The Explorer Two's descent through Eden-Five's atmosphere felt like coming home. Eighteen months since Tanya had crashed on the rogue planet and only 2 months since she was last on Eden-Five, but it felt longer, like she'd lived multiple lifetimes in that span.
But the farm looked exactly the same. The fields stretched golden under a familiar sky, the house stood solid and welcoming, and somewhere in the distance, she could see that Founders Day preparations were already underway. She hadn't even realised it was that time of the year again.
"Perfect timing," Janet observed as they touched down. "Your people certainly know how to throw a party."
Tanya smiled despite her exhaustion. "Technology-free celebration. No tablets, no holovids, just food and conversation and terrible dancing when you get drunk enough. You're going to love it."
"Or hate it," Cameron muttered, though he didn't sound entirely opposed.
Amara surprised them all by being the first out of the ship. "If I have to attend one more trade show or negotiate another contract this month, I'll scream. A party without business discussions sounds perfect." Tanya gave a small nod of satisfaction; it seemed that Eden-five was getting its claws into her.
The next two days blurred together in the best possible way. Founding Day arrived with its usual chaos with tables groaning under homemade dishes, music from actual instruments rather than speakers, children running wild while adults pretended to supervise.
Tanya found herself genuinely relaxing and spending time with her family. No semi-alien ship, no corporate threats, no ancient AIs making cryptic demands. Just family, neighbours, and the comfortable rhythms of a community that had known her since birth.
"There's my favourite little sister!" Marcus swept her into a hug that lifted her off the ground. "Heard you've been making waves in the core worlds."
"A few," Tanya admitted, laughing. "How's the family?"
"Brett's gotten huge. You won't believe how much he's grown in two months." Marcus gestured toward where his wife Sarah, was trying to keep their four-month-old from grabbing everything in reach. "Kid's going to keep you in business too, the way he takes things apart."
The gossip flowed as easily as the homemade wine. Mrs. Henderson's prize-winning pumpkin had been stolen by animals (or possibly her rival, depending on who you asked). The Johnsons were expecting their third child. Old Tom had finally fixed his ancient tractor, swearing it would last another twenty years and that he didn't need any of this fancy new technology. Tanya found that funny as his tractor was already full of fancy technology.
Small-town concerns. Normal problems. The kind of life Tanya had once thought she'd live forever.
Cameron gradually relaxed as the night progressed, helped along by David's patient conversation about crop rotation and soil chemistry. Apparently, farming and Camerons interest had more overlap than either had expected.
Janet was in her element, charming everyone with exploration stories that were probably only seventy percent embellishment. She'd found kindred spirits among the other adventurous souls who'd left Eden-Five and returned with tales to tell. The rest of community had already adopted her as an honorary Eden-Five resident.
Even Amara seemed genuinely at ease, discussing business strategy with Lisa while sampling every dessert on the communal tables. The business manager who coordinated million-credit deals looked perfectly content debating the merits of different pie crusts.
As evening settled and lanterns replaced sunlight, Tanya held baby Brett and felt the weight of the last eighteen months pressing against the simplicity of this moment. Her nephew had no idea his aunt was bonded to a Gardener, that she'd found a warship older than her homeworld, that she was caught in conflicts spanning millennia.
He just knew she was warm and safe and would probably let him grab her hair if Sarah wasn't watching.
"You doing okay?" her mother asked, settling beside her with practised grace.
"Yeah, Mum. I really am."
"You look tired, sweetheart. The kind of tired that comes from carrying too much."
Tanya smiled. Her mother had always been able to read her. "Big projects. Complicated work. But good work. Important work."
"Just remember to take care of yourself too." Her mother squeezed her hand. "All the important work in the galaxy doesn't matter if you run yourself into the ground."
Tanya wished things could stay like this forever, but sadly, work called.
The morning meeting in their prefab office felt like stepping back into reality. Documents covered the table, financial projections glowed on Amara's tablet, and the reality of what they needed to do was starting to settle in.
"We have about three weeks before Simran, Drew, and Carlos arrive," Amara said, pulling up budget reports. "Which means three weeks to finalise our next project direction. The Prince's payment was generous, but fitting out the Genesis with high-level fabrication equipment will burn through capital faster than you'd believe."
"We need another revenue stream," Cameron said. "Something that generates steady income while also advancing our actual goals."
"I have an idea," Tanya said, pulling up designs she'd been sketching during quiet moments aboard the Genesis. "A rescue ship."
She projected the concept hologram into the center of the table. The design was functional, built around practicality rather than aesthetics. That would come later in the process.
"I'm calling it the Hearth-Class Rescue and Recovery Vessel. Multi-role emergency response platform designed for natural disasters, deep-space rescues, and frontier crisis response."
