Juliet was hot. She’d made Angel shorten her hair as much as she could, but it was still plastered to her scalp with sweat. Her shoulders were pink from the sun, her tank top was stuck to her body, and her jeans and boots were covered with dirt. In short, it was easy to see she’d been working outside all day. As the sun moved past its zenith and she sat on the grassy hillside, sipping from a cold bottle of alcoholic lemonade, she watched Bennet operating the Berkley Industrial Utili-tractor she’d bought for the property. It was an impressive machine with treads that could flatten a passenger car and a dozen bulky attachments they could switch out—things for digging, grating, grinding, and pretty much anything else they might need.
As she watched, movement caught her eye, and she looked down the path to see Emma hiking up toward her. Behind her, less than twenty kilometers away, the first tree-covered foothills leading up to the Rockies stole Juliet’s attention with their beatific grandeur. “Pretty,” she sighed.
“It’s lovely,” Angel agreed.
They’d bought the land or, rather, leased it for a hundred years from the Colorado Protectorate. It was land that had been reclaimed in the last few years. Apparently, sometime during the “conflict,” it had been an upscale neighborhood that had been bombed into oblivion. Now, it was a picturesque landscape, with smooth, rolling hills covered with grass, wildflowers, and young trees. Bennet and Aya were carving out a driveway down to the access road, which led away to the new Protectorate Highway One, or “PH1,” and a straight shot to either Boulder or New Denver, depending on which way you turned.
Emma sighed happily as she plopped down beside her and twisted open her own beverage. “Pretty primo location, sis.”
Juliet laughed and clinked her bottle against Emma’s. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Twenty-five acres—should be enough to keep us busy, huh?”
“I’d think so.” Juliet looked past Bennet and Aya’s antics to the field where they’d set up their camp. Big, self-expanding tents, a “bathroom” trailer, and a firepit gave away their presence—the evidence of their stay so far. “Did you get ahold of ‘em?” She was asking about Emma’s attempt to contact the industrial tractor-trailer that was supposed to be hauling their “homestead” package to the build site.
“Yep. Stuck in customs outside Denver. Won’t be here until Friday at the earliest. I guess they’re in a queue for inspection.” She leaned back and drained half her bottle. “I swear, there were times I thought I’d never be happy again. I know you feel guilty about it all, but I’m so damn glad I got pulled out of that melted prison…” She let her words trail off as she sighed, closing her eyes and putting her face to the sun.
Juliet smiled as she took another sip. “I get that.”
“You think mom will come out here? I mean, to visit. I figure, since I don’t have to pay rent, I could save up and pay for her airfare.”
“That was my idea, yeah, and don’t sweat the airfare.” Juliet bumped her with her elbow. “Or the rent. You’re going to be making a home here, and I intend to take full advantage when I’m between…jobs? Missions? I don’t know what to call what we’re doing, but I know Athena and Tanaka will make me take breaks. This is a solid place for me to call ‘home,’ and that’s something I’ve been wanting for a long time. Besides, it’s not just for us. The Kowashi crew paid for two of the bedroom units, and I know Benny has plans to stick around and help with everything.” She nodded down the slope to Bennet, where he was still trying to work a smooth curve into the driveway. He seemed to be struggling as he tried to make the bend around a rock outcropping. Aya stood on a boulder, holding her head in her hands, and Juliet couldn’t help giggling as she stomped a foot and yelled.
“I know,” Emma sighed, smiling that stupid grin she’d been wearing far too often in the last couple of weeks. “Isn’t he great?”
“Oh, barf!” Juliet snickered and gulped down the rest of her lemonade.
“Speaking of special friends, is yours going to make it tonight?”
Juliet looked at Emma and arched an eyebrow. “Are we just teasing right now, or can I be serious?”
Emma immediately sobered and reached over to take Juliet’s hand. “I want to be a good sister, Jules. We’re starting a new chapter, right? So talk to me if you need to talk.”
Juliet nodded, tilting her head sideways as she contemplated. She didn’t need to talk; she’d already had quite a few long, heartfelt talks with Angel since the events on the ark ship. It felt good, though, to see Emma feel like she needed her, so she spoke from the heart, “Cassie’s got her hands full with Brooke right now. More importantly, I don’t want to be someone she’s holding out for, someone who keeps her from finding the right person. I’m going to be gone—for months or years at a time—and that’s not fair to anyone sitting around on Earth trying to make a family work.”
“I get it, sis.” Emma squeezed Juliet’s hand, entwining their fingers as she turned toward the sky, squinting into the pale blue. “I’ll be watching those stars, thinking about you, and I’m going to keep this dumb PAI from reading me any of the headlines from around the system. You hear that, Wally? I don’t want any news about Juliet unless it’s to say she’s on her way home for a visit!”
