The House of the Reapr welcomes a new Novice, along with Operatives Randoff411 and Philip Gauthier to our ranks. Their contributions and dedication to our cause will be honored through the Net and through the Stars.
As your Fleet Admiral, I, Crimson_Reapr, welcome you, honor your commitment, and thank you for your service. May our power reach beyond the edges of charted space, and may ruin fall upon all who stand against humanity's strength.
---
I let out a long, heavy exhale, staring at the three glowing red spheres spinning above my desk. A pirate armada, a derelict ruin, or a suffocating glass cage.
"Put them all on ice for now, Marcos," I said, rubbing the back of my neck, the sheer weight of interstellar logistics threatening to bring my headache back. "Run a preliminary cost-analysis on what it would take to hire an independent contractor fleet to rebuild the orbital station in option two, versus the hazard pay required to establish supply lines through option one. But don't place any bids or make any contact yet. I need time to think about this."
"Understood, Mark," Marcos replied, the holograms fading away, plunging the office back into its standard, sterile lighting. "I will compile the data. Enjoy your downtime."
I stood up, pushing the chair back. I had one point five billion credits, a hundred automated drones handling the menial labor, and a self-imposed week of absolute rest ahead of me.
For the next seven days, I traded my heavy, oil-stained mechanic's overalls for a simple pair of dark jeans, a grey t-shirt, a heavy leather jacket, and a pair of Timbs to match the fit, all thanks to the pendant I had hanging around my neck. Though doing so made me think about the certain "being" Marcos had claimed inhabited the pendant and whether it found this to be a menial task below it or not.
But the thoughts slipped my mind as I spent the entire week with Lyra.
We didn't do anything spectacular. I didn't charter a luxury yacht or visit the elite sectors of Mechanicus Station that my newly minted bank account could easily afford. After all, Lyra was a child who didn't care about billions of credits. She cared about my time.
So we spent hours in the station's Arboretum, a massive, domed sector dedicated to hydroponic agriculture and faux-greenery, designed to keep the station's populace from going entirely mad from being locked in what was essentially a very technologically advanced giant tin can. We sat on synthetic grass under artificial, UV-filtered sunlight, eating overly sweet, brightly colored station-churned ice cream. I watched her run around, her small legs carrying her across the open spaces as she chased after the automated pollination drones, her laughter echoing in the humid, floral-scented air.
It was a beautiful, profound sliver of peace. It was the exact kind of life I wanted to provide for her.
But beneath the surface, a heavy, uncomfortable knot was tightly coiled in my stomach, pulling tighter with every passing day.
I had secured the capital. We were building our exit. In a few short months, the Swift Justice would be finished, and Shephard Orbital Works would be packing up its foundries, its drones, and its people, leaving Mechanicus Station entirely to build a kingdom out in the black.
But Lyra didn't know that. She had finally found a rhythm here. She had found friends at the orphanage. She adored Sister Elara and looked up to Father Michael. She idolized Sergeant Miller and his Marines. Taking her away from all of that felt like a betrayal, an unforgivable disruption to the fragile stability she had pieced together after losing her biological parents.
The break had to end eventually. And on the fifth day, as we sat together in the living room of my spacious loft-style quarters on the Shepherd, I knew I couldn't put it off any longer.
Lyra was sitting on the rug in the center of the living room. She was using the tablet I had bought her, meticulously drawing a picture of the Swift Justice, complete with the aggressive, sloped Bowie-knife bow and, of course, the giant, jagged-toothed smiley face she insisted the ship needed.
I sat on the edge of the sofa, nursing a glass of actual, distilled water, watching her work.
"Hey, Bug," I said, my voice softer than usual.
Lyra didn't look up, entirely focused on shading the matte black hull of the corvette. "Yeah, Papa?"
I set my glass down on the coffee table, leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I took a slow, deep breath, trying to find the words that wouldn't shatter her world. "Lyra, put the stylus down for a second. Come sit with me. We need to talk about something important."
The serious tone of my voice caught her attention instantly. The stylus stopped moving. She looked up, her wide, perceptive eyes scanning my face. She dropped the stylus, stood up, and padded over to the sofa, climbing up to sit right beside me. She pulled her knees to her chest, her expression suddenly guarded, like a small animal anticipating a strike.
"Did I do something wrong?" she asked, her voice impossibly small.
"Huh? No, Bug, no. You didn't do anything wrong," I assured her quickly, wrapping a massive arm around her shoulders and pulling her close against my side. "You're perfect. It's just... it's about the shipyard. About our work."
