There was one significant hole in Callan’s meticulously crafted cowboy facade.

  Gadgets.

  Callan loved gadgets.

  Their home was filled with drones, cameras, toys, and niche little gizmos he never used. All tucked carefully away behind the ranch’s rustic walls, in closets, and cupboards.

  He made a few visible concessions to modern life. Mostly in the kitchen.

  A pair of food printers on the counter. A drink mixer. A fridge.

  There were a few other various quality-of-life upgrades scattered around the house.

  The plumbing was fully modern and indoors, of course. Hell, the toilet even scanned your waste and adjusted the food printer’s vitamin outputs for you.

  Callan didn’t really want to live in the Old West.

  He just wanted to wear the hats.

  —

  And yesterday, he’d been grateful for the drones.

  Bone-weary by the time they got home—not physically, but mentally spent—Callan had let them bring in the herd.

  It wasn’t ideal for either party. The cattle, for the most part, let the drones gently guide them, but the drones weren’t particularly big or intimidating, so occasionally, a cow would ignore them. This would prompt the drones to escalate, getting closer, broadcasting loud, sharp noises.

  It wasn’t great for the herd’s stress levels, and it wasn’t great for the drones either. A cow’s rear leg can come out mighty fast, and every now and then, a drone got kicked into oblivion.

  So Callan didn’t use them much for the cattle.

  And nowadays, not much for the girls either.

  But when they were younger, the drones had let them wander the ranch pretty freely; Callan’s little fleet rotating out overhead, sending back a live feed so he could keep an eye on them.

  And then there was another corner of his gadget obsession, a natural extension of a love for tech—

  Home security.

  Because who wouldn’t want a secret safe room?

  Who wouldn’t want cameras around their property, seismic and motion sensors, automated drone responders?

  It wasn’t paranoia.

  It was just cool.

  —

  No, Callan liked technology—and that love of gadgets was now responsible for his new, deep, dark secret.

  He had wanted one of those devices.

  Maybe more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.

  He was incredibly envious of his own kids.

  But—

  How did he choose which of his girls got the other device?

  How did he live with himself if the daughter without one was hurt?

  Or worse.

  So he had traded the thing he wanted second most in the world—

  A superpower.

  A piece of enviable tech.

  The greatest gadget in the Republic.

  For the thing he wanted most.

  The thing all parents wanted most.

  His daughters would be safe.

  Even if he wasn’t there.

  Fair trade.

  —

  Sierra was trying really hard to kill herself.

  She hurled herself off the roof of the barn as fast as she could muster—

  And she was pretty fast, she was sure—

  Throwing her arms and legs wide, a little dirty-blonde star in a (childs-medium) duster, falling toward the earth from fifty feet up.

  To anyone watching, she slammed face-first into the ground, a cloud of dirt rising up around her.

  And that observer would probably assume she was dead. So they’d be surprised when she popped back up laughing and yelled to her sister,

  “You’re such a coward! Try it!”

  If that observer had been watching very closely, they might have noticed a strange bit of deceleration before she hit the ground—

  And sometimes, if she landed just right, with a point or edge to concentrate the force on, a small flash of blue light.

  But it was subtle.

  Easy to assume you’d imagined it.

  Except for the little girl who was not only unharmed, but going again.

  A backflip into a superhero landing this time.

  Dork, her sister thought, from across the yard.

  —

  Savannah had been querying Brenda non-stop.

  Some questions got that odd, flat tone—like a disinterested announcer reading from a script.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Usually to say “I’m not going to talk about that right now.” in one way or another.

  But some things, Brenda answered.

  The bracelets worked the same way humans generate artificial gravity.

  Graviton manipulation.

  Turns out, humans just hadn’t poured enough energy into graviton emitters yet.

  Generating Earth-like gravity required so little power that each individual deckplate on a warship had a small backup battery—and that alone could keep gravity running for days.

  Savannah knew this from the documentaries Cal sometimes watched.

  But, apparently, if you pumped in enough power you could force gravitons to coalesce into a barrier. Or bend light.

  Nifty stuff.

  Humans were likely to figure it out soon. If someone wasn’t already working on it.

  —

  Savannah had poked at other topics.

  The race that made Brenda?

  They communicated through color-changing something-or-others in their skin, she forgot the word already. Brenda couldn’t even give her a name to call them, since they didn’t speak.

  When asking about the other aliens the flat voice returned.

  “Tactical and strategic information is limited pending formal introductions.”

  Boooo.

  —

  Savannah played with invisibility until Cal had enough and snapped at her for it.

  Scaring her sister? Fine.

  Scaring the cats, dogs, her Uncle, and anything else she could sneak up on? Less fine.

  Apparently, everyone has a limit for being startled by invisible children.

  She’d tried to pick things up while cloaked—no luck. Anything she grabbed just phased into the field with her. No pretending to be a ghost.

  Disappointing.

  But she had figured out a few things.

  When invisible the blurriness vanished when standing still.

  While moving, to her, the world blurred and shifted—like she needed glasses. Occasionally, for a moment, it seemed like she was seeing the world thru a cracked mirror, then it would go back to just being fuzzy.

