure,” Krieger asked.
“I don’t, but I might as well tell you my full story. Most of the people inside BSE are already familiar with it.”
After Alexander spilled the beans of his partial alien nature to the insurrectionists, he held a conference to fill in all the people who worked directly for him as well as the Hawks. It wasn’t something he had planned on doing, but the rumors were widespread and causing too many issues to be discounted, especially when the truth was going to come out eventually anyway. A few people were rightfully shocked by the revelation, but not as many as he thought there would be. The average citizen still didn’t know the full story, but that wouldn’t last forever. He assumed someone would talk and from there, everyone would know in time.
“I woke up a little over six years ago. I can’t say for certain exactly how long ago because those early days were hazy for me.” He went into a brief summary of his time at Petrov Station before moving out here.
“My original goal for coming out here was kind of to be left alone, and to find a safe place for my daughter. As you already know, that hasn’t quite gone to plan. I also harbored intentions to unseat Omni as the best engine manufacturer,” he chuckled. “I didn’t quite understand their reach and power at the time.”
“So your plans have changed?” Krieger asked while the rest of his people listened quietly.
“Oh, no. I still plan on taking Omni down a peg or two, it's just not my main priority at the moment. After you and the rest of your people were returned to STO space, we received a large influx of refugees. Amongst these refugees was a man by the name of Dalton.” Going by a few of the reactions, more than one person among Krieger’s people was familiar with the assassin.
“He managed to kidnap my daughter to try and force my compliance. This was all at the behest of Harlow. I managed to free my daughter and myself and rid the universe of this man.”
“Bout damn time someone got rid of that cockroach,” the Marine spat.
Krieger nodded at that.
Alexander continued. “Despite getting rid of Dalton, I know Harlow won’t stop until he gets his hands on me. If that ever happened, I would make him thoroughly regret it, but I don’t plan on sitting here and just waiting for him to try again.”
“You plan on attacking Harlow?” Krieger asked in surprise.
Alexander shook his avatar. “No. I plan on killing him. Because that is the only way that me, my daughter, and everything I have built out here remains safe.”
There was no laughter or amusement at Alexander’s statement.
“You think you’re capable of doing what the entire STO Navy can’t?” Krieger asked. “I know you aren’t suicidal, so that means you have a plan.”
“It’s more like a loose idea of a plan. There are a few major steps that need to come together before it will be viable though. And that’s why I’m glad you’re here.” He pulled up a holo of the set of systems they had determined the pirate space station was likely in. “Tomorrow, the entire BSE fleet, along with the Hawks will set out to locate a pirate station. There should be at least five homegrown pirate ships at this station that we need to secure for my plan to move forward. Captain Krieger, I want you to be in charge of this operation.”
“Me?” the man asked.
“Yes. Out of all my captains, you have the most combat experience. And I already know how you act when it matters. Captain Hall and Captain Ramirez are fine men, but neither of them has any combat experience. You can also lean on the Hawks captain if you need assistance, she has combat experience but she is new to command. Are you up for it?”
The man sighed. “I’m always up for getting rid of pirates, but I can see a few issues already. First off, do I have a ship?”
Alexander nodded. “Eden’s Might. It’s a frigate and was completed a few weeks ago. I had initially planned on having a contingent of the Hawks operate the ship, but now that you’re here that won’t be an issue.”
“Ok. That brings me to the second issue. Training and crew. How many people will I need to operate this ship?”
Alexander smiled. “Oh, I don’t think either of those will be a problem. I designed the ship's interfaces based on some of the stuff I learned on the Dawn. As for the crew, all of the BSE ships are augmented with supercomputers. You could run it with just the people in this room, but I will leave enough mercenaries aboard for you to rotate the crew as needed. They can also assist with training on any systems you aren’t quite familiar with.”
“Just how much of the Dawn’s systems did you copy?” Krieger asked pointedly.
“These are not stealth ships, Captain.”
“That wasn’t really an answer, but we can discuss that issue later. Let’s say I agree, you aren’t giving us much time to get ready.”
“I know. You will have time in transit, the three systems I marked are a little over two months away. These ships are important, Captain, but don’t throw yourself into a meatgrinder to secure them. If you can’t make it work, destroy the station and everything around it. That’s all I have. Take the rest of the day to find your rooms and relax.”
