M.J. Markgraf

BSE Chapter 3-10

A few days passed since the guard debacle and Alexander stood at the center of the remaining Council as the captured insurrectionists were led into the atrium. They had to use the intake area because there were too many people to fit anywhere else.

A few notable people were missing from the Council. Nancy and Sheila were present, but Damien and Gabriella were both absent, not because they were part of the insurrection. Far from it in fact. Damien had gotten jumped by a group of at least...

BSE Chapter 3-9

Sorin had a huge grin on his face as he strutted through the Atrium. And why shouldn’t he? Blackmailing Gabriella and the accident with Sheila’s seeds had forced them to vote his way. His plan was working far better than even he had hoped. He had thought the council would at least balk at the four seats, forcing him to use one of those trump cards, but they had folded like wet tissue paper.

Damien opposed him but the man was such a blunt moron that Sorin wasn’t worri...

BSE Chapter 3-8

As much as Alexander liked to give people the benefit of the doubt, his predictions about Sorin turned out to be spot on. He didn’t even have to wait a full week to see the first change.

When he had first agreed to the Council as the political entity, Alexander had enforced a few rules. The first was that votes they passed or failed, needed to be made public to everyone and on every terminal inside Eden’s End for transparency's sake.

Most of the people didn’t care, but it di...

BSE Chapter 3-7

Alexander looked over the three people standing in front of him. Damien had just finished filling him in on the new Council changes.

“When I first asked the Council to look into the growing discontent issue I thought you would try and find a solution to the problem. That’s kind of the whole point of the Council, you focus on the people’s issues so I can focus on my work. Instead, you went ahead and invited someone who you know is antagonistic toward me and my goals onto the Counci...

BSE Chapter 3-6

“Settle down!” Sorin demanded to the room full of individuals.

They didn’t quiet down immediately, but he could hear himself think after only a short wait.

“You all know why I asked you here.”

“And who put you in charge?” someone from the back of the room demanded.

“Yeah!” another voice shouted. “We have a Council, shouldn’t they be here?”

“Stars above!” Sorin threw up his hands. “Are you stupid? We’re here to discuss the Council a...

BSE Chapter 3-5

Alexander stood off to the side and watched as the kids raced around the track he had set up in the old parking garage.

He noted Yulia’s razor focus as she pulled up behind the other kids, ready to lap them. Alexander wasn’t surprised by this. The other kids hadn’t had much time in the go-karts, which was easy to tell by how they weaved back and forth and bumped into each other.

They were all laughing and having a good time though, so winning probably didn’t matter to them...

BSE Chapter 3-4

After speaking with Matthews, Alexander had the start of a plan. It would take a bit to come together before he was ready to present it to the rest of his team, but he was hopeful that it would. Hopefully, trying to work with Katalynn Char wouldn’t come back to bite him, but if he wanted to take the fight away from Unokane, he needed allies to work with.

Alexander had already seen the news reports of Harlow nuking that one planet, there was no way he was allowing that psychotic bastar...

BSE Chapter 3-3

When he first came home and heard Yulia mumbling in her sleep, he went in to check on her. It was obvious from how much she was tossing and turning that she was having a nightmare. Alexander thought about waking her up, but decided against it. She needed her sleep, and she couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours since he had been here not too long ago and she had yet to return home. He had worried, but he knew Dog was with her and hadn’t alerted him to any danger so hadn’t g...

BSE Chapter 3-2

Even after a few weeks, Yulia still received comments from people asking if she was ok, and how awful it must have been. She simply nodded in reply since that was what people seemed to expect.

The truth was, the first time she got a good look at her attacker, she didn’t feel fear. She felt an overwhelming hate towards the man. That was what had prompted her to lash out instead of meekly allowing him to capture her.

She didn’t understand why she had such a strange reaction. Log...

BSE Chapter 3-1

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-58: Book 2 Epilogue

You all really did luck out on this one. I was celebrating 100 chapters on RR with a double chapter today, and it just so happened to be the book 2 Epilogue as well. I hope you enjoy it!

