Isekai Family Robinson: A slow-burn Isekai

Alejandra Albright focused on the stew.

Otherwise she was going to fly to pieces.

"Here Mom," Lucas said, trotting up with an arm-full of spice bottles. "Here's what's left. We're running low on salt though, because someone," he shot a glare towards where Olivia was working with Dinah and the fairy knight, "keeps putting too much on her food."

"Thank you mijo," Alejandra said in a quiet, steady voice. She indicated to Luc to drop the spices next to the campfire as she focused on the stew, on stirring it, on the coolness of the metal ladle in her hand. She focused on the scents wafting up from the stew pot. The familiar smells of salt and pepper and sage, with just a hint of chili pepper.

She tried not to focus on the way her hands wanted to shake apart. Or on how the bile in her stomach wanted to edge up into her throat. Or how the sounds of the battle hadn't left her ears yet. Or how she could still feel the enemy out there, watching her, sneaking up on her and her command with their knives out and murder in their heart and turn around soldier he's right behind you turn around!

Her vision cleared just as she felt the cold polymer grip of her pistol hit her palm, and she sucked in a breath through her nose, forcing her fingers to release the firearm before it cleared her holster. Then she forced them back to the ladle. And kept cooking.

"Mom? It's happening again, isn't it?"

Lucas's voice was a shock. Her eyes snapped up to his face and opened wide. Had he been there the entire time? She thought he'd left after he delivered the spices. How–

"Dad said sometimes talking about it would help. Would talking about it now help?"

Her son's voice was quiet and serious, and she could see fear and determination warring in his eyes. Her brave boy, who had stood toe to toe with monsters and cut them down like a seasoned professional, was scared because his mother was going through something and he wasn't sure he could help but wanted to try.

The realization was like a key turning in a lock, and suddenly the shakes went away and she felt the War retreat just a little from her mind.

"Si Mijo," she said quietly, smiling. "I think it would. I am just… The fight with the Slades reminded me very much of similar fights I have been in. And sometimes, after I have been reminded of those kinds of things, the details… they stick around for a little while."

Where are my mortars? Private, you get on the horn to those idiots and tell them to drop it all, danger close!

She shook away the memory, and this time it retreated even further. And when Lucas came forward and hugged her, a full hug not the grudging sideways one-arm thing her teenage son so often granted her when he was more wary of 'mushy stuff, she felt the memories retreat even further.

"I dunno what it was like over there," Luc said after a moment, "but you've got us here, an' we're gonna protect you just like you protect us, right? It's all about teamwork. We're gonna be good."

Alejandra stifled a laugh at her son's awkward attempts to cheer her up, then smiled at the truth hidden in the awkwardness. "I know Mijo. Thank you for reminding me."

"Oh, that reminds me," Luc released her and took a step back, digging in the pockets of the too-large set of his papa's jeans she'd altered for him. "Me and Seeker went through the ammo we've got left after that fight. Dad said you'd want to know. Here," he pulled a piece of paper from a pocket and handed it over "This is what we've got left, not counting what's in our guns right now."

Alejandra took the paper and scanned it quickly while stirring the stew. It was in Lucas's truly horrible handwriting–she was really going to have to work with the boy on that one of these days–but a lifetime of practice had taught her how to read the barely-legible scratches.

Then she had to suppress a curse as her mind translated the numbers. Lord above, it was worse than she had thought. They had already been running low on ammunition before the Slade fight on some of their weapons, but now…?

Barely enough shotgun shells for three full reloads. A single pistol's worth of cartridges with a few left over. Just under 50 rounds for the rifles, probably just because of their lower rate of fire and because Dinah was the only one who really used them.

Ironically, they had plenty of ammunition for her rifle… But because of the legendary enchantment it had received when she had gotten her Calling, it no longer ran out of ammunition and so the 5.56mm rounds were both plentiful and utterly useless.

Well, maybe not completely useless. Using one of their stations, they might be able to break the ammunition down into usable ingredients to reload the other weapons with. But that would be a temporary measure at best. The fact of the matter was they were nearly out of ammo.

"Thank you Mijo," she said, staring at the paper and feeling her brain start to race. "Would you please go and see if we have any paprika in our spice supplies?"

"Sure Mom!" Lucas threw a happy salute and dashed off to the sorted piles of foodstuffs and ingredients. Alejandra watched him run off for a second, then closed her eyes and fought to focus on the stew.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

This time it didn't work. When she opened her eyes she saw not the stew pot and its delicious-if-strange meat, but columns of figures and tallies. Casualty reports, troop disbursements, supply reports, intel on enemy movements… The War, for once, did not show her images of friends getting killed in inventive ways, but instead showed her what had led up to those deaths.

Insufficient intelligence. Unknown quantities. Breakdowns in the command structure.

Supply shortages.

Sergeant First Class Alejandra Albright of The United States Armed Forces looked out over the small camp she and her family had created on an alien world and saw the future.