As the people stood up and started to filter out, Alexander called out, “Captain Krieger, a moment if you could.”
The man nodded and walked toward the front of the room.
After everyone else filtered out of the room, Alexander turned to the man. “Do you have a way to contact Fletcher?”
“Probably, why?”
“I should probably rephrase that. Are you in active contact with him?”
The man snorted. “You think I’m a spy?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Alexander asked in return.
“Fair enough,” Krieger admitted. “I haven’t had contact with him since being unceremoniously booted from the Navy. That being said, he did arrange for the rest of my crew to join me on this trip. So he’s definitely keeping an eye on me and will probably reach out at some point for information.”
“I thought as much. Feel free to share anything with the man that doesn’t revolve around the technical innovations out here.”
“You want me to feed him information?”
“I do,” Alexander admitted. “And feel free to tell him that I told you to do so.”
“Why?” Krieger asked in confusion.
“I’m sure you have an idea, but I’ll spell it out. I met with Fletcher back in Varlen. The man was already keeping tabs on Eden’s End even before he knew of my origins. He isn’t going to simply stop with the loss of one ship. I suspect once these new Nyx frigates are ready, one will show up here eventually. I would prefer Fletcher not waste his time or get angry at us because we can track their supposed stealth ships.”
“What! Since when?” Krieger asked.
“Since pretty much the beginning. It was a bit of a fluke. One of our people picked up your muted jump signal, and after tracing it back, we were able to track your ship the entire time it was here.” This was a secret Alexander was more than happy to share since it wouldn’t stay secret long. Once Krieger got trained on Eden’s Might, he would quickly learn about the tracking feature. Telling him about it now wasn’t ideal, but it was better than him discovering it later.
The man grew angry for a moment. “That means you knew the other stealth ship had come looking for us and didn’t say anything.”
“Yes,” Alexander admitted.
“Why?” he demanded.
“You know why, Captain.”
The man growled, but his anger quickly dissipated. “You didn’t want to alert the STO of your advantage. I assume this is one of the things you want me to keep from Fletcher?”
Alexander shook his head. “No. The sooner he is aware of this shortfall, the better. It will also let him know that he can’t just sneak ships in here to spy on us.”
“Fine,” the man ground out. “If you’re going to dump a load of bio-waste on me, I’ll return the favor. The ship we arrived on is probably junk, but there are some items on it I’m willing to sell to you.”
“Oh, such as?” Alexander asked. Nothing was truly junk in his eyes. Most of his improvements had come from combining technologies that had been around for decades, if not centuries, if he could learn something new from what was aboard Krieger’s vessel, then it would still be worthwhile, even if the items themselves weren’t useful.
“Most of the stuff I am unfamiliar with. We bought the ship secondhand with everything aboard. Some things might be computers but I’m not too certain since they don’t resemble current computronics.”
“Hmm, how much?”
“Look, I just want to sell the whole ship and everything on it.” The man gave him a figure and Alexander nodded.
He pulled his tablet up and sent the funds to the man’s account. “Anything else, Captain? If not, I suggest you get some rest. There will be a final briefing in the morning to go over the mission changes.”
After handing over the activation crystal for the ship, the man gave him a nod and walked out of the room. Alexander was still worried about this operation, but he felt much better now that someone experienced would be leading the charge.
He tucked the crystal into a pouch at his waist. He was intensely curious to see what was on this ship, but he had a few more things to do before he could take a look.
Comments
Nexis
Nice, nice, nice. I realy like that story
Dasarcastic1
Maybe some weird alien tech in there as well
Silver Beard
It's a curious flip point. If the tech on board was extremely valuable...there'd been more effort to reacquire it. That said- any type of computer will be valuable to Kane. He's already got the ugliest ship in the universe... so what if the computer is just as nasty!
Shmooggie
This is where Alex finds those good old 2000s tech
Walle159
From the ship he got from krieger
Walle159
Please give him a huge advantage. He barely surviving as is, especially since he will send all his ship away for at least 2 months away. Murphy’s law or rather author’s law there will be another crisis point.
Zachary Patterson
Thank you for the chapter!
Zachary Patterson
Tech so old that the new systems can't handle it?
