Mira woke to the sound of a rooster crowing somewhere outside the guest house. For a disoriented moment she thought she was still aboard the *Exodus*, dreaming of old Earth media archives. Then the scent of woodsmoke and the weight of real gravity pulled her fully awake.
Julian was already up, sitting at the small wooden table with a cup of something steaming in his hands. His eyes were bloodshot; he clearly hadn't slept.
"You look like you spent the night dissecting their genome in your head," Mira said, swinging her legs off the bed.
"Pretty much," he admitted. "Mara said she'd take us to their healer this morning. Someone who knows the old stories better than she does."
Reyes stirred in the next bunk. "Healer. Great. Hope they don't try to bleed us or burn sage over our heads."
Julian shot him a look. "They're not primitives, Reyes. They have metallurgy, animal husbandry, irrigation. They're just... selective about technology."
Mira dressed quickly in her expedition uniform lighter than the landing suits, but still marked with the *Exodus* insignia. The fabric felt suddenly alien here, too clean, too synthetic.
Outside, Haven Valley was already alive with morning activity. Children chased chickens across the green. Women carried baskets of fresh-picked greens toward a communal kitchen. Men sharpened tools or led horses to a trough. No one stared at the sky-people openly, but Mira felt eyes on them everywhere.
Mara met them at the edge of the settlement, flanked by two young men carrying long rifles that looked hand-crafted but well-maintained.
"Good morning," she said. "Sleep well?"
"Better than in zero-g," Mira replied honestly.
Mara's smile was brief. "Come. Elder Tomas is expecting you."
They followed her along a packed dirt path that wound between cabins and gardens. The settlement was larger than it had appeared in the dark over a hundred structures now that Mira could see clearly. Solar stills glinted on rooftops, collecting water. A windmill turned lazily, pumping from a well. Someone had salvaged pre-war photovoltaic cells and integrated them seamlessly into thatched roofs.
Not primitives at all.
Elder Tomas lived on the far side of the valley, in a cabin built into the hillside itself. The door was heavy oak, reinforced with iron bands. Inside, it was cool and dim, smelling of herbs and old leather.
Tomas was ancient easily over a hundred, if Mira was any judge. His skin was like weathered parchment, but his eyes were sharp and blue. He sat in a hand-carved chair by a stone hearth, a blanket over his knees despite the warmth of the day.
"So," he said without preamble as they entered. "The star-folk return at last."
His voice was strong, carrying the weight of years.
Mira inclined her head respectfully. "We didn't know anyone had survived."
"Many didn't," Tomas replied. "But some did. And some changed."
He gestured for them to sit on benches opposite him. Mara remained standing by the door, arms crossed.
Julian leaned forward eagerly. "Mara mentioned 'the Change.' Natural selection? Genetic mutation?"
Tomas chuckled dryly. "Both. And neither. The bombs didn't just burn flesh they rewrote it for some of us."
He pulled back his sleeve, revealing arms corded with muscle despite his age. Beneath the skin, those same dark branching patterns Mara had shown them almost like roots, or circuits.
"We call it the Mark," Tomas said. "Not everyone has it. Not everyone survives without it. But those who do... we're different."
"How different?" Julian pressed.
Tomas met his gaze steadily. "We don't get sick. Not from radiation. Not from most poisons. Wounds heal faster. We live longer—I'm one hundred and twelve years old, Doctor. And I expect another thirty yet."
Mira felt a chill. The implications were staggering.
"But there's a cost," Tomas continued. "Always a cost. The Change makes us... sensitive. To certain things."
"What things?" Reyes asked.
Tomas glanced at Mara. She nodded slightly.
"Machines," she said quietly. "Complex electronics. The more advanced, the worse it is. Some of us get nosebleeds around simple radios. Others... worse."
Julian's eyes widened. "Electromagnetic hypersensitivity? On a genetic level?"
"Worse than that," Tomas said. "The Mark reacts. Painfully. Fatally, in high doses. We've lost people who ventured too close to the old automated defenses in the ruined cities."
Mira exchanged glances with her team. This explained the deliberate low-tech lifestyle. It wasn't choice it was survival.
"Why does this happen?" Julian asked.
Tomas shrugged. "The old scientists among us before they died thought the radiation triggered some ancient repair mechanism in our DNA. Something dormant. It fixes damage aggressively, but it also makes our cells... conductive, in a way. Electricity disrupts the process. Too much, and the body turns on itself."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"There are stories," he continued, "of children born without the Mark. They sicken and die young unless kept away from all machines. And there are others... born with too much of it."
"Too much?" Mira asked.
Tomas's face darkened. "The Touched. Their Mark is black as night. They feel everything the earth's currents, storms coming days away, sometimes even thoughts. But it drives them mad. We... we don't let them live long."
The room fell silent.
