Alexander felt immense relief when they jumped into Unokane, but he couldn’t just sit back and enjoy being home. He still had some work to do. The first item on his agenda was meeting with Krieger.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me before we depart for the surface,” Alexander said.
“Alex, I work for you. There’s no need to thank me for doing a part of my job.”
“Still,” Alexander made his avatar smile. “I know you’re busy managing the fleet.”
“So, what’s up?”
“A few things. Could you message Theo and ask him to gather a list of people? I want to announce my arrival once and answer as many questions as possible to save time.”
“Um, sure, but couldn’t you just message him?”
“I could, but without a comm node, it would go to the traffic control team, and then news of my return would spread before we even landed.”
Krieger groaned. “You want to surprise everyone, don’t you?”
“You have to find joy where you can,” Alexander’s avatar smirked, “and I enjoy surprising people.”
“Fine,” the man grudgingly agreed. “What else did you want to discuss?”
“Can you give me an overview of how the war is going. I would have asked sooner, but I was in a hurry to get home and sort of forgot to ask.”
“I was wondering when you would bring it up. I have a full report for you, but I can give you the highlights. There are a total of four Asgardian fleets patrolling the border and skirmishing with the Shican, adding up to just over two hundred vessels. The BSE fleet makes up the fifth fleet, and we are tasked with rapid deployment since we can operate in much smaller numbers thanks to our technological advantages.”
Alexander held up his hand to stop Krieger’s report and ask a follow-up question. “How many of the Asgardian ships have the new upgrades?”
“Not as many as we would like, but each fleet has at least two of Valkyrie class heavy cruisers with the shields and energized armor. A few destroyers in each fleet managed to get the upgrades as well, but most of the ships don’t have either upgrade, which is why they are resorting to hit-and-run tactics to keep the Shican in place.”
“And that’s working?” Alexander asked in surprise.
“Honestly? No. Char and I both believe that the enemy has been dragging its feet, waiting for something, and now we know that something was the Grand Commander. Once he arrives and pulls the enemy fleet back together, the war will shift. We will likely be forced into a fighting retreat, just to keep them from rolling over the first Asgardian world they reach.”
“I can see our orbital defenses have been significantly increased in the past eight months. How well are the Asgardian worlds prepared?”
One of the first things Alexander had noticed as they flew toward Eden’s End was the sheer number of defenses. When he last left, the planet had just over eight thousand laser pod satellites, and the first two moons sported about half that together. Now, there were over twenty thousand satellites around Eden’s End alone, with the two moons having nearly eight thousand, matching the planet’s earlier count.
“Some are better prepared than others,” Krieger admitted. “All of the Asgardian worlds had orbital defenses before we joined the Union, so no world is completely unguarded, but some of the worlds closer to the border did not have the necessary industries to produce the laser pods. We didn’t leave those worlds hanging. Shipments from Asgard and Eden’s End were sent as fast as we could fill ships. We could have done more, but the loss of the mining vessels set us back months. We still haven’t replaced all those ships. Once the enemy armada was spotted, I asked Lucas to switch all production to combat vessels.”
That’s not the choice Alexander would have made, but if everyone assumed the Shican armada was going to keep pushing into Union space, having more combat ships as quickly as possible made sense. Now that the enemy had seemingly stopped, Alexander would have to speak with Lucas about fast-tracking as many mining bots and control ships as possible.
“What about the STO, and that mission to destroy their enrichment facilities?”
The question made his Admiral turn sour. “Before the operation could even kick off, the STO was forced to pull back most of their fleet to deal with the Shican fleet rampaging through their territory. They did leave their stealth ships, however, and with our combined stealth vessels, we did manage to destroy the facilities.”
“Yet you don’t seem very happy about that,” Alexander pointed out.
“I’m not. When I got the after-action report from the STO, I saw that the facilities were completely unguarded. You don’t abandon a facility like that unless it no longer serves a purpose. Captain Voss and her crew were the only Union representatives along for the mission. When they requested to board one of the facilities to look for more clues as to why they had been abandoned, they were overruled by the STO captains.”
“So now we don’t know if the weapons were ever there, or moved before we even arrived,” Alexander replied.
“Precisely,” Krieger said in annoyance. “If they didn’t have a good excuse for not wanting to delay their return, I would have accused them of abandoning their agreement. The only good thing that came out of that plan was the fact that the STO unanimously voted to extend our agreement with them until the end of the conflict. It seemed like having the small Shican fleet ravage their systems and them not being able to do much finally gave them the wake-up call they needed to look beyond their upcoming election.”
