Date Point: 14Y 5D AV
Peterson Residence, Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
“Oh. Great. Mother.”
Liina lay in Gillian’s playroom on her back, her stomach visibly distended. Gillian sat in her squooshy chair/sofa/bean bag thing, equally stuffed. Neither felt particularly like moving.
“That was really good,” Gillian said. “I didn’t think I could eat that much bacon.”
Liina rolled enough onto her side to look over at her friend with her head cocked and upside down. “How do you not? That was the most amazing thing EVER.”
“My Papa makes pretty good bacon. I’ve never had it done that way, though. That was really good. He should cook it in maple syrup more often.”
Liina’s tongue lolled out of her mouth. “Great Mother, I can’t move.”
“I think this is what Papa calls a ‘food coma’.”
“It sounds a lot worse than it feels. Although, my stomach kind of hurts now. That was so…good.”
They lay in companionable silence for a good minute or two. Gillian finally sat up and rubbed at her nose.
“Did you ever play video games?” she asked.
“Probably…I think. Maybe not the same kind of games you’re used to. Not human games anyway?”
“Come on. I want to show you one of my favorites! An’ Papa downloaded a mod pack for it a couple of weeks ago, so you can even play as a Gaoian!!!!” Gillian got up and bounced on her toes a little. Liina followed suit, getting first to all fours and then standing the rest of the way up with a grunt.
“What’s it called?” Liina asked as they went down the stairs.
“Skyrim.”
Six hours later
“Okay, girls. Bed ti…actually, more than bed time. Gillian, you were supposed to be in bed twenty minutes ago, even if you don’t have school tomorrow!” Clara said loudly from the dining room. In the living room, both girls were still glued to the television, and Liina had a death-grip on the controller. Her tail was fluffed out in super-poof mode, and her ears were laid back against her skull as she concentrated.
“Hang on, Mama. Liina just got to the first dragon!” Gillian called back. Behind her, the roars of Mulmirnir through the speakers filled the room.
“Okay. I’ll give you ten minutes to wrap that up, and then it’s time for you two to be in bed,” Clara said from the doorway, having walked in to see the epic combat between a Gaoian and the enormous fire-breathing beast.
Onscreen, Liina was doing a credible job of using cover to her advantage and popping up with the crossbow (since Gaoian shoulders weren’t suited for standard human-style archery) to plug the dragon with one shot after another. Presently, there was a longer-than-usual roar, and the dragon collapsed amidst the ruins of the Western Watchtower.
Gillian was obviously having a very hard time not telling Liina where she should go & what she should do next, and was actually physically sitting on her hands. Liina for her part, blinked a couple of times, and then pumped one furry fist.
“Yessss!!! So, in this game, can you loot just about anything you kill?”
“Oh yes,” Gillian said.
“Okay, that’s like our game Clash of Clans then. It’s how you get…wait…what’s going on?” She trailed off in confusion as the screen lit up in a swirl of golden light, and then subsided with the triumphal shout of the Dovahkiin.
Gillian giggled. “Just wait. Follow the onscreen prompts.”
“Okay.” She followed the onscreen dialogue, and pressed the buttons. “Whooooa…..”
Clara chuckled. “All right you two. Gillian, you need a shower – you’ve been playing hard today. Liina, go ahead & save your game, please. It’s time for bed for both of you.”
“Yes, Mother.” Liina obediently closed the game out and stood up, stretching. The girls went up the stairs together, chattering.
“I still can’t believe you killed a chicken,” Gillian said.
“You told me that thingy said my character was hungry!” Liina replied defensively. “I still don’t understand why everybody attacked me. It was a chicken.”
“Maybe they’re pet chickens. I don’t know. It’s always been like that in this game.”
“Why was that one guy saying someone stole my sweetroll, anyway….?” The upstairs bedroom door closed, cutting off the sound of their voices.
Liina lay at the base of Gillian’s bed in a ball, alone with her thoughts for the first time since she’d gotten up that morning. In the bathroom, she heard the shower start up, followed by a high-pitched whoop as Gillian obviously got into the shower and began playing in the water. She’d heard about humans and their love of water; back on Gao, in fact, there was…had been, she realized with a sudden pang…a daytime serial featuring massively over-muscled humans living underwater who would launch their ship from their underwater lair to defend helpless colonists from Hunter incursions or right wrongs of one sort or another. The big “alien” thing had always been how at-home humans were in water, and the creators had had a whole sub-plot to the story along those lines.
