It turned out that even Sage dimensional transfers had limitations. A thousand people and their resources were all it could handle. Even that was too many in most cases.
//It's not about how many people I can transfer. It's finding a suitable location on the ship to transfer them to, // Sage explained.
The Genesis was large but also oddly shaped, so Sage had to be careful not to transfer any of the new crew into space.
Catherine was in the first group, her bearing unchanged. Behind her came the others bioengineers, geneticists, and caregivers, all carrying the focused determination of people who understood they were saving the future and not betraying their people.
"Ninety-seven percent compliance," she reported to Tanya. "Three percent chose to remain planetside."
"By choice?"
"Yes, a few resisted and tried to force us to stay. We had to resort to drastic measures. Others are too old, too weary for change. " Catherine's voice carried no judgment.
Tanya understood that not everyone would agree to a plan. While sad, it wasn't unseen. Still, ninety-seven percent was better than expected.
The factional extractions proved more complex, which was expected.
The mountain settlements responded with characteristic intellectual arrogance. Commander Voss appeared on public channels, announcing that any citizen was free to leave. "We do not prevent the weak from abandoning their responsibilities," he declared with the condescension that marked Beta-2 leadership.
In private, the message was clearer, leaving meant admitting intellectual failure. Fewer than three hundred people from the entire northern territories accepted Genesis's offer.
The coastal federation surprised everyone. Nearly two thousand Gamma-5s chose evacuation, entire fabrication crews and technical specialists who had grown exhausted building weapons that would only destroy what they had spent lifetimes creating. They left in the pre-dawn darkness, Sage collecting them from remote pickup points while coastal leadership maintained plausible deniability.
Tanya watched their faces as they came aboard. Some held relief mixed with grief, hope tempered by the knowledge that they would never see their homes again. Some held sadness at what their people had become.
These weren't refugees fleeing disaster; they were skilled professionals making calculated decisions about where their talents could build rather than destroy.
The desert faction offered no such choices.
Warlord Marcus broadcast across all frequencies, his massive frame filling communication screens as he delivered an ultimatum that showed the full extent of Alpha-7 authority. "Any who attempt to abandon their clans will be hunted. Families of deserters will face punishment. The strong do not abandon their duties to chase promises from outsiders."
Some tried anyway.
Genesis pulled them out faster than the desert military could respond, snatching individuals from fortified positions before anyone realised they were gone. But not everyone made it. Some turned back at the last moment, unable to abandon family members who refused to come. Others stayed to protect weaker relatives from promised retribution.
When the final transfer was completed, Genesis held twenty-eight thousand seven hundred and thirty-three evacuees. The number burned itself into Tanya's memory as each digit representing choices made and chances lost, people saved and people left behind.
The ship groaned under the burden.
Genesis had been designed as a research vessel for a crew of perhaps fifteen thousand. Life support systems that had been adequate for exploration now ran at emergency thresholds. Food production shifted from normal synthesis to high-efficiency protocols that prioritised nutrition over flavour.
"Atmospheric processing is holding steady, but we're at ninety-seven percent capacity," Cameron reported, his engineering displays showing yellow warnings across multiple systems. "Any major failure could cascade into life-threatening shortages."
"Food synthesis will take time, but should be okay in the short term," Carlos added. "But that assumes perfect efficiency and no waste. In practice, we're looking at rationing within weeks."
Tanya stood in the observation deck that had become her de facto command centre, watching the rescued populations establish themselves in spaces never meant for permanent habitation. Children played in corridors between machine shops. Adults organised communal cooking areas in repurposed storage bays. The Delta-9s had taken charge of medical facilities with the efficiency of people accustomed to managing crisis.
They could survive this. But they couldn't endure it indefinitely.
"We need to establish a staging area," Amara said, reviewing resource projections that all pointed toward the same conclusion. "Somewhere with industrial capacity and population support infrastructure."
Tanya had already made the decision. "I know just the place, we're going home."
Tanya knew that her home would be forever changed by this decision. The little farm world would become a part of a war they had no right to be part of. She knew it risked her family and friends she had made. But she needed food, her forge world would need food, and Eden-Five was just the place to get the food.
Eden-Five emerged from vortex space, and it looked just like she had remembered. There were no military ships in orbit. It seemed that Hallow Empire had given up the blockade. She just hoped her family was still safe.
Tanya pressed her palms against the observation deck viewport, watching familiar continents drift past below. The agricultural zones her family had helped establish stretched across the planet. Orbital traffic slowed as Genesis appeared, cargo vessels adjusting course to accommodate the massive research ship that had appeared from nowhere.
"Traffic control is requesting our intentions," Janet reported from the communications station. "They're being very polite, but there's underlying nervousness."
"Tell them I'm coming home," Tanya replied. "And that I'm bringing guests."
The house was different and had a different family name, but the faces waiting for her were exactly as she remembered them. Her mother stood with the controlled tension of someone who had spent months not knowing if her daughter was alive or dead. Her father waited beside her with the quiet patience that had carried him through decades of frontier agriculture.
Her mother reached her first, arms closing around Tanya with strength that made breathing impossible. The embrace carried three months of worry, relief that transcended words, and love that had never required explanation.
"You're too thin," her mother said immediately, then softer, "and you look like you haven't slept properly in weeks."
"I have but not enough," Tanya admitted, allowing herself to lean into the familiar comfort.
Her father's hug was quieter but no less encompassing, one hand gripping her shoulder as if confirming she was real and present rather than another communication from impossibly distant places.
"Your homecoming ship seems to be getting bigger," he observed with the understated humour that had marked her childhood.
"We picked up some passengers," Tanya replied.
They didn't ask about the refugees immediately. Not about the near-extinction civilisation orbiting overhead, not about the political implications of harbouring twenty-eight thousand genetically modified humans, not about the methods that had been used to extract them from a dying world.
Instead, they walked her through the new house that still felt like the old house, past a nursery where new planets grew, getting ready for planting. Reminding her of the simple life.
The family kitchen was exactly like the old house counters marked by years of food preparation, shelves holding preserves from harvests she'd helped gather, chairs arranged around a table that had hosted countless conversations about everything except galactic politics and existential threats. They had clearly brought it with them. Tanya felt the pang of guilt for everything she put her family through and what she was about to put them through.
Her mother placed food in front of her without asking what she wanted—fresh vegetables from the garden, fresh meat from local farms, bread that had been baked in ovens rather than a factory. The flavours carried memories of a time when life had been simple.
"Tell us about where you've been," her father said, settling into the chair he had occupied for as long as Tanya could remember.
So she did. Carefully, selectively, translating impossible experiences into terms that fit around a kitchen table. She talked about the people they had met, the places they had seen, and the ships they had built. She didn't mention the Scourge or the Builder City or the fact that she'd been personally responsible for nearly a hundred thousand deaths.
Her parents listened with the attention of people who understood that some stories were too large for single conversations. They asked questions about technical details, smiled at descriptions of her crew, and nodded when she explained why the refugees needed temporary sanctuary.
"Twenty-eight thousand," her mother repeated thoughtfully. "That's significant population growth for a world like ours."
"They're not staying permanently," Tanya said quickly. "This is just until we can establish proper facilities elsewhere."
"Of course," her father agreed. "Though Eden-Five has always been a place where people found new beginnings."
Later, lying in a bedroom that was not her old childhood room, Tanya stared at the ceiling and tried to reconcile two versions of herself. The girl who had grown up planning agricultural expansion projects and dreaming of building better ships for worlds like Eden-Five. The woman who forced her parents into hiding and had just decided which parts of a dying civilisation deserved to survive. She didn't know which one she liked better.