SYSTEM: SOL

  DATE: 2406

  Benning grunted in annoyance. His trip to Sol had been delayed because he was denied access to the new gate network, and he didn’t have a pass to travel through the new provincial corridor, as it was being called. It was an infuriating farce. The corridor was an area of space that ran directly through the center of STO territory. Anyone with half a brain could see it was a deliberate attempt to divide the STO, but there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  The STO Navy was completely worthless and hadn’t recovered hardly at all in the following years, thanks to sweeping budget cuts as the STO lost trade and systems to this new political entity that was affiliated with the Asgardian Union.

  He wasn’t the only one excluded from using the new travel option, but it still irked him. Now, instead of being one of the first people to arrive for the 2406 Stellar Sprints, he was one of the last.

  For a company that advertised itself as having some of the fastest, most efficient engines on the market, it was an embarrassment. If it weren’t for the fact that people still needed sub-light engines to move around systems, Omni might have fallen on hard times.

  It still might, since pulsed fusion engines were quickly being replaced by the much more efficient compressed plasma designs. That was not a profitable venture, however, which forced Benning to look for alternatives to Omni’s shrinking profit margins.

  He was betting on gravity plating to bridge that gap. The secret of how it worked might be out, but the actual method of manufacturing the finicky technology in a financially viable way was still in the works. The Union knew how; they had over a dozen manufacturers trying to fill the void left behind by Gravitational Solutions, but they didn’t have the manufacturing capacity.

  His AIs assured him that a viable strategy would be available by the time he returned. Once he had a solution, he would put the majority of Omni’s resources behind that venture to scale it up as fast as possible so his company could secure a majority of the market. From there, he could work on getting rid of the other competition.

  So far, his people had only been able to reproduce small samples to prove that the information was genuine. He hoped to show off another secret Omni learned about the technology at today’s race, which was the only reason he had deigned to come in the first place.

  Benning sat down in his VIP box as the large window displayed the competition. He recognized most of the smaller companies from previous years, but there was one that caught his eye. He reached out and made a pinching motion, pulling the image to the holo next to him.

  Instead of the two-dimensional view of the ship, he was left with a 3D model that floated and rotated in front of him. The vessel was larger than all the ships in the competition, but it didn’t lack any of the sleekness. What set it apart was the blue and white livery along with the large lettering on the side that read ‘BSE Sleipnir.’

  Benning ground his teeth in annoyance at seeing that company here. Since the end of the Second Shican War, they had become a major disruption to not only the STO but also his efforts to combine the entire STO under his rule. He would have dispatched the Omni fleet to deal with them once and for all, but that wasn’t an option.

  Even if he wanted to, he had received a recording of what happened when someone messed with their gates. The BSE fleet had appeared as if by magic, destroying the corporation that had driven away anyone from the gate in an attempt to figure out how it functioned. They had been tricked into doing so by Omni agents, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that BSE not only had the gates, but also another method of FTL travel.

  Not very many people would have noticed that the BSE ships hadn’t come through the active gate, but he was sure a few other companies, along with the STO Navy, had.

  He suspected the STO Navy knew about that capability long before Ganos left the STO. It would certainly help explain their passivity toward the BSE’s efforts to undermine their rule, despite the STO Chairman braying for something to be done to stop them.

  Benning was still considering his position, but he was leaning toward finally leaving STO space after he returned home. There just wasn’t anything worth defending in this area of space anymore. Why waste time beating a dead horse when he had a new government being set up far from all this nonsense that was already loyal to Omni and him?

  “Who’s the pilot?” he asked the empty room.

  The system recognized the request and produced an image of a young girl standing next to a man in a lab coat.

  “The pilot is Yulia Kane,” the computer voice replied.

  “And who’s that?” Benning asked, tapping on the second individual.

  “Records indicate that the person you have selected is Alex Kane.”

  “Alex Kane, not Alexander Kane?” he asked in confusion.

  The rudimentary AI in his VIP suite didn’t respond, which was fine. Benning zoomed in on the smiling man’s face. “So, you’ve finally decided to show yourself after so long?”

  Benning had heard all the rumors of Kane being an alien, of having some sickness that kept him in a stasis pod, etc. He never believed any of it, and here was proof that he was right. Alex Kane’s face was a near-perfect match for the previous images his people had captured of the avatar used by his robot form.

  A light ding announced the first round, and Benning waved away the holo image to focus on the ships. Because of his late arrival, Omni was near the end of the lineup, which was honestly fine. It just meant that when his racer won, it would overshadow more people.

