LOCATION: OMNI HEADQUARTERS

  SYSTEM: TAU CETI

  DATE: 2404

  Benning pored over the reports from Project Freefall. So far, things were going well with the ark launch. He had debated recalling the ship after the STO leadership declared an end to the Second Shican War, but had held off. The STO wasn’t exactly known for its foresight when it involved the aliens.

  He was glad he had waited, because Omni agents had learned that the Shican were indeed returning. There was still no clear reason for their departure, so he assumed their withdrawal was a tactical measure meant to lower human preparedness. If they had come straight to the STO, it would have worked.

  Benning sighed. It was just another reason to remove the obsolete and incompetent leadership of the STO.

  The Shican’s actions could also have something to do with the Asgardian Union as well, but none of Omni’s agents survived long enough to report back on what was going on out there.

  Benning planned to leave with the ark ship, but he had changed his mind at the last minute. Part of that was due to the Shican’s slow push into STO space, but the majority of the reason was that he refused to watch the company that he had built from scratch over the last eighty years fall apart.

  It was selfish of him, but he was a selfish man.

  That didn’t mean he planned on sticking around if the Shican pushed deep into STO territory. If they started to reach some of the core systems, he had options that other people didn’t.

  During the past six months, Benning had done extensive testing with the hyperspace bridge and finally had a reliable method of transporting a person through the subspace tear without killing them.

  It involved a safe room encased in multiple meters of lead and only contained enough room for a single occupant, but it worked. The scout ships that had been sent out months in advance of the ark’s launch had also located a suitable planet to use as a rendezvous spot. It would take months for the ark to reach the planet in question, and once it did, it would loiter in the area for a year while scouts checked the nearby systems, so he had time to decide.

  If he wasn’t ready by then, there would be other gas giants. He would catch up to the ark eventually if he were forced to leave. Meeting up with his people didn’t concern him.

  What concerned him at the moment was the blatant disrespect the new corporations were showing Omni. His people had already stopped thirteen attempts at corporate espionage from upstarts looking to make a mark. With the executive team out of the picture and him in charge, some people saw Omni as an easy target.

  To be fair, he would have assumed the same thing given the circumstances. The power vacuum left behind by the companies that fled had given rise to smaller, bolder companies.

  A few of those companies were a bit too bold for Benning’s taste. He made sure they didn’t get a second chance by leaving their assets lying in smoking ruins after Omni strike teams rolled through. The STO would have thrown a fit if they knew Omni was involved in those strikes, but it was easy enough to hide that fact. It wasn’t like his strike teams wore Omni livery.

  The demonstrations didn’t stop the attempts at corporate espionage, but the smarter companies figured out who was behind the retaliatory strikes and reached out to him for concessions.

  Benning mentally marked those companies as possible members for a new assembly in case the STO survived the Shican War, but that could wait.

  “AI, how are the asset collection missions going?”

  “Omni operatives have cleared two of the ten corporate strongholds. Losses are minimal, and they are currently cataloging all inventory at those locations.”

  The strongholds in question belonged to some of the corporations that fled STO space to wait out the war. That included a few owned by former assembly members. After commandeering all of their armed ships with the mind-controlled spies, most of those corporations were left stranded and without any way to communicate back to STO space for help. Those were the ones he targeted.

  He didn’t feel bad about doing so; that was just business.

  Benning wasn’t about to leave such a juicy prize for someone else to claim. The best part, attacking them didn’t break any STO laws because the stations were outside of human-controlled space. If anyone ever found out about the attacks, Benning could claim they were pirate stations his people stumbled across.

  The lie would be paper-thin, but then again, nobody would ever bother to look into the attacks.

  The overall value of those corporations barely made a blip in Omni’s yearly budget, but every bit helped. Benning was more interested in their intellectual assets. If the war ended in humanity’s favor, those companies would magically return to STO space, but under the quiet management of Omni. If not, he would take their patents with him. It was a win-win either way.