Lyra frowned, tilting her head. "Is Uncle Kenji okay?"
"Kenji is fine. He's just sleeping," I said, offering a weak smile. I looked down at my hands, trying to find the right words to say. "Lyra... you know how we build ships, right? We take broken things, and we make them stronger."
She nodded slowly.
"Well, the people who buy the ships, the people who run this station... some of them want what we have," I continued, keeping my explanation as simple as possible. "It's getting crowded here. And I want us to have our own space. A place where we can build whatever we want, whenever we want, without anyone bothering us."
Lyra's eyes watched me intently, the innocence in them slowly giving way to a dawning, terrible realization.
"So," I swallowed the heavy lump in my throat, forcing myself to maintain eye contact with her. "When we finish building the big shark ship in the drydock... we aren't going to stay on Mechanicus Station anymore. I'm going to buy us a new place. A whole new home, very far away from here. It'll be safe. It'll be ours."
Lyra stared at me. The silence in the living room stretched, thick and suffocating. I watched her process the information, the gears turning in her mind, connecting the dots of what "far away" actually meant.
Slowly, the color drained completely from her cheeks. Her lower lip began to tremble, and her breath hitched.
"Leaving?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
"Yeah," I said gently, tightening my arm around her. "In about three months. We'll pack up the printers, the drones, everything. We'll take the Shepherd, and we'll go somewhere where nobody can tell us what to do."
And that did it. Tears started flowing from her eyes like a sudden, devastating flood. Lyra buried her face in her small hands, her shoulders shaking violently as a quiet, broken sob ripped through her. The profound, heartbroken grief of a child who was being told that her entire universe was being torn apart once again. She had lost her parents. She never truly had a home. She had found a tiny sanctuary here, in this station, and now I was taking a metaphorical sledgehammer to it.
"Hey, hey, shhh," I murmured, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces as I pulled her into my lap, wrapping both arms around her, burying my face in her hair. "It's going to be okay, Lyra. I promise you. I'm going to build us a fortress. You'll have a room twice as big, and-"
"But what about Timmy?!" Lyra cried out, her voice muffled against my shirt, her small fists gripping the fabric of my jacket with desperate, white-knuckled strength. "What about Sarah? And Sister Elara? And Father Michael?"
I closed my eyes, the guilt hitting me like a solid kinetic slug. "I know, Bug. I know it's hard to leave friends behind."
"I don't want to leave them!" Lyra sobbed, pulling back to look at me, her face flushed and heavily streaked with tears. Her eyes were wide pools of sheer betrayal. "They're my family too! Timmy doesn't have a papa. Sarah doesn't have a mama. Sister Elara takes care of them. But if we leave, who is going to make sure they have enough food? Who is going to make sure they're safe when the bad men come?"
"That's what the Orphanage is for. Also, the Marines will protect them, Lyra," I tried to reason, though the words tasted entirely hollow. "Sergeant Miller-"
"Sergeant Miller goes where you or I go!" Lyra argued, her protective instincts flaring up through her tears. "He guards you! If we leave, the orphans are going to be all alone!"
I didn't have an answer for that. Because she was absolutely right. Without the massive influx of anonymous credits I was quietly funneling into the orphanage, and without the intimidating presence of the Marine detail that had been assigned to me and keeping the local gangs at bay, the orphanage was just another vulnerable target in the poorest sector of the station. If we left, the wolves would circle back.
Lyra sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve. She looked at me, her eyes pleading, searching for a miracle in the man who could fix broken starships.
"Papa," Lyra hiccuped, her voice dropping into a desperate, fragile whisper. "If you're buying a whole new home... is it big?"
"It's very big, Bug," I admitted softly. "I'm looking at buying a whole moon. Or a giant station."
"Then... can they come with us?" Lyra asked, her eyes widening as the idea took hold, a desperate lifeline she was throwing out to me. "Can we take Timmy and Sarah and everyone? If they don't have a papa... can you just be their papa too? Like you became mine?"
The question caught me off guard and threw my mind for a loop.
Adopt an entire orphanage? Relocate dozens of children, along with their nuns and a priest, across the galaxy to some militarized and unconquered sector of space? It was an absolute nightmare. It was a massive liability. I was a shipwright, an engineer, a man who dealt in fixing shit. I was no savior. Hell, I was far from it, let alone fathering a nation or something.
But as I looked down at Lyra, at the desperate, unyielding hope shining through her tears, the cold, pragmatic logic of my mind shattered into a million useless pieces.
