Blue Star Enterprises

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 legal nonsense. While having an actual document stating Omni's 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 than he had before.

By then, Tempest would be fully complete, making him feel much safer.

He knew Omni couldn't be trusted, even if he had confirmed the people he was working with were legitimate Omni attorneys; they had already shown that by destroying the ship heading back toward Varlen. He wasn't sure why they would have done something like that, but he had a few guesses. Either they wanted it to appear like the path between Varlen and Unokane was riddled with pirate activity and thus unsafe or they simply wanted to get rid of an asset out of sight that hadn't performed to their expectations.

Losing a mid-level operative was not a big deal for a mega-giant like Omni.

If they were trying to silence the woman, it was too bad for them, Alexander had recorded the entire conversation with her as well as the attack.

It wouldn't stand up in court. There were no markings that he could clearly point to and state that those vessels were Omni or even another corporation's ships, other than their advanced design. What Alexander could do was use the recording as leverage against Omni if they continued to skirt their own agreement. He didn't need proof; all he needed to do was state it as such, and public opinion would do the rest. With any luck, that would force Omni into damage control to save their reputation, which he knew they had done in the past and likely still did to this day.

If it came down to that choice, he wouldn't even feel bad if they wanted to play dirty, so would he.

Once he got the stealth armor figured out, he was going to place picket gunships around each planet between Unokane and Varlen. Alexander would like to see the corporations contend with that if their goal was to destabilize trade between him and the STO.

Alexander found Jasper and his crew enjoying some downtime at the Meteorite, which had moved permanently into the arrival center. It seemed like business was booming with all the new arrivals.

A few people gave him startled looks, but most just gave a passing glance as Alexander strode up to his friend's table.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," he said.

Jasper turned from an animated conversation he had been having with his pilot, Wilkes, and smiled. "Alex!"

The man stood from his chair and hurried over to clap Alexander on the arm. "I've been wondering where you were. Thought you might have gotten too busy for your old friend."

Alexander rolled his avatar's eyes. "Busy, yes, but never too busy for a friend. How was your time in STO space?"

Jasper beamed at the question. "Thanks to your thrusters, I made more profit than any of my competition!"

The man stated that loudly and proudly, and a few of the other captains in the bar glanced over.

Alexander suspected he might have some new customers shortly, assuming they were willing to do a full overhaul and not a simple upgrade to their pulsed fusion. His agreement with Omni prevented him from selling those styles of engines to any STO customers.

Not that he minded. His compressed plasma ejection thrusters were already an improvement over the older style of thrusters.

"That reminds me, how long are you planning on sticking around this time?" Alexander asked.

"Unfortunately, not long. My Port Liaison, Naomi-"

"-Wife," Naomi corrected as she walked over.

"Wife?" Alexander asked in surprise, looking at his friend.

"I was going to tell him." Jasper chuckled. "Yeah, we got hitched a few months ago. I would have invited you, but things were kind of hectic back then."

Naomi rolled her eyes. "It doesn't sound very romantic when you put it that way, dear. With everything going on and the future uncertain, we decided to stop dancing around our feelings for each other, or I should say, I did."

"I would have proposed eventually," Jasper muttered sullenly. "I was waiting for the right time."

"Uh-huh. That's sort of the point I just made, there was no right time."

"Well," Alexander said, interrupting the argument. "Congratulations to both of you."

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"Thank you, Alex," Naomi replied. "As my husband was saying, I got in contact with your import and export department. The lovely woman there set us up with an outbound delivery."

"Ju Na?"

"That's the one," Naomi confirmed. "It requires us to leave in a few days."

"I didn't even know we had enough items to export," Alexander admitted. "If I had known, I would have asked you to hold off for a few weeks. I guess it can't be helped. The next time you come by, stay awhile. I know you said you didn't want that other upgrade, but I think you might want the one I was planning to give the Zephyr this time around."

Jasper quirked an eyebrow. "Call me intrigued. I would like to know more before I agree, though. Honey, do you mind if I leave for a bit?"

Naomi gave Jasper a peck on the lips. "Not at all. You go do your captain things, I'll remain here and ensure the crew doesn't get too rowdy."

A chorus of boos came from the table in reply to that, followed by some light-hearted laughter.

Alexander was glad to see the Zephyr's crew in such good spirits. They were rather on edge the last time they visited.

As a preferred trader, Jasper's identity badge allowed him to leave the intake after twelve hours instead of the mandatory thirty days. Alexander had signed off on it personally.

"How is your daughter?" Jasper asked as they walked to Alexander's office.

"Growing fast. You probably wouldn't even recognize her if you saw her today. I think she shot up two inches since the last time you were here."

