The docking of the ship that Eirik's brothers sent was far from smooth. When they docked, only Eirik and a few others were prepared and it caused a general state of alarm and panic in the crew. They were not used to being the ones on the receiving end of a boarding action. In a surprisingly short time, Jesper managed to gather up a large group of soldiers and start a charge on the hangar, determined to push whoever dared to attack them, straight back into the void.

Their charge took everyone by surprise, small groups of armed soldiers swarming all over the hangar, screaming their heads off while looking for an enemy to shoot. Once they finally realized that the ship that had a small crowd of their crew around it, was the docking ship, their enthusiasm turned to sheepish amusement. Jesper was cursing up a storm as Eirik laughed.

"At least I know you will be safe while I am away," Freja said as she laughed with Eirik with Jesper's ranting about not informing the head of security about unscheduled dockings of strange ships in the background.

Eirik walked to the side with Mads to talk for a bit. His brothers had not come unscathed out of their imprisonment. The many years of having no one but each other to rely on had made them reclusive and suspicious of others. They preferred their own company and ran their ships with small crews. Effective, quiet, and loyal beyond question, they had found their crews among the veterans living back home that was too restless to live a life of peace and found life in security boring.

Moments later Eirik pointed to a shuttle and Mads immediately jumped in and took off. The shuttle would return 20 minutes later, unmanned and running on autopilot.

In the meantime, Freja said her final goodbyes, and Eirik gave the final orders to the men he had picked out to take her back to the station. They would remain there with the ship until receiving further orders either from Eirik himself or from Lasse. Freja would be quite safe there and with the constant flow of both military and civilian ships through the station, it was slowly becoming a permanent militaristic trading center, with the least recorded amount of corruption or crime in the galaxy on account of being placed on the same station where Eirik was training the majority of his recruits.

The huge number of troops meant that patrol duty was performed on the entire station instead of just the military grounds and, with the assistance of the local security force, even thinking of committing a crime would land you a sentence. Prisoners, for their part, were used in forced labor, mostly on fledgling colony worlds where they worked the farms and emerging mines in exchange for food, boarding, and a guarantee of a place to live and a regular job after the sentence was ended, giving them a chance to work their way back into whatever kind of life they wanted, as long as it was in accordance with the law.

Since there were still a lot of unsettled lands, this was a great offer all around, as the land was fairly cheap to buy. And since there was only a 25% tax on sales, it was a tempting offer to become a land owner. There was no yearly property tax, no tax for erected structures, nothing of the sort.

Some of the more shady business owners had already tried to cheat the system by having their accounts be at zero once it came time to pay taxes. What they didn't expect was Eirik's tax collectors looking at the bottom line of the books instead of the accounts, coming up with the appropriate tax amount, and demanding immediate payment. When refused, they shut down the business and seized all assets until the debt had been paid.

After a few instances of this happening, A lot of the major galactic companies pulled away from Libertalia's borders, predicting a quick downfall for the Empire since they were not willing to play the game. Instead, it became a haven for entrepreneurs, inventors, and small business owners, away from the constant environment of hostile takeovers and race for economic supremacy outside of Libertalia. This, in turn, sparked a new wave of inventors seeking patent rights for improvements and innovations for use in every aspect of life. Slowly but surely, it would grow to become an economic and militaristic powerhouse of an Empire.

But for now, it was still in the fledgling phase of existence. having large unpopulated areas on the planets within its borders. News of the possibilities on this new frontier was slowly reaching the other Empires and since Eirik did not allow discrimination based on race, anyone was welcome to live in his Empire. Freja would be safe. Especially at the center of it all, the once-pirate station that had first become his base of operations, then his training facility, and finally the seat of the power within his realm.

He stood there, watching her ship leave, wondering about when, if, he would see her again. He shook his head. His legacy was secured. She was going home because she carried his child, the next of his bloodline. Now was the time for the wolf to go on the hunt!

___________________

Dalle was about a week's worth of travel away from the Glorpil homeworld when his sensors picked up a small escape vessel of the kind he had left on the forward base. Underpowered, lacking weapons and with shields of questionable quality at best, it what slowly making its way towards the Kloxna moon he had demanded in return for his services. He had no plans for it, but it was nice to have a base he could keep building defenses on. Soon, they would be able to withstand a year's worth of siege and the estimated time was growing every week.

He didn't know if the Kloxna suspected a thing, and frankly, he didn't care either, but he was slowly transforming the face of the moon to be the ultimate killing grounds for Kloxna invading forces. Stripping the surface of any kind of hills and mountains, filling up craters and valleys with debris, it became an empty and desolate place to behold. Pressurized and sealed equipment was needed to operate outside and there was no cover within a 100-kilometer radius of every compound that was built. It was slow work and took far longer than he liked, but if he wanted to preserve men he had to decline some of the more lucrative offers the Kloxna gave him.

It also meant he lacked the funds to acquire men and materials as fast as he wanted, but with the quality of mercenaries he had to work with, he was once more limited in what he could achieve and it was simply too much work to organize a training schedule to get them up to code. That would also present the danger of them turning on him and he couldn't risk that. He was only the leader because he was the most deadly of the bunch and he had the money to pay for the men, but as soon as someone saw an opening, they would kill him and take that position from him.