I thought about the one point five billion credits sitting in my bank account. What was the point of having the wealth of a king if I only used it to build empty halls and a silent castle? I was going to be building a kingdom out in the black, and kingdoms, logically, needed people. They needed life, food, laughter, and a future worth defending.
I found myself contemplating so many things in a split second. The memories of all those sci-fi novels I had read in my previous life flashed before my very eyes. I felt like I was drowning, and I felt my heart beat faster and faster as I looked into those cute beady eyes of the little girl I had taken in as my daughter.
I took a deep breath, reaching up to gently wipe a tear from her cheek with my thumb.
"Lyra," I said, my voice steady, trying to comfort her. "I don't know if they will want to leave. Moving across the galaxy is a very big, very scary thing for a lot of people. It means leaving everything they know."
Lyra's face fell, fresh tears immediately threatening to, once again, spill over her lashes.
"But," I added quickly, holding up a finger to stop the tears. "I promise you, I will talk to Sister Elara, and I will talk to Father Michael. I will ask them if they would like to go with us. I'll offer them a place in our new home."
Lyra gasped, a watery, brilliant smile breaking through the devastation on her face. She threw her arms around my neck, hugging me so fiercely I thought she might actually start choking me. "Thank you, Papa! Thank you, thank you, thank you! They'll say yes! I know they will!"
I hugged her back, resting my chin on her shoulder, staring blankly at the far wall of the living room.
'What the hell have I just agreed to?' I thought to myself.
---
A month went by.
The weeklong break had concluded, and the brutal, grinding rhythm of the shipyard had consumed Kenjiro and me once more. But this time, the scale of our work on the Swift Justice reached a fever pitch.
The drydock had once again transformed into a perfectly synchronized mechanical hive. Marcos directed the drones with terrifying precision, running thousands of simultaneous calculations to ensure every weld, every rivet, and every newly printed slab of S-Alloy was laid down with micrometer accuracy.
Before we could advance any more than we already had, we had to finish wiring everything, or there would be no way of doing it later on. The Navy's original Aegis schematics were a convoluted mess of fragile optic fibers and exposed power relays. It took Kenjiro and me twelve days to redesign its electrical layout and manually lay down miles of hyper-conductive S-Alloy wiring. We threaded the thick, pulsing cables deep within the titanium-carbide keel, wrapping them in secondary bulkheads so that no stray slug could ever sever the ship's command functions.
We were exactly two months away from our self-imposed deadline. Two months until S.O.W packed up its bags and disappeared from IUC space entirely.
And I had been stalling.
I had been buried in the work, using the complex thermodynamic equations of the corvette's containment casing as an excuse to avoid the inevitable conversation. But the promise I had made to Lyra weighed more heavily on my conscience with every passing day. She brought it up constantly, asking if I had spoken to the Sister yet, her eyes shining with absolute, unwavering trust that I would make it happen.
Finally, I couldn't put it off any longer.
I shut down my plasma welder, dropping it onto the gantry railing. I wiped my hands on a rag, letting out a long breath that puffed in the cool air of the scrubbers.
"Kenji," I called out over the comms, watching the loader mech hoist another massive slab of armor into position near the bow. "I'll leave you and Marcos alone for a little while. I need to step out. Keep the drones on the lower lateral plating."
"Sure thing," Kenjiro replied, his voice sounding sharp and focused. "We've got it all under control here, though you really ought to hire more people."
"Yeah, yeah," I said as I started leaving the drydock, walking to the Shepherd, and making my way to my room. I stripped off my filthy overalls, throwing them into the industrial cleanser unit, and quickly took a shower, scrubbing the worst of the soot and grease from my face and arms. I activated my pendant and clothed myself in a clean black t-shirt, my heavy leather jacket, and my Timbs, though I changed their color today, going with a gray color over the usual tan.
I stepped out of my quarters and made my way to the office, only to find Lyra already waiting by the main entrance. She was practically vibrating with nervous energy, clutching her Mr. Bear tightly to her chest.
Standing behind her, an imposing wall of olive-drab armor, was Sergeant Miller. Flanking him were two heavily armed IUC Marines, their pulse rifles slung across their chests. They were part of the elite security detail the Navy had assigned to me, but over the months, they had essentially become Lyra's personal, heavily weaponized escorts.
"Ready to go, Mr. Shephard?" Miller asked, his deep voice rumbling behind his visor.
"Morning, Miller," I nodded, running a hand through my messy hair. "Let's go take a walk."
