“You want to join Katalynn Char?” Krieger asked in concern. “I thought the whole point was to just ally ourselves with them against Harlow and be done with it?”
“It was,” Alexander admitted. “Char brought up some points that I hadn’t considered or wasn’t even aware of. The biggest issue is that an alliance would simply be with the fleet here. If you can convince me that we could win against Harlow with the ships we have here and the ones you see in Char’s fleet, I’m all ears. We also need to consider what happens after the fight with Harlow is concluded.”
“What do you mean?” Krieger asked.
“The Asgardians have a claim on Unokane. Whether this is legally binding or not is up for debate, but I doubt the Lagertha would have mentioned it if they didn’t believe it belonged to them. And we can’t rely on STO maps for who owns what because the STO maps still claim most of the Asgardian space as part of their territory.”
“So they would attack us at some point? Why not try reaching out to the STO?” Krieger asked. “I know it’s not an ideal solution, but it’s better than selling out to pirates.”
Alexander was shocked by the former STO captain’s suggestion. “Would you truly want me to partner with the STO after how they treated you? Even if you still did, you know that the STO charter expressly forbids getting involved with non-charter world conflicts. Unokane would have to join the STO in full in order to earn that protection and we would lose far more rights under their jurisdiction than we would under the Asgardians. And that’s just the start. Because we aren’t at a certain population threshold, we wouldn’t even get a say in who our planetary governor would be. We would simply be added to the nearest governor’s territory as an afterthought. Even if we somehow managed to gain our own planetary governor under the STO, considering how they protected the old Coalition worlds, I wouldn’t count on much help from them,” Alexander said in disgust.
Alexander didn’t even mention the part where he would be forced to put all of his inventions up on their network and the corporations would likely steal or try to claim them all for themselves. He would rather work with actual pirates than subject Unokane to that.
“I still don’t see the reason why you would consider her proposal. I thought you turned Unokane into a sovereign nation to have control of the system?” Krieger questioned.
“While being a sovereign nation certainly has its advantages, that’s not really why I did it. I claimed Unokane because I didn’t want the STO or corporations coming through and doing the same to gain control over what I was doing. Joining the STO would undermine that reasoning entirely. Joining the Asgardians would have some slight restrictions and requirements, some of which we are already doing, but we would still be an independent nation and everyone would still enjoy the same freedoms they do under me.”
“I understand why we set out for this meeting,” Hall spoke up. “Allying yourself against a mutual enemy is sometimes required. The Coalition and the STO did so during the Shican War, but a temporary alliance is not the same as joining them. I can’t condone joining pirates. If you persist with this agreement, I will be turning in my resignation after Harlow is defeated.”
While Alexander was surprised Hall was the one to bring this up, he wasn’t surprised by the sentiment. Most of what the STO Navy did was fight off pirates so it was understandable that the man might have reservations.
“And you would be completely within your right to do so, Captain Hall, if the Char clan or Asgardians were actually pirates.”
“What do you mean if they were? Of course, they are, the STO-”
“-says so,” Alexander finished for the man. “Let me ask all of you. Have any of you ever heard of an attack within STO space perpetrated by Char’s people?”
He gave the people on the other end of the conference call time to think. When no reply came after a minute, he continued.
“From what the Lagertha told me, and from what my aide, Mr. Pembrooke was able to determine, there hasn’t been a single instance of a battle between the STO and the Char clan for over a century.”
“If that’s the case, why haven’t they tried improving their relations with the STO?” Captain Ramirez asked.
Alexander filled the group in on the history of the relations between the STO and the Asgardians, at least the little of it that he knew. “Would you be inclined to trust them if they did that to your homeworld?” he asked.
Alexander paused as some things clicked in his mind. “Now that I think about it, this does help explain why the STO built their naval yard in Varlen. It always bugged me that they would use a site so close to a potential enemy to produce their classified ships. For regular vessels and repair, sure it makes sense, but not experimental vessels and restricted technology. You’ve all seen how much of their fleet power they’ve stripped from that system. I’m pretty sure Eden’s Fury could single-handedly take out all of the normal ships that they have remaining. If that’s the case, Katalynn Char would have no problem taking that system, and I can assure you her intelligence people are at least informed about Varlen’s diminished fleet size.”
The group contemplated that for a bit before Krieger spoke up again. “What you say seems to make sense, but I’m certainly not going to take her word or the word of Mr. Pembrooke at face value. I assume since you accessed the network that they have a Qcomm. If Char is willing to allow me to send a communication through it, I can get a verifiable and trusted source to answer this question. It may take a bit though.”
“I assume you are referring to the Vice Admiral. If that’s the case I concur. What do you need to make that happen?” Alexander asked. If anyone knew about the history of pirate attacks it would be the STO’s Head of Naval Intelligence.
“I’m not willing to leave my ship while we are in hostile space, so she would need to turn on global receive mode so I can send from space.”
