Chapter 2-52

Alexander and Matthews entered a room filled with conversation. He paused in the doorway and looked around. He frowned as he didn't see the man he expected to see. "Were you not able to get Captain Krieger?"Matthews shook his head. "The STO hadn't court-martialed him by the time we left. It seems they are dragging him across STO space and parading him as an example of what a poor officer is. It's rather distasteful if you ask me, but there's nothing either of us can do about it."

It took a few moments for people to notice their arrival, but once they did, a hush ran through the room.

"That's more terrifying than the video makes it appear," one man muttered quietly but not quietly enough in the now silent room.

A few people turned to look at the man.

"What?" he demanded. "You all were thinking the same damn thing, I was just the only one with the stones to say something."

Before an argument could break out, Matthews cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen. I know you were all shown the primer video, but let me introduce you to your new employer, Alexander Kane."

"Greetings," Alexander spoke as he walked up to the lectern. He didn't bother commenting on the man's reaction to him, he expected some sort of reaction about his appearance by now. "Please, have a seat," he gestured to the folding chairs. It seemed some things stood the test of time, and folding chairs were one of those things.

"As Captain Matthews stated, I am Alexander Kane. I know my appearance is shocking, that is why I created the welcome video for you all. It was also a test, and not everyone passed. Those of you who did are here. I want to thank you for the opportunity."

"Archie wasn't very clear on the specifics of this job or the benefits," the red-headed man who had spoken about his appearance, called out.

His comment got a round of muttered agreements in return.

Alexander bobbed his avatar up and down in a nod. "What is your name, Sir?"

"Fergus McCarthy," the man puffed up with pride.

Alexander nodded again. "Mr. McCarthy, what is your occupation?"

"Chief Engineer, why?"

"You'll see in a second. You," Alexander pointed to a middle-aged woman, "What's your occupation?"

She responded and Alexander repeated this a few times until people started to catch on.

"You need crew for ships," Fergus grunted. "You couldn't tell us this back in STO space?" the man asked Matthews.

"Operational security, you know how it is, Fergus."

"Bah," the man said, waving off Matthews' response. "So, this some private corporate military contract or something?"

"Not exactly. I won't be going into details quite yet since nobody has signed a contract or non-disclosure forms. I will be providing the pay scale for each position along with the base benefits. You have all been assigned an ID card. If you are interested, please use the two terminals outside this room to look at what I'm offering. If that isn't enough to appeal to you, you are free to head back to your accommodations. You will still receive a small stipend and your rooms and meals will be paid for while you are here. Once the Talon returns to STO space, they will take anyone who doesn't wish to sign on." Alexander gestured to the door. S~eaʀᴄh the Nôvelƒire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Over the next half an hour, people slowly filtered back into the room. He did notice a few people were absent but not as many as he had feared.

Once the last person came back in and shut the door, Alexander gestured over to a stack of tablets that had been brought in from an adjacent room. "On these tablets, you will find the Blue Star Enterprises employee agreement and non-disclosure forms. Please read and sign them if you wish to continue. If not, the same offer applies as before."

Alexander only had twenty of the tablets, but it wasn't like the room was overflowing with people. There were only thirty remaining candidates.

It didn't take long before one of those candidates threw the tablet back on the table in disgust. "Are you fucking kidding me?!" the man demanded. "Life imprisonment if we disclose anything about the technology or what goes on at Eden's End? No way. I don't care how much you're paying, I'm out."

The man stormed out of the room, followed by one woman. A few minutes later, two more followed after looking at the contract.

Alexander had made the contract as harsh as possible to weed people out who might think to make a quick buck on the side by trying to sell out his secrets. He made note of those people because they were more likely to cause trouble than the ones who had left after seeing the inflated payment he was offering.

One final man left, leaving twenty-five people. Once Matthews shut the door and nodded to him, Alexander spoke up. "Now that the remaining people here have signed the non-disclosure agreements, I can go into more detail. Those weren't the real contracts. They were just designed to weed out anyone who wasn't serious about sticking around. I will provide the real contracts shortly, but I want you to all be fully informed before you sign. You all saw the benefits package in the hallway terminals?"

"Yeah," the middle-aged woman from earlier replied before Fergus could. "Full medical, two meals a day, and lodging while not on duty?"

Fergus grumbled at being cut off, which made the rest chuckle.

"That is the public benefit. The NDA benefits involve access to my learning library and the academy."

"Learning library?" another man asked in confusion.

"I purchased dozens of learning modules from STO space. Unlike the STO, I don't plan to hoard that behind huge paywalls. Service guarantees you access to any single learning module of your choice. Every three months of service after that earns you access to an additional module."

The room went quiet as everyone gaped in open-mouthed surprise.

"Ha!" Mathews barked in laughter. "I told you all it would be worth it, didn't I?"

"Are you mad?" one person asked. "Th- The STO will find out. The corporations will arrest you for this or worse."

