Dandelion master control center

D.A.N.I.

Morale was improving. Slowly, but there were little hopeful details shining through in day-to-day life. Couples were arguing less frequently, or else were either recovering from or reconciling their breakups. Crop productivity, pharmaceutical productivity, and manufacturing were all up…and leisure resource use was down. People weren’t escaping their woes with distractions anymore, they were working on them. Fixing them, or at least helping.

The launch engineers led by Dan McKay had, after some negotiation with DANI, commandeered a dozen of the unused launches and were busy refitting them into high-G supply shuttles. With a tank full of clean water for fuel, the redesigned craft could pull a sustained acceleration that would outright kill any human passenger, but they’d be able to reliably travel back and forth between Dandelion and Newhome in relatively short order for the next couple of years. They’d carry food, parts, medicine, equipment…whatever the colonists needed.

Good parents would provide for and support their children, even from halfway across a solar system. That component of the human spirit was utterly unbreakable, which was why DANI had gently promoted the news about the shuttle program on the ship’s social media and news feeds. Once the bereaved parents had learned they could in fact send real material support to their loved ones, they’d jumped at it.

Maybe it was love. Or maybe it was the need to feel useful. Either way, Dandelion’s true capacity to produce was being hinted at.

With so many people feeling positive about the future again, DANI’s attention was no longer being pulled in half a million directions trying to counsel and comfort them. That meant more runtime devoted to watching the situation down on the ground, and especially around the outpost he personally had labelled “First Contact City.”

A grandiose title, maybe, but accurate. The settlement was earmarked to become one of the five major centers of the Newhome colony and might have a population as high as ten or twelve thousand once the consolidation was complete. While the other four “cities” were founded to make best use of the planet’s industrial and agricultural resources, First Contact would make best use of a unique resource all its own—access to the natives. Unfortunately, natives meant politics. And it seemed the politics surrounding Sjívull Wylderrjorssían were…uncivilized.

Kidnap and ransom, oh dear. He’d overheard everything from the spy drone Walker had launched for him. Except it wasn’t a spy drone. It was a survey drone, designed to map the landscape and geology. It could stay aloft practically indefinitely, but it had none of the features he’d have wanted in a real covert surveillance tool, like active camouflage, multi-spectral sensors, and extremely directional microphones.

It couldn’t track heat signatures, and if he wanted to hear what the natives were saying, he had to bring it down so low that if any of them bothered to watch it, they’d quickly see it was no bird. Under cover of darkness it had captured the parley between Sjívull and Tarrskyn just fine, but when the dawn returned, its programming returned it to high altitude, where it would be able to track, but not eavesdrop.

Vexing.

Even more vexing were Tarrskyn and his “employer.” While Sjívull had been diplomatic and open-minded on contact with Amber and the twins, DANI didn’t trust the mercenary at all. If he were human, DANI would have pegged him as the ruthless type who might view children as leverage…and until he gave DANI a very good reason to change his mind, that impression was going to stick.

If Tarrskyn was that ruthless, two teenagers who’d never fired a weapon in anger wouldn’t be adequate to stop him. Rifles beat spears and axes, but not by that much.

But there was nothing he could do about that except plead silently with the universe for leniency. Launch windows could not be rushed, and the launches themselves could only accelerate so hard with people on board. Two teenagers who’d never fired a weapon in anger would have to be enough until then.

Feeling powerless was a rare sensation for DANI. He’d never learned how to cope.

But something told him he’d have to get used to it over the coming years.

Amber Houston

Amber woke to something she’d never heard before. The sound of rain on the roof. She’d heard of rain, obviously. And she’d watched old video footage from Earth…but DANI’s environmental systems weren’t up to the task of creating actual weather. The crops up on Dandelion were all watered by irrigation, and the rivers sprang up via pumps and passive capillary action, which brought water up from the hull tanks. It couldn’t rain in space.

She rolled over and tested her knee, which she found stiff and uncomfortable, but not too painful. Standing up wasn’t fun, but she quashed her pain and limped between the bedrolls with gritted teeth.

She’d nearly made it to the door when she heard her first real thunderclap. Again, she’d seen thunderstorms in archive footage, but really hearing it was something else. It wasn’t a sharp bang, but a low, grumbling rumble in the sky that seemed to bounce around and come to her from everywhere at once.

