Uska gingerly placed the tips of her toes just on this side of the seam of the floor tiles, careful to make sure her footing was secure before shifting her weight onto the leg. Then the other foot just a little further up, cautious to keep as close to the seams as possible so that the uneven slabs wouldn't creak under her as she made her way to the door on the other side. There was a support thing under the seams—she'd watched her father building the floor for hours—so it would have been safest to step right on them but stepping on seams was bad luck. Erda had said so. It was probably not true, but she didn't want any more bad luck and avoiding seams and other cracks was a small price to pay for that. The floor had been very pretty when daddy had finished with it, and mommy had said she was really proud of her and then they had kissed. Now it was all bumpy and you could see many of the tiles were broken because of when the ground moved from the explosions it never went back exactly like it was before. Another step. Two more, and she'd be out of the door and in the hallway, on safer footing. Uska wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and ever so quietly padded forward until she could grasp the frame of the door. Supporting herself against it with one hand, she leaped over the last little bit of the pretty floor and onto the solid and quiet plastic floor on the other side. Daddy hadn't had the time to finish this side yet and the explosions didn't hurt the plastic at all.

She steadied herself against the hallway wall although she was getting pretty good at the leap and landing right, like the circus acrobats. She wanted to be completely quiet, though, until she got at least a few meters further away. Before moving, she turned on the balls of her feet, holding her breath for the few seconds she peered intently at the small, unmoving bundle on the bed on the far side of the room. To her relief, her sister was still sleeping even though her fingers were curling and uncurling slowly, and her little lips moved like she was sucking on her bottle which is why Uska had made herself get out of the bed. She didn't want to wake her sister…it felt better when she was awake because then there was someone else too, and Uska wasn't by herself, but the baby was always so sad when she was awake. She couldn't understand where mommy was. Uska liked it better when her sister slept because she wasn't sad and afraid, except sometimes if she had bad dreams, but Uska could help a little with those. Better than when she was awake even though Uska did try very hard then, too. She didn't want to wake her sister, but she had to get more formula. And go to the bathroom.

Sure that she hadn't woken her up, Uska walked a little further away from the door and then glanced around herself to make sure it was safe and swung her little bag off her shoulder and undid the knot she had put on it. Daddy had taught her five different knots. Most of her friends didn't even know one, but her father had said that everybody should know how to make knots because maybe you didn't have any clasps that you could use. She knelt down, setting the bag on the floor very carefully and rolling down the sides so she could get the stuff out without dropping it. She pulled out the pistol first, and made sure twice that it was turned on and that it had the blue safety light on too. Daddy said it was very important to be safe with the pistol. Mommy had said that it was more safe without one altogether, but she had still given Uska a pistol of her own when they had come down to the basement.

She held the pistol under her arm for a moment to warm it, and then tucked it into her waistband. It was almost as long as her thigh and pretty heavy and it kind of pulled down on her pants, but not too bad because it didn't fall off from under the waistband and she couldn't very well carry it in her hand anyway because she needed a free hand for the milk. She could carry it in the bag but then it would take too long to take out if she needed it, so she only took the bag out of the room because it was easier to cross the floor with it on her back. She hated the feel of the cold metal against her thigh, but she'd once tried to warm it for over a minute and it was still cold, so she didn't bother anymore. You just winced, and then you got used to it pretty quick. Except she couldn't wear her dresses, because she had to have the pants instead, that she didn't like. Sometimes, but not all the time.

With the pistol stowed away, she pulled the bottle out of the bag and peeled off the dress she had wrapped around it. It took a little while to make her bag quiet when she prepared it, but it gave her something to do at least. There wasn't much to do down here, so anything that occupied her mind for a while was pretty good. She had challenged herself to come up with the best possible way to pack her little bag, and she was pretty happy that she had figured out how she could use just one dress to make it almost completely quiet. Bottle and pistol. She nodded to herself, pursing her lips, and stood back up.

She was almost sure that they hadn't found the entrance because she hadn't heard anything and they weren't all that quiet, like when she and mommy had heard them the last time, but she padded toward the corner very slowly anyway because it would be stupid to just run right into them because you weren't being careful. She wasn't very scared because you could shoot them, but maybe a little. She always tried to make sure her sister didn't know she was even a little scared though. A meter from the corner she pushed herself against the wall and peeked around it, careful that they couldn't see her if they were looking. But there was nobody there, just the empty staircase and the hatch above it, and the doorways to the bathroom and the small kitchen.

