After the distant thump and tremor that had filled Asahigaoka village that morning, cellphone and landline contact with Tokyo had ceased. Every TV showed only static. By sunset, almost everybody had gathered in the musty old village hall. A few women handed out tea and rice balls. Children stared at peeling civic posters and darkened windows. Swung from uncomfortable chairs and waited.

"Hey, Nattsun? What do Martians look like? Do they have eight legs and glowing eyes, and, and tentacles for faces, or…?"

"Shh, Renge. They look just like us, you know?"

"Uwah! Then you could be a Martian! Everyone could be Martians! Is there a Renge-Martian who looks like me, and Nattsun-Martian and Hotarun and Koma Martians?"

Nervous laughter drifted around the hall. Natsumi, the easy-going redhead, laughed as well but still hushed Renge. The younger girl was seven, all twintails and wide eyes. Solemn as a monk, irrepressible as a songbird.

A old farmer reminded the company that Mars had spies on Earth, and terrorist agents. His friends reminded him that a rural hamlet wouldn't be their primary target. Like Renge, Natsumi, and her petite elder sister, Komari, most villagers had never lived outside Asahgaoka. The Martian soldiery, circling the world in death-machine fortresses since the previous war, were barely more strange, gaudy, and vaguely immoral than dwellers in the Tokyo antheap.

"Don't we know anything about, um, Tokyo, Komari-sempai?" Hotaru asked, pretty eyes sharp with worry. Her family had moved from Tokyo, months ago. All her old friends were still there. Her new friend Hikari, Renge's sister, was there at her high school.

"No…but no one saw a flash, so it definitely wasn't, you know, a bomb." Komari babbled, "I'm sure Hikage-san will be okay…"

"Hika-nee!" Little Renge piped up, "She loved her new cell phone. Why won't she answer? Does your papa know, Shiori-chan?"

The smallest girl was the village constable's daughter - not that a tiny village had any crime to police - who proudly confirmed that she had no idea.

"We don't know, Renge..." Komari fidgeted, "But maybe you'll have your sister home early!"

"When's that? When's Hika-nee coming home?

The silence was broken when the head of the Village Council rose. The Martian princess, he informed the silent village, had been assassinated by unknown parties during her goodwill visit to Earth. It had been confirmed that the Martians had attacked Tokyo. Every measure was doubtless being taken to contain them. Everybody should remain calm, and prepare to do all Japan might ask. They should pray for their sacred nation and her people. Her fighting men and world peace.

"They can't know who did it." Natsumi blustered over the hubbub, "It must've been some crazy terrorists. How can they declare war on us?"

"Poor princess," As Hotaru stared down, Komari patted her hand, "She was hardly older than us."

"Hey. When's Hika-nee coming home? If Toyko's gone, she'll need to come home."

Komari stammered vaguely. All the children had heard the bang, seen the cloud; no one in the room could imagine Tokyo destroyed in hellfire, with its 14 million souls. A single schoolgirl...had been alive, and none of the girls had ever known death or war. No one who remembered how excitable and obliging Hikari had been, how proud of her school in the big city, could imagine anything else.

"Hey!" Natsumi forced a goofy smile, "If we're at war, will school be cancelled?"

-0-

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"Even if we're at war, your educations are still important. Yes, everything must be sorted out, even if there's a war somewhere, so that we can all go on just as before…"

Kazuho-sensei's class watched her promptly fall asleep, which was certainly business as usual.

"Huh. Nee-nee should be replaced with a Martian." Renge declared. Kazuho continued to nod, as if she wanted everything to change from what it was. She'd exhausted herself the night before, trying to contact Tokyo or Hikage's school in any imaginable way.

The class self-studied as usual, in unusual silence, only broken by drips from the leaking roof.

After school, something compelled the girls to stay together at each other's houses, even with static still filling every TV. None of them wanted life to change, but in their hearts they knew it had to…and felt smothered in forebodings, when so much was the same as yesterday. Every conversation tailed to nothing. Only Renge was still asking when her sister would be back.

Shiori, too small to really understand, asked Renge why the remains of the moon stayed hanging up in the sky. None of the older girls had anything that distracted them for longer.

