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

them the plan. I wish we would've, though. I hope they're hidden and safe." Guilt consumed me as I gazed out the window at Circadia behind us. I squinted hard to keep the tears at bay. "We have to make this worth it."

CHAPTER TWO

Some time passed before we approached Earth. I never thought I'd be so nervous to see what used to be my home. As we drew closer, I noticed how different it looked from when we left it only a few months back.

The landscape had changed dramatically. Where large cities used to illuminate the night sky with their bright lights, there was darkness. Vast deserts and unpopulated areas were now crowded metropolises from the looks of it. The nuclear winter must've caused the shift, and the displaced people weren't the only change.

The atmosphere surrounding Earth had distinct cloudiness to it. The ashes from the rubble created the nuclear winter that hung in the air, made it difficult for any sunlight to reach through to the surface, and created poor visibility for landing. It was like we’d headed for a completely different planet. I was scared.

When we neared re-entry, the Herrold brothers called back, "Hold on! This ride isn't going to be very smooth."

Once we heard that, I shook Jane to wake her up from her slumber. "What's going on?" she asked.

"We're here."

I gripped the bottom of my seat on either side and held on tight. After pressing the back of my head back to the headrest, I looked across the open walkway to see Smith close his eyes and wrap his arms around his chest tight. God, I miss Garrett. He always helped me stay calm in the ships, but now I was alone on this one. It stung worse than the fear only for a second.

As soon as we hit the atmosphere, the ship heated to a sweltering degree as the particles in the atmosphere created more friction than an average re-entry. The strange debris in the air apparently made it difficult to navigate since we heard the brothers yell back and forth to each other as they tried to direct the craft in the right direction at the correct speed.

Once we were past all the debris in the ozone, I looked out the window to see that we’d slowed and begun a descent into the clouds from high above like a jet. The roar of the engines quieted to an idle as we swooped down and through them until we could see the landscape below.

"We're over the ocean," I said to myself.

I looked over to see Smith glued to the window on his side.

"Which ocean is that?" Jane asked. I glanced beside me to see her looking out the window in fascination.

"It's gotta be the Arabian Sea, right?" I squinted my eyes at the water as if it would reveal all its secrets if I just looked hard enough. "We’re landing in Mumbai, so that has to be it."

A voice boomed from the front of the craft. "That's correct! It's the Arabic Sea. We should be landing soon. Our facilities are located right on the shore."

"That's a weird place for a private space program," Smith remarked. I pivoted in my seat to see him looking out the window with a puzzled look on his face.

"Can you see it already?" I asked excitedly.

"Yeah... It's right over here." He pointed out the window, not that it made much difference to Jane or me since we couldn't see out his window, much less straight down from it.

"What's it like?" Jane asked.

"It's big. White. Kind of in the ocean..." He attempted to describe it while Jane and I sat straightfaced.

"That's the best you can do, huh?"

He turned from the window to look at me. "Sorry." His face turned a bright shade of pink. "You'll see it for yourself soon enough."

"All right, everyone buckle your seat belts and brace yourselves. We're coming in for a landing. The engines will get much louder before we touch down, and you’ll hear a strange noise. That will be the parachute deploying to slow us down. We should be on the ground shortly," Phillip Herrold informed us. "Here we go!"

As he said that, the engines sounded like they started running backward with gears grinding, we felt the landing gear deploy under our feet, and the parachute burst out with a sharp jerk. Then came a crashing noise as we touched down on Earth.

There was a ruckus in the hull, and the entire craft shook as the brothers laid on the brakes down the runway. Once we slowed and taxied down and around, the ship stopped and quieted all at once.

The Herrold brothers unbuckled and ducked out of the cockpit to join the rest of us. "Okay, we made it. Soon, we’ll open the doors and let you out. We wanted to prepare you before we do that," Ross Herrold said.

Phillip Herrold jumped into the conversation. "When we open those doors, the world will look a lot different than when you left it. Mostly, people will be different than you're used to." He rocked back and forth from his left to his right foot while Ross stood quietly and waited for his brother to resume. "They're hungry. They're scared. Mad. They've been through some shit."

Ross looked nervous, then spoke. "We have a lot of resources at our facilities that the rest of the world doesn't have. There's a reason for this. No one here at the facility lives excessively or lavishly, but they have their basic needs met. Whereas most of the world does not." He blew out a long sigh, then continued, "That's why you’ll see an angry mob right outside the perimeter gates."

Jane gasped. The brothers held out their hands in defense, and Phillip spoke. "You have to understand. If we let everyone in, we would have nothing and neither would they. Like Circadia, it can only sustain so much."

I nodded. These were different times, and we would have to get used to it.