Shilp and Astrid Eke are arguing with each other when Cleve and I come across them seated at a table in the common room. “No! We have to do something. Ambush them, come to a deal with them, whatever. But something!” Astrid is saying. She slaps her hand on the table to punctuate her point. Her outfit looks carefully chosen, though it’s not of great quality. I wouldn’t say it’s stylish—more like it’s evocative of a uniform. I bet she values precision, with how neatly that scarf is tied.
Astrid has pale white skin and blonde hair fading to gray, coloration that her brother shares. He looks taller than she, though maybe that’s just his seated posture. He’s not as broad in the chest as I am. Shilp’s clothes are shabby, but wow, has he got a lot of accessories. They’re not well coordinated, though. Bracelets, pins, anything shiny. Craws would love him. “Well, maybe we can come to a deal with them, but I don’t think ambushing them is a good idea,” Shilp replies more quietly. “They’ll probably just roll right over us,” he adds with a hopeful note.
Rumors of the approach of Morgan’s Planetary Security Force are definitely circulating now. This is great, as it gives us the perfect in for speaking with the siblings. “Are these two seats free?” I ask.
Shilp looks up at me with some confusion. “I guess so? Uh, you two are the newish people, right?”
“We are some of the newer people, yes. This is Cleve. He’s an old war buddy of Roze’s. My name is Mariah.” For some reason, Astrid’s eyes are shooting daggers at Cleve. He doesn’t look too thrilled to see her, either.
Shilp brightens up. “Oh! You were just on some kind of mission or something in the Morgan dome.”
“It’s true, we’re very recently arrived from the Morgan domes,” I confirm. “It sounded like that’s what you were talking about—Morgan’s approaching Planetary Security Force.” I sit down next to Astrid, freeing Cleve to take the seat next to Shilp.
“Yeah, I don’t know what we’re going to do…” Shilp says with a sigh. “But really, what’s the chance they’ll even find us, right?” he adds optimistically. “This place is hard to find!”
“When we were at the Morgan dome, we did actually see the Planetary Security Force and get a good look at their numbers and equipment,” I say, presenting us as people knowledgeable about the topic so that the Ekes will feel comfortable folding us into their conversation. “It’s too much to take on directly. Even Chloe agrees with that. But there’s still plenty that we can do to disrupt them.” I name-drop Chloe to give my words more weight. If the Ekes understand we’ve already been socializing ideas among leaders in Data Haven, maybe they’ll value our perspective more. Shilp seems pretty flexible to me—hopefully it’s that he’s adaptable, not just wishy-washy. Persuading him to defend Data Haven should be pretty easy.
I’m not sure about Astrid, though. Her self-confidence could be well-founded, or it could be stubbornness and pride. Based on her response, she’d get along well with Louisa. “Ah! You’ve been at the dome, so you’ve seen all these things we’re up against. We can’t have them encroaching on our territory. And you’re a military person, too,” she adds, looking at Cleve. “So you know how we can set up an ambush. We’ll need you on the team,” she tells him. “We need to ambush them for those supplies.”
She says it like it’s a foregone conclusion, like an ambush is a simple matter and no details need to be worked out. Cleve’s eyebrows go up. He opens his mouth to respond, but Astrid continues, “It won’t be a problem getting the rest of the council to agree. This is the best way to proceed.” She assumes she’s already on it—great, no need for us to convince her to join.
“An ambush is not completely out of the question, from a military perspective—especially if we focus on supply lines. But we don’t have the numbers to do a direct assault,” Cleve tells her, tempering her expectations. He lays out all the facts and figures he recorded at the parade. “We don’t have the numbers or the weaponry to get through all that. We stand to lose more than we can gain if we’re not careful. We need to assess all the options we have before we just decide on one approach.”
Astrid stands up abruptly. “Whatever. I don’t need you. I can plan this myself.” She leaves in a huff. Clearly Cleve has rubbed her the wrong way.
Shilp waits until his sister is out the door and then says, “It seems like you’re talking sense. We should just negotiate with the Morgan forces. Like, if they want information on the Stepdaughters of Chiron, sure! That’s some big great powers fighting it out. We don’t have to get involved in that. We can just stay out of it. Or like, maybe we can get some extra food supplies, since I know we’re running low. We can be of service to the Morgan domes—or frankly, to the Stepdaughters of Chiron. Or we can just stay out of it,” he reiterates. I let the solo conversation run its course, watching Shilp waffle back and forth without input from us so that I can see where he ends up. “We should just stay out of it, I think. That’s the easiest thing to do, isn’t it? Right?” Shilp looks at us for agreement, but he doesn’t find it. “But then that puts us in the middle, and if they both hate us…” His voice drifts off. If we play this right, we’ll just need the right nudge to put him on the side we want.