Jack listened to Em'brel describe the wild grain and roots the villages used to supplement their diets. "The more powerful members of a village eat mostly meat, with just a few garnishes for a bit of variety. However, the less well-off you are, the more you'd eat things like bread and roots. Sometimes that can even become the majority of a person's diet, leading to shorter lifespans. Also, what we call bread has little in common with your bread. It's much thinner and crunchier and also has very little taste."

Angela nodded. "Yeah, sounds like basic unleavened bread. Based on my analysis, an argu'n could probably supplement around fifty percent of their diet with food sources other than meat. Any more than that, and you'll run into some unavoidable nutritional deficiencies."

Jack was nodding. "Now that we're approaching spring, it might be a good idea to look into getting some seeds and planting some crops. We might need to get a windmill set up, or at least something similar, to help grind the grain."

Tilting his head to the side, Jack continued. "Speaking of, since we're limited on raw materials for more solar panels, could we set up some wind turbines to generate more power for you, Angela?"

Angela looked deep in thought. "Well, it won't take as many rare raw materials to make a wind turbine, but even for a moderately sized one, many of the components would be larger than I can craft on the ship. We could try seeing if the smiths could make some molds, but that would take large quantities of metal and other resources."

Jack nodded. "Still, that would take care of all our immediate power needs, at least for a long-term stay on the planet. I'd like to get that situation stabilized as quickly as possible."

Em'brel grinned. "Well, if it's raw materials you need, I'm the best with the mining harness now! It'll give me something to do other than training or sitting around the ship all day!"

Jack grumbled to himself. "Yeah, seems like I'm second best at everything these days."

S'haar had been sitting silently listening as the other three planned but decided to cut in before Jack could get too caught up on that train of thought. "Oh, is the male who's single-handedly and dramatically improved the lives of everyone around him and saved the day on multiple occasions feeling like he's no longer useful? What's the matter? Have you entirely run out of ideas to help us?"

Her smile helped take the sting out of her words, but the message was clear. Jack had no business acting like he wasn't valuable. So finally, with a rueful smile, Jack relented. "Alright, alright, point taken. But that brings us to the next point of business. We really need to establish relations with the other villages in the region."

Angela sat back in an invisible lounge chair as she agreed. "Yeah, and despite your earlier lamentation, I think our dragon emissary is probably the best man for the job!"

Jack looked surprised. "Wouldn't Em'brel be better, since she's actually a noble?"

Angela shook her head. "Perhaps she would be better at speaking to them on equal terms, but our situation is anything but. There is a large discrepancy in our respective manpower and technologies. Since they have a significant advantage in manpower, we need someone to emphasize our advantage in technologies...and maybe magic."

Jack looked like he wanted to protest the term "magic," but Angela continued without giving him a chance. "You've already established yourself as an enigma who can accomplish impossible tasks. We might as well go the rest of the way and call you a wizard. It'll give everything you say more weight if the locals think your knowledge comes from the beyond. It's not far from the truth, anyway..."

S'haar nodded. "As your 'local expert,' I agree. Honestly, even after living here as long as I have and seeing everything I have, this is all still basically magic to me. Before you say anything, I know it's not, but really, it is."

Jack was about to protest anyway when Angela cut in again. "Besides, it'll keep anyone from trying to steal your magical weapons, if they think the magic comes from you. It'll help keep our secrets more secret and make the villages more likely to listen to you. You can even carry some small emitters from the ship to complete the illusion. If you set up a transceiver nearby, I can make them project whatever we can think of."

The AI tilted her head to the side. "Though, we should probably keep the effects small. Make them too big and impressive, and people might start to wonder why there are not more visible after-effects or scents. Make them small and flashy, and they'll spend too much time wondering what they just saw to overthink anything."

As much as he hated to admit it, Jack had to agree that she had a point. "So that's it, then? I'm just going to play the role of some wandering wizard?"

S'haar laughed. "You are a wandering wizard. You just don't like to admit it!"

Em'brel nodded in agreement. "Yup, you're a wizard, alright. Might as well accept it at this point!"

Jack crossed his arms in defiance. "Fine, but I'm going to be a grumpy wizard, then!"

Everyone laughed at his petulant response. Finally, S'haar laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sure you are, but maybe a nap will help?"

Jack glowered in answer. "You'd better be careful, or I'll turn you into a newt!"

Em'brel looked confused as she glanced back and forth between Jack and S'haar. "What's a newt?"

