Alexander would like to have been able to say he had been able to refine the field generator uninterrupted, but that wasn’t the case.
A few days after his initial testing had been completed, one of the STO people had asked to speak with him.
“Captain Rhys,” Alexander said, standing to greet the STO captain. Unlike Willard, he had nothing against Rhys, so there was no point in being antagonistic. “I was surprised to get a request from you, not Willard.”
“Vice ...
2025-03-10 12:00:15 +0000 UTC
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After Alexander took a very tired, very grumpy girl to class the next day, he headed back to his workshop to dive into what he had uncovered the previous day.
Having a spinning motor create static electricity wasn’t going to cut it to create a defensive field.
The first issue was that he needed the field to be much stronger and whatever created it to be much smaller. The tiny amount of static electricity generated by the field emitter bearing was a start, but he needed to figure...
2025-03-07 13:00:15 +0000 UTC
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Alexander was in his workshop, overseeing Yulia while she worked on her buggy design.
Occasionally she would glance over and he would nod or shake his head slightly at a change she made. That was becoming less and less as she grew more familiar with the design software and gained some much-needed confidence in her choices.
At the rate she was putting the vehicle together, it would be ready for her thirteenth birthday which was a few months away. The new heavy assault frigate would...
2025-03-06 13:00:15 +0000 UTC
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“I understand this is your company, Alex, but a simple heads up that you are testing new weapons would be appreciated,” Krieger stated.
Alexander sighed. “I know, and I’m sorry for not telling you, but I wanted a working prototype before unveiling it.”
“I take it by the fact that something reached orbit, that you were successful?”
Alexander bobbed his avatar up and down in confirmation. “Even more so than I thought.”
“So what is this new weapon, and...
2025-03-05 13:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Alexander gestured to the fire button. “I’ll let you do the honors.”
Lucas didn’t hesitate to press the button on the screen. There was a bang, but nothing came out of the barrel.
Alexander frowned. “That’s less than ideal.”
They powered down the weapon and headed back outside to investigate. It didn’t take long to realize that the gun had failed catastrophically. The breach had been blown clear off the back of the weapon, and the barrel, despite being made f...
2025-03-04 13:00:10 +0000 UTC
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Alexander knew he was procrastinating by starting work on a Stingray improvement project instead of working on the defensive field project, but he was running into so many dead ends that progress had stalled on that research and he needed a break.
He had multiple experiments running to try and glean a solution to that problem which he would check on later, but he needed something he could see some actual progress on to improve his mood.
Alexander entered his empty workshop, his on...
2025-03-03 13:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Alexander saw Jasper and his crew off a few days later before heading to deal with another issue that had cropped up.
The ship carrying his stealth comm satellites had finally arrived at the border of Asgardian territory where some of the attacks with Xin were taking place. The first satellite hadn’t been active for more than a few hours before it picked up a fight between the Asgardian defenders and Xin forces.
The Xin outnumbered the Asgardian fleet or they would have if Alexa...
2025-02-28 13:00:16 +0000 UTC
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Alexander was glad to be done with the Omni spy so he could finally greet his friend Jasper. It had been days since the man’s arrival, but he had been busy dealing with the corporate nonsense. While having an actual document stating their intent was nice, he didn’t trust them one bit. At most, he expected half a year of them leaving him alone. If he only got a few months, that was a few more months of peace from Omni involvement than he had before.
By then Tempest would be fully com...
2025-02-27 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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“You’re sure it’s her?” Theo asked Captain Ramirez for the third time.
“Yes,” the man responded in annoyance. “We ran the DNA scan three times. Unless someone is pretending to be her, it’s her.”
The video of the captive proved it was someone who looked exactly like his former mentor and trainer during his time at Omni, but he still found it hard to believe the woman had gotten caught. It was sloppy. He might blame it on old age, but she was only a few years older...
2025-02-26 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Alexander was growing frustrated with his lack of progress in figuring out how the defensive field operated. It had been weeks since he had made any headway.
The discoveries he and Lucas had made had led him to believe he was close to a solution, but that was not the case.
Between dealing with their guests, checking in on the dismantling and retrofitting of his fleet, spending time with his daughter, and all the other little things that came with being a CEO, Jarl, and leader, he ...
