personal6

12

March 21, 2992

Periphery

Turnix

Dropship site

In the three months that Paul had been here, living off his quarters in the Emerald Egg, things had changed drastically. Their jumpship had gone and back four times now, delivering another 8 dropships, only one of which was an Ovo like the Emerald Egg. The rest were Unions, and rather than just bringing more food, they had brought a little bit of everything.

The farmers who had agreed to work with The Lord of Economics Management were right now in the process of harvesting their crops…which had grown magnificently well despite the continual rains that were now downgraded to a cold daily drizzle that wouldn't allow the land to fully dry out. Everything was still mud, and the techs had stopped trying to wash off the mechs' feet when they came back into the dropship bay. Now they just swept up the mud after it dried and left the coating on the gray war machines, knowing they'd get a new layer the next time they stepped outside.

But while they had been busy doing nothing but patrolling, Paul had been an eager beaver. Once the food shipments out to people who needed it were mostly done, he had survey teams going around and counting the people, getting names and locations (in lieu of addresses for many of the far flung farms) and coming up with a full census of 19,371 people. While it was possible there were some stragglers out in the old city that didn't want to found, he was confident that all the homes had been visited, and that had only been due to how small this colony was on a very big planet. All contained within a radius of some 80 kilometers of the center, which was nothing more than a geographic point as the old city occupied the north and the survivors had spread out south of it.

Once he had a census to work with, his first act was to secure property rights, and that meant ferreting out whose claim was real and who was trying to claim their dead neighbor's land as their own. He didn't have too much trouble doing that, for these people were very poor liars when he had aerial surveillance to work with assessing building and field locations. As well as the fact that many of their neighbors would rat out each other when they did lie in order to find favor in their new overlord's eyes…or whatever other motivations they might have.

Regardless, Paul worked to create a database, then claimed all the dead people's land and buildings for House Morten…which infuriated some of the larger land holders who'd hoped to scoop them up for themselves. All told, he now held the rights to some 8% of the colony by land, and a whopping 23% of all the buildings in the villages…some of which didn't consist of more than 4 or 5 establishments.

He didn't have people to occupy them all, so he set guard patrols to check in occasionally to make sure there weren't squatters…and to drive them off if there were. Eventually he chose 7 of the 'villages' to establish free cafeterias in using prefab structures, and it was to those all the foot traffic would come, because they were 'all you can eat' but you couldn't carry any out with you. If you wanted to establish a stockpile, you had to make your case to Paul, who was not doing weekly drops by chopper anymore except on special occasions.

He had inherited a grocery store in one of the more central villages, then bought up the other surrounding buildings from the owners…making them rich in the process to quell problems…then demolished the whole block within a day using construction mechs and debris trucks. In that new area he set up prefab buildings of numerous sizes and shapes, connected most together with prefab tunnels, and got the first Morten store up and running within 6 weeks of arrival.

He knew this was going to be another money pit, especially when he announced that everyone on the census would be receiving a weekly stipend of MPs to spend at the store, which was the Morten Protectorate's new currency that they'd luckily been working on prior to this mess. They never officially said what it stood for, but since the letters matched their new Periphery state's name it just seemed natural. He knew it was more to do with the 'Morten Pound' than anything, but leaving it unsaid let people think what they'd like. Eventually it would just become known as the two letters and the reason wouldn't matter. But coming from the Federated Suns whose currency was the Pound, it was also a reminder to those in the know.

Whatever friendly relations they might or might not have with the Federated Suns, it had kicked them out of their home and Paul would never forgive them for that. So whatever the Federated Suns could do, House Morten could do better. They had their Pound, and now Paul and his family had theirs…and he was intent, in the long term, to make it the dominant currency of the Periphery, and a hedge for people in the Inner Sphere when disaster struck the Federated Suns and their Pound tanked.