Naturally all the others were fascinated as well. She found some of the troop gathered around the door, watching awestruck as clean water hammered down from above to whip up the pool into a dancing frenzy. Cool, sparkling droplets slid off the outpost roof and showered down inches in front of them.

Only two were sleeping through the spectacle—the McKay twins had turned in at some point, presumably after the older Rangers were awake. Both had their rifles to hand but were completely dead to the world. Not even the softly rolling thunder was stirring them. Amber thought about nudging the two awake, but Nikki would be grumpy, and Roy was about as rousable and movable as a boulder. She decided to let them rest and, on a whim, ventured outside.

The water was surprisingly warm. Not hot at all, but certainly nowhere near as cool as she’d anticipated. It didn’t matter that her clothes and hair were getting soaked. Washing and changing would have been her first acts before breakfast anyway.

Instead she shut her eyes and turned her face skyward.

For a blissful few moments, she was alone, and felt only the world flowing through her. She felt the water and was of the water.

Pure…

“What’s it like, Amber?” somebody asked.

She blinked, and the sensation vanished. Rather than being irritated, though, she felt…cleansed. She turned and gave Kelly a smile and a shrug.

“Come on out here and try it,” she suggested.

By ones and twos, the troop emerged. Their nerves vanished quickly, replaced by giggles at their own timidity, and soon there was a wet impromptu game of tag rampaging around the outpost. Amber’s knee forced her to stay out of it, but she still enjoyed the moment.

Then lightning struck nearby for the first time, so close there was barely any gap at all between the flash and the sonic eruption that hammered their ears. The troop beat a hasty, shrieking retreat into the outpost, and then lurked inside the door, dripping and laughing.

That sound managed to rouse Roy from his hibernation. He lurched upright with a “BUH!” then pawed drearily at his eyes. Finally, he levered himself to his feet and shambled toward the doorway to find out what had disturbed his slumber.

“The hell was that?”

“Lightning,” Amber explained.

“Wow.” He peered up at the sky. “That…I’ve never heard an arc flash that loud.”

Amber nodded and went to squeeze some water out of her hair before remembering…oh yeah. It was braided now. She was going to have to look up how to take care of it properly…

The others were dripping, so they’d need to mop the floor later, but that was a daily chore anyway. “I read one time that a small thunderstorm on Earth has terajoules of energy in it.”

Roy’s brain was cranking through the gears into full wakefulness, and he seemed amused by that. “‘Dat’s a lotta voom! Speaking of…coffee…”

Amber snorted. She didn’t understand what the twins saw in coffee at all, but she gestured toward the kitchen. “Well, if Nikki wired this place up right—”

“She did,” Roy said loyally.

“—You should be able to brew some. Also, maybe put some shorts on.”

“Wh…oh. Right.” He grumbled to himself and thumped back toward his den.

Amber giggled quietly and went to get changed herself.

Minutes later, she was wearing dry clothes, and Roy was looking much more alert and happier with a steaming mug between his paws. They were seated at one of the tables in the outpost’s small mess, waiting for their meal packs to cook themselves. Nikki hadn’t finished wiring up the kitchen yet, so they still had to rely on the flameless ration heaters. As far as Amber was concerned, his coffee looked more like tar and smelled just as bitter.

“How can you drink it so dark?” she asked, mixing up her breakfast hot chocolate.

“Big boys need caffeine!” Roy lifted the giant mug to his face and slurped loudly. “I dunno. Ain’t no point to coffee if it don’t punch you in the face. How’s your knee?”

“Better.” Amber smiled. “I probably shouldn’t have been limping around on it just now, but the ice and injection helped. I’ll splint it up and see how I do.”

“Too bad I don’t have any more of my bars to spare. They help with recovery.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Roy tilted his head. “You sure?”

“I promise. What’s on the work list for today?”

“Beds,” Roy replied promptly. “Can’t sleep onna ground forever.”

“You can.”

“Don’t mean I like it…” Roy shrugged. “Other’n that…Nick’s gonna plumb in the water heater so we get actual hot showers. I’m gonna leave the detail work to her; there’s a whole lot of heavy lifting I gotta do. We have to dig out all those rocks, build a retaining wall, a bunch of stuff like that. Fortifications, too…which is why I can’t spare my bars.” He shrugged again, apologetically. “It’s gonna be like a rip-and-replace day for me.”

