European Rebels

Preface

A soft summer morning breeze passed through the window, refreshing and waking the half-asleep girl in the classroom. An hour ago, hearing Old English, the one that was spoken a century ago. These days, English wasn’t used as commonly as it was in the early twenty-first century and the girl wasn’t interested in learning it, but the fresh air had her awake. Then she looked out the window, to see the green meadows, which were warmed under a scorching sun and which were surrounded by a river, which seemed to be made of silver, by the reflection of the sun’s rays. She dreamed of being outside, outside the classroom. Being outside, to be able to enjoy these summer moments.

She dreamed so much that she didn’t even notice the History of Space Civilizations teacher coming in. It was the first time that she was going to take that subject and, when she heard the name of the discipline, she got excited, but now, nothing else mattered, except what was going on outside.

Then, out of nowhere, she heard her name, "Mira Addams Fortraight!" The voice carried an authoritative tone, but sweet, even without seeing it, she realized that it was a female teacher, who taught the subject.

When she looked up carefully, she saw that it was a woman, who looked young, however, with so much advancement in technologies, the woman could have been more than a century old and had lived the entire history, which she came to teach. She had long, lank blond hair that was tied on top of her head, eyes that showed a lot of wisdom and experience. Which led Mira to think that she was right on the first guess and that she was much older than she appeared to be.

She wore a white shirt, very tight to the body and a skirt that held the shirt, it looked like the fashion of a hundred years ago, but nowadays, anyone wore what they liked, there was no longer the concept of fashion! This teacher was also tall and wore black shoes, with small high heels. She seemed, on the whole, a very upright woman. Mira already thought, from the look of the woman, that these classes would be a drag.

So she looked her right in the eye and smiled at her, usually, that was enough for the teachers to leave her alone. But not this teacher, who looked at her with a reproachful expression and put her hands on her hips, before saying, "that cheeky smile might work with other teachers, but not with me, Miss Fortraight. Therefore, I ask that you make an effort to follow my classes, or you will not pass them! Also, it’s not too boring, as you might think. Space colonies are not as old as Earth and their history has a common past at the beginning. It’s easy to follow."

Mira lowered her head and closed the blinds so she wouldn’t be distracted by the pleasant sun outside and focused her attention on the teacher, she had the hologram in front of her if she wanted to record any of her thoughts and questions for later and the camera pointed to the teacher, so that later she can study, "good. Now I can begin. I am teacher Marianna and since the formation of this school I have been teaching here. Before that I was a doctor."

"And did you permormed in surgeries many times?" João, the geek of the class, who was right next to her, had asked the question of the year, because he wanted to be a doctor and he always managed to extend the classes in that direction, the teachers found his round face amusing, where he fitted his dark glasses and thirst for knowledge.

"Yes, however, I’m not here to teach you how to do surgeries, so that question is irrelevant! And I ask you not to ask irrelevant questions, which have nothing to do with classes!" the teacher asked crossing her arms.

"If you were a doctor, how are you going to teach us history?" Mira asked curiously, after all, that discipline had nothing to do with medicine.

"It’s kind of ironic, when I was your age, I hated history, however, here I am, ready to teach you something I hated. But, answering your question, I am one of the few people, still alive, who really witnessed important moments and I was linked to very important people for the Colonial History." Revealed the teacher, smiling, holding her hands, so they wouldn’t shake, more than usual, she was still standing, with her back to the holographic board.

"You don’t look that old," flattered João, he knew he had to shine this teacher, if he wanted more information for the area he wanted to follow and have a good grade, history was a subject he didn’t like.

"I don’t look like it, thanks to advances in medicine and aesthetics, fortunately. But let’s not talk about it. I’ll tell you about the beginning of the beginnings! Who knows what happened in year three, before of the Space Age?" The teacher looked for arms in the air, as she didn’t see any, she tried to pull someone to answer, "Mia? Do you know what happened that year?"

The girl shook her head, she had no idea, she looked at the rest of the class, João was silent, Anícia was filing her nails, nobody paid any attention, "nobody knows? Does anyone know how we manage to be here on this planet without suffocating, without jumping around? Without getting lost in space?" Asked the teacher with an air of despair on her face.