Economic power was every bit as important as military power, and if they were going to survive out here it was going to be through both, and this was the first place they were introducing the MP…especially since the locals had been using tin tokens and otherwise bartering for everything. They didn't even have any Taurian money with them anymore, and apparently the merchant traders would only credit them some in exchange for grain and some woodworking products, particularly rustic furniture, that they could jack up the price on later as having come from 'remote locations' for the mystery appeal.

By giving everyone a stipend…and not a big one, just 20 MPs, which was about the equivalent of 4 C-Bills and far smaller than the Federated Suns Pound…they would bring people from all across the widespread colony to spend the free money on supplies not available here, like toothbrushes, certain types of clothing, luxury items, anything plastic since the local blacksmiths were the closest thing they had to factories. Medical supplies, small kits anyway, were quite popular, but the point was to get some elements of civilization into these people's hands while drawing them to a single store that would establish the value of the MP…then Paul could pay people with it, just as he was doing with the first few bushels of the Vristil harvest.

They would then spend or save those to spend later at the store, or use to pay workers. A legitimate currency was essential for even a basic economy to form, and one was badly needed here.

Paul brought in offworlders, many hired in only the past few months and with only the barest of training in Kevin's academy, to run the store, for they had previous work experience doing so on Cholis or elsewhere. Also, the local population…after going through such horrific conditions…were not mentally stable enough to fill these posts. Seeing friends and family killed…and in some cases eaten…was not something you shook off quickly, and Paul needed to give these people stability. Seeing and interacting with people who had not gone through, or participated in, the horrors was the way to do that. He could integrate the locals into the workforce at a slower rate, doing the more menial jobs and working their way up.

He couldn't trust them to run anything right now, and knew disaster would loom if he tried.

Thankfully he'd been able to bring a treasure chest of physical MPs with him, already having been minted as an experiment on Cholis. They were basic iron alloys molded into square coins with the 'MP' in the turtle shell on the front, and denomination and serial number on the back. Each coin had a different number, so it wouldn't be painfully easy to make a cast and copy them. A layering system of alloys and a few other safety measures were added so it would be possible to spot bad fakes later, but the metal wasn't worth enough on its own to be melted down and resold, so at least that wasn't a problem.

Right now they had a 1MP, 2MP, 5MP, 25MP, and a 100MP. Any exchanges larger than that could be handled with a handshake at this point, so Paul didn't request anything bigger to be made. He just needed more of these as fast as possible, and on the last dropship to arrive he'd gotten a shipping crate full of them, so he didn't have to worry about running out as more of the harvest began to come in.

Food items were continuing to arrive as well, but less ration bars and more ingredients, both of which were being sold in the store now, and when one of the locals approached him about opening up a bakery to make some items that were not being sold in the store or offered for free in the cafeterias, he'd asked her if she thought people would buy it when they could eat here for free.

She'd said people were so scared of starving again that they were smuggling small handfuls of food out of the cafeterias in their pockets, because most of them couldn't buy very much in the store without more MPs. But they could buy a loaf of bread and take it home with them, or some muffins or cookies or other short range food that would last a week or so, giving them some peace of mind instead of wondering whether their next meal would be there in town or not. Also, people eating only one meal a day or having to walk in twice or more, was not working well for many.

Paul had been giving ration bar crates to some of those people, but he agreed to help the old woman set up her bakery. She owned a building that had previously been such a baker, but Paul had visited it and saw how broken down it was. He instead decided to tear it down and put a much stronger prefab structure there…cost free…to get the woman's business up and running again.

And just in time for the Vristil harvest to come in.

The local grain milling people had mostly starved to death, and the ones that remained were not inclined to restart again, so Paul had established his own flour mill and began sending all the Vristil there, hiring on some of the original owners with experience to work as laborers…which they agreed to do, minus the responsibility for anything, as long as it was a source of additional MPs beyond the tiny stipend.

That tiny stipend, however, lured a few hundred other people who had escaped the census into the open. Paul was just glad that more had survived, though he didn't want to know the details of how.

