Everyone stopped calling Kara 'princess' after that and stopped implying that she was royalty while doing things. It didn't take her long to realize why that was and she drew an immediate comparison to me and my time in The Order, without me having to point it out to her. They had treated me as if I was going to be this great member of their organization, until I officially refused and escaped, then I became the person I was supposed to be. The person I chose to be.

The lesson was not lost on her.

Kara sat in her room the next day and thought everything over. She wore the tight pants and long sleeved t-shirt of her old uniform; but, her robes were laying on the bed beside her. She could choose to stay with her previous experience, she could choose to embrace the new experience that made her miserable, or she could choose to make her own life by using both of the experiences she had. It was a difficult choice, especially since she didn't believe that she had any right to stay around.

“You're wrong, you know.” Lashina said as she floated by her door.

Kara jumped up and ran over to her. “Lashina!”

“Unlike The Order, Hunter's family accepts you for who you are. They don't want to change you or want to force you into being someone you're not.”

Kara frowned. “That's what they've been doing for almost two years!”

Lashina laughed. “No, what they did was what Hunter said. They gave you the experience that he had. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“But...”

“The only difference was that none of them berated you, made fun of you, said things behind your back or to your face while you struggled, or made plans to get rid of you... like The Order did with Hunter.” Lashina said and pat the top of her head, which hit the tiara Kara still wore. “I have to say, it was masterful for him to be so unconvincingly convincing.”

“Give it back.” Kara said with a frown.

“Give what back?” Lashina asked playfully with her hands behind her back, then she took off at her best speed down the ramp with the tiara.

“Lashina!” Kara said loudly, activated Presence Run, and took off after her. “How can you be this fast while still wearing the restraints?!?”

“It's because of them that I can do this.” Lashina said. “They help me refine and control my Presence.”

“How? All they did was drain mine!” Kara tried to jump at her and missed as Lashina dodged aside.

“Ah, but they didn't.” Lashina said. “All you had to do was figure out how to work around them.”

“That's not true.” Kara said, even though the Presence didn't waver. “You have to be really strong to overpower the restraints.”

Lashina came to a stop in the shuttle bay and landed. She popped off one of her wrist restraints and clipped it onto Kara's wrist when she appeared.

“No!” Kara exclaimed and came to a stop and felt weaker. “My... my... Presence?” She said, almost as a question, because her Presence was still there, just that it felt a little more difficult to use.

Lashina chuckled at her shocked expression. “Can you feel my Presence more?”

Kara nodded and stared at her wrist.

“They dampen Presence use, they don't block it.” Lashina said and popped it off of Kara's wrist and put it back on her own. “Also, they dampen Presence when someone else uses it on you, too.”

“What? How?”

“I don't know. It's just something Hunter discovered.” Lashina said and held out the tiara. “You know, I was really jealous when he gave that to you.”

“Was?” I asked as I dropped my stealth.

“I'm supposed to be your cute pixie princess!” Lashina said with a grin.

I walked over to her and rubbed her belly, even though she wasn't showing at all. “I believe my cute little pixie princess is right here.”

Lashina blushed to a darker pink and took my hand and put it around her body. “If she's the princess, then that means I'm the queen.” She whispered and gave me a kiss.

“That's one interpretation.” I said with a grin and she stuck her lips out in a pout. “Ooo, a kissing invitation!” I said and gave her a dozen kisses in quick succession. When I was done, she was no longer pouting and she had a huge smile on her face. “I felt the two of you racing around and came to see what was up.”

“I borrowed Kara's tiara and gave her a couple of important life lessons.” Lashina said, proudly.

I chuckled and let her go as I looked at Kara. “I know you feel out of place because of how you've been treated, and I'm sorry that it was necessary.”

Kara gave me a wide-eyed look, because she didn't expected the apology or the qualifier.

“Out of all The Order people I've met, seen, and heard of... out of all of them... I've only found three of them that were worth the effort to try and save.” I said and held a finger up. “My guardian Emari...” I said and pointed at Lashina. “...my first love...” I said and then pointed at Kara. “...and my first stalker.”

Kara gasped and Lashina laughed, because the Presence didn't waver during any of what I said.

“What he's trying to say is that he doesn't think you are wasting his oxygen by sharing it.” Lashina said.

I opened my mouth to speak, then chuckled. “Actually, that's as good of an explanation as any.” I looked at Kara. “If you need me to make it official, then I formally invite you to stay here and help us all build a life together.”

