The Furrow family's trip to the Eden-Five farmers market had become something of a local institution over the years, but today felt different. Instead of their usual group today, they had two extra hands to help, and the dynamics were... entertaining.
"I can't believe you've never been to a proper farmers market," Tanya's mother said to Janet, her voice carrying that particular tone of maternal concern she reserved for people she deemed undernourished or culturally deprived.
"There never been any, where we lived" Janet replied with a sheepish grin. "I know it sounds terrible, but I've never really had time to find—oh my god, what is that smell?"
She'd stopped dead in the middle of the dusty market road, inhaling deeply as the wind carried the scent of fresh bread from Thompson's bakery stall.
"That," said Marcus with obvious pride, "is why we drag ourselves out of bed at dawn every Saturday. Come on, I'll introduce you to the best baker in the system."
Cameron, meanwhile, had taken up position slightly behind and to the right of Tanya, clearly overwhelmed by the crowd of locals who seemed to know everything about everyone else's business. His new found confidence had evaporated in the face of small-town social dynamics.
"You don't have to hide behind me," Tanya said quietly as they followed her parents toward the produce section. "They're harmless, I promise."
"It's not that they're scary," Cameron replied, watching nervously as David struck up an animated conversation with the vegetable vendor. "It's just... so loud and why does that woman keep staring at me?"
Tanya followed his gaze to Mrs. Henderson, who was indeed studying Cameron with the intensity of someone trying to solve a particularly interesting puzzle.
"Oh, that's just Doris," Tanya said with a laugh. "She's trying to figure out if you're single and whether you might be suitable for her granddaughter. Fair warning: she's about to come over here and interrogate you."
"What do I—"
"Tanya, dear!" Mrs. Henderson materialised beside them with the supernatural speed that only small-town gossips could achieve. "I don't believe I've met your friend here."
"Mrs. Henderson, this is Cameron. He's been helping me with some work. Cameron, this is Mrs Henderson. She has the best pies I've ever tasted. Just don't tell my Mum"
"I heard that dear," shouted her mother from in front of them.
"Helping Tanya with work?" Mrs. Henderson's eyes lit up with interest. "How wonderful. Are you from off-world, dear?"
Cameron nodded mutely, and Tanya could practically see him calculating his escape routes.
"How exciting! My granddaughter Lydia is studying Engineering at university. Such a bright girl, very pretty too. You should meet her sometime."
"I... that's very kind," Cameron managed.
Meanwhile, Janet had discovered the art of market haggling and was deep in animated negotiation with a spice merchant over the price of saffron.
"Look, I understand it's imported," Janet was saying, her negotiation skills translating surprisingly well to farmer's market dynamics, "but that price is higher than what I'd pay on a station with shipping costs included. What's your best price for someone who's planning to be a regular customer?"
The merchant, a grizzled man named Pete who usually drove hard bargains, was grinning despite himself. "You've got spirit, I'll give you that. Tell you what—buy three containers and I'll give you the bulk discount."
"Deal, but only if you throw in that little container of cardamom. Consider it a new customer welcome gift."
"Janet's a natural," David observed, appearing at Tanya's elbow with his arms full of vegetables. "She's already gotten better prices than Dad manages, and he's been shopping here for thirty years."
Their father approached with a slightly wounded expression. "It's not about getting the lowest price," he protested. "It's about supporting the community."
"You can support the community and still negotiate," Janet called over, somehow having overheard while simultaneously charming the cheese vendor. "It's not personal, it's just good business!"
Tanya's mother had taken charge of Cameron's cultural education, steering him toward the bread stall while maintaining a running commentary on the merits of various local families.
"Now, the Kowalskis over there with the honey stand—lovely people, but their youngest son has been looking for work. Very responsible, good with mechanical things. The Patels run the herb garden, and their daughter just started her own business..."
"Mum," Tanya called out, "you're giving Cameron the full small-town orientation whether he wants it or not."
"Nonsense," her mother replied. "He needs to understand how things work here. Community matters."
Marcus had wandered off to inspect the livestock section with his usual farmer's eye, but he returned with news. "The Johnsons are retiring," he announced. "Selling their farm and moving to the south coast."
"That's too bad," their father said. "Good neighbors for forty years. Who's buying?"
"Some corporation from off-world. They want to automate everything, run it with a small crew."
Tanya could see the collective disapproval ripple through her family. Eden-Five's agricultural community took pride in their hands-on approach and generational knowledge. Sadly, there was no new generation of Johnsons to take over.
"Times change," David said diplomatically, though his tone suggested he wasn't entirely happy about it either.
Janet, who had somehow acquired three bags of purchases and was now sampling honey, looked up with interest. "What kind of corporation?"
"Meridian Agricultural Consortium," Marcus replied. "They've been buying up small farms across the sector, promising improved efficiency through automation."
"I've heard of them, they were also in Fall Kingdom" Janet said, her expression growing thoughtful. "They're not terrible, but they tend to treat farming like a manufacturing process. All about maximizing output per credit invested."
"That's not farming," Tanya's father said firmly. "That's just... industrial food production."
The conversation was interrupted by Sophie, Marcus's now four-year-old daughter, who had escaped from her father's supervision and launched herself at Tanya's legs with characteristic enthusiasm.
"Aunt Tanya! Daddy said you are building a spaceship that can swim in clouds!"
"Well, not exactly swim," Tanya said, scooping up her niece. "More like... surfing. Like riding the waves, but in the atmosphere of gas giant planets."
"Can I ride in it?"
"When you're much, much older," Tanya replied, while Marcus approached with the slightly frazzled expression of a parent who'd lost track of his child for thirty seconds.
"Sophie, what did we say about running off?"
"But I found Aunt Tanya! And she was telling me about cloud surfing!"
