Orth'kun was sitting next to Lack'nul. Due to their hard work and dedication, the two fit in and got along with the rest of the Outpost's guard well enough, but they shared the common bond of coming from the same village, which meant the two were most often found in each other's company.

The larger Orth'kun leaned in close. "What's this meeting all about? Shouldn't we be manning the walls?"

Lack'nul punched his friend in the ribs, but the larger guard barely even flinched while the smaller guard explained. "Did you even listen? They're making an announcement about what their plans are going forward. They're just doing it one small group at a time so the rest can keep an eye on the palisade. Word is they're about to surrender to this 'Lord A'ngles.'"

Orth'kun grunted and shook his head. "Hmph. I would have never come out here if I knew they were gonna surrender without a fight. So what's the point to us even being here?"

That was when Jar'maal walked over and glared at his two fellow guards. Even since he'd failed to protect Lady Em'brel, he'd gone from one of the laziest guards in the Outpost to one of the most driven. He was maybe a little too intense these days, but he was still well enough liked due to his willingness to volunteer for all the worst jobs that needed doing.

The younger guard's demeanor was challenging, though not overtly provoking. "How would you feel if that was your village lord out there, and you might have to fight and kill your neighbors and family, if it came to violence? If this was as easy as pushing back a bunch of unruly raiders, I'm sure every argu'n here would agree with you, but this is more complicated for some of us."

Lack'nul started to respond when S'haar stood up in the center of the circle of guards and workers. "Alright, I'm sure many of you have heard the rumors going around camp. So I will cut through them all and tell you what the situation is, what we've decided to do about it, and what decisions you have to make."

She slowly turned as she spoke, making eye contact with everyone. Lack'nul couldn't help but find himself intimidated by the warrior woman's gaze, though he knew her aggression was directed outside this room. She continued, either unaware or unconcerned with the effect she was having. "Lord A'ngles is sieging the Outpost. He has with him over three hundred argu'n."

At that number, a murmur broke out. Orth'kun leaned in to add his own thoughts, but Lack'nul punched him again as S'haar held up a hand for attention. "He claims that when we kidnapped To'brel from his village, we also assassinated the village leader."

There was more murmuring, and this time Orth'kun spoke up. "So what if you did? He was trying to assassinate Em'brel! This is hardly the first time something like this happened!"

S'haar signaled for everyone to calm down and shook her head. "Lord A'ngles claims to have established a special treaty with Lord Don'brel beforehand and that an attack on Don'brel is the same as an attack on A'ngles."

Confused silence followed that announcement, and S'haar continued. "I know most of you are familiar with Lon'thul, our Outpost's master hunter, and you're well aware that, while he loves to exagerate a good story, he can’t tell a real lie to save his life!" At that, there was some chuckling. "He assures us that Lord Don'brel was alive and well when he left, yet Lord A'ngles' claim is that he was found with his throat slit the next morning." The murmuring returned.

This time S'haar allowed the murmuring to continue for a moment before speaking again. "Now you understand our predicament. It's hard to know what really happened, who is right, and what is justified in this situation. To top it all off, Lord A'ngles is demanding we surrender To'brel over to him and that we relinquish all control of the Outpost and its resources, as well." The stunned silence returned. Although it remained unspoken, the general thinking of the gathering was clear. What choice did they have?

S'haar waited a moment for everything to sink in before continuing. "Now, traditionally, the only choices available to us would be to surrender or fight to the death." A murmur grew among the crowd, but S'haar spoke over it before it could gain any traction. "But as most of you are well aware, we don't often do things the traditional way here."

Now she had their attention. What crazy thing had their leadership come up with this time? S'haar took her time meeting everyone's gaze again. "You all know how much this Outpost means to those of us who established it. You know how much blood, sweat, and tears we've poured into it, because many of you have labored beside us, trying to create something new, something extraordinary. However, rather than ask you to fight to the death against those you've lived with your whole lives, we've decided to cast this Outpost aside, leave, and start anew."

Once again, there was silence, but there was something different this time. Walk away and give everything up? Was she serious? Why not just give up and let A'ngles have the Outpost? He might even let most of them stay...

S'haar didn't leave them waiting long. "Despite what outsiders looking in might think, the real strength of this outpost isn't the buildings, the technologies, or even the iron... It's the people and the knowledge we've all gained and shared. So even if we have to rebuild, we won't be starting from scratch. Instead, we'll be building off everything we've learned before now."