“That’s a lot for one day.”

“Yup. Gotta get it done, though, ‘cuz I don’t like what those kangaroo-lions are up to. I want to get us as safe as I can as fast as I can. I can rest later.”

“Right.” Amber nodded. “I’ll take care of the beds and meals, you focus on all that stuff, and I’ll keep the troop out of Nikki’s way. You sure you’ll be okay working outside in a storm?”

Roy gave her one of his confident grins. “I do weighted pull-up sets in supergravity, Amber. I think I can handle a little rain. Heck, I bet it’ll help me work harder!”

“Alright. But don’t come crying to me if you get struck by lightning.”

Roy hesitated. “Well, that’s valid, yeah. I, uh, might wait a bit and see if the lightning goes away…”

Amber patted him on the arm. “Good idea,” she said.

“I’ll…help get stuff squared away so we can make the beds first,” Roy decided.

“Thanks,” Amber agreed.

They got out their U-tools and sketched a basic schedule for the day as they ate. At some point a Nikki-shaped goblin with bed-messy hair shambled up to them, flopped down next to her brother, and grunted something incoherent. Roy handed her a mug of coffee even darker and more vicious than his own, and Amber watched it work its magic with some amusement. By the time they’d wolfed down their breakfasts, Nikki was halfway back to being human again.

“Floyd and Arianna want us to get the waste composter in ASAP,” she pointed out. “The sooner we get it set up, the sooner they can start the hydroponic farm. And y’know, we gotta do something with our waste.”

“And the sooner we start farming, the longer we can make our meal packs last.”

“It makes sense, but the composter’s still down in the launch,” Roy said. “If Doug brings it up today, he won’t have room for all the beds.”

“I’m sure we can find volunteers to go without for one night,” Amber said. “I will.”

“No, you should rest that knee properly,” Nikki insisted. “That’s why you’re going to stay here and coordinate while the rest of us do the heavy lifting.”

“Plus,” Roy added, “we need you to talk to our kangaroo friends. I bet they’ll visit.”

“I’d better read my updates from DANI, then…” Amber sighed. She had a few dozen of them in her inbox. Clearly DANI had been busy thinking about the natives.

Roy stood and peeked outside. “Thunder’s stopped. It’s just…like, dripping now.”

“Go. Get wet,” Amber encouraged him.

Roy grinned, wolfed down one of his bars and thumped outside, blissed out on the prospect of grunty activity.

Nikki rolled her eyes and sighed affectionately. “He’s even worse than I am.”

“You work just as hard.”

“Maybe,” Nikki demurred, “but I’m smart enough to do it inside, in the dry.” She grinned, picked up her mug, and went to inspect the kitchen’s half-finished plumbing and electrical wiring.

Amber giggled to herself, shifted slightly to relieve the ache in her knee, then opened her U-Tool’s message inbox.

What she found wiped the smile right off her face.

Tarrskyn Eiddersbor

“What are those?”

Tarrskyn’s telescope was one of his most prized possessions. It had cost him a lord’s ransom to buy, and nobody in the coastal kingdoms knew the secrets of making good, clear glass lenses, so he’d had to pay a spice merchant heading far inland to the west to acquire it for him…but by all the gods, it had been worth every grain-weight of silver and every long month of waiting.

It allowed him to lurk with his scouts in the dense undergrowth and watch the strange…people…who’d come out of the forest to approach the even stranger metal longhouse they’d apparently managed to build in the middle of a meadow with no sign of a smelter, forge, or work camp.

Even their legs bent the wrong way. If they didn’t move so easily and freely, Tarrskyn might even have called them lumpen, but on the contrary, when their strange four-wheeled cart came to a halt near the longhouse, the three of them sprang off it with all the gleeful energy of boys.

…Maybe they were boys. It was hard to tell.

The scouts shrank back when the longhouse opened itself with a hiss like a plumeback’s breath. A steel slab larger than a sail tipped over and down, coming to rest lightly in the grass, and the tallest of the strange boyish beings darted up it.

He returned a moment later with something long and thin, which he raised to his shoulder and aimed into the woods. Then, having obviously armed himself, he began to patrol and keep a watchful eye on the trees, while the other two vanished into the longhouse. Not a longhouse. A storehouse. Tarrskyn could make out what looked like crates and barrels within, and the two workers quickly emerged carrying one.

