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

but we didn’t end up getting to that. Everything happened so quick.” She looked down. “So, instead, we worked on climate control for the homes.”

“Climate control?” I asked.

“Yeah. They knew it would get hot here on Circadia, but they weren’t sure how hot. Since it’s so much like Earth, they weren’t sure what kind of variances we would see, so they wanted us to prepare for the worst. Luckily, fires kept us warm during the blackout,” she said. “So, we built air conditioners.” She put air quotes around air conditioners auspiciously, and I was confused.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, while we are trapped in the sweltering heat of that house with no windows, Leslie is holed up in a house that’s cooled by a geothermal coil that pumps water up from the ground. It’s not exactly an air conditioner, but it’s keeping his house about twenty degrees cooler than the air outside at all times,” she said. “His ‘house’ was meant to be a town hall for everyone. Had I known Leslie was coming, I'd have asked Jane to blow the whole damn thing to pieces.”

My interest peaked. Jane was one of my friends from before, and she was close with Smith. She was nowhere to be found though, just like the rest of my group. “You know Jane?” I asked.

“Yeah, did you? She helped us find the aquifers below. She had requested a tool that could kind of see underground, so she didn’t blow anything up that was valuable or going to cause us harm.”

“Yeah, I did know her. She was actually on the agricultural team with me. We roomed together back in New Zealand,” I said. “I wish I knew where she was.”

“Me too, but I have a feeling she’s out there. We’ll see her again, and when we do, we’ll be getting out of here,” she said and gave me a wink.

Arriving at the fields, I realized we had a lot of work to do. The flower weed had overrun the crops and was choking the life from every useful plant. We stopped at the edge, and Smith began to speak from behind us. “Follow what Aella says. These were her fields; she’ll know what to do.”

“Still are my fields, Smith,” I said.

“We’ll see about that,” he answered with a slight smile.

We worked, pulling weeds in the fields for hours, down on our knees in the wet dirt with the hot sun beating down on us. The flower weed was resilient and threatened to cut the skin on my hands with every pull. Sweat ran down my face into my eyes, making them sting. Occasionally some of the crew would bring us water but not much. The only thing that made the work bearable was that we were allowed to talk.

“So, why do you think he did it?” I asked.

“Who? Who did what?”

“The guy that smashed a tree on Smith’s head. Why do you think he did it? Other than the obvious reasons,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Tears welled up in her eyes when she answered. “Because he’s my husband, and he saw Smith talking to me. Must have just sent him over the top, I guess.”

“He’s your husband?” I asked, shocked. “I didn’t realize there were people with us that were close before all of this.”

“Yeah, my husband and I came as a package deal, so they kinda had to take us together. ‘Together or not at all’ is what Jack told ‘em,” she said.

“Jack...I just realized I don’t even know your name,” I said.

“It’s Sierra.” She smiled at me, her short blonde hair tickling her face in the breeze. “I think we need to stick together, Aella.”

“I think so too.” I looked up from digging in the dirt and saw Sierra smiling at me. Her face looked young but exhausted. I guessed her to be about my age or maybe a little older; she looked wise and strong, like she had seen more than I had—or experienced more.  The curls in her hair showed tangles beyond repair, which made me wonder if she’d always been that way, or if it was new. As I observed her and made assumptions, I detected movement in the tree line behind her and shot a glance in that direction. I saw two men moving quickly through the trees and realized it was Spencer and Garrett. My breath caught for a moment, until I remembered I shouldn’t give them away. Focusing all my efforts back down at the soil, it was hard not to try to figure out what they were doing. Every part of my mind urged me to run towards them, every muscle in my body ready to fire, but I stayed still. Watching out of the corner of my eye, they disappeared, out of sight, and I wondered again what they were up to.

Heading back to camp that night, we were told there would be a meeting. A level three meeting. We returned our tools back to the guarded shed as we were ordered and gathered around the meeting place to sit down. A man behind me speculated that we would get a reward for a hard day’s work. Another suspected we would get a talk about how we needed to work harder. I didn’t know what to expect, I just knew I didn’t want to be there.

Smith sat down on the ground opposite our group quietly. After waiting for a long time, Leslie finally walked up to greet the group. “Hello! Did you miss me?” he asked in an animated tone.

Blank stares answered his question.

“I’m sure you all did, but it seems someone misses home a little more than they miss me. Am I right? Because I seem to be missing something, and one of you—maybe a few of you—know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” His eyes narrowed at our small group.

I looked around to see everyone else in my group glancing around at each other with confused faces. What the hell was he