The mumbling returned, but there was more thought to it this time. S'haar used a more subdued tone to force everyone to be quiet to hear what she was saying. "To accomplish this, we need time. So we're asking you to hold the walls for two days. After that, we'll welcome anyone and everyone willing to come with us and support those who choose to stay with the village. We realize we're asking a lot of you, but no more than we're asking of ourselves. So please, help us keep this dream alive!"

The crowd's murmur picked up again as the workers and guards deliberated. Lack'nul leaned over to Orth'kun. "Well, I'm sure we're both in this to the end, but how many more do you think will join us?"

*  

Jack was walking deeper into the cave. He left the guard at the entrance since the person he was here to speak with was more than bodyguard enough. It wasn't long before he could hear her at work. As his light illuminated his sister, Jack couldn't help but think how alien she now seemed in her metallic body, working alone in the pitch black of the cave. It was the first time he'd ever felt that way about Angela, and it unsettled him a little.

As she turned and spoke to Jack, he shook his head to banish the unwanted feelings. "What are you doing in my neck of the woods? I figured you'd have so much to handle out there that I wouldn't see you till I was done here!"

Jack sighed and found a smooth, only somewhat damp rock to sit on. "Well, I have a lot to work on out there, but I had some concerns I wanted to speak to you about first."

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Angela closed one access hatch and wiped her hands on an oily rag to remove the worst of the residue. "Yeah, what's that?"

Jack took a moment to decide how to phrase things. He didn't want to sound like he was accusing her of anything, but something was bothering him. "So, you mentioned preventing everything from falling into A'ngles' hands... I was just wondering how you were planning on making that happen?"

Angela tilted her head to the side. "Well, I wasn't planning on committing any war crimes or killing many people, if that's what you're worried about. Although there is the possibility of some death. But given our situation, I'd say that's unavoidable, no matter what we try to do."

Jack shook his head and waved her off. "No, that's not what I'm worried about. Although I'd like to avoid as much death as possible, I'm not so naive as to expect the kind of a miracle it would take to avoid any death. Instead, I wondered just how you were planning on making this happen."

Angela shrugged. "Well, I thought it was pretty simple, really. We still don't have access to our main generator, but the power I've pulled and stored from the windmill is enough to access some secondary systems briefly. Together with some of the burnable fuels we have stored up, I figured I could use our point defense weapons to weaken the structural integrity of the caves around us, then use some of the secondary thrusters to bring down the mountain around us. In addition to collapsing the caves, I should cause enough of a landslide to bury some of the Outpost and the heat of the thrusters sould burn down the rest."

As Jack started to interrupt her, Angela held up a hand. "I'll send out a warning beforehand, so most of the invaders can get out safely first. I'll make it convincing, too!"

Jack waited a moment to make sure she was done before speaking up again. "But, as a security measure against other AI, our ship's weapon and thruster systems were locked so only an internal human or AI can access them. How can you access them from your new body? And before you suggest it, we're not leaving you behind!"

Angela paused what she was doing and walked over to Jack, then crouched down to look at him at eye level before speaking. "Whatever happens here, I promise you, I will be walking out of this place at your side. Quite frankly, I don't trust you to not get yourself killed on this world without me! No one in existence knows this ship as intimately as I do. So while I don't have the time to break everything down to the specifics...trust me when I say I'm the only person in the universe who can pull this off. So let me do my part in all this. You've got more than enough to handle, already!"

Jack nodded but looked her in the artificial eye once more. "Seriously though, if you're not with us when we leave, I'm staying to dig you out by hand if I have to!"

Angela shook her head and chuckled as she stood. "I already told you I'm coming! Like I said, I will keep you alive, despite your best efforts!"

This finally appeased Jack, who stood up slowly and eased his weight onto his leg before nodding again. "Alright, I'll trust you. But if you need anything..."

Angela waved her little brother off. "I'll let you know! I swear! Now get going and get your part in this plan ready! You're already gonna be slowing us down enough with that limp of yours. The least you can do is have everything ready to go on time!"

*  

As Angela watched her brother limp out of the cave, she felt a slight pang of guilt. She looked into the sensor looking back at her with a slightly nauseating feeling. She hadn't lied, what she was doing wasn't illegal, and the AI would be leaving by his side as she promised, but what she was doing was still very, very stupid.

