Vitor did his best to keep the frown off his face as he inspected the crop of five new captains who had just passed certification. His mood had nothing to do with their efforts. They had all performed well above minimum expectations for the role. The problem was a single captain who was giving him a slight smirk even now.

It had been a little over a month since Kaela had arrived with her crew and signed on with BSE. During that time, she had been a model employee, keeping her more impulsive tendencies in control. He would praise anyone else for such control, but he knew Kaela long enough to know that probably wouldn't last.

Until Vitor had a reason to dismiss her, he was stuck with the woman.

With an effort of will, he forced a smile onto his face. "I want to congratulate each and every one of you for a job well done. I'm sure you would all love to receive your first command and begin fulfilling your role. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen today. As most of you know, we have a distinct lack of ships for you to command." Nobody looked surprised or upset by that statement because part of Alex's training was to keep all captains apprised of general fleet logistics and positioning.

That wasn't something the STO taught, but he could see the advantage to knowing where friendly fleet assets were.

Vitor continued. "Efforts are underway to rectify this, but the first group of new frigates isn't slated to be completed for another two weeks. You should all be receiving rotation orders in the next few days. While we don't have a dedicated ship ready for each of you at the moment, a temporary rotation aboard one of the Eden frigates will give each of you valuable command experience."

A week-long command rotation wasn't much, but it had worked out well for the three prior captains. Two of whom were now commanding the Eden frigates, while one had been moved into the last Orca to be commissioned. The captains of the Eden frigates would be bumped to Orcas as soon as they were ready, but in the meantime, they would share their command.

During their downtime, the captains did paperwork, took additional courses to expand their knowledge base, and helped at the academy. Probably not what they had in mind when they took the job, but that was the reality of the situation.

Vitor would probably assign a few of the captains to the new fishbone ships slated to seed Asgardian space with stealth satellites. He would prefer to send them toward the Shican border instead of the automated fishbone ships, but that would put untested captains at more risk.

Why roll the dice when he had access to the automated ships?

Another reason for not sending crewed vessels that way was the length of time they would be gone. If the information Fletcher managed to deliver to Alex was correct, the transit time to the Shican border was over six months. That was beyond the maximum consumable capacity of a fishbone transport. That meant unless the ship could restock en route or pack additional foodstuffs in the cargo hold, the crew wouldn't even survive the trip out, let alone the trip back.

With Unokane being part of the Union, restocking along the way wasn't too much of an issue until they left Asgardian space, but that still left very little wiggle room for supplies, even if the crew rationed. Using some of the cargo space wasn't an option either. Every scrap of space was taken up by the satellites just to have enough to seed all the systems from the Asgardian border to where the Shican border was supposed to be.

They could have simply skipped all that and seeded along the Shican border, but nobody knew the alien's capabilities when it came to FTL. It was possible they could pop up in any random system, multiple star systems away from their border.

One ship wasn't enough to seed those satellites. There were a total of six fishbone ships being prepped at this very moment. Two dozen Stingrays would also be joining the convoy for protection. It was the entire complement of available gunships in Unokane at the moment. Vitor had even retasked four of the Swordfish corvettes that were guarding the jump point into Unokane for the mission.

They couldn't afford to lose any of the fishbone ships, or it would set back their surveillance operations by months.

Vitor hoped he was making the right choice. He wasn't worried about Unokane's protection. They had Vanguard, three Orcas, and three Eden frigates. It was a small fleet, but with the defensive lasers and static field generators around the planet, it was more than enough to keep the system safe until Alex and Ramirez returned in a few months.

"You are all dismissed. Go celebrate your accomplishment."

The small group cheered and began heading out.

"Captain Voss, a moment of your time," Vitor said before Kaela got to the door.

"Yes, Admiral?" she asked with her signature smirk and just a hint of unprofessionalism.

Her response was carefully worded to be just enough to annoy him without being over the line of insubordination. He ignored the woman's attempt to get under his skin. "Follow me."

