After the distant thump and tremor that filled Asahigaoka village one Saturday morning, every TV had shown static. Cellphone signals, rare enough in far-flung rural Saitama, were extinct. Pickup truck radios were still hissing dumbly, and all the landlines to Tokyo had gone dead.

By sunset, every villager except the very old had gathered in the musty 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 eight, all twintails and heavy-lidded eyes that still seemed very wide. Solemn as an elf, 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 Asahigaoka. The Martian soldiery, circling the world in death-machine fortresses since the war fifteen years ago, 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 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 we'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 assembly, 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-

-0-

"Even if we're at war, your educations are still important. Yes, even if there's a war somewhere, everything will go on as before, for you girls…"

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 Hikage or her school in every 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 how did the Martian spaceships stay 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 Tokyo evacuees. Two redheaded twins around Renge's age, but her gaze was arrested by their blonde, fair-skinned chaperones.

"Uwah! Foreigners! Are you Martians?"

-0-

-0-

There was still an England, after Heaven's Fall - although the destruction of the Moon had ended the last Earth-Mars war, cut down one third of Earth's humanity, and left most of Greater London underwater. However stiffly the survivors had maintained their upper lips, Britain wasn't all it had been; Alice Cartelet's parents had sent her to high school in Japan. The distant islands had more swiftly recovered from meteors and earthquakes. Mrs Cartelet fondly recalled a place where the good could make good things, from her overseas student days.

With foreigners wending their way to Japan from every shattered country, little Alice had hardly ever felt unwelcome or out of place. The people had greeted her most politely, except for Omiya Shinobu, who'd received a tiny blond girl with profusive joy. Once she'd recovered from the shock of being pursued by a sweet and gentle Yamato Nadeshiko, Alice had responded as passionately.

With dear Shino, her Japanese friends and her dear chum Kujo Karen, every day had been a delightful adventure. Alice ate natto for breakfast while Shino ate full English, and slept on a futon when she didn't snuggle into Shino's bed. Everyone said she was more Japanese than the Japanese, but she remembered the rolling roads and green stone walls of the Cotswolds - the country Karen's Japanese father, a major UFE contractor, was working so hard with so many others to rebuild. Britain had been many things; never one thing for long. Still, Alice knew there'd always be an England, with all who'd seen the photo of Nelson on his column stood above the waves.

Alice, Shinobu and their friends lived in Chiba, the city across the bay from Tokyo. When Castle Cruhteo came down, like the angel of death on the fold, the shockwave was survivable. For a fortnight before, Shinobu had gushed about the beautiful, golden-haired Princess of Mars, and mourned that her welcome parade was in Shinawara on the west coast.

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

"Oh, Shino!"

The tiny blonde clasped her darling's hand. Though her smile quickly turned to a pout, when 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 as much as Shino, looked like Christmas had come early when she heard.

Weeks later, they'd all sat down before the flatscreen, squashed onto the couch in their gorgeous princess dresses. Gladly watching the parade that welcomed to Earth Princess Asseylum Vers Allusia, beloved and beautiful. They watched the missile that fell from the heavens and hid the princess in a burning cloud.

"…bombs? Rockets?" Karen's white face, still lovely, was stupefied, "Was the princess okay? Is she okay?"

"Who would...do that?" Without even understanding death and assassination as more than sad TV pictures, Honoka was weeping.

"Are you feeling alright, Alice?" Shino turned from the screen full of chaos, to Alice's trembling lips, "It was fortunate we didn't go! I'm so glad you're safe."

Alice could only squeeze Shino's hand. Karen had to pry them apart in the end.

The girls left for their homes in silence. While the Martians in orbit began to wipe out Earth's telecom satellites and spread jamming waves. There would have been no warning, even if the girls had dared to try the TV again. An hour after the assassination, Shino's mother heard the warning Tanoys in the streets; neither Shino nor Alice had finished packing clothes and books when the world blew up. Shattering every window; flinging every young girl deafened to the ground.

-0-

-0-

Suddenly, they were refugees. In the city where they'd always lived, had to leave, and couldn't. The streets were full of broken rubble and glass - a million families, crashing and fracturing together. A shaken, swarming city, rushing against the columns of disaster relief and military streaming toward Tokyo. Children and grandparents carried into oblivion, as voices rose like prophecies of doom from every corner. A dark cloud covered the sky; the air tasted of steel and brick. The shockwave and flooding had wrecked the harbour, before the authorities had seized every unshattered boat. Neither Alice nor Shino could imagine leaving peaceful Japan in any case, even now.

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 twin siblings and parents onto an over-packed military transport, yelling out 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...so long as you're here!" The shouting crowd drowned Aya's confession; Yoko cupped her ear, "Nothing! I'm okay!"

