John Ringo - Sister Time

“You’re up early. Not another nightmare?” A frown crinkled Shari’s forehead as she pressed a mug into Cally’s hands, “I just fixed a fresh pot. Carrie said you got in about milking time this morning.”

“Yeah, she was just going out. The kids are at school?” Cally yawned again, pouring a mugful of the wonderful-smelling fresh, strong coffee, but neglecting to pollute it with cream or sugar. It didn’t matter how many times they told her it was hard-coded, she was convinced she was keeping just a little of the extra weight off her thighs and chest by watching what she ate. She split a bagel and dropped it in the toaster.

“Mmm. I expected it would be almost time for them to get out and come home by the time you and Michael woke up. Pam works so hard on her lesson plans, it’s a shame to have the girls miss a day. So, ’fess up, how long’s it been since you went to confession?” Shari asked.

“Uh… a few months, I guess.” Cally hedged. Actually, it had been more like eight months, since she’d gone back to work full time and been taken off of the six-monthly courier run to the Moon. Dammit .

“Go to confession. I’m not Catholic, but even I’ll agree it does you more good than that fancy Bane Sidhe shrink ever did. Here,” she said, putting a box of cornflakes and a bowl on the table. She turned to grab the milk. “Still can’t see why you like that stuff when I’ve got cheese grits in the crockpot. It’s not like you have to worry about your arteries. Go to confession.” She must have thought Cally’s pensive expression was disagreement because she shook the wooden spoon in her hand towards the younger woman. “You’re my friend, Cally O’Neal, and I won’t have you getting all shredded up inside again. It was bad enough when you were pregnant with Morgan. Go or I’ll… I’ll sic Michael on you!”

“All right, all right already. I’ll go. Last thing I need is Granpa nagging.” Cally said, crunching her cereal and wincing as the sound echoed in her skull against her headache. God, I really needed more sleep.

The younger woman was halfway through her breakfast when the door opened. A largish pile of dirty white fur and drool came bounding in, scattering sand across the clean floor. As Shari pulled the joyfully maniacal dog off of Cally and ushered it back out the door, she glared at her husband, who was shaking out his own shoes off the edge of the steps.

“Sorry, honey. He got past me again. Nagging about what?” Papa O’Neal looked sheepish as he shut the door behind the dog. He shook his head, looking for someplace he could politely spit. Shari handed him a mug and a broom.

“Good morning, Granpa. I thought you’d still be in bed.” Cally said, brushing sand off her lap.

“When you’re older and wiser, you’ll have the sense to take a nap the day before a night job.” Papa O’Neal sometimes seemed to forget he didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

“Yes, Granpa. We all know the elderly sometimes need an afternoon nap,” she said, brushing her hair back behind one ear. It was a habit from the Sinda persona she had never quite dropped.

“Elderly, hah! Who had the aches and pains last time we met in the gym?” He grinned, dodging as she took a swipe at him, and began to sweep.

“What were you thinking about for dinner tonight?” she asked Shari, pointedly ignoring Granpa as she drained her cup of coffee.

“I thought I’d make a crab and chicken casserole Pam came up with and get rid of a few leftovers. Why? What’s on your mind?” Shari finished loading the dishes and started the machine.

“Just wondered if there was something I could fix to help out.”

“If you could make something for dessert this afternoon, I’m sure the kids would like it. I could use something sweet myself.” Shari took a cloth and began wiping down the counters.

“That works. I need to go down to Ashley’s for some stuff. I can get the kids and make the weekend incinerator run if you want,” Cally offered, glancing at the nearly full can.

“Thanks. Um, Mark’s spending the night with Lucas. The keys to the truck are on the hook,” Shari said absently, preoccupied with slapping away the hand that was playing around the belt loops on the back of her jeans. She wasn’t slapping very hard. Cally smothered a grin and grabbed up the bag and the keys as she scooted out the door, reminding herself not to get back too quick.

Years ago, when she was a teenager freshly home on summer break, she had ridden cross-country with Granpa in a dusty red pickup truck from the School, in Idaho. They came back through all of the midwestern rear area country, until they met up with Shari in Knoxville, where she’d been filling the shopping list. It seemed Granpa had shamelessly used the slab and about a dozen different identities, with some judicious palm grease, to buy up the bounty farm allotments for all of Edisto Island. Even back then, she could easily imagine him going through all the changes, because it still looked strange as hell to her to see him with red hair and all young and everything. He probably would have kept on buying until he’d owned half of Colleton County if Father O’Reilly hadn’t gotten concerned and ratted him out to Shari.

Still, even the Bane Sidhe had had to agree that the possibilities were useful. And it was already a done deal by the time they’d realized what he was up to. Granpa got to keep his island, but the price for Cally was that her first summer home from school had been spent hunting Posleen and getting a crash course in low-country construction. Typically, Papa O’Neal had spent his free time during her first year of school in a combination of shady trades of Galtech goods from the Rabun Gap cache — those he didn’t plan to keep for himself — and brushing up his construction skills doing day labor jobs.

The hardest part had been sweeping the island once they got there. Satellite shots showed the bridge was intact, but they hadn’t known much else. And at the time Edisto Island was very nearly as far as anyone had penetrated into the Lost Zone. The ride in the back of truck, on the first load of mostly cinderblocks, ammo, and the bare necessities, watching the treeline for feral Posleen, had not been fun. Not fun at all. She’d gotten five of them, and that was just on her own side. The large, ochre, centauroid reptiles had to be the most repulsive things she’d ever seen.

She’d thanked God that Granpa had decided that speed was more important than profit and had put off taking the heads and hauling them on the truck to the first bounty outpost at Spartanburg. They were repulsive enough lying dead on the pavement leaking yellow ichor into the ground. Having that stinking mess in the truck right next to her would really have been too much, wrapped in a tarp or not. He’d sprung for the rental fee for a really big truck for that one, bringing down most of the parts of the house. Most of the parts of Granpa and Shari’s house were, of course, Galactic materials. Extruded and formed to spec, they could laugh off a direct hit by a hurricane. And over the next couple of centuries, they probably would.

Sensors and scanners for civilians hadn’t even been a dream in some bright boy’s head that soon after the war. Making do with the Mark I Eyeball when a Postie just might have picked up a railgun from somewhere wasn’t quite as terrifying as being in a bunker too damned near ground zero of a nuclear explosion, but it had been close. The worst part of the ride had been whenever they crossed a Postie bridge. She’d known they were structurally sound, of course, but the reminder of organized and technological Posleen had rubbed salt in memories that were all too fresh.

The first month on the island had been a hot and muggy hell, especially to a girl who’d recently acclimated to the Idaho mountain air. Sister Gabriella had really believed in PT, so at least she hadn’t been out of shape. Standing her watch at night, stalking Posties from one end of the island to the other, bit by bit, in the day had been tiring and tedious. It wasn’t that there were a whole lot of ferals. There weren’t. Fleet and Fleet Strike and all the rest had done their job, and, once the God Kings were gone, the ravenous hunger of the feral Posleen normals had done even more. It was just that Posties, even single isolated feral normals, were so terribly nasty. At least she’d gotten to vent her frustration at the heat and the mosquitos and the sand in everything whenever they’d actually found a Posleen. Granpa didn’t care, he’d just let her vent, as long as she didn’t give him cause to scold her for wasting ammo. She didn’t. Well, not more than once. And she’d had a really bad morning that day.