M.J. Markgraf

BSE Chapter 5-28

The group watched as the ship parked itself in a geostationary orbit. It wasn’t necessary for the drive to create the bridge, but it did simplify things quite a bit.

Outwardly, nothing changed for quite some time, then a distorted ripple of light was caught on the camera, and Alexander zoomed onto that section of space. The drive must have established a link on the other end, or he assumed it had.

The ripple slowly grew outward, the space in front of the ship starting to look li...

BSE Chapter 5-27

The next few hours were a struggle in futility. Most of the contacts Mingyu had given him never responded. The few that did either told him to fuck off, or said they had no idea who this doctor was and blocked him after Alexander told them how he got their contact information.

Mingyu and the Na family had apparently become pariahs after the station fell to the pirates. To be fair, it looked really bad. First, the entire Na family left days before the pirates arrived. Then Mingyu escaped...

BSE Chapter 5-26

Before Alexander even left the meeting, he had the Seahorse added to the production queue in the printers. Stopping a build mid-print was never a good idea, but the carriers were far more important than finishing two more Orca’s.

He really needed more large-scale printers, but they weren’t cheap or quick to build. Despite that, Alexander added jobs for the smaller printers to crank out four more of the large-scale printers once they completed their Stingrays.

Alexander also me...

BSE Chapter 5-25

“He’s late,” Lucas said in concern.

Alexander had to admit, it was indeed odd for Krieger to be late. “We’ll give it five more minutes, and then I’ll start the discussions.”

Lucas and Archie both nodded.

Lucas was there because he was Alexander’s Head of Research and Development. He was also the only person other than Alexander who had any idea what the meeting was about. Alexander had invited Archie because he was going to have to add or update the Lund Acad...

BSE Chapter 5-24

“You didn’t!” Sarah said in shock.

Yulia had just told her friends about the argument she got into with Alex. It wasn’t the response she expected. “He was treating me like a child.”

Sarah and Claire shared a look.

“I’m not!” Yulia said firmly.

“Your dad was just looking out for you,” Claire responded. “You have to admit, you do tend to get into dangerous situations.”

“Those aren’t my fault,” Yulia pouted at the older girl’s words...

BSE Chapter 5-23

Over the next week or so, Alexander helped Lucas get the processor manufacturing up to full capacity by adding the three additional manufacturing lines. Two were still going to be producing the older design, while one would be producing the new pseudo-computronics.

With the way the lines were designed, he could easily scale one way or another depending on need, but the need for the best supercomputers he could build wasn’t all that great at the moment. It essentially boiled down to ne...

BSE Chapter 5-22

Alexander and Lucas left the engineers to their work as they moved over to his workshop. It was a little dusty from lack of use, but everything was pretty much how he had left it.

“The planetary static field grid is up, the upgraded laser satellites are in position, the station is operational, and all of the ship production and upgrade programs are on track or even ahead of schedule. Are you sure you even need me around?” Alexander joked.

“Don’t even say that,” Lucas sig...

BSE Chapter 5-21

The shuttle touched down, and Yulia did her best to hide her nerves and excitement as she unbuckled from the seat. She had remained in touch with Sarah and Claire during her trip, but it wasn’t the same as talking in person, and she was worried that they might no longer want to be her friends.

As the ramp descended, she was surprised to see a group of people waiting. Yulia even recognized two of them. She waved to her friends, her worries quickly fading as she walked down the ramp. Sh...

BSE Chapter 5-20

LOCATION: EDEN’S END

SYSTEM: UNOKANE

DATE: 2403

“Welcome back, Alex,” Krieger said over the comm.

“Thank you. I know we just spoke a few days ago,” Alexander admitted, “but it feels different being home.”

“Everything still on schedule,” Krieger said before Alexander could ask.

Alexander chuckled. “My questions are becoming too predictable. What about the Qcomm folks?”

“They gave up the chase in Varlen. Not that there were many ...

BSE Chapter 5-19

LOCATION: XIN SPACE

SYSTEM: XIN PRIME

DATE: 2402

Kaela had Omari jump Kitsune into the system well outside the Oort cloud. They didn’t know the capabilities of the Shican, if they truly were in the system, so she erred on the side of caution, which was counter to her normal approach to dealing with threats.

The system, so aptly named Xin Prime by the megalomaniac in charge, or who was supposed to be in charge, wasn’t much to look at. It was a basic yellow dwarf, mu...

