The next month was peaceful—normal.

  The hired hands began trickling in for end-of-winter cleanup and the year ahead.

  Savannah handled them, as she had for years now.

  Five years, Cal realized, since he handed her that little metal badge that read Ranch Manager.

  She still pinned it to her coat if there were a lot of new hands that year.

  Cal remembered making it from scrap.

  The girls had been with him about three years by then.

  Listening. Learning.

  Growing like weeds.

  One day, in an idle moment, Cal had realized something—

  He now had idle moments.

  After examining that thought, he understood why.

  Savannah answered the hands’ questions. Gave basic orders. Handled small problems. Worked the ranch.

  Managed it.

  So she got a badge that said so.

  She had grown three inches in front of him when he pinned it on her.

  And then immediately bossed her sister around so hard that Cal had to have a talk with her.

  -

  Today, she was sitting on her bed, talking quietly to Brenda.

  Cal let his weight fall against the doorframe to announce himself, and sipped his coffee.

  Savannah looked up with a smile. "What’s up?"

  "Nothing. Just saying hi."

  "Hi!" she chirped.

  Searching for a conversational topic, Cal landed on; "Brenda doesn’t talk as much as I expected her to.”

  Savannah shrugged. "She doesn’t feel good."

  Cal raised an eyebrow.

  "She has to—what was the word?"

  "Dredge," Brenda supplied.

  "Dredge through her databases every time we use a word she doesn’t have in memory. Says her brain feels slow and she can’t really tell what's happening around her."

  Savannah looked down with sympathy at the obsidian-black bracelet on her wrist, watching the small circular light pulse—the device flickered briefly.

  "She just doesn’t feel good."

  Like it was normal. Just a sick friend.

  Cal lowered his gaze from his daughter's face to the bracelet.

  It was too big for her wrist.

  "Why did you lie at the meeting, Brenda?" Cal, unsure how he felt about that day, had waited a long time to ask.

  Brenda’s reply was nearly instant, as usual. "Do you want to be dissected by the government, Cal?"

  In spite of himself—in spite of his general distrust of AI, and Brenda very specifically—he laughed.

  "No," he admitted. "I suppose not."

  "I suppose not," Brenda echoed.

  Cal sighed.

  He kind of liked her.

  He didn’t want to.

  But he kind of did.

  Mostly because his kids liked her.

  And that had a weird effect on parents.

  —

  Sierra, for her part, had gotten up early and was now out in the big pen in the middle of the pasture.

  Where they kept the bull.

  Today was the day.

  Revenge.

  Satisfaction.

  He’d learn.

  She lowered herself and squeezed through the slats of the fence—much easier at her size than climbing over—and squared up with Hermes, the massive bull who believed this was his ranch.

  -

  "Okay, big boy," she spat as he turned to inspect the intruder.

  "You’ve been a real asshole for a real long time."

  She dug her boot into the dirt and kicked up a small cloud behind her.

  "Let’s see what you got."

  And she charged at him.

  -

  Hermes wasn’t sure what to make of this.

  The littlest human—the one he sometimes ran off for fun—seemed to have decided she was his match.

  What a moron.

  You’re going to die.

  And he charged.

  -

  Their meeting was…

  Anticlimactic.

  The bracelet, detecting a large incoming mass, ran the numbers.

  This would not end well.

  It calculated a solution.

  A concentrated beam from its emitters coalesced a wall of gravitons in front of its host.

  As much energy as required to maximize success rates.

  That was the rule.

  As the mass approached, the calculations shifted from “probably” to “almost certainly.”

  Additional options were now available.

  The device layered weaker shields instead of a single strong one—slowing the impact rather than trying to absorb it.

  The mass was within the limitations of this approach.

  It lowered the chances of damage to both the mass and the host.

  The best solution had been found.

  -

  Hermes was confused.

  He was slowing down.

  Rapidly.

  Uncomfortably.

  And now—

  He was stopped.

  He continued to dig his hooves into the dirt, pushing with all his might—

  But he wasn’t moving.

  And it hurt his back.

  How was the little—

  -

  Sierra, laughing maniacally, drew her arm back and smacked Hermes across the cheek as hard as she could.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  It wasn’t very hard.

  She weighed maybe ninety pounds, soaking wet.

  He weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000.

  He barely noticed.

  But Sierra felt a grand sense of satisfaction.

  "Bully."

  And with that, she turned—walking away, slowly, deliberately.

  -

  SHE TURNED HER BACK TO ME?!

  Hermes tried—again and again.

  He couldn’t push her.

  He couldn’t move her.

  Nothing happened.

  As she approached the fence, she stopped to climb through it.

  Hermes, with no other ideas, carefully hooked a horn under her leg—

  And lifted her into the air.