2025-02-25 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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While Alexander once again had a direction of study for his defensive field, he was forced to put that on hold as another issue cropped up.
“The other STO ships are leaving?” he asked Theo in confusion.
“They received orders from STO Naval Command this morning to return to Varlen without the Vice Admiral or the Blueridge,” Pembrooke confirmed.
That wasn’t fishy at all.
“And the possible saboteur?” That was kind of the whole point of disabling the...
2025-02-24 13:00:13 +0000 UTC
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The next few weeks flew by for Alexander. Thankfully, there were no more incidents at the Meteorite bar. And despite the assurances from Krieger, Alexander was still surprised when nothing came of the fight. The STO hadn’t said so much as a word about it.
He would like to say everything was going as smoothly.
Willard had turned himself into an annoyance. The man wouldn’t stop pestering the traffic control technicians every few hours to try and speak with him.
Alexander h...
2025-02-21 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Alexander stared silently at the pair of people across the desk from him. One was Admiral Krieger, who stood quietly but looked annoyed. That annoyance was aimed at the individual who stood at attention next to him.
“Sergeant Galloway, please explain to me why you started an altercation with the STO Marines?” Alexander decided to address the man by his former rank even though BSE didn’t have a military rank or structure for soldiers. Yet. “And it better be a good reason.”
<...
2025-02-20 13:00:22 +0000 UTC
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“That can’t be right,” Alexander stated as the pair went over the data.
Lucas pointed to the screen. “It’s what the sensors show.”
Alexander still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing despite the data that proved otherwise. “That would mean I’m capable of effecting gravity.”
“Well, whatever your defensive field is, it sure seems to affect the gravity around it. At least a little bit. Not enough to account for its ability to stop projectiles though....
2025-02-19 13:00:15 +0000 UTC
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Alexander didn’t even wait for the STO to leave before tracking down Lucas. “Is it already done?” Given what he learned from Willard, there was no point disabling the ship now. The man was stuck here anyway.
“About that,” the younger man said with a chuckle. “Getting the bot over there undetected was easy enough, but your whole plan was unnecessary.”
“You didn’t disable their ship?! Good. I’ll be honest, I may have jumped the gun a bit with that plan.”
...
2025-02-18 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Theo stood in the middle of a storm of reactions as all four STO Marines leveled weapons at him and into the room – which Willard was now standing in front of – while Alexander’s guards did the same, only their weapons were pointed squarely at the Marines.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Willard demanded as he cleared the doorway and glared at Theo.
“This is no joke,” Alexander stated in annoyance, answering the man’s question before Theo could. “Tell the Marines ...
2025-02-17 13:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Why did the STO and corporations have to bring their nonsense to his doorstep?
If Pembrooke was correct, Alexander knew why. It was just aggravating to have to deal with a delicate matter such as this so soon after finally getting rid of Harlow. Their method of approach surprised him as well. He thought for sure the corporations would simply dispatch a fleet to get rid of him.
That was one of the main reasons he had established his early warning satellites.
Instead,...
2025-02-14 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Theo waited in the intake area, a vapid expression on his face to greet the new arrivals. A simple persona for when Willard eventually recognized him. Alexander had asked him to act as the STO personnel’s liaison while the puffed-up Vice Admiral was visiting.
The fact that he had been asked to do this didn’t bother him; it was the waiting around that annoyed him. He could have been doing any number of more important tasks that Alex had assigned to him. When he had suggested getting ...
2025-02-13 13:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Knowing ships were arriving and watching them do so in real-time when they were multiple light hours away was an interesting experience for Alexander. Being able to communicate with Krieger and the rest of the active ships in the BSE fleet at the same time was a game changer.
It was Krieger’s idea to make it appear like the BSE ships were doing a random patrol through the system, and just so happened to be only a few light minutes from Captain Willard’s likely emergence point.
2025-02-12 13:00:15 +0000 UTC
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Markus hurried through the halls. It wouldn’t look very good if he was late for class, especially this day.
Normally his mother Eva would wake him up in the morning, but she had told him now that he was in the academy, he needed to learn to get ready in the morning by himself.
