M.J. Markgraf
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Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-37
🕑 Added 2024-10-08 12:00:09 +0000 UTC“That’s the gist of it,” Mingyu said after relaying what happened to him aboard the STO ship.
Alexander was a bit irked by the treatment Na went through. It also seemed like the STO wasn’t nearly as cohesive as he had believed. It certainly explained their lack of response to Dawn vanishing and some other inconsistencies he witnessed. He wasn’t sure their lack of unity was a good thing though.
An undivided entity would do much better against a threat like the pirates. Unfortunately, people had short memories, and the last time they needed to be unified was during the Coalition war. Hopefully, once the Qcomm got installed at Eden’s End, he could keep track of the war more closely.
It wasn’t his place to get involved in a war between the STO and the pirates, but he would be doing a disservice to himself if he didn’t keep track of the fighting. Especially since the pirate family responsible had already sent one person out to capture him. It would be the height of foolishness to think they didn’t already have plans to try again.
“I won’t be docking at the STO station to visit this Vice Admiral in person. The risk isn’t worth anything they could offer us.”
“What if they simply ban you from STO space like they did my ship?” Na offered.
Alexander shrugged. “It would certainly slow down the projects I have going on, but I’m confident it won’t come to that.” At most, it would cripple his ability to purchase advanced technologies and medical supplies. Then again, he wasn’t alone anymore, he had Jasper and the Hawks to lean on if the STO blacklisted him.
“I assume you have a reason for this confidence?” Na asked.
“I do,” he said with a smile. “Oh, while you were gone, we detected another stealth vessel. This one was much smaller, which is why we missed it initially.” Alexander pulled up the computer’s best guess of the ship layout on the ship’s conference room holo. “It’s impossible to tell exactly what it is due to the stealth armor, but I don’t think it’s a ship.”
“Hmm,” Na said, zooming in on the image. “I believe you are right. At least it doesn’t resemble any ship I’ve ever seen. It's also smaller than our shuttle. It could be a single-seat craft, but I don’t see why the STO would bother.”
“I think it might be a Qcomm satellite,” Alexander commented.
Na jerked in surprise at his statement. “That would certainly warrant the stealth measures. But why do you think it’s a Qcomm satellite?”
“When the Admiral first reached out, there was a delay in communication. That delay got progressively shorter. You spoke with him on the Blueridge. Did you experience any delay?”
Na shook his head. “No. I thought maybe he was aboard one of the other ships or the other stealth ship. But now that you mention it, that ship wouldn’t have been close enough to communicate in real time.”
“And there would be no point asking for us to dock and speak in person if Fletcher was already out here.”
“There is that as well,” Na frowned. “That doesn’t explain why the STO won’t try to ban you or try to impound the Fury.”
Alexander chuckled slightly at that. “First of all, I don’t think they have the firepower to impound us unless they get that other stealth ship involved. That would be messy for everyone here, and I don’t think they want to risk a second stealth ship when they don’t know what we are capable of. As for your other point, The satellite likely scanned our ship. If the STO has any supercomputers in the system, they would realize we aren’t running standard engines. I specifically made my design distinct enough to differentiate it from our competitors.”
“You think he wants to make a deal? Seems like a bit of a stretch, Alex.”
Alexander shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But like I said, we won’t be docking. In fact, we’re going to sit far enough away from their station to intercept any possible ordinance they could send our way while being close enough to send Qcomm messages with as little delay as possible. I would take advantage of that conveniently placed satellite, but I don’t want to tip our hand that we know about it or the other stealth ship.”
Na agreed and they returned to the bridge where he sent their response. If the Vice Admiral was disappointed, he didn’t show it.
“Your approach has been approved, Mr. Kane, Captain Na. Please follow the fleet to the station.”
Following the fleet was essentially the Fury being hemmed in by two frigates with the cruiser in the lead. And the stealth ship following far behind. Alexander wasn’t too worried. He knew his lasers were far more powerful than the ones on the stealth ship, and the other ships only sported Gauss cannons, which judging by the age of the ships, had probably been retrofitted at some point in the past.
The trip in was a bit tense but otherwise uneventful. Before they arrived, the stealth ship broke off its pursuit. Fury still tracked it on optical sensors until it passed behind the moon where the Naval station orbited.
The facility was massive, dwarfing Petrov station, the only other station Alexander had seen. He couldn’t help imagining what he could build with a station as large as this one. But he shook those thoughts away. He had a lot of stuff he wanted to get done before they left and he didn’t want to stick around too long. Alexander assumed the Vice Admiral would reach out to him at some point during their visit, so that would likely cut into his time.
The first thing he did was send a message to Jasper, letting his friend know things were going well. He was intentionally vague because he didn’t necessarily trust the Qcomm network. The next message went to the Hawks, and they actually responded almost immediately via video.
“Mr. Kane. It’s good to hear from you. We hadn’t expected anything so soon. I assume your situation has stabilized?” Anthony Baru, the Hawks Operation’s lead asked.
“Something like that,” Alexander responded. “How are things on your end? Any changes that will delay your next visit?” With Fury fully operational, and the defense grid around Eden’s End up and running, he wasn’t as concerned if they got delayed, but it would be good to know ahead of time if that was the case.
“No, things have been relatively quiet out here, and we’re spending most of our time patrolling. Your funds have been transferred into your account as per the agreement you made with Captain Matthews. We are still in the process of fulfilling your last request, but we don’t predict any issues there. Is there anything else you need from us while you are in STO space?”