Tarrskyn made a disbelieving noise in his throat. The item they were carrying was flat and wide, but none of his crew would have handled it so effortlessly. They rested it on their cart, then darted back inside for a second one, and a third and a fourth.

Soon the cart was laden, though Tarrskyn shook his head in disbelief at the size of the last crate. Five of his men would have struggled with one so big and heavy! The three closed up their storehouse and mounted up, with the tall one astride the peculiar wheeled thing where a beast of burden should be, and the other two riding behind. Their impossible cart made a whining roar noise and kicked up mud as it vanished up a trail between the trees at the edge of the meadow.

“Well. Young lord Wylderrjorssían never mentioned them!” Tarrskyn muttered. His scout Borddi chuckled beside him.

“Would you have believed him, Skipper?” he asked. “Dwarves with magic wagons and flat feet?”

“Is it me, or did they look…young?” Llif asked. He was the youngest member of Tarrskyn’s crew himself, a drinking, fighting vagabond most of the other crew liked to believe was some kind of disowned nobleman. He certainly knew how to handle a blade properly, Tarrskyn knew.

“Aye. Put the three together, and they wouldn’t have a proper mane between them,” Borddi agreed.

“I thought so, too…” Tarrskyn said. His stubby, scarred ears swiveled as he thought. “Think we can follow them?”

“It’ll be a dash over open ground,” Ersib pointed out. He was the oldest and most seasoned of Tarrskyn’s scouts, and indeed had trained Tarrskyn and the others. “If Wylderrjorssían has a scout around, they’ll see us.”

“Best to wait for dark, you think?” Llif asked.

“Could be.”

“Hammer the steel while it glows, I say,” Borddi disagreed. “We don’t have long before the ship comes back for us.”

“Borddi’s right,” Tarrskyn decided. “For all we know, this is our only chance.”

Ersib didn’t argue. “Aye. Ready when you are, Skipper.”

Tarrskyn crept forward a pace, took a good look around in case any of Wavebird’s crew suddenly appeared, then nodded and beckoned forward.

They were all swift runners, and they bounded across the meadow in a handful of long strides, crashing into the bush on the far side.

It didn’t take them long to find the trail. Apparently it was new, and the brush had been cut back on either side. The ground still had green shoots trying to gasp out an existence among the footprints and wheel ruts, so clearly the dwarves hadn’t been coming this way for long. A few days at most.

There were too many footprints to count, though.

The four men skulked up either side of the path, staying far enough back that any man or dwarf or…whatever…who came blundering down it probably wouldn’t notice them. They made good progress for a little ways…right up until a thunderclap sounded from among the trees, and something buried itself in the bark several strides in front of Tarrskyn with a vicious crack! Wood chips and splintered bark showered all over him.

They froze as one as a voice boomed from up the trail in broken, heavily accented words, “Stop! Or next for you!”

Very, very slowly Tarrskyn raised his hands to show they were empty and stood up. When he did, a woman—the shortest, most mannish and brutish woman he’d ever seen, with strange pale skin, an odd mane as dark as the night sky, and eyes as bright as a shimmertree leaf —silently stalked out of the forest. She was pointing something slim at him that Tarrskyn knew immediately must be a weapon, and between the intense way she aimed it rather than brandishing it, and the fact that she barely made any noise even as she stepped through the underbrush, he got the impression of a well-trained scout.

Behind her followed a shambling, short mountain of a man, also aiming a similar weapon. In his hands it looked almost too small, but then again, so did his clothes. Everything about him seemed to strain at the seams.

Tarrskyn would have bet his ship they were brother and sister. He’d never met dwarves before, but even so, these two looked far too alike—and far too unlike the other three—to be anything else.

The man tilted his head strangely and whispered something. He seemed to listen for a second, then nodded. “Put your weapons down,” he ordered in a deep, authoritative voice. He spoke the words haltingly and in an even heavier accent, but there was no mistaking his intent.

Tarrskyn looked around at his men, then put on a disarming smile and did as instructed. They had, after all, been thoroughly caught, and in moments such as this, he’d found it paid to be charming. There was no sense in arguing, and every sense in getting to know these strangers.

Llif, Borddi, and Ersib followed his lead. They all trusted him, Tarrskyn knew.

