Blue Star Enterprises

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 was about ready for a vacation.

Just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore, a friend he hadn't seen or spoken to in some time arrived.

Alexander knew that Jasper and the Zephyr would be jumping into Unokane thanks to his early warning system, but he was still happy to see him finally appear in the system.

Not immediately reaching out to the man through one of the comm node satellites near the normal jump points was difficult.

He wanted to know how his friend was doing since their last talk over Qcomm four months ago.

The Zephyr wasn't the only ship to arrive. At least a dozen other ships came with his friend.

He knew at least two of those were carrying the entire livelihoods of those two startup corporations that Pembrooke had managed to convince to move to Eden's End. The others were probably people looking to start a new life or residual refugees. It was hard to tell.

While most of the ships were new to Unokane, there were two other transponder IDs that his system was flagging. While his satellites weren't tied into the traffic control systems, that didn't mean that Alexander hadn't imported copies of those into his own system for redundancy.

Alexander selected the two icons and brought up the details for each vessel. A frown appeared on his avatar. The ships belonged to two captains who had left prior to Harlow's arrival. That in itself wasn't an issue, but they were on Pembrooke's list of captains who had fleeced terrified people out of their entire savings to hitch a ride to safety.

He looked to see who was on patrol duty at the moment. It looked like it was Ramirez. He sent the man a ping and waited.

The ping was instant, but it might take a bit for Ramirez to get to a secure terminal to respond.

Alexander barely finished that thought when Ramirez's voice came through the terminal.

A yawn proceeded it. "Mr. Kane, what can I do for you this early? I assume it was urgent since you commed me directly."

Alexander looked at the time and winced. It was three in the morning. "Sorry for waking you, Captain Ramirez, but I was just looking at some new arrivals in the system. Two of them are flagged. They haven't done anything illegal, but they have been blacklisted. I want you and the task force to intercept their ships and tell them to leave."

"And if they ask why?" the man tried to stifle a second yawn.

"Greed," Alexander answered.

***

Horatio Ramirez set the comm back on his small table and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Greed?" he asked the empty room before shaking his head.

He was sure Kane would send him the info if it was important. With a sigh, he got up and walked into his private bathroom – a luxury for any ship – and took a nice hot shower. After he dressed, he picked up the comm and noticed he did have a data packet waiting for him. He sent it to his tablet and read through the document.

It contained all the information on the two ships, their crew, and why Alexander had blacklisted them from Unokane. "Greed indeed," he said quietly.

Ramirez had no love for people who took advantage of others in an emergency, and it seemed the captains of those two ships had.

With that information in mind, he made his way to the bridge.

Upon entering, his XO looked up, appearing half awake. As soon as the man realized who was entering the bridge, he jumped out of the captain's chair in surprise. "Captain on deck!"

The shout drew everyone's attention and made Horatio wince internally.

"At ease, XO. No need to announce my entrance like that either. A simple salute is fine. How is patrol?"

The man seemed to relax slightly at not being chastised for nearly falling asleep at his post.

"Uneventful, sir."

"Just the way I like it," he smiled before leaning in and speaking quietly to his XO. "Try to stay more active, it'll fend off the boredom."

The man nodded, his face going slightly red. "Um, what brings you on deck at this time of night, sir?"

Horatio lied. "I couldn't sleep, figured I would check in, see how things were going. How far are we from the transit point that faces toward Varlen?"

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Umm… Navigation, how long until we near the transit point?"

"Six hours, sir," came the cracked and squeaky reply of someone far too young to be on the bridge.

When Horatio looked over to the navigation terminal, he was surprised to see a sandy-haired cadet at the station.

"What's your name, son?" Horatio asked.

"Markus Wu, Captain Ramirez," the boy stated as he stood and saluted crisply.

Horatio returned the salute and the boy relaxed. He would get to the bottom of why a cadet was manning the station in a bit, but he was curious as to how the cadet was doing.

"How are you enjoying your time aboard the Resolve?" Tempest was being stripped and refit, so Horatio had been sent back to his old command. He couldn't quite call it a downgrade since Resolve had far more creature comforts and other advantages over that cobbled-together destroyer, but it still felt that way sometimes even if he knew he was going to be commanding Tempest again soon enough.

"It's a lot to learn, sir, but I am enjoying every minute of it."

"A good answer. You can go back to your station, Cadet Wu." Once the boy turned back around, Horatio turned to his XO and quirked an eyebrow.

The man cleared his throat and spoke quietly enough that he couldn't be overheard. "Ensign Nellis came down with food poisoning a few hours into his shift. Instead of bothering Lieutenant Demarco in the middle of the night, I decided to see what our new cadet was capable of, under supervision that is."

"I see. And how is Cadet Wu doing?"

The man seemed hesitant to answer, then sighed. "He's better than Nellis. I wish we could keep him full-time."