After the store opened there were meetings about the future development of the colony, and with them came the first edicts by the Mortens. There were no cattle left whatsoever. All had been killed and eaten, so that made the ban on meat products easy to implement. Though 'easy' didn't mean there wasn't complaining and some protesting, but after the food kept coming and the store opened up, there weren't that many people that wanted to argue with the Mortens. They were just glad to be alive and seeing their lives improving by the week in some cases.

The protests were a little more robust when he banned the sale of all alcohol products…until they realized that banning the sale wasn't punishable to the buyer…only the seller. So when the grain started growing again and people wanted to distill it on their own property and share with their buddies, there would be no issue. And if they wanted to sell it on the down low, then only the bootleggers would be culpable.

That, along with the legalization of prostitution so long as it was freelance and not organized, calmed things down quickly. Almost as fast, three different 'hotels' were set up to accommodate the freelancers. Thankfully Paul had a long family history of figuring out how to deal with such things, and a lot of the trial and error had been done and over with before he was born. Better to sanction potentially bad behavior into an acceptable box than ban it entirely and let it run rampant on the black market.

So long as someone wasn't forcing someone else to have sex, it was really no business of House Morten whether there was a money exchange involved or not. But if someone was going to make a business out of it, then it would be House Morten's business. As it was, back on Neubenn, there were many surrogate arrangements for women to get pregnant with another woman's husband because she was no longer able to. That may or may not have involved sex, but it was actually seen as an honorable service to offer.

The 'hotels' here, however, didn't exactly have baby making in mind. Still, when they paid up, they did so using MPs, which helped to further cement the new currency and build the economy Paul was trying to craft from almost scratch.

Winter was almost here, though the first snow had not fallen. He didn't want to imagine how much would accumulate if these precipitation levels didn't decrease, but he'd already brought in some agricultural units that Jared had compiled and got them to work tilling the fields that he'd inherited from the dead previous owners. Once you got down through the layers of mud, there was actually soil beneath, and they were working to seed them with fertilizer and a fast growing grass to stabilize them during the winter and then till under in the spring as yet more natural fertilizer.

The men he had here already knew more about agriculture than all the locals combined, and the few who would admit that had already been hanging around, taking notes, and soaking up all the knowledge they could get…while the others stubbornly kept to their plantations and ate the relief food as well as their own storehouses as they waited for spring and hopefully decent planting conditions.

Whether they came around or not, they'd have to get involved in the economy he was building, for there was no other, and if the Taurian merchants came around he was going to intercept them and strike a deal if possible. If not, he wasn't going to let them rip off the locals anymore, and he wasn't sure if they'd even want the MPs or not. But after the starvation that had hit, nobody wanted to sell grain off world. Doing so had become a taboo, which Paul didn't fight, citing that all the Vristil would be used locally until they had so much they didn't know what to do with.

But today another pair of dropships had arrived to stay, as had all the others, providing the housing and resources badly needed to house everyone in the Morten Employ as more prefab structures were going up everywhere in the 7 villages he'd designated. He'd tried to keep the farmer's field intact that he was landing the dropships in, and had to move half of them a few kilometers to the west to make room. The cafeteria here had already been disassembled and moved, with him hoping to get a proper landing pad built within a year…but he had so much other stuff to do, he hadn't started building a single proper structure yet, using all prefabs because of the time savings.

Help was on the way though, for on one of these dropships came his two apprentices. Green Baron Aaron Morten, and Green Baron Avril Morten. Both were children of Vandi Morten, Paul's young aunt, and while they were only 24 and 22 respectively, their skill level was beyond anyone else he had here with regard to business and economics, and he was quite pleased to see them walk off the dropship and not cringe at the sight of the muddy planet.

He was also pleased to see them wearing their Baron's insignia on their collars in the form of small green pins. Theirs would be a two year stay here, and hopefully Paul would be gone long before that. He just had to make sure things got going and were stabilized before turning it over to them to manage. Until then, they were his two helpers and he was going to put them to work immediately helping him organize the even more employees spilling out behind them.