He turned and headed out the door, but went in the opposite direction from the other newly minted captains. He was surprised when Kaela followed him without complaint or snarky comment. It was almost enough to make him forget she was putting on an act. Considering how she normally acted, he would take what he could get.

The pair exited the academy only to be assaulted by the harsh glare of Eden's End's star. With a practiced motion, Vitor stuck his mask over his mouth, glancing over to see Kaela already had hers on as well. Not telling her that they planned to leave the facility had been a little test.

Kaela had been prepared, though. That was good, he had a mission for her and her crew.

"Where are we going?" she asked from behind the breathing mask as they headed for the idling shuttle.

"To your ship," he replied.

"It's done already?" she asked in surprise, hurrying to catch up to him after stopping in surprise at his words.

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"It was done two days ago, and the initial tests showed all of the systems were good to go," he confirmed as they stepped aboard the ramp.

The pair strapped themselves in, and Vitor pressed the comm button on the wall next to him. "We're all secure back here, Branston."

"Roger that," came the reply from the cockpit.

The ramp closed, and the shuttle raced for orbit, earning a surprised grunt from Kaela. Vitor stifled a chuckle as the woman glared at him. He was used to Branston's aggressive ascents. Normally, the man took it easy if there was a full house, but he also liked to showboat in front of certain people.

Since the former First Lieutenant wasn't part of BSE's military, Vitor couldn't discipline him, and the times he had asked the man to stop didn't stick for long. He couldn't fault the man too much, considering what he had gone through under the pirates.

Soon enough, the shuttle shook as it docked with the anchorage station. The temporary ring station served as the main hub for Eden's End until Hall Station was completed. Now that the station, named after the fallen captain, was fully operational, the anchorage operated as a holding platform for any vessel waiting for upgrades as well as BSE fleet ships between rotations.

The pair stepped off the shuttle and made their way around the ring, dodging workers and Alex's robots. Some were making last-minute checks on ships being worked on, while others were working to expand the ring. The original design had only been capable of holding six vessels, and it was full up, so another ring was being added.

The design could keep being expanded, but Vitor knew Alex had plans for something much larger.

"Here we are," he said, stopping outside one of the airlocks.

He gestured for Kaela to enter her credentials. Once she did, they stepped aboard the newly improved Fox.

"Looks the same," she said as she glanced at the walls.

"It was an upgrade, not a complete overhaul," Vitor said as they moved through the vessel. "Be glad it wasn't, or it would still be under construction."

"Still, it was rather quick. I expected a bit more red tape and feet dragging."

Vitor chuckled. "Yeah, Alex doesn't do that. At least not for people he likes. As for why it was done so quickly, you lucked out. Maybe you already knew this, but the Fox was designed to be a warship, according to Alex."

"It was?" Kaela asked. "I bought it because I thought it looked intimidating," she muttered under her breath.

Vitor chose to ignore that. "The Fox or Veloz-class corvette was designed by a small company and pitched to the STO as a replacement for their aging fleet of corvettes around sixty years ago. Apparently, the Navy decided to go in another direction, and the company responsible for the design went out of business, and their assets were sold off, which included the three prototypes they built. The STO purchased the armed prototypes, and they were torn apart for scrap, while the single unarmed vessel was sold in an auction and eventually made it to you. The framework was exactly the same, though, so fitting a turret didn't require any additional modifications other than cutting out the hull, which was being stripped for the new armor anyway."

Kalea gave him a funny look. "You certainly did your research."

"Alex did, not me," he quickly added to make sure she didn't read too much into it.

"As you say, Admiral," she said with a smirk.

Vitor cursed internally. He should have just kept his mouth shut.

He showed her around the ship and the new controls.

Like all the new captains, she had been shown the tac-display and wrap-around holo, but the woman still whistled in approval as they came online.

"Now that's what I call an upgrade. Sure beats the stuffy bridge we used to share. I would complain about the ridiculous amount of power something like this uses if it weren't for the new reactor."

The woman popped her head into a small room off the bridge. "Where's that comm thingy?"

"It's a comm node or Kcomm if you want to use the new public designation."

