Goddess of the Moon (Young Ancients: Tiera) (5 page)

She
thought about it, but the sun looked pretty bright already. It didn't feel
right though, so she waited herself, and checked trying to find the right
fields.

Then,
after a few minutes she spoke softly.

"Good
call. That's a magic light, not the sun. Cheaters." Tiera didn't really
mean it though. That was totally within the rules. Luckily no one noticed that
they were hiding and a second bright light, the real sun, came up about an hour
and a half later, they did wait for it to be all the way up though.

When
she spoke, whispering to her people still, she said something that sounded
overly cautious to her as well, but felt right, if that made any sense at all.

"Fly
straight up, to about a thousand feet, spread out a little in case this is a
trap. I know that it shouldn't be, but... Well, it's what I would have
done."

One
of the little boys, the one that seemed to do all the talking, spoke gently.

"On
three, then?" His accent was a little thick and clipped, but perfectly
understandable to her. "One, two..."

When
the last word came they darted up, only to find themselves pursued by a half
dozen people almost instantly.

Tiera
chuckled.

Then
she simply flew away.

Her
two buddies weren't brilliant flyers, but she did pretty well, having spent
years doing it, and even working with people on how to fight that way. The
thing there however, was that the kids didn't run away, and when the six people
from the fighters section hemmed her in, the boys used their shields to ram the
others, so that she could escape. It wasn't elegant, but it worked, and a few
minutes later they managed to get away clean. Then, since it wasn't an actual
battle, they went back, but she had her weapon out, ready to take down anyone,
if they were too silly to let them win.

It
was Kolb that called a halt to the whole thing, clapping his hands and smiling
as if he were truly happy to be there. That was rare for him. Normally, after
any kind of an exercise, he was a little dour. Most people didn't meet his
expectations after all, especially in fighting. It was his life.

"Not
too shabby. Not from
anyone
. We'll go over what was done in a bit, but
first I think that Sam Builder and Tiera Baker were going to show us what they
built?" He didn't sneer then, but did give her a funny look, as if he were
afraid she might well be embarrassed by her failure. She noticed that Sam
wasn't getting that treatment at all. Then, he was one of the Lairdgren Group
and she was just... Her. It made sense, when put in that light, didn't it?

Sam
just walked forward, took a single little focus stone tile out, which was
nearly identical to her own, and set it on the ground then he tapped it once,
with a soft grin. Making fabric appear. A whole, and nicely folded, pile of it.
After a second she got it. Not just cloth, but soft, absorbent looking towels.

She
clapped, since it was a lovely idea. One of her own actually, though he might
have thought of it himself too, since it was kind of a natural one really.
Then, touching only the top towel, not the amulet, he started to change the
color and then the size of the things.

Tiera
sighed a little.

"Perfect,
Sam. Wonderful. How well do they hold water?" It was a horrible question,
she realized, since Karen decided it would be funny to test it by picking her
up and tossing her back in the pond.

True,
she could have turned her shield on, but on the way in she decided not to,
since, after all, the towels needed to be tested. The water hit with a bit of a
shock, since she didn't have a temperature device on. During the night, her shield
had handled that, since it was designed to, and
had
to be, for space
work. Now she just got a sudden jolt that woke her all the way up.

After
a few seconds, she swam to shore and mock glared at Karen. Then, in revenge,
moved in and gave her a big hug. She had to take it too, or it could be
construed as her rebuffing an advance, which was dicey at the best of times,
especially in public. Then they both got to test the new device. It worked,
about like a towel should. After a bit of wiping and cycling their clothing so
that they'd be dry, they were back to normal, more or less. Her hair was
slightly damp still, but since she only had about an inch of black fuzz on her
head, that wasn't too bad.

She
bowed to Sam, since he had, clearly, done it. The boy didn't smirk at her, or
even look like he was going to ask about her own project, just seeming pleased
instead. It was, naturally,
Kolb
that needled her on that one, even
though he clearly felt uneasy about it. Tiera shrugged, copying a thing that
her brothers did all the time and handed one of the little devices she'd made
to Kolb, and took one herself, then she waved him over by the other people and
mimicked holding it up to her throat.