Janet leaned forward with obvious interest but also a cheeky grin. "Bit of a mouthful, surely we could call it something simpler. Also, it looks expensive."
Tanya rolled her eyes and didn't give Janet the response she was waiting for.
"But marketable," Amara added, looking over it with the lens of a business manager. "Governments and aid organisations would contract for this. Good public relations, steady revenue, and it puts our technology into situations where people notice. But would need to be reasonable prices, no expensive gimmicks"
"Plus," Tanya continued, warming to her pitch, "it's the perfect testbed for our dimensional sensor network. We deploy 'emergency locator beacons' across systems, officially for tracking survivors and coordinating rescue efforts. Unofficially, we're expanding our beacon network and collecting dimensional data by adding dimensional sensors to the beacon, all under a perfectly legitimate excuse. With the right safeguards, no one will question it."
She knew the plan would never hold up in court, and that defying Imperial regulation was not a smart move, but the alternative was worse. If the Genesis were ever discovered, it would spark a storm. Better to have an escape route ready than be cornered when that day comes.
Cameron studied the specifications with growing approval. "Clever. No one questions emergency response infrastructure. We'd have legitimate reasons to have beacons everywhere."
"Exactly." Tanya expanded the design, showing different modules. "And it's a perfect project for our new recruits. Each of them has skills that fit perfectly."
She pulled up profiles alongside ship systems.
"Simran creates the HearthLink Emergency Network. It will be a distributed AI grid linking rescue drones, survivor trackers, and life support pods. Each node operates autonomously if the main network fails. Her predictive algorithms coordinate rescue operations, mapping debris fields and locating life signs through fluctuating readings."
"Drew handles the Rapid-Deploy Field Systems. Drone swarms that can fabricate emergency shelters in hours. Micro-fabrication units for producing replacement hull parts for any vessel type."
"And Carlos?" Janet asked.
"Recovery Environments. Medical and comfort zones designed for psychological triage as much as physical healing. Adaptive refugee modules that convert cargo space into proper housing for hundreds of survivors. Environmental design that prevents trauma triggers, maybe something like no harsh sirens, no aggressive lighting, everything calibrated for recovery."
Tanya sat back, letting them absorb it. "We rescue people, not just bodies. And while doing that, we build our network and earn enough to fund the Genesis retrofit."
The others sat in silence for a while, considering the proposal.
"It's brilliant," Amara said finally. "Philanthropic face generating government contracts and corporate goodwill. With a hidden purpose of expanding beacon infrastructure and gathering dimensional data. Every rescue operation gives us a legitimate presence in multiple systems."
"The media would love it," Janet added. "Miracle responders of the outer colonies. Furrow Inc. saves lives while inventing revolutionary products. That's a story that writes itself."
Cameron was already making notes. "We'd need careful compartmentalisation. The rescue crews can't know about the sensor network's true capabilities. But if we design it right, even the crew becomes useful in collecting data for us."
"There's another advantage," Tanya said quietly. "The Genesis makes me uncomfortable. It was built for genetic experimentation and warfare. These ships are built to save lives. To help people. That feels right."
Tanya felt she needed to balance the ledger, even if she wasn't the one to bring it into the red; she knew that the Genesis had a history soaked in blood. She had a duty to change its future.
The contrast wasn't lost on anyone. One ship designed for conquest and adaptation, another designed for rescue and recovery. Both tools both useful, but they represent very different philosophies.
"How quickly can we prototype?" Amara asked, already shifting into project manager mode.
"With the workshop fabrication capabilities? A few months for the core vessel. Then another few months for testing and refinement before we approach potential contractors." Tanya pulled up preliminary timelines. "We could have a functional prototype within six months if we focus resources. That all depends on how well all of us can work together. We would have split the fabrication between here and Genesis."
"That's fast for something this complex, I think you will need to schedule for the growing pains of having a new design team," Cameron observed.
"Cameron, right, we need a realistic timeframe. It would be different if we could bring them to Genesis, but trust will take time." Replied Janet.
Amara interrupted before then could get sidetracked. "Alright, I'm convinced. We pitch this to potential contractors while building the prototype. Get advance contracts to cover development costs. I will set a year to be conservative."
"Who do we target first?" Cameron asked.
"Frontier worlds," Amara said immediately. "Systems too far from core support to rely on Imperial rescue services. They have budgets but limited options. We offer them something purpose-built for their specific challenges."
"The outer colonies near the Disputed Zones between powers," Janet suggested. "Constant accidents, limited infrastructure, desperate for reliable emergency response."
Tanya felt excitement building. This was what she'd wanted all along: building things that mattered, that helped people, that opened possibilities instead of closing them. She could feel this was going to be a good first ship for her group.
