“Hurry up, Alex!” Yulia said as she pulled him along.

“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying,” he laughed, letting his daughter tug him along. This was one of the nights he had set aside time to spend with her. His time to leave with Fury was coming quickly so there wouldn’t be many more of those days left. Depending on how things went in Varlen, he would be gone for a minimum of a month, maybe two.

She led him to the old parking garage and let go of his hand.

“Tada! She said as she ran over to a blanket-covered item and removed it. “It’s a racecar and I built it all by myself!” she beamed with pride.

He chose not to bring up the fact that he provided the mechanical components as he whistled in approval. “Impressive. What do you plan on doing with it?” He already knew she had been racing it around since he reviewed Dog’s recordings once a week.

“Hmm… I wanna get other kids to join me so we can race against each other. Do you think they would?”

“That depends,” he said. “Do you plan on selling them your design, or making more for them to use?”

“Can’t I just give it to them for free?” she asked.

“You could, but what happens when you run out of material for your printer?” he asked in return. This was a good learning opportunity for her.

“Couldn’t I just ask you for more?”

“You could, but I would run out as well, then what happens?” He probably had enough material to build these go-carts for every single person on Eden’s End, but that really wasn’t the point of what he was trying to teach her.

“Uhh… I dunno.”

He smiled. “Let me tell you about supply and demand.”

It took a bit of effort for him to simplify the idea so she understood what he was getting at.

Yulia scrunched up her face. “So if everyone wants one, I should charge more? But nobody here uses credits. What do I charge?”

“That’s a good question. I trade my resources for work or fresh food. Eventually, Eden’s End will probably have to adopt the Credit system, but you don’t need to worry about that for now. Instead of making these go-karts for every child, how about you do this? Make five or six of them and rent them to the kids for an hour. You’ll need to think of what you want in return for these rentals though.”

“Oh! Can I ask people to do my homework in exchange?”

Alexander shook his head. “No. You can’t ask them to do your homework or any work you are assigned. Maybe trade toys or puzzles, art supplies, stories, snacks or sweets, maybe even clothes. Just don’t get greedy and don’t take anything of personal significance.”

“Hmmm. This sounds like it’ll be really hard. I just wanted to have fun with my friends,” she huffed.

Alexander chuckled. “It will be, but it will also be worth it. Simply offering your hard work to others for free will mean nobody will place any value on the service you offer. If you do this enough they will expect whatever you do to be offered freely in the future.”

“Won’t the kids get angry with me?”

“Some might, but you can simply ignore them. Those who want to use the go-carts will be willing to trade with you.”

She sighed and kicked her feet. “I really wanna race against some of the other kids. Will you help me?” she pleaded.

“You know those puppy-dog eyes don’t work on me,” he laughed. “I’ll get you started. I’ll even build controllers and batteries for all of the carts. Since I doubt Dog can be in multiple places at the same time.” Yulia made an oh face when she realized the issue Alexander had pointed out.

“That being said, I need to let you know I’ll be leaving for a month or two in a few weeks.”

“What! Why?” She sounded less anxious than the last time Alexander was gone, but he could see she still wasn’t thrilled by the idea of him leaving again.

He kneeled down next to her. “You know about our guests right?”

She nodded her head. “The STO people you rescued.”

His avatar nodded. “Well, it’s time to take them back home. Normally I wouldn’t need to go with them, but I’m the only person who can remain aboard their ship during the journey. You remember how long it took to get here?”

Yulia nodded sullenly.

“It won't take that long for me to get back, but we have to travel for a few weeks, and then I have some people to contact and deals to work out before we return.”

She rushed over and hugged his arm tight before she started to cry. “But I don’t want you to go!”

He gently brushed her hair with his other arm. “I know, dear. I don’t want to go either, and I would take you with me if I could, but I can’t for the same reason that I have to be the one aboard the broken ship. You understand, right?”

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She nodded as she wiped the snot from her nose on her sleeve.

“Besides, you’ll get to stay with your friend’s family again. You had fun the last time, remember?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

Alex pulled her in for another hug. He knew that breaking this news to her was going to be hard, but seeing her cry like this was difficult. Despite the pain, he wasn’t going to risk bringing her along into a possibly dangerous situation. A warship was no place for a child.

“How about we put this sadness behind us and you show me what your invention can do?”

Yulia wiped her eyes before getting ahold of her emotions. She nodded and put her helmet on before climbing into the vehicle. He was glad the girl was so resilient. If she wasn’t, he wasn’t sure he could stomach the thought of leaving her behind, despite his convictions to keep her out of harm's way.

He watched as his daughter raced around the concrete poles of the parking lot, sometimes getting recklessly close to them. Alexander winced internally every time she took one of these corners. It didn’t help that her cart tended to lift up as she cornered. With Dog hanging onto the rollbar, it was simply too top-heavy.

Eventually, the go-cart clipped the concrete post just a bit. It was enough to flip it over and Alexander would have had a heart attack if he had a heart. He hurried over to see Yulia crawling from under the cart. The girl dusted herself off and stood. “I’m ok,” she said as Alexander checked her over.

“That was reckless, Yulia. Why were you driving so close to the poles?”

She hung her head. “I was mad.”