Gillian’s bed was comfy, though, with a fuzzy topper over the top of the weighted blanket she slept under. Liina found herself drifting off to sleep, feeling inexplicably safe for the first time since the horrible afternoon…she stopped herself, shaking her head to clear it, and trying to think of something else. She was warm…and the blanket beneath her was soft…and she was com..for..t..able……
The door opened, and she was jolted back to wakefulness as Gillian came in, wrapped in a big fluffy brown towel, with another one around her head-fur…hair.
“Oh! I’m sorry, were you asleep? I didn’t mean to wake you up, I’m just not used to having anyone here, and you look so comfy, and…” Gillian babbled, her eyes wide.
“I’m fine. I wasn’t all the way asleep anyway…I have a hard time sleeping when I’m by myself,” Liina said, realizing as she said it that it was true.
Gillian’s wide brown eyes were solemn, as she nodded. “I’m so sorry, Liina,” she whispered. “I just hope I can be your best friend ever.” She came over and gave Liina a fierce, damp, hug. Suddenly she squeaked as her towel came undone and fell to the floor. “Oh!”
Liina tried looking anywhere else, the sudden unsolicited affection and her awareness that humans didn’t like being naked warring with one another. Gillian scooped up her towel, wrapping it around herself and digging into her drawer for a nightgown, which she hurriedly put on and climbed into bed.
“Oh! Drat,” Gilian said, getting back up and turning out the light. “Wait. Liina, should I leave a night light on?”
“Please?” Liina asked, trying not to whine.
“Hey, I know! I’ll put my nightlight in! I got this for my last birthday, and I haven’t done anything with it, but I keep meaning to!” She flicked the light back on, and rummaged around in a drawer, eventually fishing out a packaged shape. With some crinkling and rustling of the plastic, eventually, Gillian managed to get it open and plug it in to the wall socket, revealing a stylized green humanoid figure with a red mask and some sort of armor, wielding something that looked very much like a pair of shoog, a somewhat-traditional Gaoian melee weapon.
Liina leaned forward. “That’s interesting. Is that a story character, or…?”
“Yeah!” Gillian beamed. She turned off the overhead light. “His name’s ‘Raphael’, and he’s a Ninja Turtle.”
“What’s a Ninja Turtle?”
“Oh! So, it’s a story about these four turtles and a rat that got into some kind of green glowing ooze…” Gillian climbed into bed, telling Liina all about the lore of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and their teacher, Splinter.
Eventually, the discussion waned, and both girls were almost at the point of sleep, when Liina sat up suddenly.
“What is that noise?”
“What noise?” Gillian opened her eyes and propped herself up on one hand.
“It sounds almost like growling. Do you have an animal in the house, or something? I don’t smell one,” Liina replied worriedly. Her ears played around. “I think it’s coming from your parents’ bedroom.”
The girls crept out of bed, and Gillian’s door squeeeeeaaaaked just a little as she opened it. They took two cautious steps onto the landing, listening carefully.
“There. Don’t you hear that?” Liina whispered.
“That kind of rasping noise? That’s what you’re hearing?” Gillian whispered back.
“Yes. It sounds like scraping, or growling, or…I don’t even know how to describe that.”
Gillian giggled suddenly. “That’s my Papa. He’s snoring.”
Liina’s ears went back against her skull. “This noise is normal?”
Gillian gestured her back into their bedroom, and then silently closed the door, still giggling. “Yeah. He snores bad.” From the other room there was a sudden harsh GRRTTKKK, which prompted a round of quiet chittering from both of them. “See?”
“What is that noise? Why does he do that?”
“It’s called snoring, and I guess it’s really common. I don’t know. My Papa has always done that when he gets really asleep. I feel bad for Mama.”
“….Humans are weird.”
They crept back into Gillian’s room and back into bed. Gillian let out a contented sigh as she was enveloped by her heavy blanket and relaxed back into her pillow. Liina circled once on all fours, curled up, and tucked her nose under her tail. Together, they drifted off.
“Liina.”
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“Liina! Wake up!”
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“Liina!!!”
Gillian was sitting up, bent down to the other end of the bed where a whimpering Liina twitched and whined, her nose still buried in her tail. Gillian’s hand touched her haunch, and she started awake with a sudden intake of breath. Her eyes were wide and unfocused in the soft light from the night light across the room.
