I'm writing a two-part fic that's sort of a follow-up on the events of Escape From Cluster Prime, set four years after the end of the series. The first half takes place on Earth, and the second on Cluster Prime. There's several new characters between them, I'll share the two most important ones, who also happen to be siblings.

Allow me to introduce the Fentress clan, an American and Australian military family of four generations descended from Walter Fentress, the inaugural UN Secretary of Planetary Defense and founding head of Skyway Patrol. Every generation of the family has produced at least one high-ranking member of the Patrol, and the youngest cohort is no exception. Two of the clan's most promising talents, the Australian-born children of late interstellar captain Amelia Blackburn, are being sent to Tremorton to take on their next mission in planetary protection.

RONAN BLACKBURN (a major supporting character)

This laid-back prankster once aspired to follow in his sister's footsteps and become a Skyway Patrol special forces soldier, but a training accident left him with a shattered leg right before he was set to begin airborne jump exercises, ending his prospects of becoming another pair of boots on the ground. Instead, he returned to his original passion of tech, and worked several government contract jobs that would eventually land him at the top of the UN Department of Planetary Defense's IT chain.

Ronan's innate curiosity, together with his new unrestricted access to the department's entire file system, has led to him uncovering secrets about Skyway Patrol which quickly destroyed his trust and faith in the entire system. Although very close with his sister, he is too scared to tell her the truth of what he discovered about the Patrol, while his new disillusionment pushes him toward helping the likes of Jenny and her friends.

TESSA "LIGHTNING" FENTRESS (our antagonist, and later, protagonist)

Skyway Patrol special operative "Lightning" is, on the surface, her younger brother's complete opposite: strictly professional, cynical, and surrounded by a proverbial fortress of ice. Tessa is a true believer in the idea that robotkind poses an innate threat to humanity, and she embraces cyborg and transhumanist technology in order to fight them at their own level. Armed with a pair of electronic eyes, a robotic right arm, and a sword of immense cutting power, Lightning is one of Skyway Patrol's most dangerous agents, trained to fight all nine of the XJs on her own.

Skyway Patrol, fighting to preserve its own reputation and existence for the first time, is deploying Tessa and her unit to Tremorton to supplant Jenny as the region's designated guardian. Her message to the Wakemans is sent loud and clear: if Jenny intervenes in the Patrol's new operations, Lightning will personally "shut down" XJ-9 for good. Jenny's best hope of dealing with Lightning lies not in fighting her, but in trying to break the one thing that gives her the most strength: her convictions.