Blue Star Enterprises

By the time the whole unwanted visitor issue resolved itself, Alexander realized it was getting late. Not wanting to disappoint his daughter, he headed home to spend time with Yulia.

“Alex!” the girl greeted him excitedly, “Look what I made in class today!”

“Ooh! What is it?”

“It’s you, silly. See the arms and legs and face.”

“I think your picture is upside down, sweetie.”

She paused and turned the picture around to stare at it before turning it so it faced the correct way. “See!”

He chuckled at her exuberance. “I do see. Should we hang it up next to your other pictures?”

She nodded emphatically and they moved over to a large wall with numerous other pieces of her art stuck to it with magnets.

“How about here?” he asked, pointing to the top center of the wall.

Yulia acted like she was pondering the spot but Alexander had never seen her choose a different location after he picked. She grabbed one of the magnets and tried reaching, but she was too short.

“Do you want me to put it up?” he asked as she struggled.

She shook her head and continued to try until he sighed dramatically and lifted the giggling girl up so she could place it high on the wall.

“I finished your puzzle last night,” she puffed out after Alexander placed her back on the floor.

“You did? Well, let's see it then.” Yulia raced to her bedroom and a few minutes later returned with a robot that was a perfect scale model of the ones assembling the space station. The only difference was it was made from plastic, had six multi-jointed legs, and the middle arm used for tool attachments had been replaced by a happy-looking cartoon dog's face.

She grunted as she put the robot – which was almost as large as her – on the floor. Yulia had been working to assemble the thing for two months, ever since Alexander had built it for her. He didn’t want the other kids to feel left out of all the cool toys so he made all his designs available for trade. The kids could even earn points to get them themselves if they so desired. They just needed to pick up rubbish or help clean up. Nothing too onerous.

He figured allowing the kids to do small jobs would instill a sense of accomplishment and ownership to Eden’s End that the majority of the older drifters seemed to lack. He also let them do these jobs because he knew most of the parents were rather practical, and he doubted many would spend their hard-earned contribution on toys when they could purchase things like medical services or other hard-to-come-by items like the training modules. Alexander didn’t charge for kids to use the learning modules he had earmarked for children. Any child that attended classes got to learn at their own pace and study topics that interested them. He didn’t want to force them to do stuff they would find tedious or boring, that would only sour them on the whole classroom environment he was trying to foster. Down the line, he hoped to turn the loose classroom learning into something greater but that was a long-term goal.

After placing the lightweight six-legged-robot-dog-monstrosity down, she activated it with the remote.

The little holo projectors that served as the eyes lit up and they looked around before it let out a little mechanical *whorf*

Yulia giggled at that and ran over and hugged the neck. “It’s a dog right?”

“Um… yeah, something like that. Do you have a name for your new friend?” He wasn’t worried about the young girl being so close to the robot, it was mostly plastic, so the chances of it hurting her by accident were slim. They were even lower with her model since he used one of the advanced chips to implement a self-learning algorithm into the toy. The chip core was coated in dense non-metallic armor plating and hidden inside the body to protect it as well. If Yulia thought it odd, she hadn’t bothered asking about it. Was it a ridiculous waste of a very finite resource? Nope, not at all.

“…Dog?” she asked.

He chuckled, “If that’s what you want to call it, that’s fine with me.”

“Your new name is Dog!” she squealed happily. Dog barked once in response.

Now, Alexander might have included the kits for other kids to build their very own dog or if that didn’t interest them they could get the toy preassembled but he hadn’t included the self-learning component. That was a gift for Yulia only.

“Shall we take Dog for a walk?”

She nodded, “Come on Dog, I’ll show you around.” The robot barked once at the command and clumsily plodded along after the skipping girl.

Alexander chuckled internally and followed the pair out of the home. He had improved his programming by creating the interface for Dog. There was no need for a clunky remote control. As long as Yulia held the activator, it would follow her. Eventually, Dog would become smart enough that it didn’t even need that to keep track of its owner.

