“Uh, Boss, I’m gonna need some help with these new arrivals,” the security man he sent down radioed in.

“I’ll be there shortly,” Damien grunted in reply. Before he left the security room, he grabbed one of the stun sticks. He thought about grabbing a pulse rifle from the rack but decided against it. If he needed a pulse rifle to deal with this problem, he wasn’t cut out for this role.

It didn’t take him long to reach the hallway where the new arrivals were. One man was arguing with his security person while a few others were egging him on in the background. He glanced over and spotted Alexander entering with an older woman. That was probably the scientist friend of his. That meant twelve people had come down on the shuttle.

As he got closer, he could finally make out what the man was shouting about. “-demand you get your superior, I will not be subjecting myself to this nonsense.”

That comment alone marked them as non-drifters. Drifters didn’t usually have people in charge, only people who did what had to be done. The other fact that Damien didn’t believe they were drifters was the size of the group. While it was rare, a group of drifters this size would have been an entire family group. With how they broke into groups and held themselves apart as if they didn’t know each other well, he doubted that was the case.

“Oh, thank god,” his security guy said as he spotted him.

The irate shouting man looked up. “Finally! Are you in charge here?”

“I’m the head of security, what’s the problem?” The residents of Eden’s End had chosen a council made up of the Head of Security, him; the Head of Agriculture, he wasn’t sure who that was yet as they were still trying to decide who should take that role; the Head of Learning, which was an older woman by the name of Nancy; and last but not least, the Head of Medical Services which sort of fell into Gabriella’s lap. Considering Gabriella and Nancy didn’t want anything to do with most of the day-to-day nonsense of running this place, that left most of it on his plate. It annoyed him but he wasn’t about to sit back and let all his hard work of keeping this place safe go to waste.

“As I was telling this, idiot,” the overweight gentleman waved dismissively at his officer, “I will not be grubbing around in the dirt or working for my food. I have more than enough credits to pay for any services offered.”

“Officer,” Damien stated flatly when the man paused for a breath.

“What?” the man asked in confusion, his tirade disrupted by Damien’s single-word response.

“That man is an Officer. You will address him as such.”

The man scoffed. “I don’t think so. Do you know who I am? I could snap my fingers back home and get trash like you fired within the hour.”

Damien stepped into the man’s personal space, making the taller man take a step back. “Ugh, what are you doing?” Damien had met plenty of people like this man in his old life. Mostly rich kids who thought the world revolved around them. It was time to school this man in the realities of life.

“Do it,” Damien stated. “Snap your fingers, see what happens.”

The man looked around for any support, but his previous cheerleaders had suddenly gone very quiet.

“I’m waiting,” he prodded the man, who sniffed disdainfully at him.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but I will be filing a complaint about this abuse to your leadership.”

Damien flicked his eyes toward Alexander before the man vanished around a corner with his guest. It seemed he had no intention of stepping in to deal with this mess. Good. Damien wasn’t sure if the man was going to keep his word after stating he wouldn’t get involved with how they ran Eden’s End unless it concerned or impacted him. And this loudmouth looking for a new home surely didn’t fall into that category.

That meant it was time to do something Damien loved, correcting idiots.

“Let me set something straight for you, you lazy entitled asshole. We have zero need for your credits. I couldn’t care less who you are, or what family you came from. It obviously wasn’t a very influential one because you're out here.” He raised his voice so the rest of the people could hear. “You either work and contribute, or you can get the fuck out,” he gestured to the door with his stun stick. “I suggest you make your choice quickly and without causing a fuss before the ship leaves.”

That shut everyone up. But Damien made a mental note of the three people who had been the instigators of this whole ordeal. He would be keeping his eye on them.

Damien remained there while the Security Officer processed the remaining eight individuals. Two of the instigators grumbled and left. That was fine with him. That left the loudmouth and one other instigator to keep track of.

