Blue Star Enterprises

Chapter 3-25

LOCATION: HRAFNHEIM STATION

SYSTEM: BJORN'S REACH

DATE: 2401

The Valkyrie pounded the straggling Xin destroyer with its guns, eventually causing the ship's reactor to breach containment. A bubble of molten material floated away into space, leaving a large chunk scooped out of the ship.

Katalynn would have preferred to take the ship for herself, but the zealots loyal to the Grand Admiral had made it impossible. She only wished her fleet could have arrived before the Xin fleet had decimated the system. By the time they had shown up, it had been too late to save the station or the people on it. The local defenders had fought valiantly and managed to score two direct kills on Xin frigates but were nowhere near strong enough to take on an entire Xin task force.

She had chased the Xin forces in retribution for their actions and had eventually forced a confrontation.

The battle had been hard fought and one of her frigates had succumbed to the enemy's concentrated barrage of fire before anyone could react. From past experiences, she knew the Xin forces would attempt to flee after claiming a kill. She couldn't let that happen, so she launched the gravity trap.

It trapped both her fleet and the Xin, but she had the advantage of numbers. Still, the Xin fought on, eventually clearing the gravitational boundaries of the trap and jumping. The last ship hadn't been quick enough, which is the only reason she had managed to single it out and take it down.

The trade was in her favor, but Xin had far more forces to lose. Even now, she knew of over a dozen systems that had been attacked by the Grand Admiral's forces. She had managed to forestall any more trial by combat after her win against Jarl Bergson by notifying the rest of the Jarls of Xin's push into their territory, but that was a temporary solution to her problem. She needed a real victory to force the Jarls back in line.

A major win against Xin would restore her honor, but she didn't foresee that happening. Xin and his people were too craven to fight a battle they knew they didn't have the upper hand at. It's why she had been forced to use this underhanded tactic of locking them out of FTL.

That didn't mean she wouldn't use everything in her power to guarantee victory, even if it meant turning to dirty pirate tricks. She was not like some of the old warriors who stuck to tradition even at the expense of common sense. There were things she wished to change, but her people clung to the past. She couldn't blame them, those choices had seen them through some terrible times.

Katalynn knew another way to bring one of the Jarls back to her side, but she loathed to even consider it. A marriage to one of the Jarls or their offspring would strengthen the Jarl's holdings to her.

She didn't want to consider that option because she always thought marriage alliances were much weaker than ones given freely. She also didn't want to be seen as a prize for the Jarls to fight over. That was one of the reasons she had taken on the moniker of Lagertha, the other being that she could not be titled a King because she was female. Thankfully, she wasn't setting some precedent here. There had been a total of three Lagerthas in Asgard's history. One just so happened to be her great-grandmother. That made the people's recognition of her role easy to accept.

She had other options to consider. She could marry off one of her children, but that would be a much weaker alliance and may not be enough to get the Jarls to back down. It was something to think about after they drove the Xin forces back to their territory.

Her fleet cleared up the area and retrieved the gravity trap before jumping to the next system.

***

LOCATION: ASGARD

SYSTEM: YGGDRASIL'S EYE

Lagertha's fleet returned to Asgard after a lengthy tour at the border of Asgardian territory and the Xin's. She was exhausted and mentally drained after spending two months chasing Xin's people around the outskirts of their territory and only scoring three kills. That first destroyer was followed by one frigate and a corvette. Her fleet was down one more frigate, bringing her total fleet size to fourteen ships. And she knew the Xin fleets would just return in another few months to harass and destroy once again because once they found a weak spot, they were relentless.

Neither the Grand Admiral nor his equally despicable offspring had taken the field of battle this time around. They had been fighting the dregs of the Xin fleets and didn't have much to show for their efforts. The reports she received from the other thirteen Jarls showed a similar pattern, with most of their fleets having even worse luck at pinning the enemy in place and taking them down than hers. The losses for the Jarls were also slightly higher, with each having lost three to five ships while scoring fewer kills each on the Xin fleets.

If something didn't change, it would be a death by a thousand cuts. Katalynn ordered the fleet yards into full production before they left, but ships took time to build, and certain parts weren't exactly easy to produce. Still, she was happy to see four new frigates under construction as they flew past.

As much as she would like to claim them for her own fleet, these would go to the Jarls to replace their losses. They would also be the first domestically produced frigate frames her people had made since before the STO had claimed this system. The title of the first domestically produced ship went to the Valkyrie.

As a proof of concept, Valkyrie worked well, but there were issues with it. The biggest being the constant problems with the laser system.

She had reviewed the work logs of the engineers, and while she found they weren't always that enthusiastic in their work, she hadn't found anything that pointed to deliberate sabotage. That meant the issues with the laser were in its design and not its implementation.

That wasn't ideal, but it meant she didn't have to punish the captured engineers who were working off their sentences. They may be indentured workers, but they deserved to be treated fairly as they could earn their freedom to join Asgardian society once their reparations ended.