Yoko grinned and Aya's heart beat even harder. With Tokyo tower in ruins, and the Imperial Palace, Yoko was the same. Squeezing back, Aya hid her smile.

As the next transport roared up, people in the crowd had started yelling. Martian Kataphrakts were coming, almost at their backs; 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 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…"

If Shino's big sister Isami had said anything at all, Aya would've felt better. Nothing would have worried her, even that her father had been at his work in Tokyo, if only Yoko had been there to smile! To protect her...no, no, to be safe! 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. I expect they'll soon sort things out."

"Oh yes, I'm sure Karen's papa will sort everything out, and your parents will be quite safe! They have all the Queen's soldiers to protect them, and the Royal Navy."

"My home is with you, Shino."

"Oh, Alice..." Shino's cheek pressed against hers. Alice felt her beloved's body shake and shake, "It's skill nice to think of such a safe and beautiful country, now. "

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 drown out everything in her head.

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!

-0-

-0-

Hours into the war, the displaced person station was already filled with circling families, shouting soldiers, screaming children and mud. Isami had finally spotted Karen, jumping up and waving her hands.

"Ohiyo-gozaimash! So glad you're all safe! I'm fine, of course, but where's Yoko? Where's Honoka?"

Kouta and Mitsuki, Yoko's siblings, stared at Aya blankly. She fell on their little shoulders; forced out the lie that their sister was coming soon.

"Yes!" Karen's smile barely wavered, "Yoko and Honoka, soon!" Pretty, hugely rich and enthusiastic as she was, problems had always worked themselves out for her.

Honoka's parents turned up that evening; not their daughter, not Yoko. The other parents heard as much to confirm that central Tokyo had been obliterated as they could bear. A single Martian Kataphract, some said, had defeated the UFE's entire armoured force. There was nothing else between the Martian Landing Castle and the camp. Shinawara, they soon heard, had been levelled with a meteor barrage.

Aya, with Kouta, spent most of their time trying to stop his sister Mitsuki crying. The UFE had assembled enough tents for them to be continually wet and enough rations for them to be constantly hungry. Aya's mother eventually found out her husband had been lucky; with a broken leg and broken head, he'd been airlifted out to a camp further north. She might not have known for months without Lieutenant Akari Kuzehashi's help; she had instructed the girls at school in their compulsory reservist training.

Karen's father, whose influence could've cleared up many of their troubles, had been on a business trip to Britain when the Castles fell. Karen's mother, a formidable and stunning former actress, made herself useful by insisting that the smallest children got double rations. She did not otherwise take to the camp well, though, or make camp life very pleasant for the others. She and Karen naturally had plenty of money, but value was changed in war with everything else.

Britain, by no means any kind of world power since Heaven's Fall, had not been attacked by a Landing Castle. Alice and Karen would've been glad to hear 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 could be scary.

"No!" Karen was more eloquent, "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, "Um, 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 miraculous over the two factions.

-0-

-0-

At the camp, Isami had gone to register for food allocations, and come back in uniform as Private Omiya, 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 ought to be a publicity figure, not a mecha 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 quartermaster's aide. Komichi-san; we'd like to assign you to the catering corps."

"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, "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 Lt Kuzehashi, sharp as ever in her UFE dress blues, pleading with a sulking Karen. The blond girl had rowed with her mother 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 mother cares 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, only Honoka and Yoko's fathers volunteered for the infantry; they might be sent into battle with a month's training. Mercurial as ever, Karen accepted her mother's feelings. She joked that she might not have passed the Physical anyway.

Aya had barely reacted to her conscription; with Tokyo gone, with Yoko gone, her emotions seemed to have 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 her own self.

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 twin solemnly lied that they believed her.

A lot of refugees needed clothes mended or distributed, so Private Omiya Shinobu found her new work satisfying. The green field uniform could have been a little bit nicer. Private Aya Komichi, long twintails looped up under her helmet, didn't get on so well distributing soup and water rations. There were thousands of refugees, 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 knew she was sinking 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. Karen's mother had heard from the UFE authorities that nothing could fly the Versian missiles couldn't take down, and no even sea travel was safe. Versian Kataphrakts were sweeping through China and Russia in any case; nothing could slow them and nowhere was safe.

It was decided that Mrs Inokuma and Shinobu's mother would wait at the camp for news of Yoko. Aya's mother would go to her stricken husband. Mrs Kujo would work with the UFE to contact Karen's father and Alice's parents, then make sure her husband's assets in Japan were used for the war effort without getting wholely used up.

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 flatten.

"The only trouble is Alice." Karen was blunt as ever, "She went into shock when Shino only changed classes."

-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!"

"If knew you were safe, dear Alice, I could bear anything. You must be brave, and so will I..."

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 her friends any longer, they would have made her 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've seemed 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 - for as long as she could.

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.