He sighed and lifted her up. “I see my upcoming absence has affected you more than I thought. For that, I’m sorry, but you can’t take out your anger on others or yourself, Yulia. Anger is an important emotion, but you can’t let it cloud your judgment. We’re going to head to the clinic to make sure you're ok, then we’re going to make this place a bit safer for you and your friends before you build any more of these go-karts. How does that sound?”

Yulia didn’t reply, she simply turned away from him and rested her head on his shoulder. He sighed internally and made his way to the clinic.

***

In the following weeks, Yulia had a rather subdued attitude toward Alexander. Even helping her create the other go-carts, and adding a few improvements to them that would make them more robust wasn’t enough to get her to say more than a few words to him at a time.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any more time to try and make it up to his little girl. Na and his crew had completed the Fury’s trial and shakedown run. The ship had a few minor issues to correct, but it was otherwise ready to go.

As she came in for breakfast, Alexander told her the news. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’ve already spoken to your friend's parents and they were more than happy to let you stay with them until I get back.”

“Ok,” she replied robotically as she absently stirred her oatmeal.

“I’ll be back before you even know it,” he said, repeating the same thing he had mentioned to her multiple times in the last few weeks.

Yulia didn’t respond though. She simply spooned her food into her mouth and kept her eyes fixed on the table, unwilling to look at him.

He knew she was doing this to try and get him to change his mind, but that didn’t make it any easier.

Alexander walked Yulia to her class, not that she spoke to him or acknowledged his existence, but that was fine. He wanted to spend as much time with her as he could before leaving.

Once she was in her class, he turned and went in search of Branston to see to the last-minute supply shipment.

He found the man on Shuttle 2, doing a flight check.

“Oh, hey, Alex, what’s up?”

“Just checking on the final supplies going to Fury. How many more trips do you think it’ll be?”

The man scratched his head as he looked out onto the landing pad. “Two, maybe three,” he spoke through the oxygen mask. “Then one more for our guests. You sure you don’t want me to tag along? I know you passed your shuttle flight test, but an unexpected problem could crop up.”

“As much as I would like you to come along, it's not possible. Besides, I need you here to keep running materials into orbit and down to the surface.”

“Fair enough. I wasn’t all that keen to head back to STO space anyway, but I thought I would offer.”

Alexander gently clapped the man on the shoulder. “Thank you for offering. I’ll leave you to your work, I need to go speak with Captain Krieger and let him know he and his people are heading home.”

While Alexander hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid the STO Captain after their encounter, he hadn’t exactly made himself available either. So it was a bit of a surprise when he found him having a heated discussion with Dr. Nova Lund.

“You military people are all the same,” the woman spat.

“You owe it to the STO to help keep it safe. Instead, you abandoned your duty and came out here to hide.”

“Ha!” the older woman barked. “I don’t owe the STO shit. They haven’t done anything for me. All they know how to do is take new ideas and lock them away. Or they simply hand anything of note over to the people who are really in charge over there, the corporations. So keep your sanctimonious bullshit to yourself, Captain, I’ve heard it all before.” Lund made to walk away and it looked like Krieger was about to grab her and turn her around when Alexander cleared his throat.

“Ahem! Is there a problem here?”

Nova turned and saw the man’s hand frozen as it reached out to her. She snorted. “I appreciate your assistance, Alexander, but I can assure you, if Captain Krieger didn’t keep his hands to himself, he wouldn’t like what happened.”

Krieger retracted his arm. “I apologize for my actions. When I heard the foremost scientist on theoretical propulsion was here, I let my emotions get the better of me. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re right, it won’t,” Alexander stated simply, making the man stiffen at the statement. “Because you and your crew are leaving tomorrow. We finally have a ship that will take you back to Varlen, along with your ship. So instead of harassing my guests, your time would be better spent gathering your people and getting them ready to leave.”

The man nodded stiffly. “Thank you for finding someone to take us home.” Krieger turned to Nova. “Once again, I’m sorry for my actions.”

The woman only nodded once in reply as they watched the man walk out of the room.

“The nerve of some people,” she stated after he was gone.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

“Same as always, the STO wants to monopolize my skills and talent and they don’t like hearing no.”

“So you’ve never met Captain Krieger before?”

She shook her head. “No, but they must tell every damn member of their fleet about me. It’s exhausting dealing with their nonsense. Enough about that though. You finally got a ship up and running? I was wondering why you’ve been absent from our agreed-upon meetings. Not that I minded the extra time to work on my own stuff.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Been busy with other projects. Your help was instrumental in getting my engines past Omni standard though. They are working as well as expected.”

“Of course they are,” she stated matter of factly. “What’s your next step?”

“I’m working on another generational improvement to the printers, but that’s going to be some time off. First I need to return Krieger and his people to STO space. When I return, now that my orbital infrastructure is taking shape, I’m going to try my hand at designing a compressed plasma ejection system.”

“Good luck with that. As I told you before, my knowledge of those systems is limited at best. I’ll help you with any of the math but that’s about all I can offer. Maybe by the time you return, I’ll have made a breakthrough in my own research. I’m close to something, I can feel it.”

He wished Dr. Lund well and hurried off to finish preparations for his departure.