It was slightly annoying, but he had done as much back in the orphanage. Unfortunately, it proved harder to go back to his old ways than he realized. Over the past few years, Markus had grown way too used ...
2025-02-11 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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When the pair exited the shuttle after Alexander landed inside the Talon’s hangar, they found the place mostly deserted.
They approached one of the mercenary techs and Alexander let Archie speak with the overtired-looking man.
“Captain Williams!” one of the techs saluted hastily.
“I’m no longer your captain,” Williams said in slight amusement as he reminded the man of that fact. “We’re just here to see Captain Bloomright. Is she currently on duty? The officer...
2025-02-10 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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“How are the supplies for the stealth coating holding up?” Alexander asked Lucas in their weekly meeting.
“They would be better if you weren’t using them on the missiles, but I can see the advantage to doing so.”
Before Alexander launched the Stingrays, he wanted to give them another edge in battle. The simplest and most effective way to do that was to coat the missiles in Lucas’ stealth coating. Swapping out the exterior material for the material compatible with the c...
2025-02-07 13:00:20 +0000 UTC
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There was a lot to be said about automation, but sometimes it just wasn’t feasible to use it. This was one of those times.
Alexander cut away the wall with a torch, but the confined space and sensitive wiring behind it made the job far harder than normal.
He was currently aboard Resolve, modifying the ship to fit the new comm node. It felt a bit sacrilegious to cut up one of his creations in such a haphazard manner, but it was the most expedient method of getting this project do...
2025-02-06 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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The STO Naval transport had stopped far from Eden’s End as Vanguard approached. Until this moment, the Talon was the largest ship Alexander had ever seen. The Talon was ever so slightly larger than Harlow’s dreadnaught. This transport made them both look small in comparison. It had to be nearly two thousand feet long and wide enough around to fit the Vanguard inside its massive hold.
Once they were close enough, a few bots launched from Vanguard and landed on the massive vessel’s ...
2025-02-05 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Alexander entered the medical facility and quickly located Gabriella. “Is she awake?” he asked.
When Alexander had tried to visit Dr. Lund the day after the opening ceremony for the academy, he found that she had taken ill and was rushed to the emergency center by her grandson.
The woman had been in the medical center for nearly a week, but he finally received word that Lund was well enough for visitors.
“She is,” Gabriella stated. “But try to keep it brief. She ne...
2025-02-04 13:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Kane’s prototype stealth gunship popped into Yggdrasil’s Eye, far on the outskirts to ensure they avoided any detection.
Katalynn would like to say the trip had been uneventful, but a few support systems had burned out during the trip, requiring days of delay to repair. Luckily this happened while they were still with the fleet. She had to grudgingly admit that Kane’s insistence on repair and production systems aboard ships was justified. She was also glad he had installed some of...
2025-02-03 13:00:09 +0000 UTC
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“What do you mean there’s nothing?” Benning demanded.
The agent looked uncomfortable but responded anyway. “All of the research was cleared out before we arrived, sir.”
“What about the engineers and scientists involved in the projects?” Benning asked in annoyance, already suspecting the answer.
“Vanished without a trace,” the agent confirmed.
That bastard Fletcher must have known something was up and alerted the research outpost to dismantle their res...
2025-02-01 13:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Yulia fidgeted uncomfortably in her dress. She didn’t know why anyone liked wearing these things. She sighed. At least it wasn’t pink.
Yulia had only agreed to wear a dress because Alex said this was an important occasion. She didn’t know why this was any different than any other important occasion where she hadn’t been forced to wear a dress, but she relented.
She spotted Sarah and Clair outside the doors to the place Alex had called an auditorium, she waved and ...
2025-01-31 13:05:01 +0000 UTC
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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 ...
2025-01-31 13:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Testing day had finally arrived and the ship was ready or as ready as a prototype could be. And that’s exactly what the stingray looked like.
It was rough around the edges, literally. There were also gaps between the stealth armor panels as Alexander had to minimize production time by standardizing things as much as possible. So he didn’t have time to implement the slightly angled sides of the armor that let them overlap like the STO had to cover these gaps.
Without the panels...
2025-01-30 13:05:01 +0000 UTC
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