Sage and I were hunting dinosaurs, up to our knees in muck, tracking a pair of ceratopians through a swamp. We'd taken down two already. Our harvesting team followed in behind and took off the leather and bones for crafting, separated the meat into slices for one of the chefs, and then extracted the soul coin loot as we moved on to the next target.

I was just setting up upwind of a big triceratops buck when Colonel Ames appeared. He looked around the instance and wrinkled his nose.

"Smells like skunk cabbage in here."

"Do you mind?" I said. "I was going to get a shot off. We're trying to make our quota here."

"No," Ames said. "You're sulking, is what you're doing. Anyway, I'm here to collect you and your sister."

I holstered my gun and straightened up. "Guess it's your lucky day, Mr. Triceratops," I said as Sage slogged through the muck to join us.

"Why are you here, Colonel?" she asked.

"The conference is over," he said. "You two can stop hiding out. Most of the aliens have headed back up to the Hub to start packing. The Patriarch is lifting the interdict on the system. They'll be able to start heading out tomorrow."

I let out a breath. "Did we get everything we wanted?"

"Most of it," Ames replied. "Your girlfriend drives a nice hard bargain. Come on." He gestured, and an exit appeared right in front of us.

I was impressed. "Is that one of your class skills?"

He nodded. "I haven't had much chance to show it off, but being [Champion of Reality] has its perks. One of them is Portable Door."

We stepped through and into Threshold. Ames followed us. Thankfully, leaving the zone removed the mud and stinking liquid Sage and I had spent the last six hours standing in. Ames seemed to have a destination in mind. He set off, and I knew at once it wasn't the restaurant.

"Where are we going?"

"Kronos has arranged for a personal guided tour."

"Of what?"

"You'll see when we get there."

After a minute, it was clear we were heading for the space elevator. I shut up and followed him. There was a small crowd waiting for us. Juana, Grandpa, Mama Grace, and Rosa, Arjun, Dwight, most of the usual suspects. Ames looked around.

"Where's Frank?"

"He's on his way," Grandpa said laconically. "I had to send someone after him. He had his messages off, just like these two."

"We were hunting," I protested. "You knew where we were."

"There's no reason not to check your mail," he said.

Arjun was still looking pale. He approached me, not meeting my eyes, which was normal for him. "Captain Williams, can I have a word real quick?"

I don't think he'd ever said that much to me. I nodded. "Okay, sure."

We stepped off to the side. He was breathing a little too fast.

"I think I need to apologize to you, sir."

"For what?" I asked, blinking. Arjun had always done his part brilliantly. Even in that last fight, when he'd been recovering from his captivity, he'd run analysis and kept us in the rhythm of things.

"The invasion of our outpost.” He swallowed. "It was all my fault."

"What?" I stared at him. "How?"

"You know my class, [Mycroft]. It is an information gathering and synthesis class. I have made contacts with others who have similar classes." His speech was jerky, almost robotic.

"Yeah, I heard about that. It's coming pretty handy. Let us find people we need it easily."

"Yes, but I do not merely receive information. I also share it. In this case, I heard that someone was looking for a miner with a particular type of skill. In this case, the ability to hear from a very great distance off."

"Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that. Someone was trying to locate them when the outpost was taken, see if we could spy on Waters."

“Unfortunately, I had already previously delivered her over to Waters."

Realization dawned on me. That's how he knew what we'd been planning. “He had someone standing, what, half a mile outside our outpost, listening in?”

"Her skill is strong enough that I believe she can hear with detail from over a mile away," Arjun said. "I am truly sorry, Captain Williams. I never thought that sharing information could be used against us."

"Hey now," I said. "You didn't know how her skill would be used. It wasn’t your fault. You can’t even be sure that’s how Waters got what he needed.”

“It was,” he said. “Major Waters was quite clear. He wanted me to know that it was my fault. If I had been better at understanding the personal ramifications… But you see, I'm good at putting together information. I'm not good at understanding people's motives for using that information. That's why I rely on people like Kirin to keep me on the right track. Anyway, sir, now that we're at the end of this, I felt I had to tell you."

