Blue Star Enterprises

The next few days were a rush of activity. Katalynn and her people had gone back up to their respective ships, and Alexander had shuttles flying almost nonstop running ordnance up to the Asgardian fleet.

"We're almost out," Lucas stated as the pair of them watched the bots scurry into the armory where the weapons were stored, only to come out a few minutes later, carrying one of the large missiles between two of the robots.

The underground bunker was located on the far side of a stone outcropping over ten miles from the Eden's End facility. It had a landing pad and defensive railguns to keep people away. The bunker was also cleverly hidden by painting it to match the surroundings and texturing the railgun turrets and two orbital railgun emplacements, which were covered by hatches flanking the facility, to look like boulders.

Alexander had a few weapon emplacements near the main facility that were similarly disguised, but he kept the originals clearly visible as a deterrent.

If anyone got past the guns guarding the bunker, it would take them time to cut through the three blast doors or bypass the multiple layers of electronic and physical security Alexander and Lucas had added to the underground structure. It was never meant to be a foolproof defense, it was only ever meant to give BSE forces time to react or trigger the failsafe for the bunker, which was why it was located so far away from the main facility.

"How many ships did we manage to arm?" Alexander asked.

"All of the Asgardian ships got at most a single full launch of our upgraded missiles. We simply didn't have enough built to offer any more. We had plenty of your older missiles to top off their supplies though."

He would need to notify Katalynn about how ineffective those old missiles were. Hopefully, it wouldn't come down to needing them.

"What about the stealth project I had you work on?" Alexander asked. He hadn't told anyone other than Katalynn about the stealth gunships yet.

Lucas shrugged. "It's not as good as the original," the man admitted. "We are looking at maybe a fifty percent effectiveness versus the sample piece that you pulled from the STO ship."

"Will it work though?" Alexander pressed, knowing he had rushed the project into production too soon, but had wanted something in his back pocket to surprise his enemies.

"If the pirates aren't paying close attention, maybe. I still don't know how you kept the Sub-Commander from learning about them."

"I produced them when he was on downtime."

"Still, it couldn't have been easy," Lucas stated. "I'm not so sure about the other characteristics of this coating. We haven't been able to do conclusive tests."

Alexander nodded. "That's fine. We will work with what we have."

Their stealth armor experiments were a practice in frustration, but the tests had eventually borne fruit. Scaling the process up to industrial levels was proving problematic, however. If the STO had run into the same issues, it was no wonder they took so long to reproduce their knock-off variant of the carbon composite armor. Then there was the issue of making anything other than flat plates, which was less than ideal.

Even Lucas hadn't been able to overcome that problem or the production issue while Alexander had been visiting Asgard. What the man had managed to do instead was create a coating that could be sprayed onto the armor of a ship and have some of the same qualities as the original. This new method required a very specific type of armor for the coating to adhere properly though, which was another issue since that type of armor was not very effective against modern weapons.

It was one of the main reasons Alexander had chosen not to deploy this new coating on all of the ships in the fleet. He could have probably welded on an additional thin layer of material to act as the coating substrate, but the lack of resources to create that much coating material and the time investment to see it through to completion made it a non-starter at the moment.

The automated gunships, however, were a perfect test bed for this new stealth coating. He didn't even have to replace their armor or modify the ships in any way, he simply printed the ships with the old-style composite in place of newer armor. Since they had been meant for testing only, he saw no problem with that. Obviously, that decision had come back to haunt him. After the ships were printed, one of Alexander's robots would coat the ship with a specialized application device, a process that took four to six hours.

If Alexander excluded those prototypes, the BSE fleet now consisted of thirty ships. That included the sixteen he had taken to Asgard along with fourteen of the normal automated gunships. Honestly, he shouldn't count the Hawks' ships among those ranks, which would bring his count down to twenty-four instead of an even thirty.

The Hawks would fight, he had already spoken to them to find out their disposition on the matter, but the Talon was not a front-line warship and it would remain in orbit behind the first line of defensive lasers to protect the few civilian vessels that remained in the system.

That meant that Katalynn and her people were basing their tactical planning on those numbers.

The fleet of prototype stealth ships was floating near the north of the ecliptic, above Eden's End, making accidentally discovering them a difficult prospect even with the best sensors. Those were his main trump card.

Alexander hoped if they were needed, that they would make a difference. With only two small railguns and weaker armor, he agreed with Katalynn's assessment. They likely wouldn't do much to change the focus of the fighting, but there might be a place for them.

He wished he could swap out his other gunships for frigates or even corvettes. Even the other gunships he had weren't going to be all that effective against Harlow's larger ships. Alexander had to hope that the stealth coating gave the prototypes just enough of an advantage to get close while remaining undetected. From what Lucas had stated, that may not be the case unless they distracted the pirates.