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LOCATION: SECRET

SYSTEM: UNDISCLOSED

DATE: 2400

Benning walked down the plain and austere hallway next to one of the bosses of Omni. They always liked to think they w...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-57

Alexander didn’t bother watching the man drift into space to die a slow death. Not killing the man outright was monstrous, but he would do it again without question if Yulia was threatened.

He closed the cargo ramp and hurried over to the stasis pod to ensure it was still functioning. It was. His sigh of relief was lost in the vacuum of the ship. Without the pod, Yulia would have suffocated.

That thought was so bleak that he simply stood there to process how close his daughter�...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-56

Dalton dragged the struggling girl out of the cargo area and sealed the door behind him. Ideally, he would keep the girl with him in the cockpit, but she seemed like the sort that would do something stupid the moment he took his eyes off her. He needed to concentrate on flying and keeping his eyes on Kane. So he dragged her to one of the rooms and threw her inside before locking the door behind him. The lights flickered as he slammed the door. He frowned at that, he would need to get that loo...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-55

Jasper looked at the tablet Alexander had handed him and read through it before pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. “I know you had a terrible naming sense, Alex, but did you truly have to name the system One Kane? I can at least understand why you named your political entity BSE but why something so generic for the planet?”

“It’s pronounced oo-no-kan-eh,” Alexander replied proudly.

“Fine, you named the system Unokane. I don’t think that’s much better, but...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-54

It didn’t take Alexander long to meet up with the Arklight technicians outside the facility. Even though they had been briefed about how he would appear, the guards tightened their hands on their weapons.

He ignored them as he moved through their cordon around the concrete pad. Only one technician was near the device. It seemed the others had retreated to the comfort and safety of their ship. Alexander couldn’t blame them. Spending too much time on the surface wasn’t good for anyo...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-53

Dalton didn’t arrive at the front of the convoy of ships, that would have been too conspicuous. Arriving near the middle of the refugee group meant he had to wait in line. It seemed that whoever was running this place was forcing the ships to land one at a time. It was an easy way to control intake, but it worked to his advantage as well.

The only problem with their approach was that not every ship that came along could land on a planet. The first ship just so happened to be one of th...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-52

Alexander and Matthews entered a room filled with conversation. He paused in the doorway and looked around. He frowned as he didn’t see the man he expected to see. “Were you not able to get Captain Krieger?”

Matthews shook his head. “The STO hadn’t court marshaled him by the time we left. It seems they are dragging him across STO space and parading him as an example of what a poor officer is. It’s rather distasteful if you ask me, but there's nothing either of us can do abou...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-51

Damien had the intake area for arrivals set up in Atrium D. It wasn’t the best place to set something like this up, it was just the easiest place to put it since A was heavily populated, B was blocked off, and C wasn’t near any of the landing zones.

He glanced around at his officers. Two of his people wore the light-augment gear the engineers had managed to fabricate. They also carried the modified mini-guns. Although, it was hard to call the rapid-fire flechette guns, mini-guns any...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-50

First off I want to thank everyone for the well wishes. The break to rest and recover was just what I needed. Without further ado, enjoy the chapter!

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Alexander watched the Talon slide into orbit around the planet, followed shortly after by the vessels from Arklight. The Zephyr was the only ship capable of docking with the refueling depot as the other docking arms were already in use.

As for the Arklight transpo...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-49

Yi Na was harder to find than Alexander thought. The first place he checked was the man’s office. It was just a small room with a desk and a little holo terminal. Next, Alexander checked a few of the ongoing construction projects, or at least ones he thought were still ongoing.

The project to clean up the transportation tunnels was complete. At least so far as cleanup went. There was a notice on the wall that construction would begin in a week’s time.

The next project Alexande...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-48

“Everything is loaded and secured, Captain,” Matthew’s Firstmate stated.