"All this is because of the gravity of the planet and the atmosphere it holds." Antoine replied after an initial hesitation, he was the most popular boy in Mira’s class.

"But did you know that this planet didn’t have enough gravity to sustain an atmosphere? Which was like the terrestrial moon!"

"So how…" asked Roger, everyone was already attentive to what the teacher had to say, she had managed to stir up their curiosity.

"In the third year before the Space Age, a team of scientists, jointly from ESA and NASA, discovered how to generate gravity and how to modify atmospheres! That was the first big step towards the existence of space colonies. They even colonized the Moon at the time. Two years later, the first intergalactic spacecraft were built. Now let’s see if you know what happened in year zero of the Space Age?"

Once again, no one knew, however, the faces of the young people all looked intently at the teacher, "well, that year, an african provenient dictator managed to build an empire bigger than the Chinese or Alexandria, bigger than Rome or Greece, bigger even than Babylon itself! His empire covered every corner of the Earth. America, Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Antarctica all fell to Yabdul Hassin’s power."

"No!" Anícia exclaimed in surprise, she believed that America was the only continent on Earth that had never been taken over by invaders, after the colonization of the British.

"Yes, I lived it! Oh! Yabdul Hassin was very, very smart and had great connections. An army of mercenaries, a network of spies and a trade in drugs, weapons and human beings to pay them. It was in year zero, that after much planning and conspiring, he issued the ultimatum to the Americans," the teatcher proceeded altering her voice so it seemed like another person was talking, "surrender the power of your country and I will not harm you!” Marianna went to her normal voice again, "However, the Americans were the greatest artillery power, they laughed in Yabdul Hassin’s face and challenged him to try. The problem was that hours later, he had seized the East Coast military bases and destroyed the West Coast including Washington DC and New York in his attacks. With half the country destroyed and with no one to govern them, the Americans agreed to Yabdul’s rise to power. It was then that he issued the same ultimatum to Europe, which, of course, also refused. He decided to punish each country that had denied him access to power by destroying their metropolises at rush hour."

Marianna took a deep breath and her voice lowered in sadness, "Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona, London, Paris and Normandy, Reykjavik, Berlin, Luxembourg, Brussels, Amsterdam, Athens, the Vatican, among others, after that, there was no more resistance. It might have resulted in a peaceful and prosperous government, but Yabdul Hassin set up a slave network. Each family had to hand over two children, preferably a boy and a girl, and, mind you, there was no escaping or escaping these rules! He controlled the entire world! The girl was to be trained as a house slave and then her future was decided, the boy was condemned to the life of the army or of entertainment, which in either case was horrible! Prisoners ended up doing forced labor, while the rich lived more than well, Yabdul rewarded all those who had helped him by giving them fortunes and lives, it was a social inversion."

Marianna went to the teatcher's secretary on the classroom and leanned against it, "Those who were rich became poor and some poor became rich. Yup. There were cases of rich people who endured for helping Yabdul."

"So and there was no one who rebelled against such injustice?" Asked Erica with a clenched fist and wanting to punch everything.

"And how is the Earth governed today? Is it not for a council? Then your question is answered. Well, backtracking. As you know, it was only three years before this event that a way to colonize space had been discovered, so the rebels’ first action was to gather and destroy all information about the technological developments that allowed the conquest of space. In this meeting I am not only referring to documents, but also to people," she explained, draining the attention of the class to her raised finger, "it was a joint action between scientists and some soldiers who had escaped, so they formed the “Space Guardians”, although at that time they were only known to the Rebels!"

"I’ve seen a movie that talked about it, the Conquest, or something similar," said Cristine, the movie fanatic of the class.

"The Conquest of Freedom by Yoanna Smith. Yes, I know the film well, however, this story is incorrect in several parts, a romantic exaggeration on the part of the director, which led to a lot of criticism, because the cinema, is not like it used to be, then when movies were made, all the characters had died, several years ago. Today, there are still those who remember those days! The High Councilor of Galantria herself participated as Guardian of a scientist! She hated the story! By the way it portrayed her sister!" said the teacher, obviously unnerved. “I knew her myself, she was my best friend for years and it has nothing to do with that actress they hired to play her. In fact, if you want to know what she was like, just look at her youngest descendant, her namesake. Which, oddly enough, is in this room, and is just like her!"

