In The Beginning, Gail Daley [red white royal blue .TXT] 📗

by thin plastia sheets to insure privacy. Their thin skins could be recycled into the sterilizer between patients, which helped cut down on the passing of infections. The plastia skins were supposed to be sound resistant too but often failed in this respect.

"Lister’s got her nose out of joint," one of them reported gleefully.

"Serves her right," the other agreed. "Bitch thinks she’s too good for the likes of us. I heard that Lieutenant she had her eye on turned her off and hooked up with that Diplomat from Vensoog."

"She’s a looker that one. Can’t say as I blame him none," the other replied.

"Well, I say she ought to watch her back. That Lister’s a mean one. Why I hear she suckered some dumb corporal into sending that woman and the kids down to Ole Ben’s Cyclomart."

"Shame," the other opined, "Grinders’ll get ‘em for sure down there. I hear they got a tie in with Ole Ben so’s he tags them when he’s got a rich fish come into the shop."

Jayne had sat frozen during the entire dialog. At first, it had only been idle curiosity that made her listen, but she soon realized they were gossiping about Lady Katherine and the children.

"Oh, No, what have I done," she whispered. After a brief, lip biting indecision, she got out her com and chimed Zack and Gideon and blurted out the whole story.

"I’m so sorry," she said. "But how could I know she meant bad?"

"It’s alright, Jayne," Gideon responded soothingly. "We’ll just commandeer a car and go escort them home. You just finish up with the boys at the center."

After an extended lunch as chaotic as the shopping had been, Katherine found she still hadn’t gotten several of the items that had been on her list, so she gave the order to proceed to the shop Jayne’s fellow soldier had recommended.

Unfortunately, when they arrived the street was being torn up for some type of maintenance and they had to park the robocar several blocks from the shop.

Although somewhat disappointing in size, Ben’s Cyclomart did prove to have some instructional art vids as well as several different types of games suitable for a child Violet’s age. However, the displays were a disorganized mess and they spent some time wandering around in the shop.

When they left the store, Katherine was surprised to find it was late afternoon. She was annoyed to discover that the car didn’t respond when she summoned it.

"Well, I guess we’ll just have to walk," she told the children. "Come on, it isn’t that far."

Just as they stepped onto the walkway, she heard the door of the shop close and the lock snick closed behind them. "Well!" she exclaimed, "I guess we interrupted his tea time or something."

Juliette grabbed her hand. "I don’t think that’s it. Look."

Three young, tough looking men were approaching them, followed at a distance by two older ones. Katherine had helped fight bandits in the hills above Corrine’s estate as a teenager, and she recognized the type.

"Well, Hell," she said, handing her packages to Jayla and unsnapping her force wand from her boot. She handed Lucinda the controller for the car. Muttering curses under her breath at the storekeeper for locking the door, Katherine quickly told Jayla to lead the run for the car and get to safety, and for Lucas to bring up the rear.

She opened her Force Wand and moved out in front of the gang, extending the wand to its full fighting length and beginning to whirl it. A Vensoog Force Wand is made of reinforced titanium covered in hardwood. One of the ends would give forth a graduated electric stun, and a thin sharp blade would pop out of the other on command. Created as a control for Water Dragons, at its maximum power the stunning end was lethal to humans. Katherine turned it on full. She intended to make sure none of these thugs hurt her children, and she didn’t particularly care if it was fatal or not.

"Hey," Rogers said, "I thought there were only five kids. I see seven."

"Let’s take all of them. If we have an extra, we can always sell her to Van Doyle. He always wants fresh meat," Sanders commented.

"What about the big kid? He kind of looks military."

"He can go down with the woman." Sanders shoved the three members of the street gang they had hired as a diversion toward Katherine. "Get going, you. I don’t want them running back into the shop."

Behind her, Katherine heard the children racing for the car as the three muggers circled her looking for an opening. Knowing she couldn’t let them get behind her, Katherine jumped forward, bringing the Force Wand around in a swing designed to knock the attacker on the right off his feet. He screamed and fell as she connected with the lethal end of the wand. Continuing the turn, she brought the wand up toward the middle foe’s chin. This time she didn’t connect cleanly, because the third man dived at her under the wand in attempt to take her off her feet. The blow on the middle attacker was too light, and she missed with the deadly end of the wand, clipping him on the shoulder. The hit stunned him, but he didn’t go completely out. The third man’s dive had succeeded in knocking her down and she hit the ground hard with a whoosh! of air blowing out of her lungs. As she fell, she retracted the wand back to half size. Even while she gasped for air, her newly acquired mother’s instinct made her aware of the other sounds of combat. Juliette and Jayla screamed and Lucas yelled. Desperate to go and help, she jabbed the lethal end of the wand into the eye of the man who had knocked her down, and he slumped on her, a dead weight. She shoved him off and managed to stagger to her feet.

In the meantime, Grouter’s man Rogers had managed to take out Lucas, and Sanders