“Thanks, Commander. I’m glad to hear it because we don’t have proper accommodations here. They’re camped out in the south wing,” Jolt replied.
“How is your female?” Vyken asked.
“She is physically recovered… Only remembers the beating, nothing else,” Jolt told him. “I think she is feeling the mating pull but she is not ready yet.”
“You killed the ones who hurt her.”
“I did. Slowly.”
“As I would have,” Vyken asserted. “I can send our shuttle later today to pick them up. That will give your teams time to bring in any more displaced people they find.”
“I expect we will be picking some of them up every day. At least we have food and a safe place for them to sleep but no beds. We have about half the area required demolished.”
“Right on schedule,” Vyken remarked.
“One of my newbies found his female among the women rescued yesterday.”
“Hopefully more will be discovered. There is still a shortage of males at the Enclave,” said Vyken. “There must be some like James Hill who are keeping their families together.”
“Iris said that most families have left the city to get away from the gangers and overlords. They are likely to be small groups eking out a living in the mountains west of Farringay.”
“Perhaps some of the displaced people from Farringay can find refuge with them.”
“I could take the flier out and do some recon with Iris,” Jolt suggested. “We haven’t done that with all of the trips we have made back and forth. We had our sights on the primary missions in the cities.
“The council has been talking about using any surplus from the crops to help families in need. So, it will be up to us to find them,” Vyken said. “We have the manpower and transport. It’s what we can do with the resources available.”
“How is the rebuilding going?”
“We have the concrete factory up and running at the quarry, so we’ve been able to start the individual family dwellings,” Vyken told him. “I put up a temporary structure for Danya and me since we sent our ship out to patrol our star system.”
“We’re going to stay here, aren’t we?”
“I think so. I have come to like being on this world. Phantom doesn’t need us like they need us here,” Vyken said. “I don’t want to take Danya from her home and her father. With Jacob Black gone, the Enclave is functioning on its original purpose.”
“Are you still banned from the underground facility?”
“No longer. The residents remember the incident, but not that I was the cyborg who did it.”
“Because we all look alike?” Jolt laughed.
“I suspect that may be true in their case,” Vyken agreed, “between the horror of seeing Danya shot down and Black getting his head ripped off, I doubt they took a good look at me.”
“That man was not normal. How did the council not see it?”
“His victims kept their relationships secret until he tried to coerce one who rejected him and told James Hill. We need more men like him in the Enclave.”
“I’ll see what we can do,” Jolt told him. “Meanwhile, I put Axel in charge of the demolition teams so I can bond with Iris. I can run recon with Iris while bonding with her.”
“How is the demolition going otherwise?”
“We’re getting it done. The Enclave is solving the only problem we have had so far. I think it’s a bad decision to put the starport here if we aren’t going to help the people living outside the residential compound.”
“It sure won’t be a place where people will want to settle to raise their families if it’s anything like other port cities. The overlords are the ones who benefit from this starport,” Vyken added. “Were I to wager on it, I would guess they had an influence on the decision to build it there.”
“That would make sense because I don’t figure how this is the place the starport should be built otherwise.”
“It should be in new Chicago, but we did get approval for a shuttle port to transfer people and goods from orbital crafts. That should serve us well,” said Vyken.