"Only if you tell them," Alexander replied in a calm tone. "At that point, you're only hurting yourselves and not because of the contract that you signed, which is still in place until you sign the new one. I haven't even gotten to the best part. After six months of service, your family will be eligible to enter the academy. Assuming they are over the age of sixteen. They will receive one free learning module. Any others they wish to learn can be purchased with credits or contributions to Eden's End or if you wish to transfer your learning plan that you earn to a single child, you may do so. The credit fee will be affordable, unlike the ridiculous fee charged by the corporations." Alexander had put quite a bit of thought into how to keep people from simply taking the first learning plan and leaving.

Doing it this way incentivized people to stick around longer and earn way more benefits. It was even more attractive if they had families, and he knew at least a few of them did.

There wasn't much discussion after that.

"Where's the real contract," Fergus practically demanded.

Alexander smiled. "The new contract is on the tablets. There is a provision in it that nullifies the old contract."

While it wasn't quite a stampede to get to the tablets, he was surprised by how quickly some of the older-looking people moved. In no time at all, the new contracts were signed and everyone was seated again.

"The academy isn't quite ready yet, but let me introduce you to the person who'll be running it." He gestured to Matthews. That seemed to mollify the tension brought on by his statement.

It seemed everyone in the room knew Matthews. Alexander had hoped that some of the people Jasper talked into coming might have remained, but it didn't seem like that was the case. He hoped his friend didn't take that too badly.

Once everyone signed the real contract, Alexander got names and occupations from them. There were only three former Captains in the group. The rest were either technicians, engineers, or bridge officers of some sort.

Before sorting them into crews, he needed to find out if people wanted to change their occupations. "Raise your hands if you wish to switch careers."

A full third of the hands went up, including one of the former Captains. The woman looked embarrassed but she spoke up. "I assume you went looking for former Navy people because you have warships. I was the captain of a courier ship. When it was time to reenlist, they offered me command of a warship. I turned them down because I didn't think I had it in me to fire on someone. If you have messenger ships or something in a non-combat role, I'll gladly fly that."

"We can discuss that later," Alexander nodded to the woman.

The other people wanted higher positions. A few of the bridge crew people wanted to take the captaincy tests. They had aged out in the STO and were no longer eligible for those roles. Alexander didn't see any problem with that. He had all of the materials to provide for the testing.

"The rest of you are more than welcome to pick the study materials that will allow you to move up in Blue Star Enterprise. For now, I'm going to split you into two groups of twelve. And Penny, it was Penny right?"

The captain who didn't want to command a warship nodded. "Penny Farthing, and yes, I'm aware of the old Earth connotations. My father was a history buff and thought it was funny. I was ten when my mom found out, she didn't think it was nearly as humorous."

Alexander suppressed a chuckle. "…Fair enough. Are you ok piloting a shuttle for now?"

"It's been over a decade, so I'll need a refresher, but it should be fine."

"Excellent. That brings me to my next point. I have some holo-trainers set up to help each group familiarize themselves with these." As he said the word, the holoprojector on the ceiling displayed the Fury and the Resolve.

The ships got mixed reactions.

"Going by the secrecy, I thought we were gonna be operating something state of the art?" one of the other captains stated. "No offense, but those two ship designs went out of service before I was born. A new coat of paint isn't enough to make them a match for current ships."

Alexander smiled. "They look ugly, but I can assure you, both of these ships were rebuilt from the ground up. They will hold their own against any current STO ship in their class."

"Let's assume I believe you," the same captain stated. "Why not just build a new ship if you could rebuild one of these?"

"Time and resources," Alexander responded immediately. He had been expecting the question. "Pirates were kind enough to donate these, so I didn't see any reason not to use such a valuable gift. I will design and build my own ships eventually, but as you might imagine, that's a very involved process with a lot of testing and changes before a frame can even be started. Reusing these ancient ships only requires them to be scanned, ripped apart, and rebuilt with minor changes."

The curious captain nodded once. "Thank you for answering my questions. I assume pirates are the main threat we'll be dealing with out here. Using their own ships against them does seem like poetic justice, I must admit."

"Instead of touting the virtues of these ships, how about I show you?" That got agreements all around and Alexander led them to the two rooms that had been converted to the holotrainers.

He made the two captains pick a number and the one closest to the number Alexander was thinking of got the first room. The other got the second.

"Captain Farthing, you can join us in the trainer's room to watch if you wish. It's that door over there." The woman thanked him and headed into the room. Lucas should be in there, so he could operate the remote view for her.

Alexander got the two groups set and allowed them to familiarize themselves with some of the holographic interiors of the ships. The trainers only had one deck at the moment, which consisted of the bridge section and not much else.

They whistled when he activated the tactical holo.

"You have a full tac-display on your ships?" Archie stated in surprise.

"Huh? Do you mean the holo? Yeah, it seemed like a good idea to have a clear view of the battlespace, why?"

"Most of the time tac-displays are restricted to command ships due to the processing power they require. Don't tell me you have a supercomputer link on the ship?"

"Ok, I won't," Alexander responded with a grin.

Archie just shook his head. "Keep tempting me with tech like this, I may go back to being a captain."

The two laughed as they headed to the trainer's room, leaving behind the two groups to get acquainted with the ship systems. He was going to have Lucas run them through a quick training exercise to show them what the ships were capable of, then swap them to the other training room. After that was done, he would assign them all the learning modules that he had created for operating the ship. With any luck, they would be proficient in no time.