Chapter 2-50

Alexander watched the Talon slide into orbit around the planet, followed shortly after by the vessels from Arklight. The Zephyr was the only ship capable of docking with the refueling depot as the other docking arms were already in use.As for the Arklight transport, it was waiting for clearance to land on the planet. The heavy lift transport was rather large for a planetary landing craft, but it had additional thrusters to assist in takeoff and landing operations.

He just needed to make sure they used the correct landing location. A new concrete pad had been poured specifically to house the Qcomm. Once the very expensive piece of equipment was in place, the prefabricated halves of the dome could be slid in place, and the requisite concrete poured over the structure to seal it against the corrosive atmosphere.

This was the only construction project Alexander had personally overseen since appointing Yi Na as the construction foreman. It wasn't that he didn't trust the man, it was just that he was keeping the location of the Qcomm a secret. And since nobody ever went outside unless they had to, nobody even knew it had been built in the first place. Automation was wonderful for projects like that.

Alexander had learned his lesson from designing the weapon emplacements as well, so a tunnel had already been mostly constructed that led back to the facility. In this case, it exited in his workshop, which allowed him to control all access to the actual Qcomm array. Those with compatible devices would be able to access the network from anywhere on the planet and even in orbit. He would need to speak with the Qcomm engineers to see if that feature could be turned on or off. As for everyone else, they would be setting up some terminals across the facility that linked to the Qcomm.

It would be a nightmare to control the information that was going out from Eden's End if he couldn't disable remote access. Thankfully, very few people on Eden's End owned Qcomm-linked devices.

He had a momentary thought about removing those devices and confiscating them from any new arrivals, but restricting communications was a slippery slope he didn't wish to go down. That being said, he wasn't comfortable letting unfiltered communications go out. He had an idea of how to go about this, but he needed access to the Qcomm to see if it would work or not. That would need to wait until the technicians left though.

With the landing site nearest the construction zone cleared Alexander sent the Arklight ship the coordinates and the authorization to land. It would take a few trips around the planet before they deorbited. Unlike most ships, the Arklight transport needed to take a very shallow descent path. A pair of Arklight shuttles came down ahead of the transport ship and landed near the landing pad. They disgorged ten heavily armed and armored security people each. Those people surrounded the pad, ensuring nobody tried to approach or harm the workers.

It felt a bit like overkill to Alexander, but then again, a Qcomm array was worth half a billion credits, so maybe not.

A few of the other security people were commenting on the Arklight personnel and wondering who would win in a clash. As much as Alexander admired the improvements Damien's people had implemented thus far, in a clash of equal forces, he would probably put his money on the Arklight troopers. All of the Arklight augment gear looked top-of-the-line. Maybe not as high quality as the suit that pirate leader was wearing, but closer than any of the gear Damien and his people had at hand, which could generously be considered light augment gear.

Alexander had been hands-off on most of the local defensive tech that Damien and the other engineers had produced. He mainly gave ideas, and in a few cases, helped implement their designs when asked for input. This was because Damien seemed to get upset anytime he stuck his nose in on their work.

He could understand the man's desire to separate themselves from him, but that didn't mean Alexander wasn't ready to step in and improve their gear at a moment's notice. He had an entire folder filled with design schematics that might rival, if not exceed Arklight's gear. When Damien finally relented and asked for Alexander's help, he would gladly give it to the man. Until then, the designs sat unused, only being updated as Alexander added minor improvements when he learned better ways to implement designs.

Focusing back on the task at hand, Alexander made a flicking motion to change the main holo display feed to the camera inside the station's hangar. He could see Jasper and his crew already unloading crates from the Zephyr and transferring them to the shuttle. He even saw the Captain having a lively conversation with Branston while they waited off to the side and out of the way of the crew as they worked.

Alexander had already spoken to Jasper a few hours ago so he wouldn't be bothering him while they were transferring cargo. It would take some time to ferry everything to the surface, but Ju Na was handling that. He looked over to the woman who was sitting at one of the consoles in the command center. She was communicating with Naomi from Jasper's crew and seemed to be getting along just fine. He couldn't be happier that he didn't have to deal with the logistics of that process anymore.

