"Uninformed,
are we?" The first man laughed, louder this time. "That's what you
think. I know what you are. How many teachers have they got on that big fancy
ship getting all those repairs? Guess the Defender isn't as great as
everybody wants us to believe, if it needs so much fixing."
"It's
not getting fixed!" Tress shouted and turned to face them. "My Daddy
is the Chief Engineer and the Defender doesn't need fixing. We're
getting bigger! We're getting all kinds of new equipment."
"Her
daddy. Ain't that cute?" the second man said. His laughter sounded greasy.
"What did I tell you? Full of little kids. It's the Nanny Ship,
just like everybody's been saying. What good is a ship full of children?"
"Go,"
E'bett said, in that soft voice that was nearly as frightening as when M'kar got
quiet and her eyes looked cold.
Tress
shivered, knowing she had messed up. She caught hold of Dafna's hand and the
two girls hurried away, with Jayna and Kati right behind them. They tried not
to run, but Tress wanted to move fast enough not to hear the laughter and rough
voices behind them. She was pretty sure those men were saying all sorts of
nasty lies about them and about the Defender, and probably about her
father, too. She wanted to punch them. She wished she was allowed to carry a
knife like M'kar. She wished her adopted aunt had taught her that really neat
fighting move, where she ran and jumped from two meters away. Then she twisted
herself around in the air so she wrapped one leg around the man's neck and hit
the side of his face with her other knee. With the momentum of flying through
the air, she turned him around and knocked him down. And he never got up.
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