  ***

  LOCATION: EDEN’S END

  DATE: 2405

  “You sure this is the right time for this?” Krieger asked.

  Alexander nodded as the pair walked around the construction site. It had been four months since the Shican were defeated. The crashed enemy vessels had finally been disassembled, but the scars of their attack had yet to fade.

  Atrium C was now just a broken concrete slab, the previous wreckage having been cleared away and the entrances capped off so the rest of the facility could be pressurized properly again. He was glad there were no utilities below the massive domes.

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  Alexander had considered just rebuilding the dome, but decided to go in a different direction. Eden’s End wasn’t at its capacity before the war kicked off, but it would have gotten there within another year.

  Instead of rebuilding what was previously there, Alexander had worked with Yi Na to design a tower complex that would quadruple the living capacity that Atrium C once provided. The open spaces of the domes were a big hit with people since going outside wasn’t feasible, so Alexander made sure to keep some of that in the design.

  It wouldn’t have been possible without recent technological advancements and the AI’s assistance, which helped go a long way toward mending their reputation. Alexander was glad that Rush and the others had made amends with the Na family. A simple apology might not have been enough for some families, but Huang Na was a pragmatic man.

  They moved aside as a tracked loader trundled past. The operator nodded at them before moving into the dig site to remove the last of the concrete.

  “The war is over, but I want to clear up some loose ends before I start on that project we discussed.”

  Krieger sighed. “I get that, but you’re going to have to meet with Kaela to explain the mission. She still doesn’t believe you’re a real person. I thought you cleared that up?”

  Alexander looked sheepish. “I meant to, but I got sidetracked.”

  “Uh-huh,” Krieger replied doubtfully as he rested his hand on the conference room door. “That’s why I’m here.”

  The man pushed the door open, and the pair stepped inside to find Kaela Voss waiting at the far end of the table with her feet kicked up and her eyes closed.

  One of her eyelids cracked open at the sound of the door. She smiled and kicked her feet off the table and sat up, but it wasn’t out of any sort of embarrassment at being caught. The captain of the Kyuubi no Kitsune looked at the pair before a playful smirk appeared on her face.

  Alexander heard Krieger groan softly before the woman spoke. “Who’s your tall, dark, and handsome friend, Vitor?”

  Alexander chuckled at the Admiral’s embarrassment before striding over and offering his hand to Voss. The woman took it without hesitation. “A pleasure to meet you finally, Captain Voss. I’m Alexander Kane.”

  She released his hand and looked at him in confusion for a moment before turning to Krieger. “Really? You’re trying to pull a prank on me?”

  “It’s not a prank, Miss Voss,” Alexander said as he absorbed the excess living alloy he had left in the hallway to change back to his previous form.

  To her credit, Voss didn’t even flinch at the change.

  “So you are,” she said mildly. “Since I doubted him for so long, I guess I have to make it up to Vitor somehow. Perhaps dinner?” she asked as she turned to Krieger.

  “Fine,” the man replied reluctantly, earning a small smile from Voss.

  Alexander was pretty sure the whole joke about him not being real had been for this very purpose. He had to admire the woman’s commitment.

  “So,” Voss said as she turned back to Alexander. “I hear you have a job for me? I thought the war was over? And before you ask, I’m not carrying one of those gravity bombs aboard Kitsune ever again.”

  “Nothing like that,” Alexander assured her. “In fact, all of the remaining gravity bombs have been decommissioned. Lagertha Char, the other Jarls, and I have all signed an accord not to produce them unless another interstellar war breaks out.”

  “You’re essentially saying that anyone with enough know-how will be able to produce them in a few years? That’s not quite as reassuring as you make it out to be.”

  “You’ve hit on an uncomfortable truth,” Alexander admitted. “With knowledge of how to produce gravity plating spreading, it’ll only be a matter of time until someone figures out how to weaponize it as I did. I’m already working on countermeasures against such attacks, but that’s not something you need to be concerned about.”

