The Starfield Farming Sovereign (Elizabeth Schofield) novel Chapter 358

Chapter 358 All of Them

S.Peart

Elizabeth’s voice wasn’t loud, but she put just enough behind it to carry across the entire landing area.

“I will take all of them.”

They landed like something dropped from a great height.

Elmer’s head snapped toward her, his suspended arm jerking with the motion before he caught himself.

The formation held its shape, discipline doing what discipline does, but the stillness that followed lasted only a heartbeat before something broke loose underneath it.

A wave of low, barely-contained sound moved through the crowd, not quite voices, not quite silence, and a thousand pairs of eyes filled with something that had nowhere else to go.

The little girl named Niki pressed herself against her father’s leg. “Daddy,” she whispered, “we get to stay, right?”

The man with one arm couldn’t speak. He nodded, hard, and reached for his wife’s hand.

The old man in the wheelchair lifted a trembling hand and pressed it to the corner of his eye.

The young mother buried her face in her baby’s blanket, her shoulders moving.

Elizabeth watched all of it with a calm expression, and felt, somewhere underneath that calm, a small and honest flicker of guilt.

She was taking all of them because she needed all of them to work. Not out of generosity. Not out of the goodness of her heart.

Then again, she thought, what matters is what you do, not why you do it.

The guilt evaporated.

She looked at Elmer, who was still staring. “What? You think the farm can’t feed this many people?”

He shook himself back to the present, and the relief that spread across his face was as real as anything she’d seen all day. “No. Not at all. Ms. Schofield, on behalf of every one of them and their families, thank

you.”

He raised his hand in a salute, smooth and unguarded this time.

Elizabeth waved it off. “Save the thanks. Once they’re on the farm, they follow the farm’s rules and they pull their weight. I don’t carry dead weight, but I don’t shortchange anyone who works hard and keeps to the rules either. Make sure they understand that.”

“Yes, ma’am. Elmer turned to face the formation, squared his shoulders, and announced her decision in a voice that reached every comer of the landing pad

With that settled, Elizabeth reached out to Tiffany and asked her to come handle the personnel handover and initial placement logistics with Elmer directly.

9:09 am PPPP.

Chapter 358 All of Them

5 Pearis

Tiffany was the farm’s second-in-command on the administrative side, and she’d come up through the military herself. Nobody was better suited to settling in a group like this.

Then she pulled up Fiona’s channel.

“Fiona. I need 3,000 meal portions, same standard as today’s sale, as soon as you can.”

A beat of surprised silence from the other end. “3,000? Boss, is this another bulk order? We’ve already got tomorrow’s reservations filling up and…”

“Not for sale. 2,000 go to the new staff as a welcome meal. The other 1,000 get packed up for Elmer to take when he leaves, a thank-you from the farm for the referral.”

Another pause, shorter this time, and then Fiona’s voice came back brisk and smiling. “Copy that, boss. 2,000 on-site, 1,000 packed to go. I’m on it.”

Elizabeth ended the call and let herself breathe for a moment.

Getting over a thousand people fed and settled was going to be a serious undertaking. A hot, genuinely good welcome meal, one that happened to carry the farm’s particular restorative quality, was the fastest way to take the edge off a long journey and show people in plain terms what kind of place they’d arrived

She was about to turn back to Elmer to go over the remaining logistics when her eye caught something at the edge of her vision. One of the transport ships still had its hatch open.

And in the shadow of that opening, a small fuzzy head was poking out, two lopsided little pigtails and a pair of eyes like dark grapes, peering at her with a mixture of curiosity and shyness that only a very young child can pull off without trying.

Three years old, maybe four. Thin little face. Remarkable eyes.

Their gazes connected. The girl hadn’t expected to be spotted. She went still for a moment, but she didn’t pull back. She just blinked, and kept looking, with the kind of complete, uncomplicated attention that small children have and adults spend years trying to recover.

Elizabeth felt the corner of her mouth move.

Then a hand appeared in the hatchway, roughened but gentle, settling on top of the girl’s head.

A woman stepped into the light, her face tired, her expression quietly anxious, and she gave Elizabeth a small apologetic smile before leaning down to murmur something to the child and drawing her back into the shadow of the ship. The hatch began to close.

The smile on Elizabeth’s face faded slightly.

She turned to Elmer. “I ieutenant. Is there someone still on that ship?”

He followed her look and caught the last few inches of the hatch sliding shut.

9:09 am Pppp.

The Farming Saint in the Starry Wasteland