Over the next few months the skies of BW-1 began to clear. At first just brief glimpses of the gas giant, or hazy outlines through the dust, could be seen. The rains had come and washed away a lot of the dust revealing the hard stone.

John walked through the Garden, running a hand across the transplanted vegetation that was finally beginning to thrive.

“So how long until the greenery expands?” he asked quietly. Bob, in one of his biological bodies, turned and grinned.

“Turns out the slug-nuke winter won’t be as bad as we thought. Another few months and the sky should be largely free of dust. We’ll still need to use the low-light mutants, regular Earth fauna won’t survive here.”

“And the temperature?” The world had been kept warm via some oddity of its core interacting with the vast magnetic field of the gas giant. Trapping it in constant moist clouds had paradoxically resulted in a temperature increase rather than decrease as less heat was lost to space.

“It will go back to normal once the clouds clear. About the same as a chilly autumn day in England so no beach side fun times but once we've greened the place it will be good for wilderness walks,” said Bob. “We’ll need to introduce animal life as well. Might have to get the Dragon to do his ‘make a new species’ trick to give us a chance of a stable population.

“I’m pretty sure his sister will kill him if he plays with that power again!” laughed John, remembering the slight woman taking an eighty metre long dragon to task in no uncertain tones.

“Maybe. Claire is busy at the moment. She’s our primary diplomat with the aliens we sent back last year.”

“Hard to understand how this time thing is working. Ryn is nearly eighteen now! Are the gifts safe?” John had sent a collection of beautiful stones and shells that he, Evie and Vic had gathered as they explored the strange shores of this alien world back as a birthday gift for his youngest’s upcoming celebration.

“Yep. After Pete got done going over them for biological samples. He’s sealed himself away to research the Void samples we sent him. He wants to fight fire with fire when the invasion arrives.”

“Huh, dunno if that’s going to work. Won’t Void things just switch sides?”

“Shelly is partly based on Void biotech. So are a lot of her fighting drones. We’d better hope that doesn’t happen. The main problem is that prick in the US!”

“Belisarius? I thought Liberty was going to deal with him.”

“She bloody was,” Bob grumbled. “But she decided to give him a chance or some shit! The bastard needs putting down, Ryn got all the proof we needed that he was working with the Cullers.”

“Not much we can do from here,” John growled, clenching a fist in frustration. “When the ship gets back… We need to head to Earth. We’ve got enough Essence to deal with all the shit going on back there.” The reports Bob was running back and forth had revealed that Death and Magic had become increasingly reclusive, their territories ruled with iron fists and brutal repression. What was worse was that Life, Liberty and Frost were taking a hands off approach and chaos was erupting across Europe, North and South America. “Wayfaire is still ok?”

“For various values of ok, I suppose. They’re not as badly off as the Beastfolk or the Court. The Reich is holding it together but roving warlords have become a major issue across the central stretch of Europe, from Poland to the steppes; it’s a warzone and Life isn’t able to react quickly enough to put them down. War is doing his best but he’s only one man.”

“We need to get back. Has Fashtaal answered you?” John had asked Bob to reach out to the reptile overseer of Earth, hoping for a way to speed up their return.

“No. He doesn’t fancy me like he does you,” Bob smirked at the scowl that crossed John’s face. “We’re just going to have to go with the program.”

“We’re going further and further away from where we need to be. Two years on Earth and everything has changed. Only a few months for us! Bob-”

“Don’t John. Don’t even think what I reckon is on your mind. We stick with the program until we’re sure we can make any other options work. The twins would bloody kill you if you did… that thing we won’t even talk about.”

John growled and paced deeper into the greenery. The large fronds of the ferns and the waving stalks of the grasses helped calm him somewhat but a core of frustration had been growing. He heard tinkling water and familiar voices coming through the foliage so he steered in that direction.

He pushed aside a particularly florid fern to find a picnic taking place. Evie, Vic, Sam and Felicity were all sitting on blankets, passing round food and drinks.

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“Hey! No boys allowed!” Vic scowled at him before smiling and moving over to let him sit down next to her. “Oy!” she swatted at his hand as he helped himself to a sandwich from her plate.

“So this is what girls get up to when left to their own devices?” he asked around a mouthful.

“You wish. This is tame!” laughed Sam. “What brings you to our little gathering, Captain Grumpy?”

“I’m not grumpy, just… restless,” John fidgeted and leant back against a rock behind him. “We should try and go home.”

“The journey will take as long as the Light wills it to, John,” said Felicity. Since his “blasphemy” neither of the twins had referred to him as Saint.

“Dad’s right, Liss,” said Evie as she reached out to a bottle of wine and refilled her glass. She offered it round and John accepted a cup of the sweet white wine. He grimaced after his first sip but continued to drink the sickly stuff. “As soon as we level we’re bloody god- er- we’re very powerful!” Evie corrected herself about any use of the G word around the sensitive woman.