  -

  "OH SHIT!" was all Sierra managed before the world started tumbling.

  Sky. Ground.

  Sky. Ground.

  Sky—hey Nugget—ground.

  -

  Nugget had recently learned—after his rider made him stand still while she practiced jumping off the barn onto his back (and missed several times)—that his little friend couldn’t be hurt.

  And, for some reason, she didn’t hurt you either.

  Even if she jumped off the barn onto your back.

  Probably because they were the best.

  So now Nugget was laughing. Hard.

  It had been funny when the Bull got angry, but it was so much funnier that his rider was trying to fly away now.

  He didn’t even know she could do that!

  -

  That was unexpected, the bracelet processed.

  Could it have prevented that?

  No?

  Okay then.

  -

  Sierra hit the dirt in a heap.

  It didn’t hurt.

  Yay for the bracelet.

  She was very disoriented.

  -

  HA!

  Hermes stomped triumphantly toward the little intruder.

  Now I will crush you.

  And lay in the mess.

  -

  Sierra scrambled, rolling toward the fence and heaving herself between the bottom two slats and out.

  Hermes pressed his forehead against the wood, pushing until it creaked.

  Then, for good measure, he snorted loudly—blowing snot all over her.

  Sierra froze.

  Then sighed.

  "Okay," she muttered, fishing for her kerchief.

  "Well played.

  We’ll try this again some other time."

  And, with what little dignity she had left, turned and headed for Nugget.

  Who was still laughing.

  —

  Back in the house, Cal left V and Brenda to their conversation.

  Maria emerged from his bedroom, Tracer squeezing past her and heading straight for the food dish.

  She was wearing one of his old shirts, long tan legs and delicate bare feet below.

  Cal smiled.

  A warm feeling washed over him.

  He moved in for a kiss.

  She returned it—but just a peck. "I haven’t brushed my teeth," she whispered, turning slightly away.

  Cal maneuvered his lips back to hers anyway, kissing her again.

  This time, she returned it properly.

  After a moment, Cal broke it off, gazing into her eyes. Then, he wrinkled his nose.

  "Yeah, go brush your teeth."

  "Pendejo," Maria muttered as she turned back into his–their?–bedroom, disappearing into the bath.

  —

  Maria wasn’t always here.

  But it was approaching ‘more often than not’ territory.

  And everyone seemed happy about that.

  Even Junkrat seemed to like her—he had wagged his tail at her. Once.

  She slept late, though. Years of working in a restaurant that didn’t open until eleven had set her rhythm. Cal and his girls worked a ranch. Mornings started near dawn.

  But his girls were teens, and teens tended to stay up late and live on less sleep than they needed. So, occasionally, Maria was up alone with them after Cal had gone to bed. Maria and the girls had already been close, but now they were closer.

  Watching movies together late at night. Often scary ones. Cal would sometimes listen through the wall from bed—Maria screamed at everything.

  Life was good.

  —

  The call from the Admiral came that evening.

  Requesting permission to visit as soon as was convenient.

  Cal, preferring to get it over with, scheduled the meeting for the next day.

  —

  The Admiral’s arrival was far less dramatic this time.

  He was accompanied by a single rider, young and armed with both a sidearm and a rifle.

  But he wasn’t like the others. Not a seasoned soldier. Not special forces.

  He looked tired.

  And the Admiral left him at the trailhead as he approached the ranch.

  "Mr. Callahan," he greeted Cal, who was waiting for him on the back porch. "May I approach?"

  Cal nodded. "Your man can come too."

  "No, no," the Admiral swiftly replied. "He fell asleep on guard duty last night. He’ll be sitting that horse the rest of the day."

  Cal chuckled and beckoned the Admiral inside.

  Timeout had been the girls’ punishment too, when they were little.

  Nowadays, he just had the house AI lock out their connections.

  It was like torturing them.

  —

  Diamondback remembered the Admiral.

  It quietly repositioned several drones around the property.

  Two near the rider at the trailhead.

  And one near each door of the house.

  High above—where they would not be seen or heard.

  It also moved the automatic vacuum into the living room, near the entry to the kitchen.

  Last time it hadn’t had any options inside the house.

  So it had taught itself how to make the vacuum’s battery explode.

  Just in case it needed to make the vacuum’s battery explode.

  No one had told it to do any of this.

  It just wanted to be prepared.

  —

  The Admiral, Cal, Maria, and the girls were all seated around the table.

  Junkrat guarded the door, while Tracer was trying desperately to get anyone to pay attention to her.

  The cats had scattered.

  Diamondback observed in silence.

  —

  "We made contact," the Admiral was saying, to Savannah’s wrist. "And the first meeting is soon. They’ve requested we bring you."

