Alexander wouldn't lie; the weeks following the attack on Earth had been rather tense for him. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for the STO to attack, despite what Galloway claimed. It wasn't until he received a formal apology from the STO admirals that he felt any relief. They tried to hide who was behind the attack, but Alexander called them out on their bullshit.

The reason Alexander was so sure that the STO knew who was behind the attack was that the Lokis had learned of it, and they got their information from the STO. Once he learned who it was, he understood the Navy's reticence to disclose the information, but it still pissed him off that they tried to hide it from him.

Now that he had a name for the party responsible for the attack, he wanted to order his automated ships to head to Malik in the Tau Ceti system right away to deal with the Willard family once and for all. He held off, mostly because the admiral's next question caught him off guard.

"Did you have anything to do with the attack against the Willard estate?" Dufresne asked.

Someone had attacked the Willards already? Alexander didn't know whether to be happy or upset that he was denied the opportunity to do it himself. Even though it didn't sound like an accusation, Alexander was still incensed by the question. "If I had known the Willards were responsible for the attack, I would have gladly wiped them out, but if I had, you would know."

If the man took offense to the fact that Alexander had threatened a noble family, he didn't show it.

Dufresne gave a curt nod at Alexander's answer. "I had to ask. To be honest, nobody is really sure if they were attacked. The only evidence of something violent happening within their estate was some blood, which was identified as belonging to Ezekiel Willard's brother, Bartholomew. The Marines that raided his compound after we questioned Util found nothing else was out of place. It almost appears as if everyone just up and vanished."

"Does that mean they could still be out there?" While less than ideal, Alexander knew people who could find them if they were.

"I don't believe so," Dufresne replied. "There was no evidence that their escape tunnels or the underground facility that was uncovered during our investigation were used to leave undetected. All of their shuttles and ships are accounted for as well, and video recordings for a span of ten minutes were simply erased. Whoever did that knew what they were doing, because none of our efforts to recover the data have been successful."

"Should you be telling me all this?" Alexander asked in suspicion.

"No," Dufresne admitted. "The information we are discussing is classified and should remain that way. As a military contractor for the STO Navy, you are allowed certain security clearance if the leadership justifies it. The remaining admirals voted to give you access to what we discovered."

"The Kcomms are that important to you?" Alexander asked. "And what is going to happen to Util?" Alexander had noticed the man had been quiet on the disgraced admiral's actions, but he must have had a key role in the attack if arresting him led straight to the Willard household.

Dufresne skipped over the first question and answered the second. "Util will face a court martial and likely see a firing squad for his numerous crimes. As for your other question… We look forward to working with you, Mr. Kane." With that, Dufresne disconnected, leaving Alexander a bit annoyed.

That annoyance quickly faded away in the face of practicality. BSE needed income, and the two manufacturing plants on Earth would be providing far more than his expansive production capabilities in Unokane could for a long time.

With a sigh, he contacted Mr. Young.

"Mr. Kane!" The man said in surprise. "After we learned of what transpired at the STO Navy Headquarters, and your refusal to accept our calls, we had all but given up and assumed you had pulled the plug on your projects on Earth."

"I was a tad upset," Alexander admitted.

"You had every right to be. If I were in your place, I would have done the same and gone somewhere safer. To think someone would be so brazen as to attack you like that." The man paused for a moment, seeming to remember something. "Did you suffer any casualties? Is your daughter ok?"

"My daughter is fine, thank you for asking. We suffered one casualty as my people fought off the attackers to give us time to get to the shuttle."

Young seemed both relieved and saddened by the event. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you again. I'm calling to let you know that I have restarted construction. Progress without me there will be a bit slower, but expect the facilities to be up and running in a few more days."

"That soon?" Young asked.

Alexander nodded his avatar. "They were mostly complete before I left." What Alexander didn't mention was that the highly specialized machines, which were needed to build the Kcomms and computronics, had already been finished well ahead of time. They were sitting on the orbital elevator, in a hangar rented out by his good friend Jasper.

Putting them under Jasper's name was a simple way to hide the devices ahead of time. It had been a gamble to build them before he had an agreement in place, but even if the NAA didn't agree to partner with him, Alexander had planned to create shell companies on Earth to make it happen. He was still doing that, but Mr. Young didn't need to know.

"We're about to get in line to use the Borrus hypergate, Councilor Young, so I'm going to bid you goodbye."

"Goodbye, Mr. Kane. We look forward to working with your company, and we'll be in touch soon."

Alexander cut the connection and left his cabin to head toward the bridge. He could have remained in his cabin without too much worry about waking Yulia up, but he didn't want to chance it. She may be a heavy sleeper, and the added protection to her room made it nearly soundproof, but he liked being on the bridge to experience the hypergate transitions. Mostly, he liked to study the sensor readings to see if he could learn anything about the gates.

There was a slim chance of that happening, but it beat sitting around.

Vigbrand nodded as Alexander stepped onto the bridge. Alexander returned the gesture, glad the Asgardians weren't quite as formal as the former STO Navy people.