This planet was more of a money pit now than a mud pit, and that was saying something. Still, given time, that would turn around, but they had a lot of work and a lot of investment to put into it before that.

Nevertheless, some 19,000 people had been saved from starving to death. And while he couldn't do anything to help those who had died before they got here, he'd take this makeshift win for what it was worth, and turn it into a foundation to build something much better on.

It might be a small colony, but House Morten finally had an inhabited world to call its own…even if it was a fixer upper. A big fixer upper.

And with that, they were now a Periphery state in fact, not just in theory.

Never mind that the Estate had more people living on it now than this entire planet…but on the bright side, he'd be getting his first few MP back in taxes from the bakery.

He preferred to ignore that insignificant milestone and keep his thoughts focused on the distant future…and dragging this planet there as fast as possible.

Four months later Grady and half the mechwarriors were replaced with other members of the newly founded House Morten Military…no longer a militia…and Paul Morten rode back with them to Cholis on the same dropship, then found himself in a Lords meeting explaining what went on in full to the others for nearly an hour. In summary, everything was heading in the right direction and any signs of a rebellion were long gone as House Morten brought more and more pieces of civilization to the planet's population.

"So why Polvice then?" Sarah asked Stephan after Vander had suggested opening up Turnix to colonists from the Inner Sphere if it had so much land mass to work with, forested and mountainous as it might be, while Polvice was mostly covered in ice except for a desirable stretch of equator.

"Location," he said, activating a holoprojector they'd finally managed to acquire and zooming out their new little map to include all 4 points, with Cholis and the rest of the Inner Sphere on the far left, most of which was off the map. Drymo was tucked in near to Cholis, but Turnix and Polvice were much further away, though not close to each other. Turnix was off somewhat to the 'right' if you were standing on Cholis and looking out into the Periphery, in the direction of the Taurian Concordat, while Polvice was almost on a straight line away from the Inner Sphere.

"Turnix is still in the wedge," Sarah argued. "Otherwise we never would have found it."

Stephan shook his head. "It may very well become a hub later, but it's not the spine I want. Polvice is, and we can start fresh there with no locals to worry about."

"Most of the problems on Turnix are minor at this point," Paul interjected. "I agree with Vander, we could open up colonization within a year or two. We'd just need to clear more land first."

Stephan wasn't having it. "Polvice," he reiterated.

"There will be far more farming ground on Turnix than Polvice in the long run," Jared pointed out.

"We have to be thinking short term, middle term, long term, and extremely long term," the First Lord reminded them. "I don't want all our worlds crammed up next to the Federated Suns border. We need to go out deeper…much deeper…and get all our valuable infrastructure built at least 5 jumps away from the border, if not 10. Andrew is not going to reneg on the deal, but the Federated Suns might later, or the Capellans might take interest, or the entire Inner Sphere might suddenly want to pull all the Periphery states into a new Star League or some other nonsense to justify sending armies out here to conquer everything in sight. We need a spine of systems that can get to be self-sufficient, and sending that spine towards Turnix gets it too far away from where I want."

"We haven't searched very far beyond Polvice," Vichni said, tapping a finger on the desk for emphasis. "We have no idea if there are good systems out there within 1 jump to link Polvice to, or are we using the 2 jump rule?"

"Preferably one, but Polvice suits our needs and there are still a lot of stars between here and there to search. Hopefully we'll find something useful. Polvice is useful enough, and I want to cement that link in our chain…"

"Don't you mean vertebra?" Sarah joked.

"Spine, chain, islands…call them what you want. They need to be capable of becoming self-sufficient…not just to survive, but to thrive…and we need them heading directly away. Not towards our neighbors in the Periphery. We can add planets to the links in the chain as we go, but we need to get the first link. Cholis isn't it. Everything we're building here is going to be moved out there later and this will just remain a foothold linking us back to the Federated Suns. I'd rather get started building some stuff out there rather than squeezing it in here."

"Like another academy?" Kevin asked.

