Robotech: Exodus

To celebrate the publishing of a new Robotech game, and to give me something to space out if I get clocked on Orb Weaver, a new story! Janna and David are taking care of kids, but things are getting worse and a secret from before the Invid might save them... or kill them.

****

2038

“What do you mean, you don’t have any medicine!” Janna said. “I’ve brought our salvage!” The fifteen-year-old leaned over the rickety counter, and gestured at the pile of stuff. “Batteries, power conduits, all fixed up!”

The older woman shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what you have, we don’t have any to give,” she said. “We just don’t have any—“

“Connerston is always good—“

“Connerston is gone, dear.”

Janna blinked. “What?”

“The UEG, or relief force or whatever they called themselves…” She shook her head. “They riled the Invid up something fierce. Connerston voted to stand up and help them, and well… Connerston is no more.”

“But… Danny’s sick!” Janna said. “So are some of the other kids!”

“I can give you penicillin,” Wilma said. “We make it here, after all. If what they have isn’t viral…”

“And Doc?”

“Doc went with the soldiers. He won’t be back.”

“Fine.” Janna looked around. “If you don’t have medicine… Do you have any chocolate?”

“From my secret stash?” Wilma smiled. “Yes, dear, from before the war. You’ve earned it.”

Sure I have…

****

The dusty little town was nearly empty when Janna went out. According to the old folks, the ones who remembered the years before there were aliens, it’d been hotter before the rain of death, but noon in summer was still hot enough that most people stayed indoors.

By reflex, she checked the sky. There were no invid in it. Normally,they didn’t bother you if you didn’t bother them, but now that the offworlders had riled them up, you could never tell.

Shaking her head, she checked the sidecar, and pulled out, the electric bike nearly silent.

It didn’t take long to get home. Janna didn’t know what it had been before, but robotechnology let you build ceramic structures in hours,or it had, so she figured it’d been something thrown up for a battle and forgotten. But the big shelter, with its meter-thick ceramic walls, was cool in summer and warm in winter and had room for their garage, workshop, and living spaces…

Nobody was out and—

“Advance and be recognized!”

Janna sighed, looking up at the person wearing an old Southern Cross helmet, holding a slingshot. Because I would Zor-Blessed murder him if he was holding a real gun. “Jack, I’m Janna and I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh, you didn’t get the medicine?”

“No. But I did get chocolate.”

“What? That’s better than Medicine!”

“And we’ll distribute it after supper. Go get washed up.”

Inside, the air was dry and cool, run through some salvaged units Janna had fixed up. The lights were taken from an old Southern Cross APC, and the tools were salvaged from other places. So were the kids.

I shouldn’t… no, what choice did we have? After all, if someone hadn’t taken Janna and David in, they’d have died when the Invid came, so when Danny’s parents had died, and then the sweating sickness came through… they had room.

And here she and David were, fifteen years old and keeper of 12 kids, at least until they were old enough to go find their own way.

“Danny’s still coughing,” June said, the eight-year-old looking very serious. “I don’t think he’s kidding.”

“Okay, where’s David?”

“He got a pig for dinner, and he’s cutting it up, with the others.”

“Right, I’ll go see Danny.”

Inside the little bedroom, Danny was coughing. The eleven-year-old looking tired.

“Can’t sleep?” Janna asked.

“I hate this,” he said. “I can’t play.”

“Or take your lessons,” Janna commented.

“Those are boring.”

“Yeah, well, you gotta learn to read and write.” She pulled an antique stethoscope from her pocket. “Let me check.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. Shirt up. Breathe.”

She listened, even as he coughed. It doesn’t sound like he has stuff in his lungs. Not like Kim, last year.

Kim, who lay in their little graveyard.

Please don’t be like Kim.

“Right, I’ve got some chicken soup packets, and you can have them later, tonight, after dinner. The extra fluids will do you good.”

And with that, Janna went out to the cooking pit where David was directing the kids. David was 16, but for all he claimed to be born from humans, Janna swore he had to have some zentraedi in him, being over six feet tall.

“How is Danny?”

“Coughing… It’s not in the lungs. The rest?”

“Not coughing as bad. Any meds?”

“Just some homemade stuff.” Janna looked back at her workshop. “They don’t have any of it, because Connerston isn’t here any more.”

“What?”

“They listened to the offworlders and attacked the Invid.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Dinner was good. There weren’t a lot of people any more, so pig was easy to get. So was beef and chicken, and the little herd of milk cows, combined with the big refrigeration unit Janna had fixed up, meant that they could actually trade milk to the village and passersby.

But right now what she needed…

Later that night, when the kids were asleep, Janna looked at David, as he carefully cleaned his rifle.

“I’m going to Zempoala.”

David paused. “No you’re not.”

“We need medicine.”

“We don’t know if Danny will need—‘

“An when we do know, it’ll be too late!” Janna grabbed an old map. “Look, Zempoala reserve infantry storage center.”

“Which means that the Invid would have taken it, and if they didn’t who knows what kind of bad guys are there!”

“Nope, the Southern Cross pulled out—see?” she gestured at some handwriting. “They took everything important.”

“And that means—“

“Everything Important, David. Before the Invid, every soldier had a med pack. Why would they take them?”

“And since then?”

“It’s close to the Acozac Hive. They’d see any attempt—“

“Yes!”

“For a mass removal.” Janna glared. “The Invid don’t come after us, much, if we don’t bother them. They won’t care about one girl on a bike.”

“That was before they got stirred up!”

Janna glared at him. “We don’t have a choice! Even if Danny isn’t sick, winter’s coming, and pneumonia comes with it.”

“I—“ David shook his head. “We should both go.”

“And let the kids stay here? What if some bandits drop by?” She shook her head. “Look, I’ll go tomorrow. It’s a three hour ride. Go there, come back, and hopefully I’ll find what we need. No problem.”

“I…” David rolled his eyes. “And I get to watch the kids.”

“Hey, you get fun, I get the boring drive,” Janna said.

*****

“THIS IS NOT BORING!” Janna screamed as a disk of plasma went sailing over her head. She’d gotten to the wrecked base, just in time for one of the remaining groups of idiot liberators to decide to make a last stand here. Her bike was, she hoped, still alive, or it was gonna be a long walk home.

But the Invid were shooting anything that moved and the humans were shooting back, because of course they were, even though that just brought more Invid from the Hive.

She dodged some person on a motor bike zipping by, then took a dive for one of the ruined blockhouses. There was a small door. If she could…

Locked.

Damn, damn, damn… The lock was practically frozen, something that had been there for years, maybe ever since the Invasion.

Guess I was right! 

She pulled out her vibroblade, a precious possession that Janna hardly ever used, and activated it. Hopefully it would—yes! She cut the hinges and then the lock and stepped aside as the door fell—and then screamed as a missile volley hit the ground behind her and Janna went flying into the darkness.

Her head hit something and then Janna sank into merciful unconsciousness.