"Just in time," Vigbrand said.

"I was monitoring our approach from my cabin," Alexander admitted, earning a chuckle from his XO.

"I figured as much."

Once seated, Alexander brought up the ship's sensors. Even to Grace's advanced sensors, the hypergate's power output was a smooth wave that put every single human power system to shame.

He turned his attention away for a moment as Vigbrand asked a question, but he didn't even process the man's words as he spotted a minor distortion in the hypergate's output. Alexander frowned at that and threw the reading up on the main screen. A moment later, there was another one.

"You see that?" Alexander asked his XO.

"I see it. What does it mean?"

"No clue, but let's pull out of the queue and get the local traffic controller on the comm."

A moment later, a bored-looking man appeared on the holo display. "Borrus Traffic Control Center, how may I assist you?"

"My ship's sensors are picking up some odd power fluctuations coming from the hypergate. Can you tell us if this is normal or not?" While Alexander had gone over the data from their previous visits to the gates, that only covered a short timeframe. For all he knew, this sort of power fluctuation happened regularly, and they had just missed it.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The man frowned slightly but didn't look all that concerned. "Hold a moment, I'll check the sensors. I don't see any fluctuations on our end. Are you sure your ship's sensors are calibrated properly?"

"I'm sure," Alexander replied in annoyance. "What type of sensors is your station running?"

Before the man could reply, Grace picked up a larger blip, and this time the man looked a bit concerned. "I need to contact my supervisor to take a look, please hold."

Before the man even finished his sentence, the surface of the hypergate rippled enough to distort the stars that could normally be seen through the invisible energy field. That was followed by a massive seismic-like spike of energy on the sensors before the readings returned to normal.

Alexander saved a part of his focus for the traffic technician who was having a very worried conversation with his boss, but the majority of his attention was on the gate.

Less than a minute later, a massive ship coasted through the aperture, followed by others. The first vessel was easily as large as Harlow's dreadnought, but where Harlow's ship looked ridiculous and like it was compensating for something, the ship that just appeared in Epsilon Eridani looked like it was meant for only one thing: to destroy everything before it.

It wasted no time doing that either. Bolts of searing white energy flew from the ship, tearing apart the STO Navy ships that were stationed nearby with impunity, but it didn't stop there. The unknown vessel turned its guns on the civilian ships next.

Alexander didn't hesitate any longer; he punched the red alert signal and aimed all of Grace's weapons at the massive vessel. There was no way they would escape a confrontation as they were still moving toward the gate, and the enemy ships were shooting at everything within range.

Jumping or fighting were the only options, but the gravitational fields near a hypergate made creating a jump solution extremely difficult at the range they were at. The M|V|LE&MPYR team worked hard on this chapter.

Valkyrie fired first, slicing into one of the ship's escort vessels. Grace wasn't far behind, his beams cutting into the behemoth with little to no effect. The powerful lasers tried to drill into the massive vessel, but the armor was bleeding away the heat at an astounding rate. It acted in a similar fashion to his own body, but it wasn't the same light-absorbing black color, so he wasn't sure what material the enemy ship was made of.

After the first volley, Katalynn contacted him. "Those are Shican warships! I don't know what that big one is, but the others are carriers and destroyers. Take out the carrier before they can launch."

Her warning was too late. The large carrier started to launch small fighters toward them.

The defensive station orbiting the gate fired as well, but Alexander saw their gauss rounds stop dead before impacting the capital ship. It was not a welcome realization to learn that the Shican dreadnought had a defensive field. He had been prepping missiles, but now he knew those would be pointless.

The larger ship completely ignored the BSE ships and Valkyrie as it turned its strange weapons on the station.

The bolts of energy cut through the station with contemptuous ease, causing it to explode after only two salvos.

Meanwhile, Alexander's tiny fleet was doing its best to survive the Shican fighter onslaught. If it wasn't for the PDLs, the enemy would have overwhelmed them already.

Even then, the small vessel's kinetics were tearing into his ships. One Shican fighter even maneuvered into one of his gunships, taking both out of the fight. There was no hesitation in the alien's actions.

As the number of ships nearby dwindled, the large ship turned its attention their way. Those energy weapons started firing at Valkyrie, and Katalynn's ship returned fire with its lasers as well as its improved missiles.

Much like the station's guns, the missiles were stopped dead by the defensive field. The explosive force did slightly damage the big ship, but not enough to slow it down.

The Valkyrie was a true beast, though, and even the strange weapons were having a hard time punching through its thick hide. It was clear from the start that they were outmatched, and soon the inevitable happened. A series of those energy bolts punched into the Valkyrie, and the ship stopped firing. The Shican did not relent, though, as it continuously pounded the front of the heavy cruiser.

Alexander wanted to scream at the ship to stop, but it continued to pummel the crippled vessel as the remaining ships fought off the rest of the Shican fighters.

By the time the massive vessel stopped firing on the Valkyrie, it was a mess, slowly twisting away into space. The entire front half was a mangled and melted mass of broken metal. As it tumbled away, Alexander could see the holes punched deep into the interior where the occasional electrical spark arced from damaged wiring.

