Blue Star Enterprises

Yulia fidgeted uncomfortably in her dress. She didn't know why anyone liked wearing these things when overalls were much more practical. She sighed. At least it was in a color she liked and not pink.

Yulia had 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 Alex seemed happy that she agreed to wear it for the occasion.

As they neared their destination, she spotted Sarah and Clair outside the doors to the place Alex had called an auditorium. She waved and her friends waved back. "Alex, can I go talk with my friends?"

He nodded. "Just be sure to find me when the first chime sounds. Your seat is in the front near the stage."

Yulia nodded and hurried over to her friends, having to slow as the dress billowed out, making her feel awkward.

Sarah and Claire pulled her into a hug one after the other.

"You look so pretty," Claire said with a big grin, her own dress filled with embroidered pink flowers that her mom must have added. It was much more flashy than the very basic yellow dress that Yulia had on.

Sarah was wearing a dark green dress that Yulia would grudgingly admit looked good. Both of her friends looked fantastic and much more comfortable wearing a dress than she did, but they hadn't been born in space either.

"Enough of that," Claire's mom chastised the girls. "You're going to wrinkle your beautiful dresses. You look lovely by the way, Yulia."

Yulia blushed at the compliment.

"Yes, Mom," Claire said with a quiet sigh.

Once Claire's Mom turned back toward her conversation with the other parents, Claire motioned for them to move a bit away for some privacy.

"Sorry about that," Claire said. "My mom gets that way any time I have to dress up. This is exciting though isn't it?"

Yulia shrugged. "It would be more exciting if I were entering the academy this year. What about you two?"

Sarah immediately looked uncomfortable by the question. Yulia's friend had never been very good at hiding her emotions.

"What's wrong?" Yulia asked.

The girl replied hesitantly. "I don't really want to spend more years in school. All this science and engineering is fine, but it never really interested me like it does for you. You're not mad are you?"

Yulia blinked at her friend. "Mad? Why would I be mad?"

"Well… because your father built the academy and we figured you might be if you knew we weren't going to attend with you."

She looked back to make sure Claire's mom wasn't looking before she hugged Sarah reassuringly. "I'm not mad." Then the girl's words registered and she held her friend at arm's length. "You said we?" She looked at Claire, who looked a bit annoyed that Sarah had spilled the secret.

"I'm kinda with Sarah on this, Yulia. Also, my Mom wants me to help out with her tailoring." The girl twirled, her dress flaring out until it brushed the other two with its hem. "Plus I want to make more dresses and pretty things. It beats our work clothes or the drab clothing we wore before your father arrived. I should really hug him for introducing color back into our clothing options," she giggled, earning surprised stares from the other two.

For her part, Yulia was having a hard time picturing her friend running up and hugging Alex. That would be like going off and hugging someone else's parent, it was a bit weird.

Once she recovered, she spoke up. "Alex always told me to do what needs to be done. I'm not sure he was referring to this specifically, but I think it fits. If you two want to do other stuff, I wholeheartedly support that choice."

There was a soft chime before they could continue, and the doors to the auditorium opened, allowing people inside. Claire's Mom gestured for the girls to hurry.

"Are you sitting by us?" Sarah asked.

Yulia shook her head. "I have a front-row seat."

"See you later, princess," Claire smirked.

Yulia wanted to bop her friend on the head for the comment, but Claire hurried away, not that Yulia would make a scene here. She joined the line of people heading inside one of the pairs of doors.

Once inside, she marveled at the room. It wasn't nearly as impressive as the atriums, but it had tiered seating that angled toward a stage. There she spotted Alex talking with someone. She made her way down toward him.

***

Alexander congratulated Yi Na and his people on the work they had done in the academy's construction. Not to mention the repairs after Harlow's attack.

In a little over two months, the man and his team of employees had wiped away any signs of the fight and managed to complete the academy, which was no small task even with the help of his bots.

He was nearly finished speaking with the man when the soft chime sounded, alerting them that the ceremony would begin shortly.

"We'll discuss the civil engineering issue later," Alexander added.

Yi Na nodded and they went their own way.

He spotted Yulia heading down the Aisle and greeted her.