Building something that reflected who she wanted to be rather than adapting something that represented someone else's vision.
//The project aligns well with our broader objectives,// Sage observed privately. //And provides cover for activities that would otherwise draw unwanted attention. Well reasoned.//
Plus it feels right, Tanya thought back. That matters too.
//Indeed. Purpose and practicality need not conflict.// Sage paused, and Tanya felt the judgment coming from her partner. //However, I must ask: where is the innovation? What about this ship makes it yours and not something any competent shipwright could build?//
The rebuke was unexpected but not unwarranted. Tanya felt defensive instincts rising, then forced herself to actually consider the question.
"What's wrong?" Amara asked, noticing Tanya's sudden silence.
"Sage just called my design boring," Tanya admitted, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. "Said there's nothing revolutionary about it. That any shipwright could build this."
Cameron studied the hologram with fresh eyes. "He's not wrong. It's well-designed, practical, addresses real needs—but it's evolutionary, not revolutionary. Better coordination, better materials, better integration. Nothing that fundamentally changes the game."
"Ouch," Janet said. "But fair."
Tanya stood, pacing around the table. "So what am I missing? What makes rescue actually revolutionary rather than just... better?"
"Think about the fundamental problems," Cameron suggested. "What makes rescue operations fail?"
"Time," Tanya said immediately. "You never get there fast enough. By the time you arrive, people are already dead or the situation's deteriorated beyond saving."
"Distance," Janet added. "Disasters happen in remote locations. Jump coordinates take time to calculate, debris fields block approach vectors."
"Information," Amara said. "You don't know what you're walking into until you're already committed. Wrong equipment, wrong personnel, wrong approach."
Tanya stopped pacing. "So the real problems are: we're always too slow, too far away, and too uninformed. My design addresses those symptoms but not the underlying issues."
//Correct,// Sage said. //You're building a better ambulance when what's needed is preventing the patient from getting injured in the first place. Or arriving before the injury occurs.//
"Before it occurs," Tanya repeated slowly. "You mean prediction? Early warning systems?"
//Partially,// Sage replied. //But not in the limited sense of forecasting disasters. Consider this instead: what if your ships didn't respond to emergencies but anticipated them? What if you had a sensor network that learned from dimensional fluctuations, gravitational stresses, and vortex readings to identify instability before catastrophic failure?//
Tanya jumped a little with excitement, and the others gave her a look, wondering what she was discussing. She explained Sages' idea of using the vortex's smaller footprint to create a web of sensors that could predict problems before they happen, and sent the rescue ships in early.
Amara's eyes widened. "You're talking about a predictive rescue network. A living system that reacts before human authorities even know there's a problem. "
"Exactly," Tanya said, the energy returning to her voice. "It's not just a fleet but a response organism. The ships are nodes in a distributed intelligence that senses, reacts, and adapts through the beacon grid. It uses the same dimensional data we're already gathering for navigation, but instead of mapping routes, it maps instability. Like detecting the tremor before the quake."
Cameron whistled low. "That's not a rescue ship anymore. That's a guardian network. You'd be rewriting the logistics of crisis response across entire sectors. I don't see how it could be done."
Janet grinned. "And doing it under the cover of humanitarian aid. The Empire can't shut that down without looking like monsters."
//Elegant,// Sage observed with unmistakable approval. //You've transformed a reactionary tool into a proactive system. Predictive intervention at the interstellar scale. That is innovation worthy of you, Tanya Furrow my chosen shipwright.//
Tanya smiled faintly. "Better than an ambulance, then."
//Much better,// Sage agreed.
While she was excited now, she knew it wasn't going to be easy to achieve and suspected she would need to upgrade her dimensional science knowledge, which meant she needed more KP. So she would need to design more ships. She wondered if that was Sage's plan from the beginning.
"We'll need a formal project plan before the recruits arrive," Amara said, already creating documents. "Specifications, timelines, budget allocations. They should walk into a clear framework rather than having to figure out our chaos."
"We'll work on detailed schematics for the ships; the network can wait, " Tanya said
"And I'll coordinate with potential contractors," Amara continued. "Start building relationships before we even show them hardware. Make them want to work with us before they know what we're offering. Then, when we show the network, we can charge them a subscription fee."
"No," was the only response Tanya could say to that.
Janet stretched in her chair. "What about me? What's the explorer's role in building rescue ships?"
"Field testing," Tanya said immediately. "Once we have a prototype, someone needs to take it out and see what breaks. That's your specialty."
"Fair enough. Though I reserve the right to complain about every design flaw I discover."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
They worked through the morning, refining concepts and dividing responsibilities. By lunch, they had the skeleton of a real project plan. It was something that could guide actual development rather than just aspirational thinking. Then, in 3 weeks, they could start working as a full team.