Hartan Expanding, Ch. 03
Copyright April 2024 by Fit529 Dotcom (started 2019)
== Disclaimers ==
All names have been randomized to protect those idiots who think they are secretly living other lives in random multiverse shards and having lots more sex than they normally do here. Even if you randomly have the same name as someone here, NO, it's not you, get over yourself.
All persons engaging in or exposed to any sexual situations are over age 18.
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== PREVIOUS CHAPTERS ==
So much has happened in the previous chapters, it's kind of useless to summarize it. This only makes much sense if you start at the beginning.
That said? Aliens invade, flattening Earth in slow motion. Fifteen years later, I'm working hard to get off planet, hoping to avoid getting drafted into an unknown fate, and discover there was and is a whole lot of sex going on that I didn't know about.
I have to adjust.
== Chapter: Morning Alarms ==
The alarm went off and we both awoke, smiling at each other. I turned it off and rolled over to kiss her, finding her boob was in handy proximity for me to pet and appreciatively squeeze for a minute or so.
I was mesmerized.
God, she was sexy!
I opened my eyes again and got a semi-tolerant eye roll and a head motion to get up.
After we showered and got back to the room, collected our packs and headed for the front room like normal, I noticed Mom wasn't waiting for us in the front hall. She'd usually been doing that, but every once in a while she wasn't there. We all took it in stride, the little ones sometimes woke her up and she had to sleep sometime. Or, sometimes there was a funeral or something important and she had to help out a parishioner.
An older Hispanic lady was there, one of my mom's parishioners who I barely knew but had been handling some of the little ones lately. She dispensed hugs for those heading out.
As Maria and I got to the door, we saw mom was walking up the driveway. She was leading 4 more people, an older Japanese-looking man, 2 Japanese-looking teenage girls, and a smaller pacific-islander-looking boy, complete with flowered shirt. The Japanese people looked bedraggled, in tattered clothes, barely able to walk. They were covered in cuts and bruises, barely healed with only the smallest of bandages over them.
We stopped and gave Mom hugs, and she explained. "More guests, for the front room, I think, this time. I'll need your help once we get beds for them. You go to school, we'll get it sorted." Mom was a strong woman, I knew, but this set of complications couldn't have been easy. I knew our ration wasn't full, either, but with most of the food being served at school, most of us didn't eat at home, except sometimes on Sunday mornings before church.
Maria and I walked on to school. The planet was in bad shape and it was getting worse.
After we got to school, about halfway through second period, all our devices lit up and buzzed. An alarm was sounding!
There were drills, we'd had those before, always on at noon on the fourth day of the month, really every cycle-start day which was the same thing.
It wasn't noon.
Everybody in the class looked up and we all stopped what we were doing, including the teacher. The alert signal sounded, at full volume on all the devices, you couldn't shut that off. Full tones, up-down-up then blat-blat-blat, twice. This was no drill.
"Attention, please. Attention, please. This is NOT a drill. This is NOT a drill. Stand by for an announcement from UN Central Hartan Command. UNCHC announcement follows."
(That part was standard, they always said that. It was recorded - and had been the same voice for as long as I'd been alive to remember hearing it.)
Another voice, an older woman's and not recorded, came in next.
"Hello. Fellow humans, especially residents of Earth. This is UNCHC. We regret to inform you of major breaking news. We have just learned that another 2 Hartan ships have approached and landed. One has been detected in central Antarctica, and the other in Mali, western Africa."
She paused. "These ships appear to be operating in the same manner as the others, moving at the same speed and breaking up the land in the same way."
She paused a moment for effect, and continued. "This obviously affects everyone in the world, as every person killed or displaced decreases the stock of talent we have to find a way to defeat them. Every fewer person is one fewer to oppose those who would wipe us out. Every square kilometer of land poisoned is one less square kilometer we have to feed, clothe, build on, live on, and use to care for our fellow humans."
"We must fight - we must strive! - to learn and grow strong by finding new things, even small things, building up whatever infrastructure and knowledge we can, to ensure our continued existence. If we cannot solve this, displace the Hartan ships, the consequences are plain. We all have jobs, and lives, and goals individually. Those displaced need help getting to safety, but more than that, we need those displaced people to be productive again. We can't have displaced people be inactive, and that means adjusting. In their hour of need, we need to stand strong, shoulder to shoulder, to defeat this Hartan evil."