"Any self-sufficient world will have to have one. You've been complaining about the temporary facilities here. Why not get yourself a huge tract of land and lay out a proper one?"

"On Turnix?" he joked.

"No," Stephan said flatly. "Any of the locals worth training we can send away then bring back. Sarah's already ordered two more jumpships, and we can haul people around ourselves in small numbers. But I want a proper colony set up that we can tell the Davions to extend the trade route to. And that means a minimum of 100,000 in my book."

Rannel frowned. "If we can only carry a few hundred per dropship maximum…"

"Lots of trips," Stephan said simply. "And then the Davions and other merchants can foot the bill later."

"You're embarrassed of Turnix?" Vander asked.

Stephan rolled his eyes. "No, but it's not exactly a very good calling card right now. We can pay to bring in people we need, but in order to facilitate long term colonization we need people to be able to get here on their own. They can do that with the trade route. But we have to have something here they will want to come to. How many people want to come to Turnix, as it is now?"

Nobody answered, making his point for him.

"Polvice has to be built House Morten style, from the ground up. Enough that the people and ships that do come to visit will spread word of mouth how there's a Neubenn style planet out in the Periphery and they've got an open colonization platform."

"Not too open," Sarah cautioned.

"After the first 100,000 I don't care. Those people will set the mold. Right now all we have is a mini mold in the Estate here, and Turnix has more bad habits than good ones at this point. We can't wait to bring it around. We need a foothold outside the Federated Suns that is more than a money pit. We're still vulnerable here, though it's a far cry from where we were a few years ago. Nobody seems to care right now that we're here. Do any of you want to risk this House's lives on the dozens of nefarious powers in the Inner Sphere continuing not to care and ignoring us? The more power we create, the more attention we get. And if everything is right here in the Estate, all it will take is one large attack…hell, just a warship showing up and bombarding us into oblivion would do it. We still don't have any defense against that."

"Do you know something you haven't told us?" Vander asked.

"Sooner or later one of those Taurian traders is going to come back to Turnix and find that we've saved it…but it will also spread the news that we've taken it from them. However unofficial it was, that will probably make waves out here. House Morten isn't just camping out in exile, they're actively conquering systems. How would the press back home handle that?"

"They'd live on the story and rumor for months minimum," Kevin stated without hesitation.

"Carroll already told me that people in the know follow every moves the Davions make, even low level ones like her. So we've already got eyes on us. We can't assume what we do won't get noticed from this point on. We're a long ways away from most of the troublemakers, but greed and jealousy have no bounds. And if our Father was assassinated, someone might be out to destroy our entire House now that we're no longer under the protection of the Federated Suns military."

"We are here," Paul noted. "But not at Turnix."

"On paper," Stephan reminded him. "No Federated Suns army is going to come to our defense on Cholis. What the Duke has is all there is ever going to be. And at this point, we're protecting him."

"How much would it take to buy our own warship?" Rannel asked.

"A lot," Sarah said, already having looked into it. "The problem is nobody is selling those used, at least not right now. And only the major powers are producing them new, which they keep for themselves. If we want one, we're going to have to refit an existing jumpship or build one from scratch."

"And we can't do either without a shipyard," Stephan continued. "We can turn Turnix into an agricultural exporter within a decade, correct?"

"Sooner than that given the small population we have to feed," Jared said, nodding.

"And Drymo will supply us with raw materials that we can then refine in factories to be built there as well. The products from both worlds we can ship to Polvice to accelerate its growth even further. We can't just nibble at the edges and take this slow. I keep getting the feeling we're playing with a sleeping monster that's going to wake up and take us out with a single bite before we can grow large enough to bite back. Am I alone in this?"

"Everything seems quiet to me," Vander said thoughtfully. "But there's usually a quiet before the storm, so that doesn't mean we're safe. Personally, I'm happy with the amazing progress we've made so far and I've got enough mechwarriors to defend us here and on all four worlds against anything the Periphery bandits can throw at us. I don't think anyone with an army large enough to remove us here would even care to do so right now."

