Blue Star Enterprises

Captain Harn was aboard the Devil’s Bargain when the station alert went off.

"ALL STATION LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT. ALL DOCKED CRAFT ARE TO REMAIN DOCKED. ANY SHIP ATTEMPTING TO LEAVE AT THIS TIME WILL BE TREATED AS A PIRATE AND DEALT WITH IN THAT MANNER."

He slammed his fist against his desk. Those fucking idiots had done something to bring the ire of the station down on them, he just knew it. He hurried out of his cabin and to the ops center without even putting on a shirt.

"Rico!"

"Yes, Captain?" The man jumped as if he had been asleep.

"Change the docking code and the ship code, now."

"Are you sure, Captain? We still have Gino and Svadi off the ship."

"Did I stutter?!"

"N- No, Sir." The man quickly turned back to his console and began typing. "Oh, they just entered the hangar, Sir."

Harn squeezed the back of the ops chair until it creaked. "Please tell me the ship codes are changed?"

Rico nodded.

Harn turned his head to the ship’s security feed. After their codes failed, the two men began banging on the exterior door. One even clicked the comm button. "Let us in, Rico, ya lazy shit!"

The other camera caught the ten-armed station security that stormed into the hangar only a minute later.

"Captain?" Rico asked. "What’s going on?"

"Those two just fucked us, that’s what."

There was a short firefight between the two groups. It was rather one-sided. The station security had brought riot shields and the pulse rifles deflected harmlessly off the tough acrylic. Gino and Svadi’s armor absorbed quite a few return shots from similar pulse rifles, but eventually, the men lay in a heap on the ground.

The two were stripped of their armor and weapons before being dragged away in shackles. More station security showed up.

"Tell the crew to gear up."

This time, Rico didn’t bother questioning him. He simply relayed the all-hands message. Whatever those two idiots had done, it had screwed them royally. And with it, any ship they belonged to, which is why he had tried locking down the dock before they returned. At least then he had plausible deniability. But since they had the codes to get in, they had doomed his entire crew. Station security would not have barged into his hangar unless they had declared those two idiots pirates. Seeing as they had nothing to lose now, the Devil’s Bargain would not go down without a fight.

***

[CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE DETECTED]

[INITIATING SELF-REPAIR FUNCTION]

Alexander’s mind snapped awake again. He was disoriented for a moment as two huge red walls of text scrolled past his vision. Soon the red started to change to yellow, and then to green. He was finding it hard to focus on the information though as he remembered what had happened before he blacked out.

"Yulia!"

He pushed himself upright, scanning the room. The only thing that greeted him was destruction and a bit of blood. There was no sign of the attackers or Yulia. He panicked for a moment, thinking they had taken her when they left, but his gaze landed on the door. There was yellow warning tape across the entrance, something you might see after an accident. If people had discovered the attack, they must have taken the little girl to the hospital. He pulled the tape away and moved into the corridor, finding it equally as empty. He needed to find someone and learn what happened to Yulia.

Someone must have heard him stomping about.

"Who goes there?" a station security guard demanded as a pair of them rounded the nearby corner.

When they saw Alexander, they paused. "Holy shit! We thought your robot was toast. The Commandant of Security has been trying to locate your pod for questioning. He’s gonna wanna speak to you."

"Is Yulia ok?" Alexander asked, ignoring the men.

"Who?"

"The little girl, is she ok?" he raised his voice, not in the mood to play twenty questions.

The pair looked at each other, a little nervous. "She was taken to the medical facility."

Alexander tried to make his holographic face nod, but he realized it wasn’t there. Then he realized the entire control box was missing, and the dead space in his vision was gone as well. That was something to think about for later, as well as the fact that he could talk now. He had more important things to worry about at the moment.

He bobbed his main body slightly. "I’m going to the medical facility to check on the girl. Your Commandant can speak to me there."

"Wait, you can’t –," but his partner stopped him with a hand on the shoulder and a shake of his head.

Alexander watched the exchange as he strode down the corridor. There was a medical facility on each ring, but he didn’t know how effective the one on the second would be.

"Excuse me," he said as he entered the building.

The receptionist looked at him in shock before looking around for something. "Um, who’s speaking?"

"I am," he reiterated, and this time the woman looked at him. He answered her unasked question. "I remote control this robot because I have an auto-immune disease that keeps me locked away in a pod."

"Oh… I’m sorry to hear about that. What can I help you with?"

"I’m here to check on the status of a little girl that was brought in. She was at my shop when we were attacked."

"Are you her parent or guardian?"

He went to shake his holographic avatar again, but he remembered it was gone this time. He pushed down his annoyance and spoke. "No."

"I can’t just give you that information then."

"Could I at least speak with the doctor?"

"I can ask him to talk with you when he is free. You will need to wait though."

He took a seat on the floor in the waiting room with the rest of the patients. During that time, Alexander watched over a dozen people come and go. Finally, someone called his name. "Alexander Kane."

