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

took off walking again. I walked with Smith to give Dr. Mayhew a break. He used a large stick as a cane to help, with the arm on the unaffected side of his body around my shoulders to aid in his ambulation. Climbing up the next hill, I looked to Smith. I thought twice about what I was about to say, but it felt like it was okay. “This is the last place Idris put on the map,” I said. “He was trying to map out Circadia, and the safe place is as far as he got.”

Smith pressed his lips together and looked down at the ground.

“But I think once you see the safe place, you’ll be glad it was the last place he put on the map,” I said. “Wait till you see it...”

His eyes shot up towards mine and I gave a small grin. Tears welled up in his eyes and he gave a small smile at the ground. “Thank you, Aella,” he said.

“For what?”

“Everything. It would be really easy to hate me right now, but you don’t. At least I don’t think you do. Not only do you not act like you hate me, but you’ve stood by me, and I can’t thank you enough for being a friend. Probably the best friend I’ve ever had,” he said.

It hit me right in the feels. On one hand, I did still hate Smith. I knew that he had done so much for us, but I couldn’t shake the image of him shooting the man back at camp on Leslie’s command, or stabbing Idris, or saying the vile things he had said to me. In the back of my mind, I felt like I always knew better, but I still saw them. I knew that Smith had redeemed himself by a landslide, but it was still hard. It took everything inside of me to suppress the thoughts of the terrible things he had done.

I bit the inside of my lip and said, “Can’t say I’ve had many friends that’ve killed someone they loved for me,” I said timidly. “I know you loved him, too, Smith. I can’t imagine what you went through, but I think he would’ve been proud had he known why. I am. You’ve risked everything for Circadia, and no one deserves to be here more than you.”

He smiled. “You’re wrong,” he said. He looked at me with his big blue eyes and red hair blowing in the wind, and I knew he meant me. I answered with a side smirk, and I knew then that I forgave him. It wasn’t easy, but he deserved my forgiveness, and I needed his friendship. The rest of our group would take time to welcome Smith back in fully, and I wasn’t sure they all would, but I planned to be there for him until then and long after. He would always have a friend in me.

Looking ahead of me, I yelled out to Derek Maples, “Are we getting close?”

He held out a copy of Idris’ map in front of him, turning it sideways and then back again.

“Close,” he said. “This path right here, up ahead.”

There was a worn path that flowed through the overgrown flower weed and brush where people had escaped to the safe place, and it was an obvious trail.

“Let’s go and cover this up behind us. We don’t need any flashing signs telling anyone where we are,” I said. Spencer and I worked to cover our tracks while Derek and company forged ahead. We worked fast, until we heard Derek gasp.

Swinging around to see what was happening, we saw the safe place. It was Derek’s first time seeing it as well as Smith, and their faces were the same. Slack jaws opened wide with eyes of bewilderment. I finished covering our tracks and took steps to join them. “Idris was pretty sure the huge crater was formed while Circadia was drifting through space until it reached its resting place, which makes sense. Makes you wonder what it hit, or what hit it, but regardless it’s amazing,” I said. “The crystals and gems were formed from the heat of the collision, I think. I’m not a geologist by any means, though.”

The crater was enormous. Covering the surface area of about six football fields and the depth of a small skyscraper, the crater would serve as our safe place. Blocking any sound from escaping its walls, and hidden away by deep brush and distance, it was the perfect spot.

We began descending the walls down to reach the people below. We could see that there were quite a few people who had made it here, but we couldn’t tell who they were from so far away. The walls were coated in overturned gravel and sand, with the occasional cluster of brilliant silver and black gems that resembled diamonds without the clarity. Light refracted from the gems onto the surrounding areas, giving the feeling of being underwater or under a microscope.

“Why are there so many gems?” asked Derek.

“I’m assuming by looking at the crater, that the gems were formed when a meteor hit Circadia. There was some sort of impact, probably on its trip into our galaxy,” I said. “Diamonds are formed under extreme heat and pressure. When you have two planets or huge objects that collide, it creates the perfect storm.”

“That makes sense I guess,” Smith said nodding. “How do you know about all this? I thought you were an agronomist, not a geologist.”

I laughed. “When I was in Russia working on a land reclamation project, I heard about this crater in Siberia. The Popigai Crater is the Earth’s fourth largest impact crater. They think it hit around the same time dinosaurs disappeared. Anyways, it’s huge, and inside the crater is the world’s largest deposit of diamonds,” I said.

Smith’s eyes grew large.

“Not like the diamonds you’re thinking of,” I said. “I got that idea too, but the locals informed me they’re not jewels. They’re silver like these, and not