The Circadia Chronicles: Omnibus: The Complete Colonization Sci-Fi Series by Heather Heckadon (books to read to get smarter .txt) 📗

feeling that there isn’t anyone to call,” he said. Smith looked down at his hands, then up to me, then away again, never looking at my eyes.

“No, she has a dad. She told me that’s where she got interested in explosives. She worked at her dad’s quarry,” I said.

“Yeah, Aella, I don’t think he’s around anymore.”

My chest sank and my shoulders fell forward. I let my dark hair fall in front of my face to conceal any emotion that may have shown. I felt terrible for Jane. I wanted her to be able to call home like I had, and be reminded that she wasn’t alone. Having no one to call home to must have been tough, but I had made my call, so I had a mission.

Running away, leaving Smith behind, I looped around the supply hull to see Jane sitting on an empty box looking out at the field in front of her. Her eyes pierced through the miles of land untouched by man. Her face was long and heavy, but her mouth held strong.

“Hey, umm... you alright?” I asked. I approached her slowly and sat in the flower weeds next to her. It wasn’t really my thing to be the ‘comforter,’ but I liked Jane. “Looks like you’re thinking about something.”

“It’s nothing,” she said.

“It’s okay if it’s something. We’re stuck here together. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“It’s my dad. It was always just him and me against the world, you know?” Her head dropped and she smiled slightly. “I told him, just before he died, that I didn’t want to live in a world that he wasn’t a part of, and now I don’t have to.” A tear rolled from her eye. “I’m glad to have a new beginning, but I still miss him. I feel like I didn’t have to prove anything to him. Here, it’s different. It’s a lot of pressure.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Jane. You’re a badass. Who gives a shit what anyone thinks?”

She smiled back at me.

We sat silently, looking out over the terrain. There was nothing I could say that could take her pain away, nothing I could think of that would make her feel better, so we sat quietly in each other’s company. We sat like that for many moments, until the tears stopped and she turned to look at me.

“What’s your story, Aella?” she asked. “Seems we all have some crazy reason for being here, but you.”

I laughed. “My story is that I don’t have a story. Absolute nerd with no adventure in her life who needed some excitement.”

“Well, that seems quite different from the rest of us. Everyone I’ve talked to seems to be running from their problems, and you're here chasing some down.” She chuckled through her snotty nose. “I’m sure you'll find a story here, that’s for sure.”

Hearing a crunching noise behind us, we both jumped to our feet and turned. Standing partially behind the supply hull was a cameraman, his camera reaching around the craft and pointed directly at us. The anger and embarrassment hit all at once.

“Hey! What are you doing?” I growled.

The cameraman took a few steps back as if I would attack him, then stood his ground. “Recording,” he said.

“Why?” Jane gasped.

“I’m filming for the show. You signed a contract and release enabling us to film for Grow.”

“Can you get rid of that part, then? It was kind of a personal moment, and I don’t want every personal moment broadcast, you know?” I quickly saw that he didn’t care what I had to say, as he was still holding the camera on his shoulder. “Are you still filming?”

“Yeah, I can’t edit anything out. That’s the guys who film for the broadcast. I film for the livestream on the website. Everything on my camera goes directly to the live feed that people pay a subscription to watch. Kind of like The Hunger Games, if you think about it, but they pay for it,” he said, inspired.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jane grumbled.

“Thanks a lot, asshole,” I said as we turned and walked away. Jane stuck up her middle finger to add drama as we left.

After that moment, there were cameras constantly on us. Even if we thought the cameramen were gone and we were safe, we were always wrong. There was always a camera perched in the bushes, like a lion stalking its prey, waiting to catch whatever non-rehearsed babble came from our mouths.

ONCE THE OTHER TEAMS had all arrived from their hike after landing in their pods, and some of them had begun to unpack their supplies, Idris gathered us all around the front of the supply hull. We all dropped what we were doing and formed an audience in front of him. Quietly and respectfully, we waited for him to speak.

One cameraman circled the crowd with his camera, and the other zoomed in on Idris as he began to speak. “It is so fortunate that all of us and our supplies arrived safely upon Circadia without damage. So let’s have a round of applause for that.”

Everyone applauded graciously.

“Now, I know we just got here, but this is when the real work begins. It looks like we only have a couple hours until nightfall, and we currently have no shelter. We are in a terrible condition of uncertainty. We have no idea what the weather is going to be like, what kind of building materials we have to work with, or the amount of time it is going to take to make ourselves self-sustainable. All we have is each other.” He looked around at everyone. “Thankfully, you are all very intelligent and diverse, so we are going to make this happen together.”

All of the different teams joined together, looked around at each other, and smiled.

“With that being said, first things first: shelter. I don’t want to be cooped up in the supply hull with all of you for an entire night. So, those who feel able will