When the girls trooped down the road through the fields, to the candy store, Hotaru noticed some bushes near the path had been levelled. The lonely shop would be harder to approach unobserved. Like many grown-ups, Kaede had closed up for a few days to stockpile tinned food. Unlike most grown-ups, she had acquired a hunting rifle.

"Whoa. This is Candystore's mail order business?"

"Do you think I'd know any arms dealers? I just got this from grandpa's old friend." Kaede didn't mention the gun was unlicensed; she didn't have time to mess around with that. She'd also recalled a movie where Russians invading the US had used gun license records to round up armed civilians. She knew war wasn't a movie, but there was nothing else that made sense of it.

"Are you going to shoot the Martians, Candystore? Only if they do something bad?"

Renge looked a bit worried; she'd yet to stop thinking of Martians as mysterious and cool, rather the enemies that had devastated Tokyo. Kaede looked down at her earnest little face.

"I won't shoot unless you're in danger, Renge-chan. I'll protect the rest of you squirts as well."

Apart from a few more rifles and shotguns in evidence, and the absence of both TV and relatives from Tokyo, very little did change in Asahigaoka. Natsumi passed on rumours that the Martians were preparing to blow up Earth, as they had destroyed the Moon. The Martians had landed in Tokyo; the UFE were going to nuke them. The Martians were using mind control on the UFE; a strong, silent hero had thrown them out of Japan. Komori asked pointedly how anyone in the village could know such things, but listened as avidly as anyone.

When another world-filling thump and flash passed through from the direction of Shinawara, Renge stopped asking about her big sister. She asked again when the Martians broadcast the ceasefire, but lapsed back into silence when the Martian Emperor made the formal declaration. Natsumi claimed brightly that if the war had only just started, surely nothing big could've happened?

Asahgaoka remained silenced by war, but untouched, until the girls went to the bus stop one morning and met the first Tokyo evacuees. There were two redheaded twins around Renge's age, but her gaze was arrested by their blue-eyed blonde chaperones.

"Uwah! Foreigners! Are you Martians?"

-0-

-0-

Alice Cartelet had lived with her homestay host, Omiya Shinobu, in Chiba. Across the bay from Tokyo; when Castle Cruhteo came down like a wolf on the fold, damage was relatively light. For a fortnight before, Shinobu had gushed about the beautiful, gold-haired Princess of Mars, and mourning that her welcome parade was in Shinawara, not Tokyo.

"Still, all is not lost! I shall make a beautiful dress for Alice, patterned on Princess Asseylum's dress in the photos. Then Alice can be my princess!"

"Oh, Shino!"

The tiny blonde clasped her dear friend's hands. Though her smile quickly turned to a pout, when Kujo Karen asserted that she looked more like the Princess, with her long hair. The spat ended with Shino promising to make three princess dresses for all of them, in different colours. Karen's friend Honoka, who loved blonde hair nearly as much as Shino, looked like Christmas had come early when she heard.

Weeks later, they had sat down before the TV, squashed onto the couch in their gorgeous princess dresses. Gladly watching the welcome parade of Princess Asseylum vers Allusia, beloved and beautiful. They watched the missile that fell from the heavens and hid her from their sight in a black, burning cloud.

"…bombs? Rockets?" Karen looked stupefied, "Was the Princess okay?"

"Who would do something like that?" Honoka was weeping, even without fully comprehending the assassination as more than sad pictures on the television.

"It's okay, Alice." Shino turned from little screen full of chaos, to Alice's whitened face, "It is so fortunate that we didn't go! I'm so glad you're safe."

Without words, Alice squeezed Shino's hand so hard that Karen had to prise them apart.

The girls left for their homes in silence. Even if the Martian jamming wave hadn't cut off phone and telecommunication, none of them had dared watch the news. Shino's mother heard the evacuation warning, from Tanoys in the street, but they hadn't finished packing overnight bags when the world blew up. Every window for miles had been shattered; every young girl flung to the ground.

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-0-

The evacuation had been bedlam. Sudden refugees rushing against the tide of disaster relief and military streaming to Tokyo. Carried no-one-knew-where, as screams rose like prophecies of doom from every corner. There was a dark cloud in the sky; the air tasted of steel and brick. The shockwave had wrecked the harbour, even before the authorities seized every unshattered boat; neither Alice or Shino could imagine leaving Japan in any case.