Alexander had purchased quite a bit of supplies, both food and medical. Then there were the technological items like a smelter. That included just the stuff stored aboard the Talon. He wasn’t even including the items Captain Daniel was transporting aboard the Zephyr or the Arklight Industries ship that was carrying the Qcomm relay and technicians that would be installing it.

Matthews nodded. “After ...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-47

LOCATION: EDEN’S END

SYSTEM: Y6X-3H2

DATE: 2400

Alexander couldn’t believe everything was going right for a change. There hadn’t been any pirate activity since Fury left, which was something of a minor miracle. To add to that, Shall had finally finished patching up his ship and had left the system only a day prior.

It had taken the smuggler a month to patch the holes caused by the defensive railguns, which was rather impressive considering the man had refused any...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-46

LOCATION: O.M.N.I. HEADQUARTERS

SYSTEM: TAU CETI

DATE: 2400

Theodore Pembrooke was not having a good time. Ever since returning from that disastrous arbitration on Petrov Station that he had been in charge of, his rank had been stripped away, and he had been relegated to a position as a mindless drone. Now he was just another faceless fixer in Omni’s reconciliation team. The bottom of the bottom and where he had gotten his start nearly a decade ago.

All for some unkn...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-45

After dealing with the whole Shall incident and ensuring there were no immediate problems that needed his attention, Alexander spent the next week with Yulia during her time off of school.

He would have loved to spend more time with her, but by the end of the week, he could see she was growing frustrated with him constantly being around. She was a child, she wanted to hang out with her friends again. Not wanting to undo all of the effort he had gone into to improve her mood, Alexander o...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-44

Alexander departed the holding area feeling a bit relieved that Shall wasn’t some spy or traitor, he was just some paranoid old man.

Having to deal with this situation was annoying, but it was only a matter of time until his alien origins came out. With Krieger and Fletcher both likely having deduced his origins, there was no way he was keeping this quiet for much longer. He was honestly surprised Fletcher hadn’t tried capturing him for experimentation.

Then again, Alexander�...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-43

The first time Edgar Shall laid eyes on the towering black robot, he knew there was something alien about it. Maybe it was the rumors from people even more traveled and paranoid than him, but he hadn’t survived pirates, criminals, the STO, and other smugglers to get to his ripe old age without trusting his gut.

The problem was trying to prove it to his boneheaded nephews. One of his sister’s kids was playing cop while the other got sucked in by the lure of fancy tech. Edgar couldn�...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-42

The final jump into Y6X-3H2 was a relief for Alexander. Not that the trip back had been problematic or anything. It had been without issue, which was exactly how Alexander liked it. He was just glad to be home.

As far as he could tell, everything looked the same as when they left, but they were still a few days out. He still sent Yulia a message letting her know they were back. She was probably asleep since it was nighttime on Eden’s End. That was fine, it gave him time to ping the fa...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-41

LOCATION: OUTSIDE OORT CLOUD

SYSTEM: WOLF 1061

DATE: 2400

Harlow waited nearly a full light day outside of the system with his fleet. It hadn’t taken long to consolidate his power back on Haven. Everyone had seen what he did to his own parents, and they respected power.

He didn’t let his new subjects idle about though. Any ship with FTL was ordered to reinforce his other fleets. Today was the day he would take the next step to increase the size of his empire.

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-40

During the trip back to Eden’s End, Alexander slowly introduced himself to Mingyu’s family. This was after Mingyu had told them about him, and he had spoken to them through video calls. He didn’t want to startle them with his appearance, but it seemed like he was overthinking things. Much like the people on Eden’s End, during his initial meeting, the Na family had very little reaction to his appearance. At least the older members of the family didn’t. The younger ones' eyes went wid...

Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 2-39

The contract was a rather simple affair, all things considered. There were no gotcha clauses in it that Alexander could find. Alexander was glad he had spent time over the last year and a half getting to know all the ins and outs of STO law. He even covered some of the planetary laws on the core worlds thanks to Jasper’s urging.

If it wasn’t for Jasper’s suggestion, he might not have made it a priority. His friend had been adamant about learning the laws inside and out during thei...