She ran to the bathroom first, darting underneath the stairs and straight in, and closed and locked the door after herself. She went about her business as quickly as she could and then, after another cautious peek to make sure the hallway was still empty, dashed right into the small kitchen. She set the bottle down on the counter and then cautiously pulled herself up on it too. Holding on to the wall for support she got up and opened the cupboard, leaning back a little to let the door swing open in front of her. She could have used her power to reach up to the highest shelf because she was pretty good with it, but she wanted to save her energy. Using her biotics too much made her tired and mommy always said you had to eat well when you had been practicing. Standing on her tiptoes, she pulled down the last box of formula powder, and wriggled two foils out of it. There were only five left after these two. She let the foils drop at her feet on the counter, and raised on her toes again to push the box back in its place. She wasn't really allowed to be on the counter, and mommy wouldn't like it if she left everything a Right Mess anyway. Taking a box of soup for herself, too, she closed the cupboard and sat herself on the cold counter, and set to mixing the powder from the foils into water. She was a little worried. The water didn't work as good as it used to, and she thought they might be running out, but the water had never run out before so she wasn't sure if it was possible. And there were so few foils left. Her sister would be really hungry after two more meals. Uska was kind of hungry already herself, but she understood that they didn't have that much stored away here. The baby wouldn't understand, she would just be hungry.

Uska was afraid they would have to go outside soon because they didn't have any more food, to look for mommy or at least one of their neighbors. She had promised to stay in the basement and stay quiet and guard her sister with the pistol and not to go out, but mommy had been gone a long time. She thought it had to be many days, at least, because of how many times she had felt too sleepy to stay awake anymore and had to go to sleep. She could turn on her om-ni-tool to see but she didn't want to because it was a stupid kids' model and it had to be recharged pretty often, and it was almost out of battery. She was saving it for Important Events. Knowing what day it was wasn't that important because the school was closed and she wouldn't go anyway before mommy was back to take her. Even the bottle was out of battery too, it didn't heat up anymore when she tried to turn it on, not since before the last time she slept. She waited for the bottle to fill with water, and then she shook it to make the powder mix so that the baby could drink the formula. She put the bottle under her shirt to warm it up a little in case her sister woke up soon, and then she opened her own meal. It was noq soup and she hated it which is why she had left those boxes for last, but now they were all she had left. It was better than being hungry, anyway. One box after this. And two and a half bottles for her sister. Then she would have to go out.

She cleaned out the soup box and folded it carefully in the recycler so that it would fit because it was getting pretty full because it hadn't been running at all. She took the bottle out from under her shirt and set it back on the counter top while she carefully slid off it herself and dropped quietly on the floor. Grabbing the bottle and sticking it under her arm, she padded out to the doorway to make sure nobody was there, and then quickly ran around the corner over to her bag. She carefully wrapped the bottle back up inside the dress, first over and then you had to go across with the sleeves, and then push it all the way to the bottom at an angle, and then you could slip the pistol on top of it and it would stay in place. She pulled the strings tight and made a Coming Together-knot so it would stay closed. She swung the baggy around her shoulders again, and snuck back across the pretty floor as carefully as she'd come the other way, although now she couldn't jump the last few tiles because there wasn't any plastic floor on the other side, just the bed and the other stuff.

Letting out a breath after making it all the way across without a sound, she crawled up on the bed, careful not to make it bounce or shift as she moved. She always slept on the side of the bed that was not at the wall so that her sister couldn't fall off, but she wasn't sleepy yet so she just put the bag down in one corner and pulled the pistol back out so that it was ready if she needed it and then she lay down behind her sister instead, hugging her a little. She didn't wake from the touch and just snuffled quietly when Uska pulled the blanket off her crest to make sure she didn't get too hot. Uska laid her head down and closed her eyes and reached for the little, bright mind of her sister, trying to surround it with happy thoughts like mommy always did for her when she had bad dreams.

A/N: This expands Uska and her sister's story a little. The first two chapters are already-published material from Unity, and I'll likely add two-three more.

Reviews, questions, comments, critiques, artwork and anything else you come up with are most welcome and appreciated as always! :)