The trio made a circuit around their area. By the time they arrived back outside the door, the robot was moving much more naturally. Self-learning really did make things so much easier. He also realized it made him a lazy coder. After Yulia went to bed, he would pull the updated code from Dog and see what it improved so he could also improve his future coding.

Another thing had changed since the attack. He added code into Dog’s programming to alert him if Yulia was injured or in danger. It would also send a ping of her location in the facility to his tablet. It was a step back toward his overprotective instincts and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. With the Hawks gone, there was nobody else to keep an eye on her, besides her friend Markus. And he was only a few years older than she was.

The girl was a bit of a trouble magnet, some of that was because she didn’t like to follow prescribed rules until she actually got in trouble. Like the whole trying to explore incident, that got her and her friends in hot water with the Hawks.

The teen boy always having to bail her out of trouble was a different issue though. Alexander didn’t know how he felt about that. If they were both a bit older, he might suspect the boy had a crush on Yulia. It could just be a case of puppy love or maybe he loved her like a little sister. Either way, they were young enough that he didn’t feel the need to worry about it. The boy hadn’t been around much lately anyway because his new mother was keeping him rather busy. Eva Wu had adopted Markus after Alexander told her what he did for Yulia during the attack.

The nice older lady that Alexander had met aboard Petrov had changed since the attack. She went from a nice old lady to a firm taskmaster, who brooked no argument and was perfectly fine dishing out orders. Alexander suspected she had always been that sort of woman, but had mellowed out with age. Not that he minded. A lot more people would have died had she not rallied the security people and held off that large group of pirates until he arrived. She seemed to be raising Markus in the same manner, with a focused intensity.

The boy didn’t seem fazed at all by the change. The last time Alexander had run into Eva and Markus, the boy seemed happy.

“Will Yulia be coming to Markus’ fourteenth birthday party?” she had asked.

As if Alexander would ever deny Yulia from going to the boy's party after he saved her, not once, but twice.

That did remind him that Yulia was going to be ten soon. The orphanage didn’t have her exact date of birth, so it had just been registered as the date she was found. A bit cold if you asked him, but it was still a day to celebrate. He found it hard to believe how much she had grown in the last year. When he first met her, she was a skinny waif of a little girl. Now she was a normal, happy little girl who no longer looked underfed or short for her age.

It was amazing what a year of care could do. Her last birthday occurred shortly after they arrived at Eden’s End. It had just been a small party between the pair of them. He felt bad for keeping her away from people during those days, but he didn’t know who could be trusted during those first few weeks after arrival. He was determined to make it up to her for her tenth birthday though. Alexander wasn’t going to start planning anything or notifying people until after Markus’ party. He didn’t want to steal the spotlight from Markus’ birthday.

Speaking of Markus, Alexander had to come up with a gift for the boy. Technically, he already had one in mind, but that was more of a reward than a gift. Eva had given him an idea of what to offer the young man since Alexander didn’t know him very well. He was still mulling over that decision though. And how Eva would react when she found out. Eh, it would probably be fine.

***

The day of the teenager's party came rather quickly but Alexander was ready with the gift for him. Whether or not he liked it, would be another story.

Eva had managed to put together an amazing party, and there were hundreds of people attending in Atrium D, where the playground was. It made sense to host the party there for the kids.

As they approached the large gathering, Eva smiled and came to greet them.

“Yulia, Markus will be happy to see you. He’s over in the playground with the rest of the kids if you would like to join him.”

Yulia glanced at Alexander for approval. He nodded and she hurried off. They left Dog at home for the same reason he hadn’t announced Yulia’s party yet. This was Markus’ day.

“Alexander, it’s good to see you outside your workshop. I’ve been meaning to have a chat with you.”

“Oh? Is this about what happened during the attack?” he asked casually.

She smiled.

He smiled back. She wasn’t the only one who could be crafty.

“I feel like I’m becoming too predictable in my old age.”

Alexander chuckled. “It wasn’t hard to guess what you might want to talk about. Although there isn’t much I can say.”

“You can’t or that you won’t?” she asked quietly as they made their way through the other guests.

“A bit of both, I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, I like you Eva, but I don’t know if I can trust you with this.”