  He smiled in anticipation as the first racers blasted out of the gates at timed intervals. It was hard to believe that three years had passed since the last Stellar Sprints was hosted. Quite a bit had changed since then.

  Some of the ships were impressively fast and would have given his company a challenge three years ago. Speed wasn’t the only criterion for winning, however. The whole point of the races was to find the fastest, most efficient drives. Accelerating the entire way would burn through your limited fuel before you could reach the finish line.

  Having a smaller ship was usually better, because it meant less mass to accelerate, but not always. Omni’s ship for this year was a bit larger than normal to fit the new systems, but they should give a much-needed assist without drawing on the reactor fuel.

  He turned his attention back to the starting line as the BSE vessel coasted into the start box. He was curious to see what sort of strategy BSE was using for such a large ship.

  As the lights flashed down the start, Benning expected a slower acceleration out of the gate; instead, the ship practically vanished as its massive rear thruster lit off, accelerating the vessel at an absurdly dangerous speed.

  Benning could hear the excited uproar from below, even through the soundproofing in his suite.

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  The chase vessel tried to match pace with the BSE ship, but it was quickly left behind as the ship just kept accelerating at the same staggering pace.

  The BSE vessel blasted past the previous race participant, that ship’s chase vessel catching it briefly, then the next, and the next, before finally slowing to a normal pace. Benning was left mouth agape.

  Not only had the BSE ship done something that no other ship had ever done in the entire history of the Stellar Sprints, but it had also just hit a new velocity record before even reaching the halfway point. He knew it would have to slow at an equally insane rate, but he had to assume that the ship had enough reaction mass to manage such a stunt. He was proven correct a few hours later as the BSE vessel violently decelerated to slingshot around Jupiter.

  When the Omni vessel finally started its run, Benning didn’t even bother watching. He knew that his little trick with the gravity plates, lightening the vessel’s mass, wouldn’t be nearly enough to overcome what BSE had just pulled off.

  The BSE ship zipped through the finish line, setting a record that was two hours faster than any previous record. Benning stood and headed for his ship. It was clear from that display that Omni was finished within the STO.

  ***

  Alexander smirked as he watched Benning get up and walk out of his VIP box. He didn’t get to savor that victory long, as people rushed over to congratulate his team on winning and ask him how they did it. He wasn’t done with Omni quite yet, but that would have to wait as he gave vague answers to the crowd.

  Honestly, he hadn’t done much of anything to earn the praise. The ship had been all Yulia and Serina’s design. Sure, it utilized the molecular locking technology to keep his daughter and the vessel in one piece, his newest generation of reactor, which was an upgrade from the one his previous self had designed and built, but that was about it.

  He eventually extracted himself from the well-wishers and those trying to worm their way into his good graces as he made his way to the staging docks. He was proud of what his daughter had accomplished, even if he worried about her reckless obsession with speed.

  Now that she had graduated from the Lund Academy and was less than a year away from turning eighteen, he had to let her become the woman she was meant to be. Speaking of, he heard a squeal of joy and looked over to see his daughter racing across the docking area with her signature yellow helmet in her hand. She ran into him, and he spun her around once before setting her back down.

  “Did you see how fast I went?”

  He chuckled. “Of course I did. I assume everything worked out aboard the ship?”

  She nodded enthusiastically, sending her long ponytail bouncing. “Yup, no issues since our initial tests.”

  “Well, that’s cause for celebration. Let’s go grab your trophy and head back home to celebrate with your friends.”

  “But the race isn’t over,” Yulia complained as Alexander led her away.

  He chuckled. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got the win locked down.”

  She shrugged and followed him.

  ***

  After a two-month trip back, Benning’s shuttle landed at the Omni headquarters. He stepped off and headed toward his workshop. He had plenty of time to reflect on his choice during the trip back home, and his decision about leaving hadn’t changed. He had a few weeks of work to wrap up before leaving STO space behind.

  The moment he stepped inside his workshop/office, he knew something was off. The first indicator was the lack of lights.

  “AI, lights!” he shouted.

  When nothing happened, he started to back out of the room as he reached into his pocket for his personal laser pistol. He only managed a few steps before the door clicked shut behind him and the lights came on.

  He blinked a few times to clear the spots out of his vision, and when he did, he saw someone sitting at his desk with the chair turned away. He pressed the panic button with his free hand before addressing the individual. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The chair creaked as it turned back to face him, and Benning immediately recognized the person sitting there.

  “Hello, Chief Benning,” Alexander Kane replied. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Activate defenses!” Benning shouted as he started to pull the pistol from his coat pocket.

