Blue Star Enterprises

By the time Captain Matthews reported to him that Na was in orbit around Eden’s End, Alexander and the engineers had completed the first railgun installation. This was thanks to the additional help from some locals and the simplicity of assembling the unit. He probably could have been halfway complete with the second if he hadn’t stopped to ensure everything was working properly on the first. It was one thing to model something, but he had learned that until you built it, you really couldn’t know for sure if there would be unforeseen problems.

It was a good thing he didn’t continue. There were issues to work though. The first had to do with how fast the railgun rotated and elevated. The first test stripped out the precision gearing because he had forgotten to account for the masses in motion when writing the code that operated those portions. He would have asked Lucas to do that code, but he was busy with a much more important project.

Thankfully he had five sets of spare parts. After cannibalizing one of the unassembled railguns to replace the parts he broke, he reprogrammed the controller to reduce the speed by half. It wasn’t an ideal solution to the problem, but redesigning the entire system wasn’t possible for this installation. He also didn’t want to have six different iterations as he was sure to find some way to improve with each assembled gun. For now, they just needed to work. Later on, he could create upgrades.

The second test went much better. The motors didn’t tear themselves apart, and the gun was capable of moving in all the axes that Alexander had wanted. The issue that cropped up in the second test was how much the weapon wavered after it reached its intended angle. With land-based targets, that little bit of wobble probably wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but at orbital distances, it could mean the difference between hitting the target and missing by hundreds or maybe even thousands of feet.

Another bit of code fixed that issue. He simply slowed down the last few degrees of motion to ten percent speed. That almost eliminated the wobble. He was starting to realize designing an effective weapons system was far harder than he thought. Already he had ideas on how to improve upon the design, and he hadn’t even fired the weapon yet.

Speaking of firing, he radioed the security station. “We are ready for the first test fire,” he stated.

“On it!” an excited Lucas replied.

A few moments later, the massive gun rotated straight up. There was a *thunk* as the autoloader rammed one of the sabots into the barrel and the breach shut. Then the gun rotated to point low over the horizon.

Their first test was simply to fire and see what happened. He didn’t want to fire one into orbit just yet though.

The whine of the capacitors had already been going since he first activated the gun. The sound dimmed slightly as the weapon recoiled. There was a boom followed by the hypersonic crack as the projectile disappeared into the distance.

Unlike his original test with the small railgun, this one left a visible trail of dust kicked up in its wake as well as a line of superheated vapor to mark its passage through the atmosphere. The shockwave was actually pretty tame, all things considered. He chalked that up to the tapered redesign of the darts.

Alexander clicked his radio on. “The first test is a success, reload and prepare for the second shot.”

“Roger that,” Lucas replied happily.

The barrel lifted again and the railgun was loaded with a second round. This time it was aimed higher. And he watched as the barrel slowly traversed to follow the target in orbit. That meant target tracking was working. It was one of the things Lucas had been tasked to code.

“Captain Matthews, we are ready for test two.”

“All ships are clear, you are good to go for your test.”

Alexander was using this opportunity to show Na that he had ways to defend himself if there was any tomfoolery about to go down. Their next target was one of the defunct spy satellites that the people of Eden’s End had launched around the planet.

It would let him know the gun's accuracy as well as its damage potential.

He had to give the people here credit, disguising their satellites as asteroids was rather ingenious. Even Matthews had been impressed because he hadn’t registered them as anything other than rocks until they took control of the facility’s computers.

Alexander gave the signal to fire. The gun sent its round tearing into orbit and Alexander was nearly knocked off his feet by the shockwave that pressed down on him this time. He probably should be in the observation bunker like the rest, but he wanted to get a good look at the gun’s workings himself. It wasn’t like he was in any danger from the blast. No squishy bits and all that.

“Target miss,” Matthews stated. “Looks like it passed a few feet behind the satellite.”

Alexander sighed. Their orbital math must be off somewhere. He radioed Lucas to check on it.

“Oh, yup. Seems I missed one decimal place in the tracking code. Want me to prepare a follow-up shot?”

The man knew far more about coding than he ever would, but Alexander had learned Lucas could be a bit sloppy sometimes. Hmm, no. Sloppy wasn’t really the right description. Rushed maybe? No, that didn’t really describe the man either. Slapdash was probably the best description Alexander could apply to the man. Lucas liked to code, but he preferred to move on to another project as soon as he finished the first. The code would be functional but tended to cut corners where the man was less concerned.

That was fine for simple things, but when accuracy mattered, it wasn't. To be fair, Alexander had gone over the math in the code with the man and had missed this issue as well. So he couldn’t be too harsh on Lucas. He was young still, so there was plenty of time to get better and Alexander was already starting to see more focus on the details from the man.

“Switch to target three,” he responded. The second target was getting too close to where the Talon and Na were parked.

The gun swept down after loading the third round and started tracking the next target. Alexander waited until it was within their firing window before he issued the order.

The gun sent the round hurtling into orbit and this time Alexander watched the trail it left in its wake as it tore through the atmosphere.

“Target destroyed,” Matthews radioed him a minute later.

He heard the engineers in the bunker cheering at the successful test. Alexander smiled. “Lucas, round was on target. Congratulations! You can put the gun in standby mode.”

He heard some more cheering over Lucas’ radio. It must have gone on for a few minutes because that was how long it took the gun to rotate into standby and the hatch to slide closed on top of it.

Now he was ready to talk with Na.

***

Had Mingyu been the worrying type, he would have been pacing across his small bridge. As it was, he was sweating slightly. He wasn’t a fool, his sensor operator had picked up the weapon discharges from the planet. And the subsequent destruction of one of the many asteroids that hung in orbit. It was a declaration to tread carefully.