  To everyone else? She was a shimmer in the air. Like heat rising in the distance. The faster she moved, the easier she was to see.

  Cecil still couldn’t get it to work. But she seemed to be having fun anyway.

  Vannah watched as her sister leapt from the roof again, stuck her legs straight out in front of her, and landed flat on her ass. Arms crossed.

  Grinning like an idiot.

  Dork.

  —

  Uncle Cal had warned both girls to keep the bracelets covered, not to flash them around, not to invite trouble.

  Sierra didn’t understand what trouble she could invite now that she was invincible, and eventually invisible, but she agreed all the same.

  It had never occurred to Vannah to tell anyone about it at all.

  —

  Nugget and Tracer had eschewed the normal games of chase, jump, and eat inedible things, in favor of watching Sierra hurl herself off the roof.

  Nugget laughed every time.

  It might not have sounded like a laugh to humans, but Tracer understood.

  Tracer didn’t laugh. This seemed dangerous. She would yell “STOP!” at Sierra every once in a while, but Sierra was ignoring her.

  —

  Cal watched from the kitchen window for a bit, feeling like he should stop this but not knowing why.

  Finally, after watching Sierra pretend to get shot and fall to her death from the peak of the barn, he opened the back door and yelled out,

  “Stop dying and do your chores!”

  Both girls' heads snapped around to him, and Vannah promptly vanished. Leaving Cecil standing alone in the paddock, covered in dirt from head to toe, grinning like an idiot.

  Cal shook his head and went back inside.

  That looked like so much fun.

  —

  That afternoon, they had all ridden out together to bring the herd in.

  "I made an appointment," Cal told them from atop Raulski as they rode back. "Mid-week, with the assistant governor."

  The girls eyed their uncle carefully.

  "We gotta tell them about Brenda," he continued. "The ship, the bomb. Try to get Brenda home, like we said we would."

  Cal didn’t really have any idea how to talk to the government, so he had just called and requested an appointment. They gave him a quick opening because he was Cal—and while he didn’t make a fuss about it, he was one of the more successful cattle ranchers on Frontier.

  Far exceeding his quota. Plenty left over to sell privately. Year after year.

  The girls didn’t know it, but they would inherit a very comfortable amount of credits one day.

  Cal just didn’t have much to do with his money. Every so often, he’d expand his claim, but he hadn’t actually added any head or made much use of the extra land.

  He had enough to keep himself and the girls busy—without making life feel too stressed.

  Without eating away all the downtime.

  It felt like a good life.

  He wasn’t sure what more could do for him.

  Maybe when the girls were gone.

  They needed him less these days, and he was starting to notice.

  Starting to wonder what to do with all the extra time.

  "We’ll go in early and have brunch with Maria,” he told them.

  “You'll have to come with me to the meeting," Cal looked at Savannah’s wrist.

  "So they can talk to Brenda."

  —

  Big Ed was waiting in the paddock as they returned, munching on something.

  Big Ed had been Cal’s first horse when he arrived on Frontier, third colonization wave.

  Too many people, not enough horses—especially ones big enough to comfortably carry Cal’s massive frame all day.

  Back then, Cal had been not just tall, but fat. Not chubby—fat.

  He’d lost a lot of weight in recent years, realizing he might actually get to meet his grandkids one day if he took better care of himself. But he was still fat.

  There were drugs that could help, and he was considering them. But willpower wasn’t one of Cal’s deficiencies. He could make himself do it, if he could keep the motivation.

  It was usually a bad streak of days that threw him off—stress, depression. And without a reason to get back on track, he just… wouldn’t.

  His girls provided that reason.

  Every time he looked at them.

  —

  Big Ed’s chest was as wide across as Nugget and Vesper side-by-side, well nearly. It seemed that way at least. Stocky and muscled, Big Ed was a draft horse, not meant for riding.

  But Cal had figured he’d give it a try. If Ed hated it, he’d hook him to a wagon instead.

  Ed loved it.

  And he loved to run.

  He was not fast.

  Or graceful.

  In fact, when Ed ran it hurt Cal’s ass badly.

  But Ed liked to run.

  So they ran.

  Not so much these days.

  —

  Cal wasn’t sure exactly how old Ed was, but the math put him past 23.

  They’d been together nearly 19 years now.

  Even Savannah—who loved all the animals, but wasn’t quite as about them as her sister—had a soft spot for Ed.

  He just reminded her so much of Uncle Cal.

  Big. Slow. Easy to hear coming.

  Loathsome to expend any more energy than necessary.

  Always trying to make you smile.

  You couldn’t help but see them in each other.

  And now Ed was plodding toward the corner of the paddock, having spotted his returning family.

  Cal tipped his hat.

  Ed tipped his head.

  "Ed," Cal greeted. "No worries—we gotta head into town soon, you can come for that."

  Ed nodded again, blew some air toward the girls, and began the ponderous process of turning himself around.

  Sierra was convinced Ed understood everything they said.

  Savannah was convinced it was a cute trick.

  The truth was that Ed understood Cal had greeted him, so he greeted back.

  Ed understood "town" meant town.

  And town sounded like a nice day.

  So he’d said so.

  Have a favorite human?