"Where's your seat?" Yulia asked as Alexander showed her where to sit.

"I'll be on stage speaking, so no seat this time." He did have a seat built for him, but it wasn't much more than a box, dressed up to match the other seats. It was sitting in the back though since he didn't want to block the views of any of the other people here today.

After making sure Yulia was situated, he made his way over to the side of the stage. Each side had stairs for easy access and there was a backstage entrance as well. The other guests were currently back there waiting to be called out.

As he waited for the second chime to announce the start of the ceremony, his mind drifted to some of the challenges he faced over the last month.

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

He wasn't thinking about the repair and reconstruction efforts of the fleet, those were all well in hand, with Lucas keeping a close eye on the project for any issues that might crop up. His thoughts were mostly about the integration of the Asgardians with the local populace.

However, that wasn't really as bad as it could have been. Sure there was some friction. The Asgardian and the refugees from the STO were the main issues, but Theodore Pembrooke had things well in hand there, keeping anything from spilling over into fights.

It was hard to erase centuries of mistrust and misinformation in a month, but the man was doing a bang-up job.

His mind drifted to an incident a few weeks ago and a conversation with Pembrooke that followed. Experience new stories on My Virtual Library Empire

Alexander intercepted a Qcomm message from Theo to Omni. His first thought was that the man had turned his back on them to try and recover his place at his former employer. Considering Theo was aware that Alexander was monitoring the incoming and outgoing messages, that seemed unlikely. Instead of jumping to conclusions, Alexander simply read the messages.

There wasn't any special hidden code in the message. It was just a simple question from Theo asking if he would be received well if he came in. The response that came back was an unequivocal affirmative from the handler.

Before Alexander could even confront the man about the correspondence, Pembrooke came to him to talk about it.

"You read the response?" the man had asked.

Alexander had nodded, not seeing any point in lying to Pembrooke.

"But you don't know what it means, do you?" Pembrooke had asked.

"I assume it means you will be welcomed home," he responded coldly. He had put a lot of effort into bringing Pembrooke over to his side.

Theo had laughed bitterly, surprising Alexander and shaking him out of the dark thoughts. "Hardly. They want me back, that's for certain, but the response was too quick, too happy to throw aside my failures. They do that type of shit to get low-level operatives back who might be second-guessing their directives. As they say, it's much easier to catch flies with honey. Those foolish enough to believe the lies are debriefed and liquidated. It seems my handler isn't aware of my previous position within the company. If he had been, he would have realized using such a line on me wouldn't have worked. Too bad for him," Pembrooke muttered that last part.

"Would you have taken the opportunity if it was genuine?" Alexander had asked.

The man had paused to think on that for a moment. "Perhaps in the beginning, but now, no. I may have only been here for a few months, but I feel proud of what I've accomplished. I guess you could say it's fulfilling work."

"That's rather forward of you to admit," Alexander stated. "If that's the case, why send the question in the first place? You knew I would see it and that it would likely upset me."

Theo had chuffed at that comment. "Maybe the Asgardians are rubbing off on me more than I thought. As for why I sent the message, I guess I just needed some closure or there would always have been the question of 'what if?' in the back of my mind. Now I have that closure."

The second chime brought Alexander back to the present and he glanced over at the stage as the crowd quieted. Archibald Matthews, his new academy Headmaster strode across the stage and stopped behind a lectern.

"Thank you all for coming to this commencement ceremony for the Eden's End Academy. My name is Archibald Matthews and I will be the academy Headmaster. Before we get too far, I would like to thank the people who made this happen. The first of which is our benefactor, Alexander Kane."

Alexander stepped onto the stage as Archie gestured to him.

"Thank you all for being here. While Mr. Matthews will be thanking all of the people personally involved with this endeavor, I want to thank all of those not involved. If it wasn't for the populace of Eden's End showing such an interest in learning and growing, I don't know if I would have ever considered building this academy. For that, I thank you."

A round of applause greeted his short speech and Alexander moved off to the side as Matthews brought up the next group of people to thank, which consisted Yi Na and all the workers. One by one, they joined Alexander off to the side. He could see the slight grin on Yi Na's face from the praise, one he was doing a poor job of hiding.