They were small. They were isolated. They had the ability to provide food and lodging for themselves, but if what she had learned of this world was true, food and lodging would not be enough. They would be under constant threat of enemy activity, just like her old firebase back in the Desert. They would be called upon to defend themselves repeatedly. They were Sojourners in a land utterly hostile to them.

If that were all of it, she might not have worried. Billy could protect them from many threats and serve as sentinel and guard against others. They had her rifle and her powers. They had the Arts and the coins. They could tool up, create new weapons for themselves from the land around them, and learn to use them effectively. If it were merely a case of surviving in a strange hostile environment, they would probably be okay.

But Toraline had told them that when one Sojourner appeared, so did others. And Clennais had confirmed that understanding. Which meant there were other Sojourners out there right now. And from what the fairies had told her, those Sojourners were also being prodded to become conquerors, to raise their flags in war, to try and unite by violence all the peoples of Seroco.

Which now included her and her family.

She saw in her mind's eye her family preparing for war. She saw fortress walls erected around their clearing. Weapons forged and mounted, ready to be unleashed on enemies foolish enough to try their might. Engines of destruction readied and aimed. Her children training night and day, honing their bodies and minds into the men and women they would need to be when the enemy came for them.

But fortress walls required stone. And there were no quarries here. Engines of destruction required raw materials, which would need to be mined and processed and then assembled. Training required time and materials, which they would not have if they were dedicating themselves to building a fortress instead, or seeking materials to construct the destructive engines, or mining them, or…

In her mind's eye, as her brain listed off the problems facing them, she saw the fortress walls shrink and disappear. She saw her children practicing, but unable to commit fully. She saw them pitifully armed with spears and swords that had taken them days to mine and forge. A pitiful barricade of sharpened logs stood around the clearing. There were no engines of destruction, no weapons of war, no fortress.

And when the enemy came, there was barely a fight. How could there be?

They were isolated. They were small. They were without allies, without resources, protected but only from small threats, not the kind that would come for them one day.

To build a fortress, they would need stone. To construct the fortress they would need laborers. To fashion weapons they would need steel and tools and the chemical ingredients or alchemical goods, and they would need craftsmen to forge them and to teach her children how to use them. They would need supplies to feed the new mouths. They would need housing, clothing, weapons to defend themselves, entertainment for their downtime…

They would need a city. And then they would need an army to defend it.

The logistical paths opened up in her mind. One city alone might stand, but not if the whole world arrayed itself against it. It would need allies to provide reinforcements and intelligence from far-off lands. It would need trading partners to purchase necessary supplies and materials, and to sell off the excesses of their own.

The city in Alejandra Albrigt's mind grew as the needs increased. Production yards to arm the military. Factories to provide for the citizens. And soon it was too large for a single city to hold, so another one needed to be founded. And this one needed its own military, its own supplies and citizens. Until it too sprawled over the landscape and the cycle began to repeat.

And then she realized the truth of it. It was not a city they needed.

It was a country.

This is how it starts, isn't it?

She could picture the monster Gaius standing on a hill, these same thoughts pouring through his mind. In order to survive, he would have to conquer, to subjugate, to destroy. And she would be lying if there wasn't a part of her, the same part that embraced the violence of the battlefield and reveled in the joy of combat, that wasn't attracted to the idea.

But that way was not her way, nor the way of her family. They were not conquerors, and did not come from a land of conquerors. Theirs was a faith of fellowship. Theirs was a creed of protection and brotherhood, of working with rather than subjugating. The land her mother had brought her to, that she had adopted for her own and had served for most of her adult life, for all its faults, had been built upon a very simple foundation, and it was one she believed in.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, and are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The people of this land expected her family to conquer them. The Starlight Tribe had come to them willingly for just that purpose. They had come out of fear, seeking safety in numbers and in the power of the Sojourners.

Perhaps it was time for a Sojourner to demonstrate the viability of a different kind of power.

She came back to herself and the scent of bubbling stew on the fire. Her mind was quiet and her heart settled. She had an idea. It was not a plan, not yet. For that, she would need to bring in her whole family. And she would need to convince them of the viability of her idea. Based on previous conversation, that might be a difficult proposition. But she did not see any other way forward.

Not one that did not end in flames, anyway.

She took a deep breath and began to order her thoughts. Matty would be the hardest sell, but she needed her children on board as well. This was not a thing she could order them into. Olivia would likely be easiest to convince, but–

"Mom!"

The call came from two different female throats. Alejandra looked up to see Bel and Olivia steaming towards her from two

different directions, with Dinah and Lucas trailing behind them looking bemused.

"We need to talk!" They both said at the same time.

And from above came the rustling of Billy's branches, and Alejandra looked up to see her husband descending on one of the tree's mobile limbs.

"Oh good," Matty said as he landed and the kids pulled up around the fire. "You're all here. Guys, we need to talk about a couple things."

Alejandra looked between the faces of her children and the expression on her husband's face, and felt a bit of the tension in her chest ease.

Perhaps it would not be as difficult as she had originally feared.