“Thank you for the information. It looks like we are entering orbit, so I’ll cut this call short and look over the report when time permits.”
Krieger nodded and ended the video call.
Alexander turned to Rush. “Would you be able to remain on board and dock the ship?”
“I would be delighted,” the man said with his usual cheery smile. He even lowered his feet, which had been propped up on the console.
Alexander thanked Rush for agreeing to remain aboard to dock the ship, then headed toward the airlock with Four and Serina as he let his thoughts wander.
It felt good to be home, but he still felt a bit apprehensive about introducing the AIs and also about changing into a human form. He was worried about how Yulia and his friends would react. Not just with the fact that Rush, Four, and Serina were AIs, but about him as well.
If Yulia were still a young girl, she probably would have just shrugged it off. She never much cared about his appearance when she was younger. Now that she was nearly an adult, he couldn’t say for sure how she would react.
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He didn’t want to alienate her after she finally called him dad. That memory had been a large reason he had driven himself so hard to return.
The trio arrived at the airlock only moments before the ship shook slightly as the shuttle docked.
The three of them stepped aboard, once more greeted by Markus. The young man was smiling this time around, but he still saluted. It was completely unnecessary, since Alexander wasn’t in the man’s chain of command, but he supposed he was still a captain. He saluted back, and the young man dropped his hand and moved aside to let them find their seats.
Most of the seats were filled with other sailors waiting to take some much-needed downtime, but there were no other captains aboard, and Krieger was absent as well. Alexander had expected as much, since he had been present during the meeting to designate military doctrine.
One of the most important rules was that no two captains could share the same shuttle unless no other option was available. It was designed to prevent the loss of an entire command crew in case of an accident or sabotage, and Alexander had wholeheartedly supported it.
A few of the sailors looked up and nodded at him, but most seemed either too tired or too eager to get home to pay much attention. Despite Alexander asking Krieger to keep his appearance quiet, he knew as soon as the crews landed, word of his return would spread like wildfire through Eden’s End.
The trip down was smooth and effortless. Markus really was an excellent pilot.
Disembarking was an interesting affair. As the ramp lowered to let them off, they were met by nearly a hundred people streaming from other shuttles and heading for the intake center.
Alexander spotted Krieger and the other captains off to the side and headed toward them. The crowds parted for them as the three of them passed through.
“You sure you want to do it this way?” Krieger asked.
“I am,” Alexander reiterated. “I need to rip this band-aid off so I can focus on what truly matters.”
The man nodded and gestured to follow him. Alexander knew the way to the private side entrance, but he let Krieger lead the way as the other captains lined up behind them.
He felt a tug on his arm and looked down to see Serina looking worried.
He stopped and bent down for the AI girl. “What’s up?” he asked quietly.
“I’m afraid Yulia will hate me for what we did,” she said in a voice so quiet, he barely heard it.
He nodded his avatar in understanding. “She won’t be happy, I can assure you of that. If you want her to forgive you, give her a sincere apology for your actions. It may take time for her to come around, but she will eventually.”
Serina nodded softly.
Alexander stood again and thanked the group for pausing to wait for him. Considering they were super advanced AIs, it was easy to forget that most of the Collective was little more than children when it came to dealing with emotions and social understanding. Some were a bit farther along than others, but the gap wasn’t that wide.
They entered the facility, and Alexander braced himself for what was to come.
The room Theo chose for the meeting was a small auditorium in the academy. Alexander waited in the back hall as the room grew louder, as people filtered in. Now that he was back home, he tapped into the security cameras and watched as people he was very familiar with took seats.
Lucas, his brother Damien, and Gabriella were seated near the front. They had concerned looks on their faces. From the scattered conversations Alexander was able to piece together, people were concerned by seeing the fleet back in the system so soon, and down two vessels. A few scattered conversations mentioned his vessel, but those mostly came from people like Lucas and a few of the engineers Alexander had worked with.
Lucas assumed the ship was a sign that Krieger finally had a lead on Alexander.
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
Yulia hurried into the room a few moments later, Dog hot on her heels. Alexander almost ran out to embrace his daughter the moment he saw her. She had grown in his absence. Alexander knew she would never be very tall, but she had put on a full inch of height. His daughter had also let her hair grow out. He could see the woman she would become in only a few short years.
He knew it was cruel not to see her right away, but there was no way he would have been able to see her beforehand without news of his arrival spreading. If that had happened, he would have been stopped endlessly for questions, and he wanted to stop as many interruptions as he could right off the bat. Once the meeting was over, it was straight to work.
