What her pair-bond leaked now was urgency. And fear, though not for herself.

This latter wisp of emotion nearly drifted by unnoticed, even though the column was strong and bright to the Wadi’s senses. The problem was: it had become ever-present. Like the twin monsters of light that dominated her old home, that column of fear for others seemed to hang everywhere they went, solid and ferocious. For the Wadi, it was like a giant fang you soon curl your tail around and ignore because it has hung idle in your den for so long.

The Wadi tensed up as her pair-bond turned down another canyon. Odd, these canyons. All at sharp angles and pocked with square holes, all disgorging more large beasts like her pair-bond. Like her in size, anyway, but different in the tendrils of smoke that trailed out from their bodies—exuded from their very thoughts and feelings.

Her pair-bond ran as hard and fast as a Wadi now, her breathing raspy and labored. The Wadi exuded as much calming scent as she could, urging the pounding pulse she felt with her tail to relax itself. She also put out courage smoke. She curled her head around her pair-bond’s neck and released as much of both as she could, forgetting her need to conserve her energy.

She waited to see if her pair-bond would respond.

It was so frustrating, trying to communicate. But she had only herself to blame. With the hell being wrought in her stomach—the ever-present urge to eat and drink and nourish her eggs—it left little energy for anything else. So very little energy. And even less time.

ѻѻѻѻ

Molly weaved her way through a dense crowd, gasping for breath as she slowed. Ahead of her, the street pinched tight with rubble, leaving just enough room for pedestrians to squeeze through one at a time. Lokians pushed their way single-file, hands urging those ahead while buggies blasted their horns in futile frustration.

Molly veered out of the crush of people and scampered up the edge of the rubble, passing the roadblock. Two younger kids were up even higher, sifting through the rocks and laughing. Beyond them loomed the tail of a Navy bomber, its gleaming hull miraculously intact and leaning out over the street like a sundial. As she scampered down the mound of shattered building, Molly checked the street numbers to the side, looking for the address of the Navy office. Four twenty six. She had missed it.

She turned, looking back over the rubble and down the street where the crowds flowed dense into a tight stream. She felt certain the building number on the other side of the rubble had been—

It hit her. As solidly as the bomber had hit the building she was looking for. Molly looked down at her feet. Her destination was right below her, caked up in the treads of her flightboots.

“No flanking way,” she muttered. She scanned the crowd for anyone in Navy black as the Wadi nudged her chin with its head. “It’s okay,” she told her. Molly held her hand up and rubbed the Wadi’s neck with her finger. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” she lied.

That’s what she loved about having a pet. You could lie to them and they didn’t know any different. Somehow, saying what she knew to not be true made her feel better. It dissipated the bad sensations inside, just as the wind had removed from the morning sky all signs of the downed shuttle. Its great column of white liftoff smoke had hung over the city during her run into town, but now it was gone, scattered across the winds like so many forgotten Callites.

Molly saw no sign of Navy officials, but that was hardly surprising. She wouldn’t be shocked to discover they had made scarce before the façade of their building had done the same. Her last remaining option for help felt like a poor choice; the town’s sheriff had seemed a tad incompetent the last time she’d turned to him in need, or at least not very eager to help her out. But Molly couldn’t think of any alternatives.

She looked around, trying to get her bearings straight. The small town of Bekkie felt huge all of a sudden—there was just so much going on. People running to and fro, clutching precious items against their chests; fires being fought; lights flashing; flames flickering. Behind it all were her friends in danger, the love of her life and her father gone from the universe, her mom telling her to get ready to be alone again, Saunders and his crew and all they’d been through, and so many Callites sent off to their death.

As Molly turned in place, trying to locate the steeple of the great church in the center of town, she felt like her surroundings turned at a different rate than herself, as if the world spun on her while she stood still—and likewise stood still while she spun. Through a haze of smoke, she finally located that central spire of the great church and used it to locate herself. To center herself. She scampered down from the rubble and set off at a jog through the twists and turns of unplanned alleys.

The Sheriff would be able to help her, she told herself. She put one hand on the Wadi’s back so it wouldn’t use its claws, and hoped he didn’t feel the same way about Callites as he had about pets.

ѻѻѻѻ

Molly approached the town square one street over from Main. She slowed to catch her breath and cut through a narrow alley that should dump her out right by the sheriff’s office. Her skin crawled as she plunged into the crack between the two buildings. The shade trapped between them was cool—the lingering nighttime darkness not yet chased off by the rising sun.

Molly berated herself for her childish terror, but picked up the pace again. The tickling sensation of having something awful right at her back resurrected a nostalgic fear she once harbored for Parsona’s cargo bay. When she was young, she used to run from her bedroom to the cockpit, sprinting ahead of the monsters to the safety of her father’s lap. The sudden recollection clawed at her breath in a way the running couldn’t. Molly burst out of the alley, gasping, tears in her eyes as she remembered the many hours she’d spent curled up against his belly while he spoke softly to himself, his voice muffled by his sealed helmet, his hand always moving up and down her back or smoothing her hair.

“That’s her right there!”

The outburst startled that skittish memory back into the folds of Molly’s brain. The accusatory words had arrived as well-aimed as any bullet, the way utterances can often cut through the din of so much background noise. Molly turned, her ears attuned to the fact that the speaker had been looking right at her as he yelled it.

There, behind the bars on the sheriff’s window, she found two eyes peering right back at her. A hand stuck out between the bars and pointed, the finger trembling with excitement. “That’s the one!”

Molly turned to look behind herself, to see if there was someone else the finger could be indicating. When she turned back, the sheriff loomed before her, seizing her with strong hands and removing any doubt.

“Hey, wait a sec—!”