Juliet smiled and laid back in the grass, resting her arm over her eyes to keep the sun out. “I can’t believe you named him Wally.”
“It’s a fine name.” Emma held her bottle upside down, letting the last few drops fall onto her tongue.
“Anyway, about Cassie, when I messaged her, I kind of indicated that there was room for her to build something here. When she messaged me back, she seemed keen on the idea; I don’t think the commune where she is now works as a long-term thing for her. Besides, Boulder’s only about twenty minutes away—plenty close for her to have some kind of social life. Will you talk to her about it if she comes over tonight? I told her we were cooking out.” Juliet laughed and gestured to their little tent compound. “As if we have a choice.”
“Hell yeah, I will! The more, the merrier—” Emma cut herself off and frowned, shaking her head. “No, I mean—within reason—the more of your friends, the merrier. I don’t want a bunch of losers moving in and junking up the neighborhood.”
“No need to worry about that, sis.” Juliet hopped to her feet and then, with a grunt, hoisted Emma up, too. “I think you’ve pretty much met all my friends. Let’s go get a fresh drink and tell Bennet to let that poor tractor rest for the night.” They hiked down the hill, past the flattened area where the modular housing units were meant to be installed. Juliet hadn’t quite believed how cheaply she could get a long-term lease on the property from the Protectorate, but she’d only had to fork over a hundred thousand bits. She chuckled at the symmetry—a hundred k for a hundred years.
Of course, the payment was the easy part. The real hurdle had been all the red tape—licenses, background checks, land-use agreements, and a dozen other clauses in a mind-bogglingly dense set of documentation. Juliet smirked, remembering how Athena had cut through all that nonsense for her. She’d hardly had to sign her name on the dotted line, and even then, it had been her operator ID. Even so, even considering the good deal on the land, there were plenty of other expenses to consider.
A new utili-tractor would’ve been close to two hundred k, but she’d gotten one from a rancher liquidating his assets for only sixty-five. Then there was the modular “homestead.” She’d foot the bill for six different modules: three bedrooms, a kitchen, a “great room,” and a gym, while the Kowashi crew had pitched in for two more bedrooms, insisting they wanted a place for R&R now that they were signing on to Athena’s Sol-system cleanup crew. The modules were built from nano-extruded plasteel and diamatex and, supposedly, were arrangeable in half a dozen different configurations, including stacks. Juliet looked forward to seeing how Bennet would lay the whole compound out.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
All told, including the land, the tractor, an old pickup truck, the power plant, the water well and treatment system, and the “homestead” modules, Juliet had forked over nearly a million bits. She didn’t regret a single one. Naturally, it made things easy when she’d already had more than two million, and then Athena had paid her another five. The true-AI had surprised her with a completed SOA contract for “infiltrating and hindering the operations of rogue elements of the WBD corporation.” Naturally, the contract had covered bonus milestones that just happened to coincide with everything Juliet had done out of necessity.
Thinking about it brought another stupid grin to her face as she and Emma let gravity pull them down the slope, lengthening their strides into a run as they both broke into giggles, trying to be first down to the rumbling tractor. “No fair!” Emma cried as Juliet stretched her legs and pulled ahead.
“Hey, I don’t remember much mercy out of you when I was half your size!”
“You were seven!” Emma laughed. Aya heard her and turned, shading her eyes against the low-hanging sun. When she saw them laughing and stumbling to a stop nearby, she waved and hopped off the boulder.
“Angel,” Juliet gasped, “tell Bennet to turn that thing off!” The tractor was electric, so it wasn’t making much engine noise, but the clatter of stones under the grating attachment was enough to force her implants to dial back her auditory gain.
“What do you think?” Aya asked, gesturing to the smooth dirt track leading up to the building site and then down, most of the way, to the access road. “Not bad, considering we just learned how to drive that thing today, right?”
Juliet hung her arm over Aya’s shoulders, pulling her in for a side hug. “Not bad at all!” She kicked some of the freshly tilled dirt. “Did Em tell you about the delay on our shipment?”
“Yeah. No big deal, though. The well installation is still scheduled for tomorrow, right?”
“Yep, and the, uh, surfacing company is bringing an extrusion machine first thing the day after.” Juliet had hired a local company for the driveway and foundation. They had a machine that would spit out something that was a lot like concrete as it drove along, munching up dirt to mix with its additive chemicals.
Aya, too, kicked some dirt. “Sounds like we’re on our way.”
