Chapter 30

Ricky looked at the group.

To give extra food for thought, he said, “People, it may not seem like much right now, but we can make this an awesome community to raise our kids in. With all the traffic that goes past this planet, we have a huge opportunity for trade once we get established.”

“We have already found a lot of eatable native fruits that are similar to those found on Earth. We have fish we can catch to sustain us until we can get some herd animals sent and green vegetables established.”

“We have chickens,” one of the girls said, “and we have some incubators. They grow fast, and with those gnarly fridge cubes, we can store a lot of chicken meat and eggs for ships to buy.”

“We have that new wheat, too. In this climate, it would do well. In four months, we can have a cube full of wheat to feed us, and we can cater to a lot more people,” one of the boys said.

“Now wait a minute, those goods belong to the SWA,” Lyle Jeffers responded.

“No, they don’t, Sir,” one of the older boys responded politely. “We were told that when we reached our place of settlement, certain goods would be assigned to each of us kids. We could grow them or sell them, but they were ours. We have it in writing, Sir.”

“Well, we are at our place of settlement, and I’m happy to take up a farm and sell my produce to this community. My sister, Rose, is one of the fifteen-year-olds, and I will be more than happy to have her stay with me and my girlfriend, Tiffi, and we will look after her.”

The adults were surprised when a lot of the older teenagers also said they would look after the younger kids. Some were happy to form small families from their groups, as they wanted to stay together.

Quite a few of the couples and pregnant women from the original group stood up. They asked the children if they wanted to pick them as their guardians. They were happy to talk to any that were interested.

The crew of Striker One were amused when the party went from a meet and greet to an adoption party. Having had a few days to get to know each other also helped.

Whitney and her committee had already worked out parcels of land they were planning on selling to settlers after their own people were established. They had also blocked out areas to be set up as businesses, shopping precincts and light industries in the compound. They also had a list of businesses they would like people to start.

The people were soon poring over the lists and maps. Since they were going to use Queen Lee’s Charter, they already had prices for everything; they just needed money.

“Um, well, I can probably set up a bank since I already have coins like they use on Utopia and Harmony,” Lyle offered.

“I wasn’t informed that the orphans were going to get goods as well as cash. I was given a list of accounts for them, and they all have credit in them. The eighteen-year-olds were to be given theirs once we were settled. The guardians were to look after the rest.”

This was news to the orphans. Some of the guardians were not pleased as they had intended to manage the accounts to their benefit, and with the orphans declaring their independence, this wouldn’t happen. However, there was nothing they could say since everyone now knew about the money.

Interestingly, it was the original settlers who were going to be disadvantaged as they had very little in the way of personal wealth since they had been stripped of their worldly goods by Rupert.

For the time being, they were relying on the goods that Dusty and her crew had supplied them, those they had recovered from the cave that they considered community assets and their clothes from their old accommodations.

Their worries were put on hold when they got some surprise visitors.

“What did we miss?” Lee asked the shocked group.

They all gaped at the people standing in front of them. Lee held a little girl’s hand. She had hair as red as her mother’s, but it had soft curls. She was nearly three years of age and pretty as a picture in her frilly, pale green party dress.

Sean had a two-and-a-half-year-old boy on one hip and a two-year-old one on his other. Both boys were the spitting image of their tall, handsome father. Although Jackson had Lee’s red hair, Lexis was more strawberry blonde with dark red streaks in it.

Between them was a shorter woman who had attracted a lot of attention. It was the long dark green hair with blonde streaks, pale green skin and the huge cicadas’ shaped, golden wings that did it.

Many of the guests sucked in breaths of awe at the beautiful Faerie shapeshifter. Not that Lee and Sean didn’t get their share of the attention. Leif, the two-year-old and Lexis’s twin sister, was red-headed like Lee but had pale green streaks in her hair. She was in the pram in front of Donny.

It may have struck some of the people that while they were dressed nicely for a party, they weren’t dressed in a manner that many would assume royalty should be.

The two tall men dressed in a uniform that many recognised as that worn by Lee’s Royal Guard stood behind the family. If anything, they were the most elaborately dressed. The locals were to learn that Lee didn’t like a lot of pomp and ceremony.

The long, dark emerald, sleeveless dress Lee wore hugged her shapely figure to her hips and then dropped in soft folds to her feet. The grey suit with a white shirt that Sean wore was expertly cut and set off his broad shoulders, trim waist and long muscular legs. He was a bit of a heartthrob as far as the women were concerned.