Blue Star Enterprises

"Swap ships?" Alexander asked in confusion. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"With the war going on and Isbjorn's attack, I cannot afford to be down my flagship for multiple months. A common practice among the Jarls is to trade a ship of equal value during a retrofit as an act of trust. Normally there would be no transfer of personnel, those staying with their respective Jarls, but since you are unfamiliar with the Valkyrie's systems, my Sub-Commander Haldric Vynnson will accompany you while the vessel is in your possession. I would ask for someone of equal measure to my sub-commander in trade, but I do not wish to strain our new friendship by imposing such a request."

Even though the exchange made sense, that meant Katalynn would have access to his technology. Then again, she was taking the same risk by handing her ship over to him and he already knew that the Valkyrie was better built than Soul. He could simply take it for himself if he was so inclined. One man, no matter how capable, could stop him if he decided to keep her ship. Even if that would give Alexander a much more capable ship, he would never do something like that. Even without considering the ramifications to his credibility, it would completely destroy everything he had worked for over the last year.

Alexander wasn't all that worried that they might try and reverse engineer any of the tech aboard Soul. Other than the engines, there really wasn't anything all that special about the ship. Most of the improvements were just iterations on currently available technologies or clever ways to implement them, like the stacking of the guns. He wasn't truly concerned about the engines either, because they had likely tried reverse engineering Omni thrusters at some point and if they hadn't managed that yet, they weren't going to figure out why the ones on Soul worked just as well.

He wasn't blind to the fact that Vynnson was an observer to see how he handled this first exchange either. Trust but verify, as they say.

It took an accelerated moment for him to collect himself and respond, making it appear that he hadn't paused at all. "Ok. Let's say I agree with your tactical assessment and you have the credits to pay for this upgrade since I have no use for your currency at the moment. How can you be certain I'll have enough time to complete this upgrade? It's two months back to Eden's End and another two and a half months to retrofit your ship. Tack on the return journey and it's going to be half a year at least before you get it back. I doubt Harlow will allow us that luxury."

"Our scouts have yet to report any sign of Harlow or his fleet. That is no guarantee that he hasn't hit the border yet, but without Qcomms we rely on relay couriers to pass information ahead. The system isn't perfect but we can get updates to and from our border within a few weeks. Once Harlow hits our space, we will know soon enough. A group that large will not go unnoticed, even by individual ships or stations. Once he does show up, we will attempt to intercept him and slow him down. Since most of the fighting will likely occur in Unokane or near it, my fleet will eventually rendezvous there, saving the travel time back. I am putting a lot on the line now that you are one of us, Kane. I hope you will do the same and do everything in your power to speed up this retrofit."

Alexander had to admit she was correct. "There is one more issue. I don't think I have enough people to crew your ship. I barely have enough to crew mine."

He wouldn't have admitted this shortfall before, but they were now in this together. He wasn't going to let a bit of embarrassment keep him from asking for some much-needed help.

Katalynn cursed and reached into her pocket, pulling out a data chip and handing it to a smirking Vyrik. "He bet me that you were short on people. I told him that would have been too bold a move, even for you. Seems I was wrong. I will send out an announcement, you will have more applicants than you know what to do with by the end of the day. Feel free to vet their skills, but all Asgardians are trained for basic ship operations. The longer we talk, the more time we waste, is there anything else before our ships rendevous?"

"I just need to send a message home."

She nodded.

Alexander prepared a message to Lucas, hoping the man would understand what he was asking for. He would just come out and say it, but he didn't know who might be intercepting these messages within the STO. He wished he had developed a code to use for communications, but it was a little late for that.
Find your next adventure on empire

If Lucas didn't figure out what he was getting at, it was going to cost him a few weeks extra to retrofit the Valkyrie and Krieger's ship, Vanguard.

The only reason he thought he could complete both ships in that same two-month window was an idea that popped into his head as he spoke with the Lagertha. He doubted Krieger or Vynnson would find his idea pleasing, but if they wanted these upgrades done before Harlow showed up, this was the only way Alexander could think to pull it off.

What followed the meeting was a whirlwind of activity. Asgardians did not screw around when it came to logistics and planning. It made the efforts of Eden's End look like children playing at war. In less than an hour, the two ships were coupled and supply ships were bringing aboard necessities.

He gave Katalynn and her other two advisors the rundown on Wayward Soul while Vynnson provided the same for the Hawks. It was a very bizarre exchange.

The ships weren't all that different since Alexander hadn't had time to upgrade most of the Soul's controls to the advanced ones, which was probably a good thing. Char's people were more familiar with these older-style controls. They did marvel at the upgraded sensors, but it was a minor thing. He wondered how they would react when they used the thrusters and weapons.

His projects got moved over and he would have preferred to transfer his missiles as well, but that simply wasn't feasible, so he explained their capabilities.

Katalynn's chief engineer whistled when Alexander told him the fire rate of the railguns. "That's impressive, but how does that affect maintenance? You haven't found a magical solution for the rail degradation issues by chance have you?"

"No," Alexander responded with a shake of his avatar. "Every thousand rounds, the rails need to be replaced. There are two full sets of spares aboard as well as manufacturing capacity to make more if need be. There are also automated bots that are programmed to handle the rail replacement operation."

