IV

School

"Why didn't he kick them right back into wherever they're from? If I'd been the General, I'd have blown all of them up," Lane said. Beth rolled her eyes.

"It was tragic that General Williams proved unable to hold Shanxi, but remember that the Second Fleet took it back a month later," Ms. Thibodeaux said. Beth tapped on her desk, fuming, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't stay quiet.

"Of course they did," she said. "The turians were outnumbered and running out of supplies. They couldn't hold Shanxi for long. They only took it in the first place because they had the better position and Shanxi was a civilian colony. What I don't get is why Williams gets so much crap for retreating. It was the smart thing to do, until reinforcements arrived. If he hadn't, a lot more people would've died. We didn't know what we were dealing with."

Lane rolled his eyes, and Quan and Vance muttered something under their breath. Beside them, Katie and Alice giggled. The teacher turned slightly red, and plastered on one of her fake, plastic smiles. Well, Beth thought, she should have done the reading she'd assigned. Or at least watched one of the hundreds, thousands of news specials that had been on in the last five years since humans had discovered they weren't alone in the universe after all.

"Beth," Ms. Thibodeaux said, "Thank you for sharing. It's always nice to hear from you. Are you interested in military history?"

Beth crossed her arms and sat back and didn't answer. She'd done enough. She could feel Lane still glaring at her across the room. He was exactly as stupid as he felt, but she'd promised herself she'd stop making him feel it. It never ended well for her.

"Does anyone else have any questions? Comments?" Ms. Thibodeaux asked, after she realized Beth wasn't going to say anything else and her plastic smile stretched just a little thinner, so Beth thought Wendy and Erik up front might actually hear it stretching, like a latex glove in the science lab.

"What are the aliens like?" Una asked shyly. "I mean, why did the turians attack us in the first place? What do they do, out there? And what about the others? There are others, right?"

Beth liked Una. She was one of the only kids in this place that used her brain to think instead of fart. Ms. Thibodeaux nodded, "Yes, Una. The war with the turians was resolved when the Council that rules intergalactic policy stepped in to stop it. The turians had attacked humans because it is against intergalactic law to activate unknown mass relays like the one near Shanxi. But the Council realized that humans, having never had previous contact with another species of sentient life, didn't know this. There are two other species on the Council other than the turians: asari and salarians."

"Asari are the hot blue chicks, right? My dad knows all about them," Quan volunteered. "There's this magazine, right? And—"

Ms. Thibodeaux was quick to nip that discussion in the bud. "Well, I think that's enough social studies for now. Take out your maths homework, if you please, and we'll go over the answers together."

Beth snorted. Jimmy had some of those asari magazines at the home. It wouldn't be anything Ms. Thibodeaux would want to talk about in her politically correct third grade classroom, though it wasn't like all the kids in here didn't already know that people had sex. Well, Jennifer might not, with her pink hair ribbons and her precious Daddy and Mommy that came to every stupid event they held at this stupid place. But Jessie would probably tell her soon enough for the shock value.

She pulled out her maths homework. She'd only done the first problem in each section. It wasn't like Ms. Thibodeaux actually marked the worksheets, because if she did almost the entire class would fail, and that would make her and Principal James look bad. And anyway, it was all the same.

Everything was the same. Just a big pile of bullshit with a know-nothing bimbo that hadn't known what the hell else to do with her life posing in front of the room acting like she was the universe's mommy. Every few months or so they had an assembly and claimed they were in this to help people, with sexual abuse, with bullying, with poverty or ignorance or whatever. But they didn't care, really. They just wanted to feel and act like they did.

Beth knew they didn't care, because Ms. Thibodeaux walked past the playground on her way to her skycar every afternoon, and whenever she heard yelling, or maybe even saw Lane and his goons coming after Beth because once again she'd failed to keep her stupid mouth shut, Ms. Thibodeaux always pretended she didn't know and kept walking, because the day was over, and she was off the clock.

"So not only are you a smartass, Shepard, you're a damn alien lover, too?" he asked that afternoon, cracking his knuckles as Quan and Vance and Shane and Lila grinned from behind him. Shane and Lila were new. Either she'd put up more of a fight than they'd wanted last time, or she was pissing more people off these days.

"Love aliens better than you, anyway," Beth said. "You seen the vids of the turians? They're a little better looking than you, Roberts."

"Real funny, Shepard," Lila said, sneering. She was one of the worst ones in the lunchroom, but she'd never gotten violent before. "We'll see how much you're laughing in a minute."

Beth backed up against the wall. Cut off her chances of running, but at least they wouldn't be able to completely surround her. Vance was faster than her, anyway. "Hey, I can do this every day," she said. "In fact, seems like I do. And you always seem to need more guys to take me down. Wonder why that is." She clenched her fists, preparing.

Lane laughed his angry laugh. "God, you're such a bitch, Shepard," he said, and punched.

Beth ducked his blow to her face, but couldn't dodge Shane's to her side. It knocked the air out of her, and she gasped and dodged as Vance tried to come in to grab her. "Screw you," she said from between grit teeth, and kicked out at Lila. "Idiots and cowards, too."

PARTIAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN P. THIBODEAUX AND L. YOUNG, VICE PRINCIPAL, 2162

P. THIBODEAUX: (nervous) No, I . . . uh . . . I don't think she's abused at the Millers. Hard to tell, of course. But you know how it is in the system.

L. YOUNG: She hasn't told you anyone beats her? Mentioned it to any of the other children?

P. THIBODEAUX: Sir, Beth Shepard never tells anyone anything. She isn't close with any of the other students. She's defensive, sarcastic, hostile—hard. Really a very unpleasant girl.

L. YOUNG: Unpleasant or not, I trust you would report any issues in your classroom according to protocol, Ms. Thibodeaux. A contentious student body reflects badly on our school during evaluations.

P. THIBODEAUX: She doesn't mesh well with the other students, sir. She—well, she is very quick and bright, and she tends to—she doesn't know how to tone it down, or won't.

L. YOUNG: Her marks are exceptional.

P. THIBODEAUX: I've no problem with the quality of her schoolwork. (Irritated) She could learn a thing or two about manners, or controlling her temper—

L. YOUNG: (Sternly) Have there been incidents, Ms. Thibodeaux?

P. THIBODEAUX: (Reluctantly acknowledging it) . . . In my classroom, brief verbal arguments only.

L. YOUNG: And outside?

P. THIBODEAUX: . . . I can't control what happens when students are not directly under my care, sir.

A/N: This one goes out to everyone that's been bullied, physically or verbally, for being different—especially if the people who should have done something about it didn't.

I always thought Shepard was extraordinarily intelligent, and Earthborn Shepard would've gotten hell for it growing up, as well as for being an orphan.

Thanks for reading. If you've got something to say, let me know!

Always,

LMSharp