Process, Part 1 (CROSSProcess) by Hildred M. Billings

Author:Hildred M. Billings [Billings, Hildred M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barachou Press
Published: 2023-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

four

The crates were only half-stacked when the sirens blared in the distance.

Manda dropped her end of the crate and stared at the sky in horror. Sulim stumbled under the weight of the crate and watched it crash to the ground, the far end spilling bags of seeds.

She wanted to curse the other girl, but Sulim heard the sirens and turned to the horizon. Five space cruisers roared in their direction.

“Oh, merciful Void!” Manda shrieked, her face covered in tears as her legs gave out and she sank to the grass. “They’re here!”

Katya was between them and the plantation house. After she saw the cruisers with her own eyes, she dashed off and screamed to anyone in the Montrael family who would listen. “It’s them! They’re coming! Run!”

Sulim could scarcely think with all the panic erupting around her. Who was coming? Why were the sirens blaring? The sirens only sounded during twister season, and the sky was clear as spring water.

Aside from the specks on the horizon.

Sprinting was all Sulim could process afterward. She easily overtook Manda and Katya in their mad dashes to the plantation house, where Lady Caramine appeared in the doorway to inspect what all the commotion was about. Sulim reached the house first, winded but not mute.

“Aunt Caramine… the sirens…”

“I can bloody well hear them, Sulim. What is everyone scattering around for?”

“The sky… space cruisers…” A stitch pulled at Sulim’s side from running so hard.

Caramine finally saw the ships for herself. “No…” she whispered in disbelief, eyes widening and face turning pale in the sunlight. “Not out here…”

It took only two more seconds for the Lady of Montrael to act. She ordered her children to her side, summoned the farmhands and servants, and bade all the others around her to come as well. By the time they locked up the house and made for the cellar entrance out back, one of the space cruisers defected from their formation and eyed the open grasslands for landing. Sulim’s heart swelled with a fear she did not understand.

There were two cellars, one for food and the other for the twister season. The latter was larger but still not large enough to house the twenty or so people running for safety. One of the older male farmhands opened the twister cellar and motioned for Caramine and her children to drop in before counting heads to see who would follow them. Sulim and Katya were two of them. The others were forced to take shelter in the smaller food stores.

The cellar was dank but more than adequate for hiding from raiders. Before the farmhand could join them and close the door behind him, Caramine barked an order for one of the last people outside to push a crate over it to conceal its frame. The door slammed shut and sent all dozen people inside into utter darkness. The nearest crate screeched against the steel trappings of the cellar door.

Silence followed.

Sulim sat in a corner, behind her aunt and cousins, with Katya and the farmhands on the other end.

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