Outside, a bell began to ring urgent, rapid strokes.
Mara straightened. "Raiders."
The word sent ice through Mira's veins.
"Stay here," Mara ordered, already moving for the door. "You'll be safe."
But Mira was on her feet. "We can help. We have weapons"
Mara shook her head sharply. "Your weapons will bring worse attention. Stay hidden."
She was gone before they could argue, the two guards following.
Julian looked at Mira. "Raiders? In this paradise?"
"Resources are still scarce," Reyes said grimly. "Food, tools, breeding stock. Same old story."
They moved to the small window. From the hillside, they had a clear view of the valley.
Figures were pouring from cabins men and women both, arming themselves with bows, spears, a few rifles. Children were herded toward a central bunker. Horses were being saddled.
On the western ridge, movement caught Mira's eye. Riders perhaps thirty, mounted on hardy ponies. They wore mismatched armor: leather reinforced with metal plates, some scavenged pre-war kevlar. Their weapons glinted in the morning sun.
One rider carried a banner: a red circle on black.
"The Red Circle tribe," Tomas said from behind them. He'd risen silently. "They've been probing our borders for months. Looking for weakness."
The raiders began their descent, spreading out in a practiced maneuver.
Haven's defenders formed a line at the valley mouth archers on the flanks, spearmen in the center. Mara stood at the front, a longbow in her hands.
The first arrows flew.
Mira watched in horror as the exchange began. The raiders had firearms old-world assault rifles, by the sound but they used them sparingly. Ammunition was precious.
A defender fell, arrow in his throat. A raider tumbled from his horse, chest pierced.
The fight was brutal, intimate. No energy weapons, no drones. Just muscle and steel and wood.
Julian's face was pale. "We have pulse rifles in the lander. Stun settings. We could end this without"
"No," Tomas said firmly. "If the Red Circle sees star-weapons, they'll bring every tribe within a thousand kilometers down on us. And on you."
The battle swayed.
The raiders pressed forward, trying to flank. Haven's line bent but held.
Then something changed.
A group of defenders perhaps ten stepped forward from the rear. They were different. Their skin showed the Mark prominently, dark lines stark against pale flesh. They moved with eerie coordination.
The Touched, Mira realized.
They didn't carry weapons.
The raiders reached them first.
What happened next defied explanation.
The Touched raised their hands, and the raiders' horses screamed. Riders clutched their heads, some falling from saddles as if struck. Blood streamed from noses, ears.
One raider fired wildly his bullet struck a Touched in the shoulder. The wound bled black, not red.
The Touched didn't fall. Instead, the shooter convulsed, foaming at the mouth, and dropped dead.
The raiders broke.
They fled up the ridge in panic, leaving their dead and wounded.
The valley fell silent except for the moans of the injured.
Mira's team stared in stunned horror.
"What... what was that?" Reyes whispered.
"The cost," Tomas said heavily. "The Change taken too far. They feel the world's currents and can push back. But it burns them out. Most of those ten won't live through the week."
He sat down heavily, looking suddenly very old.
Mara returned an hour later, blood on her hands but none of it hers. Her face was grim.
"Twelve dead," she reported. "Twenty wounded. But we held."
She looked at Mira's team with new eyes wary, calculating.
"Your arrival brought this," she said quietly. "The Red Circle has scouts everywhere. They saw your fire in the sky."
Mira felt guilt like a stone in her gut. "We didn't know"
"I know," Mara cut in. "But now every tribe within radio range will know the star-folk have returned. Some will want trade. Some will want your technology. Some will want to make sure no one else gets it."
She paused.
"And there are worse things than raiders out there."
"Worse?" Julian asked.
Mara nodded toward the north. "The Iron Cities. Automated defenses still active after all these years. Guarding things best left buried."
"Nuclear arsenals?" Reyes guessed.
"Among others," Mara said. "And deeper in the mountains... things the old world built and then forgot. Or tried to."
The implications hung heavy.
That afternoon, they buried Haven's dead in a grove of aspens. The ceremony was simple no priests, no scripture. Just words spoken by family and friends, and songs in a language that was English but changed, vowels shifted, consonants softened by centuries.
Mira stood with her team, feeling like intruders.
Afterward, Mara found them by the stream.
"You can't stay here," she said bluntly. "Not long. The Red Circle will return with allies. And others will come."
"We have to report back to the *Exodus*," Mira said. "There are twenty thousand people up there who think Earth is empty."
Mara's expression softened slightly. "Then tell them it's not. Tell them it's ours now. Changed, but ours."
"But you could come with us," Julian burst out. "We have medical facilities, clean energy"
Mara shook her head. "Your machines would kill us. Slowly or quickly, but surely. The Mark doesn't tolerate them."
She looked at Mira directly.