It took us a little while, but we eventually arrived at the doors of the orphanage. I noticed that the paint was peeling in large strips, and the electronic keypad sparked faintly when I pressed the access fob Sister Elara had given me against it. The doors groaned open, revealing the cramped, chaotic interior of the sanctuary.
The smell of cheap bleach and over-processed synthetic porridge hit my nostrils immediately. The main hall was filled with the sounds of dozens of children running, shouting, and playing with whatever rusted scraps they could fashion into toys.
"Lyra!" A voice shouted from across the room.
A young boy with a mop of unruly brown hair and a smudge of dirt on his nose came barreling through the crowd. It was Timmy.
Lyra's face lit up instantly. She dropped my hand and sprinted toward him. "Timmy! Wait until you see the drawing I made of the new ship!"
I watched them run off toward the communal play area, the Marines instinctively fanning out to secure the perimeter of the room, their hands resting casually on their rifles, eyes scanning the shadows for any potential threats. They were usually more relaxed and only did this when I was around, or so Lyra told me.
"Mr. Shephard," a calm, measured voice spoke from my right.
I turned to see Father Michael standing in the doorway of his small office. He looked incredibly tired, his plain black cassock worn thin at the elbows, his hair graying rapidly at the temples. Despite the exhaustion that seemed to weigh down his bones, his eyes retained a deep, profound kindness, and his body was in top-tier shape for a man nearing 75. Standing just behind him was Sister Elara, her hands tucked neatly into the sleeves of her habit. She looked as sharp and uncompromising as ever, the fierce protector of her flock.
"Father Michael. Sister Elara," I nodded respectfully. "Do you have a minute? I need to speak with you both. Privately."
Sister Elara exchanged a brief, unreadable glance with the priest before nodding. "Of course, Mark. Come in."
I stepped into the cramped office. It barely held a rusted metal desk and three mismatched chairs. The walls were lined with physical files and data-slates, a testament to the endless, bureaucratic nightmare of keeping an orphanage funded in the IUC. I took the chair opposite the desk, while Father Michael sat down, and Sister Elara remained standing, leaning against the doorframe.
"What can we do for you, Mark?" Father Michael asked, folding his hands on the desk. "The generous credits you've been routing to our accounts have kept our pantries full and the life-support scrubbers functional. We are deeply in your debt."
"I'm not here about the credits, Father," I said, leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I decided to drop the bomb immediately. There was no point in dancing around it. "In less than two months, Shephard Orbital Works is leaving Mechanicus Station permanently."
The sudden heavy silence that settled in the small office was almost suffocating.
Father Michael's eyes widened slightly in surprise, while Sister Elara's posture stiffened, her gaze instantly darting toward the open door where she could hear Lyra laughing down the hall.
"Leaving?" Sister Elara repeated, her voice tight, a sudden edge of defensive worry creeping into her tone. "To where?"
"Neutral space. Unconquered territory," I explained, my voice steady. "I'm in the process of acquiring a massive orbital station or a habitable moon. Some place somewhere that is secluded and safe enough. A place where the corporate syndicates, the mining guilds, and the daily politics of the IUC won't be able to reach us."
"I see," Father Michael said slowly, leaning back in his creaking chair, processing the scale of the move. "That is... monumental news, Mark. Truly. We will be incredibly sad to see you and Lyra go. She has brought a wonderful light to this place."
"That's the thing, Father," I said, looking between the two of them, the weight of Lyra's tears from a month ago pressing heavily on my chest. "Lyra doesn't want to leave her friends. She has formed deep, unbreakable bonds with the children here. With Timmy, with Sarah, with Jory... with both of you. You are the closest thing to a family she has ever known outside of myself."
"Children are resilient, Mark," Sister Elara said softly, though the pain of impending separation was evident in the tight lines around her mouth. "She will adapt. After all, she has you to take care of her."
"I know she has me," I replied, my voice hardening slightly. "But I also know this galaxy. I know the corporate greed that runs most of the stations... especially Mechanicus Station. SIGS and the other corporations are constantly squeezing the lower sectors for resources. Funding gets cut. Entire residential sectors get abandoned. Look at the reality of this place, Elara. I know I gave you those education chips. But when the kids out there in the hall grow up, what will be their future? Working as indentured labor in a hazardous mine until their lungs give out? Joining the military to be used as cannon fodder against the Vickies? No one in this sector is going to want to take care of these kids once they age out of this room."
Father Michael closed his eyes, a pained, shaky sigh escaping his lips. "You speak harshly, Mark... but you do not speak falsely. It is a terrifying burden we carry every single day."