"If you have a spare space, even if it's not much, if it's inside and protected from the weather, tell your local UNCHC or government office. Food will be provided, all these people need, mostly, is a safe place to lay their heads."
She took a breath, and said, more somberly, "We understand it's hard. We know life is harder. But, we must all move on together. If you are affected by radiation, or given a solemn prognosis, there are definite ways you can still help. We need volunteers to drive into afflicted zones and plant fast-growing grasses and trees to shade and control dust. There are many other jobs that desperately need doing. We must all Do Our Part. LME. Strive. Achieve. Innovate. Celebrate ideas and the people who have them, even if they're small. We must all pull together or there will be an end to us."
She paused a second for a breath, and finished up, "Face your fears, my fellows. Face them and work harder, stronger, smarter, and together we can make humanity's greatest days be those yet to come. May the peace of your God be with you. End of transmission."
Shaken, we sat there in stunned silence. Some people stood up, like they were ready to fight someone who was going to walk through the door any minute. One girl got up, walked around the class for a second in silence, and then sat down on the floor against the wall, in thought.
The teacher walked to the front of the class; she hadn't done much lecture this class session, since we could watch lecture videos by ourselves, but sometimes teachers would ask prompting questions to get us to debate things on our own. Calmly, she held up her hand and found our eyes; we all watched her.
When she had everyone's eyes, she said, "As a teacher, I got a datafeed about an hour ago, encrypted. It just decrypted. I'll read it now out loud to you, you're getting this info right now as I am."
Looking at her device, she read the message out loud, "The following is a measurement dump on what's happening in Antarctica. For analytical reasons, we randomly request some students in various places to investigate, experiment, postulate, and report on current and anticipated effects of the following. Notes are as follows."
We got that part; she took a breath.
"Ship 7 is now in East Antarctica, about 200 km E of Slessor, landing undetected about 3 days ago. The ship is staying above the surrounding surface level. Effects include complete melting of all ice down to surface soil levels, and further heating of melted water to a temperature of approximately 25 degrees Celsius. The energy input required to do this is far, far beyond previous energy outputs. The meltwater, for the moment, remains trapped inland. Estimated time to a point where this water could drain is approximately 7 months, presuming previous Hartan travel patterns remain intact and no ice-dam coulees occur. Please submit any papers documenting anticipated effects to department..."
The teacher stopped reading and said, more conversationally to us, "Anyone wishing to work on this project, give me a written statement of work proposal by end of school-day. I'll eval and approve, and submit non-duplicates to regional protectorate HQ. Otherwise, we all have work to do, even more now that these new ships are here. If anyone has relatives in the new areas, or feels it to be necessary, please feel free to make a counseling appointment. Otherwise, let's get back to work."
I turned back to my work and kept working problems. My previous night's delights echoed in my chest like heartburn when I thought about them, but focus on the now was pretty key.
After lunch, I had my bi-weekly physical, so I got in line and did the blood draw, urine sample, and dosimeter exchange. Results were normal, of course, but I wondered whether the additional dust kicked up by the new ships would mean more exposure where I was, half a world away. On the other hand, worrying about it would just fester and distract, and we all knew that path led to crazytown, the mines, and death.
Alissa, in biochem, asked me how things were going.
"Oh, pretty good. I'm learning a lot about biology, even if it's a more macro scale than in here."
She smiled formally. I got the feeling she was judging everything I was saying like I was on trial. She replied, "Good to hear it. Do you have anything to report about Maria?"
I looked at her strangely, like I was being asked to tattle on someone who'd taken 2 cookies instead of one. "Uh, no? She's pretty nice, and ..." I didn't know what to say, "... I ...?"
"Just give me some basic feedback. You'll be expected to give that to various people at various times, as well as logging into your 18Club app and noting things there using the pre-established formats. Sum up your experiences in a coldly clinical way, it's the way these things are discussed. Include your feelings, but describe them as if someone else was having them. It gives you perspective and allows discussion without blame."
"So, act like a robot?"
"Sort of. Now. I presume, per SOP, you and she have had physical contact."