With Valkyrie out of the fight, the vessel finally turned its sights on Grace. By now, Alexander had a good idea of what the alien weapon was, not that it helped him in their current situation. The Shican had figured out how to harness plasma into a sort of bolt, and the results were devastating. It was an elegantly destructive evolution of the same crude weapon that Harlow had deployed. If it wasn't for the fact that it was being used against Alexander and his friends, he might even praise the Shican for their ingenuity.

Alexander jacked his framerate to the max and connected to all of his remaining unmanned ships, ordering them to fly at the Shican capital ship at full speed and to release their fusion containment. It was the only way he saw of surviving this encounter. While they were doing that, he started to accelerate and turn away from the gate, doing his best to protect the vulnerable aft section of Grace from direct fire.

The ships complied, but the large Shican vessel wasn't alone. The escort vessels began to engage his ships as they closed in.

The first ship converted itself to plasma and slammed into the dreadnought, doing the first significant damage since the attack began. That got the attention of the large ship, and it focused its weapons on the remaining ships heading toward it as Alexander desperately tried to accelerate Grace away from the battlespace.

Only two more ships managed to go critical, but a Shican destroyer blocked one of the plasma balls. It didn't survive the encounter, but it saved the large ship, which quickly focused on the fleeing Grace.

Grace shook violently as one of the plasma bolts slammed into it. Alexander did his best to avoid the incoming fire, but they were too close, and the enemy vessel had too many of those guns. A white hot beam cut through the bridge, killing two of the bridge crew who were unfortunate enough to get hit by the molten spray from the hole.

The entire holo and sensors went offline, but Alexander was still connected to the ship's systems, trying to pick off the enemy's turrets as they fled. The volume of fire was slowly dwindling, so he assumed he was making a difference.

Then the ship shook even more violently than before, and the power went out. Alexander stared at the stars from his seat. A large overhead section had been melted open by multiple strikes nearly on top of each other. The ship rotated, and Alexander could physically see the Shican vessel in the distance through the gaping hole. It seemed to be mocking them as it had ceased fire. Then he noticed a much smaller object between the enemy ship and Grace as a reflection of light played over its surface.

Alexander cranked his vision to the max, since the ship had no power, but he could not make out what had forced the Shican to stop shooting.

Something told him he needed to know what was going on. He glanced around the bridge, but that last attack had killed the remaining bridge crew. The molten spray had sent deadly droplets throughout the bridge, puncturing everyone's space suits. He was covered in cooling metal as well, but he ignored the angry red lights in his mind space and made his way over to the sensor panel. Alexander would mourn their losses later; right now, he needed information.

He was not gentle about removing the panel; he tore it off and flung it away as he yanked out the cabling and searched for the wire going to the sensors.

Once he found what he was looking for, he tore it in half and fed power directly to the console from his body as he connected to the ship's sensors once again. Only the visual sensors were still working, but it gave him an up-close view of the silvery sphere facing off against the enemy fleet.

For a while, nothing happened, then the remaining Shican fleet opened up on the small sphere.

Alexander watched as lasers and plasma bolts slammed into the sphere, making the surface ripple like water. As the Shican continued their relentless onslaught, the sphere started taking on a dark matte coloration on the back, which quickly spread. Before that change reached the front of the object, the ripples seemed to coalesce back toward the front of the orb, and a beam of white light struck all of the Shican ships, causing them to cease firing.

Alexander focused on the Shican vessels, but saw no damage. His hopes that the strange vessel might have been able to stop them were quickly fading. He was about to pull from the connection and try to get Yulia to safety somehow, but he stopped himself and looked closer at the Shican ships.

Where the beams had struck the vessels, he could see a slight haze starting to form. He might have assumed it was a blurry spot from damage to the optics if it wasn't for the fact that it was happening on all the ships. The haze quickly spread from the light's impact point until it seemed to blow off into space, then the deterioration of the Shican ships accelerated rapidly until there was nothing left but a cloud of tiny expanding particles. The only thing of substance left was the flailing Shican crew, which had not been harmed by whatever weapon the sphere had used. Not that they would live long in the vacuum of space.

An electronic shiver went through Alexander's body. He had seen plenty of death and destruction since awakening, but this was worse. Whatever the alien ship had done, it had completely destroyed all of the Shican ships with a single shot. If the unknown object turned that weapon on Grace, that was it.

He waited for the inevitable end, but that didn't happen. Instead, the sphere fired on the active hypergate as another vessel started to come through. The forward section of the second Shican dreadnought that had been transitioning through was simply sliced apart and left drifting as the gate collapsed and dissipated into a ring of dust, just like the other ships.

For a moment, the sphere simply hung there as if debating what to do next, then it was gone. No flash or distorted space signaled the buildup of a jump; it was just gone.

Alexander breathed a mental sigh of relief and disconnected from the console.

Now that the battle was over, he rushed to see if Yulia was okay.