"Sounds like you're jumping at shadows to me," Sarah said sympathetically. "If someone was gunning for us, they'd have taken us out before the mechs from Davion arrived. We're getting stronger by the week. They missed their best opportunity."

"And the Red Baron hasn't shown back up either," Vichni added. "No bandits have."

"For different reasons, I'm in agreement with Stephan," Jared noted. "We're still basically renters here. I for one would like to have a proper world of our own, and Drymo and Turnix are not it. While I'm not suggesting that we make Polvice into our capitol…and while I do like living on Cholis…having our family exposed here, all in one place within the Federated Suns is a lingering itch in my brain. We're under their constant surveillance here, no doubt, and if we moved even some of us to Polvice, the Davion ambassador would remain here, correct?"

"Yes," Stephan said firmly. "This is their connection point to us. Everything out there is our rules, and no ambassadors from the Inner Sphere will be allowed. Spies, however, amongst the colonists can't be completely stopped. But with no HPG out there, it'll be hard to get information back in a timely manner. It's a cloak of invisibility that we don't have here, even if there are some holes in the cloak."

"We could sell land," Paul said, thinking ahead. "Once we have Polvice up and running, we'd own all the land anyway. We sell it to various businesses and wealthy individuals and get some serious income for once."

"After we make it valuable to people to come there," Rannel added.

"After," Paul confirmed. "And our single tax structure should entice quite a few large businesses if we have the population necessary to act as a work force already on planet."

"Which means we need to colonize hard now," Stephan reiterated. "Even if our ongoing surveys find something better right next door. I say we choose to make this a link in the chain regardless and push hard on it."

"Agreed," Sarah said with a reluctant sigh.

The others nodded, and Paul leaned back in his seat a bit. "That means prefab all the way for maximum speed, heavy food shipments that will have to come from somewhere other than Cholis, and a whole lot of equipment sent in with workers recruited or hired with existing experience.

"Our payroll gets bigger and bigger," Sarah noted with mild alarm.

"Colonists aren't on the payroll though," Paul said with a smile. "And if we offer indentured servitude slots, they'll be working for free for a few years to pay off their transit fees and in exchange for perks on planet. If you want to go big, fast, I can make it happen. But it's going to drain our war chest heavily over the next decade."

"That's what it's there for," Stephan scoffed.

"But it's not replenishing," Sarah countered. "How long before we could get a decent tax revenue out of Polvice?"

"If I could entice some corporations to move in, pretty damn fast. We just need a local populace and basic infrastructure. After that, two years and you'll see revenue coming in. But Drymo is going to be producing long before that."

"It already is," Vichni said with pride. "The mine is operational again, though not at full capacity. We're storing the raw ore there for the time being, but once we get a refinery up and running, you'll have ingots to start using or selling. Either way, it's a positive on the spread sheet."

"Minus all the production costs," Sarah added, "but it's good to see something giving back after all the expenditures we've been making."

"A local source of refined metals will make efforts to attract the large corporations even easier. I just don't see how you're going to get that many people there when we have nothing but a scout team on planet."

"Good weather and opportunities," Stephan said dryly. "How often do you get one of those, let alone two, out in the Periphery? Or even the outer Crucis March? Sell it well, but truthfully, and combined with our reputation the people will come if there are jumpships available. I'm going to send one of our new ones, when we get it, on a circuit around the nearby systems picking up colonists and the other one designated to run between here and Polvice nonstop. Our own little internal trade route, and with batteries they can make the double jump in a matter of hours, so unless there's an ambush at the pass-through system, it'll be a safe connection."

"Where are we at on aerospace fighters?" Paul asked.

"Squadron in training," Vander said, frowning. "We've got twice that many fighters, but most need refitted. They're in worse shape than the mechs were."

"I saw one flying on the way in."