I let out a deep breath. "Thanks. I appreciate that. Waters spun some bullshit about having a traitor, and it has been nagging at me ever since. And we're not done with him, because I haven't found a way to feed Waters' spleen to him."

"Yes, I'm afraid I have some bad news," Arjun said. "He has signed on with Proxima as a combat miner."

A slow smile spread across my face. "Oh, that's not bad news," I said. "No. First of all, Proxima's going to take this fiasco out of his hide, you can believe me. Second of all..." I rubbed my hands together. "That just means he's going to be floating around the galaxy looking for reality engine exploits." And that meant sooner or later I’d catch up with him.

Frank came puffing up to the rest of us, his cheeks red with exertion. "All right, all right, I got here," he said.

"Then, all aboard," Colonel Ames said. He and Grandpa ushered us up onto a platform, and a moment later, it launched. I wondered what all this pomp and circumstance was about. I had been up to the Hub three days before for my overdue checkup. It had been a truly uncomfortable experience. I felt daggers glared at me from every alien I passed, and then had resolved to avoid the place as much as possible.

As soon as we left the cavern, Ames looked around the pod. We were seated on the long padded benches around the edges of the pod, and unusually, it had been blacked out the way it was on my first trip up to the Hub. I still remembered the impressiveness of the moment when the windows went clear and we saw the Hub and Jupiter for the first time.

"We will not be visiting the Hub today," Ames announced. "I've made a little arrangement with the reality engine to take us on a sightseeing trip. It'll be a couple of hours, so sit back and relax. This is the first time since we were abducted that I can guarantee you none of the aliens are listening in."

"But the reality engine is," Mama Grace said quietly. She and her daughters had brought big hampers full of what smelled like delicious lunch. I assumed Ames had tipped her off.

"Yes, but it's on our side," Ames said.

"Is it?" Grandpa asked. He leaned forward, his braids dangling over his shoulders as he spoke. "By winning freedom for the reality engine, I truly believe we've won a better future for the rest of Earth. But Earth and the reality engine are not one and the same. In our interests, and its, may not converge.”

“Just hold on till you get to the end of this trip,” Ames said.

I cleared my throat. “So tell me, Colonel, what happens next?”

"We've got our deal. There's going to be plenty of opportunity in Threshold. I'm working with the reality engine. We're going to make Threshold a permanent settlement, supported by what's inside the reality engine itself. Now, Kronos can just supply us with everything we need directly. That's how what they do with the tamed reality engines that the galactics control. But he and I have had a lot of long talks, and we agree we think it's for the best if we keep up the mining levels as they are.”

"Why?" Rosa asked again.

"Because it's damn good training," Ames said, "and because we won this fight because us humans are scrappy and determined, and the aliens are soft and coddled. Even those orcs like Mak’gar were too used to their technological tricks. They're getting classes now, but they won't have the school of hard knocks that you folk went through clawing your way up through the reality engine. That's going to give us an edge, and I want us to keep it. Now, starting in about a week, we're going to be getting a flood of new folk coming in and attuning to the system. We're starting with the most dire cases, people on their deathbeds."

He turned to Juana. "You got some insight for us there?"

"I'm having trouble figuring out how to get informed consent from people with Alzheimer's and other severe cognitive dementias,” she said. "And there's a problem of psychotics and schizophrenics. The reality engine would be able to adjust their brain chemistry once they're here, but there's no real way to get meaningful consent. Some of Earth's governments are suggesting that they be treated under laws meant to force those who are truly a danger to themselves and society into care, and that may be our best hope. In the meantime, we're getting a lot of cancer cases and other terminal illnesses. We've negotiated with the galactic conglomerates for transport and arranged for a high enough quota to be meaningful, but low enough that we're actually able to process it. We may step it up once everything is in place."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"So you’ll be placing them in intake chambers?" I asked.

