by P. S. Power
Timon slowly turned to look at her, his face blank. For the longest time they all just stood there, waiting, until nearly three minutes later he managed to speak.
"Places to sit?"
That got arranged, if in a rather public space, right on the bridge. That seemed strange to everyone else, but Tiera would need to be with them, no matter what happened. Plus, if they could eat at all, as deep as they were, then they had to be fed.
Otherwise, they'd both die.
Kolb, dressed all in black, stood looking at Northern Afrak, as bright flashes and blooming clouds came up. It wasn't all nuclear, Tiera didn't think, since the colors changed. There was a blue one in there, that lasted for a long time. That was followed by about three minutes of nothing much at all.
"An EMP. Probably our side. We have more magic than they do, so it makes sense for us to remove electronics from the playing field." There was a thickness to his words, as if he was watching the world end.
It could, Tiera knew.
Right there, below them, with a single tap of a button, or the wrong sigil, the whole thing could come tumbling down. A very large fire started, but also ended after fifteen minutes. Then, without warning at all, it all just stopped. The fire was gone, and nothing new started. Only the smoke and dust was left.
Kolb pulled a communications device, and didn't let the other person speak when it picked up.
"Alice, anything?"
"No. All communications just went down. Even the magical ones. The lines are open, but no one is answering. I think the final protocol is in play." Meaning that all the Ancients were dead. Maybe not everywhere, but that was halfway around the world from where Gerent had been when he set the lethal device off. It stood to reason that it would be almost every place by then.
Tiera looked at the world and spoke quietly.
"Goodbye. Thank you." She meant it for the ones that had sacrificed their lives for everyone else, keeping the evil Others from fleeing in time. Though it wasn't really needed, she knew. It had been a sign that they were all too tired to go on.
They hadn't just sacrificed the ends of their lives, but all of them. Thousands of years trying to hold things together, and fix the world. And now it all had to be done again. It looked to her like they were doing their best to get free of the duty. She couldn't blame them either. They'd earned the right.
It was a mess, and the whole thing might still be lost, if they didn't guard it well enough. Maybe even if they did.
That was always the chance you took though, wasn't it? Life itself meant you had to be willing to wake up each day and fight, even knowing that you may not see another. Most people got through it by not thinking about it, so she decided to do that too. Why argue with what worked? Take one day at a time and keep going. Eventually things would work out.
Or not.
Probably that second one, in the very end, since that was what it sort of meant. As long as humans lived though, they had a chance. They could go on.
Kolb just stared and didn't turn to look at anyone else. Hiding his tears, she thought, though no one really would have blamed him. In a way, he probably envied the others that were done now. Tiera did, and she hadn't seen even a fraction of what the man looking out the large windows at the blue jewel of a planet had.
She was wrong though.
Kolb spoke, his voice slightly soft. Gentle even.
"We'll be back. In a hundred years no one will remember what happened this day, other than us and some historians. In five hundred, history will be whatever we claimed it was. That's what happened last time. We hide it all, to cover our own shame. How we caused it all to happen. Let it. At least this time it wasn't you that did it. It was me, and mine."
Ah. Tiera didn't let herself nod or agree, but she saw the sense there too. It had been Gray and Cordes, which wasn't the fault of their new world at all, but the remnants of the old.
Ali looked too and sounded odd, even for her.
"Are we... Do we go back to the Moon now? We can't go back home." She gestured at the world, but Tiera knew what she meant.
"Oh, no. We have to stay here until..." She waved at where Tor and Timon sat in comfortable chairs, facing each other. There were waves of intent and focus coming from them both. She tried not to pay attention to it, just in case that messed the incredibly intricate work up. "We can't afford to take Cordes back with us. We'll just stay here until it's done."
No matter what happened. It would, she knew, be a while.
She took to sitting there, in her Captain's chair, watching the world below them spin. They were actually moving around it, like a tiny moon, but the result was similar. Ten times a day she could see where she came from as a spot of green, which from her looked to be right next to the ocean. It was so far away that she'd never been to it until she was twelve, and doing deliveries near there. It was a different world that way, now.
The world seemed smaller, somehow.
Days passed, with Trice and Alphonse feeding and at times, cleaning, her brothers. That was distasteful, but no one complained. This work had to be done the old way. Constant and unbroken focus. After the first weeks, first Tor and then Tim stopped taking food.
Kolb fixed that with a rather elegant solution, by showing her how to make nutrient drinks to keep them going. That saw them through another month. Both lost weight, and Kolb made special needles and bags of food that went directly into their veins.
Finally Alphonse called his sister, Karina, to make sure she knew that things were going all right.
"They aren't moving, but have food and water. It's scary, but Kolb says they can live for years like this. So... I'm not giving up on them yet."
There was a long pause and then Karina started to tell them about what they were missing. A few ships had been in with colonists, and they had a lot of new workers. Thousands, as it turned out.
"The city is growing so much already. We have an Austran group that's making shows here, since we have an excellent tax system for their kind of work."
Tiera actually roused from her vigil for that one.
"We have taxes?" She hadn't ordered any, but then she'd also been gone for a lot longer than she'd been there.