He wouldn’t even be going through this rigamarole if he could have avoided it, but he had been gone for nearly eight months. Other than showing off that he could change to look human, he was sure there were going to be plenty of questions.
He watched quietly as Archie took a seat. The academy head didn’t look concerned by the gathering, but he did give Krieger a questioning eye. The Admiral either chose to ignore the unspoken question or didn’t see it.
A few more people filtered in, then came Eva Wu, followed by Theo. The man nodded to Krieger, then shut the doors and took the seat in the back.
The Admiral cleared his throat, and the room fell silent. “I’m sure you all have questions about why the fleet is back and why we gathered you all here today. As some of you have speculated, it has to do with Alex and the mystery ship that came with us.”
Yulia shot to her feet. “Have you found where they took Alex?”
“Instead of answering a thousand questions, why don’t I allow our guest to tell you all about that?”
That was Alexander’s cue.
He opened the side door leading into the classroom, and the room erupted into gasps of surprise and one tear-filled wail as Yulia tore across the room and slammed into him. He used his body to deflect the force so she wouldn’t hurt herself.
She didn’t notice as she sobbed into his chest. “I knew you’d be back!”
Alexander hugged her back. He was glad he hadn’t gone through all the trouble of turning himself human yet. He was sure that if he had, he’d be bawling his eyes out along with her.
Yulia collected herself after a moment, wiping her eyes dry. “Did you kill them? I hope you killed them for what they did.”
That was more bloodthirsty than he thought he would ever hear from her. “I’ll discuss that in a bit. Do you want to stand up here with me or wait in the seats?”
She chose to stay by his side, and he could feel the protectiveness radiating from her and Dog of all things.
He turned to address the now silent room. “I’m back, and the people who took me will no longer be a problem.”
That was all it took to open the floodgates of questions.
He answered the questions as they came, but some were more sensitive than others. He avoided answering anything about the ship as there were people in attendance who did not have the security clearance to know such things. The crew of the vessel was another matter.
“How did you get free?” Eva asked. “Rumor has it that Rush and his people were aliens in disguise. The same ones that took down the hypergates.”
That’s exactly why he wanted to speak with everyone at once. He had lived on Eden’s End long enough to know that rumors traveled faster than light in the tight-knit community.
“I had help,” he admitted, then he pinged Four and Serina.
They strode into the room, but Serina couldn’t meet Yulia’s death glare. Alexander knew that Dog wanted to act to protect them, but he locked its programming with a thought, having already established a connection to the robotic companion.
The two remained off to the side of the room as Alexander introduced them. “Meet Four and Thirteen, although she went by Serina while she was here. These two, along with Rush, also known as One by their group, helped me escape. They did so at great cost to themselves and have agreed to help us with our fight against the Shican.”
“Couldn’t they have done that without abducting you?” Damien demanded as he also gave a death glare to the pair.
“While I would have preferred that outcome as well,” Alexander replied, “taking me actually saved everyone’s lives here.”
Alexander held up a hand to forestall any questions. “I’ll explain. A few of you were familiar with me before I came here, but to keep things short, I was damaged, quite badly. Some sort of internal function repaired the outer damage after I was attacked back on Petrov Station, but the reactor contained within my body was slowly degrading. If I had been left here, Eden’s End would be a smoking crater by now.”
That drew murmurs of surprise.
“So they fixed your reactor?” Eva Wu asked once the room had settled. “Does that mean they also built you?”
“Not exactly. I’ll send you all off with a detailed report of what I learned, but the quick truth is that I created them before I was damaged.”
Lucas was the first to grasp the implications of that statement. “True AI?” he asked in awe.
To keep the meeting moving along, Alexander ignored the question. He knew if he answered it, Lucas would keep them all here for days.
“They couldn’t make repairs to my body. It was far too damaged, so they gave me a new one.”
Alexander was kind of hoping Lucas would make a quip about not getting an upgrade, but the man had fixated on the AIs to the point he was sure it was making them uncomfortable. He wasn’t the only one who was focused on the two women. To pull their focus back to him, he cleared his throat. An actual throat, as his former form melted away, leaving behind a fully formed body, wearing a white lab coat, khakis, and a polo shirt. It had taken weeks of practice with Rush and the others to get it right.
That got everyone’s attention.
“As you can see, it came with a few upgrades,” he added casually as he slowly turned so everyone could see him.
The waist-high ball of silvery liquid at his side kind of ruined the whole picture, but most were so stunned that they overlooked that little detail.
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