Blue Star Enterprises

LOCATION: SECRET

SYSTEM: UNDISCLOSED

DATE: 2400

Benning walked down the plain and austere hallway next to one of Omni’s leadership team. He hadn’t bothered to ask the man his name and he didn’t much care. The top executives always liked to think they were in charge, but they weren’t. He just let them keep thinking they were. They were simply puppets he had put into place because dealing with the politics was beneath him. He could run the entire company with just his AIs but humans made a good distraction and an easy way to shift blame.

He was certain some of the executive team realized they weren’t in control, but if they did, they were smart enough to keep it to themselves and continue to collect their fat salaries.

Soon the pair came to a thick set of steel doors with a group of four guards. "Please empty your pockets and prepare for a thorough scan. No electronics of any kind will be allowed in the meeting chamber."

The man with him scoffed. "Obviously, who do you think came up with these rules in the first place?"

Benning held his tongue. He doubted his associate had ever done anything other than schmooze with other hoity-toity-rich folks. The man certainly hadn’t implemented stringent security features. Those all came from his department, much like anything of substance from within Omni.

The pair was passed through a series of scanners before being ushered through the heavy doors. Even if someone managed to get some electronics past the scanners, the disruption field that settled over them as they passed the doors would have rendered the devices useless. It did make you feel a bit strange since the field could disrupt the occasional synaptic activity, but it was a small price to pay to ensure complete electronic security.

They entered into a large open room with a massive circular table that could fit a hundred people. That table sat under a similarly circular light fixture that was designed to light the table, but leave everything else in shadow. It was just another measure to ensure all the guests had some privacy.

Benning sat next to his boss in a pair of empty seats. With no head of the table and no assigned seating, it ensured equality among the members of this gathering.

Over the next few minutes, the rest of the attendees filtered into the gloomy room through the multitude of other entrances.

A red strip on the inside of the table lit up to alert everyone that the meeting was set to begin. One of the sections turned blue and the shadowed face began to speak.

Benning knew the speaker even if he couldn’t see the woman’s face. She was the CEO of Dynamic Energy Systems or DES. They were Omni’s business partner and provided the fusion power plants for their compressed plasma ejection drives for that side of the business.

"I would like to formally announce the start of this meeting. Does anyone have an agenda to start us out?"

"I do," a reedy-voiced man spoke up. "When this assembly was first established twenty years ago, we were promised that it would lead to ever-increasing profit margins with each passing year. Yet this war has cut into my company’s bottom line."

The man’s words were enough to jog Benning’s memories. This was a man who ran massive agricultural production operations on multiple worlds. If he remembered correctly, the man did not diversify his holding and most of his operations were on former Coalition planets because the labor was much cheaper out there. He suspected the man had been notified well in advance of the war and chose not to heed their advice because he wanted to eke out a few extra credits before the worlds were set to fall.

The man who came with Benning spoke up in reply, confirming what Benning remembered. "You were notified over a decade ago that our plans included those worlds. You can hardly come complaining to us now because you failed to heed our advice."

"Your advice would have cost me tens of trillions of credits," the man shot back.

"A small price that would have seen your profits grow tenfold," Benning’s associate responded.

"At our last meeting, you assured me that I had another six months to pull out of those worlds. Now your little puppet has captured all of my agricultural assets and stripped them for his war efforts."

A round of grumbling ran around the room at that accusation. Harlow had indeed proven far more capable than their initial estimates.

"Quiet," the CEO of Dynamic Energy Systems spoke matter of factly. "If you wish to speak, you must signal with the light."

Another man clicked on his light to talk and spoke up. "I think I can speak for most here. Why has this war moved quicker than projections?"

Seeing as those projections had come from his AI, Benning answered the question. "The current STO Chairman is even more inept than we first accounted for. His mishandling of the war has given Harlow a much easier time pushing through systems."

"Are you sure the man is even still under control?" another person asked.

"As you are all well aware from our previous meetings, the memory alteration technology is finicky at best. It will only work on weak-minded people. That is why it took us so long to find the proper candidate for this project. We needed one gullible enough to believe the implanted memories of the encounter with the Shican, while also possessing some tactical acumen otherwise the STO never would have taken the threat seriously. We burned out the minds of over two hundred individuals before we found one who finally accepted the memory implant and that was only after the scenario was changed multiple times until his mind decided it was plausible." Benning wanted to mention that the scenario that stuck with the man was so absurd that nobody else would have believed it, but it didn’t matter what anyone else believed, it only mattered what their patsy believed. "Harlow wasn’t the best option, he was the only option. That being said, he is following the plan we set forth for him, he is just moving faster than our predictions indicated. That is once again due in part to the STO Chairman’s ineptitude and lack of response to the first attacks."

Another issue with their chosen scenario was the issue with providing the alien tech to their agent. Getting ahold of one of the captured Shican vessels and secreting it away from the STO had cost a significant amount of money, time, and favors, but they succeeded. It only required years of effort, graft, and mishandled documentation, to liberate the ship from the STO. To this day, the STO probably still thought the ship was misplaced in some storage yard somewhere. Not that it mattered, the STO had other Shican ships to reverse engineer.

This move was also why the Chairman position was no longer in the hands of Tau Ceti’s planetary governor. It was one of the favors they had to spend to make the exchange happen. The temporary loss of power was a small price to pay for the future they were working toward though. It also conveniently redirected all the blame on Borrus’ governor as the war dragged on.

