Over the next few hours, a few more ships came poking about, but they stayed toward the outskirts of the battlefield and left as soon as Katalynn warned them off.

That gave Alexander enough time to complete the large smelter and begin feeding sections of the cleared alien ship to it. Before the chunks went into the smelter, Alexander used the ship's sensors to thoroughly scan the pieces, building a 3D model and putting them together like a puzzle inside his modeling software. He would have preferred to study the ship at length with his own eyes, but with no backup available and a damaged ship, he wanted to gather what data he could before the corporations could react. He did take aboard a few smaller pieces for future study, and it was just in time.

Katalynn was already monitoring movement inside the system as certain corporate ship transponders grouped up. They hadn't started moving in their direction yet, but it was clear they were thinking about it. Alexander didn't see anything larger than a gunship among the three different groups that were detected, but one group had five of the vessels, and even a single gunship could be deadly given their current status.

Katalynn was keeping an eye on them while Alexander ensured the bots were working as efficiently as possible. It wasn't going very quickly. The armor of the Shican wreck resisted the plasma torches, much like it had resisted Grace's lasers. That was the main reason he had changed his plans from cutting the ship into a few larger parts to the smaller ones, which was making his efforts take far longer.

If they did need to fight, he would have to cut the bots from the ship's network to ensure Grace's ECM systems were able to operate at full power.

It took a full day before one of the groups managed to gather enough bravery to make their move.

Alexander was surprised they had waited so long, but it had given him time to repair the gaping wounds in Grace's armor as well as reduce a full quarter of the Shican wreckage into component material. Then again, that was far faster than anyone should have been able to operate, so maybe the groups were simply surprised by his speed and were forced to act.

"Katalynn, our company is on the way. Feel free to activate the device."

"I noticed," she said from one of the surviving consoles on the other end of the bridge. "Already sent the command."

When Alexander realized he might not have time to finish disassembling the wreckage, he used a few of his bots to cut out Valkyrie's reactor and shove it into the alien ship along with the fuel systems and a crude control system that he whipped up.

He had crunched the numbers and knew that the reactor output was enough to liquify most of the enemy vessel. Any surviving bits would get shoved into the smelter before their guests jumped in.

Alexander moved his bots away from the ship as the reactor reached overload. Ensuring the meltdown was contained within the ship had required panels to be welded in place to contain the reaction, but it seemed to work.

Within less than a minute, the reactor containment failed, and the remains of the Shican vessel flashed from red to bright white in a fraction of a second. The material that had given him such trouble was unable to compensate for so much thermal input. Without any remaining oxygen inside the ship, there was nothing to force the molten material apart; it sort of undulated like the wax in a lava lamp for a bit before slowly forming into a rough sphere as it tried to radiate away the insane amount of heat that was released from the reactor.

The nearest bots grabbed anything that survived the reactor overload and sacrificed themselves as they flew into the smelter with their prizes. He was just shoving the final bit into the smelter when the group of gunships jumped in just outside of the declared safe zone.

The radio clicked to life, and a woman began to speak before falling silent after only a few words. It seemed they didn't know what to do now that their prize was gone. The ships just sat there, weapons primed, but no targeting on their end, which wasn't a surprise; they were well outside their optimal range for combat.

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Grace's lasers weren't though, and Katalynn wasted no time targeting the ships with the frigates' remaining weapons.

It didn't take long for the other groups of ships to jump in. They probably wanted to prevent their competition from gaining an advantage. One of the groups even had an old corvette. Alexander didn't recognize the names of the corporations that owned the ships, but he had done some research while he waited.

Koleno Systems seemed to specialize in material sciences, but considering they were a small company based out of one of the moon bases in the system, he doubted they had done anything of note. If they had, they would have been snapped up by a bigger corporation or driven out of business. How they managed to afford to operate five gunships was beyond him.

The second group, and the smallest, with only three gunships, belonged to a medium-sized interstellar trader by the name Zenith Group. The group had five large haulers in Epsilon Eridani at the moment. The gunships were probably their protection.

Alexander kept his eyes on them because, while they had the fewest ships, he could tell they were the most advanced out of the bunch. Not nearly as advanced as the corporate ship Krieger retrieved, but certainly top of the line for civilian vessels.

The last group consisted of the corvette and three gunships. It belonged to a company called Holbart Securities, which was a security company. Apparently, that was different from a mercenary company because they were allowed to have armed ships without the same certifications that companies like the Hawks required.

Alexander figured that was probably some legal loophole that the corporations used to hire external security forces.

The first group turned around and jumped; their prize gone. The second and third groups stuck around, weighing their options.

Based on damaged sensor readings, Alexander could tell the two groups were communicating amongst themselves, but the radio receiver was not doing great, and the signal was garbled since the communications weren't aimed in their direction.

He would have run it through the computer core, but it was currently busy managing the ship.

Whatever discussions the two groups were going through quickly ended, and the Holbart Securities group left. That left the three ships from the Zenith Group. They wasted no time declaring their intentions. Sou+rce$d di#rec#tly# f&r%om M^V6.L!E.M-P6YR&.

"BSE ship, Yulia's Grace. The Zenith Group has entered a salvage claim on the remains in this area. We have already filed the legal paperwork with the local government, and they have given us exclusive rights to the site. We ask that you stand aside while we complete our salvage operations. Failure to do so will result in legal ramifications."

Alexander couldn't help but laugh at that. He sent his reply. "I don't know who your employers paid off to force such a ridiculous claim through, but you should tell your employer to look up the laws regarding sovereign entities such as BSE and the safe harbor statute. If any Zenith ships enter this area, we are legally entitled to defend ourselves."

There was no immediate response, and the ships remained just beyond the safe harbor demarcation area for the next hour before they finally replied. Just enough time to send and receive a response from Borrus.

"We have been instructed to remove you from the area. If you do not comply, we will be forced to fire upon you."

"I'm warning you one last time," Alexander said. "If you enter our safe harbor, you will die."

The ships didn't listen; they turned inward and accelerated toward Grace.

A few seconds later, all three gunships were reduced to tumbling scraps of metal, and Katalynn adjusted Grace's slow course to avoid them.

"Why would they do something so stupid?" she asked.

Alexander sighed. "I doubt they were given much of a choice by their employers."

Katalynn shook her head in disgust and said something under her breath that Alexander didn't catch. He was pretty sure it wasn't anything nice, however.

The second display of violence and the lack of alien wreckage seemed to be enough to ward off anyone else looking to claim what was left. At least until someone with some real firepower showed up.

Alexander checked on the bots, who were busy disassembling the remains of Valkyrie. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with all the material; he already had more than he could use to repair Grace. He thought about producing a Shark or a few Stingrays, but he didn't have the pseudo-computronics to make that happen.

A few piloted gunships were possible, however. There was more than enough crew aboard Grace with Katalynn's people. He was glad he had finished the pilot-operated design before leaving on this trip.

It took a bit of finagling to get the proper materials to create the ship, and even with the excess, he only had enough for two Stingrays. The exotic materials required for the armor and powerplant were the main limiting factor, but he made it work. It would take a week to print one out, but he would feel much better with some backup.

After taking care of that, Alexander started studying the scans of the Shican vessel. He grumbled when he saw just how little of it he had managed to scan and gather. Hopefully, it would be enough to reverse-engineer their shielding.