Seeing that Mingyu's sister had everything well in hand, he switched the camera feed to focus on the Talon. It didn't take long for the massive ship to start disgorging its drop ships. It was a much different experience watching this happen from a groundside perspective. It would have been horrifying to see if he didn't know they were friendly.

The ships soon entered the atmosphere, leaving trails in their wake. He watched for only a few more seconds before changing to one of the farther-out cameras. The new view showed just a small glimmering dot in the center of the image, showing just how far out the ships of the convoy still were. For some reason, they had slowed their approach after jumping into the system a little over an hour behind Captain Matthews.

All of their transponders were active, so Alexander knew who each ship belonged to. Not a single captain had reached out yet. That didn't mean the facility's sensors hadn't picked up communication between the ships. Everyone of Lucas' camera probes could pick up stray radio communications and there was plenty of open radio traffic going back and forth between the vessels. It seemed the captains were trying to decide on the best course of action to reach out and request asylum.

They had to know their communications were being intercepted, right?

If they did or not it didn't really change anything. Alexander had decided to wait to address them until he had the other people settled.

He hoped everyone who came out here adapted as quickly as those first troublemakers did. He hadn't heard any peep about them from Damien, so they must be fitting in or they were sitting in lockup. He hadn't seen anyone else in lockup when he went to speak with Shall, so he assumed it was the former.

Things were going to change again once the Qcomm was available, and that reminded Alexander that his meeting with the Council was in a few minutes. He thanked the control center people for allowing him to take over for a bit before handing access back to them and heading off to the Council Chamber. The very officiously named space was a slightly larger room with no embellishments and a half-moon table made from metal where the council sat.

The Council now consisted of Damien as the Head of Security, Nancy as the Head of Learning, Gabriella as the Head of Medical Services, and the newest member, Sheila, the farmer he had spoken to quite some time ago. Her willingness to embrace the changes Alexander was implementing had propelled her far past the other farmers, especially the one she had made the bet with. Now she was the Head of Agriculture for Eden's End.

The group quieted as he entered. "Sorry for being late, I was just making sure everything was going smoothly with our new arrivals."

"As should we all," Damien grunted. "I assume you have something important to say and that you didn't take us all away from our other duties for no reason?"

Alexander rolled his avatar's eyes at the man's grumbling. "I did. There are two reasons I called this meeting. The first is to discuss the Qcomm that is arriving and will be installed soon."

The group all looked surprised by the admission.

"You purchased a Qcomm array?" Gabriella was the first to ask.

"I did. It will be installed in the next few days and open to anyone with a linked device until I can get some consoles set up with access to it."

"You're going to just let anyone use it?" Damien asked in suspicion.

"Why wouldn't I?" he replied with a bit of annoyance in return.

"I could cite a few reasons," Damien responded, ignoring Alexander's tone. "The first and most major concern is what if we have another traitor? With so many new people, how can we stop them from giving out our location and secrets away to pirates or other groups who might be interested? This seems like a huge security risk."

Alexander's tone softened. He thought the man was questioning his motives, not the actual security issues involved with having open communications to STO space. "You are correct, there is some risk and I have considered those issues. I believe I have a way to limit them but there is some additional research I must do before I can say for sure. Until then, the only people who will have access to the array are those with linked comms. I assume you know how many locals have those?"

Damien snorted. "None of the drifters have Qcomm-linked devices. It would be rather wasteful since the whole point of coming out here was to get away from the STO. I can't say if any of those people who arrived along with your scientist friend have them. However, I would hazard to guess that at least one of them does. Your friend and her grandson probably do. I can ask them if you wish?"

Alexander shook his avatar's head. "I'm sure Dr. Lund has one, but she doesn't really communicate with anyone in the STO and most of her former co-workers were co-opted by the Navy so I doubt she will want to speak with them either. She will probably have a few people she talks with, but not many. You can ask her grandson, I admit I'm not really familiar with the boy. As for the rest, that's really up to you."