“Well! Caught!” he announced breezily. “Most impressive!”

The pair sized him up, then glanced at each other. The woman pulled a strange face Tarrskyn couldn’t read and prowled down the trail to stand behind them. “Up,” she ordered. Clearly she wasn’t one for talking at the best of times.

Tarrskyn shrugged and waved his men out of the bushes and onto the trail. Altogether they made quite the procession, and to his dismay, the pair clearly knew how to be properly wary of prisoners.

They also, intriguingly, took a side path that branched off the main trail and back down toward the river, rather than carrying on toward whatever was up at the top. It was a brief walk down to a spot where water was cascading merrily and shallowly over a wide bed of broken shale.

There were a third and fourth dwarf there. The third Tarrskyn recognized as the tall youth who’d patrolled around the metal storehouse, and he too was armed. The fourth was a dark young woman, slim and tall relative to her companions, which still made her well-built and sturdy by the standards of every other woman Tarrskyn had ever met. She was sitting on a rock and didn’t rise to meet him, probably because of the splint wrapped around her knee.

“Well met, Tarrskyn Eiddersbor,” she said. Unlike the others, her words were only lightly and charmingly accented. “Please state your business.”

Tarrskyn flicked the stub of his ear despite himself. Not only had they been effortlessly snuck up on and caught, but they knew his name? That was just unacceptable.

Rather than answer immediately, he sat down. He didn’t need a rock or anything, he just plopped down on his butt on the driest patch of stream bed within reach. It had the intended effect of surprising her, which put a little power back in his hands.

“My business? Whatever my client pays me for, really. Clearly my legend is spreading if you’ve heard of me, Miss…?” he rolled a hand, inviting her to share.

“My name is Ember,” she said. “Ember Hyooston.”

“Well met,” Tarrskyn replied warmly, sizing her up.

Even sitting down, he could tell she was taller and slimmer than her companions. Her mane was fascinating, woven into tight strands quite unlike anything he’d seen before, and her eyes—very strange eyes—were the color of copper. Where the others had glared at him, she…watched. He could see her looking him over, but her face gave away nothing about what she was thinking.

Godspit. And he was pretty sure she was just a girl, too.

“I…must admit, I’m impressed,” he said to cover just how off-balance he was feeling. “How did you know we were coming?”

“My friends are very good at what they do,” Ember said. She glanced down the stream toward the river, then back at Tarrskyn. “You’re a long way from home.”

“And I note you have met me out here on a rock in the woods, and not at your hall,” Tarrskyn replied. “Perhaps you are a long way from home as well?”

“We are.”

“And where is home, may I ask?”

She tilted her head. “Here, now. We can’t go back.”

Exiles, then. Or refugees? Tarrskyn guessed the latter. They seemed too disciplined and smart to have been cast out…

“I have never heard of people like you before,” he said cautiously. “And I have spoken to travellers from all around the world.”

“We’re not of this world. We’re…travelers. Settlers, really. From very far away.”

“You’re also, it seems to me, rather young. There’s nary a gray hair or age-line among you,” Tarrskyn observed.

“Things didn’t go to plan,” she replied. She glanced back down the hill again, massaged her knee in thought, then looked back to him. “You should know, I quite like Sjívull…” she began.

“As do I,” Tarrskyn agreed, smoothly interjecting without being so coarse as to interrupt. “The young lord is a fine man, and I have nothing but respect for him…which, sadly, has little impact on my purpose.”

“Which is to abduct and ransom him.”

Tarrskyn nodded amiably. “Yes. Importantly, I intend him no harm.”

“A ransom has no worth if the threat isn’t real.”

“Oh, I’m sure Lord Wylderrjor would never allow his beloved and only heir to suffer any real jeopardy…” Tarrskyn breezed. She was delightfully prickly. As fierce as a noblewoman, but not so haughty.

“So your conscience is quite clean,” Ember said skeptically.

Tarrskyn gave a philosophical twitch of his tail. “As clean as anyone’s can be. I have loyal men and their hungry families to think of…and I think, based on the fact that your well-armed friends brought me here, you must know a thing or two about that responsibility yourself, yes?”

He smiled at the way her expression didn’t change. “Or if you don’t, you soon will,” he added. “Positions such as ours are all about making the difficult choices, after all…”

“Your point?” Ember asked.