Kara's face flushed red and even the tips of her pointed ears turned red.

“You can stay here for as long as you want with us.” I said and Lashina slapped the back of my head. “Ow! All right. Geez.” I said and rubbed the spot. “You can stay here for as long as you want with me.”

Kara took in a sharp breath and her face turned a deeper red as she blushed harder.

“I'm going to give you until the end of today...” I started to say and Lashina slapped my head again. “Ow! Stop that.”

“Then stop teasing her. She's conflicted enough as it is.” Lashina said.

“It's getting to the point that I can't even make jokes anymore.” I said and rubbed the spot. “I want you to take as much time as you want to make your decision. I know this is... very difficult for you... because it was just as difficult for me as well.”

Kara raised her eyebrows at me.

“If I had stayed in The Order, I could have changed it from the inside out, like you were trying to do.” I said and she opened her mouth in surprise. “All that I needed was one person to listen to what I was saying when I was a child. Just one.”

“Emari listened.” Lashina said.

“Not for a long time. By then, nearly everything was stacked against me, especially everyone in authority.” I said. “I had no choice but to plan on leaving.”

Lashina caught her breath. “You were going to take Emari with you!”

I nodded. “Unfortunately, those plans fell apart and I had to make new plans.”

“M-me.” Lashina whispered and I nodded again.

“Once again, my well laid plans were ruined by The Order's council and I had to leave on my own.” I said. “I left so I could get stronger and come back to get you. I didn't realize exactly how long it was actually going to be... or what I had to go through to keep my word to you.”

Lashina touched my cheek a tear escaped, then the tear dissolved. “Now, here we are.” She said. “Three people whose lives diverged so much from what they were supposed to be.”

Both Kara and I nodded.

“Well, there's only one thing left to do now.” Lashina said in a serious tone of voice, then she smiled at us. “Cooking lessons!”

An alarm sounded throughout the space habitat.

“Warning! Hunter's having a cooking lesson!” Opina said over the intercom. “I repeat! Hunter is having a cooking lesson!”

“Oh, geez.” I sighed and shook my head.

“Come on! You have to do it now!” Lashina said and grabbed my arm, then flew up the ramp with me in tow.

I reached in desperation for Kara. She lunged to grab my hand and held on with Presence as we were whipped up through the station, as quick as a flash, all the way up to the second level and to the large kitchen there. People were already gathering to enjoy the show, especially the professional nannies that held the babies of the women that were going to participate.

“What's on the menu this time?” Sheph asked as she came down the ramp. Her nannie was behind her with her beautiful little boy with blonde hair in her arms. She put on the apron that Simone handed her.

“Aren't you supposed to be running a multi-star system corporation?” I asked as Simone handed me an apron, too.

“I still am.” Sheph said. “I'm on a mommy break.”

Nearly every woman in the room laughed, because that was their code name for 'you better leave me alone until I say so'.

Sheph gave a few of the others a look as if to ask permission, then she gave me a quick kiss.

“That wasn't worth looking for permission.” Gleas said and did the same look, then wrapped her arms around my neck and shoved her tongue into my mouth and kissed me like it was the last time she would ever do it. I didn't complain, because ever since she had our beautiful blonde baby girl, she had kissed me like that every single time.

“Okay, that one definitely needed permission.” Simone said with a laugh. “I can't believe you don't get tired of going all out like that.” She gave me a normal kiss and handed an apron to Noma and Monica. They gave me normal kisses, too

“I don't want to waste another second pretending that I only want a peck on the cheek.” Gleas said.

“Amen to that.” Sandy said as she and Beatrice carried in their twin boys. They both had bright blonde hair and their mothers kissed the tops of their heads. They were handed off to their dedicated nannies and Sandy and Beatrice came over and took aprons as well. They exchanged wicked looks and then they both kissed my face on either side of my mouth.

“Careful there.” I said with a chuckle. “I almost felt that on my lips!”

They laughed and kissed each other, then Jelly and her husband came in with their brown haired little boy and Deborah and her husband came in with their little black haired girl. Deborah had a pronounced bulge and the ones not participating sat down to watch in comfort. Their nannies took their kids as well.

“I'm glad we didn't miss anything.” Deborah said. “This is the best part of being in this family.”

“Hey, now.” Daniel said and she laughed and kissed him.

“You know what I meant.” Deborah said. “You like it, too.”

“I do, but... it's not the best thing about being in the family.” Daniel said.