The man grunted. "Fair enough. You said you had other news?"

"Hold on now," Nancy cut in. "Before we switch topics, how is this going to affect the schooling?"

"What do you mean?" Alexander asked.

"All of those learning modules will communicate back to the companies who created them. If they do, they'll know we've been using them in an unauthorized fashion. I've seen what happens to people who tried that in the past, it's not pretty when a squad of corporate security goons comes by and arrests everyone involved as well as confiscates all of their assets."

"The network with the learning modules will remain unconnected from the consoles that allow access to the Qcomm and the STO network."

"Until someone slips and tells a family across the network. The Qcomm might be secure, but the end user terminals certainly aren't," she countered.

What she said was true, and Nancy's words were close to something Alexander suspected about the Qcomm network. If he was right, it would allow him to monitor all incoming and outgoing messages. "That issue should be handled if my research bears fruit. If not, it's an issue we will address if and when the corporations respond. In the meantime, I plan on transcribing all of the information from the learning modules into a central library. If they do demand restitution or take away our access to those modules, we will already be prepared. I have Lucas working on a program to allow this transfer. Your concerns are a good transition to my next topic though, and another one that should give us additional protection against the corporations."

"Alex, we know, you're good at building things, but do you really think anything will stop the corporations from taking what they want when they want?" Sheila asked.

"I do. I plan on claiming Y6X-3H2 as a sovereign nation."

They all just stared at him in dumbfounded shock.

It was Gabriella once again who was the first to speak up. "What!?"

"Hear me out. The STO has never made a claim on this system. Why would they? There is nothing here but a barely habitable world and a few gas giants. The same is true for the original owners of this facility. They simply built it to study the star, and once they satisfied that goal, they left. It was sold a few more times until the STO pulled its borders back due to the Shican War. A few groups tried to make this facility profitable until it was abandoned and drifters took over. Then I purchased it when the last owner passed away."

Sheila held her hands up to stop him. "Yes, we get that much. I think what Gabriella is wondering is how is it even possible that the STO would allow this?" Gabriella nodded at that.

He told them about the requirements and laws built directly into the STO's charter. Damien was the first to understand and the man actually burst out laughing. "The corporations didn't bother plugging the loophole because they didn't think anyone could ever use it."

"Precisely," Alexander smiled. "And we now have a fleet of three ships."

"I thought you only had two working ships?" Damien asked in confusion.

"Their only stipulation of what constitutes a ship is that it must belong to or work directly for the ruling party and be capable of both defending the system and having FTL capabilities. Captain Na's ship now qualifies under the STO's own rules."

"Have you mentioned this to him?" Damien asked skeptically. "It seems like his current work for you is more of a contractual basis than what you are referring to."

"I plan on speaking with him right after our meeting. I think he will agree to change the parameters of our contract. If he does, I can designate the Destiny as an Envoy vessel allowing his ship and his crew to receive diplomatic immunity. This would nullify the idiotic ruling the STO had placed upon it." Searᴄh the nôvelFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The group all chuckled at that.

"Well," Damien stated, looking far more enthusiastic than Alexander had ever seen him. "Far be it for us to stop you. Since you are going to go ahead with this crazy plan, how will this change our roles?"

Alexander had put a lot of thought into this plan, so this was an easy question to answer. "In the short term, nothing will change. Eventually, as more people arrive and the facility is expanded, more roles will get added to the Council."

"And your role?" Gabriella asked.

This was a bit of a tougher question, but once again, he had spent a long time deciding on this course of action. "I think Overseer would be the best description and title for what I plan on doing. Essentially the same as I am doing now. So once again, nothing will change in the short term."

They all seemed to accept this change and he notified them that they would need to attend the formation ceremony. He wasn't surprised by their acceptance. Ever since Alexander had arrived on Eden's End, their lives had improved by leaps and bounds. The only person he thought might grumble was Damien, but the man seemed just as enthusiastic about this change as everyone else. Probably because it meant sticking it to the STO. If that was the case, Alexander would take what he could get.