Kaela snorted at that. "Not very original."

"Alex is good at building, not at naming stuff, most of the time," he added.

"And the comm node?" she asked again.

"Secure inside an armored housing in the wall."

"I see," she said, closing the door to the room. "Let's go check out these new weapon systems, then I want to see the exterior of the ship."

Vitor showed her the FE cannon and the staggering amount of tungsten rounds lined up along the walls in the feeding mechanism.

"It's good to see Kane loaded me down with enough rounds to fight an entire war by myself," Kaela quipped.

Next, they crawled through the lower deck until they reached the forward section and the two centrally mounted cannons and missile tube. It was the first time he heard Kaela grumble.

"This is going to be a pain in the ass to service and maintain."

"Alex included two maintenance bots to help with any repairs and upkeep, but your ship was too small to add a full-sized printer. You have a small one on board that can jump-start an automated servicing station if necessary."

"Self-sufficiency?" she asked as they crawled their way back to the main deck.

"Something like that," he replied. "Want to see what your ship looks like from the outside?"

"Sure."

The pair returned to the bridge, and Vitor used one of the consoles to link to the satellite network above Eden's End.

Against the backdrop of space, Kaela's new armor was nearly invisible, reminding him of Epsilon's Dawn for a moment. He let the pang of loss pass through him before selecting a satellite that was further out, highlighting the ship against the backdrop of the planet.

Kaela rubbed her eyes at the image. "Why is it so painful to look at?"

"The carbon composite absorbs nearly all reflected light, which our brains have issues processing. It's not a new phenomenon by any means. Earth had paint capable of doing the same thing hundreds of years ago."

"According to Kane," Kaela added. Read ahead and get updates at M*V*L*E*M*P*Y*R.

"Yes, according to Alex. The difference is that your armor doesn't just absorb light, it absorbs all sorts of waves, making it nearly imperceptible to all but the most powerful scanners. And that's not all," Vitor said.

"It's not? What more could you possibly need?"

"Watch." Vitor pointed to the holo screen as he turned on the optical cloaking, which was possible thanks to the stripped-down supercomputer aboard the Fox. It wasn't powerful enough to operate any of the ship's subsystems, but it was enough to operate the cloaking.

The ship's black outline began to blur, leaving behind a distorted splotch that was still visible against the backdrop of the planet.

"It's a prototype," he admitted. "I wouldn't fly near planets or cross in front of them if you're chasing a target, but it eliminates the star occlusion issue, which was one of the major disadvantages of the STO's stealth armor."

"I see. Now, why don't you tell me exactly why you outfitted my ship for stealth operations?"

He sighed. "I have a mission. One we should have done months ago, but we didn't have a ship or a captain capable enough to handle it until you arrived. I would have gone myself, but Alex vetoed that suggestion. When I spoke with Alex about your arrival, he agreed that your ship was perfect for such a mission, assuming you agreed to sign on."

Kaela gestured for him to spit it out already.

"We need someone to go deep into Xin space and find out what the Grand Admiral is up to."

Vitor could hear Kaela clamp her teeth so hard they creaked. He could tell she wanted to shoot the risky plan down, but she had joined BSE, and he was her commander.

"I wouldn't send you if I didn't think you were capable of protecting yourself. With the upgrades Alex gave Kyuubi no Kitsune, you will easily outgun any of the Admiral's corvettes and should be able to deal with one of the outdated coalition frigates with ease, assuming they even spot your ship, which they shouldn't."

Having to make a decision like this was exactly why Vitor didn't want to rekindle his romance with the woman. Even now, he was wondering if there was another person he could send, but he knew Kaela was the most experienced captain he had on hand. There was no room for sending someone who was new, because they had no idea what to expect. Grand Admiral Xin currently held all the cards because he knew what his plans were, but nobody else did. If they could figure out what the man's ultimate goal was, they could disrupt them or warn the STO.

It was paramount that they figured that out and ended that war before the Shican arrived. Fighting on two fronts when one of those held a more technically advanced enemy was a recipe for disaster.