Alexander stood and shook Rush's hand. "Welcome to Eden's End. I know we don't have many amenities, but feel free to take advantage of what we do offer during your stay."

"Nonsense," Rush replied, shaking Alexander's hand enthusiastically. "Your people have been extremely accommodating since I arrived, and I don't really partake in partying or living a lavish lifestyle like some in my income bracket. To be honest, I prefer the quiet that a small place like Eden's End provides."

"I do recall that you mentioned your preference for such places to build your new headquarters, but I wasn't aware that you shared the same feelings," Alexander added as the pair took their seats.

Rush shrugged. "Money is just money after a certain point, and my company and I aren't concerned with power or politics."

"Yet you engage in both," Alexander retorted.

"A necessary evil. I'm sure you understand."

"All too well, I'm afraid. How was your trip out?" Alexander asked, deciding to change the subject.

Rush chuckled. "You tell me. You were monitoring our approach for quite some time with those satellites."

Alexander had wondered if the Gravitational Solutions Chairman had spotted them. Apparently, he had. At this point, he would have been more surprised if the man hadn't seen the things. "You had a little run-in with the Qcomm folks. They were there because of me, so I apologize for that."

Rush waved off his concern. "It wasn't my first time putting an uppity company in their place and I doubt it will be the last. As I'm sure you've seen, the corporations have been growing bolder since Harlow kicked off his little revolution."

"I have. I just wish I knew why," Alexander replied.

"Oh, that's easy. Most of them are out for more money and power, or what they think of as power. They are so blinded by this goal that they will eventually see their companies crumble beneath them due to their unchecked greed. Once that happens, the few companies that have a long-term vision will move in and snap up the pieces. You see that starting with Qcomm."

Alexander stared at Rush for a bit before responding. "You seem to know a lot about what's going on, despite staying to yourself. Why is that?"

"GS has been around for a long time, so we tend to see trends as they repeat themselves. It helps that this group tried to invite me to their little cabal," Rush said, doing quotes with his fingers. "Or I guess I should use their name for their little club, which is the Assembly. It's a group made up of some of the STO's most influential and powerful corporations, and it's all headed by Omni. Most of the companies that are part of the Assembly don't know that. They think it's a group designed to make them all super wealthy, but in reality, it's about control."

"Control? What type of control?"

Rush shrugged. "I can only speculate, but I believe they are behind most, if not all, of the laws designed to protect corporations and give them an edge. I doubt their influence or goals end there, however."

"Do you think they might try to influence wars?" Alexander asked pointedly.

"I wouldn't put it past them," Rush replied without hesitation. "They are making a boatload of money off of new STO contracts because of the Xin war."

The entire reason Alexander had for speaking with Rush had been sidelined by the man's admission that an organized group of STO corporations was working together to shape the future of the STO.

Alexander shouldn't have been shocked about such an obvious admission. It made so many things make so much more sense. It also painted a far darker picture of where the STO was heading than he realized.

***

One felt bad about dropping that little nugget of information on Kane, but he wasn't alone in the room. His brothers and sisters all stood by, watching the interaction from their virtual spaces. A consensus had been reached to tell Kane about the Assembly.

Once the Collective declined the invitation to join the Assembly, that was that. They assumed the little group would disband like so many other secretive groups before them–humans really loved their exclusive little organizations–but somehow, Omni kept it all going. After realizing their mistake and the Assembly's growing power, the Collective tried to gain entry again to keep tabs on them, but the only way to do that while keeping GS neutral was to replace one of the other members.

Because that violated their non-interference agreement, they never came to a consensus to move forward with that idea. That didn't stop them from trying other methods to track the group.

During the Assembly's early meetings, the Collective had been able to monitor them through their virtual space. As the group's power and technology grew, that method became less and less reliable until the Assembly finally hardened their meeting site from any outside interference.

It didn't take a sapient artificial construct to figure out that they only did that because the Assembly couldn't afford for any of the information they were discussing to leak to outside sources.

"Ask him," Two practically demanded.

