Goddess of the Moon (Young Ancients: Tiera) (10 page)

That
got her gestured over to the bed, which was the only thing in the space to sit
on, she noticed, except for a box, that appeared to be real. Terry sat on that
one, but it was big enough, so she took the other side. Why not? She wasn't a
soft Princess after all. For that matter, she didn't even
know
any. The
others took the edge of the bed then, which tried to form under them perfectly.
It was just how they were designed.

Timon
looked at first his wife and then Terry.

"They
both agreed to try it, and as you can see, it worked. I know not to make
everyone in the world immortal, but really, this only makes it so they'll live
about six hundred years. These are the only two that I've done so far, but I
was thinking of hitting the whole family. We have room for about ten thousand
very long lived people on the planet without stressing everything, and for a
long time. The number has been kept down to less than a hundred, before Gray
and Cordes and this latest screw up of theirs. If we have to fight super-humans,
doesn't it make sense to have some on our side too? They have all those
clones..."

Tiera
wanted to roll her eyes at him, but refrained, remembering what it looked like
on Lewis earlier.

"All
right. We need to keep that quiet though, or
everyone
will want to try
it. The very idea makes my teeth ache, you know that Tim? Do you know how
tempting it's going to be to do everyone? I mean, you did Trice, but what about
her parents? Her brothers? What about their best friends, or favorite uncles? I
mean, you
should
ask Da, but what about Mayor Tom? Or his kids? Are you
really hard enough to be able to look at them and shrug, then say 'no, sorry
there, you have to die.'? I'm not really sure I would be." She meant it,
but then, it wasn't up to her, was it? "I'll leave that to you, but keep
things under control, and actually ask people before you make anyone else like
that. We can form a committee or something. That always works." She didn't
mean that last bit, but no one else laughed.

The
silence stretched out and became awkward, so she mentioned Tor's dragon. Also,
in passing the clones that had been killed and the single man that wasn't
Cordes, who flew away.

"Before
you ask, he wasn't anyone I knew either. Not Tor, or anything."

That
got a lot of questions, but the only laugh came when she related the story
about Ron from earlier. When she got to what he said, both Trice and Timon
started busting up uncontrollably.

Trice
finally rallied, doing it first, which amazed Tiera really.

"Oh!
I wish I could have been there for that! What did she do? That's... It's a
brilliant
trap. In public too, so there was no way out for her. Did she take him up on it,
or put him off? After the way she was acting that last bit would be hard
without looking unkind."

Terry
made a bit of a face and looked away.

"Really...
she gave a half hearted apology. Some man there
told
her to do it. He's
with us, here. I didn't get his name. If she would have been in Two Bends it
might have been fine, but I've seen the Prince of the whole Kingdom do a better
job, over a lot less." There was a bit of... It was something that Tiera
hadn't seen in her brother before at all. It was, she realized, suppressed
anger at the girl.

At
least he wasn't calling for her head. Tiera nodded though, feeling supportive
at the moment.

"I
agree. Still,
Ron
accepted it, with only a single smart comment, which
was hilarious by the way. He said it was too bad... since she had such pretty
lips. I hate to think what him even knowing to say that means for what's been
happening to him, but it was all I could do to not laugh right there in that
bitch's face."

Terry,
her darling little brother, sighed and turned to her. Shaking his head ever so
slightly.

"Watch
your language." Then he smiled, looking far more tired than he should
have, except, she realized, that wasn't really true. He'd been out all night,
hadn't he? They all had.

That
probably meant they should get to the testing and then off to bed, if they were
allowed to sleep there. That hadn't been spoken of at all, so they might be
expected to leave right after that.

Judy
wouldn't make little kids drop from space tired though, she didn't think. The
woman wasn't her best friend ever, but she wasn't evil. Actually, if Tiera was
going to be fair, it was probably the other way around, and Judith Kerry had
been on the side of right and good the whole time, even when she'd wanted to
beat her up. It wasn't the kind of thing she really wanted to dwell on, so she
was fairly happy that her communications device went off. At first.

The
voice on the other side was screaming at her, after all.

"Attack
on Callwood! Help! We're being attacked by... Things! Giant flying lizards! Help,
please. Nothing we do is having any effect!"

Tiera
didn't get to speak, since Timon jumped forward.

"Dragons?"

That
got the woman on the other side of the device, who sounded a bit older, to
pause.

"Yes.
I think that's right. What do we do?"

Tiera
stood, and started toward the door, but Tim waved for her to stop and started
asking questions, because, as she'd noted before, he was smarter than she was.

"How
many of them? How long has the attack been going on? Can you move any of your
people out of harm's way?" He waited for answers and got them, as if he
weren't just some little kid up in space. Then, the woman didn't know that, did
she?

"Ten
to twelve, so far, we can't move anyone at all. When people run, they get
eaten. It's been... most of an hour now. I haven't been able to get in touch
with anyone else, so I just started hitting sigils. I don't even know who this
is..."

Tim
shrugged and looked at Tiera.

"It's
help. We'll have people there in twenty-five minutes. Try to hang on."

Then
he turned the device off and hit another sigil, which got, handily enough,
Kolb. It took a bit for her to get the idea, but luckily Tim explained that
they needed everyone to meet them. Outside. Then he explained the rest.

The
voice on the device was eerily calm and collected, but didn't take a long time
to process things at all.

"On
the Earth side of the craft. We need to move as a group however. Tiera, who has
the new devices you made?"

There
was a soft voice, that said he did, in the background. That meant finding them,
but Trice actually knew her way around pretty well, so a few moments later they
were all running. Timon limped a bit as he did it, but she didn't spend a lot
of time thinking about that.

