I staggered into the residential area several hours later, stumbled over to the couch, and collapsed. I was absolutely fine physically. It would have taken a lot more than a single hive raid to wear me out, but assuming direct control of several dozen bears for several hours straight while they tracked down every trace of M17—that was taxing.

  “What happened out there?” Jane asked before I could close my eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine…” I muttered, sitting up and looking over the back of the couch. My entire family was sitting at the table, staring back at me. Based upon the time and the fact that there was food in front of everyone, it must have been dinner time. I really must have been tired to have walked past them without even registering they were there. “Bandit discovered a hive in the middle of the badlands. At first I thought it was just a tiny outlier, but it turned out to be a huge complex that’s probably been here for several weeks, slowly building up its strength until it could locate a significant target or terraform the surrounding area.”

  “And it took you this long to take care of it? That must have been some hive,” Jennifer said.

  “No… I destroyed it within minutes of entering the structure, when I realized it was waking up and planning to flood the area with Antithesis,” I said. “That’s why I had Bob evacuate you all so suddenly. Sorry about that.”

  “It’s fine, we know you wouldn’t do it without a good reason,” Jane replied before cocking her head to the side. “If you destroyed the hive so quickly, what have you been doing for the last few hours?”

  “Damage control,” I explained. “Did you see the massive flash that went off over the desert a couple hours ago?”

  “I did,” Alan grumbled. “I was painting in the observation deck when everything kicked off, and even though I couldn’t see the impact zone, it was directly under the ship, and I was nearly blinded by the flash.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” I muttered. “I was kind of in a rush and forgot you were in there. Otherwise I would have sent someone to move you out of there. That flash was a plasma shell that burned out the hive and incinerated the Antithesis that were pouring out of the birthing pods before they could spread out and become a bigger problem.”

  “That sounds cool!” Eddie exclaimed. “Why would that take a long time to clean up? You burned everything; problem solved, right?”

  “It would have been if I hadn’t flooded the entire hive with another compound right before that,. One that would expand the area of effect and ensure I burned out the rest of the hive. Biggest mistake of my life,” I groaned.

  “How bad could it be?” Jennifer asked.

  “You ever seen a burning rock?” I grumbled.

  “Nooooo….” the girl replied.

  “I have. In fact, I’ve seen a bunch of burning rocks that wouldn’t go out, even when completely immersed in water. That compound I used was a complete pain to clean up! I spent the last few hours using the bears to locate all surface traces and dousing them with a neutralizing agent.”

  “I did tell you that it would burn itself out and leave no trace if you just left it for twelve hours,” one of the security bears said in Nyx’s voice.

  “And what if someone had wandered across the area and accidentally gotten a bit of that stuff on them before it completely burned out? No way I’d risk that. No more weapons with persistent effects, even out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Soooo… Is everything okay now?” Issi asked hesitantly. The little girl was bouncing in her seat, looking around the table with a confused look on her face. She probably didn’t follow half of what I just said.

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  “Yes, Issi, everything is okay now. You can go back down and explore the badlands again tomorrow if you want,” I said, laying my head down on the edge of the couch. “Not only did I take care of the bad aliens, but the nice samurai from Kansas City are going to search the area for more hives tomorrow.”

  “Nuh uh. I finished counting the lines. I don’t have a reason to go back down and look at them again,” Issi declared. “The badlands are sixty-two years old.”

  “That’s just where you lost track,” Eddie snorted. “There were more striations than that.”

  “I counted them all!” Issi countered. “You just didn’t have the patience to do it yourself!”

  “Children… is it really all that important?” I moaned. “The fact that Issi counted to sixty-two is impressive in itself.”

  “I could count to sixty-two if I wanted,” Eddie pouted.

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t,” I replied calmly. “You can both do amazing things when you put your minds to it. Like poetry…”

  “And raising frogs!” Issi announced, jumping up on her chair.

  “I was going to say counting, or raising plants, but sure, raising frogs works too,” I smiled.

  “You should come meet the frogs! You haven’t seen them yet,” the tot declared as she jumped off her chair and ran over to yank on my arm.

  “Fine… I think I can handle coming to see them for a few minutes, but you need to finish your dinner first,” I said.

  “I did!” Issi said proudly, running back to her place and turning the plate so I could see how clean it was. I blinked slowly as a couple of leftovers tumbled off the plate and onto the table.

  “Alright, then you should ask Jane if you could be excused and put your plate in the sink.”

  Isabelle looked at me in surprise, as if that had never occurred to her, but she climbed back up on the chair and looked over at Jane. “May I be excuse?”

  “You may,”Jane replied, stifling a laugh.

  “I’ll be by to see the frogs in a minute,” I called as the girl carried her plate into the kitchen. “I need to talk to Jane first. Why don’t you feed them before I come?”

  “Kay!” Issi replied as she struggled to reach up and place her cutlery in the sink. For a moment it looked like she might pour the scraps all over her head, but Jennifer came to the rescue and helped her reach the sink. “I’ll get the frogs ready!”

  After she took off, I levered myself back into an upright position to look at Jane. “Do you want to talk about the cannon now?” I asked.

  Jane, who had been slowly cleaning up the table, paused for a moment and shook her head. “No, it’s alright.”

  I stared back at her, blankly. “Okay… what changed in the last few hours?”

  “Well… I had some time to think. I was shocked when the weapon fired for the first time. It had never occurred to me that you might have something like that on the ship,” she explained. “But when I thought about it, I realized that even though we were using the Carrier to travel around on vacation, it was irresponsible for me to think it was completely unarmed. You’re a samurai, and you fight Antithesis for a living; you should have the weapons to do it.”

  “That’s very mature of you,” I said. “However, the truth is I probably should have at least warned you and Alan about it. I didn’t think it was important before, because I never thought it’d be relevant while we’re on vacation. It would never be fired. That was irresponsible of me.”

  “Apology accepted,” Jane replied, before looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “You wouldn’t have any more surprises for me, would you?”

  “Nope. There are no secondary weapons on the ship, and the bots are still installing the defensive turrets. That’s probably why Deadbeat and Spooky decided to use the main cannon,” I said. “I told you before, I sunk most of my points into defensive systems. Shields, armor, and an army of bears between you and the nearest threat… this is probably one of the safest places on the entire west coast.”

  “Good. I don’t want any more surprises,” she announced, before taking an armful of dishes over to the sink.

  “Does that mean I won’t be able to see anymore superweapons?” Eddie asked, disappointed.

  “Not unless we run into another emergency,” I told the boy. “I’m doing my best to keep you all away from any trouble… despite what it might seem based upon our last few stops.”

  “Awwww… I want to see the giant flash.”

  “No, you don’t,” Alan and I declared at the same time.

  “You wouldn’t see anything exciting. You’d just go blind,” Alan said.

  “That would be exciting for a little while,” Eddie muttered.

  “And during that time you’d be unable to see, which means you couldn’t get any inspiration from the surrounding area,” I said. “Seems like you’d lose more than you’d gain.”

  “Awww…” Eddie moaned exaggeratedly, causing me to grin.

  “Hey Evelyn, I hate to interrupt you,” Jennifer said, cutting Eddie off. “But you have someone waiting for you.”

  “Right,” I mumbled as I pushed myself to my feet. “You all be good; I have to see a girl about some frogs.”

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