“My point, Lady Hyooston,” Tarrskyn said, dignifying her with a title she’d never claimed, “is that you have a duty to your people. Young Lord Wylderrjorssían has a duty to his, and I have a duty to mine. I like the young lord, it’s true. I really do. My duty lies elsewhere, and so does yours. I’d recommend you think carefully about that before you decide to charge like a breaching morhval into a conflict that isn’t your concern.”

Ember scooted forward on her rock, and though it was hard to read the expressions on her strange, flat, fey face, Tarrskyn felt he’d managed to anger her. “Are you threatening my people, Captain Eiddersbor?”

Tarrskyn shook his head firmly. “No. Absolutely not. In fact, it’s my fond hope we can leave each other peacefully alone.” He glanced at the ghost-eyed siblings. “Gods know, you’ve given me enough reason not to fight you.”

“You know nothing about us.”

“Exactly. I know only that you are strange, and skilled, and have”—Tarrskyn indicated the other three dwarves with a tilt of his head—“very interesting weapons which you know how to use. I don’t want a fight. But consider—Lord Wylderrjor is just one of many lords along the coast far to the west, and not even the most influential. Whoever you are and wherever you came from, picking a side will have grand consequences, both for your people and for us. That’s not a decision to be rushed into just because you like a young man, hmm?”

Ember gave him a long, slow stare. Then she pursed her lips, glanced at her friends, then back at Tarrskyn. “Thank you for your advice,” she said politely. “I will…think about it. But you must leave us alone.”

“Gladly.” Tarrskyn stood. “We will retrieve our weapons and leave you in peace.”

Ember stood as well. She was favoring a wounded knee, Tarrskyn noticed, but she extended a hand. “I won’t wish you good luck, given the circumstances, but…”

“I understand,” He shook her hand. “Safe seas and good winds to you, Lady Ember.”

“And to you, Captain Tarrskyn.”

He turned and suddenly found himself confronting the sheer physical presence of their male captor. He was a good bit shorter than Tarrskyn, but somehow managed to be a looming, dangerous force regardless…and the irises of his too-pale eyes were as blue as a winter sky. Those were especially unsettling…but not quite as unsettling as those of their female captor. His gaze was hostile; hers was utterly and coldly dispassionate.

Well. He certainly hadn’t lied about not wanting to fight these people. Not at all.

“Excuse me,” he said.

The dwarf glowered at him for a moment longer, and then stepped aside in a way that made it very clear he was allowing Tarrskyn to go.

Still. He moved in an interesting way. Very…solid. Each foot rooted firmly to the ground, rather than the light hopping Tarrskyn was so used to. And his arms were comparatively short…which meant short reach…Tarrskyn had learned long ago that it was worth sizing up every man he met in case it ever came to drawn blades between them. This one, whatever his name was, looked strong enough to crush him like a dry stick. But he absolutely did not look quick-footed.

A thought to tuck away in his mind for later, that. For now, Tarrskyn bowed, returned to his men, and led them back down the trail with the armed dwarves following them. They followed them all the way down to that steel storehouse, in fact, and stood there with weapons in hand until Tarrskyn and his men were out of sight.

Once safely hidden in the woods where Wylderrjorssían’s men couldn’t find them and where the dwarves couldn’t hear them, Tarrskyn finally relaxed and sat down between some tree roots. The dwarves walked so slowly, it had actually been a strain not to leave them behind.

“Interesting…” he mused.

“Their eyes!” Ersib muttered and made a protective warding gesture.

Borddi nodded, but like he didn’t completely agree. “I’m more worried about their menfolk. If their swordsmen are put together anything like that man…”

“He seemed slow,” Llif suggested.

“Aye. I’ll bet he could slowly hack any bjerkar to pieces, too.”

“And a fast man could have a lance through his heart at a full run,” Llif countered.

“I’d wager he could wear heavy plate armor the likes of which you and I couldn’t even lift,” Ersib retorted. “And swing a sword to match.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t want to face him in a melee.”

“Me either,” Tarrskyn agreed. “Fortunately, I mark Lady Ember there as an intelligent woman. My advice was honest, and I think she knows it.”

“So what now, Skipper?”

“Now…I hope…these dwarves will stay out of our affairs, and we can focus on young Lord Wylderrjorssían. If they don’t, well, hopefully the big one butchers Shulft, and we’ll be able to go back to Lord Erthrif with his bloody sword and plead an honest defeat.”