"But perhaps... there's middle ground. Trade. Knowledge. Careful contact."
Mira nodded slowly. "We'll need to establish protocols. Quarantine zones where your people can interact without risk."
"And where your people can learn what the world has become," Mara added.
They spent the next days in tense preparation.
Julian worked with Haven's healers women and men who used herbs and careful surgery, guided by knowledge passed down orally. He was frustrated by their rejection of even basic electronics, but fascinated by their success rates.
Reyes scouted the perimeter with Mara's warriors, learning their tracking skills and teaching basic orbital tactics that required no tech.
Mira spent hours with Mara and Tomas, mapping known settlements, danger zones, resources.
The picture that emerged was complex.
Humanity had survived not as one people, but as fragments. Some, like Haven, had adapted through the Change. Others lived in deep bunkers, emerging only in sealed suits. A few clung to pre-war technology in fortified enclaves, but paid terrible prices in cancer and sterility.
And everywhere, the land itself was different. Animals had mutated too larger, more aggressive in some cases. Plants grew strangely, some toxic, some miraculous.
On the fifth day, everything changed again.
A runner arrived from a neighboring settlement exhausted, half-dead from travel.
"The Red Circle rides with the Iron Priests," he gasped. "Hundreds. They come for the star-folk and their weapons."
Mara's face went still.
"The Iron Priests?" Mira asked.
"Technophiles," Tomas explained grimly. "They worship the old machines. Build terrible things from scraps. Their leaders can tolerate high radiation wear lead suits, inject chelators. They want your technology to rebuild the world in their image."
"How long?" Mara demanded.
"Three days. Maybe four."
The valley exploded into action.
Defenses were strengthened. Traps set. Scouts sent out.
Mira called her team together that night.
"We have to leave," she said. "Tomorrow. We can lead them away from Haven draw them toward the lander site."
"And then what?" Reyes asked. "Our pulse rifles have limited charges. And the lander isn't armed for war."
"We get airborne," Mira said. "Contact the *Exodus*. Bring down reinforcements."
Julian looked troubled. "But the habitat council they'll want to study the Change. They might not see Haven as allies."
"They'll have to," Mira said firmly. "Because Haven is humanity too."
Mara found her later, as she packed gear by firelight.
"You're leaving," the surface woman said. It wasn't a question.
"Tomorrow at dawn," Mira confirmed. "We'll draw them west, away from your valley."
Mara was quiet for a long moment.
"There's something you need to see first," she said finally. "Before you go."
She led Mira through the darkness to a hidden cave behind the elder's cabin. Inside, lanterns revealed walls covered in paintings crude but powerful images of the war, the dying, the Change.
And at the far end, something else.
A metal door, pre-war manufacture. Sealed with a combination lock that somehow still worked.
Mara spun the dial with practiced motions.
The door opened onto a small chamber climate-controlled, lights flickering on automatically.
Inside were computers. Old, but functional. Screens glowed with preserved data.
"What is this?" Mira whispered.
"A vault," Mara said. "Built by survivors who knew the Change would make technology dangerous. They preserved what they could medical texts, engineering schematics, history. For a time when we might be ready again."
She gestured to a terminal.
"There's a message. Recorded four hundred years ago. For when the star-folk returned."
Mira's hands shook as she activated the playback.
A woman's face appeared tired, radiation-scarred, but determined.
"If you're watching this," the recording said, "then some of us made it. And some of you came back.
"We couldn't go with you. The radiation was too high, and we didn't know then about the Change. But we stayed. To hold the Earth. To keep it human.
"There are others out there some friendly, some not. Some who want to undo what was done. Some who want to finish it.
"Be careful who you trust.
"And tell the people in the sky: Earth remembers them. But it's not their world anymore. Not exactly.
"Make peace if you can. Learn from us. We paid the price so you wouldn't have to.
"And if you can't make peace... then fight for the right side.
"The side that chooses life."
The recording ended.
Mira stood frozen.
Mara closed the vault door gently.
"Now you know," she said. "We're not relics. We're the next chapter."
Dawn came too quickly.
Mira's team slipped away before first light, moving west toward the landing site. Behind them, Haven prepared for siege.
They traveled fast, using orbital navigation even without active comms old habits.
By midday, they crested a ridge and saw them.
The army.
Hundreds of riders. Wagons pulled by mutated oxen the size of elephants. And in the center machines.
Not just guns. Vehicles. Armored cars with spinning radar dishes. A tank, somehow restored to function.
The Iron Priests.
And at their head, a figure in powered armor that looked almost pre-war military.
Mira's blood ran cold.
They'd brought something out of the forbidden zones.
Reyes whistled low. "That's not good."
"No," Mira agreed. "It's not."
Behind the army, smoke rose from the direction of Haven Valley.
They were too late.
The war for Earth the second one had already begun.