Blue Star Enterprises

Yulia raced through the halls in excitement. Alex was returning today! It had been five months since she had seen him last and until last night, she hadn't spoken with him in over two months. He had contacted her from Asgard, the planet he was visiting, and that was pretty neat. She knew communication between planets was possible but she never really had the opportunity to speak with anyone across such vast distances in real time. She had sent messages to her friends back on Petrov Station before they came to Eden's End, but those were just messages.

She wished she could have gone with Alex to experience what a new world was like. Sure she had Eden's End, and Petrov Station, but that was different because she lived there. She wished to explore other worlds and see other sunsets and sunrises. Alex promised to take her to Asgard one day when she was older.

That would be cool.

Alex couldn't take her this time because the mission could be dangerous, but he didn't sound too concerned when he left. That put most of her fears to rest, and his call, after they arrived, eased any other worries she still held onto.

"Watch out!" someone yelled as she skirted around them in the hallway.

"Sorry!" she shouted back, not turning or slowing down. Dog clanked loudly behind her, forcing people to quickly step aside or be bowled over by the robot.

Yulia was in a hurry because she wanted to show Alex what she had been up to while he was gone. She did have to use some of his resources and printers as well as help from Mr. Lucas and the nice older lady, Mrs. Lund, but she was hoping he would overlook that when he saw what she had built.

It wasn't easy either. She had spent the entire time Alex was gone using all of the knowledge he had taught her to make it work properly, and she still needed to complete the last parts of the assembly.

That was on her. She had gotten distracted by a racing tournament over the last couple of weeks. Her biggest rival, Charlie had beaten her in the first race of the series, but she managed a close win in the second. They kept splitting first-place finishes until the fifth and final race where she got a bit too close to one of the walls and damaged one of her axles. She fell back to eighth place after that and Charlie went on to win the tournament and the prize money that her friends had talked her into putting up.

With that finish, she dropped back to third place and one of the older girls from the orphanage, Cho, took second.

Yulia was initially upset by the loss but quickly remembered what Alex had told her. "If you lose, it just means that you need to figure out why and use that knowledge to improve for the next time."

With that in mind, she shook the winner's hands and gave each of them the data chips with their winnings on them.

Cho gave her a hug after that and said she would be joining the academy that Alex had set up.

Yulia wished the girl well. She wanted to join as well but she was only turning twelve this year and was still too young. Her friend Markus was getting close to being old enough though. Once he turned sixteen in a few months, he would be joining the academy. That was pretty much a given since all her friend seemed to do was study the spacer textbooks that his mother gave to him.

Now that she thought about it, she needed to ask if Sarah and Claire had any intention of joining the academy. They didn't seem all that interested in engineering or space, but they had surprised her before, so it was best just to ask.

She shook those thoughts away as she pressed her hand to the scanner in Alex's workshop. The door slid open and she hurried inside. Dog came in behind her, scanning for any threats. He sort of did that everywhere now.

"Hurry up slowpoke or I won't be able to finish in time for his arrival."

Dog barked once and hurried over to her. She needed his help because some of the items were hard to carry by herself. She would also need help putting the thing on.

Occasionally when she got annoyed with her friends or simply missed Alex, she came down to his workshop and looked through his folders. They were all secured, but Alex had given her access to the workshop in case of an emergency. It was mostly so she could hide in that weird secret room, but she didn't like going in there. One day she found out that her access also gave her full access to all of Alex's programs and files.

So she just sort of started looking through them one day, marveling at the designs and machines he had come up with but had never built. Then she found a folder called Yulia. Well, she couldn't not open it with a name like that.

Inside the folder were designs of stuff specifically for her. Her go-carts were in there, along with Dog's designs. Then she found the super nifty suit design. She pulled that up on Alex's interactive holo and tried it on. As she was laughing and moving about on the holo-pad, Mr. Lucas happened to show up.

"I don't think Alex would be happy to find you playing around in here," the man said before looking at what she was doing. "What is that?"

She managed to look embarrassed before responding. "It's a suit Alex built for me."