“Hey! Are you okay?” Gillian laid her hand on Liina’s shoulder and shook her slightly. “You were whimpering in your sleep a lot.”
“Bad…bad dreams,” Liina replied. “Bad memories. Bad everything.” She held her wounded arm with her other paw and shivered a little.
“I’m sorry. I wish there was something more I could do to help,” Gillian said helplessly. “I…I don’t even really know what happened to you, and I don’t know what to do.”
Liina gave her a grateful look. “Are you sure you want to know? It’s pretty horrible.”
“If you feel like talking about it. You’re my friend,” Gillian said stoutly.
“You might wish you hadn’t.” She trailed off for a long moment. “…They killed everyone, you know. My sisters…my brothers…everyone,” Liina said softly.
“Who did?”
“Our own Mothers, and a few Males that were visiting. There were a few that fought to stop them. There was one Male, he was an older Highmountain, I think, that held off several of the Guard-Sisters in the kitchen long enough for me and two of my sisters to escape and hide.” Her voice was hollow, and her eyes stared at nothing.
“Your…mothers?” Gillian asked, a little puzzled.
“We’re raised in groups of cubs, by all of the Mothers in the Commune. Or we were, I suppose. I don’t know what’s going to happen now. Anyway….he told us to run and not look back. Most of my sisters weren’t fast enough to get away.”
There was an awkward silence. Gillian finally gave up on trying to find anything to say. She scooted down to the bottom of the bed and put an arm around Liina, unable to think of anything else. Liina leaned into her, keening so softly Gillian almost couldn’t hear her.
“I’m sorry, Liina,” she said again, knowing she was repeating herself. Liina’s eyes were still lost and haunted.
“We stayed hidden for two days, but Navi was so hungry, and…Mother Tiska saw us come out to try to find food. I fought her. She killed Navi and Gemma both, but I…”
“You don’t have to say. It’s okay now.”
“But you don’t understand.” Liina’s eyes focused and she looked up at Gillian, pulling back a little. “She was going to kill me, but…I killed her. With my claws.”
“She was going to kill you.”
“But….I killed a Female. A Mother.”
“Maybe someday somebody will be able to ‘splain what happened,” Gillian said reflectively. “Papa told me before you came last night that nobody really knows what’s happening, and that everybody is killing each other.”
“It was like the whole world went crazy at once,” Liina said. “All of a sudden, everybody was fighting. I just don’t understand. I don’t understand at all. Why would Mother Tiska do that??”
“I…I don’t know.” Gillian said. “Maybe when we’re grown up it will all make sense.”
“I hope so. I hope it makes sense to someone. Somewhere.” She whimpered again a little. Gillian hugged her a little tighter.
“You’re safe with us.”
“I know.” Liina hiccuped a little, and wiped her eyes with one paw. “But so many cubs aren’t. The ones that are still even alive, anyway.”
Not knowing what else to do, Gillian started scratching her friend behind the ears. Liina leaned into it, and curled back into a ball.
They stayed like that for a long time.
Date Point: 14Y 6D AV
The early rosy glow of imminent dawn coming in through Gillian’s windows awoke her, as it usually did. It wasn’t quite what Mama called ‘ugly o’clock’, but it was still early as most people reckoned such things.
Due probably to their late-night discussion, Liina wasn’t lying across her legs or feet this morning, and so Gillian was able to slip out of the blankets without awakening her friend, making her way across the bedroom floor on silent feet, ease the door open, and tiptoe down the stairs in short order.
First things first. She got out a bowl of breakfast cereal, poured herself a small bowl full, and then a separate cup of milk, and went into the living room where Mama had put the console remote away and tidied up the pillow fort they’d put together while playing Skyrim the night before.
Initial order of business completed, she moved on to phase 2.
Cartoons.
Inspired, perhaps, by her night light from the night before, she started to pull up some Ninja Turtles, but then thought better of it. That would probably be better if Liina was watching it with her. She thought for a bit, and then put on Spirited Away instead, plugging in her gaming headphones to avoid waking up everybody else, and losing herself in the classic Miyazaki film.
She hadn’t quite got to her favorite part of the movie, unfortunately, when she sensed someone else coming in, and turned to see Liina walking in. Gillian paused the movie quickly, and took her headphones off.
“Shhh….we have to be quiet, ‘cause I don’t want to wake Papa and Mama,” she said in a stage whisper.
“Okay,” Liina said. She came over and sat next to Gillian on the sofa cushion Gillian had tossed onto the floor. “What are you watching?”
