Chapter 31

"Jasper, it's good to see you!" Alexander extended his hand and the Captain shook it."You as well, my friend. I see you repaired your robot."

Alexander made his avatar look chagrined. "An unfortunate necessity that also had something to do with my exile. Please come in and I'll fill you in on what happened."

Captain Daniel nodded and entered the apartment. The man paused as his eyes landed on Yulia. The girl, still shy among adults, quickly shut the door to the bedroom.

"And a father, you did mention that didn't you?"

Alexander nodded. "It's all tied together. Can I offer you something to drink?"

"Water or tea if you have it," the man said as he sat at the counter.

"Tea it is. You probably need something stronger for this story, but I don't drink, and obviously, Yulia is too young."

"That's fine. I somehow feel like this is one of those situations where alcohol is best left out of the equation."

"You're probably right," Alexander said.

As he prepared the tea, he launched into his story. First starting with what happened with Omni.

"I'm sorry to hear you had to go through that," the man stated sadly as he blew on his tea.

"It certainly was annoying. Thanks to your input, I didn't walk away empty-handed though."

"That's good to know. But you still haven't explained why they exiled you. I can't exactly imagine them doing that because of the Omni case."

"No. This came about after a series of events that happened a week later." He told him the story of the attack. How Yulia had been injured and nearly died. Then he went into the reasons for why he adopted her.

After finishing that story, he explained that the attackers had accused him of having or manufacturing restricted weapons. Alexander left out the part where he actually did that part. It wasn't like he meant to manufacture those things.

The last thing he covered was the hasty completion of the adoption before Captain Sergei Zhang could pronounce judgment on him. He omitted the reasoning behind the hasty adoption stuff. He didn't want Yulia to overhear what Headmaster Wong had told him that night and the walls weren't exactly thick.

"I had the pleasure of running into the Captain when I arrived," Jasper's voice was thick with disgust. "Did you personally offend the man?"

Alexander shook his head. "Never met the man before that evening at the hospital. At first, I thought he had a chip on his shoulder against me…"

"…but that doesn't explain why he's going through all this trouble to keep you from leaving?" Jasper finished

"No, no it doesn't. The funny thing is, I had already planned to leave before they exiled me."

"You did? Did you finally take my friend, Dr. Nova Lund up on her offer?"

"Her?" Alexander had assumed the doctor was a he. Then again he had never actually asked.

Jasper chuckled at the look of confusion on Alexander's avatar. "Leave it to Nova to be so caught up with her science to not introduce herself properly. So is that where you're heading next?"

"No. While our discussions were certainly enlightening, and the woman is indeed a genius. I simply decided I didn't want to work for someone else anymore."

Captain Daniel nodded. "You don't have to explain that to me. I saved up every credit I earned as a first mate until I could finally purchase my own ship and crew."

"That's how you bought the Zephyr?"

The man laughed. "I wish first mates got paid that type of money! No. I bought a small Class 2 vessel that I used for VIP transport in the core systems. While lucrative, having to deal with those pretentious assholes leaves a lot to be desired. It did earn me a valuable education in how to maneuver through the bureaucratic nightmare that is the law though, so it wasn't all bad. After five years of that, I upgraded to the Zephyr and never looked back. And I'm much happier for it. So if we aren't going to Lund's little brain trust, where are we going?"

"I used my windfall from the Omni case to purchase an abandoned property in a system called Y6X-3H2."

Jasper winced at that. "Not even a named system, eh? I'm going to guess this system is out of STO's normal jurisdiction."

"That's not going to be a problem is it?"

"If there are pirates out there, it could be."

"Oh, that won't be an issue. One of the things the real estate place recommended was hiring a mercenary company to clear the place out. They will be waiting at the edge of STO space to escort us."

"That was nice of them to recommend someone. Who did you hire?"

"The Hawks of Ganos."

Jasper's eyebrows rose. "I guess you're not taking any half-measures here. I've heard of them. If their reputation is as good as I've heard, there shouldn't be any problems."

"The lady at Fidelity said much the same, but it's good to hear it verified from an outside source."

"So, Alexander. A trip to the other side of STO space. It's going to take probably two months just to get there. Do you have everything you need?"

"I believe so. But I may have bought more than I needed."

"Oh, how much cargo room are we talking about here?"

Alexander told him the estimated cargo space he required. The man nearly choked on his tea. "I can pay you for moving all my stuff."

The man waved away his concern. "No, that's fine. I was just surprised. The last time we spoke, everything you owned fit in that little shop of yours. And while I had planned to fill the rest of my cargo with stuff purchased on Petrov, if I'm honest, it's not worth it. My last load barely broke even. This will also save me time trying to fill empty space. I want to be here and gone before the Council figures out you're leaving anyway."