He stood, and most of the eyes in the room followed him. The Doctor simply looked at him. "Hello, I’m Doctor Nord. Please follow me to my office so we can have a private discussion."

Alexander followed the man. The man’s office was clean and tidy, but not overly large. He barely fit inside. The doctor looked at the chair before moving it off to the side. "I would have you sit, but I don’t think the chair would hold."

"It’s fine."

The doctor took a seat behind his desk and looked at him. "Normally I wouldn’t even consider talking to you about another patient, but it seems you have powerful friends, Mr. Kane. One of the Council Captains Mr. Na asked me to speak with you."

"Is Yulia ok?"

"She is currently stable. She suffered four broken ribs and a punctured lung from the incident. We set her ribs but she will probably never regain use of that lung."

"I don’t wish to be ungrateful, Doctor Nord, but will she receive the best care on the second ring?"

The man didn’t seem offended by the question. "It may seem strange, Mr. Kane. But I am Petrov Station’s best trauma surgeon. The residential rings may have better specialist providers, but they don’t deal with accidents as often as we do down here. As for her care, she is getting the best free care available."

"Does that mean there are other options?" Alexander asked. If there was, why weren’t they providing it?

"There are advanced meds that will shorten her stay from six months to a week and likely repair the damage to her lung."

"Ok… Why aren’t you using them then? Is it money? If so, I will gladly cover the costs."

Nord shook his head. "While there is a cost associated with those advanced methods, she doesn’t qualify for them."

"What do you mean she doesn’t qualify?" A bit of anger seeped into his words.

"She is a ward, Mr. Kane. And while we provide free healthcare to all, that has limits. The quick heal medications are expensive, but they are also limited in quantity. And we are only given so many a year by the STO. We must reserve them for key station personnel."

Alexander did not like what he was hearing. He knew the Doctor was only doing his job, but this seemed unnecessarily cruel. Yulia was just a child. If anyone deserved to get healed faster, it was them.

"Is there anything that can get her on that list?" He finally asked.

The man seemed reluctant to speak. With a slight sigh, he continued. "…There is. And I am only bringing this up because Mr. Na asked me to. Children of key station personnel are also eligible for this treatment."

"… I don’t follow."

"Has Captain Na not spoken with you yet?"

"No. Why?"

"I see. Well, then let me be the first to congratulate you, Mr. Kane. Thanks to your efforts, a pirate threat was removed from the station. As a reward, you will be gifted the status of a key member of station personnel for a month. I suggest you take full advantage of that while it lasts. There are quite a few perks that go along with it."

He was about to say he still didn’t understand what the doctor was getting at when it all clicked into place. "They want me to adopt Yulia?"

The man shrugged. "I can’t say what they want. But if you are adamant that she get that treatment, this would be the only way to ensure that outcome."

The doctor’s words left him a lot to think about, but he didn’t get much time. As he exited into the waiting room, station security was waiting for him again. This time there were three, and the man in the center bore a commandant’s badge.

It annoyed him that they were here now. Couldn’t they see he was dealing with some serious issues right now?

"Mr. Kane. Follow us to the station, we need to get your statement." Alexander noticed they weren’t asking. With no excuse to deny their request, he followed the men.

What happened next was a three-hour interrogation session. It was clear by their questions that the two attackers had told station security what they were after. "How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t have any weapons. I do not make, or repair weapons. And, I have never stocked or sold any. You can check my purchase history." He was lying, of course, but there was no evidence to prove otherwise. He was thankful he was stuck in this body now as well, because their typical tactics of trying to sweat him or playing good cop bad cop, were having zero effect. He simply sat in the groaning metal chair and played along. He kinda wished the chair would give out as a little bit of petty revenge.

He was glad he had studied station laws after the bullshit with the arbitration hearing. He knew without evidence or a verbal charge, they couldn’t hold him for more than twelve hours. They tried to get him with technicalities and switched up their questions to confuse him, but he wasn’t fooled by any of it.

After twelve hours, they reluctantly released him but only when he asked about it.

The interrogation had given him time though. Time to think and to come to terms with what the doctor and Captain Na were trying to get him to agree to. While he hadn’t ever pictured himself as a parent, he couldn’t deny that he had grown fond of Yulia. When he thought back on the times she visited, he realized he looked forward to those hours. Was that enough for him to go forward with adopting her though? He didn’t want to deny her the chance of being adopted by normal people.

Money was also an issue to consider, but now that he had the Omni payout, that wasn’t a concern. He could provide for her. He could also teach her. That was something he had been doing already without being her adopted parent. The question was, could he love her like she deserved? Alexander couldn’t answer that. He had hoped that with the repairs to his body, his ability to feel strong emotions again would return. They hadn’t.

He recalled his reaction when he knew Yulia was going to be hurt and after she was injured. His first instinct was to protect the girl followed by blinding anger at the attackers. That fact alone was what made the decision easy for him. If he could feel anger, he must be able to feel love. That was something he would need to work at figuring out, but he wasted no more time and headed straight for the orphanage to speak with the Headmaster.