The Shican vessels weren’t all that special, but they were perfect to give to pirates to boost their technology to something a bit more modern. For their plan to pay off, the pirates needed to be seen as a true threat to the STO’s worlds, but not an existential one. It wasn’t the assembly’s goal to unite humanity against a greater threat, only to spark increased profits for the participants while increasing the level of technology throughout the STO.

"What of this new weapon?" another member asked.

The CEO of DES was the one to respond. "It is less a weapon and more a bastardization of fusion technology," she replied with scorn. "We could easily reproduce the same effect, but the cost would be absurd. As for the miniaturization, we can already do that, it is just not publically available because the market doesn’t justify its release."

He could hear soft murmurs of approval at that. If it’s one thing this group understood, it was the bottom line.

"Fine, let’s say we believe that," another member spoke up. "When this plan was first brought to us, a five-year war was the selling point. That was enough to allow plenty of time for the STO to fire up a full war footing and sign lucrative new contracts with all of our companies for the foreseeable future. At the rate Harlow is taking planets, the STO will be forced to act or crumble in a year or two. Neither of which will lead to new long-term profits for our companies. How do you plan on resolving that issue?"

Benning’s companion spoke up again. "We are working on getting the STO to react more forcefully, but as I said before, the Borrus representative is a useless dilettante. Since he is yet to act, we have already started on a plan for redirecting Harlow’s focus for a few months so the STO can regroup and hit back or slow down the attacks."

"How do you propose to do that?" the previous speaker questioned.

"Our spies in his inner circle say he is after someone that is hiding out in Char space. We already know Harlow is single-minded. We could simply redirect his focus out there."

"What about his access to nuclear weapons?" the man who lost his agricultural assets asked.

Benning’s boss ground his teeth at that. "We were unaware that his parents had an enrichment facility. We have retasked out spies on Haven to foment rebellion on the pirate home world in order to destroy that facility and deny any more nuclear weapons to Harlow and his people. The rebellion will also help slow down his assault, thus dragging on the conflict and enriching the rest of our wallets."

"All in favor of this course of action?" the CEO of DES asked.

Two-thirds of the lights turned green, indicating acceptance.

"Any other agendas to discuss?" she asked after the vote.

"I’ve been hearing rumors that a new engine manufacturer is setting up shop," a new voice spoke up as soon as their light went green.

Benning didn’t recognize this person, but he bristled at the accusation in the man’s tone. "We have not received any reports to indicate those rumors are true. If they are, we will deal with them like we have dealt with the rest."

"Oh?" the same man questioned. "And if this new entity is outside of the STO, and has diplomatic immunity? How will you deal with them then?"

The room erupted into conversation. It seemed that this was news to everyone, not just Omni.

"Explain," the DES CEO demanded after getting the room to settle down.

"I have a close family member who works in the STO’s clerk’s office. They are all abuzz that three of them were called to officiate the creation of a new nation, one legally recognized by the STO."

"How is that possible?" someone else asked.

"Some legal loophole allowed it. I managed to get the information from my cousin. The system being claimed is called Unokane. The entity that is claiming it is a small company by the name of Blue Star Enterprises, owned and operated by a man named Alexander Kane. I do find it convenient that this Kane had a run-in with Omni though. Our esteemed colleagues at Omni wouldn’t be trying to double-cross us here, would they?"

"How dare you!" Benning’s associate shot to his feet, taking the man’s bait like an idiot. "I can assure you, that we are dedicated to the vision that we helped set in motion. This upstart, BSE will be dealt with. I don’t care if they are an empire as large as the STO, we will crush them."

Benning would have groaned if they were in private. Instead, he kept his mouth shut. With that outburst, his boss essentially made it so Omni would have to ensure the eradication of this upstart or lose face and standing within the assembly. He would need to look into the issue and find out where this nation was set up.

He also made a mental note to replace this Omni executive with someone more competent. A tragic accident would be a good send-off.

The meeting moved to the next subject.

"What of the Shican?" a new person asked.

Benning was happy to answer this question. "As far as our scouts can determine, the Shican border is over a hundred lightyears away from the nearest occupied STO world. We haven’t been able to infiltrate their space but the AI models predict the aliens likely pulled back because they are at war with some other species. We do need to keep an eye on them, though. The few reports we did receive from our scouts show a distinct difference between the Shican that the STO warred with, and the Shican guarding their border."

"What does that mean?" a woman asked.

"It means that the Shican that fought the STO was not part of their military. They were either outcasts or undesirables, it’s not quite clear."

"And this other race they are fighting?"

"We have no information on them yet. For now, we have pickets set up a few systems away from the Shican border to keep tabs on the aliens and hopefully catch a glimpse of this other unknown alien species. I would also like to remind everyone that this is one of the reasons why war with the pirates was the best choice. War always leads to technological advancement, and if our neighbor is actively engaged in a war for more than forty years, we need to ensure our technology remains at or above their level," Benning stated.

He had seen the reports from the scouts. If anything, the STO lagged quite a bit behind the Shican’s military. He wasn’t about to air that concern here though. He also had a pretty good idea of who the Shican were at war with. There really were only two options. It was either the race that built the hypergates or the ones that the mystery ship the STO had locked away belonged to.

Benning had heard about that ship years ago, but even with his vast connections, he hadn’t been able to get it out from under the STO or even get access to the reports generated from it. He knew the STO was reverse engineering it, but he didn’t know how far along they were.

His lack of access was all thanks to that damnable Vice Admiral. The man was a slippery bastard and as tight-lipped as they came, but he knew the man was on a short leash after the massive intelligence mishap with Harlow. Maybe with Vice Admiral Fletcher out of the picture, he could finally learn what they were building. This might be the perfect time to call in a few favors to finally get rid of Fletcher once and for all.