He was going to have to have a word with Kane about not allowing anyone in without a security check after this as well. That included his guests. Eden’s End had enough issues here without inviting more. The system they were using to check people for outstanding warrants was only updated once a month but it was better than what they were doing before, which was nothing. Before it was just Damien’s gut instinct that kept the major troublemakers out. He was glad the Hawks had agreed to give them a copy of the database and a scanner because his gut wasn’t always right.

Once the security checks came back clean, Damien and the other officer walked the people to the housing area. The loudmouth had a wife and two kids. Despite his annoyance with the man, Damien assigned them a three-bedroom home. The next two people were single, so they got smaller accomodations.

The first one immediately complained about it. Damien had a reply ready for that. “You don’t like it, find your own damn room.” That was most of the idiots taken care of. The next was a couple. He assigned them a slightly larger single bedroom. They were the first people to actually thank him. He just grunted and continued until he got to the last room and the final person, the teenage boy.

“You’re with Alex’s friend?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The teenager shrugged.

“Yes, or no kid, I don’t have time for your angsty bullshit.”

“Geez, is everyone here an asshole. Yeah, that’s my Gran. Are you happy?”

He didn’t answer, instead, he led the kid to a two-bedroom place. “You will share this with her. You are not allowed your own place until you come of age.”

The teen boy tsked. “I was considered an adult back on my homeworld.”

“I don’t give two shits about your homeworld. You live here, you follow our rules. If you don’t like it, you know where to go. Work for minors is posted on the job boards. You will be expected to contribute.”

“What? Why? My gran is obviously special.”

“Just because your gran knows Kane, doesn’t make you or her special. We won’t be handing out anything to either of you. So unless she makes some deal with Kane, you’re going to be shit out of luck, kid. I also suggest you curb that attitude of yours. I’ve known more than my fair share of kids just like you.”

“Pff, whatever. Just get out.”

The boy closed the door in Damien’s face.

“He’s gonna be a problem, isn’t he?” the other officer asked.

“We’ll see.” The kid reminded him of himself at that age; angry and with no father figure. Damien had his martial arts to fall back on when he was younger though, where this kid didn’t have anything. If the kid didn’t find something to give his life meaning, he was going to end up on the wrong side of the law at some point.

Damien thought briefly about training the kid but dismissed that thought just as quickly. He didn’t have the same patience with people as his mentor had. He barely had the patience to train his officers and they were adults. He was unfortunately like his father in that regard. It's why he decided never to have kids of his own.

After getting everyone situated, he grabbed the scanner and went in search of Alexander. He found the man in his workshop going over some technical diagrams with his guest.

“Can I help you, Damien?” the man asked curiously.

“Everyone gets scanned. No exceptions.” He waited to see if Alexander would balk at the request.

“My apologies, Damien. It slipped my mind, thanks for reminding me. Nova, would you mind?” Alexander gestured over to him.

He scanned her and did the standard check. When he saw a misdemeanor warrant on her record, he quirked an eyebrow. “Care to explain this?”

She chuckled when she saw that. “They still haven’t dismissed that. Those bastards on Borrus really do hold a grudge. I guess that’s a core world for you. If you must know, I was a bit of an activist in my youth. I was arrested a few times. Eventually, my family left the core world and moved to a new one. That warrant is probably older than you but if you feel you need to arrest me and ship me back there, here I am.” She held her arms out.

Damien narrowed his eyes at her. He hated flippant people, they reminded him of his brother. One annoying person in his life was enough. “I see where your grandson gets his attitude. I assigned you a joint room. Keep out of trouble and keep him out of trouble or else.”

“I’ll do my best, Officer.”

Damien returned the security scanner and stunner to the security room and made his daily rounds. He nodded curtly at any security people he came across. There were far fewer than there had been before the pirate attack. Every time he was reminded of that fact, it left a bad taste in his mouth. He should have been on the front line, helping instead of being stuck in the security room directing people. He wasn’t made to sit back and watch. But he didn’t trust anyone else to do it properly.