With Shino's big sister and mother, the girls had finally reached an evacuation point. The Inokumas and Aya Komichi's mother were there too, with Honoka's family. Yoko Inokuma had just pushed her siblings and parents onto an over-packed military transport and shouted that she'd be on the next one.

"We'll both be on it!" The redhead grinned at her friend Aya, squeezing her hand, "Sorry."

"I'm okay, Yoko…you're here." Even with Tokyo tower, the Imperial Palace and all else in ruins, she was the same. Aya squeezed back, and hid her smile.

As the next transport roared up, people in the crowd had started yelling about Martian Kataphrakts getting closer. A heaving riot had broken out. Shino had barely kept hold of Alice's hand – and Honoka had stumbled. Fallen under the mass of feet and faces.

Her parents had forced a path through the crowd to her, and so had Yoko, hitting out with fists and elbows to reach her classmate. Aya's had been forced by her mother onto the transport, with Shino, her family, and Alice. Lurching away, with Yoko still lost in the mob.

Aya beat her fists, then her forehead, against the windowless wall. Shouting back at Yoko, baka, baka, baka.

"Aya! Yoko is with Honoka's parents," Shino consoled her, "She is strong and she will be on the next bus. We'll soon see they're both okay…"

Aya would've been more reassured if Shino's big sister Isami had said anything. Anything would've been no worry, even that her father had worked in Tokyo, if only Yoko's smile had been there...her little brother was trying to stop his sister wailing. Aya hugged her legs and tried to breath.

Alice was still wearing her Princess costume. She looked up as Shino stroked her hair, tried to smile.

"I'll be fine, Shino. I expect they'll sort things out, soon."

"I'm sure they will. I'm sure your family will be fine. They have the British army and Royal Navy to protect them, in their peaceful country village. They'll always be an England, isn't that right?"

The old words burst painfully in Alice's little chest. A thousand miles from 'Last Night of the Proms', amid a disaster where every kind of help was needed more than a cheerful song - the words were all they had. Made pure and shining by Shino's innocent voice, as the crammed, dirty transport rolled towards a refugee camp.

The two of them occupied the rest of the journey singing; They'll always be an England, We Shall Meet Again, Tipperary. Rule Britannia, Ode to Joy, humming through all the words they forgot. Isami and the rest of the bus 'lalaed' along. Then the other refugees sang the Japanese anthem; Shino and Alice had to 'lala', short as it was. Tone-deaf Aya listened, and tried to think of nothing else.

Thousands of years of happy reign be thine;
Rule on, my lord, until what are pebbles now
By ages united to mighty rocks shall grow
Whose venerable sides the moss doth line!

There'll always be an England
While there's a country lane
Wherever there's a cottage small
Beside a field of grain

There'll always be an England
While there's a busy street
Wherever there's a turning wheel
A million marching feet

There'll always be an England
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me!

The displaced person station was already filled with circling families, screaming children and mud. Isami had finally spotted Karen, jumping up and waving her hands.

"Ohiyo-gozaimash! I'm so glad you're all safe! Papa's just gone back to shuttle out more people with our mobile home, but he'll be here soon, and Mama too! Where's Yoko? And Honoka, and…?"

Kouta and Mitsuki, Yoko's siblings, stared at Aya blankly. She fell on their little shoulders, and sobbed out that Yoko would be coming soon.

"Yes!" Karen's smile barely wavered, "Yoko and Honoka!"

Honoka's parents turned up that evening, but not their daughter, or Yoko. The adults heard that central Tokyo had been wiped out, and then Shinawara. A single Mars Kataphract had defeated the UFE's entire force; there was nothing between the camp and Castle Cruhteo.

Aya's father had been lucky; with a broken arm and broken head, he'd somehow been brought out. Britain, by no means any kind of world power since the flooding of central London in Heaven's Fall, had not been attacked by a Landing Castle. Alice and Karen would have been glad to hear that England was still there, if they'd had any means of knowing.

-0-

-0-

"...well? Are you Martians?"

Renge stuck to the direct approach. Alice met her earnest, demanding gaze and quailed. Japanese girls really were scary.