"Nope. They love that, too. We're also giving them all they need to do their work for free. Sam figured out a way of running their electrical equipment using magic, so they're pleased, I think. Several other groups are asking to come in and do the same thing." There was a pause, and then she chuckled, someone in the background speaking too softly to be easily heard. "Oh, right, Tiera will be glad to know that we have the first six full lakes going in. Not up yet, but Lake Two Bends is full and working well enough for everyone so far. Kurt has his shop up and is doing good business. Of course, we don't charge for anything, so he's had to put in three full time shifts. I've been running the food shop myself. I'm sure that will make mother and father proud." She laughed at that, but her brother did too, which sounded different.
"You think they won't be? They'll probably just be glad that you aren't working in the whore house full time. Save a job for me? Shopkeeper sounds like more fun than ditch digger."
That got a strange click to happen, which Tiera didn't get, but Sheri spoke then, her voice happy.
"Oh? I have room at the whore house, if you want?" There was giggling then, from several other people, some of it sounding suspiciously young. As in, her younger brothers and sisters. "Or... If you want, you could take over the wine shop? It does good business. Not nearly as much as you might think though, given that it's all free. People stocked up at first, but now things are dropping off, since the new people have come to realize that there's always more."
They got to speak pleasantly for a little while, until Smythe got on, and wanted to know what Tiera wanted done with criminals, since they'd never encoded anything into law. The biggest problem so far was vandalism. It was really hard to assault a person that had a shield on all the time, and why would anyone there steal?
After li
stening to the cases, it was clear that most of those people hadn't even been trying to just damage things, but had made mistakes, not understanding how magic worked yet. That was easy.
"Um, we have a rule for that. The second one? If you make a mistake, fix it. If someone does that on purpose, then... I don't know, make them fix it and... then stand by whatever it is in their free time, apologizing to everyone they see? That would be bad enough that I wouldn't do something twice." She hated being humbled like that.
"Very well then. I'll see to that."
Then he walked away, as everyone else that lived in the First House came by to say something it seemed. Even people she barely knew.
It was nice. Very... homelike.
They made plans to do that again, and once people realized she was mainly free, they called her at odd times, to see what she wanted done with whatever came up. Since her days were mainly about that, listening to people on Earth and fight practice with Kolb for six hours a day, she kind of found it helped to keep her sane.
Sara left, but did visit occasionally. She even brought Varley up, to visit with her daughter, which meant that Count Peterson came too. He was...
A sight for sore eyes, if she was going to be honest. Alphonse had been so preoccupied with Tor and Timon that he'd barely slept, or bathed, which was getting a bit cloying, and Count Peterson was a noble, which meant it was fair for her to approach the bearded giant and ask if he wanted to go have sex, while his wife was busy.
"Oh? That sounds like fun. Things have been a little tense lately, so I haven't had a lot of time for that. I do think we have a few hours?" They did, and ended up in a large tub, filled with very warm water. Varley came and got in with them, which was friendlier than Tiera would have expected, given everything.
Though she stopped halfway in, her eyes going innocently wide.
"Oh, unless you two need it for something else?"
Raul shook his head, looking content. "No need, I don't think. We already took care of all that. Now, do you have any idea how long you'll be here? No one minds, but there have been some questions in Court. It's been put about that this isn't a Space Fleet vessel and that things could be dropped on people." There was a deep sound as the man sunk into the hot water and leaned back, his eyes closed. "The problem there is that no one knows whose side the Queen of the Moon is on."
She wanted to sputter, but managed not to, holding on to that much grace.
"Well, that's a step up from 'That Mean Little Bitch' isn't it?"
Varley nodded her face somber.
"It is. Of course that answer doesn't really tell us if we need to dig new emergency shelters or not."
Or if their enemies did, of course.
Tiera debated saying anything at all, but realized that fairly decent sex and bathing aside, this wasn't just a visit to see their little girl. The Count had barely even looked in on her. Which was bad. It was important for a girl to know that there was a strong man to watch out for her. That and fend off inappropriate suitors. It wasn't like Alison had brothers for that yet.
Blinking she moved back on topic.
"Well, I... Don't need to drop anything, do I? This is a war craft, with full armaments. From here, inside ten minutes, I could destroy most of the planet." The others looked at her as if angry, or wondering if they should be, so she smiled. "I made it to stop the Evil Ancients if they won, and nothing else would work, so that isn't aimed at anyone else in particular. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Because of what that means, I won't be taking sides at all. It's too dangerous and war shouldn't move out here, if we can help it. That's probably too late, but we can try."
Count Peterson stroked his great beard, which was a dark brown, being wet, rather the red color it normally was.
"So, we can't expect military support from Harmony, but what about other things? Magical aid, of a non-military nature? Magics? I don't know what else you have, to be honest. This is a great location to see things from. Space Fleet won't do that for us. The Admiral is standing on the fact that they're a multi-national organization. I can't say I blame her, but it would help."
She thought before speaking, not wanting to make anyone angry with her, or worse her people. That made her wince, which got Varley to seem shocked.