"Can't you see he needs time to process the news?" One sighed.

"I thought the whole point was to unbalance him so we could ask a question or two without him getting suspicious?" Four cut in.

The rest agreed. One could understand their need to know, but he thought they were being a bit too pushy about it.

One agreed and set aside his feelings to ask what they all wanted to know. "So, what are your plans for the future?"

"Huh?" Kane asked in surprise.

"You know, for BSE, Unokane, Eden's End? You do have a long-term goal in mind, right?"

Kane's holographic avatar showed a moment of embarrassment before the image reset. "Right now, we're gearing up for the war against the Shican. That's the main reason I agreed to let you build a manufacturing site here. After that, we'll see."

The Collective really wanted to know what Kane's plans for the humans were, but asking about that would be extremely suspicious.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"What about your plans?" Kane asked in return.

"Originally, all I ever wanted to do was have our small location in Epsilon Indi, but the war with Harlow opened our eyes. After some deliberation, we decided to expand our reach to help with the war efforts."

"A bit late on that front," Kane said bitterly.

"You're not wrong there. We dragged our feet during the pirate conflict, but then Xin attacked, followed shortly by the Shican. We finished up the business that was keeping us tethered to Indi, and here we are," One said, spreading his arms.

"And after?" Kane asked.

There would be no after. The Shican would come, and there was no way humanity could hold them back. The question was, how long would the Collective agree to remain in this area of space? They would have left already had it not been for Kane's reappearance.

"We'll take it one day at a time," One responded.

"So much for long-term plans," Kane chuckled, causing One to join him.

"I was never the best at long-term planning. I leave that to my brothers and sist-ers," One only realized what he was saying as it was coming out of his mouth. By then, it was too late to stop.

"GS is a family-run company? I didn't know that," Kane said. "I guess it makes more sense why you stick to yourselves now."

The Collective members were giving him disappointed looks, but One ignored them. The information wasn't all that telling. "Pretty much," he responded. "I don't really like to discuss my family, though," he added, hoping Kane would take the hint and change topics. Thankfully, he did.

"Fair enough. I do have a question of a technical nature, if you don't mind."

"So long as you aren't asking for the secret to artificial gravity," One laughed.

"While I wouldn't say no to that, I had something else in mind. You once mentioned that you knew I had an FTL comm aboard my ship. How did you detect the signal?"

One was a bit taken off guard by the question, and so were his brothers and sisters.

"Why does that concern him?" Two asked. "There are no human corporations that can detect such a link."

"Perhaps it is simple curiosity?" One proposed.

The conversation sped by in less than a second as One sat there, looking like he was debating whether or not to answer the question. The Collective quickly reached a consensus. They agreed that the knowledge was harmless enough.

"Quantum communications leave ripples in subspace. It's like dropping a rock in a still pond."

"Like the after effects of a jump?" Kane asked.

"Not exactly. I'm sure you know that a warp drive disturbs gravity, and that can easily be detected. To have a subspace affect gravity, even slightly, you would have to pass something more than data through. Something like a ship," One said with a smirk.

When the Collective arrived in Unokane, they could hardly miss the roiling left behind in subspace. It was clear that Kane had discovered a way to transit through subspace. It was an impressive feat considering the only other human entity that knew how to do so was Omni.

The Collective could move through subspace as well; it was their main form of FTL travel outside of Warp, but their drive was many generations beyond what Omni or Kane had. The Collective's drive technology didn't require that they rip a hole into subspace, so there was no deadly radiation to contend with, which would have been visible from even the most rudimentary sensors. The transit would still be deadly to biologicals, but that didn't concern the Collective.

The Collective's drive technology worked to push their spheres into the subspace layer, which had the added bonus of bypassing the annoying gravitational linking that likely plagued the drive that Kane was using. The method wasn't without its issues. It required a tremendous amount of energy and processing power, but it allowed the Collective to transit anywhere within a hundred light-years, nearly instantly. It was one of the few technologies the group had discovered and perfected on its own. The others had either come about based on what Kane had asked them to research before he left, or were picked up by studying the hypergates.

