Chapter 412 (2/2)
Instead, the girl returned to school.
Silent.
Watching.
Uncaring.
Some of the more observant students noticed that the next two emergency drills the teachers took the girl aside and sent her to the counselors office.
They remembered their parents words.
Some people weren't lucky enough to be the shelters. Now mind your business.
Most of the students had bonded over the 'shared trauma' of being locked in cramped shelters for weeks or months. How it was miserable, how there was no privacy, no room to run, how everything was monitored and watched carefully, how it was frightening.
A few knew the girl hadn't had that luxury.
One girl, of the highest social status in the school, asked her parents if the strange girl had been in a surface refugee camp. If she had been inside the walls that the Terrans had built and guarded. Her uncle had been present, her uncle that she used to enhance her own status as he had been on the surface the entire time, even when the Terrans were fighting. Some said her uncle had actually fought during the long war. Had fired weapons.
Had taken lives.
The girl had asked her parents if the strange girl had been in the refugee camps, had described the scars.
Her parents did not know, they told her over dinner.
Her uncle had called her over. Had pushed up the sleeves of the long sleeved shirt like he always wore.
Like the strange girl wore.
He had shown her scars. Thick upraised purple scars. Angry scars that rose up out of his fur.
Like the girl had.
”Down there, it was worry and being crowded,” her uncle had told her as he pushed up his sleeves. When the young girl had seen the scars on her uncle's arms she looked him and swallowed. He nodded slowly. ”Up here, my beloved niece, it was war.”
The girl, of high social ranking, where the knives were words, rumor, and innuendo, had hugged her uncle and gone in to do her homework.
The next day the word was out.
The strange girl was to be left alone. Be polite, but leave her alone. The boys were to leave her be, not to disturb her, to let her be content.
Those that disobeyed would face the queen bee and all of her power.
The students, even some of the teachers, got the message.
The girl was left alone.
Which was fine with her.
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The ships had left during yesterday's tomorrow, making a risky translation.
The red giant had intersected the Place at one time.
The whole reason for entering N-Space at that point.
The ships made the translation because to their drives, yesterday was tomorrow today and the two points were the same.
This time the Place was nearly empty.
Only howling radiation and expanding waves of particles.
Nothing remained, only shockwaves.
The beings couldn't believe it.
Even worse, there was no moving forward or backward, something had anchored the temporal stream so it could not be altered.
That was more infuriating than the Place, and all of its valuable resources, being obliterated.
The beings were furious that someone had dared interfere in that which the beings viewed as the domain of themselves and themselves alone.
Worse, they had to return the long way. Not through the proper and esoteric method of moving from one place to a place that had intersected with that place or would intersect with it.
It did not matter. It just meant that it would take longer.
They increased the inverted gravity well of the star, making it so that time moved faster inside the system, that it moved at a speed enough that they and they alone could do what must be done before those outside could.
They needed to ensure that the time dilatation was working correctly.
They sent a ship crewed, not by servitors or lesser ones, but by a full quorum.
Outside the temporal dialatation effect they could feel it.
Other temporal zones.
They returned to warn their fellows.
The beings paused, considering things.
One zone was important, it vibrated and pulsed with aggression, with malevolence.
Before they could come to a decision the other places released their temporal holds, their temporal mainpulations.
The beings managed to interrupt the other one.
Hold it in place.
Change it.
However, it wasn't enough.
They knew now that they faced an enemy who could fight them on their own terms, who could not only conceive of the attacks they preferred, but counter them, prepare for them, even wage war on the same battlefield.
The beings sent forth an armada, moving to the system they desperately needed. One of many, but one they had been to before.
An enemy who had been attacked and managed to drive off the attackers would not expect to be attacked again.
The armada left the bubble.
-------------------
Melinvae watched the video presentation with boredom. She could remember seeing it before the Slorpies came.
She had turned to look out the window, toward the sports field outside, when she saw it.
The strange girl arced in her chair, her hands coming up to claw at her own chest. Her eyes had rolled back, her ears were straight up as she went backwards onto the floor.
Melinvae jumped from her chair while everyone else was still exclaiming in shock or trying to figure out what was happening. She had learned first aid in the shelter, had helped staff the medical clinic, she knew a seizure when she saw one.
She pushed the desks away, clearing the area around the strange girl.
The girl's eyes suddenly opened and her hands came up to grab Melinvae's shirt. The strange girl pulled her close.
”They're coming,” she gurgled. ”Again. They're coming again. I can see them. They've coming.”
She lapsed into unconsciousness.
The nurse ran in, taking over, letting Melinvae know an ambulance was on the way.
Melinvae moved into the hallway, stepping outside the zone that the datalinks were set to intraschool only.
She placed a single call.
To the one person she knew would listen.
”Uncle Erylve. That girl?” she said. ”She says they're coming.”
”Who says, Mally?” her uncle asked.
”Dambree.”