“It’s a movie, about a brave little girl. Only I kinda think maybe we should watch something happier this morning. I was waiting to watch Ninja Turtles till you got up, ‘cause I was gonna show you all about them and why Raphael is my favorite, ‘cause like I was telling you last night, he’s a…,” she looked around guiltily, “…badass.”
Liina chittered. “Yes, by all means, let’s not watch something sad.”
“Okay!” Gillian snatched up the remote and navigated her way to her favorite of the several animated Ninja Turtles series available in Folctha’s municipal streaming media library. This one was what Papa called ‘edgy’ and was something she’d only been allowed to watch at all since her birthday the previous July. It wasn’t rated for kids, which made her feel quite grownup.
They watched, entranced, munching corn puffs out of a bowl absently. Halfway through their third episode, a somewhat disheveled Mama came in to see what they were doing, and seeing them occupied, paused long enough to let them know the adults were up and give each of them a kiss on the head. It was a strange, but meaningful, gesture to Liina, who hadn’t experienced that particular intimacy before.
As the episode ended, however, all of a sudden Liina’s nose twitched. “I smell food.”
The girls’ eyes met, and as one they scrambled, giggling, for the dining room. Mama was at the stove, stirring a savory-smelling something in a big black cast-iron pan with a large bamboo spoon.
“Are you two hungry?” Mama chuckled. “Get yourselves something to drink. This will be done in a bit.”
Gillian ran and got her long-since emptied mug from the living room, and refilled it with milk. “Liina, do you want milk, or juice, or….” she asked.
“Water, I think, please,” Liina replied.
“Okay!” Gillian said, getting a second cup out and filling it. “That smells good, Mama.”
“Go sit down. I’ll serve you girls up here in a moment. Liina, are you hungry?” Mama asked.
“Yes, Mother,” she replied almost automatically.
“Okay. This looks juuuust about done here…yep. Potatoes are cooked all the way thru.” She flicked the heat off, got out two plates, and dished up three plates, each with a heaping pile of browned kielbasa sausage mixed with potatoes, scrambled eggs, caramelized onions and garlic, and sliced bell peppers in three different colors, with shredded cheese over the top.
“Where’s Papa’s?” Gillian asked, through her first mouthful.
“Oh, he’s being lazy and isn’t up yet,” Mama said. “I left him some in the pan. I told him I was getting up and making breakfast, and if he wanted some, he’d better not stay in bed!” They all giggled. Liina was wolfing down her food as though she hadn’t eaten in days.
“This is amazing,” she paused long enough to get out. “I can’t stop eating it!”
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” Mama said soothingly. “Eat as much as you need to. Both of you.” She speared a crispy bit of sausage on her fork and bit into it with relish.
Gillian ate a little more primly, and then paused. “Mama. Can I put some hot sauce on this?”
“Of course, Peanut. You know where it is.”
Gillian got up and skipped over to the stasis-fridge, pulling out a small bottle of red sauce, took the lid off, and dripped a copious amount over the top of everything. Liina, across the table from her, stopped eating and twitched her nose several times before erupting in a volcanic series of sneezes.
“Omigosh, Liina, I’m so sorry, did the sauce make you sneeze? I didn’t even think the smell would bother you that much, I just really like chipotle a lot and I needed some on my potatoes, and…” Gillian trailed off. “I can go eat in the other room if it’s really bothering you.”
“No, I..,” KCHEEEEWEE.., “I think I’ll be okay, just…took me by surprise.”
“I don’t like that hot sauce either, Liina,” Mama said comfortingly. “I don’t know how Gillian and her father can stand that stuff. I was always the weird one when we lived on Earth.”
“You’re not weird, Mama. Papa ‘splained it to me, you just have weak taste buds,” Gillian said matter-of-factly. Mama laughed.
“Maybe I do at that, kiddo.” She grinned.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think humans had no sense of smell at all,” Liina said, eyeing Gillian’s plate dubiously, the contents of which were disappearing at a fantastic rate.
“We do, but I think it’s not as good as yours, Liina,” Mama said. She bit into another slice of sausage. “…Different senses. We have a wider range of vision, you have better smell.”
Liina reached her fork across the table, touched one of the tines into a bigger glob of hot sauce on Gillian’s plate, and then licked it with a long pink tongue. Her eyes looked absently around the room as she mulled the taste over.