"One of the two that are fit to fight. I just have them doing some patrols to get flight hours in and show people that they're here. I haven't let them go up to orbit yet. We haven't been able to attract any notable pilots, just second stringers nobody wants to take into a mercenary unit and raw recruits. Kevin and I can mold them into a decent force, but it'll take time."

"More than I expected when I came back," Paul congratulated. "I assume the Duke is ok with them in his sky?"

"He's thrilled to have something in the air," Stephan said before Vander could answer. "He said his skies are our skies, so they're not limited to the Estate airspace."

"Nice to have friends, isn't it?" Vichni stated evenly. "And I actually get the feeling he might not be playing us."

"Same here," Stephan confirmed. "He's still a General at heart and hasn't picked up a lot of the noble family bad habits yet. I'm not worried about him stabbing us in the back. But Davion can remove him whenever he wants to trade the position to someone else."

"Another reason you want to get to Polvice?" Rannel asked.

"Right now this is a sanctuary. A change in the Duke or a replacement of the Duke could turn it into a prison. The sooner we're truly on our own out here the better. And the first major step to doing that is Polvice."

Anna Fergusson was a welder, having learned the trade from her father on June, then getting into the field at 16…as soon as the Vendri Autoworks could legally hire her. She'd been making good money ever since, but had nearly been laid off a year ago during cutbacks, and it was rumored even more were on the way…which had her looking for other opportunities on planet or off. Her 23 years of experience should have been enough to get her nearly any position she applied for, but when an economy shrunk there weren't going to be a lot of hires happening, so there was an exodus of skilled and semi-skilled labor heading to other worlds to find work where they could, when they could. Then when those companies went south they'd move again.

Anna had never had to do that before, but she'd seen the writing on the wall and knew she had to be proactive, otherwise she'd have to live off her savings and watch it dwindle, hoping for an upturn in the economy or seeing it diminish to the point where she'd have to take some worthless job just to buy enough food to eat.

So when a recruitment posting came across for an unlimited number of welders out in the Periphery, she immediately took notice. There was a brand new planet outside the Federated Suns that was being colonized by House Morten, and they were willing to pay her transit and double the money she'd been making here. And with it being 'unlimited' it meant she wouldn't have to compete against other people for the job. As long as she met the qualifications, it was hers.

Her father had retired 3 years ago, thankfully, but when she'd told him about Polvice he'd decided to 'unretire' immediately and go there with her, bringing her mom along too plus her aunt, who was a machinist and they were also being hired. Several other friends of the family got to talking, and given their prospects on June weren't that great, they all decided to go as a group of some 23 workers and 34 add-on family members.

They'd rode a dropship through several stops, then had to transfer from one jumpship to another before ending up in another dropship that took them out to their new home. The planet was mostly covered in ice, as she'd been told, but the equator was warm and green. She half expected it to be a lie and some dismal planet, but apparently the advertisements had been spot on, and when they'd finally landed and got back into normal gravity, a wash of humid but welcoming air hit her as they were escorted off the dropship carrying everything they owned in duffle bags.

"Wow," she said, looking around at the city made up of prefab buildings, but with sidewalks and paved roads already installed. There were trees everywhere else, making it almost feel like the city had been cut out of forest strategically so that it didn't destroy it so much as incorporate itself into it. And most of those trees had a tropical vibe to them that she'd only seen in entertainment vids.

"Not bad, huh?" her father said, wrapping a hand around her left shoulder as they took in all in. "I don't think we'll ever see snow again here."

"This way," an escort said, motioning to her and the others.

"Come on," her father said, pushing her forward. "Don't want to make a bad impression the first day."

Some 82 colonists came off the dropship and moved in a double line out across the tarmac to the city streets, hopping across an intersection and down the sidewalks for what felt like forever, but it was only a few city blocks. There the escort led them into a massive prefab structure that appeared to be a box inside an arched tube, with narrow roadways darting underneath on either side of the box.

'Processing Building 07' was written on a large sign outside that came up out of trim, mowed grass…another good sign that things here were legit. Pound pinching scammers would never have bothered to mow it, or would have just paved it over.