“Well there’s bugger all we can do about it. The Kipragtsek train has no brakes. It’s a one way trip,” said Sam.

“Not one way! That sounds terminal! More of a circular route,” offered Vic.

“Nothing we can do until they pick us up again anyway,” complained John.

“There is nothing we can do when they pick us up, either,” said Felicity firmly. “It must be an unusual route these ships take.”

“How so?” asked Vic as she leaned back and rested her head on John's arm which snaked out to rest over her shoulders.

“We have been dropped off and left alone for months, twice now. Yet collected by the same vessel. It must follow a general route and move back and forth for each deployment, otherwise we’d have been picked up by another vessel,” Felicity replied. John found it refreshing not having the last words of her sentences echoed by her brother. Apart they were far easier to tolerate.

“That’s a good point. So it’s currently zipping off to drop off or grab other teams and that’s the delay?” asked Evie.

“Maybe it’s just parked up to let us sweat,” John suggested darkly. “Maybe it’s pissed at us.”

“It?” asked Vic, craning her head back to look up at him.

“The system. It might not like that I had a chat with a Void commander.”

“It might not like the fact that you-” Felicity began.

“I’m sure that’s not the problem. How many teams were on the ship?” Vic interrupted before Felicity launched into another rant about John’s bad judgement.

“Dozens. Maybe a couple of hundred. They came and went without us dropping back into real space, now that I think about it. The only times I could stand to look outside the ship was when we got dropped off,” said John.

“Only the relevant hold gets access back to real space and the ship itself is always outside reality?” suggested Sam, helping herself to a teacake.

“That would rip the whole ship apart?” argued Vic.

“Nothing is impossible with the Light,” said Felicity.

“Maybe that’s right. Might be some kind of ability in the Shrell? Or the tech?” said John.

“If it’s the tech Bob will ferret it out once he finishes going through the downloads he stole from the Hagrutship. I’d put money on it being a power though,” said Evie quietly.

Team Report:

Pacify MW-537. Remove Void infestation complete. Collection in four time units.

“Crap! Not much notice! Bob?” called John.

“I’m sending all the excess drones back to earth, bar a handful. There’s a small factory setup that can make basic drones in case the portal closes. Grab anything you want to take with you. If you want to send a message home you’ve got ten minutes to give it to a drone,” Bob sent over their comm links.

“For a galaxy spanning empire they aren’t big on planning and giving decent amounts of notice!” complained John as he began blipping around to help Bob and the rest of the team gather at the original base by the portal.

A few frantic minutes later they were gathered and the bots were swarming to set everything in order before the stash, and possibly the main portal.

John took a moment and composed his thoughts.

Hey kiddo,

I hear you’re doing well. Keep it up. We’ve got more than enough Essence to justify coming home but the system has its rules. I’ll write again when we next get sent on a mission. Happy birthday! I doubt we’ll be let out in time to send another message before then.

You’re mum and sister are looking after me. You make sure to look after your friends, sweetheart. In this crazy world it’s friends that keep us on the straight and narrow. Listen to Bob but I trust your judgement. Sometimes the old guy is a bit of a relic.

Stay safe, get strong,

Love

Dad

He processed into an encrypted file on his implant and transmitted it to a nearby bot that nodded and began heading back to Earth.

He looked around at the expanding swath of green that now surrounded their original base. Even without the portal the drones left behind would be enough to keep the garden growing. He blipped up and marvelled at the kilometres they’d turned from dull rock and dirt to vibrant life. If the rate of change kept up it would only be a few years before this whole continent was terraformed. That time would pass in the blink of an eye to them due to the time-fuckery of the voidliner.

He sighed and watched as the last few drones to head back to Earth rushed through the portal. A timer he’d had running on his implant began to get down to mere seconds and he sighed. Back to that ship to be whisked off somewhere else that they’d be required to do morally dubious things for a galactic order he didn’t trust.

The seconds ticked down to zero and the team was once again in the hold aboard the Kipragtsek. He blinked and adjusted his vision to seal off the nightmare that was Outside of reality. He took a second, listening as the team began to fall out and make themselves once again at home on the ship. He wondered how long they’d be stuck here twiddling their thumbs this time. Maybe there was something he could learn during this down time though.

He opened his ruby eyes and began to extend his vision until he was once more exposed to the Outside. The fractals and swirling shapes, the waves of incomprehensible force that bounced against each other and diverted around the ship caused a splitting pain behind his new eyes. He fought through the pain, studying the polygonal things swooping through something even more alien than the vacuum of space. Gradually the pain began to fade and he started to make some progress. He would understand the impossible and learn what he could of the medium the ship travelled through.