87The last of them was through. There were over a hundred refugees huddled around the truck, exhausted elders, frightened children, wounded women, and all of them with scales and tails and forked tongues. The area behind the Tesco superstore was alive with the sound of crying, whimpering, and a lot of hissing. How many of them there were was starting to give Christine a real headache. They needed to get these people hidden before somebody found them.
Lenay was the last through, and then Vivian was supposed to follow. Milly was keeping Lenay comfortable, as she'd practically collapsed as soon as she got through, weak from her fresh wounds. Milly was able to keep Christine from freaking out about it and climbing into the machine to go and rescue Vivian. It would only be another few seconds before the pod opened to reveal Vivian, who jumped out and declared victory.
"Okay, we need to get moving. Someone's going to find these people really soon if we stay here." The brunette climbed out of the trailer and started taking stock of just how many people they had to hide.
Christine followed her, stopping just at the end of the trailer. "What about Sam?"
"What about her?" Vivian turned and looked around. "Where is she?"
"She went through to rescue you guys. Wasn't she there with you?"
"Not unless she came through before we got there."
Christine shook her head. "Nope. She went in, and Milly came out right away. There's no way you didn't see her."
Looking spooked, Vivian looked around in the crowd, trying to make up her mind if hiding the refugees came before figuring out where their friend went. "I don't- I have no idea then. She could be anywhere. What are we supposed to do?"
At the back of the trailer, Milly was watching the exchange. She turned back to Sariel when it became clear to her that those two wouldn't be able to figure it out on their own. "Where did you send Sam?"
The Elf just shrugged. "I read the instructions and pressed a button. I'm really playing with fire here. If she came out anywhere in one piece, that's a good thing."
Standing up and confronting Sariel, Milly raised her voice. "Then why the hell would you send her through?"
"Listen, you've got a violent friend over there, and I was trying to help my friend as well." Sariel stuck her thumb over her shoulder at Christine, pegging her as the violent friend. "From what I understand, this thing shouldn't have worked unless it connected to another one, so she is somewhere, it's just a matter of finding where."
"It should be close enough, unless someone really messed with it." Lenay said, gasping in pain as she pushed herself up onto her feet. "Here, let me take a look at it."
Milly went to help Lenay up to the console, letting her get a good look at it. "Anything you can do?" She asked, aware that Christine was wandering back toward them. "Do you know where she went?"
Lenay shook her head. "I'm not an expert. Maylin understands thisss crap." Her tongue flicked around a bit, but she sucked it back in and looked back to Milly. "If your friend didn't come through on our end, I think I know where she went. Or at least the only place we could reasonably look."
"Where's that." Christine leaned up against the machine on Sariel's other side, holding up a small flame to illuminate the console again. "Where is Sam?"
Lenay looked mesmerized by the fire for a few seconds. Snapping out of it, she looked away from the others and let out a sigh. "She might have wound up in the capital. In the facility where they keep the official line of transportation open between our world and yours." She froze. "Oh… oh no."
"What?" Milly pressed. "What's wrong?"
"If she went there… the government is going to know we have this. They're going to track it down and find it. They'll send agents here, and to the rebellion's base."
"Oh… uh oh." Milly looked to Christine. "That means it's time to go. We need to start leading these people into the woods."
"We're just going to leave Sam out there alone?" Christine protested.
"We don't have a choice. If we don't get out of here quick, there's going to be a fight, and it's going to be bad." Milly rushed to the end of the trailer, waving her hands to get everyone's attention. "Listen up! We're going to get you out of here! Your government is going to be coming here soon, she we need to move fast! We're going to take you somewhere you will be safe, so follow us! Hurry!"
Jumping down from the trailer, she saw that the people had started moving, following Ichigo and Rose who were leading the way towards the nearest wooded area. It wasn't very big, but it was big enough to hide an entrance to their hideout. They would be safe in there, so long as there was enough food to go around. She turned back to help Lenay get down, and started to help lead her away as well. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Vivian was lagging behind with Christine and Sariel.
"Come on, you guys! We need to go now!"
Christine nodded to the other two. "You go ahead. I have something to take care of first."
"Okay, but don't take too long." Vivian said, walking away.
Sariel gave a quick goofy salute as she backed away. "Just a tip. Turn all the dials way up before you do anything."
"Got it." Christine climbed back into the trailer and made her way to the pod. She lit the air around her on fire, creating a bright light all around her body. Hunting down all the dials she could, she turned them all the way to the right. The machine started to hum and whine angrily. "Good, good. Okay, let's hope for Sam's sake this alien government can make a new one quickly." She opened the pod and climbed in, setting a timed chemical reaction just outside before she closed it up.
The trailer was engulfed in an explosion, a shock wave that nearly knocked over the entire crowd of refugees, and a fireball that climbed dozens of feet into the air. Milly let go of Lenay and started to run back, but Vivian caught her.
"What the hell was that?! Where is Christine!?"
"She went to get Sam! Milly, calm down! Christine is making sure they can't find the rebellion." She looked back at the pillar of fire. "We really need to get moving now."
Sariel stood up from where she'd landed after the explosion threw her. "She doesn't mess around, does she?" She looked over to Milly. "Don't worry, I gave her a tip on how to make sure she blew up all of the machines at the destination. So if there's two different factions with those things, they should both be without them now."
"Yeah, and what about Sam? What if she gets caught in the explosion?"
"She should be fine unless she was literally inside one." The Elf shook her head. "Your violent friend there will bring her back. Have faith."
The room shook and the lights sparked and flickered.
Samantha looked up at the ceiling with concern. "That's gonna hold, right?"
Colonel Friss nodded. "Thisss fasssility isss meant to withssstand a nuclear assssault."
"That sounded like it came from inside." Ossern turned to Koissa. "Stay here. I'm going to find out what happened." He wasn't gone for ten seconds before he was back. "The rebellion has attacked us. They've destroyed our bridge to Earth."
Hearing that, Colonel Friss left the room immediately. Koissa groaned in irritation. It didn't look to Samantha, however, like any of them were particularly upset, just a little bothered. That wasn't how she would have expected them to respond.
"You all seem a little too calm for this. What's going on?"
"Those animals in the rebellion must have overloaded the channels to hide their tracks." The general explained. "I guess they realized you ended up here with us, and that we could find them because of that. They should know that we'll be back up and running in a few days, so the only reason to do this would be to blow up their own machine so they can keep us from tracking it."
"So finding them just got harder."
"No, we already know where they're hidden. But a constant terrorist threat is good for propaganda."