“It still freaks me out,” Emma chimed in, “that we’ll be drinking water right out of the ground. You’re sure the treatment system you got will be able to remove the contaminants? I heard there were nukes detonated not too far from here—”
“Em,” Juliet sighed, “we’ve been over this. The Protectorate has been mitigating the radiation in this area for nearly ten years. They have nanite swarms that eat radiation. The same tech is in the treatment system, so, yeah, I think we’ll be good. Don’t worry, though, ‘cause it automatically tests the water in the holding tank, and it’ll display the results—you can be the judge.” As she spoke, the tractor’s constant hum died down, and Bennet stepped out of the cab, closing the door behind him with a solid thunk.
He whooped, leaping down to a tread, then onto the fresh dirt. “How about that? I love this machine!”
Emma forgot her conversation with Juliet and jogged over to him, wrapping him in a hug, and Juliet was torn between irritation and delight to see Bennet’s enormous smile. Before she could engage a filter, she muttered, “How can they seem so right after knowing each other a grand total of what? Fifteen days?”
“I knew it was going to happen. It was love at first sight back on Ceres! You saw it! It’s like magic.” Aya sighed wistfully, then turned toward the grassy field where their tents sat. Juliet knew what she was thinking: why couldn’t Leo be as great as Bennet? She and the merc were still “dating,” but Leo was currently up on Luna, having “passed” on the trip down Earth-side.
“Hey,” she hurried to walk beside Aya, “everyone moves at their own pace. If something’s meant to be, I think it’ll happen.”
Aya snorted. “That’s very rich coming from you, miss.”
“I—” Juliet couldn’t keep a straight face and had to laugh at herself. “I know.”
“I know, you know,” Aya looked at her and winked. As they came to their “campground,” she pointed at the trailer containing their big water tank, bathroom, and shower. “Wanna shower first?”
“Go for it. I’m gonna message Ladia; she sent me a note—”
“Make sure you get me an appointment on the same day!”
“I know!” Juliet laughed. “I was going to say she wanted to talk to me about our requests. I guess Athena sent her some specs for mods to the circulatory augments we asked for.”
Aya nodded, her expression severe. “I will not spend another dogfight totally blacked out!”
“Yeah, but just ‘cause we’re getting some upgrades doesn’t mean we don’t have to practice. We need to start scheduling some regular time in the sims when we’re done with this little—” Juliet laughed as she considered the hard work they’d been doing. “Vacation!”
“You know I’m down for it.” Aya jerked her thumb toward the trailer. “Gonna rinse off some dirt.”
Juliet nodded and turned to their firepit. Despite the late spring date, the evenings were getting chilly up near the mountains, so she walked over to the big propane tank just outside their circle of tents and twisted the valve. Angel sent a signal to the fire pit, which clicked several times before whoomphing as the gas lit up. “Any word from Ghoul?”
“No. I’ll send her a reminder—”
“Angel! Wait…” Juliet sighed as she realized she had no proper objection.
Angel ignored Juliet’s half-formed protestation. “She’s coming!”
“Really?”
“Yes! She wanted to make sure it was all right to bring her niece. I told her it would be amazing!” Juliet was quiet as she walked over to the refrigerated cooler they had plugged into the solar array atop the water cooler. Somewhere between the firepit and the propane tank, she’d decided to put off messaging Ladia. She felt like she had enough on her mind. Juliet could hear Aya’s muffled singing from inside, bringing her smile back to prominence. Ever aware of her moods, Angel proved her competence by saying, “I know you’re nervous, but I bet Ghoul is too. Just be honest with her, Juliet.”
“I know you’re right, Angel. I am nervous, though.” She fished around for another hard lemonade, then took out the burgers and sausages they’d picked up at the co-op earlier that day.
“Hey,” Bennet called as he and Emma walked into camp. “Wanna grill on the firepit, or should I fire up the charcoal thingy?”
“Uh, the charcoal grill. I don’t wanna fight all the smoke out of my eyes while I sit.”
“Wait—while you sit? Am I cooking again?”
Emma laughed. “You love it.”
Juliet jerked her thumb at the trailer. “Don’t get any ideas—I’m next.”
“No problem,” Bennet sighed, collapsing into one of the comfy camp chairs they had arranged around the fire pit. “Toss me a beer and a protein bar, will you?”
“Benny!” Emma laughed, sitting beside him. “We’re going to eat soon.”
“He has to maximize his gains, Em.” Juliet shook her head, laughing quietly, then fished out a “cookies ‘n cream” protein bar and a dark, local stout. She didn’t toss them, though, despite Bennet holding out his hands and looking disappointed as she carried them over to him.
