Dear Diary,

Back in the day, when I lived in Camden? Somebody once told me I self-sabotage. Like, whenever things are going right, I get scared that it's not going to last, so I subconsciously screw it up on purpose. Looking back on when Saffron and I first hooked up, and Bill got killed and I wound up getting court martialed? Yeah, somehow I think I was doing that back then.

Yeah, your girl can learn. It only takes me like what, six months to figure out that I almost fucked everything up forever?

Anyhow, right now I'm getting my paranoia on what with nothing going wrong so far here at Lancaster House.

Y'know, I just heard myself think that, and then thought, 'wait, Lachlan dying and Larry having to kill a Valkyrie to get him back counts as 'nothing going wrong'?' But, y'know, Lachlan got better thanks to yours truly, and the Valkyrie was kinda a bitch who had it coming, what with laughing at a dead guy who thought he was going to Valhalla.

Saffron spent the night, but left before breakfast. From what I can tell, she's taken to eating breakfast with George and Mrs. Driver. Which, since I'm pretty sure Mrs. Driver is the one providing the eats, has got to be a big win for George. I mean, for Saffron too, but she could have dropped by Drivers' on her own, but George has neither the ability to teleport nor a restaurant as good as Drivers' to get food from. Okay, I'm sure somebody in Newark would disagree with me, but they're wrong. If anybody in New Amsterdam tries to tell me there's better eats there, I'm gonna remind them that at the moment, they're all supposed to be on lockdown.

I'm really not copacetic about how long the lockdown in New Amsterdam is taking, either. Trying to remember how long it took COVID to mutate enough to bypass immunity is making my brain run in circles around itself, because I can't remember if I'm remembering it right, or if I'm remembering some stupid fuckin' meme put together by some internet shitlord. Still, however long that kind of thing takes? I'm thinking we want to hurry shit up, because I can't see Sengann slowing that jawns down.

When I sat down to breakfast Charlie looked over at me and asked, "so, Commander, which of your Cadets will be coming with us today?"

I shook my head, "sorry, gentlemen, but today the Cadets and I will be planning out how we're going to handle the rolling quarantine of the lands around Lancaster House." I turned to Larry and said, "speaking of, I know the farmstead one day East of here had a ton of Volunteers billeted; are there any more like that in other farms nearby?"

Larry shook his head, "honestly, I'm not certain. While I'm now who they would report to, we've had no communications from them since we arrived. Lachlan?"

Lachlan had been focused on breakfast; today the kitchens had sent out waffles and sausage. While the sausage was nothing much to write home about, the waffles? Totally on point, and I have no idea how they managed to get maple syrup that tasted like real maple syrup, but they did it. Plenty of butter on those bad boys, too, which meant I really wanted to get done with the talky talky bit of breakfast and get my waffle on before they got cold. Unfortunately, instead of just answering the question, he looked up and, after swallowing the half-waffle he'd crammed into his mouth, said, "what?"

Larry shot me a 'help me, please' look, so I looked at Lachlan and asked, "are there Volunteers at any of the farmsteads nearby? Like there were in the farmstead a day's march East of here?"

I swear I saw smoke coming out of the poor himbo's ears, but after a minute of concentrated thought, his eyes lit up and he said, "oh, yeah! Father had all the Volunteers called in, and the ones that he left here he spread out among the local farmsteads. I, uh, don't remember which ones, but I'm sure I could point them out on the map?"

"Sounds good." I turned back to Charlie. "So, are you guys okay to do the scouting today?"

Charlie spread his hands and said, "of course, Commander. However, I believe we might go further out than we have been, since we've seen no evidence of anyone from Calverton within a half-day's march."

"How far you thinking?" On the one hand, I really didn't want these guys out of my sight, but at the same time having them out of my hair might be useful.

He shrugged. "My thought was to keep traveling outward until we hit the border or see some sign of Calverton's forces."

That would get them out of the way at least. "Sounds like a plan. Do you have some way to let us know if you wind up engaged and in need of support?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Should they have us so closely engaged that we can't disengage, I doubt any number of Volunteers or Cadets would suffice to rescue us."

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I bit my damn lip and smiled. "Fair enough." I turned to Larry, "can you make sure they have whatever supplies they need for an extended recon trip?" Larry, who had taken the opportunity to start nomming his own waffles, just nodded without speaking. I turned back to Charlie, "there you go then. How far is the border, travel-wise?"

Charlie swallowed the sausage he'd been eating with every sign of enjoyment and replied, "with just Heroes in our group, we should be able to make the border in four days. So if we don't return in eight days, I suppose you'd best make ready to defend against Calverton." He smiled, like he'd made some kind of joke.

