The Starfield Farming Sovereign (Elizabeth Schofield) novel Chapter 356

The Farming Saint in the Starry Wasteland

Chapter 356 One Thousand and Forty-Eight

Elmer paused, then straightened, and with his one working arm raised a clean, formal salute.

+5 Pearls

“Ms. Schofield, I need to say this in person.” Elmer’s voice was quiet but carried weight. “If it weren’t for the product you sent to General Hewitt, my team and I wouldn’t be here on leave right now. We’d have been medically discharged. Or worse. Your vegetables stabilized our mental power injuries when nothing else was working. They gave us a chance to recover. I won’t forget that.”

He meant every word.

The mission had gone wrong fast. Several members of his unit had taken severe mental power trauma in the field, the kind that conventional medical treatment could only do so much for.

It was the farm produce Elizabeth had sent through the Hewitts that had turned the tide, steadying injuries that had been heading somewhere irreversible.

Living through that, from the edge of the worst possible outcome back to standing here whole, had rearranged everything Elmer had previously thought about the woman in front of him.

Elizabeth hadn’t expected this. She’d sent those things to Cristian as a way of returning what he’d quietly transferred to her, nothing calculated about it, no thought of who might benefit beyond him.

She waved it off. “It worked out. That’s what matters.”

Then the corner of her mouth lifted, just slightly. “That said, Lieutenant, if you ever do decide to leave the service, the offer stands. You’d have all the farm produce you could eat.”

Elmer laughed, the tension in his face easing fully for the first time. “I appreciate that, Ms. Schofield. I’ve still got time left to serve. But if that day ever comes, I’ll take you up on it seriously.”

With that settled, they got straight to business.

Elmer turned and gestured toward the landing pad behind him, where a crowd had formed in the time they’d been talking, rows of people who’d disembarked quietly and arranged themselves into neat columns without being told, standing in almost total silence.

“Per Commander and Mrs. Hewitt’s instructions, everyone is present and accounted for. 327 discharged veterans, plus accompanying family members including spouses, children, and parents, totaling 1,048 individuals. Complete personnel files are here for your review.”

Over a thousand people.

Elizabeth looked out across the pad.

She’d told herself she was prepared for this. She hadn’t been, not quite. The columns stretched across nearly half the landing area, row after row of people standing in the pale light of Planet AOOL and the scale of it settled into her chest with a quiet thud.

Zaylee’s message had mentioned a group of vetted veterans and their families needing placement, a fair number of them, see what you can take. Elizabeth had figured a few hundred at the outside. Not this. This was a small town picking up and moving.

9:08 am P PPP.

Chapter 356 One Thousand and Forty-Eight

+5 Pearls

On the left side of the formation stood the veterans. They’d traded their uniforms for matching dark civilian clothes, but the posture hadn’t gone anywhere. Backs straight, eyes steady, the kind of stillness that gets into a person’s bones after years of service.

Many of them carried visible injuries. Missing limbs, uneven gaits, the evidence of what the work had cost them. But none of them looked defeated. There was something quieter in their faces, the particular calm of people who’ve been through enough that uncertainty doesn’t rattle them anymore, watching the horizon with level eyes.

On the right stood their families. White-haired elders leaning on each other. Women holding themselves together with visible effort.

Children of all sizes, held by hand or in arms, wide-eyed and curious, taking in this unfamiliar planet and the woman standing at the head of their column. The ones young enough to fidget or fuss were gently, wordlessly settled by the parents beside them before anything could escalate.

The whole formation, veterans and families, grandparents and toddlers, was almost uncannily quiet. No murmuring. No shifting. Even the children were barely making a sound.

The only things moving were the wind picking at jacket hems and loose hair, and the low mechanical cooling of the transport ships in the background.

It was a kind of discipline that told Elizabeth something real about how the military chose and shaped its people.

Elmer had caught the flicker of surprise in her expression and read it wrong. He leaned in slightly. “Ms. Schofield, Commander and Mrs. Zaylee were all very clear, please don’t feel any pressure. These people have all been through a first round of vetting, clean records, reliable character, but you don’t have to take all of them. Take whoever fits the farm’s actual needs and capacity. Anyone you don’t select, I’ll personally relocate to other Hewitt holdings or placement sites elsewhere. You won’t be left holding anything you didn’t choose.”

It was exactly the right thing to say, and said the right way, no pressure, no implied obligation, just a clean transfer of choice back to her. The Hewitts, whatever else they were, knew how to treat people.

Elizabeth felt the warmth of it settle somewhere practical.

“Can I walk the line?” she said, and nodded toward the formation.

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9:09 am P p pp.

The Farming Saint in the Starry Wasteland