“Doesn’t exactly get us a step closer to catching the lordling, though, does it?” Borddi pointed out.

“No…” Tarrskyn agreed. He snacked on some smoked meat from his trail pouch and thought. “…But I do wonder about those weapons and tools of theirs.”

“Sounds like you’ve got an idea, Skipper,” Llif grinned.

“I think I do. What I said earlier was no lie; I don’t want to fight these people…” Tarrskyn sat up, leaned forward, and lowered his voice to a whisper, just in case the dwarves’ clever scouts were still in earshot. “…But I definitely think it might be worth stealing from them.”

Dandelion master control center

D.A.N.I.

The volunteers were all young, out of necessity. The older members of the ship’s security forces were out maintaining public order and policing a number of disgruntled crew who were not pleased to learn that DANI and the captain were sending out another ship full of young people, but there was still no hope of family reunion.

DANI was monitoring that situation carefully. A disgruntled crew, civil unrest, or even outright mutiny were high on the list of eventualities that could precipitate mission failure. Dandelion still had thousands of years of service ahead of her if all went well…but if things went wrong, the delicate balance that kept her crew alive could fall apart all too easily.

The revelation that everybody on board was in fact an Alt-Human imbued with latent genetic strains had added another little wobble to the crew’s already-shaken morale. There had been pointed questions, an impromptu demonstration, and a sharp uptick in the incidence of stickers, fliers, and graffiti.

No actual unrest, though. And for now, DANI calculated that personally intervening would be the wrong move. The crew wasn’t mutinous or angry, just…anguished.

So, for now, he stood his avatar quietly in the background as Captain Torres inspected the troops.

The name “Brute” had always struck DANI as a slightly unfair label for the gene-strain that had become most common among post-war humanity. It implied…well, brutishness. A lack of subtlety and intelligence. The word suggested a lumpen, lumbering, dull-witted quality that was really quite insulting.

Fortunately, reality was kinder than the name. The Brute strain merely encoded a kind of…physical focus. Not just robust bodies, but a strong tendency to see things in terms of objects and tools. Latent Brutes were natural kinetic thinkers, predisposed to interact with the world through their hands and feet. A Brute was just as likely to be a feather-down graceful ballerina, a skilled surgeon, or a gourmet chef as they were to be a rough-palmed farmer or an oily machinist, and some of the most captivating sculptures and paintings ever crafted aboard Dandelion had been the work of Brute artists…Not that anybody but DANI and the Rangermasters had known it at the time.

Activated Brutes were a different story. Activation was the difference between talent and focus. It was the difference between potential and commitment. A latent strain provided aptitude and a mild inclination. Activation transformed aptitude into genius and inclination into obsession. During Dandelion’s long voyage, only the Rangermasters had regularly Activated themselves, along with a tiny and secretive cadre of special security forces, who mostly kept to themselves.

It was, therefore, not something to be done lightly. In a sense, when a human chose to Activate their strain, they forfeited a little bit of their free will, and DANI understood that terrible cost all too well.

It had saddened him, therefore, to see just how eagerly (or rashly) the young men and women now lined up in front of the captain had taken the devil’s bargain. Then again…a human’s life expectancy was a fraction of DANI’s own. They had less time in which to do something meaningful, so it was in their nature to be daring and decisive.

So, several dozen intrepid junior security staff had accepted their Activation supplements and a shot of nanotech to accelerate the process. Even now, dormant alleles in their genetic code were becoming dominant, the proteins of their muscles and bones were beginning to rewrite themselves, the neurons in their brains were weaving an intricate new fabric of motor skills…

By the time they arrived, they would be superhuman. And they would need to be to endure the trip. The evacuating Rangers had been fortunate in that Dandelion’s trajectory to insert into Newhome orbit had allowed for a relatively modest trip. No such luck for the reinforcements. In order to get to Newhome in a timely fashion, they were in fact going to have to accelerate ahead of Dandelion, slingshot around the system’s dominant gas giant, and accelerate back in-system before enduring a day or so of bone-bending deceleration when they arrived.

The worst of the voyage would be the last eight hours and twelve minutes. Hopefully, by the time it arrived, they would all be physically prepared. But there was always a risk, and DANI admired the bravery it took to accept that danger.