There was a commotion, luckily, no one knew, yet that part of the story, nor who was the heroine that the teacher was talking about, and Mira could see Cristine turning her head to try to remember the name of the character represented. by Falafel Mirithar, "I don’t think this is possible! May you not know your ancestors, or at least one so important!"

"I’m a descendant of Yavnov Rustnick I know it was important at that time, but I don’t know why?" John replied scratching his head, trying to remember what his parents had told him.

The whole class looked at João and waited for a reaction from the teacher "Yes, Yavnov was a brilliant scientist from NASA who died during an attack by the Strike Forces. But I wasn’t referring to her, and you’re not Yavnov’s namesake, and you don’t even look like her! I assure you!"

Everyone laughed and Mira could see her colleague’s face turn completely red, until he covered it with his hands "Calm down! You want to know the answer, don’t you? Do you want to know who isn’t pulling their brains hard enough to remember who this relative is?"

"Off course!" Answered Anícia, the miss lady of the class, the fine girl, with little brain.

"Mira Addams, was the name of the heroine of the troubled times of colonization and the Space War!"

They all turned to look at Mira, who was gaping at the teacher, "No! You must be wrong!" She said stuttering, no one had ever told her about such a thing.

"No. I am not wrong! Haven’t you noticed that even though your family only produced women, the name Addams is still going on? Nobody wants to let it die, in honor of this heroine, this aerospace engineer, who gave years of her life and knowledge for the freedom of her people and her family, at a time when family was almost worthless. Don’t tell me they never told you about her?"

"No, madam!" Mira replied quite embarrassed.

"Right! I don’t want to linger on this subject and the class has to end! If you want to pass this class Mira, consider writing a real book about the adventures of your ancestor as a special project. By the way, this is everyone’s theme, but I especially want Mira’s. And don’t forget Mira, I met her , I was her best friend for years and I even saved her life, I’ll know if you did a good project."

The bell rang and everyone left except Mira, "How will I know about the adventures of a person who died almost a century ago?" she asked almost in panic.

"Today is the last day of classes, isn’t it? You’re going on a two-week vacation, aren’t you?"

"Yes I will."

"Then I suggest that you take a trip to Galantria and ask the council to see the High Councilor, Lora Addams, she was Mira’s sister and was her Guardian and confidant. If the work is good enough you can always publish it."

"How old is she?" Mira asked the teacher.

"You don’t ask the age of a person in these days, Mira, much less a lady. But it is close to 178 years old. Although she looks like a young woman like me."

"And the teacher, how old are you?" She asked hesitantly.

"Near one hundred and ninety years," the teatcher smiled seeing the incredulous look on the young girls face, "then? Will you accept my proposal to try a little harder to get me something to publish?"

"Yeah! Challange accepted!" Mira nodded her head, recovering from the shock, straightened up and stretched out her hand for the teacher to shake.

Mariana laughed, got up from her chair and shook Mira’s hand, who left right away, leaving memories of a person long dead. She turned on the holograph and saw a three-dimensional photograph of the four of them. Mira and her sister, Lora, she and her own sister. Of that photograph, only two of them were alive. Mira had died sometime after the war ended, by a spiteful, poor-rich man who wanted revenge. And his own sister, Rita, had died at the beginning of the war by a bomb in Paris, when she went to visit the Eiffel Tower on a study trip. She just hoped that this Mira would bring her the story told by Lora herself, who had played a much more active role in Mira’s life than she had.

Mira and her sister Lora were about six years apart, with Mira being the eldest, and so it was just the two of them for four years, when their parents divorced, the mother of the Addams sisters had fallen in love. for someone else and as a matter of honor and well-being, she left their father and the sisters with him and went to live with her partner, later her husband. Mira, during her father’s depression, raised her sister and the two forged a bond that couldn’t be broken, no matter how hard they tried. With this separation, they gained, in one sitting, three more brothers, children of their mother’s husband, of their stepfather. With him their mother had a sister. Eventually, after five years, their father took a wife and they had another daughter. The stepfather’s three children were all older by the time Mira graduated from high school, they were Ben, Cara and Fred. The sister who was born from the mother and the partner was Lyanna and the father’s daughter with the partner was Iara. They were a huge family, but no less united for that.