Chapter 30:

Daphne awoke, dazed. Had everything else been a dream? There. She heard Fred's voice. She would be back in her own room, with Freddie lying right next to her. The Veqs weren't attacking; she was just stressed out from work and had a nightmare. She was fine.

Except.

Upon opening her eyes, it took Daphne a full minute to realize that the walls were white. Sterile white. Daphne's room at home was not white. And Freddie wasn't in her bed; he was sitting in a chair next to it. He seemed relieved when she stirred.

"Hey, Daphne," he said.

"Hi... did... was I really...?"

Fred's face turned serious. "You were attacked by seventeen Veqs simultaneously. That was brave of you, defending the orb... but it appears that they pulled one of their weapons on you..."

Everything came crashing down on Daphne at once. There was no denying it. A horrible thought gripped her mind.

"Freddie?" she asked. "Is Janice...?"

"The baby is fine. That was one of the first things they checked when they examined you. We're not sure how she pulled through when you barely made it yourself, but right now she's in better shape than you are."

"That's not saying a lot," Daphne responded groggily. "I feel awful. Don't expect me to come in to work tomorrow," she said, grinning feebly.

Fred sighed his you're-about-to-hear-something-you-won't-like sigh. "Daphne, new security measures are being placed on the Coolsville Communication Center. We've gone up to code black. That means that working there has become highly dangerous." He rubbed his forehead. "It's a risk the rest of us are willing to take. But you--"

"I've got more than myself to think of." Daphne nodded, understanding. "But are you sure they can't just give me a desk job somewhere? Something that's low-risk?"

"The whole building is high-risk now, Daphne. Policy will let you receive pay while you take some time off. Maternity leave officially begins now."

Daphne only lay there, thinking. This could be... fun... She tried to stay focused on the positives. Yet strangely, although she complained about work (as does almost everyone who is employed), she felt more stressed-out at the thought of staying home... alone... day after day... nothing to do but see what soaps were on...

Freddie lovingly played with her hair, speaking softly to her. "It's okay, I'll try to get home as soon as possible... but don't think about any of that now. What you need now is rest.

Daphne nodded and yawned. Yet one thing was bothering her, somehow.

"Freddie?" she asked. "What happened to the Orb?"

Fred looked at her. He wasn't sure whether he should tell her this in her state or not. Finally he looked at her and delivered the good news first.

"Velma's force shield worked for a while. It worked long enough to hold off the Veqs..."

"But?"

"It really wasn't ready to be used for that yet. They weren't even planning to test it for another month or so. Velma had to make some very last-minute modifications to get it to work that one time. After that it burned out, and now they have to start from scratch."

"But the Orb is safe... right?" Daphne braced herself. How would she react if the thing she had risked her life and her daughter's life for turned out to have been stolen anyway?

"Well... for now," Freddie answered. He breathed. "The truth is that we know its days are numbered. We have no idea when the Veqs might launch a full-scale attack again. The Fizlayens have no choice but to evacuate as many people as they can before they run out of power."

"But if it cranks out even more energy than a star," Daphne wondered, "why can't they make extra batteries... to stock up for a while, at least?"

"They're doing that as much as they can," Freddie answered, "but understand how much gets lost in transportation. This kind of battery is very difficult to move between our solar system and their planet as it is. They have to factor in a large portion of their supply getting robbed, damaged due to turbulence, lost, thrown overboard in ship emergencies--"

"I see." Daphne tried to avoid the thought. She hated how it would feel to be so dependent on something many lightyears away, with so much room for danger in between. "And they can't move the Orb because--"

"--because the Veqs would almost certainly set up an ambush between here and the new safe place. These are mysterious beings. We aren't really sure what their technology is capable of. Besides that, we're not really sure another safe place exists. There are few people the Fizlayens can trust, and we are among those people. We're not sure what they'll do if we can't keep them safe."

How did Fred know all this, anyway? He must have asked these same questions himself... he must have been this scared himself. Was that possible?

Daphne buried her face in Fred's arms, crying. He was there for her... certainly more than Earth was there for Fizlayer...