-

Sare'en was terrified. Her opponent was larger, stronger, and far more fierce than her. She gripped her spear with two clenched fists, its tip hovering uselessly up and off to the side.

Lady Fea'en stared her down. "Is that the best you can do? You've got such a weak wristed grip on that thing a raider could swat it out of your hands as easy as this!"

With that, Fea'en swung her training staff and rapped Sare'en's lead hand. Her grip loosened, the old woodworker swatted the weapon aside before pointing the staff at the girl's throat. "You're dead. Again. Now, go grab that spear and try again. For real, this time!"

Ger'ron watched the two with a frown, but he'd been unable to get the herder to do even this much, so decided maybe he should let Fea'en push the young female a little further.

As the craft master approached this time, she held her staff off to the side, leaving herself wide open as she shouted. "I'm a raider, and once I kill you, I will go attack your hero, Lady S'haar, in the back, while she's busy fighting someone else. If you don't stop me here, your hero is dead. NOW STRIKE!"

At that last shout, Sare'en felt something bubble up inside her. With a cry of rage, she swung with everything she had. Lady Fea'en didn't even try to dodge or block. She just stood there and watched as the spear uselessly bounced off her chest plate and fell to the ground. The younger female looked down at the spear, feeling like she'd failed it somehow.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

With a sigh, Lady Fea'en gathered Sare'en into a hug. "You've always been a good girl, maybe a little too good for this world. Luckily, you seem to have stumbled into the one group of people who share your views and seem to have the power to back them."

She held the younger female at arm's length and gave her a sharp look. "But even they aren't all-powerful. They've already been hurt, and badly, at that. The time may come when everyone who believes in what they are trying to create has to stand up and fight for it. What will you do when that happens?"

Sare'en looked down at her feet. "I don't know, matron..."

Lady Fea'en made a face at that. "I told you not to call me that. I'm already old enough, without my son's welp reminding me of the fact, so call me by my name. Now go swing that spear against that wood dummy a couple dozen times, and try to do better than you did just now!"

Sare'en nodded and picked up the spear before trudging over to the indicated dummy and resuming her practice, though maybe she put just a bit more effort into her swings than before.

Ger'ron came up behind the older woman. "Ya know, not everyone has to be a fighter. I'm sure the young lady will be plenty helpful to this place in her own way."

Fea'en snorted and crossed her arms. "Maybe, but you know as well as I do, this place will face more hardships before everything is over. If the girl can't handle herself better than that, the last remnants of my bloodline may be wiped from existence."

Ger'ron leaned against his own spear, using it to take some weight off his prosthetic foot. It worked wonderfully, far better than he'd hoped, but it still ached occasionally, sometimes even when he wasn't using it. "Listen to ya trying to be your usual stoic self, talkin about your bloodline, as if that's all that mattered to ya. As though I hadn't just seen you doing yer best to comfort the young lady."

Fea'en gave the old guard a glare that would have withered a less experienced fighter. As it was, it only brought a grin to Ger'ron's face before the woodworker turned her attention back to her granddaughter and watched her trying to swat at the dummy as though he was covered in some slightly annoying bugs. "Maybe so, but this world is a harsh place. A part of me is glad she's here. She's got a real opportunity to become something in this place. The other part of me wishes she'd stayed home, where she'd be safe. Right now, I don't know which would be better."

The old guard walked beside his new partner and grunted. "Well, good or bad, things like that aren't for old folks like us to decide. It's the youngins that'll forge the future. We just gotta give them the time and chance to do it."

Fea'en simply offered a contemplative grunt as the two elders watched the youngster continue her practice and wondered what the not-so-distant future might hold, good or bad.

-

Tel'ron listened to Jack's explanation of the tiny knives he wanted to put on the end of small sticks. Like all the outposts masters, he’d received the implant to better understand Jack when needed. Once Jack was finished, the smith offered his opinions. "Well, I don't see how these tiny spears could possibly be any better than a standard spear. Sure, they might work against other humans in those movies of yours, but getting through argu'n bone is entirely different. However, I have to assume you know what you're talking about, though I'm also concerned with the level of effort what you're describing would require to craft. That kind of a fine point would be challenging to craft, let alone doing it a dozen times per person using them. Couldn't you just pour a mold instead?"

Jack shook his head. "Unfortunately, as convenient as a poured mold is, we need the hardness of a forged point to properly pierce argu'n bone plates, if it's to be of any use. However, the shape will be a little different. Rather than a blade or a simple point, this would be more of a boxed point shape. That would reinforce it to better penetrate hard surfaces, despite its smaller size."

