BSE Chapter 4-6

The next day, Alexander loaded the ammunition for the cannons as well as the missile. He was glad they were in a zero-G environment for that second bit because he hadn’t thought to build a loading machine and the anti-ship missiles weighed nearly a ton. The missile tube below the crew area extended all the way to the rear bulkhead which was about fifteen feet in length and the anti-ship weapon took up the majority of that space, leaving only enough room for the cover plate.

Alexander had installed launching rails inside this space, unlike the corporate gunship. The reason for that was to prevent what had happened to those ships when they launched their missiles. The corporation's decision to launch active missiles from their ships had doomed two of them to a quick and fiery grave.

With the rails propelling the missile out and away from the ship before it became active, Alexander hoped to avoid that issue as well as give the missiles that extra boost of speed right off the bat.

With the missile pushed all the way into the tube, Alexander extracted his arm and closed off the cover.

He radioed the crew, letting Branston and Katalynn know everything was set and ready to go.

Once again the ship floated out from the hangar and made its way to the far side of the planet. The weapon’s tests would be near one of the outer gas giants.

***

Branston smiled as the prototype stingray dropped out of FTL with the large gas giant far in the distance in front of them.

A few of Alex’s old-style automated gunships had been positioned out here for the test. They weren’t armed, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous if the onboard computers decided that ramming his ship would be the best way to ensure victory.

“Are you ready?” he asked, checking the weapon settings once again.

“Yes,” came the single-word reply from his co-pilot. He could sense a bit of excitement in her response though.

“Alright, five to one, let's see what this ship can do.” Branston punched the acceleration and they rocketed toward their quarry, who quickly detected their approach even with the stealth armor.

They were already much closer than they needed to be to hit their targets and it wasn’t like they were being subtle about the approach, this was a test of the weapons, not the stealth capabilities after all. Despite the target ships detecting them, the training lasers being used by the other ships were nowhere near their location.

The first volley of Gauss cannon rounds spat from the ship as his co-pilot fired the guns. Shortly after, the first gunship went silent.

He jerked the ship into a corkscrew loop as the targets finally managed to get a lock on their ship.

One of the enemy gunships managed a hit and his display projected the simulated damage as negligible.

Branston cut the engine and flipped the ship as they passed their quarry and the Lagertha was quick to act as another spurt of cannon fire shook the next ship, resulting in a second kill.

The other gunships flipped over as well, but without an active drive, they were left firing blindly as Branston adjusted their course with the ion thrusters. Another burst of fire and a third gunship fell silent.

“Down to a quarter of our ammo,” his co-pilot stated.

Branston acknowledged the issue and fired up the drive once more as the ‘enemy ships’ were making a run for it.

A final burst of weapons fire took down the fourth ship before he heard the unmistakable click click click of an empty magazine.

He lined up the last ship and the Asgardian leader launched the missile.

Branston grunted as he was thrown forward against his restraints as the missile was launched from the rails. He might need to ask Alex to tone that down if it imparted this much force to such a small ship.

The missile vanished into the black of space and he was only able to track it by the readout on the holo display. A few seconds later, the weapon finally fired off its drive and streaked toward the final gunship, which was doing all it could to try and avoid the oncoming weapon.

There was a flash followed by a field of debris as the missile completely obliterated the gunship.

“I would say that was a successful test,” he said with a grin.

“The guns could use some more ammunition, but otherwise it performed effectively.”

He looked over at his co-pilot in slight astonishment. Those were the most words the woman had said to date.

She didn’t even acknowledge his shock and he was forced to shake it off and head back to the hangar.

***

Alexander listened to the report after the two had returned while simultaneously reviewing the combat log in his internal space. He agreed with Branston–the launch rails needed to be turned down.

Katalynn made a good point about the guns as well, but he was working with recycled parts there, so she was stuck with whatever the designer had thought practical on the corporate ship. He would be designing his own Gauss cannons for the upgraded stingray though.

Even with the smaller winglets of the new stingray design, Alexander figured he could fit in another two hundred rounds, maybe more.

He spent the next day finalizing the repairs to the prototype and rearming it. Then it was time for Katalynn’s fleet to leave.

Sub-Commander Vynnson was aboard the Valkyrie in her absence and her tactician Vyrik Thorvund was getting acquainted with the stingray’s controls as Katalynn stood next to Alexander in the hangar.

“So this is it,” he managed to say.

“For now,” she responded, staring at the ship for a moment before turning to him. “I won’t forget that you gave me this opportunity, Jarl Kane.”

“I didn’t do it just for you,” he admitted.

She snorted. “I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the gesture.”

“And if you lose?” he asked.

