Blue Star Enterprises-Chapter 4-21

“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 affecting 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.”

“Definitely not,” Alexander agreed. “This doesn’t really explain how the field works, but now that we know gravity is affected, we can narrow down our search parameters to try and get a clearer picture. I’ll need to develop a more accurate gravity sensor though… Hmm, maybe not. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the one I built for Nova would work. It’s not really designed to measure outside gravitation fields, but it is sensitive enough to pick them up.”

“Want me to pack everything up so we can head back?” Lucas asked. The man seemed eager to get out of the harsh sun and Alexander couldn’t blame him.

“Yeah, let’s do that for now. We can come back out tomorrow and run the next set of tests.”

“Why not just use the gun range?” Lucas asked as he started to pack away the equipment.

Alexander moved over to help him. “Too many variables. It’s probably going to take me all night just to do the math to account for what’s out here. If I have to include calculations for people moving around the facility, I’m not sure I will be able to make that happen in any reasonable timeframe. I wish Nova was still around, her help with this would have made it a simple task.”

Lucas snorted. “Be glad she isn’t. If you told her you wanted to take her precious measuring device out to the middle of a barren wasteland and then have someone shoot at you while it was nearby, she would have given you an earful.”

Alexander chuckled. “You’re right about that.”

The pair reminisced a bit more about Dr. Lund as they finished packing up the gear. Once it was loaded aboard the shuttle they headed back.

The entire test day had gone rather smoothly, all things considered. He had expected something to go wrong or an emergency to come up, especially with the STO fleet in the system.

Alexander was honestly surprised that Willard hadn’t caused a scene yet. The man and his fleet were kept well clear of the facility to prevent any sort of orbital bombardment nonsense. Not that they would survive the attempt if they opened fire on the planet or anything in orbit. The thousands of lasers tracking their ships as well as the majority of the BSE fleet guaranteed their good behavior.

He had offered to allow the STO crews time planet-side, but his offer had gone unanswered so far. Considering Willard’s orders, the man was probably still trying to process the fact that Alexander had told him no.

***

Ezekiel took a day to cool off and collect himself. While he didn’t care what the civilians on the dirtball of a planet thought, he couldn’t go off on Admiral Util when he attended the meeting via Qcomm.

The fact that this backwater hellhole had a Qcomm at all was its only saving grace. It was also an opportunity for Ezekiel to get Util to update his orders so he wouldn’t have to wait around until whenever Kane decided he was good and ready to attend the inquiry.

The nerve of the man to think he was somehow above the STO simply because he lived in a system that the STO had withdrawn from. Given time and the right motivations, he knew the STO would expand once again and retake the worlds that the pirates had claimed for themselves.

If Kane thought his little act of defiance would go unmentioned or unnoticed by the STO until that time, he had another thing coming. Ezekiel didn’t know exactly what the STO would do, but it would likely start at embargoes and go from there until Kane finally acquiesced to the request. Considering how much high-grade technology the man seemed to be using out here, that would definitely hurt him.

His comm beeped to alert him of the time and he quickly checked over his uniform one last time before connecting the call. The face that greeted him was not Admirl Util’s, but Ezekiel quickly recovered from his shock. “Admiral Dufresne, thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I’ll be honest, I was expecting Admiral Util since he is my commanding officer.”

“There has been a shift in quadrant responsibilities and I took over Util’s old zone of responsibility. I am now your commanding officer, and I’m quite busy. You have ten minutes to tell me why this meeting was necessary,” the man stated.

“Absolutely,” Ezekiel responded deferentially, but he inwardly cursed his luck.

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He knew of Admiral Lucien Dufresne from before the man had ever become an Admiral. Like Ezekiel, the man was from a noble family and moved in the same circles of high society. The only difference is that Lucien Dufresne was not blacklisted by his family.

Normally that would be a good thing, but Dufresne was connected through marriage to the family of the woman Ezekiel got cast out for. He doubted the Admiral suddenly taking over as his commander had been a fluke.

Ezekiel swallowed his concern and spoke. “It’s about my orders, sir.”

The man didn’t even look up at the camera as he responded. “Has Kane agreed to the request?”

“Um, no, sir.”

The man stopped whatever work he was doing to finally look at Ezekiel. “Has he declined then?”

As much as Ezekiel would love to say yes, he knew a lie here would come back to haunt him. “Not exactly, sir. He took the request to appear at his earliest possible opportunity quite literally and stated he wasn’t prepared to head to Sol for the inquiry at this time.”

“Annoying, but he has not turned you down. What exactly is the problem?”