"If we gave offense..."
Waving that away she explained. "No, I just realized that I'm thinking of the Moon as mine. Her people as mine. There was no vote, just me being bossy for a few weeks. I didn't win it, no one else wanted to do the work. Still, reasonable magical aid might well be forthcoming, and materials. We can make almost anything there. I... Spying though..." It was a brilliant idea, she just didn't know if she was really in with King Richard or not.
Except, it hit her then.
She had to be. There wasn't a second choice. Well, there was, if she wanted to walk up to him and end his life and then her own. If she was going to live, then she couldn't work against him. Not even in secret. That kind of thing didn't stay that way with builders around. Not forever. Two of his children were already immortal, plus a grandchild. If the man wanted to piss in her face, she'd have to stand there and hold still, due to that. She couldn't risk angering the others.
That was... Fine.
She didn't love Richard, but she understood that things were hard and sometimes there was no perfect answer. Sometimes you did the wrong thing and little girls died for it. If she lived long enough that would happen to her too. She dreaded the idea, but it was there, thick in her mind. For a moment she wondered if she could take her shield off, and get to and airlock before anyone noticed?
The only good part was that she likely could. It gave her hope, in an odd way.
"We can work out an observation deal, I think. No combat for my people however. If attacked, they'll have orders to leave. Just run, I mean, not leave the planet. In exchange for that..." She didn't have anything she personally needed at all. Not that going home wouldn't provide.
The other two held very still, looking at her as if she were going to ask for something huge and costly, but she just didn't need that. Not at all.
Finally she caught onto an idea that made sense.
"In return for it, we'll need help in rebuilding the other lands. Noram too. We'll provide the goods needed and magics for our part, but we don't have the manpower needed. If King Richard reaches out to the other lands and offers that aid, it would be enough I think. Especially since we'll feed and house the people doing the work. I know that isn't a lot-"
Varley nodded strongly, her very pretty face reminding Tiera of her brother Tor at that moment. With breasts. It was strange, but the moment passed.
"I can suggest that to Father. May he contact you? I know that there have been problems, and hard feelings."
It was a blunt way to put it, but, Tiera knew that the girl wasn't being a poor diplomat, but rather a very good one. If she'd gone into days of flowery language, trying to soothe or trick her, it would have made for problems. This way she could just respond and they could get to things.
That meant, she realized about an hour later, that the very first treaty she was party to, ever, had been created in a bathtub. It was an almost silly idea, but she shrugged and put in a call to Karina, Guide and Terry.
As an afterthought she asked if Taman could sit in. It took a while to arrange, but they worked out that they could provide the craft and crew, leaving the spotting to people from Noram.
Karina offered to come out right then, but Taman, bless her, pointed out that it was the exact same bad idea as before.
"We need your brother back first. We should send Guide and Terry. Crews of ten should work. How long do we have before we're needed?"
Tiera listened to the little girl and sighed. It was all done in an annoying 'little kid' voice, which couldn't be helped, but she was being efficient, and actually doing the job. Correctly even. Tiera wondered what she'd do when she learned to read.
"If we can set up the crews now, that would be good. I don't know if K
ing Richard will like the idea at all. So it might not happen. In that case, well, we still need a regular supply chain to Earth I think. They'll need us." It felt strange saying that, but it was true, and they all knew it.
In a very real way, without having a single mine, or a single tree, Harmony was the richest kingdom around. She got them to start working out with other people things that would be helpful. Regardless of treaties, they weren't going to be selfish. Or, not too much.
For the time, having the Makers being something that only space had, at least in the main, would make moving there pretty attractive. As far as that went, they were all in use there already, except for six that Space Fleet had. She needed to make another few batches of things, it seemed, if a lot more people were coming. Even more than that, if they were going to really help hold the Earth together in what was coming.
She got time to do that too, over the next two months. In fact she managed a lot more than she'd ever have imagined possible. For all that the King was glad to hear that she wasn't planning to punish him, now that she could, he moved slowly. It was pretty obvious that he was using protocol as a way to keep her from changing her mind. On the good side he did get in touch every few days, and despite all her work, they mainly discussed things. At first it was hard for her and she still wanted to toss him, lightly, through a castle wall made of stone, every now and then. In the main though, it was sort of winning her over.
That was why, when he suggested that perhaps Alice Orange of Space Fleet might visit, to check up on them, it didn't set off any alarms. Not at first. The idea came up several times, even though she kept saying that was fine and that she could come when she wanted.
"Richard, I'm not getting your meaning here. If you want her to come and she will, she's invited. You are too, if you can get away. Is something wrong?" She sounded bitchy and knew it, so tried to relax. The key was focus, she knew. Really it was a thing she was getting good at.
"Ah... Well, you know, rumors and that sort of thing. No one has seen my son or daughter for a while and it's being put about that they've been taken. Not by you either, which would at least allow us to point up at the Moon and cry for our people to have at, if needed. No, the rumor has it they've been abducted by the Rebellion. We're rather hoping that if we let a crew of people see Alphonse, that it might be enough to let the word spread that he's right here and free?"