"Is it worth it? Having a kid, I mean?" his friend asked seriously.

Alexander glanced over at the man before responding. "It has its own unique set of challenges, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. Why? Are you and Naomi planning on having a child?"

"It's been brought up a few times, but I'm afraid of raising a child in space. I would rather set down roots somewhere so they can grow up in a more child-friendly environment, but I also love what I do. I get to visit more places and planets in a year than the vast majority of people get to see in their lifetime. To give that up would be difficult."

Alexander nodded. While he would love to see Jasper settle on Eden's End, he didn't recommend that to his friend. He knew it wasn't an ideal location to live or raise a child. If Yulia hadn't been born in space and wasn't used to living aboard a space station, he might have considered safer options when he was looking for a place to live after Petrov Station.

"You'll have to let me know if and when you decide. I'll have to come visit at some point."

Jasper chuckled. "It might be worth settling down on some core world just to watch the reaction of my neighbors when you pull up, probably in some ridiculous ship and equally ridiculous shuttle."

"You know me too well," Alexander laughed as they entered his office.

Jasper let out a whistle. "Stepping up in the world. Is that real wood?"

"This is mostly for meeting with important guests, and no, but it does look like it, doesn't it?"

The man ran his hand across the surface. "Feels like it too. You know, you could probably sell this material as a wood replacement. There are tons of places where wood is desirable, but only the core worlds are capable of growing trees, and they guard them zealously. Can't say I blame them. If people had their way, they would cut down every tree just to admire the end result."

"That was almost the case back in my day," Alexander admitted. "I'm glad to see conservation made a rebound, but I didn't bring you here to talk about wood. That being said, I will see how much of the material we can produce and make it available for export."

"Fair enough," Jasper smiled. "What upgrade did you wish to discuss with me?"

"I actually had two. The first is another thruster upgrade, which would simply convert the Zephyr from pulsed fusion to compressed plasma ejection."

"No half-measures, eh?"

"You don't sound surprised."

Jasper chuckled again. "Oh, I'm surprised, but every time I see you, I'm surprised, so I kind of expect it at this point."

"You're the second person to point that out. I don't know whether to feel elated by that fact or annoyed."

They both laughed.

"If it makes you feel any better, I won't say no to that as an upgrade. Compressed plasma ejection on a smaller ship will certainly raise some eyebrows, but it won't put a target on my back like a pulsed fusion drive that well outstripped anything Omni had available. Out of curiosity, why the change? I know they tend to be more energy efficient and faster, but they require quite a bit more work to implement."

"Pulsed fusion is nearing the apex of how far the technology can go. Instead of playing hopscotch with Omni to speed that deadline along, I decided to invest more time into improving the newer technology so it could be applied to smaller ships. I also made a deal with Omni to stop producing the pulsed fusion thrusters if they stopped meddling in my business."

Jasper winced at that news. "Are you sure that was a good idea?"

"If they stick to their end of the deal, maybe. I had already planned on sunsetting those thrusters anyway, all of my ships, down to gunships can now be fitted with the newer thrusters."

"So what you're saying is that the corporations could do the same thing for a long time but chose not to. I can't say I'm surprised. Alright, what about the other upgrade?" Jasper asked.

Alexander held up a finger and activated the holo display. It was blurred out with the words 'Top Secret' hovering in front of the image.

"If you want to know, slide your badge through the reader. If not, I understand."

Jasper hesitated for a moment. "Is it something dangerous?"

"Not inherently, no."

With a bit of reluctance, the man slid his ID through the scanner and Alexander did the same.

The image came into focus and showed a comm node.

"Wh- what is it?"

"This is what I like to call a comm node." Alexander went into detail on what the device did.

He was mostly through his explanation when Jasper held up his hand to stop him.

"I can't have something like that aboard the Zephyr. Don't get me wrong, it would be amazing to communicate at any point in space with no delay. It's more an issue of knowledge. If so much as a word got out that I had something like that aboard the Zephyr, I would become an immediate target for anyone looking to get their hands on the technology, not to mention Qcomm. And while I trust my crew, it only takes one mistake to ruin everything. I just can't risk it, I'm sorry."

Alexander nodded. "I understand." And he did. The comm node may not be an evolution in technology, but it was an evolution in how that technology could be used. "I will eventually be selling this publicly, so don't feel bad about missing out early."

Jasper just shook his head. "Wasn't Omni enough of a headache? Now you want to add Qcomm to the list?"

Alexander simply smiled in reply. He decided not to tell his friend about the pseudo-computronics or the unknown corporate ship Krieger captured. Change was coming to the STO, whether the corporations liked it or not.