BSE Chapter 5-18

The man outside the bridge hatch dropped, smearing the wall behind him in blood. There had only been a few people in their way, but they all looked old. Like fifties or sixties old, and their vac suits were worn and patched so many times she would be surprised if they still held air, the few that bothered wearing them anyway.

Most of the people they came across, including the first two, wore simple overalls that looked like they had seen better days. With the hatch to the bridge closed ...

BSE Chapter 5-17

LOCATION: XIN SPACE

SYSTEM: UNNAMED

DATE: 2402

“How’s everything going so far?” Vitor inquired.

Kaela rolled her eyes at the man’s overprotective worry for her. Having FTL comms aboard her ship was both a blessing and a curse. At first, she loved the idea, but now she missed the fact that she was no longer out of reach while traveling through the vast expanse of space. It made space seem smaller somehow. “It’s going fine, just like yesterday and the day bef...

BSE Chapter 5-16

Kaela felt extremely conflicted about the mission Vitor had assigned her. She was happy, annoyed, and terrified all in one. On the one hand, she loved the fact that he trusted her enough to give her such a huge responsibility right out of the gate. On the other hand, she was annoyed that he took the first opportunity he could to send her far away. It was counter to her entire purpose for coming out here. The terror she felt was just common sense. Anyone who spent enough time dealing with the ...

BSE Chapter 5-15

Vitor did his best to keep the frown off his face as he inspected the crop of five new captains who had just passed certification. His mood had nothing to do with their efforts, they had all performed well above minimum expectations for the role. The problem was a single captain who was giving him a slight smirk even now.

It had been a little over a month since Kaela had arrived with her crew and signed on with BSE. During that time, she had been a model employee, keeping her more impul...

BSE Chapter 5-14

Theo would have liked to say that Kaela’s onboarding went smoothly, but two of her crew had expunged criminal records. That wasn’t surprising, the accounts had shown up on the entry check. Thankfully, the record of an arrest couldn’t be wiped away, or the criminal could just move to another world and do it all over again. Many worlds would simply turn you away if they saw an arrest record, expunged or not. It made sense considering he knew plenty of judges who would expunge a record for...

BSE Chapter 5-13

Kaela didn’t quite trust Pembrooke, the man reminded her of some of the corporate stooges she had been forced to work with over the years. That being said, she still walked forward and inspected the armor on display. There were handy plaques below the armor stands listing their models, not that it was needed. It was clear that the design improved as they wrapped around the room.

Despite all her contacts and clout, she had never managed to get her hands on an augmentation suit. She cou...

BSE Chapter 5-12

We're back to 5 posts a week! Huzzah!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vitor sighed. “Were you following me?”

Kaela rolled her eyes. “As if I would be that obvious. I simply asked a few people where to find you.”

“Kaela, I don’t have time for your games,” Vitor said as he moved past her.

She ignored his words and fell into step beside him. “Are you avoiding me or trying to renege on your favor?”

Vi...

BSE Chapter 5-11

Vitor hadn’t forgotten about Kaela during the week-long deployment before returning to Eden’s End, but he had pushed the woman to the back of his mind. With Xin opening up a new front against the STO, it was imperative that the Union take advantage of that to push the Grand Admiral’s forces out of Union space. With a possible Shican war on the horizon, it was even more important to bring an end to that conflict as soon as possible.

To ensure that happened, he had been working dili...

BSE Chapter 5-10

LOCATION: JUMP POINT

SYSTEM: VARLEN

DATE: 2402

“You sure this is the right move, boss?” Omari, Kaela’s pilot, asked.

“If you want to keep making money, it is. Besides, this beats sitting around in STO space and waiting for work. Ever since Harlow was defeated, criminal activity and bounty contracts have plummeted. Might as well go where the action will be.”

Her pilot grunted before turning around and muttering under his breath. “Vitor isn’t going to...

BSE Chapter 5-9

“Three Qcomm frigates have arrived. They are orienting in our direction as the rest of the Qcomm ships form up with them,” Katalynn said, noticing the new contacts even before Alexander had.

“It’s more than we thought they would bring.” Alexander didn’t need to tell the Asgardian leader what to do; she already knew the plan.

“Detonate the missiles and jump us out of this system,” Katalynn ordered.

While her people were doing that, Alexander detonated the char...