He broke out of FTL and signaled the escape vessel to do the same when they reached his location. When he made contact with the escape vessel he was astonished and terrified to learn that Eirik had landed and taken the base in a very short amount of time. Then he heard of the order from Sif to stand down and offer minimal resistance and it clicked into place why she had been so eager to take the contract. That slimy cunt had planned this, most likely wanting to ensnare Eirik. And even with Freja in the picture, a woman as forceful as Sif would most certainly succeed in that.

And as naive as Eirik was, he was good at getting the things he wanted, which would namely intelligence on Dalle and what resistance could be expected when going after him. And because he lusted after that infuriating bitch of a woman he had let her enter his inner circle before making sure he knew where her loyalties lay. Never again would he let a pretty woman lure her way into his life!

The more pressing matter now was what to do. If he returned, he made himself an obvious target. Even hidden behind his walls and his layered defenses, it would only be a matter of time before Eirik broke through. The videos he had managed to wrestle from the Kloxna had proved that. He wondered how Eirik fought with only one arm or if had gotten a robotic replacement, but was dismayed to hear that he had worn a modified siege armor during the attack. Much larger and bulkier, almost as if he had armored an exo-suit used by dockworkers for heavy lifting.

Then the fleeing mercenaries told him something interesting. While underway, they had detected a ship leaving in FTL on the sensors and had plotted an approximate course. It lead to the general area of an old pirate station Dalle had used to hide out in during his initial escape after his betrayal. It also lay almost at the heart of the borders carved out by Eirik's new Empire and Dalle couldn't help but wonder if that was the elusive center of power in Eirik's Empire.

It would make sense, from a military standpoint. Always having ships docked and ready to leave at a moment's notice, plenty of room to expand in all directions, situated neatly away from the Terran Empire, The Kloxna Empire, the Plyxii Empire, and the N'amlei Assembly. While the spindly plant people were horrendous in ground fighting, their research into weapons technology was second to none and everyone knew it. Terra had broken their monopoly on weapons trade with the reintroduction of kinetic weapons, but many still preferred the less powerful but much more reliable energy weapons that did not depend on cumbersome and bulky ammunition.

The disadvantage of energy weapons was their inability to deal effectively with shields unless the anti-armor variety was used. Kinetic weapons would overload any personal shields in 4-7 shots, depending on the quality, and the modified shields Eirik and his men used could take as many as 15-20, depending on the caliber used. When they linked together, so did their shields, vastly increasing their strength and resilience and a 27-man shield wall would have the shield strength of a small void fighter, making it impervious to small arms fire, both kinetic and all but the heaviest energy-based, mounted on heavy vehicles.

While every species had invented heavy weapons mounted on platforms or vehicles, only Terrans needed to develop armor. The inherent destructive qualities of kinetic weaponry had forced a different evolutionary path which had resulted in mixed success on the galactic stage. While certainly destructive beyond anything the other species could field on the ground, they were also weak to the anti-armor energy weapons used by the other species. The result had been abandoning heavy and medium tanks, focusing on light tanks with relatively small caliber cannons but with extremely high speed and maneuverability for being an armored vehicle.

A devious plan started forming in Dalle's mind and he ordered the crew of the escape vessel to transfer to his ship and set a course back to his domain. As soon as they were underway he got to work, sending messages to the captains under his command to gather their troops and ship and get ready to move out as a single fleet. He was going to do the one thing he would never be suspected of doing. He would attack the heart the Eirik's Empire with everything he had.

_______________________________________-

Signe let out a sigh of relief as her computer beeped. It was finally done decrypting the databases from the base in the cave. She started skimming the information and soon realized it was a treasure trove of information on the Kloxna Empire. This would be priceless to Terra. But to her dismay, everything related to their current task was either too vague to be of use, or incomplete. She got suspicious and a quick search revealed that the files had been altered recently, removing crucial information. Shit. That woman was craftier than they had given her credit for.

While Signe had not been present for the confrontation between Freja and Sif, gossip travels fast on a ship, and she knew everything, just like everyone else. How she was extremely aggressive in her pursuit of Eirik and how Freja had been openly hostile toward her, silently admitting that she saw her as a threat to her relationship.

"Perhaps that was why she decided to tell Eirik now, and not after we succeded in hunting down Dalle. Men might be blind to the signs, but she gained weight, her hips grew wider, and her breasts bigger. not much, but enough to notice if you looked closely. She had also missed her monthly problem a few times, evident from the lack of cramps and pain. Of course, Eirik had noticed nothing, occupied as he always was. But he had seemed genuinely happy at the news and protective of Freja when she left. His choice to send her away had been a good one.

But would Eirik be able to resist Sif in the meantime?? Signe had better intervene before it became a problem. While not a savant with the communications equipment, she knew enough to get a message out by covert means. She knew Eirik's brothers were following them. Trasti never could keep such secrets, something the rest of the crew appreciated for the gossip value. She started typing out the message on her datapad and planned how she would get access to the communications console for 5 minutes unattended.