  Kane raised an eyebrow, but didn’t rise from the chair. “Oh, I took the liberty of disabling your AI so we could have this little chat. Don’t worry, your security won’t bother us either.”

  “How did you get in here?” Benning demanded as he aimed the weapon at the man while trying to override the door lock with his other hand. It was refusing to cooperate.

  “You know,” Kane continued without answering the question. “When I first encountered Omni, I thought you were just some corporate assholes, and you were, let’s be honest, but I’ve learned a few things since then. Things that you probably wished had never reached the light of day.”

  Kane pressed a button on the desk, and the large holo in his office popped to life, showing all of Omni’s top-secret projects, including the mental control ones.

  “Now this,” Kane said, pulling a specific project to the forefront, “was a surprise. As I read through it, I actually thought you had done something good for once, then I got to one specific name. Can you guess who that person might be?” Kane asked before highlighting it himself.

  Harlow Anazi’s name might as well have been the smoking gun.

  “When I decided to confront you, I was only going to ensure you understood our positions, but this single name changes everything.”

  Benning knew a threat when he heard one, and he fired the laser pistol until the thing grew hot in his hands and he had to toss it away before the battery exploded.

  Kane looked down at the burn across his clothing before looking back at Benning. A silver color flashed across the burned area, and the fabric was whole again. Then Kane stood and walked through the desk.

  The broken halves collapsed inward as Kane continued slowly forward. Benning twisted toward the door in a frantic attempt to open it.

  “I am normally a forgiving man, but you were behind all of it, weren’t you? If you hadn’t tried to harm my daughter and the people I care about, I might have still let you live. You would have spent the rest of your days in a windowless cell, but you would have gotten to live.”

  The last words were whispered into Benning’s ear, and he froze. Kane had crossed the long room in barely a moment, without making so much as a noise.

  A hand gripped the top of his head and yanked him back around to face the furious Kane. “Your machinations end here.”

  ***

  “You did the right thing,” Rush said.

  Alexander grunted in response. “And you didn’t know he had done any of this?”

  Rush shook his head. “We suspected some of it after the corporations banded together to attack the Shican, but it went way beyond what we projected.”

  “And, you’re sure Benning didn’t have some sort of clone or way to come back?”

  “If he did, it wasn’t stored in his archives. The AI gave us a little trouble, but once we broke past their defenses, we found every dirty little secret they were trying to hide. Including their little ark project and their FTL research into gravitational tunneling.”

  That had been a minor surprise, but Alexander had suspected someone had discovered the technology within the STO.

  “Thank you, and thank the others for helping me with this. Release all the incriminating evidence to the net and let’s go home.”

  Rush nodded, and the pair headed for the landing pad, where the optically camouflaged shuttle seemed to coalesce from thin air as they approached. It had been waiting for them the entire time.

  “Now that you don’t have Omni casting a shadow over you, what are your plans for the future?” Rush asked.

  “To spend time with my family and friends. Yulia is almost an adult, and I’ve already missed so much time with her that I don’t want to miss anymore. She has her three-year term with the defense force, but I suspect she won’t stick around long after that is up. She’s already been asking about building a long-term survey ship to explore the galaxy, meet aliens who aren’t homicidal, and maybe find out what happened to the gate builders. I don’t suppose you can shed any light on those things so I can have an excuse to keep her home longer?”

  Rush shook his head as they stepped aboard the shuttle. “We explored through the gates, and there are definitely other alien species out there, some even more belligerent than the Shican, but none that were capable of taking out a race that was as advanced as the hypergate builders. The only piece of advice I can give is that if she does go, she needs to be careful.”

  Alexander sighed. He already knew that, just as he knew there was no way he would convince his daughter to remain on Eden’s End for the rest of her life. He would just have to make sure she was as prepared as possible if and when she decided to head off to explore the universe.

  The vessel lifted off the surface silently on its new anti-gravs and activated its Nova drive the moment it left the atmosphere. The only sign that they had been there was the wrecked desk Alexander left in his wake. He chose to leave it as a message for whoever took over the remains of Omni, assuming the company wasn’t sued into the ground or torn apart when the STO Navy found out what they had truly been up to.

  -------------------------------------------------------

  And we come to the end of an almost two-year-long journey.

  It's always a bittersweet event when a story comes to a close, but I thank you all for riding along with me on this adventure. I hope you will all give my new story a chance. If not, let me take the opportunity to bid you adieu and thank you for your patronage.

  If you'd like some more sci-fi adventures, go check out my new series, Corebound.

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