Flashback ( PDFDrive )

“Can you help?” Fitz asked Tarina.
Tarina shook her head. “I can’t leave Sophie’s side. Plus, you’ll need
someone who knows how to utilize our transport pods to get the
babies settled and stable.”
“How long can they stay in the transport pods?” Sophie wondered.
“Usually no more than a couple of hours,” Tarina warned. “Possibly
less, since the alicorns will likely be larger than our younglings and
burn through the nutrition and oxygen faster.”
“And how long does it take to set up a hive?” Fitz asked.
“Longer than that,” Luzia told him.
“Then work faster,” Sophie told her. “Call for backup. Do whatever
you have to do. This could be our only chance to reset the Timeline to
Extinction. It’s up to us to find a way to make it work.”
“Finally—a bit of gumption,” Luzia noted, studying Sophie through
narrowed eyes. “Perhaps there’s hope for the future yet.”
“There won’t be if we keep wasting time,” Fitz reminded them.
“Indeed.” Luzia motioned for them to follow her. “I’ll show you
where to retrieve the transport pods—but you cannot tell anyone that
I’m helping with this.”
“They won’t,” Tarina promised, with a warning look at Sophie and
Fitz. “All I’ll be telling the others is that I have permission from my
empress to place the babies into one of our hives, and that for security
purposes, I cannot give them the location.”
“Do you have permission from your empress for this?” Luzia asked.
“I don’t need it,” Tarina told her, which wasn’t really an answer.
But Luzia let it go. “Well, then if you want to save these babies, I
suggest we get to work. Follow me.”
• • •