He hadn’t specified that he was in STO space, but the man wasn’t stupid and it wasn’t a huge leap of logic to figure that out. “I do actually. I have a few more bounties to claim, can I send them your way?”
“Unfortunately, no,” the man sighed. “We would need the original device that scanned the bodies as it creates a unique identifier. A digital transfer won’t do.”
Alexander was afraid of that. But he had been prepared. “I will have to just claim them myself then.”
“If you think that’s wise. Or you could just hold on to them. There is no set timeframe to turn bounties in.”
“I would if I could, but I have a feeling I will need the funds sooner rather than later.”
Baru nodded. “If you need any assistance with the process let me know.”
The last thing they discussed was the acquisition of personnel to fill out his engineering roles. Alexander was surprised to find that the Hawks had gone above and beyond to also find skilled crewmen for him. That news was nearly enough to tempt Alexander to fetch these new recruits in person. He held off on that because getting to Ganos was a month-long venture. Alexander wasn’t ready to leave Yulia alone for that long.
When he was done with Baru, he contacted Fidelity Properties again. A man in a well-tailored suit greeted him. “How may I assist you?”
“Oh… I was expecting Violet.”
“She is off right now, but if you wish to work with her, I can let her know?”
Alexander shook his avatar’s head. He couldn’t expect her to be there all the time. “That won’t be necessary. I’m looking for storage space near Ganos, preferably something that any sized ship can easily dock at.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard to source. However, most people simply rent. I assume you wish to purchase the space outright?”
“Yes,” he gave the man the size requirements he was looking for and waited.
It took less than half an hour to find a suitable storage facility. Alexander transferred the money to purchase it, nearly balking at the twenty million credit price tag. If it wasn’t for the half a billion credits he pulled off of this very ship, he would be close to broke. He checked his balance, finding less than thirty million remained. When he looked at the transaction history, he wasn’t surprised. Jasper had purchased everything Alexander had asked for. And it seemed like some of those things had gone up in price, the computer chips specifically.
He pulled out his bag of credit chits and pressed them into the terminal. It took twenty minutes to transfer all of them to his account. But it was now back up over half a billion credits. He didn’t stop there. He used the terminal to connect to the pirate bounty board. It took a bit of figuring out how to transfer the DNA scans from the device to the terminal, but he eventually did figure it out.
It was a good thing that they were able to replicate a terminal from aboard the Dawn. He wasn’t sure the ancient hardware at Eden’s End would have been compatible with standard STO systems. The bounties added another seventy million. It seemed like the Char pirates weren’t quite as active as the Anazi ones were. Still, he would take what he could get.
Not wanting to hog the only console available, Alexander quickly finished up his work and left. Purchasing the additional learning modules, dropped his balance back down to two hundred million, but those would pay off eventually. He would have liked to purchase the plans for artificial gravity and some other items, but they were outside his price range still. With any luck, money would start coming in soon.
***
Fletcher scrolled through the Qcomm log from Mr. Kane. He was hoping for some leverage to make it easier to convince the man to work with him, but it was just routine correspondence. Unfortunately, he couldn’t dig into Kane’s other transactions. Those were all highly encrypted. The AI could break through the encryption given time, but Fletcher would need a warrant to do that type of work and that would tip people off that he would rather keep in the dark. It also wasn’t pertinent to what he needed from Kane.
He tapped his fingers on his desk as he tried to find a solution to have a face-to-face with Kane. He needed it to be face-to-face because he couldn’t afford for his conversation to be recorded or sent via open radio. There were too many Omni spies in the system. Willard was a prime example.
The bastard was caught giving classified reports to Omni.
Willard only got away with it because he was the son of one of the royal families that controlled a continent on Malis, or Malik. Fletcher forgot which of the twins the man actually came from, not that it mattered. The entire Tau Ceti system might as well have belonged to Omni, considering they kept all the royals rolling in credits. Omni was one of the only privately held companies in that system, as the royals had bought up almost every other industry. It was a testament to the company's power and reach that they managed to stay that way. Not that they didn’t actively work with the royal families to enrich both sides.
Even without Omni, having two habitable planets in the same system gave Tau Ceti a lot of power. While Tau Ceti doesn’t hold the STO Chairman role at the moment, most of the policy changes in the last fifty years have come out of that system.
To top it off, they also controlled one of the hypergates.
There was too much power in one place. Anything Fletcher could do to wrest power away from those people, he would. But he needed to be very careful as to how he approached it. His position with the Navy would not stop an Omni assassin from getting rid of him if they thought he was messing with their income stream.
Comments
Silver Beard
The space station was recent... 2 chapters back he lamented not being a structural engineer.
Fortunis
Or it's one of the things he had the mercenaries buy.
Silver Beard
It's crews he needs the most now. Assuming those he hires will have perspective into the roles they will fill and likely some contribution to the designs. Na's folks can't keep ship hopping to crew each one.
Nicolae
always income...
Hammy
Ah Corporate espionage never changes. Interesting to see how he gets everything to his home base to really start building ships. It would make sense for him to start with patrol craft to learn the ins and outs before moving to capital classes.
Gabriel Melnik
He forgor.
Silver Beard
Fletcher should notice the pirate bounties getting claimed. Perhaps he has better Intel to share?
Silver Beard
Wasn't he going to buy blueprints for space station?
