Blue Star Enterprises

The three of them walked through the first door. Once it was shut behind them, a strong flow of air sucked any dust they might have accumulated into the filter below the grated floor.

“This is the only environmental lock that still functions!” Jallen shouted over the loud rush of air.

Soon the air settled and the light on the inner door turned green. Jallen pushed it open and stepped inside where he waited for Alexander and Yulia.

They didn’t take this entrance because it had a working environmental seal. From what he was told, that was kind of a moot point at the moment. No, he had to take it because this was one of the few cargo entrance doors. And those were the only doors his bulky body could currently fit through.

He didn’t know who had designed the original entrances to this structure, but they had only made the exterior doors six feet tall. Alexander could crouch to get through shorter doors, but they were also only thirty inches wide instead of the standard square six-foot by six-foot doors required by ships and stations. He had not found any way to slim his body to fit through such a tight space and doubted he ever would.

Thankfully this issue only applied to the exterior doors and some of the living spaces.

The interior corridor was wide enough for two vehicles to drive side by side. There were no signs of any vehicles as far as he could see though, but there were old signs the wide road had been heavily traveled at one time.

The three of them followed the old tire tracks up the gently sloping ramp. The ramp emptied into a large parking garage that was completely empty and extremely dark thanks to all the burned-out or missing lights. Alexander had no trouble seeing in the dark, but Jallen flicked on a light so he and Yulia could see.

“We’re not sure if there were vehicles left behind when the place was abandoned, but if there were, they aren’t here anymore.”

“The manifest didn’t mention any.”

“Ah,” the mercenary replied. “Probably sold off before they shut the place down then. This way,” he gestured with his light to another tunnel.

This one was half the width of the tunnel they entered, but there were still black marks along the curving surface to mark it had been heavily traveled. It wasn’t long until they exited the tunnel into a large expansive dome.

What impressed Alexander most about the nearly mile-wide dome was the complete lack of support except for a singular enormous beam right in the center that arched out overhead like a huge umbrella.

“Welcome to Atrium D, or you might hear the Hawks call it Area D.”

“It’s huge!” Yulia whispered in awe.

“Yeah, this is a pretty impressive structure,” Jallen admitted. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it in all my years.”

“Does that mean there are three more of these?” Alexander had looked at the structural plans, but he had been more focused on the technological aspect of repairing the place rather than the architecture.

“There are actually four, but the observation dome in the center is the one that collapsed. It was also three times the size of this space. It’s a shame. I would have loved to see what it looked like before.” Alexander could agree, a dome that was three miles wide would have been an impressive sight. And that dome had a transparent roof, unlike the others.

Despite the impressive size of the atrium, the room looked to be in total disrepair. There were only a dozen or so massive overhead lights still functioning, and half of those flickered on and off fitfully. The gloom from the massive chamber was held at bay by a bright area off to the far side.

“Come on, the person you want to speak to is at the base camp.” They headed straight for the lighted area.

Alexander focused his perception over there and took in the small camp bustling with people being scanned and handed ID chips. It was only after the Hawks finished scouring the facility that they started handing out ID’s. Nobody without an ID could pass the checkpoints they set up.

It was a measure to ensure people didn’t start causing trouble. Surprisingly, the people weren’t too upset by the development. They weren’t all that happy with it either, but they complied so they could return to their homes and their families.

“Yulia,” Alexander kneeled down. “Why don’t you go introduce yourself?” He pointed to some kids playing in the dirt nearby. They looked younger than his adopted daughter, but that should be fine.

She looked unsure for a moment before nodding and wandering over to the group. She was close enough that Alexander could keep an eye on her if he needed to, but far enough away not to intrude on any discussions. He didn’t want her too close if things got heated with the people formerly in charge.

Soon a group of three led by another Team Leader approached him. Alexander took the group in, he saw their hesitation when they first saw him, but that didn’t seem to stop them from approaching. The man leading the group stuck out his hand and Alexander shook it. “Travers. And the people behind me are Damien Laront, Gabriella, and Lucas Laront.”

Damien stepped forward but crossed his arms as he glared at Alexander, “Just Damien. My bastard of a father’s last name was Laront, and I don’t much care being reminded of him.”

Alexander watched the two people with Damien roll their eyes. It was kinda funny.

“So,” Damien continued. “We your slaves now?”

“…Huh?” Alexander was caught off guard by the question.

“Rich man who runs around greeting people through a robot buys out someplace beyond the rim. Only a few reasons to do that. Either he wants to be left alone or he wants to do shit so heinous the STO would shut him down. Since these bastards aren’t stunning the lot of us and dragging us into orbit, I figured it was the latter.”

“I… What?”

The other man stepped forward and sighed. “Ignore my older brother. He tends to get testy when his authority is challenged.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it, Lucas!”

Everyone just looked at the man. This Damien character was blunter than a dead-blow hammer.

“Um, look,” Alexander spoke, “I think you have the wrong idea here. I’m not rich… well, I mean technically I am. But only due to some fluke circumstances. I don’t know you people, so I’m not going to be going into my whole history. Suffice it to say, I’m not here entirely by choice. As for why I picked this place. I imagine I picked it for the same reason you all did.”