“Then it will be up to those I leave behind to figure out how to move forward. I know you despise politics, Kane, but they are an unfortunate necessity. Some may see our way of doing things as barbaric, but how is it any worse than what the STO does? Most of their planets are run by corporations or royalty and even the ones who say they have a democracy in place to elect their planetary governors are full of shit. Those are simply run by the rich and powerful. And while I understand the hypocrisy of this statement, at least our leaders are chosen for strength and not simply political connections.”

Alexander didn’t have an opinion on which system of government was better so he changed the subject. “Isbjorn will know you are coming as soon as you set out.”

She nodded. “That’s exactly what I want. He will know exactly when we plan to arrive and will have scouts watching the star systems leading up to Asgard so he has advanced warning. I plan on trailing the remains of my fleet for the first few jumps, but once we are assured there are no issues with the stingray,” she said, having trouble with the unfamiliar word, “we will be taking a direct path for Asgard.”

“You’re doing void jumps all the way?” Alexander asked in surprise.

“It’s the only way to catch Isbjorn off-guard. His scouts will eventually encounter my fleet and we can't outrun the reports and even your stealth ship loses most of that stealth capability when its thrusters are actively firing. What I can do is keep his attention fixated on my fleet so he doesn’t even realize I snuck in the back door. He has such an overinflated ego that I almost guarantee he won’t bother to leave the surface of Asgard until he knows my fleet is set for imminent arrival.”

“And if he does realize it’s a trick or leaves early?” Alexander asked.

“Then I improvise,” she said simply.

It didn’t sound like much of a plan to him, but then again, Alexander’s idea of tactics was simply having more ships than his adversary.

He held out his hand and Katalynn looked at it a moment before grasping it. “I wish you luck. Hopefully, by the time you clear all this mess up, I’ll have a few more ships repaired and ready to send back to Asgard.”

“You as well, Jarl Kane. A word of advice, before I go. “Expand your production. It’s your greatest strength, use it.”

He bobbed his avatar in acknowledgement and the woman released his hand before putting on her helmet and crawling under the ship.

Soon the stingray prototype drifted out of the hangar to join the rest of the Lagertha’s diminished fleet. The radio blared to life and Katalynn’s voice spoke loud and clear across the connection to anyone listening.

“It’s time to go show Jarl Isbjorn what a true Asgardian ruler is capable of. Onward to Asgard!” she stated with conviction.

Soon Char’s ships pulled away from the planet, leaving only derelicts behind. Jarl Bergson had left over a week ago, her injured people healed up enough to travel.

Less than a minute later, Alexander got a ping from his monitoring program. Someone had sent a message to Asgard through the Qcomm. Katalynn had warned him that this was likely to happen, not that he needed her to tell him that they had a Loki infestation. Alexander understood the Lokis had an important part in Asgardian society, but he didn’t need their espionage and surveillance activities on Eden’s End.

He sent the report to Damien so he could arrest the Loki responsible. He doubted there was only one on the planet by now, but it was a start. Pembrooke was working to try and root the others out, but the Lokis were far more adept at remaining undetected than the corporate spies had been.

Katalynn Char was on her own now, and Alexander hoped for the best, but it was time to plan for the worst, which meant rebuilding the BSE fleet. Switching gears from politics to production, he pulled up his tablet and queued up five more control ships along with fifty more mining bots to the printers.

If he was going to increase production, he was going to need more resources. Along with that, he added two fishbone ships. These had been redesigned to use automation. He would still be paying miners like Mingyu to bring in materials, but it was far cheaper and faster to automate the process as much as possible. There was also the issue of finding actual people to do the work.

Once again Alexander’s greatest hurdle was finding crew. Harlow’s pending attack had chased off a good amount of people, who had likely spread the news once they arrived in STO space, which had caused new arrivals to the system to dry up completely over the last month.

He expected that to shift in the next few weeks as some people would flock to the nation that took out the pirate Emperor. Then again, if the pirates really did come apart, displaced people might head back to their own worlds.

With Unokane and Eden’s End gaining even more spotlight, he needed to finish the space station as soon as possible and get trade up and running finally. The STO hadn’t issued any decrees or sanctions against BSE since the attack, so he was still open to trade with them.

Alexander suspected that the STO wasn’t sure what to do about him now that he had joined the Asgardian Union. And sanctioning someone who was instrumental in the downfall of a threat to the entire STO seemed rather shortsighted even to him.

He sighed because he knew politics would come into play at some point soon.

With thoughts of future politics pushed to the back of his mind, he returned to his neverending game of kicking the can down the road as he allocated resources to one project or another while neglecting others.

The losses to the defensive array of laser satellites had already been replaced, but the static field satellites were taking time to build. He would continue printing those until he had the kinks worked out for the new stingray gunship.

There were other projects he wanted to focus on as well. Getting FTL comms aboard ships was the biggest, and his tests had finally borne some fruit in that direction. It was time to take what he learned there and see if he could turn it into a reality.