Cameron watched this family interaction with obvious fascination, and Tanya realised that he probably came from a much more formal background. The casual warmth and gentle chaos of the Furrow family market expedition was likely unlike anything he'd experienced.
"Do you have other siblings?" Tanya asked him quietly while the others debated the merits of various vendors.
"One older sister," Cameron replied. "But we're not... we don't really do family gatherings like this. Our parents are more focused on research than anything else."
"That sounds lonely."
"I never thought of it that way," Cameron said, watching as Janet unsuccessfully try to convinced the baker to teach her his bread recipe. "But seeing this... yeah, I think it might have been."
By the time they'd made the rounds of all the familiar vendors, their group had acquired enough food to feed a small army and Janet had somehow become the unofficial social coordinator for a community potluck dinner the following weekend.
"I can't believe you just volunteered to organise a dinner for sixty people," Cameron said as they loaded their purchases into the family vehicles.
"It'll be fun!" Janet replied with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested she genuinely meant it. "Besides, I've been managing logistics for years. How hard can a potluck be?"
"Famous last words," Marcus muttered, though he was smiling.
As they drove back to the farm, vehicles full of fresh produce and new friendships, Tanya reflected on how much her life had changed.
"Your family is incredible," Cameron said quietly as they followed her parents' vehicle down the dusty farm road.
"They're pretty great," Tanya agreed. "Fair warning, though, it seems you're probably going to get invited to every family gathering from now on. Mum's decided you need looking after."
He winced a little at that.
Later that afternoon, while Janet and Tanya's mother worked on potluck planning, it looked like a military plan. They had to ensure everyone was able to bring their special dish and try not to offend anyone. Tanya and Cameron returned to the workshop to tackle the shield array. With Janet saying she would come after she finished the planning.
Cameron had been wrestling for days with the problem of marrying two incompatible crystal systems. The focusing arrays from the vortex drive and the shape crystals from the adaptive armor system. Each set carried its own quantum "frequency," and when combined, they produced interference patterns that destabilised the entire array.
"This isn't like wiring two systems together," Cameron muttered, hunched over the open housings with grease smeared across his forearms. "They don't want to cooperate."
"You mean like us three in the Vanguard kitchen?" Tanya quipped from the doorway, still nursing a mug of tea.
"Worse," Cameron deadpanned, then sighed. "But I think I've worked out a technique. Instead of forcing them to align, I will use a transformer to convert one frequency to the other. A buffer crystal that can absorb energy at one frequency and re-emit it at another. It's like having a translator between two different languages. It introduces a delay and inefficiency, but it should work. He adjusted the final coupler, and the shield generator came to life. He ran to the level 2 workshop to test it on a beacon drone to see how it worked.
When he finally emerged, looking equal parts exhausted and triumphant, Tanya was waiting.
"The good news is it works," he announced, holding up his tablet. "The components integrate with the shield generators after adjustment. We've got protection that can handle anything a gas giant atmosphere can throw at us."
"And the bad news?" Tanya asked.
"Power consumption," Cameron said grimly, showing the graphs. "At full load, the reactors will drain in under two hours. Only good part is that it's a constant draw, so depth doesn't matter."
Tanya studied the power curves, her excitement cooling. "That's… significant. But not fatal. We don't need endurance. We need thrills."
"Two hours," Cameron repeated. "Maybe two and a half if we make the ship smaller. Any more and the reactors start dropping below safe thresholds."
"Two hours is plenty," Tanya said, leaning back with sudden clarity. "This isn't a cruiser. No one's living aboard it. It's a surfer so short, intense, unforgettable. That's the point."
Janet, who had returned while Cameron was testing was perched on a console with her ration pack, grinned. "Honestly? That makes it better. Exclusivity sells. 'Two-hour ride only: book your slot.' Like a theme park attraction for billionaires."
Tanya laughed, shaking her head. "So what we've been calling a flaw is really just packaging."
Cameron frowned, then reluctantly smiled. "From a technical standpoint, yes. The system's stable within that window. That's all we need for this role."
Still, Tanya's mind spun through alternatives. "Auxiliary power? Multiple reactors?"
"Adds mass, complexity, and doesn't solve the base physics," Cameron replied. "The shields distort dimensions. That's always going to eat energy. It only gets worse as the size increases. Adding more power takes more space, which defeats the purpose"
Janet slid into the conversation. "Or you stop worrying about efficiency and lean into it. Military ships run power-hungry systems all the time. If they can, so can you, that is assuming you can get your hands on their tech."
Tanya raised a eye brow "Military-grade power systems?"
"Exactly. They're always a generation ahead. Capacitors, reactors, distribution protocols… we might be chasing solutions that already exist in classified specs."
"The question is whether we can access any of it, I could ask Amara" Tanya said aloud.
Janet smirked. "Leave that part to me. Some people owe us favours"
Tanya put in a request with Amara just in case. It couldn't hurt to have a backup plan.
They loaded the parameters into the simulator. Virtual models of the surfer dove into storm bands, skimmed pressure waves, and clawed through turbulence. Test after test ticked green.
"No collapses," Janet observed. "No overloads. It holds."
"Two-hour ride limit," Cameron said, almost ritualistically.
"Two-hour joyride," Janet corrected with a grin.
Tanya was worried that the simulation showed a cruel death when the shield failed. She would have to put in some systems to automatically ascend at a certain threshold. Tanya studied the new test results one more time, noting the elegant way all the systems worked together. The quantum-enhanced surfboard, the repurposed vortex drive shields, all formed a coherent whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. More importantly, the automatic safety protocols she'd insisted on showed clean emergency ascent profiles that would get a pilot to safety even if something went catastrophically wrong. "I'm satisfied," she said finally, and meant it. "The ship is ready for fabrication. Time to build something that'll make the galaxy take notice."