He was just about to ask Lucas if he had made any headway with the corporate gunship when his radio beeped.

"Alexander, the Asgardian scout has arrived. The Lagertha has requested all personnel to their ships."

"Copy that," Alexander said, putting his radio back on his belt.

It looks like they were out of time.

He turned to Lucas. "Can you handle the rest of the loading?"

"I'll be fine. Go speak with Yulia before you head up though."

Alexander nodded his avatar in thanks and made his way to the facility on foot. He had come here on the back of one of the auto-carts, but he was faster if he ran.

He had planned on talking to his daughter even without Lucas' urging.

He arrived as two shuttles launched into the air, sending thin plumes of water vapor scattering as they pushed hard to orbit. It was no time to be kind to their passengers.

All of the shuttles were going to need to be overhauled once this operation was done. Just before he entered the facility, he noted drop shuttles were coming down to help load crew more efficiently. He would have to thank Captain Bloomright for her efforts.
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Outside of the facility wasn't the only place that was a hive of activity. Barriers were already being placed near the entrances, along with mounts for heavy weapons.

Alexander hoped the pirates would never reach the ground, but it wasn't worth risking the possibility. He nodded at the guards as he strode past. They were not currently wearing any augment gear, but that would change once the pirates entered the system. For this event, he had issued heavy augment suits as well as normal augment suits. These were the same types of gear he had given to the Hawks. Unlike the Hawks suits, the civilian gear had a built-in override similar to the grenades.

He learned his lesson from the last time.

The facility lights were slowly flashing yellow to alert people to prepare to evacuate to their bunkers.

It had been rather difficult to explain to the locals and refugees that Harlow was on his way here.

Some people demanded to leave immediately, while others simply asked why or if they would be able to drive the man off. Not having definitive answers to those questions made Alexander feel like he was doing a poor job as a leader, so he offered up the Nemo as a transport for anyone who wished to leave. It wasn't much, but it was all he could spare.

Captain Farthing had taken eighty people aboard the Nemo after that conversation and was already well on her way to STO space. That was not the entirety of those who had left, but the others had begged and pleaded for spaces aboard some of the civilian ships left in the system that could carry people. Since those ships did not belong to Alexander, he wasn't sure if those captains had agreed to take anyone on at all before they all made a hasty exit from the system.

Alexander would have to ask Theo, he was sure the man had a report on it. He made a mental note to read the other reports while he was aboard Wayward Soul.

He found Yulia in their apartment, packing some clothes so she was ready to go when the red alert sounded.

"Alex!" She ran over and hugged him as soon as she saw him enter the room. "Are you coming to tell me you have to go?" she asked.

He nodded his avatar. "Yes, but we still have a bit of time. Come with me and bring Dog as well."

The girl nodded and called Dog, who barked from the bedroom and came bounding out.

The pair quickly made their way over to his workshop and he opened a cabinet and pulled something out. "Dog, come here."

The robot complied and stopped before Alexander.

"Open your mouth."

The simulation dog head opened, exposing the pulse rifle module Alexander had stuffed inside. Alexander reached into the mouth and twisted the module before removing it. He unplugged the cable from the back of the module and set the unit on the counter before reaching for the new one he had pulled from the cabinet. It went in just as easily as the previous one had come out and once it was done, the robot closed its mouth.

"Defense protocol three only," he told the robot.

Dog barked in compliance.

"What is defense protocol three?" Yulia asked. "And what was that item you installed in Dog?"

"That is a laser module," Alexander stated as he stood back up. "Protocol three ensures Dog doesn't use it on anyone from this facility." Alexander had designed the compact weapon based on the laser pistol taken from Dalton's ship. It would burn itself out after one or two uses at most, but it would stop anything up to heavy augment gear if it got into the facility.

"You mean like how he shot Charlie's mom with the pulse blast because she slapped me?"

"Exactly," he said. "Since you won't have a non-lethal option anymore, I'm going to go against my better judgment and allow you to wear your suit."

Her eyes grew as big as saucers. "You mean it?"

"Hold on," he said, calming the girl's enthusiasm. "Remember what we talked about. That suit is not a toy. You could easily hurt yourself or someone else with it if you are not careful. It also has a limited battery life, so if you start running around and showing off with it, it's going to run out of power. I'm only allowing you to use it and giving Dog the laser module because I want to ensure you are as safe as possible while I'm gone. Are we clear?"

Yulia nodded, her enthusiasm making way for a serious expression. "I won't let you down, Alex."

"Now give me a hug again before I help you into the suit."