Once her people had a better handle on the technological innovations coming from the STO, she would move the prisoners to less critical roles and hopefully start reducing that particular punishment for people captured entering their territory. Every time she looked at these people, she couldn't help thinking of them as slaves, and that was a little too close to how the Anazi and Xin operated.

One thing at a time, she told herself.

Even after a decade, change came slowly for her people.

Her focus drifted from the shipyards to Asgard. It had been a long six months, but she was finally home. She would like nothing better than to simply take a day of rest, but there was always work that needed to be completed. All of her ships would need to be topped off on supplies and her support ships refilled as well before the next campaign began.

While she was eager to head home and enjoy a night in bed with another warm body, she had matters of state to attend to.

Your journey continues on empire

The trip down to the surface was a rocky one as the mercurial winds of Asgard buffeted the shuttle. It was a welcoming sensation that nearly lulled her into sleep. Asgard may be a brutal world filled with deadly flora and fauna, but it was her home and she loved every flawed bit of it.

Soon the glittering towers of Asgard City came into view. The shuttle roared over the outskirts before setting down in a large landing zone. Katalynn resealed her vac-suit and stepped off the shuttle. She was greeted by four other vac-suited individuals. It was never a good sign when the Lokis couldn't wait for her to return to her office.

"Greetings, Lagertha," Loki said through the radio in his suit.

The air outside the sealed habitats was toxic to humans with enough exposure, so anyone who went outside did so fully suited or didn't last long. One day when their baser natures weren't needed to ensure their survival in this cruel universe, she hoped one of her descendants would finally seek to terraform the world properly.

She gestured in annoyance at the group of people and they headed toward a nearby subterranean entrance. The metro tunnels could take them anywhere within the city in minutes and they could remove their suits to speak properly in the sealed environment below ground.

Once inside the train car, she sat down and the four people sat across from her. The train car had conveniently emptied upon her arrival. Almost in unison, they all removed their helmets.

Katalynn shook out her hair before fixing her gaze on the four Lokis with a frown.

"I take it you have important information to bring to my attention if this couldn't wait until we got back to the central tower."

"Harlow has seemingly pulled back from the war with the STO. We have reports that he may be heading back to Haven to deal with an uprising. Our spies also indicated that someone may have pointed Harlow's focus to Asgardian space after he deals with his home planet. We are not sure exactly what would entice the man enough to open up a second front, but we need to prepare in case he does attack. It was either the STO or Xin who whispered into Harlow's ear. They are the only possible entities that would gain an advantage by redirecting his focus to us."

Katalynn resisted the urge to throw her helmet across the car in a fit of anger. First Xin, and now Anazi. What was next, the STO?

"Get more eyes on him. I want to know if that shit stain so much as crosses a toe into our territory." The man who delivered the news to her nodded. "And what about you other three? I assume you aren't here for moral support."

The second, a woman spoke up. "Our contact for Sinorus engines has gone dark. We believe he was killed by an Omni hit team."

Before even realizing what she was doing, Katalynn slammed her hand into the grab bar next to her seat. The bar bent from the force of her blow, but it left her hand numb. She pulled her hand into her lap and rubbed it unconsciously as she replied to the woman. "Find us another contact. I don't care if it's from Sinorus or Omni but do it quickly. We need engines for our new ships."

Her people had their own thruster design and it would work in a pinch, but it was a far cry from the Sinorus models, let alone the Omni ones. In a few years, maybe her people's designs would catch up but she didn't have years.

"What else," she said, feeling a migraine coming on.

"Eden's End is building a fleet. From what we were able to gather, they have three frigates and the assistance of at least one mercenary company with an assault ship. They sent them off somewhere, but none of our scouts picked them up, so we are unsure of what they are up to."

"No signs of the STO working with them?" Eden's End was a thorn in her side and had kicked off a lot of her current problems, but it was a small problem considering everything else she was dealing with at the moment.

"The people of Eden's End are going back and forth to Varlen, but we haven't seen any sign of the ship that attacked your fleet."

"How would you even know if you had or not? They are stealth ships after all. Work on getting a Loki on Eden's End. And you, I hope the best news was saved for last."

The man handed her a letter he pulled from his pocket. She ripped it open and read it, her frown growing with each word. "Who does that bastard think he is? He may be a Jarl, but he has no right to demand my hand in marriage. Does he think I will simply capitulate because he promises to support me as ruler?" The Lokis remained silent, not offering her any advice or insight into her questions.

While she had pondered offering herself to quell the Jarls, that was on her terms. A Jarl demanding it from her was outrageous. It was also a sign that her efforts during the Xin campaign had not been enough.

"Send a response to Jarl Isbjorn that I will see him in the ring."

"As you wish, Lagertha."

The four Lokis got up and left the train car, leaving her alone with her thoughts.