  Here, the Admiral paused, raising his gaze—first to Cal, then to the girls.

  But when he spoke, he turned back to Cal.

  "Assuming the devices still cannot be removed—"

  Savannah opened her mouth to speak.

  But Cal, recognizing the significance of the Admiral’s pause, and now his careful choice of words, held up a hand to stop her.

  "No. He didn’t ask a question. Just listen."

  The Admiral nodded approvingly at Cal and gave Vannah a polite smile before resuming.

  "Assuming the devices still cannot be removed from your daughters, you have all been invited to attend First Contact. It seems the Chromaphors want to meet with, or possibly retrieve, their AI."

  "Chromaphors?" Vannah asked.

  Then, remembering she was supposed to stay quiet, she shrunk back slightly, anticipating correction.

  The Admiral only smiled.

  "They don’t have a spoken language, but we expressed our need for a verbal and written term for their race, for our own communication. Chromaphors was offered."

  "They don’t talk?!" Sierra asked, without hesitation.

  "They do not," the Admiral confirmed. "Apparently, they communicate through color changes in their skin."

  "Indeed," Brenda offered. "My originating culture—Chromaphors, now, it would seem—communicates through complex displays of color with one another. We do, however, have equipment to facilitate natural communication with humans."

  –

  The meeting went on for a bit, questions were asked and answered.

  In the end, Cal needed to get the family ready for a trip—they’d be gone at least a month.

  Almost two weeks out to the meeting point, a few days there, almost two weeks back.

  Better to plan for longer.

  —

  "I’ll need to make some calls then," Cal was saying. "Have the ranch seen to while we’re gone."

  The Admiral nodded. "I was asked to return with you today if at all possible, but I explained that was unlikely."

  Cal considered this. "I just need to make calls and pack a few things—a few hours, really. We can meet you in town, or I suppose you can wait here with us, if it suits you."

  "I’ll wait, if the offer was sincere," the Admiral replied. "In fact, I’d love it if your girls would give me a tour in the meantime." He smiled at the kids.

  Cal regarded him for a long moment.

  Invincibility didn’t stop you from being picked up.

  Had they tested what would happen with ropes or handcuffs?

  The Admiral, reading his mind, offered reassurance.

  "Mr. Callahan, I gave you my word in our last encounter—along with learning a valuable lesson about the dangers of making you an enemy. And..."

  He hesitated, considering this carefully. Deciding whether to share his greatest weakness with this faux cowboy he had only met twice.

  "I also have two daughters—who I love very much. Older than yours, of course, but I remember these ages well. I would never hurt your children—or anyone else's—nor would I attempt to take them from you.

  Our intention was always to confiscate the devices. My XO’s decision—attempt—to take all of you in was not... previously discussed. And things happened very quickly.”

  Cal considered all of this.

  Eventually, he nodded to his girls.

  "Give the Admiral a tour, girls. I’m going to make arrangements for the ranch while we’re gone. Do not leave the property."

  Cecil grinned. “Can I shoot him if he tries something?”

  "Yes." Cal answered, not grinning.

  —

  Giving an Admiral from the Republic Navy a personal tour of the ranch?

  Savannah was in heaven.

  She made grand gestures and offered loud, thorough—very thorough—explanations of every corner of Diamondback Ranch to their visiting dignitary.

  She pointed out all the small details he would have missed without her thoughtfulness.

  She explained the history of the animals, the future of the herd, which ones were for breeding, quota, and selling.

  Her sister had made some lame attempts at humor—the Admiral had laughed, but only to be polite, Savannah was sure.

  And Cecil, mistaking politeness for actual amusement, had strutted around like she was a comedian and made an ass of herself.

  Little sisters, Savannah thought. More trouble than they could ever be worth.

  -

  Eventually, they returned to the back porch, where Cal was waiting—an open beer in one hand, and a fresh one in a cozy, waiting for the Admiral.

  Cal offered the beer as they approached. The Admiral took it with a grateful nod.

  “So,” Savannah said, hands on her hips, “that’s the ranch! Did you have any questions?”

  The Admiral smiled warmly.

  “No, ma’am, I think you about covered it–”

  “Ya think?” Cecil muttered.

  Vannah shot her a glare.

  The Admiral continued, unbothered. “–I learned a great deal. Thank you so much.”

  Savannah beamed, soaking up the praise.

  Cal gave her a loving smile, and she stood a little taller.

  "Okay then," she said. "Let me know if you think of any questions!"

  And with that, she departed—off to do her chores, waaay earlier than Uncle Cal would have bothered them about it.

  Can’t tell her nose is brown ‘cause of her skin, Sierra thought, but she didn’t say that one.

  It might fall under “allowed if it’s funny” if they didn’t have company.

  But they did.