The sheriff pulled her arm up tight behind her and force-marched her the last few steps she had intended to take anyway. Molly automatically resisted, pushing back against him as he manhandled her forward and through the door.

“Fine piece of detective work there, Sheriff Browne.”

“That’s enough out of you,” the sheriff said to a prisoner in the far cell.

“What’s going on?” Molly asked. She felt cuffs snap down around her wrists before she was handed off to a deputy, who nodded politely and tipped his hat before escorting her toward one of the empty cells. “Am I being arrested?”

“Assault and battery, ma’am.”

The deputy smiled, winked, and dipped his chin. His accusation and flirtations didn’t mix well.

“Do what?” Molly looked down at her manacled hands, as if to con-firm the bizarre turn of events.

The deputy pushed her into the cell and slid the door shut with a bang. He then reached inside and unlocked the cuffs before pulling them out through the bars. Molly watched the bizarre charade of bureaucratic inefficiency and felt herself becoming detached from the entire scene. It had to be happening to someone else. She peered past the deputy to the sheriff, who was looking her up and down.

“You sure this is the woman that licked you?”

“Positive,” a man said. He moved closer, out of the shaft of dust sus-pended around the window. The light kept him in silhouette, but Molly could recognize him by his massive frame, if not the accusation. Once she knew where to look, she could clearly see the bandage around his neck as well.

The sheriff laughed. “Paulie, are you sure you wanna go on record and say this girl whooped your ass?”

He laughed louder, and the deputy joined in, along with the prisoner to Molly’s side. Thighs were slapped, sending up clouds of dust to gather by the windows.

“There were three of them, like I told you.” Paulie said it defensively. He stepped closer to the cells and glared at Molly.

“This man tried to kill me!” Molly yelled. She reached through the bars and jabbed a finger in his direction. “He tied me up—they tied lots of people up and stole their votes! Our votes!”

“That’s the dumbest thing—”

“Look!” Molly yelled. She became frantic, grabbing her sleeve and fighting to roll it up. This made no sense, her being behind bars. It made her brain boil, made it hard to think. She felt the Wadi scamper down and bury itself in a pocket as she finally got the sleeve past her elbow.

“Look! Look at what they did to me.” She held out her arm and pointed at the red circle around the needle mark.

“That explains her strength,” Paulie said. “And her delusions. She’s obviously an addict.”

“Both of you settle down,” the sheriff said. “This ain’t for me to even hear. A judge’ll decide what went which way for who and when.”

“Whom,” his deputy said.

“Whatever.”

“No, he’s right,” the prisoner in the adjacent cell said, still laughing.

“And I said that’s enough out of you. I swear, you people are driving me insane. All I needed this week was some peace and quiet and I’ve got fleets falling out of the sky, a rash of looting, and now this nonsense.” He turned to Paulie as the big man seemed about to say something. “That means you too, Paulie. Now I’ll ask you to leave so I can do some paperwork in quietude.”

“Wait!” Paulie said, as the sheriff and deputy guided him toward the door. “But I ain’t told you the half of it! I got two dead friends and another two in the hospital because of this bitch—!”

“Watch your language,” the deputy said.

“Save it for the judge,” said the sheriff.

They pushed Paulie out into the street and banged the door shut behind him. His complaints were left to worm their way through the bars, stirring the shafts of dust.

“Now, back to my paperwork,” the sheriff said. He plopped down in his chair and pulled the newspaper up to the brim of his outrageous hat. He shook the fold straight and started reading, tsking at some piece of bad news.

“You’ve gotta be flanking kidding me,” Molly said. She looked around the cell, gripping the bars ahead of her; she rattled them in frustration.

“Retirement does this to a man,” the prisoner beside her whispered.

“Does what?” She turned and faced the man in the neighboring cell, who had lounged back on his cot now that the show was over.

“He ain’t been outside in a month,” the man said softly. “Least not until he arrested you.” He scratched the dark stubble on his chin. “I’m impressed he went that far.”

Molly stepped closer to the bars to hear better; her Wadi scurried out of her pocket and crept up to its perch behind her neck.

“Full retirement next week,” the prisoner said. “Great time to be a crook if it weren’t for that damned deputy.” He nodded to the younger man by the window.

“I don’t care about any of that,” Molly said. “No offense,” she added, as she noted the hurt expression on the man’s face. “I’ve got friends in trouble. I need to get out of here!”

The man shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. “Ain’t we all?”

Molly turned to the sheriff. “Excuse me,” she said. “Look, I know it’s not your job to hear out our sides, but don’t you need something more than a man’s words to hold me here?”

“Sure do,” the sheriff said from the other side of his sports section.

“Can I go, then?”

“Nope.”

“Well what’ve you got besides a man’s words?” Molly asked.

“His wounds,” the sheriff said nonchalantly. “Didn’t look self inflicted to me. And you got a slight limp, consistent with the sort of blow a knee would take to move a man’s nose three inches to the left.”

“Ouch,” the prisoner said.

“What about—?”

“Self defense? Not a mark on you.” The sheriff peeked over his paper. “Unless you wanna count the stain of your habit on that left arm of yours.”

“What? No! I don’t do drugs. Hell, I don’t even drink!”

“Sure do curse a lot, though,” the prisoner pointed out.

The sheriff lowered his paper and glared at the other prisoner. “I swear on the heavens, that’s the last word I want outta you. And you,” he nodded to Molly. “You can save your explanations for—” The sheriff leaned forward and squinted at Molly. He slapped his paper down and bolted out of his chair. “Hey, wait a damn second. Didn’t I tell you pets weren’t allowed in my office?” He strode toward the cells, jabbing the air with his gun-shaped finger. “You were in here the other day, weren’t you? Asking about Cripple?”

Molly nodded. “That’s right, and I think she’s in trouble.”