BSE Chapter 3-53

The next few days were busy with 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 weapons 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 from the bunker. The bunker was 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.

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

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

“All of the Asgardian ships got at most a single full launch of missiles. We simply didn’t have enough built to offer anymore.”

“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 an additional card to play if necessary.

“If they aren’t paying close attention, maybe. I still don’t know how you kept the Sub-Commander from learning about them.”

“I did that step when he was on downtime.”

“Still, it couldn’t have been easy,” Lucas admitted. “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 only need them to be a surprise, the rest is less important.”

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 was create a coating that could be sprayed onto the armor of a ship. 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 simply 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 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 the newer armor since they had been meant for testing only. Then it only required a bot to coat the ship, a process that took four to six hours.

Even excluding those prototypes, the BSE fleet now consisted of thirty ships. This included the sixteen he had taken to Asgard along with fourteen of the 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.

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 trump card.

Alexander hoped when 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.

Even the other gunships he had weren’t going to be all that effective against Harlow’s larger ships. Alexander hoped the stealth coating gave them 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.

When, not if he deployed them, he would find out if his efforts had been worth it or not.

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 to the man 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 lurched into the air, sending thick 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.

Outside of the facility wasn’t the only place where activity was seen. 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. Explaining to the locals and refugees that Harlow was going to arrive here had not been a fun conversation to have.

Some people demanded to leave immediately, while others simply asked why or if they would be able to drive the man off.

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 the few 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 was sure Theo had a report on it. He made a mental note to read those 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.

They 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 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.” He had designed it based on the laser pistol taken from Dalton’s ship.

“You mean like how he shot Charlie’s mom with the pule 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 before I help you into the suit.”