Daughters of an Amber Noon by Forrest Katherine V

Author:Forrest, Katherine V. [Forrest, Katherine V.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781594934551
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2015-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

2201.10.04—JOSS

Nighttime in the camp of the invader. Deep night. But not dark enough night. The camp perimeter is lit with narrow strips of brilliance that Africa says will immobilize and disintegrate anything that ventures near them. I hear the zzzzzt sounds that confirm what she says: innocent desert creatures drawn to the light and to annihilation.

This night’s events began at sundown with the security sweep of the campsite, during which Africa and I watched and waited in absolute stillness. I could scarcely breathe during the tock tock tock of the instruments that slowly, methodically swept and analyzed our rock, rigid with anxiety that Vellmar’s creation would not pass muster and that they would detect through our Fluxbar protection a pounding of my heart that hurt my chest with its violence. Then came these constant, sickening zzzzzt killing sounds. And the sentries, about a dozen I could see in our part of the encampment—who knows how many others—changing guard duty every hour, marching in close formation and then dispersing to stand twenty paces apart in those slick silver uniforms, faces hidden behind black visors, legs braced apart, a hand on the barrel of a rifle, the butt end resting on the desert floor.

It was three or four hours ago, as nearly as I can reckon time with all our instrumentation shut down, that my whole being was wrapped entirely in a longing to be working side by side with my sisters on our defense operations. Vowing that if I ever got back there, if I got out of this alive, I’d never again protest having to live in Sappho Valley. Our bubble, so dark and claustrophobic, its air warm and thick and close, is only a shade or two removed from pitch-blackness, and this danger all around us makes our other underground home seem a paradise.

Even after the security sweep, when we were no longer in immediate peril, the aftermath of my adrenaline surge made it impossible for me to sit still. It was at this point that I turned away from staring out of an optiscan to sit beside Africa with a whispered question: “Why these sentries? You told me their scanners picked up everything.”

“They do,” she murmured in reply. “For miles. Everything larger than a mouse. The sentries are useless.” Her voice seemed calm, as did her demeanor; but she was barely discernible in the darkness, her slender form a still, ebony shadow.

She had been occasionally rising to perform a survey of our situation, telling me each time there was no real information to be gleaned till morning, and of course she was right, but sleep clearly was not a possibility for either of us, so every few minutes I yielded to my compulsion to leap up and look out, while she sat cross-legged, hands on her knees as if in meditation.

She said to me, “This fact is obscured in historical records, but we briefly had female combat soldiers around the twenty-first century.”

I could only utter in incredulity, “We did?”

“We did.

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