The man looked slightly taken aback by that information and he walked over to the folder to examine the suit schematics. "Huh, so it is."

Since the man didn't scold her, she got the idea to ask him if she could make it.

It had taken some convincing, and a few changes to some of the materials of the augmented suit, but she finally convinced Mr. Lucas to assist. Mrs. Lund helped pick out appropriate materials to replace the suit's original metals. She didn't see what the point was until Mr. Lucas pointed out that wearing an armored augment suit required a permit and she would have to ask his brother for one if she wanted to stick with Alex's original design.

She had stuck her tongue out in distaste at that idea, making the man chuckle.

Unfortunately, Alex hadn't completed the design, so it wasn't print-ready, which meant she had to print most of the parts separately and then figure out how they fit together. She had plenty of experience doing this though, and she had the design schematic, so it wasn't all that complicated.

Dog and Mr. Lucas helped her with the electronics and moving parts.

In a little stand was the bright yellow augment suit that she was going to surprise Alex with. She picked up some tools and the last few replacement plastic armor pieces and quickly got to work putting them in place. She just knew Alex was going to be surprised when he saw her wearing this.

***

The BSE fleet had entered Unokane a day and a half ago and had made their way to the refueling station.

It would take time to top everyone else off, but Valkyrie and Vanguard would both be sticking around for their upgrades. Both ships looked like hollowed-out junkers at this point, having had all their guns, including their point defenses removed and recycled.

It would have been preferable to use the shipyard for this work, but the station was still under construction. Even half a year hadn't been long enough to complete the large installation. It was well on its way though with over half the substructure laid out. Soon some thrusters would need to be added to ensure the structure didn't fall into the atmosphere. Right now, a bunch of ion drives powered by batteries and solar cells were keeping the station in orbit.

Unfortunately, he couldn't think about the station at the moment as all of his focus and efforts needed to go toward installing the new systems on both ships.

As soon as they docked, the swarm of bots he retasked from working on the station surged around the two large ships, looking like buzzing flies around a cow.

He hadn't been able to get proper measurements of the turret openings before leaving Asgard space, so the information he had sent Lucas was a request to print a specific file from a specific folder in his workshop.

The folder contained designs for a much larger laser system, specifically designed for the cruisers they had recovered from the pirates. He had had plenty of time to measure those turret openings since he had needed to in order to design the railguns that he had been forced to use as they were quicker to implement than lasers at the time.

His hope was that the Valkyrie's openings were the same. They should be, based on the designs he saw, but he couldn't be certain the Asgardians' tolerances were as tight as his. Any gaps would need additional armor plating to protect those areas.

As the bots were doing their measurements, Alexander joined the rest of the crew for the ride planetside. It took six shuttle trips to take everyone, leaving him and Vynnson as the last two aboard.

As the two waited for Branston to return and pick them up, the taciturn man spoke. "I now see why the Lagertha has put her trust in you to make this happen. You do not delay or waste time. It is a good trait for an Asgardian to have."

Alexander looked over at the man, a bit of shock showing on his avatar's face. "Was that a compliment?"

The man grunted softly but failed to elaborate. To say the Sub-Commander had been prickly during the journey would be an understatement. He found most of the crew to be lackluster in their duties and was never shy of pointing that fact out to them. If the man hadn't also pointed out ways for them to improve their work, Alexander would have stepped in and told him to keep his mouth shut.

Vynnson turned out to be a very good teacher and the crew's aptitude with the ship's systems improved by quite a lot during their journey home.

Soon enough their shuttle arrived and the two stepped aboard and secured themselves.

The awkward silence down was a bit too much for Alexander so he tried his hand at some small talk with the commander. "So, first time visiting Eden's End?"

"No," the man replied matter of factly.

"…Oh, right, you were with the Lagertha the last time." He mentally chastised himself for the stupid question.

"No, I visited once before with my father back when King Char first gifted the facility to the drifters. I was four at the time."

That was all the man said about that, and Alexander felt even more awkward about asking for more details. Thankfully their trip soon ended and the pair stepped off the shuttle.