There
was an emergency after all.

The
kids were on the main bridge, along with all the people they'd come with, and
had communications devices being tucked against their throats, using an
adjustment of their clothing amulets, by the time she ran into the place. It
was a nicely large room, given that most of them were much smaller, so that
heat could be removed more easily, caught by the walls and shunted to the
bottom of the craft, where it was collected for either disposal or reuse.
People, it turned out, made a lot of the stuff.

Who
knew?

Judy
was still sitting, but pointed to what Tiera would have thought of as the side
wall.

"Everyone
go stand over there. You all have the new shields on? Things will get mighty
uncomfortable if'n you don't." Her accent was back and a bit thick, but
otherwise she seemed pretty well collected. "I'm going to make a room
around you, strip it of air and then open the wall. We're getting the Ranford
in position over your destination. I..."

There
was a pause, and she was very clearly thinking hard about what to say next.

"Who's
all going?" She looked directly at Sir Kolbrin, and very carefully didn't
let her eyes waver at all. That was politic of her, since almost anything else
she could have done would potentially give offense to someone or another. Terry
answered her, standing very straight.

"All
of us. We need some of those new weapons of Tiera's. They can stop dragons,
right? We should get those first." He didn't sound commanding, true, but
the remaining little pen shaped wands got passed around quickly, even as Farlo
ran up behind her and tied a string around her neck with one of the new
communication devices on it. Those needed a name, she knew. Nothing came to
mind at the moment however.

Sending
small children off into the dark of space, and then into battle or not, Judy
didn't freeze at all, and had them all surrounded in a white walled room about
a minute later. Everyone just turned their shields on and waited, breathing
normally. Or, well, some of the Lairdgren group seemed a little scared, but the
rest did fine. After a second she spoke, her voice even. Damned if she didn't
sound slightly regal at the same time. It nearly made her happy, but she didn't
let that show.

"Can
you all hear me?" Twenty people responded all at once, which really wasn't
going to work. Only Kolb had kept his mouth shut, just gesturing at her and
making eye contact. When the rest got quiet, he started speaking.

"Operational
silence then. That means don't speak at all unless you have something really
important to say. In a few seconds the wall will open, then Tiera and I will
move to the front and lead you all in the right direction. Try to keep a visual
on everyone the whole time. Havar, you and Sir Derring take the rear. Make sure
no one gets lost. Remember, you can all fly, so this isn't a problem, just a
quick way of doing things."

Then,
almost as if Judy could hear them, the wall in front of them vanished and so
did the gravity. Without waiting, and trying not to push anyone out of the way,
Tiera moved forward like she'd been told to.

"This
way. Keep on target and remember, the last one down has to buy dinner."
She was kidding, of course, except that, realizing that Karen and Havar were in
the back and had orders to be the last ones down that really worked, didn't it?
She grinned, her face tense and mind suddenly empty of everything except the
job at hand. "Keep to your buddy groups. Lairdgren Group people will be
tasked with finding the Ancients on the ground. Lost Section, you're going to
fight the dragons. Just target them and turn them off first. If that doesn't
work, melt their amulets after you get the field off. They're
made
of
shield, so you'll need to turn them off first."

The
Earth was vast under them, but other than a few wimpy sounding gasps, mainly
from Farlo and Sam, no one said anything. They were on the right side of the
world and while Callwood wasn't right above them, it was pretty close. It had a
small border that connected with her own County, but she didn't really know
where the city of Callwood was itself. Luckily Kolb did and took the lead by a
good margin.

The
trip down was silent enough, but, even after everyone spread out, so they
wouldn't smack into each other, they didn't get lost. Farlo was whimpering, but
she still went along with the rest, scared or not. It was good enough really.

The
city was easier to see, as they closed in, since it was smoking in several
places and the dragons were the size of large buildings. Kolb took over, giving
the needed directions as they settled into place, his voice grim.

"Dragon
fighters to the front. Pick one and stay high. Make them come to you. Builders,
trace the lines of information back to their handlers first. Everyone else will
move closer. Watch for missiles too. If at any time I tell you to run, fly away
as fast as you can. Does everyone have that? We're not here to prove how brave
we are, our job today is slaying dragons."

That
sounded pretty good to her at least.

The
battle itself wasn't easy, really. Not at all, even if it was clear they had
the element of surprise. They mainly hovered well above things, and moved in
slowly, taking out the dragons two and three at a time. A few were turned back
on, but when that happened, the kids changed tactics and worked as a team. Making
removing the field from the amulets the goal.

Most
of the actual Ancient finding was done, surprisingly, by
Farlo
, who had
a large wet patch on the front of her clothing, but had dropped into a nicely
deep trance it seemed, and was pointing their enemies out one after another.
Tiera moved in with Kolb for most of the kills, trying to moderate her force
level, using the new weapon she'd made, so that she didn't rip apart a lot of
buildings when she did it. Almost everyone was hiding, indoors, which wasn't
always working, since, as Kolb had mentioned, missiles and some other weapons were
in play at the same time. Including some intense light ones that were pointed
up at them a few times. They were more effective on the ground, setting fires
all over the place wherever the white hot beams touched. A few people that had
come out to try and fight died under those weapons too.

"Tiera,
Tim, take out that laser system to the north west." This got barked at
them, but it wasn't too hard to figure out what he was talking about. She flew
right at the thing, which hit her, making the world go black. Her shield could
block the intense light it seemed, but that didn't mean she was able to see
when it did. A few seconds later she could however, since her brother had
simply hung back and used an explosive weapon on it. Not one of hers, however.