"No!" Karen declared readily, "We're English!"

"You speak Japanese! Amazing! Do you have superpowers?"

"Renge!" Natsumi forced the little girl's head down, and tried to remember her lessons, "Ah–VELY SOLLY! SHE JUSTO KIDDO, um, YEAH! DON MINDO! YEAH!"

"She just said we speak Japanese!" Karen pouted, flicking her hair, "Honestly!"

"Er, okay." Natsumi awkwardly glanced away, at the twins with red hair like hers. They had been stared very directly at her the whole time. "Um, so, did you travel from somewhere? Is everything okay…?"

"SISTER!"

The twins silently launched themselves at Natsumi and embraced her. Karen laughed, Alice smiled sweetly, and peace settled over both united parties in a matter of moments.

-0-

-0-

At the camp, Isami had gone to register for food allocations, and come back as Private Omiya, FC, drafted by the UFE. Like Yoko, her pilot scores in school training had been excellent. Shinobu rushed to the office-tent, however, to explain that her sister was a model. Surely she should be a publicity figure, not a pilot?

"With Tokyo and Shinawara destroyed, publicity isn't what we need. The enemy really is in the gates." The sergeant smiled kindly, "Your sister mentioned your talent with clothes, Omiya-san. I see your piloting marks could be higher, so you'll be assigned as a quartermaster's aide. Komichi-san; we'd like to assign you to the catering corps."

"Sorry? I don't quite understand…"

"The UFE is drafting all persons over fifteen, with any useful experience. They will be non-combatant roles, but your country must call upon your services, young ladies. To repel the monsters from Mars, we must each give our all." Alice, clinging to Shinobu's arm, let out a squeak, "And you could play your part as well, Miss. Wouldn't you like to volunteer with your friends?"

"You should remind her first that only the British arm of UFE can conscript British citizens, Sergeant." Isami interrupted. "She really does have a choice."

Alice remained silent. They trooped back to their tent, to find their homeroom teacher Kuzehashi, sharp as ever in her military uniform, pleading with a sulking Karen. The blond girl had had a row with her parents about volunteering.

"I've got really good pilot scores. I want to pilot an Aerion, and give those Martians what for! For Yoko's sake, and Honoka…but they just say, no, no, no! Why can't I fight? It's for the whole world!"

"Because we will fight to protect you, Kujo-San." Kuzehashi-sensei insisted, "Your parents care about your safety more than anything."

Shinobu and Alice gave Isami admiring glances. She sighed but smiled, and said she'd look out for them.

In the end, Mr Kujo and Honoka's father volunteered for the infantry; they might be sent into battle with a month's training. Mercurial as ever, Karen quickly accepted her parent's feelings and didn't volunteer. She joked that she might not have passed the Physical anyway.

Aya had barely reacted to her conscription; with Tokyo gone, with Yoko gone, something in her had simply shut down. Yoko had been the strong one, always at her side. Unafraid in a world of war, when she'd been terrified only of that terrified crowd. Her special friend, who'd never been on time, but never made her worry like this...Yoko who wasn't with her now, because she'd put Honoka and the twins before Aya and herself.

Aya got up; she found Mitsuki and Kouta sitting and sniffling in the tent. She sat down with the kids and told them the stories of Momtaro and Isshin Boshi. In the absence of computers, teddy bears and Yoko, they listened solemnly, hands slipping into both of Aya-nee's. She told them their dumb, brave sister would come back soon; the children reassured her that she would be.

A lot of refugees needed clothes mending or handed out, so Private Omiya Shinobu found her new work quite satisfying. The uniform could just have been a bit nicer. Private Aya Komichi didn't get on so well distributing soup and water rations to refugees. There were thousands of them, overwrought and desperately demanding. Aya put everything into her duty, and still more into looking out for the twins; it wasn't long before she started to crack. She made mistakes, she was overwhelmed, she simply sat down and cried. Alice and Karen made it their work to support her, but Aya grew more silent every day. Lying awake in a icy sleeping bag, with Yoko an infinite distance away, she was alone.

The twin grew more quiet and grim as well, among the mud, frustration and fear. Every time a Sky Carrier overflew the camp, they ran to Aya or their mother.

