The breeding pool mission was shockingly going according to plan. No unexpected drone swarms. No enemy skirmishes. No planetary meltdowns. Just T’lish, elbow-deep in biomechanical leftovers, practically glowing with scientific joy. She moved with reverence, not excitement. As if this place was sacred. As if war-torn bone fields and slime-coated hull buds were hallowed ground. I could sense Laia's confusion from her updates. I would likely have to talk with her soon.

  And, of course, it looked like we might be inheriting a pet.

  I was fairly certain that, at the start of this mission, T’lish had described the organic ship hulls as “fungus-like growths.” Harmless. Non-sentient. “Mushrooms with engines,” I believe was the exact phrasing.

  But then, in her latest transmission, she’d started using phrases like “personality anchors” and “baseline imprinting potential.”

  Mushrooms don’t imprint.

  I filed that thought away for later. I could already see how this was going to go. I would be the reluctant dad who didn’t want the pet, but somehow ended up feeding it, cleaning up after it, and making sure it didn’t chew through the bulkheads. Great. I was already thinking like it was staying.

  Still, that particular dilemma would have to wait for when they get back.

  Because just one deck up, I had a far more volatile situation brewing. The kind I hated most.

  A sibling fight.

  Kel and Lynn had been arguing for twenty minutes straight. Their voices pinged across my corridors with escalating volume and decreasing coherence. They were practically vibrating the bulkheads.

  I didn’t want to get involved. Not because I didn’t care, but because sibling arguments were like electrical fires as you never know what caused them, they’re impossible to extinguish cleanly, and no matter what you do, something’s going to end up scorched.

  Still, I was also... curious. Which I suppose is the equivalent of “nosy.”

  So I listened.

  This fight was all Mira's fault I had decided. T’lish had asked her to run a nutrient scan on the planet’s biosphere, looking for anything edible. Most of the surface was ash and ruin, but Mira had found a sliver of hope it was an untouched valley sheltered by mountain spines and old storm shielding. Somehow, the flora had survived.

  It was enough to feed hundreds maybe thousands if rationed correctly. With the space elevator nearly finished, my surplus of drones made harvesting everything possible; that was the key.

  Kel’s stance? Simple. Give it away. Refugees needed it more than we did. He didn’t want us profiting off people with ash still in their lungs and grief still wet in their eyes.

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  Lynn’s position was also logical, in its own ruthless way. Sell it. Fair prices, nothing gouging. But this was war-torn land. Rare, clean, untouched resources were valuable. And we were freelancers, not a charity. Telks kept us going and would bring in more Telks. Lynn also reminded him that they needed some Telks themselves.

  They were both right. That was the problem. Neither wanted to give up ground and it wasn’t about who was right or who was wrong, and stop being about food about twenty minutes ago.

  They were arguing about roles. Who had the authority to make the call. Diplomatic lead versus trade officer. Ethics versus economics. And probably, somewhere deep underneath it, a bit of big-sibling-little-sibling resentment that had nothing to do with the mission at all. I don’t even know which of the two was born first, but If I had to bet on it, Lynn gives the big sister feeling to me.

  Now that I thought about it, was probably to blame for some of this argument.

  I hadn’t exactly drawn clear lines about decision-making. I’d handed out titles like candy and assumed they’d work it out. That was a mistake. And now I had the pleasure of dealing with it.

  When my avatar rounded the corner into the corridor, I found them mid-standoff. Lynn had her arms crossed tight across her chest, and Kel’s fists were clenched at his sides. They were standing too close, too tense. You could practically see the heat shimmer in the air between them.

  As soon as they saw me, they jumped apart like guilty kids caught stealing sweets.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, trying to sound neutral.

  “Nothing’s going on,” Lynn said, far too quickly.

  “Just a discussion,” Kel added, definitely lying.

  I arched a brow. “Right. Because I’m just the ship and wouldn’t have heard you shouting over every system feed for the past twenty minutes.”

  They both winced. Caught. Again.

  “So,” I said, clasping my hands behind my back in a decent impression of a disappointed principal, “how are we dealing with the food?”

  The moment the words left my mouth, the argument reignited like a plasma coil.

  “It’s not ethical to hoard it!” Kel snapped. “People are starving, Lynn!”

  “And what happens when we run out of supplies?” she shot back. “We’re freelancers, Kel. We don’t have the luxury of endless charity. We need those Telks.”

  “We’re not here to make a profit off someone’s last meal.”

  “We’re here to survive!”

  I let them go on. Thirty seconds. Forty.

  Then I sighed, louder this time, and raised a hand.

  “Enough. Children!”

  They both stopped mid-breath, eyes snapping to me.

  “We are not—” they both started, in perfect unison.

  “To me,” I cut in smoothly, “you are. And you are acting like it”

  Silence.

  “I’m making the call,” I said. “We harvest the food. We don’t sell it. We offer it to those who need it. But we do not give it away without value. We use it to gain access to barter rights, harvesting permissions, and intel exchanges. We don’t profit directly. We won’t be looting we will be exchanging. Everyone wins. Even our conscience.”

  Lynn muttered something under her breath. I didn’t catch it, but I gave her a look anyway.

  “Now,” I continued, “Laia’s flagged a few promising sites along the lander’s return route. Archive clusters, crashed tech, salvage caches. Real value. That’s where we make our profit. Not off rotting fruit and the goodwill of desperate people.”

  Kel nodded, slower this time, more thoughtful. Lynn didn’t argue further, but the line of her jaw was tight.

  “Good,” I said, tone final. “Work together. Pull the logistics feed from Laia, organize the drop points, and get it done. And no more fighting in my halls.”

  As I turned to walk away, I heard Kel grumble under his breath, “Still think she’s gonna sneak a price tag onto something.”

  Lynn shot back immediately, “Only if you stop acting like your ‘diplomatic badge’ makes you the moral center of the galaxy.”

  I didn’t turn around. I just kept walking.

  Children.

  Talented. Stubborn. Invaluable.

  But children, all the same.

  And somehow... mine.