Even Kane didn’t know what the hell he was doing, just look at how his impenetrable defenses crumbled. Damien paused and took a deep breath. He had to stop doing that. To stop blaming people for every problem that arose. Shit happened, you couldn’t predict every situation. If it wasn’t for the defenses, the pirates would have overrun the facility. Even with them, it would have been a close thing if Kane hadn’t personally stepped in. He didn’t have to like the guy to understand that simple fact.

He saw the aftermath in the workshop and in the hallway where Kane fought the head pirate. They had both been heavily armored. There would have been nothing anyone could have done against them. Damien was an expert at hand-to-hand combat, but he wasn’t stupid. No amount of skill would have tipped the scales against an augment suit and their weapons weren’t strong enough to punch through that armor. That earned Kane a grudging respect in his eyes. If the man stopped keeping so many secrets, maybe Damien might even grow to trust him.

He took a side passage and turned down a flight of stairs marked ‘authorized personnel only’. The guard stationed at the top of the stairwell nodded to him as he passed. At the bottom of the stairs, Damien unlocked a door that led to the maintenance tunnels. Eventually, he arrived at a small workshop that had miraculously survived being stripped but had also recently received a host of new equipment. There was plenty of noise and activity coming from the room when he entered.

“How’s the project coming along?” he asked one of the engineers. When not working on one of Kane’s projects, the engineers trained by the Hawks and the learning plans were working here.

Alexander knew of this room, he had been the one to suggest it in the first place. It was just being hidden from everyone else in case there was another traitor. The man removed his goggles and wiped the sweat off his brow. “Slow.”

“So no progress at all?”

“I didn’t say that. I said it was going slow. That railgun dart did a number on the augment servos inside the armor. Not that they were all that good, to begin with. The armor itself is obviously junk. We were planning on recycling it and seeing if Kane could provide us with plans for something similar or even better.”

Damien grunted. “What about the big guns?”

The man rolled his chair over to another station. “Those we’ve had some better luck with. The minigun is perfectly fine. Just needs ammo. We’re trying to figure out a safe formula for a gunpowder alternative, or convert it over to flechette rounds.”

“You can do that?” Damien asked.

The engineer shrugged. “With Kane’s help, maybe. We might be better off melting it down and building it from scratch at that point though. And before you ask, the grenade launcher is fine. The grenades are useless though. Whatever that pirate’s ECM suite did to them, it ruined them completely. We managed to extract the explosives from the few remaining rounds, but all the sensors and smart controls built into them were fried. Kane said he doesn’t have anything that could replicate them at the moment. He did say the explosive compound inside the grenades could be produced locally though.”

“You mean he can replicate it,” Damien stated in annoyance.

“Yes, we’re not exactly running a state-of-the-art fabrication and manufacturing setup down here. I know the whole point was to ensure a backup manufacturing area and to allow the guards to come up with an answer for dealing with armored intruders, but until we get more sophisticated machinery, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Maybe you should stop seeing Kane as an outsider. He did practically save this place.”

“I don’t recall asking for your sage advice.”

“Suit yourself,” the engineer shrugged. He pulled out a metal tube that looked remarkably close to the smart grenades from the launcher.

“What’s that?”

“Kane gave me the plan for it. It’s a replacement grenade. They have a simple safety and a contact fuse. Nothing fancy. They can even be produced down here.”

“How many have you made?”

“Six. I also made six rounds that Kane called, ouchie rounds? It fires a dense rubber ball instead of an explosive. It would certainly hurt if you got hit with it. I think a pulse rifle would be more effective but I manufactured six of those as well. Not that it does us any good. The only person capable of lifting that launcher by themselves and using it without a stand is Kane. At least until we repair the augment suit or make our own.”

The augment suits and heavy firepower were an answer to a problem. If they ever had a repeat of the pirate attack, they needed something capable of putting the pirates down quickly and efficiently. And while Alex would likely be able to deal with any armored intruders, he couldn’t be everywhere. Damien was not willing to spend another eighty-six lives on a cobbled-together defense in the future, he wanted an answer to anything pirates could throw at them on the ground. That left the orbital defenses. He was out of his depth there but he would do his best.

“Keep at it, I’ll check in periodically.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man said, waving him off as he went back to work.