The Circadia Chronicles: Omnibus: The Complete Colonization Sci-Fi Series by Heather Heckadon (portable ebook reader .txt) 📕

know how long we’ll be on the run, and we could still be caught by him. What we decide now, will haunt us forever, whatever we choose, but once we choose we need to be all-in together. This can’t be done alone, it has to be all of us.”

Everyone nodded their heads. “Are we ready for the vote then?” Spencer asked. Heads nodded once again. “Alright, all in favor of running and finding a new home, raise your hand.”

People stood still and quiet.

“All in favor of fighting, raise your hand,” he said. In an overwhelming unanimous decision, everyone raised their hand high and proud. The sentiment brought tears to my eyes. We would fight together to stop Leslie’s cruelty and tyranny.

“We’d follow you anywhere, Aella,” Ronald the architect said. “Am I right?” he asked.

Everyone cheered in the cave in agreement. I was awash with joy. I was never born to be a leader, nor was I groomed to be one. I loved all of these people, and that was the reason I would lead them. I only hoped I could be as great a leader as Idris before me.

Grabbing onto Garrett’s arm, I said, “Wait. There’s something we need.”

“The softphone?” he asked.

“Yeah! We’re gonna need it. We need to get in contact with Earth, somehow, and tell them what’s going on, ask for help. And keep Leslie from getting any more help. Money talks you know,” I said.

“I know, that’s why we have it,” he said. “I knew Leslie would be requesting back up if there was a war. That’s why we nabbed it before we broke you guys out. In fact, we already transmitted the video of everything Leslie has been up to, and what you did.”

“But how? How did you get it? They had that thing guarded like crazy. It went missing quite a while before the explosions. How did you manage that?” I asked.

Garrett looked at me for a moment, then sighed and looked down at his shoes. “It was Smith,” he said.

“What do you mean? Like he messed up and left it unguarded?” I asked. “How did Smith have anything to do with this?”

“No,” he said, “Smith stole the softphone for us and delivered it.”

“What?” I asked. I was stunned. Smith had turned his back on us, killed our leader by stabbing him in the side with a knife and watched as we nearly died from dehydration under Leslie’s imprisonment. He had made terrible comments about taking me away from Garrett and being on the winning side. Why would he help us? I thought. He wasn’t wrong when he said we were on the losing end. By anyone’s account, we were outnumbered and outgunned. Why would he choose the winning side just to help the others he had betrayed? “How did that happen? Why?”

“He never left our side. Not really. Smith saved us, probably,” Garrett answered. “He caught us one night, sneaking around your house trying to find a way to get you out. He pushed Spencer and me back into the woods, and we thought he’d kill us, but it was something different entirely. He told us about how Leslie had made him a terrible offer back on Earth and told him the whole plan. He told us how he knew we would be outnumbered, and that even if we knew about it, there would be nothing we could do to stop it. Smith told us he took the deal to have the opportunity to be the inside man and help out.”

“I can’t believe that. I can’t. Why did he kill Idris then? Why did he have to take it that far?” I asked. I was furious on a million levels.

“Leslie picked him out to do the deed, maybe to test his loyalty, I don’t know. What Leslie asked him to do to him though, was a lot worse than what Smith actually did, I can tell you that. Smith showed Idris mercy, I know that now,” Garrett said, a silent tear falling from his eye. “Smith told us that when he was forced to do it, he knew there was no coming back from it. He knew that everyone would hate him, and he wouldn’t be welcomed back into the group. He also knew there would be a rebellion led against him, and he would probably die. He did it anyway. He told us that when he sunk his knife into Idris, he did his best to make it as quick as possible, and that he told Idris he was sorry. Idris probably didn’t understand, but I think if he knew what Smith was doing for our group, he would’ve understood. Don’t you?”

I wept. The thought of the pain that Smith must have felt broke my heart. Remembering hearing his sobs as he buried the girl that died with us in the apartment all made sense now. He never wanted that, but his hands were tied. His voice echoed in my mind over and over, ‘It’s better if you don’t know.’ I had no idea what he meant at the time, but I understood now. “We have to go get him!” I said. “Garrett, we have to go get him. He deserves to be here with us.”

“Aella, he doesn’t want to be here with us. He made his choice. We can’t afford to lose the intel. I asked him to come back with us that night. He’s staying,” he said, a catch in his voice.

“Well, then we better make it count.”

When nightfall came, we put the fires out to mask our presence and began discussing details about the plan to overthrow Leslie. It was held as a town meeting, where one person would get up and give their ideas and any information they had, as the rest of the group would stand up and give their feelings or opinions on the matter one at a time. It was refreshing to see that even though most of these people were hungry, hot and frustrated, they