He
got the idea and did that himself, so she flew upward a few thousand feet, and
hovered there, her feet dangling under her.

"If
this works, you should be able to hear me up to a few miles away." She
waited for a second, wondering if it had simply failed. That would be a little
embarrassing, but it wasn't like she was in the Lairdgren Group or anything, so
no one would probably make that big of a deal about it.

"Well,
it seems to work pretty well. Go out a bit so we can check the range?"
Kolb spoke very naturally and didn't raise his voice at all even.

That
range, it turned out, was a lot closer to fifty miles than not, which left her
feeling pleased. Very much so. Of course, everyone with an amulet of the same
kind would hear what all the others were saying, but it was meant for work in
space, and distances could be a problem there.

She
explained that, as she flew back. Her stomach growled at her more than a bit
the whole time, too. She really needed to eat something soon, or there was
going to be trouble. Mainly when she grabbed up one of the other people and
took a bite out of them in desperation, she thought.

Kolb
didn't really cut her a lot of slack, instantly going over the flaws of the
thing. She got that however. It was part of his duty as her Instructor.

"Everyone
with one can hear you speaking. You should have some way to select channels, or
connect with only one of the other units at once, on demand. If it's for space
work, it needs mental controls. Run up fifty of them or so and take them out to
the Space Training base for testing after breakfast."

This
time Sam shook his head.

"No.
A hundred. If you can make that in nine hours, you can do a batch of a hundred
inside one. Builder Tiera." He said it with significance and bowed to her,
which got all the Noram people there to do the same, including Terry. A little
late, the kids all did it too, seeing that.

Havar
looked around at his charges, clearly counting them all, which was decently
responsible of him, and then frowned.

"I
don't know where we can get food this time of day. Kolb, any ideas? They all
missed their suppers last night."

Kolb
tilted his head, but Tiera waved a bit.

"We'll
go and take over the dining hall here for a bit. We can make some pottage and
eggs." Those were decently quick at least. It was just them, the people on
their side now, since the searchers had left, probably to go sleep, after
they'd failed to capture anyone. That had to be embarrassing, being defeated so
handily by little children... The idea left her smiling, just a bit.

They
all agreed it was a worthy operation, and moved in that direction, with Kolb
going over what everyone did. It was a lot more interesting than she'd thought.
Tiera smiled on the first one.

"Terry
and Gary got Sam into a Fast Craft and spent the night about ten thousand feet
straight above us. That was a clever use of resources and they even stayed
above the woods, which was well within the rules. Maggie and Linda camped out
in the woods, burying themselves and Karen in a hole that they covered with
branches, also evading detection." Then he turned to Havar and his two
boys. "Bobby and Ron managed to evade capture. The hiding could have been
done a little better, but we'll blame
Havar
for that. Setting up a
normal camp site wasn't the best plan, given what resources you had. It did
leave you mobile however, which worked. This time."

There
was a grin on his face then, as he looked at the ones with him.

"Finn
and Zackary hid well enough, once we realized that Headmaster Hardgrove was in
on it all. We moved into the attic of his building and stayed there all
night." That just left her people, who he waved at, already having the
names. Naturally. "Lewis and Clyde both managed to do a good job as well,
using their shields to hide in the pond like that with Tiera. In all, there are
only a few things that we could do better as a group. We'll work on that,
later. Right now we need to move on the dining facility, and seize control of
it. That will mean working. Tiera, can you lead that one?
I
know how to
cook, but I don't know if anyone else here can."

Terry
looked at her and then made a slightly tight looking face.

"I
can, sir. Pretty well. I'm better at baking, but eggs and pottage isn't
hard."

Tiera
nodded at the words.

"True.
We need enough for everyone. The head cook here will be observing too, so
everyone be ready for that." She was about to say more, but they all
nodded, as if that was completely ordinary. Being observed all the time like that.