“That doesn’t taste at all like it smells,” she said finally. “It smells…kind of like that other sauce you had the other night, that I didn’t like the smell of, but this tastes like…like smoke, almost.”
“Yeah!” Gillian said. “It’s made with chipotle, which is a word in another Earth language for smoked peppers.”
“It’s a little overwhelming for me, but I can see why you might like it,” Liina said. “It’s an interesting flavor. The scent of it is…really strong, though.”
“I think you’ll find a lot of our food is like that, Liina,” Mama said. “We’re really sensitive to certain smells, but for things like this, most humans like really strong, bold scents and tastes.”
Liina’s nose twitched again, and she suppressed a sneeze again. “It’s something I’ll have to get used to, definitely.” Gillian giggled, as she finished her plate.
“Well, girls,” Mama said, “I’m going to need you ladies to be very, very good today while I’m gone at work, okay? I start day shift today, that’s why I was home last night.”
“Ooo! Can Liina play more Skyrim?” Gillian blurted eagerly. “I mean, if you want to, Liina. It’s fun watching you play!”
“That’ll be up to your dad, young lady. You don’t have a lot of winter break left – at some point, you’re going to need to start getting ready to go back to school a few days from now…and Liina’s people are going to have to help decide how we’ll absorb that many Gaoian youngsters into the school system.”
Gillian wiggled in her seat. “Can you imagine? All of the kids in my class, and then adding that many Gaoians? It’d be awesome!”
Liina gave her a sardonic look. “I don’t know if your teacher could handle that many of us, Gillian. Usually when we have classes, there are at least two instructors unless it’s a Clan-preparatory course.”
“Well, people that get paid a lot more than me get to work on that problem,” Mama said. “All I know is what the Chief passes down to us. We’ve been told to start preparing for setting up outside of town.”
“Setting what up, Mother?” Liina asked, cocking her ears curiously.
“Refugee camps and shelters. They’ve had engineers working on adding jump gates, extra capacitor banks and generators, and they’re sending through relief supplies from Earth. I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. I checked this morning before I came downstairs, and it looks like the command for Gao’s defense has decided they’re evacuating nearly the entire Female population and as many cubs as possible…here.”
Liina’s ears were all the way back. “That’s…that’s a lot of Females and cubs.”
“It is. I’m going to be working some pretty long days, I think. Speaking of that..,” she checked the kitchen clock on the stove, “It’s time I got all geared up and headed in.” She got up, drained the last of her drink, and went upstairs.
Liina looked both lost and uncertain. Gillian gathered their dishes and stacked them in the sink.
“Gillian?”
“What?”
“Can…do you think..,” she paused, clearly at a loss for words. “Can your people even take that many of us? There are millions of Females and cubs on Gao.”
“I don’t know.” Gillian put the rest of the kitchen things away in their various cupboards and drawers.
“I miss my Mothers,” Liina said simply. She didn’t start keening, but her voice was quiet and a little raspy.
“C’mon. Let’s go play s’more Skyrim till Papa gets up. You’ll like what comes next!”
They busied themselves getting settled in in the living room, when Mama came down in her constable’s uniform. She poked her head around the corner to see what they were doing.
“Okay, girls, I’m off to work. Papa will be up shortly, he’s in the shower now. I’m not sure what he has planned, so if you’re planning on playing a lot of that, you’ll want to talk to him about it, ok?”
“Okay! Bye, Mama!” Gillian said, as Liina took the controller and logged in to her character from the night before.
“Goodbye, Mother,” she said, looking over. “Thank you for breakfast.”
“Yeah, thanks for breakfast, Mama!” Gillian chimed in. “That was really good.”
“Good, I’m glad you liked it, Peanut. Good job on cleaning up, too, wow,” Mama added, looking back to the now-clean kitchen and dining table. “Okay. I have to get going. Have a good day!” The front door closed a moment later with a final click.
Onscreen, the loading screen resolved into Liina’s character standing in front of the dragon-bone carcass, crossbow slung over her shoulder.
“Now what should I do?” she asked Gillian, who was once again sitting on her hands and trying very hard not to give pointers.
“What’s the quest prompt say?”
“Oh. Right.” A moment later, she was moving again. She continued exploring as she followed the prompts, for some time until Papa appeared in the doorway behind them.
“Well good morning, you two. Hard at it, I see,” he said with a chuckle. “Did you guys leave me any breakfast?”
“Yes, Papa, we left you some in the hot fridge,” Gillian said. “Liina just learned she’s s’posed to go to High Hrothgar!”