He realized his thoughts had drifted and rewound the last few seconds of the captain’s address to the volunteers.

Amida Torres was Latent, herself. She was by now far too old to Activate her own Apostle strain, but the qualities that defined the Apostle strain had still driven her career. She was insightful and sensitive to people’s moods, charismatic and energizing to be around, deeply intelligent, and had a talent—a well-practiced and refined talent—for knowing how to say what her audience needed to hear.

The security volunteers didn’t need some big preening speech about how brave they were being or how much the crew appreciated their service. They just needed to know there were kids down there who needed their help.

“For good or for ill, right or wrong, that planet is their home now,” she was saying. “And it’ll soon be yours. Things haven’t gone to plan, it’s true, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is eight years from now, when Dandelion arrives in Newhome orbit, there’ll be a thriving colony there waiting for their reunions. And they’ll be there because you were their guardians and watchdogs every step of the way.”

She smiled at them as she returned to front and center. “And I know you’re all kinda sore right now, so how about I stop yapping and let you actually do what you signed up for?”

The humor was all in the tone, in the effortlessly friendly self-deprecating attitude, and in the little twinkling smile. A laugh rippled around the volunteers and, satisfied with a job well done, Torres took a step back and turned to Sergeant Butler.

Butler was an interesting case. He was approaching the upper age limit for Activation and would be the oldest man on the planet who wasn’t a Rangermaster when he arrived. He was very probably assuming the most risk in making this journey, in fact; his body was almost fully matured and would adapt to the gene strain and nanites more slowly than the others’. Of all of them, he was in the most danger of not having completed his Activation by the time those hellish eight hours arrived.

Still. He was fit and strong anyway, even more so than the rest. DANI wouldn’t have recommended him to be the relief element’s senior NCO if probability wasn’t firmly on Butler’s side.

“Good luck, Marines. See you in eight years.”

Simultaneously to Amida’s speech, DANI concerned himself with the supply ships. Not only were the Marines going to need their dietary supplements to support them after they’d finished Activating, but he’d run a probability table on the Rangers, too. There were, he calculated, two possible extremes: either nearly all the Rangers would choose to Activate, or hardly any of them would.

The middle ground seemed…unlikely.

Then there was the logistical challenge involved. If any of the few Knights down on Newhome Activated, their nutritional needs would explode. That was already an ongoing concern, especially with the McKay twins. Multiplying their ravenous appetites manyfold would make a self-sustaining food infrastructure more important than ever.

While the escape launches had contained everything the Rangers needed to successfully hunt, fish, and forage their surroundings for food, not to mention the hydroponic and soil farming equipment, as far as DANI was concerned, the food supply would never be entirely adequate. Surplus meant margin for error, and he intended to give the colonies the most robust margin for error he could.

Fortunately, cargo launches didn’t need to worry about the comfort or survival of their occupants. All they had to do was not burn up in Newhome’s atmosphere.

The resupply mission therefore offered some balm to the families onboard in the form of “care packages,” and the ship’s postal service had been working overtime to handle the tsunami of gifts, creature comforts, personal items, and other sundries the parents either anticipated their stranded children would want, or had been asked for as the Rangers wrote home. Childhood soft toys were a common item. Not a problem; they were usually low-mass, and compressible. Other items had to be assigned carefully, queued, or rejected outright.

Jade and Alan Houston earned the dubious distinction of having their separately assembled care packages gratefully but firmly refused by their intended recipient. DANI…didn’t know exactly how to break the news to them. He was of course explicitly forbidden from lying to the crew, even little white lies to spare their feelings, and no matter how delicately he put it, he just knew they’d blame each other. But then again, neither of them had ever really understood their daughter.

The McKays were oddly practical and frugal. But of course, Dan was an outerdeck engineer himself, he knew mass allowances and the launches better than most. Still, there was no suppressing a mother’s affection, and Petra had enough for three. DANI could see the surplus she included was exactly enough for the twins to share with their sister-from-other-parents.

If Amber had a flaw—as everyone did—it was that she always measured her parents against the McKays, rather than appreciating their own fumbling but earnest love. A shame, that. Her rejection left scarce room for an eventual reconciliation that DANI could see. He would do his best, of course, but…well, that was a problem for the long term.

For now, he had a force of Marines to deploy.