“How are we going to get all of that from there to here in only six hours?” Mr.Gonzales asked.
“If you need to ask a question, Mr.Gonzales, you must raise your hand. One frowny sticker for you.”
“Why is he ‘Mr.Gonzales,’ and not rancher neighbor two or whatever?” Sam asked.
Shing!The electrified metallic stinger emerged from Roger. “Further disruptions will result in correction. Please, no more interruptions.”
I sighed. My grandfather would have been laughing his ass off at all of this.
Rosita returned. She had dust on her face and in her long black hair, which was tied up in a ponytail. She clutched a metal folder in her arms.
I froze at the sight of the folder. On the cover in block print, it read,The Colonist’s Guide to Settlement Defense.
Underneath that, scrawled with a marker in my grandfather’s distinctive handwriting: “Remember rule number ten.”
The sight of that sentence hit me like a sledgehammer. I looked to Lulu to see if she had noticed the book. She hadn’t.
“Ahh, thank you, Lulu unqualified babysitter number one,” Roger said. A happydingemanated from Roger. “One gold star for you. Please, place that folder upon the desk.”
She complied, and Sam moved so she could stand next to me. I reached up and pulled a strand of dust from her hair. I heard a familiarclank, clank, clanknoise, and I turned to see a group of about twenty of the larger drones walk into the barn. One by one, they entered their recharge stations and stepped inside. This was off schedule.
Roger continued. “I have secured six of the wheeled grain transports that will transport the assault team to Burnt Ends. We will secure the location, retrieve the needed supplies, and return with them. We will leave here in forty minutes and spend another forty-three minutes proceeding to the location, and then it will take roughly four hours to retrieve and load the supplies. We will thenbring them back here, where the remaining drones will assist in off-loading.”
“Assaultteam?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” Roger said. “Now is the time for questions. Please raise your hands, but I will answer this one. The six grain transports will arrive shortly. I propose three drones along with a single human join each transport. Approximately halfway to the location, they will be joined by Trixie 2, who will enter the lead transport and will serve as my proxy. That is the assault team.”
“But why is it called an assault team?” Sam asked.
“Burnt Ends is currently occupied by five hostile entities. According to Trixie 2, they have already demolished the mayor’s residence and are currently going from house to house, exterminating everyone they find.”
Cries and gasps filled the room. Next to me, Rosita gripped onto my arm so hard, it hurt. I thought of Rosita’s little nieces, two-year-old twin girls. They lived in Burnt Ends. They’d just started taking ballet lessons.
She called them her nieces, though she didn’t have any actual siblings. The little girls were actually second cousins once removed or something like that. Not that it really mattered, but they were related to her through some complicated family tree. That was common here.
There weren’t too many kids in that age group on planet, especially on the peninsula, and Rosita’s nieces were notable as being some of the first of the “New Generation” birthed under strict controls and carefully monitored. Their parents had been part of a select group of thirtysomething couples who were allowed to have children. Half of the babies were born via in vitro fertilization, resulting in multiple sets of twins and triplets. The other half were allowed to be made the old-fashioned way. In both cases, the children themselves were developed without the gene-locking therapy that had been used to create the Orphan Generation—what people called myage group. These babies were the first true generation of New Sonorans. The first true natives.
It wasn’t until a little more than seven months ago that they had given that first batch of now two-year-olds a clean bill of health and lifted the birth-control restrictions planetwide, as long as both sets of parents came from the Orphan Generation. Now half the peninsula was pregnant. And from what I had heard, it was even crazier in Fat Landing and the surrounding area.
New Sonora was about to have a population boom.
Roger turned to my sister, who’d lowered her hand at the news of the assault on Burnt Ends. “Lulu, ask your question.”
She just stared at Roger for a moment. The sight of Lulu speechless was disconcerting. “Uh, why didn’t you tell us about the supply depot? You said it’d all been decommissioned.”
“I did not know. This information was hidden within the perimeter-defense program. Your grandfather didn’t want you to rely on the honeybee system for the rest of your lives. His intention was for me to eventually break down and for you to convert the farm to a more traditional system. The supplies we must now retrieve were set aside in the unlikely event of an emergency such as this. Do you have further questions, Lulu?”
“How…What exactly are our ‘defensive’ capabilities? The drones are big and strong, but they’re dumb as…They’re dumb. What can they do against an armed mech? Are they going to accidentally knock over their fences or dig up their water lines?”
“This subject is for the second lesson later this evening, but in short, the drones will get a software upgrade and may be outfitted for multiple offensive and defensive duties. In addition, their construction duties can be used to create defensive structures and a wide array of long- and short-range batteries. The scout units are designed for surveillance, espionage, and light assassination duties.”
“Light assassination?” Sam asked. Roger made a warning sound. Sam shrank back.
“Who do you want for the assault team?” Lulu asked.
“Nonessential visitors to the farm who are physically capable of heavy lifting, such as Oliver friend number three.”
“Hey!” Sam said.