“It’s about my orders to remain here until he decides to head to Sol, sir. I was hoping you would amend them so I can return to Varlen to await the man when he finally decided to head our way.”

“Hmm,” Admiral Dufresne paused to think on that. “That is quite the predicament. Without a firm timetable from Kane, you could be stuck there for weeks, or months.”

“Exactly, sir. I’m glad you see things my way.” Ezekiel let some of the tension out of his shoulders. Maybe Dufrense wasn’t still holding a grudge.

“I do. Your request is denied. Your original orders are to be followed to the letter. If I find out you abandoned your task to wait out Kane back in Varlen, I will personally see you put in front of a firing squad for dereliction of duty. Do I make myself clear?”

Ezekiel swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

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“Good. I don’t want to hear from you again until Kane is on his way.”

Before Ezekiel could respond, the connection cut off, leaving him alone inside the communication room.

Ezekiel sat there in stunned silence for another half an hour. He knew why the Admiral disliked him, but he had hoped sentiments toward Ezekiel’s actions when he was younger would have faded by now. It seemed they still haunted him, even to this day.

Wanting to be alone with his thoughts, he gave the fleet the go-ahead to rotate crew downtime. Ezekiel might not care much for the people who served under him, but he had gone through command school. He knew that forcing the crew to remain aboard when the opportunity to get off the ship was available would quickly lead to crew morale issues or worse. That was especially important amongst the Marines aboard the Blueridge. At least letting them blow off steam on the surface would make them Kane’s problem for a few days.

***

Alexander was in the middle of figuring out the complicated mathematics to input into Lund’s gravitational sensor when he received a message from Theo letting him know that the STO had finally agreed to send their people down for some R&R.

Anticipating that response, Theo had enlisted the owner of the Meteorite Bar to set up a temporary shop inside the intake area.

Since Alexander didn’t wish to loosen the restrictions on new arrivals, the entire STO crew would be stuck in the intake area for at least thirty days. Considering they wouldn’t be dirt side that long, that was probably the only access they would get to the facility.

People from Eden’s End could come and go from intake if they wished, but they were subject to a twenty-four-hour quarantine and item inspection afterward. The whole thirty-day quarantine was overkill and had nothing to do with the spread of disease. It was more a method to root out those using gene edit therapies to try and sneak in.

The fact was that most communicable diseases could be treated within a day. Alexander assumed the corporations were responsible for that medical breakthrough. Any spread of sickness and disease would stop them from reaching large parts of the market.

That didn’t mean there were no diseases or that all had treatments available for them. A requirement in STO space was for ships to communicate any illnesses aboard before they docked. In cases like that, they might be quarantined, similar to how Mingyu and the Destiny had been, even if that had been ordered under false pretenses.

Despite the one-day quarantine and search conditions, a decent number of civilians decided to enjoy some time off in the intake area. It seemed that having the only active bar on Eden’s End temporarily move into an area that required quarantine, wasn’t exactly a deal breaker for most people who frequented the establishment.

Alexander couldn’t see the appeal, but it was their choice.

Damien and Theo would keep an eye on things and handle problems if- when things got rowdy, he corrected himself.

He returned his focus back to the complicated equations he needed to work through. He could have asked for Lucas’ help but this was something he wanted to do himself. He would need to figure them out eventually anyway if he ever wanted to move forward with Lund’s research.

Alexander was still on her first lesson plan. He had replayed it over a dozen times by that point and still found things in it that he didn’t quite grasp. And there were ten more of the lesson plans to go through.

He finished the calculation he was working on and went over it once more. It looked correct given the recordings he took at the test site. There might be some tweaks he would need to make before the actual test, but he was about as far as he could take it for now.

As he was entering the information into the device, he got an alert that his hallway sensors were going off.

Not expecting anyone at that time of night, he looked at the camera feed and saw Damien’s people hurrying down the hallway to the intake area. They weren’t wearing any augment gear, but they were wearing their riot armor and carrying stun sticks and pulse rifles.

“Looks like things finally got rowdy,” he said with a sigh.

Alexander knew that was bound to happen. You didn’t mix STO crew, Marines, former mercenaries, and Asgardians along with a bunch of alcohol, and expect things to go entirely smoothly. He glanced at his clock. It was nearly midnight local time meaning he had been at it for over five hours. He was actually surprised an issue hadn’t cropped up sooner.

Some of those people were about to find out why you didn’t get on Damien’s bad side. A few days in lockup would correct their attitudes.

Alexander could have prevented that mix of clashing cultures but letting it happen helped facilitate Pembrooke’s work. The troublemakers probably weren’t the types he would want to try and recruit anyway.