If the population was small enough and their situation checked out, taking them could be worth the risk.

Labor was useful, fighters were useful, and populations with every reason to hate the Kharov were not something to discard lightly.

But she wanted verification.

So Vaeren was given another task.

He did not complain. In truth, part of him already understood that if the roles were reversed, he would have wanted someone to at least ask.

He took a small escort and crossed toward the waiting group while his own people continued loading in the distance.

The young leader stepped forward the moment Vaeren came into view.

He was trying very hard not to look desperate, and failing.

"You’re one of the ones they came for," he said.

"Yes."

"Then speak for us."

Vaeren studied him for a moment. Young, frightened, stubborn enough to still come anyway. Not stupid. Just cornered.

"First, I need facts," Vaeren said. "Who are you, how many of you are there, and why should I tell them to take you?"

The question was blunt, but there was no use softening it.

The young leader answered just as directly.

His people, who called themselves the Hushen, had been moved to this world within the last few decades after resisting Kharov’s labor demands elsewhere.

Their total numbers on the planet were not large. A few hundred thousand at most, perhaps less.

They had no separate transport capacity, no hidden fleet, and no illusions left about what would happen to them if the Kharov reasserted control after this attack.

They were physically stronger than many of the other captive races in the world, which had only made the Kharov use them harder.

While he spoke, Vaeren listened carefully.

The story fit too well to be something that they could come up with on the fly.

It also fit what he knew of the Kharov.

"Can your people move quickly?" he asked.

"If told to," the young leader said.

"Can they fight if needed?"

A pause.

"Yes."

That part, at least, Vaeren believed without difficulty.

Even so, belief was not enough. He explained that he would inspect their settlement and judge for himself whether what they were saying held up.

If it did, he would argue for them. If it did not, then they would have to trust in their own fate after Solenne left.

The young leader accepted that without protest, which told Vaeren more than any speech could have.

He had no leverage, and he knew it.

The inspection took time, and time was the one thing none of them wanted to spend, but rushing it blindly would have been worse.

Vaeren moved through the Hushen living zones with narrowed eyes, looking for the signs that mattered.

Population density. Signs of discipline or chaos. Hidden armed groups. Kharov collaboration markers.

Internal violence. Hoarded wealth that would not fit their story. Any of the little things that suggested a person might become more of a burden than a gain.

What he found instead was bleakness.

Worse housing than his own people had endured. Harsher food lines. Hard labor marks are visible almost everywhere.

Too many of the young are already carrying the posture of the defeated. But beneath that, he also found something else.

Order, not in a perfect way, but something that was forged by necessity. Families are still grouped properly. Stores accounted for. Watch systems were maintained despite oppression. A people bent low, but not rotten.

By the time he finished, he was tired in a way battle had not made him.

He sent the result back to Solenne.

’Worth taking,’ he said. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

It was just a few short words, but for him, it was enough of an estimation after what he saw, which was also sent along with his own findings.

Solenne listened to the report in silence and then made her decision.

They would be taken.

But only because the numbers were manageable, the conditions had been checked, and the operation remained ahead of schedule.

Had any one of those pieces been different, the answer might have changed.

Vaeren returned to the young Hushen leader and saw the answer in his face before he even spoke. Hope had made him look more frightened, not less.

"They’ll take you," Vaeren said. "But you move when told, and you keep your people under control. This is not a rescue where you get to make demands."

The young leader bowed his head once, too relieved to care about pride.

"Thank you, we will make sure to follow you."

Still, the delay cost them part of a day, and then another, because moving one desperate clan in the middle of a war was hard enough.

Moving two without letting panic ruin everything was harder. Solenne did not like lingering in the system any longer than necessary, especially this close to Kharov territory, where a sharp-eyed response could eventually notice something was wrong, but neither did she intend to depart with half the work done after committing to it.

So she stayed long enough to finish properly.

Back at Larkspur Haven, Aurelian finished reading the newest operation update while walking out of the command corridor and slowed just slightly.

Lysara, keeping pace beside him, noticed at once.

"Complication?" she asked.

"An additional population," he said. "Small enough to take. Vaeren checked them."

She was quiet for a moment as she considered that.

"And?"

"And Solenne judged it acceptable."

Lysara gave a small nod.

"Then it probably is."

Aurelian kept walking.

The move carried risk, of course. Every extracted population did. More mouths, more logistics, more settlement pressure, more chance for internal friction.

But labor mattered, and taking useful people away from the Kharov while strengthening his own position was precisely the kind of frontier arithmetic he intended to keep doing.

Provided it was done carefully.

He lowered the report and looked ahead, already adjusting the next chain of requirements in his mind. Intake. Screening.

Temporary housing. Work sorting. Local supervision. Political handling on Haven’s side once people realized that the world under his control was not only rebuilding itself but starting to absorb populations from outside.