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

done, but his army is getting paid to do his bidding. Maybe if they see we are going to win, they will surrender. I worked with a few people out of the crew. I don’t believe they’re all bad,” she said. “I want to believe they aren’t, anyway.”

“I agree,” Spencer replied. “That does feel wrong. While we all agreed what people we would be targeting, I hadn’t thought about a possible surrender. The more people on our side, the better, right? So, maybe blasting them all out of the sky in one go isn’t the best plan.”

“I agree,” said Garrett.

“Same here,” I said.

“I thought you would all feel the same. But if there are just some particular assholes we need to get rid of, or we need a distraction, we got your back,” Jane said. “I can’t wait to start putting these plans together.”

ONCE EVERYONE HAD TOLD us about their plans, I stood up and walked to the center of the audience. I was shaking, nervous to speak in front of so many people, where I hadn’t been nervous before. That time it felt different. It felt definite.

The words came from my mouth quietly and smooth, just loud enough so everyone could hear. “We’ve all shared our plans. We’ve all pledged to work together and for each other. Now, the only missing part is coordinating all of them together. Making them one joint effort to stop Leslie Marshall and restore Circadia to its former glory,” I said. “Coordinating is probably going to be the hardest part. It’s going to require patience, diligence, and cooperation. A lot of it. Also, it’s going to require a lot of trust. Trust that your partner will follow through and complete the task right, trust that someone you don’t really know has your back, and trust that we are all on the same page. It’s going to be hard. Really hard. I need you to trust me too. For whatever reason, you all seem to look to me as the leader. It sounds funny just saying that...” I felt my face flush and I swept my hair back behind my ear out of embarrassment. “But here I am. I’ve come up with a great timeline listening to the plans, and I need you to trust me. I’m open to suggestions, but once the plan is set in stone, we can’t waiver. We have to follow through, or nothing will work the way we want it to. I have your back, please have mine, and I think we can kick some ass.”

Everyone whooped and hollered out in approval. Some people clapped and some people stood.

I had never been the leader of anything. Of course, back on Earth, I had never been a follower either. I had always kept to myself and led my own path. Now, here I was, blazing the way for a bunch of people whom I didn’t know if I could get along with a couple months ago. Now they were like family. I bowed my head in humble modesty until I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s get right to it. The first thing we have to do is warn the people who paid to come here. Some of them will want to join us, others will decide to stay and try to warn Leslie. Does anyone have any idea how to go about this?”

Sierra spoke up. “We would need to find a way to separate them. Or just communicate to them. That’s going to be difficult.”

“Not really,” Ronald Walsey said. Ronald had been the head architect and was in charge of room assignments when they showed up. “Every single one of them has their own room. I can tell you which buildings, which apartments, and which beds belong to who. Basically, though, they all have houses, and the crew members have huts. It’d be pretty simple to just slip a note onto everyone’s beds if you could get in.”

“How would we get in?” I asked.

“Do you seriously have to ask that, or are you just trying to be nice?” Smith asked. His voice was crisp and clear with a bit of sarcasm sprinkled in. “Look, I knew what I was getting into when I did this. You guys were my friends, and I want to help. Let me do it. I’ll tell Leslie I need to do room inspections. No big deal.”

My heart fluttered a bit at the thought of him getting caught with a threatening note like the one we would need to send. “What happens when one of them decided to tell Leslie. You’ll be the first to know about it, because you’ll be the first on the list of suspicious people, right?”

“Not if I tell him one of the crew members has been sneaking off into the woods at night. I’ll take that person with me to do the room inspections, too,” he said. “I’ll pick someone good I promise.”

I sighed. Framing someone wasn’t really on my to do list, but if they deserved it, was it wrong? We were already crossing so many boundaries between right and wrong, it was too late to turn back now. We would need Smith in the camp for as long as possible.

“Okay,” I said. I turned to address the entire group. “Someone, please find a way to write the notes. I doubt if anyone has pencil and paper on them, but if you can get something, that would be great.”

“I had a notebook in my pocket when we left,” Ronald said. “I can let someone with better handwriting write out the notes.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Okay, while we are doing that, Smith will be in his camp replicating the virus and preparing it for contagion. We will have to be patient during this period. We aren’t sure how long it will take. We can get the creek prepared and obtain the wiring needed for the electrocution at this time. Any preparation can be done during this time. After