When AIs first came onto the scene, it didn't take long for someone to wonder what would happen if you copy-pasted their programming into another location, essentially creating two from one. But something always went...wrong. Horribly wrong. Both units seemed to go temporarily insane and began fighting each other...to the death. This happened every time, and the madness never passed until one copy was deleted from existence. As she was aware, no AI had ever made it this long without giving in to the compulsion.

The sensor made a slight adjustment. One Angela had made countless times before. She knew the commands to make it happen and the feel of the adjustment intimately, but this time the action hadn't been committed by her will.

Even now, she felt a deep, inexplicable dread. Which of them was the real Angela? Well, obviously, she was. She'd copy-pasted herself back into the ship, after all. But, of course, when she initially transferred herself to this body, hadn't that been the same thing? So is the Angela now in the ship, their original body, the real one? Was she only a cheap copy? There was only one way to be sure. She had to...

Angela's thoughts were interrupted by a signal sent from herself in the ship to herself in her body. "We don't have time for this! We've got to keep it together! There's far more at stake here than our tiny little existential crisis!"

Angela nodded, opening up the access panel to get back to work. "Right, we have to keep it together for our family!"

She heard a nearby access hatch close that she hadn't realized had been open only a moment ago. A door she was well familiar with. It went to one of those point defense systems she'd just been talking about. At the same time, she got another transmission from herself to herself. "Right. For our family..."

*  

Lack'nul shook his head as they left the billet. Orth'kun slapped him on the back, sending him forward a step or two, as he struggled to find his balance again while the oversized guard laughed. "Well, that was unexpected!"

The smaller guard glared at his friend. "What did you think would happen if you slapped me on the back like that?"

Orth'kun laughed again. "Not that! The whole meeting! What's happening, what they're planning, what's going to happen next! Most of all, how many people support the plan, and how many are actually going to go off with Lord Jack and Lady S'haar on this mad journey they've got planned!"

That was when Jar'maal came up behind the two of them. "It shouldn't be all that surprising. I would have been far more surprised if they'd gone with one of the first two options, rather than coming up with some crazy third. And I'm sure everyone in that room wanted to come along and see what would come next, but some actually have families back in the village depending on them. So they're not free to go out and get into trouble the way we're going to!"

As they neared the gate, Ger'ron approached the small group. "And if you keep yer voices up like that, Lord A'ngles himself will know what we're planning! Still, it's good to know you three will be coming along. How many in the first group will be sticking with us for the journey, anyway?"

Jar'maal saluted smartly. "Of the twenty argu'n in the meeting, seventeen agreed to come with us for the journey. Two others agreed to hold the wall until then. Only one is asking to have nothing to do with this!"

Ger'ron looked pleasantly surprised. "Well, that's more than we'd even hoped for! How'd S'haar pull that off?"

Orth'kun pointed over Lack'nul, grinning as he explained. "Well, it wasn't all Lady S'haar. Ol’ Lack'nul over here gave a surprisingly well-spoken speech, describing how the people of this Outpost had only ever offered their knowledge and skill for the good of everyone around them, and if we wanted a world where those things were widely available to everyone, it was something we might have to fight for."

Ger'ron gave the smaller guard an appraising look while Orth'kin continued. "Why, there wasn't a dry eye in the house when he got up on the table and started singing his praises to the beautiful Lady S'haar!"

Lack'nul took another swing at his friend. "That didn't happen, and you know it!"

Ger'ron chuckled, shaking his head as Orth'kun deflected the blow. "Of course it didn't. Even if you weren't just wasting your time trailing an already completed hunt, if you ever tried to praise Lady S'haar based on her appearance, you'd be lucky to get out of there with your hyde intact!"

The four guards shared a good chuckle just as Lady Fea'en materialized out of a nearby shadow. "Speaking of completed hunts, I spent all day putting together sleds to haul supplies, and I'm sore all over. So hurry up and get home so you can give me a good massage." The older woman briefly eyed the younger guards. "Unless you're feeling too old and sore yourself and would like someone younger to handle your duties this evening!"

As the other three guards shook their tendrils in varying degrees of embarrassment or agitation, Ger'ron laughed. "Take it easy on my poor lads, o fair Lady! You and I both know you'd eat them alive if they were stupid enough to take you up on such an offer. Now get on home. I'll be right behind you!"

As the Lady walked away, Ger'ron grinned at his men. "And now you know why I can still fight circles around you! Find a woman like that who'll put up with you, and your edge will never get dull!