It was also rather pointless. Especially with the massive armed and armored troop transport shadowing them from behind. Like most civilian ships, the Moonlit Destiny wasn’t armed. If it came down to it, they could repel boarders with their pulse rifles but that was about it. The Destiny relied on the fact that mining ships weren’t very profitable targets for pirates to remain safe.

Even if he wanted to arm Destiny, the STO was very selective of who they allowed to have weapons. Mercenary ships were one of those exceptions. However, not all mercenaries were equal, Harn’s ship, the Devil’s Bargain was weaponless for example. Although calling Harn a mercenary wasn’t doing the name justice. Harn had been more of a bounty hunter pretending to be a mercenary than anything else.

Soon after the tests ended, he got the radio call he had been expecting.

“I’ll be in my cabin,” he spoke quietly as he left his chair on the bridge.

Nobody responded to him as he left. He wasn’t surprised. Tensions had only continued to rise throughout the ship as they made their way through STO space and to this system. It had gotten so bad that he had been forced to confine a few people to their quarters after fights broke out. Now there was just an undercurrent of simmering anger and exhaustion among the crew. He was ready to beg or promise just about anything if this place would allow his people to disembark.

He pushed his cabin door open, the thing squeaked noisily, something it had never done before. The addition of the extra people on board and their extended trip had strained the environmental systems and moisture had started to build up and rust anything metal. There were already a few systems that were on the verge of complete failure.

The door shut and he walked tiredly over to the terminal and activated it. The holograph came to life and then split into two separate screens. One showed the captain of the mercenary ship. Matthews if his tired brain was correct. The other screen showed Alexander’s avatar face.

“…You look like shit,” Alexander stated bluntly.

Mingyu couldn’t help but chuckle tiredly. “I feel even worse. I know you probably never wanted to see me again. But I was given few options after pirates took Petrov station.”

Alexander frowned. “So they did take Petrov… What of the orphans?”

Mingyu wanted to smile, but he didn’t have the energy in him to do so. “They were aboard my ship for a field trip when the station was attacked or more accurately, when it was taken over. We barely escaped the system.”

He told them what happened next and who he suspected had been in cahoots with the pirates.

“So you’re saying your fellow Captains were involved?” Na nodded at Alexander’s question.

“You know how this looks, don’t you?” Captain Matthews asked.

“That I may also be in league with them,” he stated with a resigned sigh.

The video froze for a bit and Mingyu assumed Alexander and Matthews were discussing stuff they didn’t want him to overhear.

When it unfroze, Alexander spoke first. “This does explain some of the actions Sergei Zhang took against me. I could never quite figure out what his issue was. How did you find me anyway? I certainly didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

“I may be ostracized from STO space, but I still have some contacts. One reported to me that the Zephyr and Captain Matthews' ship had headed out here.”

He could see Matthews frown at that. “That information should have been private. Who is this individual?”

Mingyu shook his head. “I will not be giving that information away. I’m sorry.”

Matthews’ frown grew even more pronounced and his eyes narrowed. “We’ll see about that. The Hawks have contacts too.”

“Gentlemen… let's get back on track,” Alexander interrupted.

Both men focused on Alexander.

“What is it you want exactly, Na? And none of this politicking nonsense that went on back at Petrov. I have no more patience for that.”

“I would like you to speak with the leaders of Eden’s End to request they allow my people time to rest. Or at least take the orphans and Headmaster Wong if that isn’t acceptable. I’m willing to negotiate compensation.”

The screens froze again for much longer this time. When they came back, Alexander spoke again. “You’re in luck. I own this facility. Before we discuss allowing your people to disembark. What are you offering?”

With that question, Alexander had put all the pressure back on him. If he didn’t offer an enticing enough deal the first time, there might not be a second opportunity. This was the worst possible outcome for him. He had been prepared for the worst though.

“I see you don’t have any orbital infrastructure. I’m willing to offer my ship’s services for free for a year. As long as you let my people live at your facility. After that, we can negotiate a new deal.” This was risky. It meant Mingyu was shouldering a lot of expenses.

“Do you have a shuttle?” Alexander asked.

Mingyu shook his head.

“Then how do you propose I refine the material you collect? As you have already stated, There isn’t any orbital infrastructure.”

“Do you have a refinery?”

“I have a smelter, why?”

“Even better. If you can get material into orbit, along with a smelter, I will provide you with plans for a simple transfer station. It won’t be much more than refueling and topping off consumables, but you should be able to modify or extend it to include the smelter and an ore delivery hangar. As you grow, you could add a shuttle hangar. That’s probably the extent the design I have is capable of though.”

Alexander paused again, but this time Mingyu could see movement on the screen still. So the man was just thinking.

“Why are you offering this to us? We didn’t leave on the best terms.”

“I care about my crew and the people aboard my ship. Do I need any other reason?”

“And what of your ship while your crew is planetside?”

“I will remain on board to make repairs.”

Alexander shook his head at that, which surprised him. “No. Matthews, I think you can answer this one.”

The Captain of the massive troop transport smiled. “The Hawks will ferry you all down and then we will search your ship to ensure there isn’t anything we need to worry about. If that search comes back clear, our engineers will effect repairs as needed. Mr. Kane has graciously decided to provide the components. So long as you provide him with all your design schematics.”

If he wasn’t so exhausted, he would have applauded Alexander’s maneuvering here. In one stroke the man had managed to secure plans for a refueling station from him as well as the schematics for his entire ship. The man may not like politics, but he knew how to use it when it suited him. Mingyu agreed to the deal without hesitation.