First Contact

Chapter 445

Huddled down with the babies, her face turned toward the firewall, her upper body shifted so that it was between the outside and the babies, Aunt Fenn shrieked when the white light seemed to fill the air, almost like it was streaming through the firewall. Nee and the unnamed baby took the opportunity to bite her arm, the baby just gumming and gnawing, Nee sinking her little teeth deep into Fenn's arm. There was a loud explosion, a sharp crack like a glass pane meters thick breaking in half on a cold winter's day, with another flash of white light. Then red light.

The car suddenly rocked up on the shocks, tilting slightly.

It wasn't a noise. It was a pressure that squeezed, combined with heat that made her pant and slicked her fur with sweat that ran down her face. The car slammed back down with the squeak of overstressed shocks, then rocked slightly.

"STAY IN THE CAR!" Dambree yelled.

Aunt Fenn hold the babies closer, the bite from Nee no longer hurting. The taste of blood had made Nee close her eyes, made her jaw relax, as her feral little brain released endorphins.

Fenn squeezed her eyes shut.

Don't cry! she heard her niece yell at her in her memories. Then the deadpan voice, leeched of all emotion. Let it turn to something else.

Part of her wanted to start screaming. Part of her brain kept trying to show her all the memories. The squelching sound of the sharp metal rod popping the male's eyeball as Dambree jammed it into his eye socket. The crunch of bone under the sound of the can hitting the square base the rod was attached to. The dead look on her niece's face, as if she was merely hammering a nail into a board. The way she had gone into the house alone, covered the bodies, and came out as if she had merely gone upstairs to check on a sleeping sibling.

The dead expression on the girl's face since the sirens went off.

She felt like she had failed. Not only her poor niece, who had been trapped on the surface during the long war, but her sister, dead since the initial invasion. The baby nuzzled her and she shifted to keep it from biting her chest.

There was words, painful sobbing gagging words.

THWACK!

She could hear something burning, smell burning synthetics and scorched metal and the odd tang of ozone, light a computer that was dying.

More words.

Fenn thought it sounded like someone begging.

THWACK!

"There's one crawling into the field!" Tru yelled out.

"Get back on the floor," Dambree's voice was hard.

Long seconds passed.

THWACK!

Fenn could hear footsteps and cringed.

She didn't know if she was afraid one of those people with the bruised looking eyes were coming up to the car.

Or if she was afraid of Dambree.

The car buzzed a few times, then clicked, then started pinging.

There was a thump at the back.

"If you have to get out and pee, do it now," Dambree said. "We need to charge and get moving."

"I have to pee," Meglee said.

"Go around the back of the car, lean against... you know what, Tru, show her how to road pee," Dambree said.

"What if the boys see my thing?" Meglee protested, but she was still getting out.

"It won't be the last time," Dambree said.

After a bit Tru and Meglee got back in. Inkee got out, then got back in.

There was a tapping on the window and Fenn looked up.

"Get out and go pee. I'm not stopping for a couple hours," Dambree said.

Fenn whimpered, but was afraid to say anything.

Her niece's shirt and face were splattered with blood.

When she got out she buckled the two babies into their safety seats, then looked around.

Broken pieces of machinery were scattered around a crater in the ground big enough that Fenn could have curled up in it, the pieces popping and burning. She could see several dead bodies on the ground.

Two of them were missing their heads, their necks surrounded by shredded meat and blood.

She could see an ear attached to part of a scalp.

"Go pee," Dambree said suddenly, looming out of the darkness.

To her credit, Fenn didn't wet herself.

Dambree watched her aunt stumble away, moving behind the vehicle so she could lean against the trunk while she peed.

Good. Learn fear. That's the only thing that will keep you alive, Dambree thought. She waited till Fenn got back in the car before going around to the trunk. She popped it open and looked at the cargo net attached to the inside of the trunk lid.

She had two equipment belts she had taken off of dead Terrans from the strikers.

One was missing one of the four grenades.

She took another one, looking at it.

M-67A3 Anti-Matter Fragmentation Grenade with Phasic Jacket was steniciled on it in yellow, the same color as the band that went all the way around it with a purple line in the middle of the band.

She dropped it in her pocket.

Save enough for yourself and the kids, the Terran, dead years, whispered in her memories, coughing up blood after she had hit him with the car.

She shut the trunk and looked around.

The sky to the southwest looked like it was on fire. The clouds had moved back in after the detonation had pushed them away, and lightning flickered in them. Dambree's retinal link flickered for a second as she walked back to the car.

When she sat down her retinal link reboot.