“No, it isn't.” I said and turned away from the counter to look at everyone. “This is.” I waved at them and Kara caught her breath as my hand wave had included her as well.

“Stop being so sappy and start cooking!” Lashina said as she sat down next to Kara and everyone laughed.

“Why aren't you helping?” Kara whispered.

“I'm not worthy yet.” Lashina said with a smile. “Plus, I have no idea how to cook at all!”

“It's surprisingly easy with the way Hunter teaches.” Simone said and reached over and grabbed my butt. “Oh! I thought that was the cooker dial.”

“Ha. Ha.” I said and gave her a stern look.

Simone gave me a quick kiss and slapped my butt. “Let the cooking begin!” She said loudly, and everyone laughed.

*

The days were filled with reports of all the systems being eradicated of The Order, making weapons to reload the ships, receiving shipments, and spending time with family.

I even managed to get my side project going by purchasing an entire standard parts factory and asteroid smelter that I parked right beside the space habitat. I even received the plans for the parts being made and for the machines used to make those parts. That was almost as invaluable as having access to the people that built the thing.

I hired them immediately for my side project and bought a bunch of living containers. I attached them to the automated factory, then filled one of the containers with everything they would need to work on miniaturizing each and every piece of equipment. They told me that it couldn't be done, so I gave them one of my shield pendants.

It blew their minds.

“I want standard parts to fit in that.” I said to them. “Take all the time you need to examine it.”

“Give us a month.” One of them said. “We should be able to do something by then.”

I nodded and left them to it.

With all the resources of the Bogorim Corporation behind my efforts, the plan to remove The Order from the universe was proceeding even faster than I had hoped. The down side was that my warships kept encountering more and more brown dwarf stars. I marked them on the galactic map we had and kept track of them.

They were all small and out of the way systems that people ignored for the most part, and that wasn't the problem. The problem was the sheer number of them and where they were. Statistically speaking, there shouldn't have been that many naturally, which meant they were being created artificially. It was also undetermined when they appeared and there was no way to discover when they had.

Not even the locations of the ones we found on Relique was helping. Without a singular point of reference from either back then or now, there was no way to know if the systems were the same ones, if they were new ones, or one we hadn't discovered back then.

The only thing I knew was that the farther out the ships went, the more brown dwarf systems they found. Either one could be the result of the other. Were we finding them because we were looking for them or was it inevitable that someone was going to find them eventually? Of course, that brought up another worry. If they had already been found and the ships were crushed and lost, then no one would have reported them.

I went to Adona and to the large meeting room to use the holographic table there and loaded the galactic map. I then added all of the system data from all of the brown dwarf stars and spent a few hours just staring at it.

“I know I'm missing something. I know I am.” I said and felt the Presence agree with me. “I wish I could just ask you directly what the problem is and then you could tell me how to fix it.”

The Presence didn't respond in any way.

“Yeah, that would be too easy.” I chuckled. “It's okay, though. I'm working on it. I'll get it eventually.” I hit the intercom. “Opina, link in Cora, Hela, Iris, Lidia, Thea, and Zoe, please.”

“They're in, Grandpa.”

“Ladies, I'm sorry you've been beached for so long.” I said.

“You already apologized.” They all said as one, then their voices differed as they all laughed different laughs.

“We had some great times, Grandpa.” Hela said.

“We all did.” Thea said, her deep voice resonating. “Our one hundred new sisters had to have a turn.”

“I was tempted to hire pilots for you as well... but... you seven are our warships. It didn't feel right to just hand you over to strangers after we spent so much time together.” I said. “Oh, and I figured you all needed a nice refit and some down time. I just didn't plan on it being this long before we took you out again.”

“It's all right, Grandpa. We all still love you.” Lidia said, her sweet voice perfect for saying such things. “What do you need us to do in the meantime?”

“I want you all to think about this data.” I said and Adona sent them the information. “I need patterns. Shipping routes, ship schedules, anything and everything that pertains to these systems. Are they systematic attacks? Random anomalies? Scheduled tests of some kind?” I sighed. “I know this isn't really what you were designed for... but, you are warships. Your thinking is about strategy and taking out the enemy. So, do that for me. Find me something in this mess that's a battle plan I can use.”

“Grandpa.” Zoe said in her highbrow voice. “Thank you for trusting us with this.”

I chuckled. “Zoe, we've trusted you and your sisters with our lives and you've trusted us with yours. I would really appreciate it if you and your sisters can get me anything, anything at all, that will let me stop this thing.”

“We will do our best.” Zoe said.