“So you’re a drifter, like us?” Gabriella spoke up for the first time.

Damien snorted at that. “Never seen a drifter hire a core group of mercs and bring down enough supplies for a family to live off of for the rest of their lives.”

“Yes, I bought the station. Yes, that will come with some restrictions. But I don’t want to have to police the people here, I expect you to do that yourselves. Form a council, elect a president, I don’t care. Just realize that whatever you decide, I will have a majority vote. I think that is more than fair for allowing you to stay here. I don’t wish to be involved in your politics, I only want a safe place to raise my daughter and to be left alone by those like Omni and the STO. If you don’t like that, you and anyone else are free to leave. The Hawks will drop you off at the nearest station and you can go wherever you want from there.”

“Why should we leave? We were here first,” the man bristled at Alexander’s tone.

He would rather be teaching Yulia or working on some project than standing here arguing semantics with this man. “And that’s why I asked the Hawks to just sort out the criminals. Look, my goal here is to turn Y6X-3H2-4 into something someday. And that starts with fixing up this outpost. But I can’t do that alone. I want to work with the people who live here. The only part of the facility I need for myself is the manufacturing yard. And one empty apartment for me and my daughter.”

Damien narrowed his eyes, but Alexander saw a bit of tension leave him as he slowly uncrossed his arms. “First off, we aren’t using that stupid name.”

Progress? He had wielded the stick, now it was time to offer the carrot. “Then what do you call the planet?”

“Eden’s End.”

“Hmm. Seems a bit dour, but if that’s what everyone calls it, I’ll update the registry. See, compromise. We can work together to improve all of our lives. I don't want to rule over you or any such nonsense like that. As you said before, I just want to be left alone. Just not so alone that I might lose my mind. There is a lot of work to accomplish if we are going to fix this place. That means plenty of work for anyone who wants to get paid.”

“What, in STO credits? I think you’ll find most people here have little to no use for that shit.”

Alexander made his hologram form a hand to rub its chin. He hadn’t put much thought into the fact that his millions of STO credits would suddenly be useless out here. But he had brought way more things than he could ever use himself. It was time to put those items to use. “I have other things to trade.”

“Such as?”

Alexander turned to Jallen and Travers. “Do either of you have a tablet that can link to Captain Daniel?” He would have used his comm bracelet, but he had quickly learned of the shortcomings of the little devices. They were useless without a Qcomm relay or the secure storage nodes that the courier ships possessed. And he didn’t have a radio.

Travers unhooked a smaller device from his belt and handed it to him. Alexander quickly connected to the Captain and got the manifest of all his cargo sent over. He scrolled through it and removed items he wasn’t willing to trade before handing it to the dark-haired and tan-skinned Damien.

The man and his companions spent the better part of ten minutes just scrolling through the list of items Alexander had brought with him.

Lucas Laront was the first to speak up. “You would share these training modules and schematics with us?”

“Sure, why not?”

“…Uh, no reason,” the man went back to looking at the items for offer.

That was curious, but what was more curious was how interested both Jallen and Travers seemed to become when the man spoke about the modules.

Damien handed the tablet back to Travers. “I want a copy of this list sent to all the terminals so anyone here can access it and decide what they want to work for.”

“Does that mean we have a deal?” Alexander asked hopefully.

The man grunted and walked off. His brother and Gabriella translated that grunt for him at the same time. “That means yes.”

He thanked the pair before they hurried to catch up with the prickly Damien.

“What a wonderful man,” Jallen responded flatly.

“Oh, I don’t know. The man seems to care a lot about the people here. In my eyes, that’s a good feature. If he’s a bit prickly, so be it.” Honestly, Alexander found dealing with the straightforward Damien quite refreshing. It was certainly better than dealing with the people he had back on Petrov Station.

The Field Leaders shrugged.

“You said you wanted to secure the manufacturing hub for your own?” Travers asked.

Alexander nodded.

“If you want, we can head over there right now.”

He went over to retrieve Yulia, It seemed she was having a difficult time retrieving her tablet from the group of kids. The kids stopped fighting over the device as soon as they saw Alexander approach. A few started crying, but the entire lot of them dropped the tablet and ran off. He sighed.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

Yulia looked more angry than upset. “I can’t understand them.”

“They’re still young, they don’t know how to share quite yet.” His parenting help books were coming in handy once again!

“I know that,” she huffed as she picked up her tablet. “I played with the younger kids at the orphanage. I can’t understand what they are saying.”

“…Oh…” Oh shit. Everyone on Petrov spoke a derivative form of the Slavic language which was the primary language of the Coalition before its downfall, which was already a mish-mash of a few Eastern European languages. Alexander just realized the language he was hearing spoken here was mainly derived from English. Even the Hawks spoke this new English most of the time. They only switched the Slavic when in his company.

“I think I have a tutorial that will teach you how to understand them.” Or so he hoped. If not, he would have to teach her himself or find someone here who could speak both languages. It seemed most people spoke at least a few different languages in this century, so there was a good chance he could find someone to assist.