Mister Mewmew climbed up over the seat, flowing down the seat and into her lap as she started the car. She had to tap her ripperchip wafer twice to get it to work again, but the HUD came up and she punched in the correct boxes.

Mister Mewmew made an unhappy sound and Dambree glanced down as she put the car in gear.

He flashed a green trefoil on the black macroplas triangle on his forehead.

"I know," Dambree said.

Two bars. One that started blue, moved into green, then into yellow, finally into orange then red. The other one was topped out at the green, only a single bar beneath yellow.

"That bad?" Dambree asked.

:(

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"I know," Dambree said, reaching down and stroking Mister Mewmew as she drove with one hand. She looked at her aunt, who had gathered the two babies back up and was huddled up on the floor. "Them?"

A blue trefoil.

"Good."

She reached down and grabbed one of the big Terran cans of Liquid Hate, putting it between her thighs and holding tight while she popped the cap.

"I warned you" the can squeaked, making her grin.

She lifted it up and took a long drink. The cold fizzyness soothed her throat, the thick liquid settled her stomach, and the alcohol swept away the urge to wipe her mouth with her sleeve and pushed her headache back.

She turned a corner and the destroyed truck was gone.

She took another swig, driving down the dirt road, paying attention to the HUD in her vision. Her vizlink (retinal link) shuddered a few times, but stabilized out.

She almost burst out laughing when she realized something.

It had been heady, exciting, when her boyfriend, Alkree, had driven one handed, that her excitement had been tempered with worry at how fast he drove and how careless he seemed.

Now she was driving down a dirt road, at night, without her headlights, steering with one hand, drinking a Terran fizzystimbrew with the other, and going through a navigation HUD and GPS locator with her retinal link.

All of it without a license or a single lesson in how to drive.

"What's so funny?" Aunt Fenn asked her from the floorboards.

"I'm not the girl I was," Dambree said. She shook her head and took another drink. "I'm not the girl who snuck out to go to a makeout spot with my older boyfriend."

"You're still Dambree, and I still love you," Aunt Fenn said.

Dambree glanced at her and saw the sincerity in her eyes.

"I know. I love you too," she said.

To Fenn it sounded mechanical, with just a hint of menace in it, almost like she was saying it begrudgingly.

Part of Fenn had come to understand why.

"Thank you," Fenn said. "For... for what you did at the QuikiCharge. I couldn't believe it was happening."

"I know," Dambree said. She slowed down and edged past a dead combine tractor.

"Did... did it happen to you?" Fenn asked.

Dambree shook her head. "No."

"Did people try?" Fenn asked.

"They did," Dambree answered, straightening the car up and speeding up slightly.

"What stopped them?" Fenn asked.

"Dying," Dambree said. "It's super-effective."

Fenn frowned slightly at the Terran phrase, unsure how it applied.

Uncomfortable silence reigned for a long stretched out moment.

"It gets easier," Tru said, peeking over the seat. She looked at Dambree, who looked at her in the rearview then flicked her right ear twice. Tru moved up further, crossing her arms on the top of the seat and resting her chin on her arms. "It doesn't seem like it, but it gets easier."

Fenn swallowed down the 'how would a little girl like you know' before it came out of her mouth. "It does?" she said.

"It's like a stickyheal on an infected cut. You yank it off, it tears off the fuzz, rips off the scab," Tru said. "It's messy, bloody, and gross stuff gets everywhere, then you have to clean it up, but you feel better."

"Oh," Fenn said.

"I was so scared I peed myself," Tru said. Her eyes moved so she could look out the window. "Killing doesn't get easier though. In some ways, for me, it got harder."

She's only a child, went through Fenn's mind. Fenn looked at Dambree. "Does it?"

"No," Dambree said. She took another long drink of the thick can with Terran writing on it.

"Killing doesn't bother you?" Fenn felt sick.

"I feel nothing," Dambree said. "Not one thing for them."

"What about now?" Fenn asked in a small voice. "Do you feel anything about what you did?"

"No," Dambree said. She took another drink. "Store coming up. Tru, I want you to keep watch."

"Okilee dokilee," Tru said.

Dambree pulled onto a two lane highway, speeding up and turning on the headlights. Thankfully, to Dambree, both of the other Hesstlan awake stayed quiet, Tru resting her chin on her folded arms and watching out the windshield, Fenn holding the babies on the floorboard.

The store was mid-sized, but the parking lot was empty. Dambree pulled up in front of the doors and put the car in park. She turned to Tru.