"–they said the Martians will make Japan sink–!"

"–they attacked another camp, somewhere–"

"–want to go home! What if Yoko-nee's waiting for us at home? That'd be just like her!"

Even before the meteor attack on Shinawara, the cancellation of the ceasefire – the news that a refugee camp in Kurokawa had been massacred by a Martian Kat – it was clear that the twins couldn't remain in the refugee camp; nor should the English girls. According to Mr Kujo's contacts with UFE contractors sea-travel wasn't safe. The Versians were sweeping through China and Russia in any case; nothing could slow them and nowhere was safe.

It was decided that Mr and Mrs Inokuma would wait at the camp for news of their daughter. Aya and Karen's mothers, Alice and Karen, and the twins, would go to stay with the Inokumas' grandmother in a rural village. It was miles from anywhere; probably the last place in Japan the Versians would trouble to conquer.

"The only trouble is Alice," Karen muttered, "When Shino just changed classes, she went into shock..."

-0-

-0-

"NOO! Shino, I can't leave you now! I want to stay with you, whatever happens!"

"Dear Alice, at least you can go. Even if I must stay here, I want you to be safe."

"Then you're not safe, staying here? Oh, then please come with me, Shinobu! Or let me stay, nothing would scare me if it's with you!"

"And I could stand anything if I knew you were safe, Alice."

Alice was going to scream again; but Aya was sitting near them in silence. She'd been parted without a choice from her loved one. As Karen had been cut off from from her Honoka, not knowing if she was hurt or worse, but still acting cheerful for them all. Karen and Aya had to bear it, and so did she.

"Okay, Shino." Alice clung to her waist, weeping into her tunic, "Be brave! Be strong! If the Martians come, stab them with sewing needles! My hero!"

" My Princess..."

They could say nothing else but with embraces and tears, and barely noticed Aya dash out. If she had watched them any longer, she would have started to feel sick.

-0-

-0-

"…so, we're going to be staying with Yoko's grandmother, until everything settles down. Thank you for having us."

Story finished, Alice breathed out. Nothing could seem more settled than the quiet roads of this village, raised between the flat rice paddies and cowfields. Far from the chaos in her heart, whenever she thought of Shino.

"No, the pleasure is all ours, Miss Alice" Hotaru flushed and bowed deeply, "We can't offer you much, but I hope we can be friends." Alice went pink with happiness at being called 'Miss', which looked so cute that Hotaru very nearly swooned; Alice's petite and fair appearance had very visibly bowled her over.

"Yeah, nice to meet you." Natsumi added, "Do I really look your sister, squirts?"

"Yes!" Kouta and Mitsuki nodded wildly. "You're our long-lost other sister!"

Alice smiled. Even without her dear Shino, even in war, they could find little joys each day, and their lives could have peace...

"You're not Martians. You're from Tokyo!" Renge piped up, "Do you know when my sister's coming home?"

"No we don't!" Karen snapped. Alice squeezed her hand. Even with Honoka lost, Karen had kept smiling through...she had never seen before how hard it was.

Natsumi broke the silence, and lamely mentioned that the twins had better let go of her soon.

"Um," Hotaru spoke up shyly, "I made plushies of our class once, and Natsumi-sempai too…I could give the Natsumi-plushie to Kouta and Mitsuki-chan, until they can see their sister again! I could even make some more…"

"Nice idea!" Karen said, "And we could send one to Ayaya as well!"

And so within a month, Aya got a red-haired, smiling plushie in the mail, though Alice had worried she was too old for such things. In her soggy, UFE-issued tent, Aya tearfully snuggled up to Yoko every night.

-0-

-0-

In the end, Kazuhi explained to Renge that there was no way of knowing when Hikage would be back. Renge stared at her for a long time.

"Really no way? Or are you just being lazy, Nee-nee?"

"Now, Renge..."

"Just tell me the truth!"

Sniffing, Renge dashed away to her room. Kazuhi leant against the wall, still wearing her empty smile, and bearing a weight like Castle Cruhteo itself upon her chest. Hikage, her little sister was dead. The world was wrong, her students and her sisters were hurting...she was their teacher. Just a teacher. There was nothing she could imagine she could do about war and death.