Katalynn frowned at that. "You're wasting precious space for manufacturing and storing robots?"

"It's not really a waste," Alexander said defensively. "We've found the bots to be extremely useful for quick repairs and complicated maintenance tasks outside the ship. The lost 'space' as you put it would have been used as hangar space for a second shuttle. Since I didn't have a need for a second shuttle, I converted that space into something more useful."

Truthfully, Alexander had cobbled together the manufacturing and bots for the four recovered ships since he didn't have time to build out a room specifically for that.

Katalynn let out a snort at that. "A few fights are hardly enough to determine if something is useful in the long term or not. I will make sure to give your design choices a proper test. Let's hope they are as good as you say."

He didn't take her skepticism to heart. He knew how valuable his additions were and soon she would as well.

Alexander wasn't one to normally toot his own horn, but if he did, he would do it for the bots. They had started as something simple to help augment his shortage of skilled workers and had turned into an indispensable part of his operations.

The manufacturing capabilities also gave the ships much more flexibility without having to rely on a supply ship. Technically Talon filled the role of supply ship, but it wasn't strictly necessary. Each ship could provide its own resupply of ammo, and given time, even fuel if it somehow got separated from the rest of the fleet.

The bots on the non-Eden ships weren't as capable, since they only had advanced computronics and no access to a ship's supercomputer, but he planned to change that eventually for all of them.

Soon he was done showing them the systems and he headed over to Valkyrie. The Asgardian's flair for practicality carried over to their ships, not that he was surprised.

The corridors were tight and as bare bones as possible. He was certain the weight saving had gone into armor and weapons. He knew from the schematic that Valkyrie only had two layers of armor, but the outer layer was over three times as thick as Soul's outer armor.

It was no wonder the vessel had shrugged off his laser attack. Before he made it far into the ship, it shook slightly. It seemed Sub Commander Vynnson was in a hurry to join the BSE fleet and leave the system.

While he was more than fine leaving the man in command of the ship, Alexander needed to talk with him about what he planned for the voyage back to Eden's End.

***

"I would once again like to state my disagreement with this decision," Vyrik said right before the ships separated. "We should have exchanged a few frigates instead."

"Are you sure you aren't just upset that I declined Kane's invitation to tour his frigates so you could see this tactical display he was going on about?" Katalynn asked.

Vyrik sniffed. "I would never base a decision on something so petty. I simply think losing our strongest ship will encourage Isbjorn to strike again."

"I'm sure," she responded derisively to his first comment. The man may have denied the accusation, but Katalynn had known him for a long time, and she could hear the note of longing in his voice. She smirked slightly, quickly schooling her face before her tactical advisor noticed. "As for Isbjorn, let's hope he does."

The man quirked an eyebrow. "You did this to trick Isbjorn into attacking? I suppose it could work. We would need to take care though. This ship isn't nearly as resilient as Valkyrie, so a slugging match between our fleet and his would be ill-advised."

"That wasn't the only reason I considered this exchange, but it was one of the things I accounted for. If Kane wasn't exaggerating about the capabilities of this ship, I think Isbjorn is in for a nasty little surprise. We don't need to defeat him in detail, we simply need to cut his fleet down so he is no longer a problem. The volume of fire this ship should be capable of putting out will make that much easier. Once this battle with Harlow is over and the war with Xin goes back to a stalemate, we can deal with what remains of Isbjorn's fleet."

"Assuming he takes the bait," Vyrik reminded her. "I'll order our people to start producing additional ammo for the railguns. Hmm. Maybe Kane was right, those production capabilities are already coming in handy."

***

Harlow's scouts reported back that the system had a small station and a few mining ships, but nothing much of note other than that.

After having traveled non-stop for nearly a month and a half through the dregs of pirate space, his people were restless and needed an outlet before violence broke out in the fleet. "Send the order to jump in, we'll disable the station and loot it."

The people on his bridge cheered as the orders were sent. Soon they jumped into the system from just beyond the Oort cloud.

The faster ships went after the miners while the rest of his ships carried on to the station. There was a token effort at defense, but there were not nearly enough ships or guns on the station to do anything against his fleet. Harlow was forced to hold a few people back from firing since he wanted the station intact so his people could board and loot it.

"Emperor, a ship just jumped from farther out in the system. It was likely a scout."

Harlow sneered in annoyance, but there was little he could do about that. Char and her people had always been rather committed to border security, which had prevented much in the way of raids into their territory. He knew it was only a matter of time until they noticed his arrival, but he also knew they were currently embroiled in a war with Xin, so most of their forces would be occupied. Not that he feared them with his current fleet though.

He hoped they did attack, or this entire trip would be a rather boring one. It would also be a huge waste of resources if all he did was capture one pathetic world to finally get his hands on Kane, the elusive engineer.

The fact that Dalton had failed when the assassin had done similar missions on heavily controlled corporate worlds only made Harlow more intrigued with Alexander Kane. Harlow had an inkling that something made Kane special, and he wanted to know what that was. If Kane was reticent to tell him, he would settle for forcing the man to work tirelessly to improve his technological advantage instead. One way or another, Harlow would get his worth out of the man.