I decided I'd done enough to help the Heroes Lancaster for the morning, and focused on my own waffles. Which had lost that piping hot crispiness they had when the servers brought them out. Which did not do my mood any favors. Still, it still tasted pretty damn good, and the sausage wasn't actually bad, just kind of meh.

Once Charlie and the rest of the cousins took their leave and headed up to the old boy's club to do whatever prep they had to do before heading out on their recon, Larry waved one of the butler-looking dudes over and whispered in his ear for a bit. The guy straightened up and said, "very good, sir," then waved to a couple other servers and headed back toward the kitchens. Maybe fifteen minutes later, right about when Bonnie managed to finish up her breakfast, what with being short handed, the servers walked back out carrying extra waffles for everyone. When I caught a whiff of the new round of waffles headed our way, I stood, walked down to where Bonnie sat trying to clean up where she'd spilled a bit of syrup on the table, leaned over and said, "I'll take care of that, Bonnie. Lemme swap seats with you. I'm kinda used to sitting in the middle of the table anyway."

She blushed, but moved like greased lightning as she swapped seats with me. Lachlan looked lost, but that wasn't unusual. Everybody else might have been smiling a little more than usual, but I'm sure that was just because they'd gotten extra waffles, right?

Once we finished up that round of waffles. And the round after that, which topped off everybody else at the table, so I figured I'd stop asking for more, we all trooped down to the first floor. In the central area under the dining room, just like Larry had said, the floor was basically a map of the surrounding area. Okay, 'map' might have been a little much. Yeah, right smack in the middle of the floor it had a picture of Lancaster House as seen from the front of the house, and roads running outward from it, with pictures of farmsteads here and there. It reminded me of nothing so much as one of those fucked up maps you'd see at theme parks.

All that aside, it had the roads and farmsteads marked out. One road ran in each of the cardinal directions, and that was more or less true from each of those nearby farms as well. "Okay, so here's what we're gonna do. We'll pair up, taking two units each, leaving the rest here at Lancaster House. Raven, Bonnie, I'll want you two to stay here and take charge of the local quarantine; nobody comes in without being Assessed and Cured. Also, I'll need you to sort out setting up and manning some basic fortifications on all of the approaches." I turned to Larry, "unless there already are some?"

He nodded. "There are, in fact, but they're mostly covered by snow at this point. We'd need to clear the snow to make use of them."

I looked at Raven and Bonnie. "Do either of you know how to Shape an Air Shield?" When they both shook their heads, I turned to Lachlan, who'd followed us downstairs. "Can you show them how to make one?"

"Sure, but why?"

I grinned at him, "have you ever tried making an Air Shield under a snowbank?"

His eyes got big, and a goofy smile slid across his face. "Really?"

"Oh, yeah." I turned back to Raven and Bonnie. "Okay, you two work with Lachlan to get the defenses cleaned off and manned. Gary, Rowena? You guys head North. Bill, Angel, you guys head West. Larry and I will head South, and Fred, you take Linus and head back to the farmstead to the East, make sure they're getting the perimeter set up properly there. The goal is first to get everyone Assessed and Cured, then get the Volunteers to help with the quarantine perimeter." I turned to Larry, "do the Lancaster House Volunteers know how to set up signal fires?"

He shrugged, "I'm sure they can figure it out."

"Okay, standing order for all of them, have a signal fire ready, if they see anything that looks like Calverton, light off a signal fire and retreat back to someplace defensible." I looked to Larry, "the farmsteads are defensible, yes?"

He shrugged. "Probably moreso than anywhere except Lancaster House itself."

"Okay then. If they see Calverton forces, light off signal fires and fall back to the nearest farmstead, or Lancaster House if we're closer." I looked around. "Any questions?"

Bill raised his hand, and at my nod asked, "Do we come back once we've got everyone Cured and our perimeter set up?"

"Yeah, that makes sense. I want to push our perimeter out further, but I don't want any of us out of contact with Lancaster House any longer than we have to be. Anything else?"

Everybody shook their heads, so I looked at them and said, "Okay then. Get whatever gear you need, grab your Volunteers, and get to it."

The eight of us heading out took about an hour to finish getting ourselves and our Volunteers ready to go, then headed out. By the time we hit the road, I saw Lachlan blowing snow all over the place while Raven and Bonnie watched and laughed along with them.

"Nice to hear him laughing again," I said quietly to Larry.

He smiled back to me. "Yeah, it is."

"Sorry I couldn't pair you up with Bonnie, but I want both of us heading the same direction as your cousins, just in case they decide to screw around."

He nodded. "I understand. I appreciate it, but the mission comes first."

That pulled the smile off my face, as I realized he and I would likely be, at best, camping outside a farmstead tonight. I really didn't want to put Saffron through that again, especially with only two units of Volunteers to secure the area.

"Yeah. Yeah, it does."