Vynnson wore a mask around his neck but didn't bother placing it over his mouth or nose, instead, he controlled his breathing as he looked around.

Alexander couldn't help looking around either. There were a lot of changes to the facility since he had last been here. The first major one was the arrival dome which now stood directly in front of them where the old landing pad had been. Beyond that and off to one side was the start of the academy dome. Yi Na had wasted no time getting those facilities started it seemed.

As Alexander was still admiring the changes, Haldric simply headed for the entrance.

As they entered, Alexander was rushed by a four-and-a-half-foot humanoid in bright yellow armor. Vynnson reacted immediately, pulling a blade and readying himself against the oncoming threat. Thankfully, Alexander was quick to figure out what was going on and stepped between the man's bared weapon and his daughter's rushing form.

The girl laughed as she threw herself into him as hard and as fast as the augment gear would allow. He heard her grunt beneath the suit as he hardly moved upon impact. He picked her up, suit and all.
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"You know this attacker?" Vynnson asked, his blade still held at the ready.

"Put that thing away," Alexander admonished the commander. "And this attacker is my daughter."

The man glanced at Yulia before sliding the blade back in a sheath. "She will make a fine warrior one day," the man responded.

Not if Alexander could help it.

He returned the girl's hug and set her down. "And where did this come from?" he asked as he gestured to the augment gear. He knew it was his design, but he doubted she had the ability to create the thing entirely by herself.

She twirled around and faced him again. "Do you like it? Mr. Lucas helped me make the changes to it so grumpy old Mr. Damien couldn't prevent me from using it to greet you."

It sounded like he needed to have a discussion with Lucas about what constituted proper toys for children.

"It's amazing," he replied. "Did you put it together all by yourself?"

"Mostly," she admitted. "Dog helped with the heavy parts, and Mr. Lucas helped with the electronics and moving bits."

Alexander could tell by her speed and the force of her tackle-hug that the augment suit had not been limited in any way. At least Lucas hadn't been foolish enough to let her run around with the armor plates. The small suit may not look like much, but it was far more capable than even the suits he had provided the Hawks. Most of the changes to Yulia's suit were experimental though, and he hadn't had time to thoroughly test them. He also figured he wouldn't need to anytime soon.

With those upgrades, Yulia's suit was as strong and fast as a suit built for an adult. That meant nothing on Eden's End would be able to match her since the security forces only had light augment gear.

He continued chatting with the lively girl as the new arrivals went through processing.

Getting through the arrival process took a bit. It was mostly how to handle the diplomatic nature of their visitors that held things up. Asgardians always carried a blade around, no matter what, and with their new standing as allies and fellow Asgardians, some considerations had to be added to their rules to allow for this.

Allowing the carrying of a blade wasn't much different than allowing the locals to carry stun sticks but it still took some talking to convince Damien of this.

Considering they would all be quarantined in the new area for half of their time there and the fact that some of the locals carried small knives around for utility tasks, Damien finally agreed to allow it.

Theodore Pembrooke tried to sneak away once he was done with processing, but Alexander was quick to intercept the man.

"I appreciate your help on this mission," Alexander told the man.

"You act as if I had a choice," the man grumbled.

"You did. You could have done the bare minimum to squeak by, but you actually put effort into the tasks I gave you. You also provided me with valuable information I didn't even know I needed to know. I admit it has crossed my mind a time or two that you might be playing the long game here, but I think you've earned enough trust for me to make your position permanent. Congratulations, Mr. Pembrooke, you are officially being promoted to my head of relations."

The man froze at the words. It seemed he was expecting something else.

"Wait, you're serious?" the former Omni employee asked. "This isn't some cruel joke?"

"We've spent the last five months together, Mr. Pembrooke, have I ever given you the impression that I enjoy cruelty in any form?"

"No," the man said after thinking about it for a bit. "But you hardly know me and now you are assigning me a position as the head of a department. I don't even know what sort of duties a head of relations has, but it can't be something simple."

"We'll discuss your responsibilities over the next week or so. For now, I want to spend time with my daughter." With that, Alexander left the man behind and joined Yulia, who waited eagerly off to the side.