When they got inside each person…even the children…were sent to their own clear booth where they got a quick medical exam and interview. Anna's lasted all of 8 minutes, then they were given an ID card and told to report to a far desk when their family members had all gotten through the first checkpoint.

That meant her group went through last, for everyone else was apparently single or in pairs. No other children were present that she'd noticed, and when her father led them all up to the desk they were given information pamphlets, keys, and a map showing them to their living quarters.

"It's a bit of a walk, but you can go now or wait about an hour for another shuttle to come in. Either way, House Morten welcomes you to Polvice."

"Thank you," Anna said, then moved out a rear exit with the rest of her family as another batch of new arrivals was just coming in the front and going through the start of their exams.

"I say we walk," her father said, with him being the oldest of them, which seemed to seal the decision. "I haven't seen this nice of weather in ages."

"You've never seen this nice of weather," her mother mumbled beside him carrying her own duffle, stuffed so full Anna didn't know how it wasn't ripping open.

"It's supposed to be like this year round," Anna added. "Which way, dad?"

He looked at the map. "That way two blocks, then twelve to the left. No way we can get lost."

"I hope not," her mom's voice said again, barely audible. She hadn't liked the idea of coming here, but Anna could tell on her face that she was impressed now, though she would never admit it to anyone, being the eternal pessimist.

They took it slow and enjoyed the sights, even as the duffles seemed to get heavier and heavier. They stopped twice to rest, once when a mech walked by down the street, stomping so hard on the pavement she was surprised it didn't break. And it wasn't a work mech, it was a military type, and she had no idea where it was going, but her dad said the map had the location of a mechbay marked about 18 kilometers to the south.

Still, the streets were mostly empty aside from a few cars and the occasional truck. The sidewalks less so, but it still felt fairly empty…like they were among the first to get here.

Eventually they got to their building, which was a shorter arched structure that appeared only three stories high and had no roads going through it. The main door was just into a foyer, and from that was a long hallway leading to various rooms, or elevators that probably took you up to more rooms, but theirs were all located together on the main floor.

"Well, this is it," her father said, finding their little section and pulling out the key to his personal door. It worked and in he went as everyone else moved about to find theirs.

Anna got into hers without incident, finding a small living room attached to two bedrooms, a bathroom, miniscule kitchen without a proper stove, and what looked like a study with a flatscreen built into one wall above a desk that was likewise part of the wall and not moveable furniture.

It was more or less the same size as the apartment she'd been renting on June, but everything here was neat, tidy, and smelled brand new. And it was the smell above all that set this apart from her past home. Even making good money back there didn't mean you could live in a good neighborhood, and less bad had become 'good,' but this must have been what 'good' actually felt like.

Anna tossed her duffle onto the already made bed then found a couch in the living room to plop down onto, breathing heavily in the air conditioning and letting it soak into her heat-stressed and duffle-worn body. The information packet that she'd been given…and had been reading while they walked…said her work detail wouldn't be starting for another 8 days. So she was essentially on vacation until then, and the rent was prepaid by House Morten for the first 3 months. Another signing bonus for those willing to move out here.

And the basic food here was free, with a cafeteria located every few blocks or so in the residential areas of the city. She could eat there or buy stuff to bring back to her apartment, with her bank account on June already having been electronically transferred out here and converted into MPs…which were apparently the local currency…and there was an automated money changer in the foyer that they'd come through that would give her physical MPs if she wanted, but the bank card she had would work just as well anywhere on the planet.

She wasn't getting any interest on her savings, though. The bank was just a place to store her money…another courtesy of House Morten…and wasn't involved in giving out loans. That also meant her money would always be there to take out later, which she guessed made up for the loss of interest.

Actually, the free food would make up for the loss and then some. Assuming it was edible. She'd have to find out later.

Right now, she was just going to unpack…sometime…and settle in along with her family and friends. This was a start of a new chapter in their lives, and as far as first impressions went, this was looking to be the best one yet…