Alexander groaned internally at that. Mostly because he remembered just how much of a pain it was to switch the modes over on his own Qcomm.
After adjourning the meeting, he quickly built a data packet with everything he knew about the Qcomm. Once that was complete, he contacted the Lagertha.
“Kane,” the woman replied as the call connected. “Have you come to a decision already?”
“Not yet,” he admitted, seeing no need to lie to the woman. “Krieger wishes to speak with one of his STO contacts to confirm some things before we can continue our discussion.”
“He is welcome to come down and use the network. I will have a Loki escort him to it.”
“That’s just it. He doesn’t want to leave the fleet at the moment. He would like to connect to it without leaving his ship.”
“A wise choice considering he is in possible enemy space, but the Qcomm we purchased was not set to accept anything other than hardwired communications. My people have attempted to figure out how to switch this, but have been unsuccessful so far.”
“What if I could offer you the settings and the exact process you need to go through to turn this feature on? Would that be worth something to you?”
The woman seemed to straighten in her seat as she stared at him. “You know how this is done? How? Wait, don’t answer that. You purchased a Qcomm array directly from the manufacturer and they showed you how, didn’t they?”
“Yes. Are you interested in this information?”
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“Of course. I’m interested. Do you know how jealously Qcomm guards this configuration data? As for what it will get you, a whole lot of goodwill with the people of Yggdrasil’s Eye, that’s what. That might not seem like much, but trust me, I would rather have that than money.” She snapped her fingers to someone outside of the camera’s field of view and a Loki appeared. “Work with Loki. If they are able to turn on the global receive settings, your captain is more than welcome to send his little message.”
The trade seemed kind of one-sided despite her claims, but Alexander needed to hear what Fletcher had to say on this matter more than he cared about keeping another company's secret.
It didn’t take long for Alexander to transmit the data packet down to the planet. Once Loki confirmed it came through properly, the man hurried off and the call cut out. He figured he should be used to the lack of niceties by now, but it still shocked him how abrupt the Asgardians could be at times.
It took a few hours, but Alexander finally got confirmation that the settings did indeed work. The Asgardian Qcomm was now accepting all global communications from linked devices.
The configuration settings weren’t all Alexander had included in the data packet. He had given the Asgardians all of the information he had learned about the Qcomms, as well as the design for his buffer if they were inclined to build it.
Alexander could have kept this information to himself, but if Fletcher’s response was what he expected it to be, a little goodwill never hurt. If Fletcher’s information didn’t corroborate Char’s, their being able to intercept messages would only hurt any possible corporate spies that might be on Asgard. Both outcomes worked in his favor.
Krieger sent his message and while they were waiting, Alexander sent one of his own, checking on Eden’s End.
“Oh wow,” Lucas replied. “Things must be going well if they gave you access to their communication network.”
“We’re still in talks,” Alexander admitted. “How are things going there?”
“They could be better. We’ve caught two more infiltration attempts. Nothing as sophisticated as Dalton’s but both people tried to sneak weapons in the same way. One was killed while attempting to flee, and the other was arrested and placed in holding after her weapons were surgically removed.”
“Is Yulia and everyone else ok?”
“Everyone's fine. They didn’t even get past the intake area before they were discovered. I doubt most people even know anything happened. We also have two guards keeping an eye on your girl while she is out and about. I believe you are familiar with one of the men, Travers from the Hawks. The other is one of the locals, a man by the name of Dorry. You helped save him during the pirate attack and he wasn’t dumb enough to fall for Sorin’s lies or join the insurrectionist guards so he can be trusted. As for the surviving woman, they have her in holding. Damien’s attempts to get her to speak haven’t had much results. My brother is good at security, but not good with interrogations. So we asked Eva Wu to speak with the woman.”
Alexander was glad to hear Yulia was ok.
“Eva, really?” He was surprised by that. He knew the woman had taken up some sort of position helping Damien, but he hadn’t really spoken to her in months, even before they left. Some of that probably had to do with the fact that his secret had gotten out. The woman had seemed shocked by the revelation but not angered by it or anything.
“Oh, yeah,” Lucas admitted. “I don’t know what Eva said to the woman, but she spilled her guts shortly after. Apparently, there is an open bounty on you for ten million credits.”
“That’s less than ideal,” Alexander grumbled. “What’s going to happen to the woman?”
Lucas shrugged. “Kinda figured she would remain in lockup until you got back.”
“Alright, leave her there. Unless there’s anything else, I would like to speak with Yulia.”
“Are you sure you want me to wake her?” Lucas asked. “It’s midnight here.”
Alexander cursed internally. He hadn’t even bothered to look at what time it was. His fleet, just like Eden’s End, ran on STO standard time, which was based on Earth’s twenty-four-hour day-night cycle. That didn’t work for most planets since they had more normal day-night cycles, but it worked for Eden’s End because most of the facility was encased in concrete and the long planetary rotation time was hidden from most people.