"Yes, but we’ll have guides for them, helping harvest soul coins. The class selection chamber is being moved down to Threshold. It was always powered by the reality engine, just had a galactic system overlay on top of it "

"And then we just throw them at the galaxy?” I asked.

“Not until they've had some training," Ames said. "They're going to be willing, but they're not going to know what they're doing. We've got to run them through boot camp.”

A feeling of dread rose in me. I really, really hoped I didn't know who he was going to be asking to run the boot camp.

"I'm going to need your help for the next little while, Shad," Ames said, confirming all my fears.

I groaned. "Sir, if you're asking me to train the noobs..."

"You and your grandfather are going to be our first boot camp instructors," Ames continued. "But don't worry, it's just a temporary gig while we get everything up and moving. I have much better uses for all of you. Oh, you'll see soon enough."

“And me?” Sage demanded.

“Well, honey, I’ve actually got a special project for you we’re going to talk about more in a few days. Your grandpa and I are setting up something special.”

She scowled, clearly not liking the sound of that.

“Meanwhile,” he turned to Mama Grace. "I don't know about you, Mama, but I am starving. What did you say to opening up those crates? Is it just me, or is that fried chicken I smell?"

I sat with Juana as we ate. We hadn't had much chance to talk in the last few days. She'd been closeted with the conference debating the fate of the solar system, and I'd been off shooting dinosaurs and trying to pretend like I didn't know about that.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Pretty well."

"You look tired."

"I am, a bit," she sighed and set down a half-eaten drumstick. "That was eye-opening. The conference, I mean."

"What, you didn't like seeing the sausage getting made?"

"Actually," she didn't quite meet my eyes, "I liked it a lot. I think it’s like how you feel, Shad, when you're in the middle of an important battle. You've told me before that you just focus on what needs to be done, and everything else falls away. It was like that. I was listening to six or seven different conversations at once and trying to understand who wanted what and how I could play that against somebody else while making sure that our people were taken care of. It was terrifying and exhilarating and a rush," she admitted.

"That's great," I said. I took her hand. "It's wonderful that you've found something you enjoy.”

“If I can find a use for it! I don't know that we're going to have a whole lot more conferences like this."

"Yeah, but Ames is talking about bringing in millions of people in the next few months. There's going to be all sorts of personnel problems to handle.”

She bit her lip. "Yes, but the thing is, the class I got, it says 'galactic diplomat,' and I was really enjoying learning about these other cultures." She looked away and then up at me. "How to exploit them, I guess?”

I grinned. "Now you're talking my language," I said. "I'm all about exploiting. How about min-maxing? Have you tried that yet?"

She laughed. "Thanks for making me feel better."

"But seriously," I said, changing the subject, "it sounds like we're only going to have a couple of days before the refugees start arriving. How about you and I get away and take a little bit of a vacation?"

"We just had a vacation," she teased. "It's only been a couple of weeks since Earth."

“That wasn't a vacation."

"I know what you mean.” She squeezed my hand. "Yes, let's."

As the meal wound down, Ames stood up. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "forgive me for the theatricality. I have to admit, I was doing this for the sake of making a dramatic impression, but we're nearly here. It's time."

He waved a hand, and the walls of our pod turned transparent. I stared out.

We were hovering high above a planet. Not Jupiter. I knew Jupiter's bands and whirls intimately by now. No, this one had a more muddied look, the colors more yellow and brown, and cutting in a brilliant arc across our vision was a bright, shining ring of ice and rock. I stare. Juana let out a long sigh. Sage gasped.

"Saturn," Rosa said. "It's Saturn."

"It is. And if you look over there," Ames said, indicating off to the side, "you'll see we are in orbit above Saturn's largest moon, Titan. In fact, we are approaching something else that is in orbit above Titan."

He turned to me. "Any insight, Shad?"

I was about to protest that I had no idea what he was talking about. When I remembered the design, I had seen, deep inside Castle Byalgrad, a map of our solar system with a curious marking at Ganymede, where the reality engine was, and another out by Titan.