Tel'ron thoughtfully watched Jack draw the shape he was trying to describe in the dirt and eventually nodded his head. "I can make the shape you're talking about, but the first one will take some time, since I'll also have to make a few tools for the process. Taking the other projects I'm working on into account, it'll probably take me about a week. Unless you want me to make this my top priority?"

Jack shook his head. "No, a week should be fine. It'll probably take me that long to get the rest of this project ready, anyway."

The smith shook his head. "Alright. If you could bring me some more precise sketches, I'll get on this as soon as my work permits."

Jack shook the smith's hand and let him get back to his work.

-

On the way back to the ship, S'haar noticed Jack seemed lost in thought, his frown a little deeper than usual. Eventually, she nudged him to get his attention.

The human jumped slightly before turning his focus to S'haar. "Sorry, did I zone out and miss something again?"

S'haar shook her head. "No, you were just getting that look on your face that means you're getting second thoughts about something. Tell me what you're thinking, and I'll offer my input."

He frowned a bit before nodding. "Alright, it's simple enough. I'm worried I'm making too big a decision for your people. This could revolutionize warfare. Many could die as a result, and I'm not sure I should push you down that road."

S'haar was quiet for a moment. "You're thinking of him again, aren't you?"

Jack smiled sadly, the face of the kid still burned into his memory. "Yeah, I'm afraid I am. I can't help but wonder how many more kids will die as a direct result of my idea."

S'haar stayed quiet a moment longer. "I can understand that, but let's look at this differently. How many 'more kids' will die without your new building techniques? What about some of the farming ideas you've been thinking about? Or even the clothing you've been designing?"

Jack waved aside her thoughts. "Life and death aren't like that. It's not some zero-sum calculation where if I save enough lives, it makes up for the lives whose loss I'm responsible for. They are completely separate considerations."

S'haar shook her head. "That's not what I meant. What happens to all those ideas if you do nothing, this Outpost fails, you die, and all your ideas are lost before we are given a chance to learn? I'm not saying you should try to save us ‘savages.’ You know I'd be the first to end you if you ever considered something like that! I'm saying that we should turn this camp into an example of the best of both worlds,then give us all a chance to learn from it what we will."

S'haar crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "But to accomplish that, this camp must survive. I'm not asking you to bring down the fiery wrath of the gods on our enemies. I'm merely asking you to share the tools we need to survive long enough to give this dream a chance of success."

Jack felt swayed by her argument but still found himself unwilling to give in so easily. "That's well and good, but this idea of mine... Once it's given form in this world, it will never go away. Instead, it'll spread from one village to the next, until the very nature of war is forever changed. I don't know if you realize what this could mean!"

S'haar closed her eyes again. When she opened them this time, Jack could feel the hard edge of her gaze threatening to cut him to the bone. "How dare you. Do you think we haven't reinvented war before? Do you think we won't find new and better ways to kill each other without you? We were killing each other long before you graced us with your presence, and we'll be doing it long after you've died. We have a chance to change the nature of war and peace. With easier access to reliable food, shelter, and protection, we will be freed to make choices no longer based solely on survival. If we then decide to fight each other to the death, that's on us, not you."

S'haar softened her expression and relaxed her stance. "You put me in charge for a reason. Now trust me, trust my judgment, and trust your friends. Just because you hold the knowledge doesn't mean you bear all the burden of guilt."

Jack looked down at his hands, and for the briefest of moments, he could see the blood of the argu'n he'd already killed still staining his palms. Then, when he closed his eyes, the young raider stood before him. He was saying something, but no sound was coming out.

A heavy hand rested on his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he saw S'haar hovering over him, a look of deep thoughts and expressions of concern warring for dominance on her face. "Listen to me! We already talked about this. Angela even agreed that this, or something similar, is likely one of the next significant advances our society will discover. However, unlike many who might discover it, we won't be using this new weapon to conquer and subjugate our neighbors. Instead, we'll be using it to protect our homes and families long enough to teach our neighbors the benefits of peace and cooperation. Give us the chance to make ourselves something more. Let argu'n teach argu'n."

Jack smiled. "I chose wisely when I decided to leave you in charge. I'd spend every day doubting each decision I made. Alright, you've convinced me; we'll proceed as planned."

S'haar nodded, a wicked smile on her lips. "Good, I would have felt terrible telling Angela to lock you out of your own room to force you to sleep on the couch!"

Jack shook his head. "You've obviously been watching too many 'human movies.' They're starting to give you some bad ideas."