Maybe
it was for them?

The
operation didn't go smoothly, but the cook did let them in and only fussed at
them about twenty times. Mainly about constantly washing their hands, which
both she and Terry had down thanks to life times of working with food,
and
about making sure they had enough variety of food stuffs so that the early
rising students wouldn't complain at him. They got a delivery of bread, from
the bakery in town, which would help, and Terry, despite what he'd said about
simple foods, made pancakes for everyone
and
egg bread. Kolb shocked her
by jumping in and having the kids cut up about forty apples, after taking the
skins off. He used a bit of sugar to make a fruit sauce to go over everything.
She did the pottage, using some shredded steak and browning it with spices, as
well as real oats, since they had plenty of those.

It
was decently enough done she thought, considering it was mainly the work of
kids too young to attend the school there and everyone coming in could see
that. They still complained however.

The
first one that did it was clearly a noble girl and looked to be about sixteen
or so, which would mean a third year. In other words, well old enough to have
already learned proper social graces. She snootily looked at the very young boy
that handed her tray over and sniffed.

"What's
this? Are we letting commoners in now?" Then, as if it made any sense at
all, she glared at Sam Builder, as if he wasn't the acting Magics Counselor for
all of Noram, and sniffed again. "
More
of them, I mean?"

It
was rude, but the boy in front of her just gave her a hard look and didn't
stop. When he spoke his voice was slightly raspy, from being awake for so long.

"I'm
Ron. With the Lost Section. Do you want to get together later and fuck?"
The boy might have been about ten or so, and was so clearly illegal due to his
age that the woman in front of him
had
to say no. By law.

Except
of course since they were in public, that would mean being a Doretta if she did
that, wouldn't it? The ten or so students in the room all stared for a bit,
having clearly heard the boy. True, he'd be a bit hard about it, but that
wasn't a vast problem under the rules. He'd introduced himself too, so that he
wasn't unknown to her. Finally, after a moment's silence, Mark Sorenson, of the
Lairdgren group, who was a noble by birth, clapped twice.

"Not
a bad answer, Ron. Not bad at all. Cynthia, I think you should
apologize
to the young man, before this gets
way
out of hand. I know that if he
said that to me at least,
I
wouldn't have a good way out. Definitely go
with groveling. You should throw in Sam too, by the way. After that little
display, I don't think you can imagine that he'll let you go without some work
either...
Especially
after the rest of the room starts calling out
suggestions to him."

The
girl looked ready to backhand the little, and pretty insolent, boy in front of
her, pulling her right hand into place for it and everything. Oddly enough
Baron Havar cleared his throat.

"I
wouldn't do that, miss." He didn't even sound hard or angry about it,
which Tiera would have expected.

"Oh?
Why not? He's
just
a commoner."

Whatever
he would have said didn't come out though, since Tiera decided to end it there.
Things really
could
get out of hand after all.

"Because
it will make you a Doretta if you do that. Either tell him yes, which will be
hard, since he's
way
too young for you, or grab hold of the line Mark
made for you and apologize. You don't
have
any other way out. Face it,
you came in being a bit bitchy, and insulted him, and he used social combat
rules to take you down so fast you almost didn't get the idea. If he can do
that on the fly, imagine what he might do if we give him a few hours to think
about it? Besides, he has a shield on, and you'd never touch him anyway. It
would just make you look mean, and not feel any better."

The
girl made a very angry face, but then shook her head a little and forced a
smile. It wasn't gracefully done, but it was, in the end, accomplished.

"I'm
sorry, Ron. Your offer is most welcome, but would be illegal here. I was rude
to you, and shouldn't have been. Can you forgive me?" She just stood
there, batting her eyelashes at him. Actually it wasn't a very good apology,
but the kid nodded once, and moved her plate along, not saying anything really.

Havar
called him on it, like a parent.

"Ron,
use your words, please."

He
nodded again. The voice that came out sounded young, but dead. Lacking
expression at all. "Yeah. Not a huge problem. Too bad though... you have
cute lips."