“Wow! Moving right along there, Liina,” Papa said. “Watch out for trolls.”
“…Trolls?” Liina said, pausing it and looking at Gillian.
“You’ll see. No spoilers!” Gillian said, shaking a finger at her father.
“What’s a troll?”
“You’ll see.”
Liina chittered and stuck her tongue out at Gillian in an obviously co opted gesture of defiance. They giggled together.
“All right you two, I’m going to eat something. I’ll be in my office if you need me, ‘kay?”
“Okay!” they chimed, already having forgotten his presence.
Samuel listened from the other room with one ear as Gillian tried heroically to avoid giving Liina hints, with moderate success. Sinking a fork into Clara’s fried potatoes, he ate thoughtfully.
It was going to be a long day, he had a feeling. Outside, the last of the nightly clouds were clearing, and it was looking to be pretty nice.
“Okay…check my email, then get those two outside, I think….” he muttered to himself quietly. He took his plate into his downstairs office, which was a repurposed bedroom and sat, leaving the door open.
Several hours later
Perhaps I should have expected this. She did warn me, Samuel thought. Sometimes, coming back from a few days of well-earned vacation was almost worse than never having taken the time.
…But then if you never take time, how can you ever have time? He chuckled at the Matrix line ruefully and sighed for what was probably the fiftieth time so far this morning. He leaned back in his chair and stretched.
In the living room, he could hear the shrieks of excitement from Gillian and yelps from Liina. Apparently, they’d found the troll. Or a troll. Or something that obviously wasn’t dying fast enough. Whatever it was, it was obviously epic. He came to a decision and leaned forward again, intent on getting what work he could do at the moment started.
He was just finishing up when there was a ping announcing a text from Clara.
stopping by house for lunch. HUGE news from Gao. See u in a few
“Well. Guess I better have something ready,” he said out loud to noone in particular. On his computer screen, the survey drones he had ordered to set up an auto-assessment of one of the major wooded areas outside of town trundled off to do his bidding, since the highest-priority email he’d gotten from AEC indicated that Clara had been right the day before. A massively expanded refugee camp was about to be created, and the logistical supports for it had to be determined. Quickly.
On the way to the kitchen, he stuck his head into the living room, where Liina had made obvious progress and was learning about the Thu’um at the hands of the Greybeards.
“Hey. I’m gonna make your mom some lunch, are you girls hungry?”
“Yes!” was the enthusiastic but utterly distracted reply.
“Okay. Comin’ up.”
Samuel was halfway through the process of mixing up some tuna salad when the front door opened, and Clara bustled in. She shut the door harder than intended behind her, and sort of flopped into a chair. He quickly assembled a sandwich with lettuce, giving it an extra dash of pepper, and plopped it along with a big glass of milk, in front of her.
“Girls! Lunch!” he called. There was no reply. Samuel went over to the doorway and realized why – they were both leaning into the screen, utterly lost in sneaking through some underground ruin.
“Hey. Pause that and come eat, please.” They both jumped, and Liina put down the controller as soon as the saving… prompt showed. Her nose twitched, suddenly.
“Oh, Great Mother, what is that???” she said, inhaling.
“I made tuna sandwiches. Come eat.” He went back into the kitchen and resumed assembling sandwiches. Right behind him, both girls came in, chattering quietly. They sat at the table, and as he set their meal down with drinks, he realized Clara was going to need another one. She was polishing off the first one already, licking a glob of tuna off one hand hungrily.
“There is major news from Gao this morning,” Clara said. She took a drink of milk. Samuel set another sandwich in front of her and sat down with his own. Liina was scarfing hers down as though she had never eaten before, but paused to look up attentively.
“First thing…the Gao have raised a Great Father, apparently. I know he’s the former Stoneback Champion, and that he worked with the SOR here, but that’s about as much as I know about him. Daar, I think his name is.”
Across the table, Liina’s eyes were huge, and her ears were completely flattened against her head.
“So, there’s that. Second thing, Cimbrean is at about nineteen thousand refugees as of six hours ago. I guess the Great Father’s first official order was to double the effort to get Females and cubs off Gao, and this is the only place to send them, so….” She lifted her glass and drained it. “I don’t know how many more are coming, and I don’t know how we’re going to handle it.”
“Do they know why this is happening?” Liina’s voice was small.