"It's not another engine, is it, sir?" I asked, frowning. I hoped it wasn't. That seemed like it'd be more trouble than it was worth.

"Nope," Ames said. "No, this is the reason that Juana and I fought so hard to make the Galactics cede everything in our solar system back over to us humans. This facility right here."

We were approaching something, a construct, like the Hub, but shaped nothing like the Hub. In space, it's really hard to get a sense of scale and perspective, but this felt big. It was a huge metal station, shaped like one of those bread bowls that you can get soup in, with a rounded top and a flattened bottom. Spokes protruded from the sides of the station, and some of the spokes bore long, thin slivers of silver. We were approaching one of the slivers now, and as we did, it lit up. Lights blossomed all along.

"It's a ship," Sage whispered.

"They're all ships," Ames replied. "Just waiting for us to have enough ethereum to power them back up. Kronos consolidated almost everything that was left into getting this one up and running. It has a crew capacity of 50, but cargo holds in space for much, much more. It's a converted ethereum hauler, but could be used for a number of different things.” He paused. “Like say, the base camp for joining a reality engine exploit. All of the galactics who come bring their own living quarters. The Hub is there to provide some infrastructure, but if you aren't able to get yourself there and survive, you can't participate. This will give us humans that freedom.”

Juana spoke up and I realized she’d known where we were going all along.

“It gives us more than that. Once we've made some inroads, we'll be able to collect ethereum ourselves. Then we won't be dependent on this treaty we've made to allow the galactics access to our reality engine. We can start powering up the rest of this fleet.”

I stared at it, understanding the wealth and future that this represented.

"How has it survived this long?" Kirin wondered. "I mean, I understand the reality engine. It was buried inside of Ganymede, but this has just been sitting here. Shouldn't it have been destroyed by, I don't know, solar radiation or something?"

"It was inside a sphere of ice five kilometers thick, and we thought it was a moon,” Ames explained. "Kronos only had it broken out a couple of days ago. It's yours.” He gave us a moment for that to sink in. "It belongs to the Misfits Guild. Kronos has arranged all of the details. You'll be able to run it yourselves. Everything on it will answer to you. Not to Kronos. Not to the aliens."

"For what?" I whispered.

"There's a reality engine exploit coming up in a few cycles," Ames said, "It's going to be a special one. It's a rogue world."

"What's that?" Sage asked.

"A planet which has been knocked out of its own star system and travels the void of space between, with no sun. Nothing to keep it a living world. A reality engine sleeps there. It's been found by Proxima supposedly recently, but the way Proxima lies, we suspect there's more to it than that. Apparently rogue worlds can be a source of far, far greater wealth than ordinary reality engines, because they haven't used up themselves trying to monitor a child population or keep assets like this one alive. I think it's worth checking out, don't you?"

"Yes!" Sage yelled, jumping up. "I'm in! I'm in, Grandpa! We're in, right?"

"We'll hear the man out," Grandpa agreed.

Ames held up a hand. "Oh, there's a complication. Proxima has a new counter-mining division. It's a brand new approach based on what your team did in phase three, Shad, where they will be purposefully interfering with other teams."

"Bring it on," I said, “looking forward to that.”

"Yes, well, the new head is someone you know." Ames met our glances.

"Is it Major Waters?" I asked eagerly. "Because I'm eager to—"

"It's Veda," Juana said. Ames looked kind of annoyed at her for stealing his thunder. "Sorry. She sent me a message before we left saying she'd gotten a new assignment from Proxima and that, while at first it wasn't something she had ever thought of, it was starting to grow on her. She said that Proxima’s contract was actually remarkably fair. She's still being sentenced to slave labor for a fine that's going to take her decades or more to pay off, but she says this opportunity might let her pay it off much faster.”

It wasn’t fair that they’d managed to stick her with that accusation of fiscal malfeasance, especially when we’d paid back everything she invested in us for phase three. She just hadn’t been able to deliver the giant profits her family thought they were entitled to.

“What about us trying to help pay off her debt?” I asked. We’d talked about it, and Ames promised to look into it.