"You think they will do something to stop you?"

Jasper snorted. "Considering the lengths they have gone to so far, they will probably try something. But I have a few tricks up my sleeve as well, so don't you worry. Just send the storage list to me and I will get my crew to move the items aboard as soon as possible. Once everything is loaded up, I will contact you. Then you," he winked, "and your lovely daughter can come aboard."

Alexander had seen Yulia sneaking a peek from her room, but the girl quickly shut the door again when the Captain winked at her.

"She's a bit shy," he said quietly.

"Must take after her old man," Jasper chuckled.

It took a moment for Alexander to realize Jasper was referring to him. When he did, he rolled his eyes, making the man laugh.

***

Yulia wanted to run out of the room and tell Alex she wasn't shy. She just didn't trust adults. None of her memories of them, except for Headmaster Wong, were good. Even her memories of her parents were now tinged with fear.

It wasn't until she saw the bad men at Alex's that the rest of her memories of her parents came flooding back to her. And now that she was old enough, she knew what her parents were. And by association, what she was. It terrified her that an adult might come along and snatch her away from Alex just to do whatever they did to pirates. She had asked Markus about what they did to pirates one time, but the boy had been surprisingly tight-lipped. To this day, anytime she brought up the subject, he would go quiet. Eventually, she just stopped bringing it up.

Her thoughts turned to her friend and a tear escaped her eye. She was never going to see him again. Nobody told her that, but she knew that was the case. She wanted to ask Alex to adopt him, but she didn't want to upset him or make him second-guess his decision. Some of the older kids at the orphanage told stories of children getting dumped back into the orphanage who annoyed their new families too much.

She didn't want Alex to hate her, so she sucked up her emotions and wiped away her tears. She would still be able to send messages to her friends. And Alex promised her she would make new friends.

***

Jasper was aboard the Zephyr enjoying a cup of coffee as he filled out some reports when a knock interrupted him. "Come in," he said without taking his eyes off the report. S~eaʀᴄh the nôvel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The door opened and in walked Naomi. "He's back, Captain."

Jasper set down the tablet with a sigh. "I was hoping it would take him longer to notice. How is the loading coming along?"

"We are about sixty percent of the way there."

He did some quick math in his head. "So another three days or so?"

"Four to be safe."

He grunted and stood. "See if you can speed that up any. If you have to store everything in the hangar to get it done faster do it."

Naomi nodded and walked out, Jasper followed behind her and down the ramp.

He stopped halfway down, spotting Captain Zhang inside his hangar. "What is he doing here?" he ground his teeth.

Another Captain entering his hangar without consent was a serious breach of etiquette. And the man was blatantly snooping at the unloaded cargo with two station security along with him.

"What is the meaning of this!" he yelled as he stormed down the rest of the ramp.

Zhang had the gall to smile at him. "We are performing a cargo inspection."

Jasper walked right up to the taller man, making the two security people reach for their stunners. "Unless you have a search warrant, I suggest you leave. And even if you did… You are not an authorized security agent aboard this station."

Zhang looked like he was about to say something when Naomi cleared her throat. "Captain. I have already submitted a complaint for this breach."

She was talking to him, but Zhang clamped his mouth shut. Then he snapped his fingers and the two station security stepped forward while Zhang exited the hangar. One of the men handed him a tablet showing him the signed warrant to search his cargo. It was signed by Zhang himself.

He slapped the tablet back in the man's hand and stared him in the face. "Unless you want me to level an accusation of load tampering and possible piracy…" both men stiffened at that, "…I suggest you take this bullshit warrant and leave."

The men glanced at each other before the one who handed him the tablet spoke. "It seems there was an error in the warrant. We're sorry for any misunderstanding. Have a nice day, Captain."

He watched as the two scurried out of his hangar. He was glad STO law was very clear on hangar space. Once rented, it and everything inside it were lawfully owned by the renter until such time as the renter vacated the space. The law had been put in place centuries ago to stop scummy station managers from evicting crews and stealing all of their cargo and in some instances the ships themselves. Now it required a warrant to search the property, but they couldn't arrest or revoke that tenancy unless the Captain was charged with a felony.

The only other way a station could lay claim to what was in a hangar was if they convicted the crew of piracy. And that was unlikely. Every instance of a piracy trial was required to go to the STO for review. If the STO found the station management had falsified information to hold such a trial, those people got subjected to a piracy charge themselves. That stopped anyone from arbitrarily trying people as pirates to transfer wealth to themselves.

If Jasper had gone through with his threat, the STO would have looked into it eventually, although he doubted anything would have come from his claim other than a fine, but it was the threat that mattered. If Zhang wanted to be an ass for some unknown reason, Jasper would play his game. He could guarantee he had far more experience playing with the law than this outer sector Captain.