“I’m not sure we’ll be able to afford to keep our pantry stocked when Juliet and Aya leave.”
“You let me worry about that, sweet cheek—”
“All right!” Juliet groaned, cutting him off. “I can’t take any more of this!” She was half-joking; having heard the water flow in the trailer cut off, she intended to make good on her promise to be next into the shower.
“Juliet!” Emma grabbed Bennet’s huge, meaty palm. “Don’t make Benny feel bad for being affectionate!”
“Blegh.” Juliet waved her hand dismissively and then stomped over to the trailer. She knocked on the door. “Are you decent?”
“Not yet! Two minutes!”
Juliet smiled and sat on the step, watching Emma and Bennet and feeling a comfortable warmth in her chest. She was glad—
“You’re glad they’re together,” Angel, once again, proved she could feel what Juliet felt.
“Yeah. How great will it be to know they’re here, living the life we’re out there trying to protect?” It had kind of surprised her when Bennet had indicated a desire to try his hand at “homesteading.” He’d proclaimed his “space fighting bucket list” complete after his ride in the Atlas. Juliet supposed having a budding romantic interest with Emma was a big factor, too.
Angel mentally nodded. “I think it’ll be wonderful. I just hope they aren’t moving too fast.”
“Eh, I know better than to try to judge anyone where romance is concerned.”
“Speaking of awkward failed romance, Ghoul has indicated she’s leaving. You have about thirty-seven minutes until she arrives.”
Juliet snorted in mock indignation. “That was a little below the belt, wasn’t it?”
“You know I love you.”
Juliet smiled and stood, pounding on the door. “Aya! We’re getting company, and I need to get cleaned up!”
Aya pushed the door open, her pink hair damp, her face moist from the steam, and stomped out, still buttoning her jeans over her T-shirt. “You better not be like this on the Blossom! We need to have scheduled shower time—”
“Uh-uh!” Juliet waggled her finger. “I have my own shower, remember?”
“Oh, right. Excuse me, Captain.” Aya winked and hopped down to the grass, and Juliet climbed into the steamy trailer. “Um, by the way, make it quick; we need to refill the water tank soon.”
“Aya!” Juliet growled, then slammed the door shut. Twenty-five minutes later, she sat back down near the fire pit, clean and wearing her last pair of jeans that weren’t too filthy to tolerate under a faded, button-up flannel she’d purchased at a second-hand store in Boulder. The sun’s light was nearly gone from the western sky, but it persisted, illuminating the peaks in a warm, golden-orange halo. The air was noticeably chilly, and everyone had moved their chairs closer to the fire. Bennet was still in the shower, the last to go in, and Juliet snickered softly, wondering if he’d run out of water.
“You’re cruel,” Angel whispered, despite knowing only Juliet could hear her.
“He’ll be fine,” she subvocalized. “He’s been in there for five minutes; he’s got to be mostly clean by now.”
“Someone’s coming.” Emma pointed with her bottle toward the access road. Sure enough, two headlights were wending their way through the low hills toward their property. “Your friend?”
Juliet looked at her, and some of her nervousness must have shown because Emma smiled almost sweetly. “You should go down by the truck and wait for her. Wouldn’t want her to get stuck driving up Bennet’s driveway, not with the soil so loose.”
“Want me to come?” Aya asked, already scooting toward the edge of her seat.
“Nah.” Juliet smiled, setting her drink into the built-in cupholder on her chair. “I want to talk to her for a minute, ‘kay?” Aya’s bright, softly illuminated pink eyes flashed briefly as she smiled and nodded. Juliet stuffed her hands into her pockets and slowly ambled down the torn-up soil toward the service road where they’d parked the truck.
The little car—Juliet could make it out easily now, away from the firelight and with Angel enhancing the gain on her optics—arrived at the Protectorate’s barbed-wire fence and their makeshift, wooden gate well ahead of her. Juliet lengthened her strides and watched as Ghoul’s familiar figure exited on the driver’s side. A second later, the passenger door flew open, and a much smaller figure jumped out with a squeal of giggles. “Brooke, I presume,” Juliet said softly. As she stared, Angel zoomed in, and Juliet felt her smile growing despite her nerves.
The little girl was adorable—a miniature Cassie with short blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and big cheeks that flushed pink in the chilly air as Ghoul hoisted her onto her hip. Juliet shifted her gaze to Ghoul’s face and watched her smile as she kissed the little girl’s temple, pointing a finger toward Juliet. Of course, Angel easily picked up her softly spoken words with Juliet’s audio implants. “That’s my friend,” she whispered, “the one I told you the stories about.”