“I’ll record a message for her, please make sure she gets it when she wakes up.”
“Sure thing.”
Alexander sent the message. He really missed his daughter and would soon have been separated from her for longer than they had been apart since they first met. She said she was ok with him leaving this time, but he still worried that she would harbor a grudge over his absence. At least the Asgardians had a Qcomm to contact her. If he agreed to this deal with Char, it was going to mean more time away. He really needed to find a way to communicate from a ship so he could at least stay in touch.
He already had an idea of how the Qcomm worked after getting a better look at the orb hidden inside the armored casing. Most of his understanding came from an offhand comment an instructor in one of his engineering lectures had made. Alexander hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but the lecturer’s mention of a spheroid being the ideal resonance chamber for holding entangled particles bubbled to the surface when he first saw that suspended orb.
Of course, at that time, he had no idea what an entangled particle was, but once he saw the orb and recalled that lecture, he looked into the science further. It took additional digging into some physics lectures before he learned about the phenomenon. While that helped him understand the concept, he still had no idea how to go about creating them.
Alexander was tempted to contact Lucas again and ask him to check on some of the long-running experiments he had going back on Eden’s End, one of which was an experiment involving creating those linked particles. He restrained himself though. They could wait until he returned.
He couldn’t have even gotten that experiment started without help, which came in the form of their resident scientist. Nova had pointed him in the right direction, but she didn’t know how the effect was achieved either. She said quantum entangling particles wasn’t germane to her research.
While he was mulling over the issue once more, the communication officer alerted him to an incoming call from Krieger. It had been a few hours since their meeting, so Alexander was hoping for some good news.
When the meeting reconvened, Krieger looked a bit pensive.
Alexander got a sinking feeling in his gut. If Fletcher denounced everything that Char said as a lie, they would be forced to leave immediately and hope for the best. “Is it bad news?” he asked.
“No,” Krieger stated. “Char and her people were telling the truth. There are no instances of Char piracy within the STO’s borders. The only accounts of attacks come from outside STO space and are from survivors or prisoners who were sold back to family or corporations. Fletcher also stated that- that he admires the Asgardians. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say he admires anyone, so I was a bit shocked to hear him say that about a group I thought were pirates.”
“That’s a good thing though, right?” Alexander inquired.
Krieger shrugged. “It likely means he’s known for some time that they aren’t pirates. He also mentioned that you owed him for this info and you could repay it by amending your contract to include an additional fifteen propulsion systems.”
“He sent this all over the Qcomm?” Alexander looked shocked.
Krieger shook his head. “It all came encrypted, I simply used the Eden ships’ computers to decrypt the message since they had enough processing power to do so. I was able to verify the message’s authenticity as well as the fact that it hadn’t been tampered with. Fletcher included certain words in the audio response as well as other keys that the black ops teams use.”
“I guess that’s fine then. Thank him for me and let him know Blue Star Enterprises will deliver.” He made a mental note to reach out to Lucas after this meeting to inform him. “Now that we have confirmation from an outside source, are there any other concerns?”
Everyone shook their heads, including Captain Hall.
“I guess it’s settled then. I will speak to Char in the morning to discuss a few other concerns. If everything seems good, I will likely sign her agreement and complete the process to join the Asgardian Union.”
It still felt a bit weird to Alexander to give up full autonomy, but this option provided the necessary fleet strength and backing he needed as well as ensuring there was no territorial dispute over Unokane later. Not that there had been any attacks since the initial misunderstanding with Char, but it would be good to know that wouldn’t be the case going forward either.
Joining the Asgardians also avoided all the bullshit rules and corporate nonsense that working with the STO would entail. The laws stated in the agreement weren’t that far off from the ones he was already implementing back on Eden’s End so tweaking them slightly wasn’t much of a problem.
His main concerns were the military requirements, which he was most likely going to fill by building automated ships. Then there were the responsibilities that came with the title of Jarl.
The packet seemed to include that information, but Alexander needed to get the full breakdown of what being a Jarl entailed to ensure he wasn’t stepping into a huge pile of bio-waste.
There was the issue of the rogue Jarl to consider as well. Alexander would need to talk with Katalynn about that before accepting this position. He would assist if requested, but his primary concern was Harlow. Even more so now that the man had placed a bounty on his head and it was attracting even more unwanted attention to Unokane.
He did wonder what the residents of Eden’s End might think of this change. The drifters would likely take it in stride since they had originally made an agreement with Katalynn’s father. The refugees would be another matter, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. A victory over Harlow would make winning them over much easier.
With that and the fleet captains already on his side, he really didn’t have any other concerns. There were likely to be some growing pains and adjustments to the way they did things, but he was changing stuff so often on Eden’s End that people were already used to adjusting their expectations. Joining the Asgardians would probably smooth things out and stabilize a lot of little things that Alexander hadn’t gotten around to yet.