Now he shook his head. “The judges hit her really, really hard and they’re not backing down. I think they were taking out a lot of frustration on her. After we paid off the rewards we promised people who joined Team Tunnel Rat, we’re a little low on funds. Basically, we’ve got a couple million in the bank and her debt’s in the billions.”

I whistled. “Man. She really stuck her neck out for us. Feels wrong.”

“Veda doesn’t blame us,” Juana said. “She said Proxima’s actually offering her debt forgiveness if she does well enough with the rogue. She, ah, says they want her to help counter us.”

I grinned. “Good luck with that!” It was a bit of weight off my back. The next time we took on Proxima, we’d be on someone else’s turf. That was going to make a big difference. I didn’t think I’d ever consider this just a game, the way some of the galactics did. But if it wasn’t life and death… that would change things.

We were approaching the shipyard and our one live ship. Ames asked, "Y'all have a name for her yet?"

I shook my head out of ideas. Sage frowned. "Maybe... Star Unicorn Forces?"

We groaned and Grandpa said, "That's a hard veto, hon. No," he said. "I think we should call her Ad Astra.”

“How about Enterprise?” Arjun suggested.

“The Revenge?”

Juana held up her hands. “All right, all right, we’ll take suggestions and figure it out later. Let’s go take a look.”

As our pod docked with our new ship, sailing into a vast, empty, well-lit cargo bay. Everyone stepped off and into the depths of the ship.

I took Juana's hand before she could step down.

"Hang on a second," I said. "That's a lot that Ames has dropped on us just here, and I haven't had a chance to process all of it."

"Me neither, and I knew some of it already.”

"The thing is," I said, "what he's telling me is he needs me and Grandpa and Sage and whoever else we can get on this ship going to this rogue engine exploit and then to who knows what else. More missions, more exploits, securing a future for Earth and making sure the aliens don't try to get back at us for what we've done here. And the thing is, I'm excited about that. I can't see going back to life on Earth, even if it was possible. Not after what I've done here. And the idea of hand-holding a bunch of noobs as they get their classes and learn which end of a gun you point at the bad guy..." I shook my head. "That's not me, Juana. I'm the point of a spear. I'm a gunslinger."

"I know." Her eyes were shimmering, and it looked like she was trying to hold back tears. "This is the part where the tall, handsome stranger tells the ranch girl that he can't stay because of some bullshit reason."

"No," I said. I took her hand and pulled her closer. "No, Juana. This is the part where the cowboy asks the señorita to ride with him. If I'm going out in the galaxy, I could damn well use a galactic diplomat at my side."

She frowned. "I guess I see that…”

“I need you," I added hastily, seeing that I'd said not quite the right thing. "That is, I mean, if you want to come, and I really hope you do. I don't know what your mom and sister want to do. But we won't be gone forever. We'll be coming back to Earth, for sure. Lots of times. It just might be months or years in between those trips, and I want you... I mean, I hope you'll come. I mean..."

"Shad Williams," she said, looking at me. "I really hope that you're trying to propose, because there is no way on Earth or off it that my mother is going to let me go gallivanting around the galaxy with a mere boyfriend."

"Uh," I said, my mouth dry. “I — yeah. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

"And not just that," Juana said, "but it'll have to be an actual priest. Not one of those Order of the Progenitors ones, either. A real priest. I'll have to ask Arjun if he knows if there are any here. Or in the first batch of refugees coming in."

"Uh," I said again. Deciding that speech was not my strong suit, I took Juana in my arms and kissed her.

After a minute, Sage ran up to us. "Get a room, you two," she said. “But later. Come on. Grandpa wants to do a consecration ceremony here now, before we go any farther. Because this is going to be a little piece of Earth that we take with us wherever we go. And after that, I want us to get out of here and back to the reality engine. If we're going to be fighting aliens on their own turf, I want to get Kronos to give me a couple more skills before I go. And maybe level up again." She cocked her head to one side. "Well, are you coming or not?"