The woman nodded. “I assumed that might be the case after I spied on you for Mingyu. After I met you at Petrov station, I knew I would regret that action one day. Sometimes we do things for family we would never do for ourselves,” she sighed.

“I didn’t know you and Captain Na were related?”

“We aren’t, not by blood anyway. But I practically raised the boy since his mother never left the station and his father was busy being Captain.”

“Ah… I assume you have a guess as to what happened?” While he wasn’t willing to spill all his secrets, it might be good to know what she thought.

The woman nodded slightly. “Some sort of static field. But it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“I’ll tell you this much, Eva. I don’t know anything more than you do about that field. This body,” he waved at himself, “Wasn’t exactly a choice on my part.”

“And that made-up story about the medical pod?”

Alexander chuckled, “You’re the second person to call me out on that. But that’s part of what I won’t be sharing. I’m sorry.”

The woman nodded, her soft smile never leaving her face. “One day I hope you’ll trust me enough to tell me the whole tale. For now, I have other guests arriving. Please enjoy the party.”

He watched the older woman wander off. She had taken the rejection far better than he could have hoped. With that out of the way, he went in search of Markus Wu.

The boy was playing a spirited game of tag with the older kids. Alexander waited off to the side until the boy finally noticed him. Markus excused himself and walked over warily.

“What do you want?” he asked in suspicion.

Ignoring the terse response, Alexander pulled out a metallic card and handed it to the boy. Markus examined the blank card with a frown before looking back at Alexander.

“I seem to be doing this far too often, but I wanted to thank you for saving Yulia, again.”

Much like the first time, the boy's ears went red in embarrassment. He really needed to learn how to accept praise or stop being so damn chivalrous before he ended up as a tomato for the rest of his life. Before the boy could walk away or say something stupid like ‘he was just doing what anyone would do’, Alexander continued. “That card is locked to your DNA profile and gives you full access to every learning module. Not just the ones I authorized for the kids. Every single one… forever. If there is something you want to learn, that isn’t in there, let me know and I will do my best to get it.”

The boy opened and closed his mouth like a fish. It was good that he seemed to understand the implications of this gift. Considering what Eva had been spending her hard-earned contribution on, this would ease her burden as well.

The boy eventually stuffed the small card into his pocket. “Um… Thanks for the gift.”

The boy was about to go back to playing when Alexander stopped him. “That wasn’t your gift. That was a reward for doing what was right. This is your gift.” Alexander handed over one of the crystal cards he had been given by Captain Matthews.

Again the boy looked lost. He doubted many people would know what the item he just handed the boy was.

“Alexander!” Eva admonished as she strode up to them “Are you out of your mind?” She snatched the item from the boy's hand and went to pass it back to him. “You can’t just be handing these out to people all willy-nilly.”

He wasn’t surprised that the woman recognized the item, she had been a first mate for decades. Alexander didn’t take the fusion activation crystal from her. “You said the boy’s dream was to become a Captain, now he has a ship. I’ll fix it up and when he’s ready to take on that responsibility, it’ll be ready and waiting for him.”

She glared at him, but there was no anger in the expression, only annoyance. He watched that, while also watching the teenager's eyes bulge wide at the realization. Eva turned to the boy and her expression softened. “We’ll discuss this later tonight. Please thank Mr. Kane for his generous gift.”

He wondered what Eva would say when she found out about the other thing he gave him. Access to all those learning modules was worth way more than a ratty old pirate ship, even after it was fixed up.

The boy thanked him, profusely. The wariness and subtle hostility, that had always been in the teenager’s tone when he talked to Alexander, vanished from his voice for the first time. Alexander simply smiled and nodded at the boy before returning to the party.

Eva saw something special in the boy; that's why she adopted him, even though she told him back on the station she was too old to adopt. Alexander didn’t need her to tell him the boy was special, but her willingness to raise him did reinforce his thoughts on the matter. Since Alexander’s goal was to beat out the likes of Omni, he needed people like Markus who rose above their peers to make it happen. This was simply an investment towards that future.