Clara sighed heavily. “…Yes. What we’re being told is that any Gaoian with head implants was turned into something called a ‘biodrone’. AEC says they’re already basically dead, that the Gaoian whose body it was is gone and can’t come back. The entire augmented population of Gao….gone. Or, rather, turned into zombies.”
The food was nearly forgotten at this point. Samuel swallowed the bite he’d been chewing, but found he had nothing to say.
“There is actual good news in all of this, though,” Clara said. “As if the biodrones weren’t bad enough, AEC apparently had intel that said that Gao was about to be raided by the Swarm of Swarms. The attack on orbit, and the ships that were lost, that was the first wave of Hunter scouts.”
Liina whimpered loudly, almost sliding on her chair under the table. Gillian reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder for support.
“I thought you said there was good news,” Samuel said.
“There is. The Gaoian system has been secured. AEC fought off the Hunters early this morning. Fought. Them. Off. I don’t know how, but the rumor is that they used some kind of superweapon and blew the Swarm of Swarms up. They put a system shield up, and apparently just outside of it, there’s a huge debris field of millions of destroyed Hunter ships.”
There was utter silence around the table. Finally, Liina’s little voice piped up from somewhere near the edge of the table.
“They blew up the Swarm of Swarms????”
“That’s what I’ve heard. This isn’t over, there is still all of the fighting left on Gao, of course, and there will be the refugee situation, and…yeah. Pretty dark. There’s a long way to go yet.” Clara checked her watch. “Oh. Shit, I’m back on duty in like five minutes, I have to go.” She got up and wiped her mouth with a napkin.
Samuel came and got her dishes, putting them in the sink with his own, and came back in time to give her a kiss. “Go on, hero.”
She favored him with a grin. “You know it. I’ll….probably be working a double today. I had to pull some strings to get over here, but I figured you and the girls needed to know that it’s going to be okay.”
“Okay.” He gave her another kiss. “Better go.”
“Bye girls!” Clara said. Not waiting for an answer, she went out the door with a “Bye, hon!”, and closed the door behind her.
Samuel sat back down at the table. Liina had come back from under the table, and was keening a little. Gillian had scooted her chair a little closer, and had one hand on Liina’s back, scratching her between the shoulder blades. With the other, she held her sandwich and chomped on it.
“A lot to absorb, huh?” he said sympathetically.
“The last Great Father was Father Fyu,” Liina said. “A thousand years ago.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Samuel mused. “That’s a pretty big deal.”
“I don’t even know what it means…but, I guess someone does. Great Fathers only get named by the Mother-Supreme, so I guess Mother-Supreme Yulna must still be alive,” Liina said. She picked up the last of her sandwich, regarded it for a moment, and then ate the rest in one bite. “This is really good.”
“It’s tuna!” Gillian said brightly. “It’s like, my third favoritest thing ever.”
“I can see why,” Liina replied. “I like these little green things.”
“Pickles. That’s what they’re called,” Gillian said. “You take cucumbers, that’s a vegetable, and then you soak them in stuff, and they turn into pickles.”
“Vinegar, with brine and spices,” Samuel prompted. “That’s what you soak them in.”
“Right. That. Anyway. You can make pickles lots of different ways, an’ my Gramma used to make them with super spicy stuff. They were soooooo good. And sometimes she used to make pickles out of other stuff too, like pickled mushrooms or asparagus, and sometimes they’d be sweet, sometimes spicy, sometimes both.” Gillian babbled on.
“I think we have something like this, only we don’t make it quite the same way,” Liina said. “It’s made from a fish, and the meat’s always in chunks.”
“After you two are done here, I think you should go outside to play. You’ve been cooped up in here all day playing Skyrim, and you both need some fresh air,” Samuel said.
“Can we go down to the park?” Gillian asked eagerly.
“Sure. Be home before it starts getting dark, okay?”
“Okay! C’mon, Liina, you’ll love the park. They have all kinds of cool play equipment…only, I wonder if it’ll be fun to play on. We should totally go find out, an’ I bet some of my friends’ll be down there too, there’s lots of stuff we can do. Come on!” Gillian dashed upstairs to get her shoes and a jacket, accompanied by a Gaoian who had just realized she’d been sitting too long and needed to move around.
Less than two minutes later, there was a thundering scramble down the stairs, followed by a slam of the door, then the door being reopened and a shouted, “Bye, Papa!”, with a final slam that shook the house.
Samuel returned to his office to check on his survey drones, aware that the result was going to be all too important in the coming days.