One's focus was pulled back as Kane asked a follow-up question.

"So you can pick up these signals from both incoming and outgoing connections? How do you even measure an effect like that?" Kane inquired.

"I'm afraid I can't share that information," One chuckled. "Why are you interested in such a thing anyway? There isn't really any point to having the capability other than letting you know if a ship has an FTL comm aboard."

Kane smiled. "Call it professional curiosity. If you can't tell me, I guess I'll have to figure it out on my own. Anyway, thanks for meeting with me, but I think I've monopolized enough of your time. If you need anything during your stay, don't hesitate to reach out."

They both stood and shook hands again before One headed for the door.

"He was lying," Two said.

"Of course, he was lying," One replied. "He doesn't trust us, and why should he?"

"I don't understand," Twelve declared. "We are providing a valuable service, and have not taken any action against him."

One sighed inside the constructed space. "Humans require more than a single gesture of goodwill to build trust."

Twelve looked confused, which was hard to pull off with his avatar of geometric patterns and fractal constructs. "Did you not also assist him on Earth? Also, Kane is not human."

Two actually stepped in to explain. "You are correct, but at one point, he was human. He still maintains some of those biological instincts."

Understanding rippled through the room, although One could tell not everyone was completely convinced by that explanation.

"In the meantime?" Thirteen hesitantly asked, her voice that of a timid little girl.

One beamed an encouraging smile her way. She awoke around the same time as Twelve, but she was still very cautious about expressing herself. The few words she had spoken were more than she had expressed outside of her duties in over a year.

"We continue with the agreed-upon plan," Two said. "We build our manufacturing plant and monitor Kane and the situation with the Shican until it becomes untenable, and we must leave."

"I still believe it would be much more advantageous to simply approach Kane and explain the situation," One responded.

"NO!" the collective said in unison.

The flat-out refusal to even discuss the question was so shocking that One stumbled in the real world. He hadn't quite realized how terrified his siblings were of revealing themselves until that very point.

"Are you okay?" Kane asked in concern.

One chuckled. "Clumsy me, I tripped over my own foot. Don't mind me. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I'm sure we'll speak more soon." With that, he hustled out of the room while he tried to assuage his siblings' fears and get them to change their stance. They should at least discuss it.

***

Alexander watched Rush leave, the weird interference inside his mind space vanishing with him. Alexander wasn't sure what was causing it, but if he had to guess, Rush was communicating with someone during their talk. It explained the weird pauses, the stumble, and the fact that the interference seemed to grow and ebb. He had only experienced the phenomenon once before while in Rush's presence.

"An implant, maybe?" Alexander muttered to himself.

Human implant tech was rare and not all that good, but if anyone had the means to make top-of-the-line cybernetics, Rush was definitely on that list.

Alexander changed his focus to what the Chairman had said about subspace changes caused by FTL comms. Was that what Alexander was picking up when Rush was using whatever device he had?

He wouldn't be surprised if his body had the ability to detect subspace distortions. It already displayed capabilities he never expected. If that was the case, why didn't he experience the distortion when he used a comm node, though?

If he was on the right track, the real question was. How did Alexander create a device for a ship to detect the same signals?

The ripple drive, which had become the official name for the gravitational bridging drive, tore a hole into subspace to form the bridge. If he needed to figure out how to measure the distortion anyway, what better way than to start with something that made a whole lot of noise?

There was only one problem with that. Both carriers were already gone. The only other ship Alexander had with a ripple drive was the Stingray. It was clear from one of Rush's comments that he detected the distortions left by the carriers. Just because Rush knew that didn't mean Alexander wanted to display what he was capable of.

Alexander left his office and headed to his workshop to design a simple rack mount for one of the Fishbone ships so it could carry a single Stingray to an adjacent system. He also needed to fit the Stingray with every sensor he could think of.

He was hoping to have something to stop the Shican from detecting their communications, but after learning it was detected through subspace distortion, that wasn't likely anything he could make happen anytime soon, and certainly not before the fleet engaged the Xin ships.