"You say no one will want those kids, but you did," Sister Elara pointed out, her voice rising in fierce defense of humanity's better nature, stepping fully into the room. "I remember the day you walked into this very room, a stranger looking like a lost puppy wanting to give up Lyra for adoption. But then you took her in and gave her a home. You gave her a home, a future. There is good in this galaxy, Mark. Just like you did, other people will step up."
"I am a statistical anomaly, Elara, and you know it!" I shot back, the raw, pragmatic truth of my worldview echoing in the small office. "I didn't take Lyra in because I was looking to be a savior. I took her in because I was overwhelmed with guilt. And I'm not saying this because I regret taking her in. Hell, not a day goes by that I'm not glad I decided to adopt her. But I am not leaving the fate of dozens of children to the theoretical goodwill of a galaxy that routinely feeds its poor and its weak into the meat grinder!"
I leaned forward, placing my hands flat on the rusted desk, my presence filling the small room, demanding their absolute attention.
"Listen to me," I pleaded, my voice dropping, filled with absolute, uncompromising conviction. "Going with me would ultimately be better for them. Do you understand what it is that I will be doing out there? What I will be building out there? They won't have to grow up staring at grey, rusted bulkheads and breathing recycled, metallic air. They will have the chance to step foot on real, stable gravity. They will have an actual safe space to run. They will be free from the constant threat of corporate greed and gang-related issues."
I looked at Father Michael, who was staring at me as if I were offering him the keys to heaven itself.
"You have my word that I will build them a state-of-the-art school wherever it is I decide to settle," I continued, laying out the empire I was willing to share to keep my daughter smiling. "I will fund their education entirely. I will build them dormitories where they'd be able to control the temperature to their liking. And when they grow up, if they choose to stay, I will guarantee every single one of them a high-paying, secure apprenticeship at Shephard Orbital Works. They won't be beggars, Father. They'll be shipwrights. They'll be engineers. They'll have a future they actually control with their own two hands."
The silence that followed was entirely deafening. The sheer scale of what I was offering, complete financial, physical, and occupational salvation for an entire forgotten generation, was almost too much for them to process.
Sister Elara looked away, her hands trembling slightly as she gripped the fabric of her habit, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Father Michael stared blankly at his desk, his eyes tracing the rusted scratches on the metal surface as if looking for a trap.
"This is..." Father Michael started, his voice choked with heavy emotion. "This is an overwhelming proposal, Mark. The logistics alone... the sheer legalities of transferring wards of the state across sector lines..."
"I have over a billion credits in liquid capital sitting in a Helix account, Father," I said bluntly, cutting through the red tape. "I can buy the bureaucratic red tape and use it as wrapping paper. I can bribe whichever local station magistrates need bribing to legally approve the transfers. The logistics are my problem, and I'm more than sure Sister Elara wouldn't mind helping me out with them either. The only thing I need from you is a yes or a no."
Sister Elara looked back at me, her eyes studying my determination with a soft smile. She could tell that, although I was doing this because I wanted Lyra to be happy, the words that were coming out of my mouth were a reflection of what I actually wanted to do. She saw a man desperately trying to keep a promise to his daughter, and willing to move heaven and earth to do it.
"Unfortunately, we cannot give you an answer today, Mark," Sister Elara said quietly, her voice thick. "This involves the lives of over fifty children. We need time to pray and talk about it with the other sisters. We need time to think about the reality of what you are offering."
"I understand," I said, standing up from the chair. I adjusted my jacket, looking between the two of them with deep respect. "I won't force you. If you choose to stay, I will establish an airtight blind trust to ensure the orphanage is heavily funded for the next hundred years. The children will never starve.... but you know they'll never be free either."
I turned toward the door, stopping just at the threshold.
"I just ask you to think about it," I said, looking over my shoulder. "But don't think about it for too long. We punch our exit ticket in exactly two months. When the Swift Justice leaves this station, I will be packing my bags and leaving behind it. Let me know before that day comes and the bay doors close."
I stepped out of the office, walking towards the exit to return to work, leaving the priest and the nun alone in the cramped, bleach-scented room.
Through the thin, rusted walls, I could barely make out the quiet exchange that followed my departure.
Father Michael let out a long, shaky breath, the sound of a man who had just been offered a miracle he wasn't sure he was strong enough to carry.
"Well," he quipped softly, a faint, humorless laugh in his voice. "This wasn't exactly what you had in mind when you told him to go build his exit, was it?"
I heard Sister Elara chuckle softly and wearily, yet hopeful. "No, Michael. No, I did not."
---
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