"Drive across the parkinglot and park next to the dumpsters, keep them between you and the highway," Dambree said. She dug her keyring out of her pocket and checked the tiny flashlight on it. "Two flashes, it's safe to drive up. Three flashes, you drive up and hit whoever is with me with the car. Four flashes, you drive and follow the nav-comp and never look back. Remember one flash and what to do."

Tru nodded, biting her lip.

"You don't want me to drive?" Fenn asked as Tru awkwardly climbed into the front seat.

Dambree opened the door and looked at Aunt Fenn. "You don't have what it takes," she stood there, muttering.

Fenn could faintly hear her repeating "one flash all clear one flash all clear one flash all clear" as she walked away.

Tru put the car in gear, looking between the top of the steeringwheel and the top of the dash.

"Wait, she didn't say one flash is all clear," Fenn said.

Tru didn't say anything, just held her tongue between her teeth as she slowly crept the car up, circled wide, and parked next to the dumpsters. She turned the car off and made sure the headlights were off.

"She didn't say that one flash was all clear," Fenn said.

Tru looked down. "One flash means something else."

"What?"

"Show me you love me and run me over," Tru said, looking back at the front of the store.

"Why is she saying it?" Fenn asked.

"In case a slorpy gets her. It will come out and flash once," Tru said. Her face got suddenly older. "And then I'll run her over."

"Oh," Fenn said.

She didn't want to think of how that had come up.

There was a white flash that bounced off the clouds and lit up the sky. Fenn tensed, waiting for the heat and the pressure, but there was only a slight rumble.

The time seemed to crawl. Tru cracked the window, sniffing at the breeze now and then. Mister Mewmew sat in her lap, his nose poking out the window.

"It's going to rain in the morning," Tru said softly. "Yuck."

"Why yuck?" Fenn asked.

"The flashes. It makes the rain black and sticky," Tru said. She reached down, picked up the can of Liquid Hate, and took a drink. She wrinkled her nose. "Yuck."

"You shouldn't drink that," Fenn said before she could stop herself. "You shouldn't emulate your sister's bad habits."

"That's what she tells me," Tru said softly. "I would get mad at her for drinking when it all first happened."

"Why did you stop getting mad?" Fenn asked.

"Because I realized she hurts inside. That part of her died," Tru said softly.

Fenn cringed at how old the girl sounded.

"I think the Slorpies killed part of her," Tru said. "And I think it hurts having part of you dead."

Mister Mewmew made a noise, rubbing his whiskers against Tru. Tru sighed and started petting him, focusing on the front of the store.

Silence descended again.

"Why are we stopped?" Elu asked. He poked his head up. "Where are we?"

"Store. Dambree said she needed supplies," Tru said. "Since you're up, keep watch around us."

"You should have woken me," Elu said, yawning.

Again silence descended. The minutes seemed to drag on and on to Fenn. At one point the baby fussed and she had to grope on the seat till Tru handed her a milky.

"One. Two," Tru held her breath. She flashed the headlights twice and started the car. The car jerked twice, as Tru wasn't used to driving. The car jerked a few times as she stopped.

"Oh, oh," Elu said. "She's dressed again."

"Shush," Tru said.

Fenn looked out the window. All she saw was someone in heavy green coveralls walk by, pushing a cart. She heard the trunk raise, heard stuff being loaded and stuffed into the trunk. The trunk lid closed and a cart clattered away.

Tru scrambled into the middle seat.

Fenn thought she saw fear and apprehension on the girl's face.

She looked as Dambree stepped in front of the window, as if she'd suddenly sidestepped from beside the car, appearing in front of the driver's side window. Thick heavy brown gloves opened the door. The coveralls made her look bulky, the thick Terran military belt with the pistol on it was around her waist, with a long ugly looking knife in a sheath.

Mister Mewmew made an odd sound as Dambree sat down.

Fenn realized that Dambree had on a dark sweatshirt on under the coveralls, the hood pulled up over her head, hiding her hair and ears.

The car started as Fenn frowned.

Was Dambree... wearing something?

When Dambree turned and looked at her Fenn almost wet herself.

Dambree looked malevolent, uncaring, beyond all of that.

She looked like a promise of death.

She wore a white grav-skiing mask, angled pale 'eyebrows' over the polarized eye lenses and a pale blue inverted triangle in the middle of the upper forehead.

"Get some sleep," Dambree said, pushing back the grav-skiing mask. She was grateful for the light amplification and full color night vision. It was more expensive model of her old one.

She took a long drink of Liquid Hate.

"We have a long drive ahead of us."

Off in the distance a white flash lit the razor edge of the horizon.