Now that was a surprise. Horatio knew Nellis wasn't the greatest navigator, and would likely never grow past his rank as an ensign, especially since he was in his sixties, but the man had years of experience. Then again, there was a reason the older man was on the graveyard shift and not the day shift, but to hear a fresh-booted cadet – not even out of command school – was better than the man, really made it seem like it might be time for Nellis to fully retire.

Horatio would take it up with Admiral Krieger, they didn't have the luxury of getting rid of anyone, but if he could replace Nellis with this new cadet, maybe it would work out.

"I'll discuss that with Admiral Krieger. I'm going to go get some breakfast in the mess, alert me if anything changes in the meantime."

Horatio didn't like having to hide the comm nodes and what they were capable of from the rest of the crew, but he understood their significance enough to realize why that decision had been made. He also knew that vetting had already begun, and soon bridge crews would be made aware of the technology. Once that happened, there wouldn't need to be any more of this cloak-and-dagger nonsense that he abhorred.

***

Horatio stood on the bridge, the night crew having been dismissed for the day crew to take over. It was earlier than normal for the change, but he had ordered it when he was alerted to the convoy of ships that had finally been relayed to them from light-speed communications.

The Resolve's transponder was on, as it always was while in Unokane, so the ships were aware of their approach long before they were within visual sensor range of the civilian vessels.

He could have simply radioed the two vessels and told them to leave, but Horatio wanted to ensure he was within combat range if they did something stupid. He would have never considered that back when he was an STO captain, but things had changed, he had changed.

"We are within half a light minute, sir," Lieutenant Demarco said from navigation.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Open a channel to the two ships we are here to escort out of the system." Demarco wasn't technically a Lieutenant in the STO navy anymore, but until Kane or Admiral Fletcher got around to confirming a new ranking structure, Horatio would continue to use the old ranks as a sign of respect.

"Channel is open, sir."

He nodded to the Lieutenant. "STO ships, Paradise Blue and Compton's Trading LLC, you have been barred from entering Unokane. Please pull away from the convoy heading toward Eden's End immediately and we will escort you back to the jump point."

"Who the hell do you think you are? I know my rights!" came an irate reply from Compton's Trading, a wholly unoriginal name for a ship. "I have goods for sale, and I'm going to sell them on Eden's End, so you can piss right off."

"Paradise Blue is pulling away, but Compton's Trading has gotten closer to the other ships, which are trying to move away from the vessel."

Horatio sighed. "Send four of our Stingrays to escort Blue out of the system."

Once he got confirmation that the gunships were pulling off to follow the retreating ship, he radioed the other offender. "This is your last warning, Compton. You and your ship have been blacklisted from Unokane. Pull off and return to the jump point or your ship will be disabled and boarded. Then you and your crew will be arrested, while anything aboard your ship will be confiscated."

"No response to our request, sir, but it seems the captain of the Compton sent a coded radio message to the Blueridge."

That was both odd and interesting. Was the captain of the Compton trying to get the STO to step in and cover his ass? If this was STO space, he would certainly have a legal right to make the request. Then again, Kane had filled all the captains in on what he found aboard the STO ship and that lent a more nefarious connotation to the message.

When no response came from the STO vessel, the Compton finally pulled away from the convoy of ships.

"Comms, send an order to the rest of the task group to scan the incoming ships and alert our boarding team to prep. Navigation, set in an intercept course for the Compton."

If anyone was surprised by the orders, they didn't show it. Everyone aboard – minus the cadet – had been through more than their share of battles and had come out of it alive thanks to Horatio's command. If he ordered it, they knew he did it for a good reason.

He did, or so he hoped. Either way, the ship had refused to cooperate, he had a legal right under Asgardian and BSE laws to search and seize the vessel while arresting the crew if he saw fit.

The new laws were a bit more draconian than Horatio was used to and would have liked, but things outside the STO were much less civilized so it was better to err on the side of caution.

The Compton tried to run, but a single shot ahead of the ship got it to shut down its drive.

The boarding team consisted of a few former mercenaries and some Asgardians. It was Sergeant Galloway's first ground team and this was their first official test.

The crew of the Compton quickly turned themselves in, but the captain had to be removed by force when he refused to leave his cabin after he locked it. One other guest was found in a hidden compartment in the captain's cabin. The woman was searched thoughtfully, before being slapped in mag restraints and stuck in Resolve's bridge. You didn't hide if you hadn't done anything wrong.

The crew was left aboard the Compton with the boarding team to keep an eye on them and pilot the ship to Eden's End.

As for their new prisoner, it turned out she was on Mr. Pembrooke's list of people to watch out for. From the scant information in the bio report, it seemed like she held a position similar to his when he was working for Omni. There was no telling what kind of trouble she could have gotten up to if she had been allowed to reach the surface.