BSE Chapter 5-8

“Yulia!” Alexander said in surprise as he made his way back to the workshop. “What are you doing wandering around?”

“I finished my homework, and I’m bored, Alex. Do you have any puzzles or projects I can help assemble?”

“Bored? Hmm, I am planning on rebuilding the tactical projector on the bridge. If you’re interested, you can help me with that.”

Alexander could see the gleam in his daughter’s eye, but she paused to make it look like she was pondering t...

BSE Chapter 5-7

Alexander would love to say he was making headway with the ship shielding, but that wasn’t the case. He was already aware that it was going to be an uphill battle thanks to his research on the personal defense field generators.

The problem was always going to be getting the static field to deploy the same way in a vacuum as his defensive field did in an atmosphere. Even a ship’s static field wasn’t able to do that, it simply generated a charged area in front of the ship, which onl...

BSE Chapter 5-6

Once the internal repairs were completed aboard Grace, which took another three days, Alexander found himself with some free time.

The ship wasn’t completely repaired, and it never would be until they returned to Unokane and had it stripped down and rebuilt, but the bots were handling the remaining external damage.

He used that free time to hang out with Yulia, or he tried to. She spent some time with him, but he could tell she grew annoyed with his hovering. He understood that ...

BSE Chapter 5-5

Over the next few hours, a few more ships came poking about, but they stayed toward the outskirts of the battlefield and left as soon as Katalynn warned them off.

That gave Alexander enough time to complete the large smelter and begin feeding sections of the cleared alien ship to it. Before the chunks went into the smelter, Alexander used the ship’s sensors to thoroughly scan the pieces, building a 3D model and putting them together like a puzzle inside his modeling software. would ha...

BSE Chapter 5-4

As it turned out, finding a pilot was rather easy. He spoke with Katalynn, and she reminded him that all Asgardians were trained on the basic operation of all ship systems, which included flying.

She tapped one of the replacement bridge crew on the shoulder. “Skarin here has the most time flying, so take him.”

Skarin smiled at the praise and stood. “I would be honored to fly the strike team to the Shican. I only wish I could join the strike team in removing them from the uni...

BSE Chapter 5-3

After getting the ball rolling with his own people, Alexander focused on the mess in front of him. With the hypergates destroyed, the threat of the Shican was not an immediate concern. According to the information Fletcher left behind, the Shican border was just over a hundred light years from the STO’s nearest planet. The Asgardian border was closer to their territory, but not that much closer. To reach human space, even assuming the Shican’s FTL technology was more advanced than humans'...

BSE Chapter 5-2

The first person Alexander contacted in Unokane was Admiral Krieger.

“Alex, are you alright?” Krieger asked. “I’m not getting a video signal, and I’ve received concerning reports that someone attacked the hypergates.”

“No,” Alexander admitted. “We were getting ready to transition into Ganos from Borrus when a Shican task force came through the gate and started firing on everything in sight. Another vessel appeared and dealt with the Shican, but it destroyed the h...

BSE Chapter 5-1

LOCATION: HYPERGATE DEBRIS FIELD

SYSTEM: EPSILON ERIDANI

DATE: 2402

After Alex stopped smothering her with worry, Yulia was free to roam in the undamaged– mostly undamaged parts of the ship. She did her best to stay out of the way as people hurried about to fix the damage. It hadn’t been long since the attack. They had just docked with Valkyrie and recovered the crew. Yulia was glad to see Lagertha Char was okay, even if the woman terrified her.

Yulia had never let...

BSE Chapter 4-65: Book 4 Epilogue

It took Alexander over a minute to pry the bridge doors open. Once he did, he left the dead crew behind. There was nothing he could do for them at the moment, he needed to see if his daughter and any of the other crew had survived.

The red alert had pumped the air out of the ship, and all of the crew, including Yulia, should have had plenty of time to suit up, but as he saw on the bridge, the suits did little to protect against molten shrapnel.

The plasma bolts were a devastating ...

BSE Chapter 4-64

Alexander wouldn’t lie; the weeks following the attack on Earth had been rather tense for him. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for the STO to attack, despite what Galloway claimed. It wasn’t until he received a formal apology from the STO Admirals that he felt any relief. They tried to hide who was behind the attack, but Alexander called them out on their bullshit.

The reason Alexander was so sure that the STO knew who was behind the attack was that the Lokis had figur...