  “Oh, and what should I be concerned about?” Voss asked.

  “Pirates.”

  Voss chuckled. “Okay, fair enough, and also something I can get behind. I assume your mission involves taking some pirates out of the equation?”

  Alexander nodded and gave her the details.

  ***

  Jarro clomped along the metal deck of the station, his mag boots making a racket. He grumbled under his breath once again about the gravity plates not working anymore. It made pushing the slaves to work faster, much harder.

  He had no plans of leaving Harlow’s secret production station until he received word that the Shican War was over, but that didn’t mean he would let the slaves slack off. Once he did head back out into the greater universe, the more ships he had, the more power he could project.

  With Harlow and the entire Anazi line dead, along with Haven reduced to a nuclear wasteland thanks to his old boss’s fit of anger, that left Jarro in a prime position to become the de facto pirate lord.

  It was a position he never thought he would be in, but he wouldn’t squander it like the last idiots who held such power.

  He was so lost in his own world that he rounded a corner in the corridor and ran face-first into someone.

  “Fucking hell!” he yelled, grabbing at his bruised nose. “Watch where you’re fucking going, or the next time I’m gonna stick a blade into ya!”

  When he finally blinked away the pain from his nose and looked at the idiot he ran into, he froze.

  A person wearing black combat armor stared back at him. He didn’t even have a chance to reach for his gun before the figure’s arm snapped out and wrapped around his throat. The figure pulled him toward itself and shoved him up against a wall.

  Jarro quickly realized the armored suit wasn’t just a suit; it was also augmented. His bulky, but short frame, was lifted off the deck with ease as he gasped for breath.

  His eyes darted around for a way out as he struggled against the grip, but he saw a dozen more similarly armored figures. Then the faceplate of the one holding him slid open, and cold blue eyes greeted him, eyes he knew very well.

  “So, this is where you crawled to,” Kaela Voss said with a smile. “I guess I can finally close that contract.”

  He tried to punch the relentless bounty hunter in the face, but she pushed her head forward, and his fist slammed into her helmet right before her helmet smashed into his forehead, knocking him out cold.

  ***

  Kaela dropped Jarro Quinn to the deck. The man had killed a family of four before fleeing, resulting in the bounty on his head. She almost had him a few times, but he managed to slip away each time, leaving more bodies in his wake. Not anymore. “Secure him,” she said, before closing her faceplate and lifting her FE rifle.

  It had been effortless to bypass the pirate station’s sensors and gain entrance with the Kitsune. The unfinished hulls made for perfect blind spots and egress points. It also helped her understand why Kane wanted to take the station intact. The pirate slaves had been surprised to see them, but had quickly realized they were being rescued, and helped point them in the right direction.

  When they told her about Jarro being the leader, she couldn’t resist leading the charge. She hadn’t expected to find him before any of the other pirates, but she appreciated that the man hadn’t made her work for it.

  The rest of the station was cleared without incident. The only pirates who realized anything was wrong were the dozen or so they encountered in the mess hall. Half of those were too drunk to even react as her crew, along with two strike teams, flooded into the room and took them all captive.

  They did a second sweep of the station before calling in the reinforcements to cart all the prisoners and rescued slaves back to Eden’s End.

  Once the station was emptied, Judgement unleashed a full barrage of missiles on the facility, turning it into a dust cloud to ensure no pirate could ever use it again. With the losses that the pirates took during Harlow’s rampage, the Shican’s destruction, and now this station, the pirate threat would be set back for decades.

  If Kaela had any say about that, they would never return. Thanks to Kane’s new anti-pirate task force, led by her, she did. She would ensure that anyone who dabbled in piracy had no place to hide. It was about time someone took those parasites seriously.

  If you'd like some more sci-fi adventures, go check out my new series, Corebound.

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