"One more round of applause for all the men and women who helped make this a reality." The auditorium erupted in clapping, followed by a few whistles of approval.

Once it settled down, Archie continued. "Now it wouldn't be an academy without teachers. So let me introduce you to our faculty," Matthews continued.

The first to be called up was Lucas Laront. Matthews had convinced the man to lend his expertise in programming and computer design to the courses. Like many of the teachers, Lucas would only be a part-time instructor, the students getting most of their training from the learning modules.

"Next we have one of the most distinguished theoretical physicists around, Dr. Nova Lund. While she will only be available at certain times, we appreciate her lending her expertise and time."

Alexander watched as someone helped the woman to the podium. He frowned internally at that. She hadn't seemed nearly that frail the last time they had spoken. He paused to think of when that had been and realized that was over half a year ago. He made a mental note to check in with her after this was over.

The woman was led to a chair next to Lucas and the two talked quietly as the ceremony continued.

"Next we have our melee combat instructor for those taking on the military portion of the academy, please welcome Mr. Travers."

The former Hawks Team Leader and now Guard Captain, thanked the crowd and took his seat next to Dr. Lund and Lucas.

"For tactics and command courses, please greet Admiral Krieger. He and the other captains of BSE will be rotating in the course. When none of them are available, I will be taking over."

The room exploded into clapping once more. There wasn't a soul on Eden's End who didn't know who Krieger was by now and what he and the other captains had done for the sake of them. Even Hall wasn't forgotten. This was the Captain Timothy Hall Memorial Auditorium after all.

Alexander was glad that Matthews had convinced Krieger that rotating through teaching duty should be mandatory for all BSE captains. It ensured the captains kept up with current tactics, and technology as well as seeing the new generation of recruits that would soon be joining them as cadets in the years to follow. It also allowed the students to meet their idols.

"Our business management and ship upkeep courses will be run by the distinguished Huang Na."

Mingyu's father took the stage to less clapping, being more of an unknown, but seemed unfazed by the reaction.

"And we wouldn't be much of an academy based on military tactics and command, engineering, and science without someone to head the engineering department. Who better to lead it than one of the most proficient engineers I know? Once again, please give a round of applause to Alexander Kane, who has graciously agreed to set aside time to train the next generation of engineers."

The room once again broke into applause. Alexander waved back but otherwise didn't return to the podium. He still had trouble considering himself an actual engineer, however, that feeling was lessening as time went by. There came a point where he had to acknowledge that he was past the days of stealing other people's ideas and that he had finally developed his own unique technologies and inventions.

Next up was a tour of the academy, one which he could have skipped because he had already toured the completed center, but Yulia wanted to see everything and so he obliged her.

Krieger managed to catch his attention at some point and going by his expression, whatever he had to say, didn't look promising. Alexander left Yulia to explore with her friends while he went to see what the man wanted.

The man pulled him into one of the classrooms that had already been looked over by the tour group and shut the door.

"What's up?" Alexander asked.

"I received word today that Admiral Fletcher is dead."

"What? How?"

"A reactor overload incident, or so the news states. It apparently occurred shortly after we broadcast Harlow's execution. I don't believe in coincidences," Krieger stated angrily.

"That was over two months ago?"

Krieger nodded. "The STO covered it up until they had investigators look into it, which is why I didn't hear anything about it until now."

"You think someone killed Fletcher because of what we did?"

Krieger shrugged. "Either that, or they just used it as a convenient excuse to deflect attention while they killed the man. Fletcher had plenty of enemies who could want him gone. You completed your contracts with him, right?"

Alexander nodded his avatar. "Captain Farthing delivered the last shipment while we were returning from Asgard."

"Good. Then the only concern is who takes over for Fletcher and what they do with the stealth ship tech and research."

Alexander groaned at that. He hadn't exactly liked Fletcher, but he hadn't disliked him either. The man had his own priorities, but Alexander could trust that any ill intent wasn't aimed in his direction. With Fletcher being gone, he couldn't be assured of that anymore. He wished he could simply fly in and secure the stealth tech, but even if he could, it would likely be gone by now. Two months was a lot of time for research to grow legs and walk off, especially if the corporations were involved with the man's death.