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

one of the scientists from our old group. His face was untamed and his eyes bulged. We stopped abruptly when we saw him. “You don’t have to do this!” I yelled out to him.

“Yes, I do,” he answered, and began to sprint towards us.

I turned to run but stopped when I heard a single gunshot ring out from directly behind me, followed by a loud thud. Spinning around, I saw one of the crew’s men with his gun held up to his shoulder, still looking down the barrel at the lifeless body in front of him. He lowered the gun and looked back at me. His jaw clenched, making the muscles in his face bulge as he took a long deep breath in. “That didn’t feel right,” he said plainly.

“Come on, we have to go,” the other men urged him.

“Come on, Aella,” he said to me, as he turned to run with them.

I scurried to catch up and then felt my adrenaline kick in, allowing me to keep pace with them. They were trained for this sort of thing and I wasn’t. It was a struggle to stay with them. It was unnerving to have people chasing us. The pressure was felt from everywhere and everything was all consuming and my body was cracking under the physical strains of the demand. I was a regular runner, but I couldn’t breathe, and my body shook. I kept pushing on, until I heard it.

Like a whistle screaming through the trees, it was loud and echoed, but I wasn’t sure what it was or where it had come from. Whipping around quickly to see if I could see what the noise was, I saw one of the crew’s men laying in the dirt, lifeless. A bullet hole straight through his back, glistening with blood. Confused, I looked around the woods with the other crew’s men to see if we could see the gunman. Then we heard another whistle through the branches. Two of them.

Both of the remaining crew’s men were down and I was left alone. Dropping down to the ground quickly, I crawled over to the leader. “Aella,” he said through strained lungs.

“Yes? What? What do I do?” I said, panicked.

“Run,” he said.

Moving back in shock as his limbs went limp, I sat for a second in shock, and then remembered I was probably in the scope of someone’s gun as they watched me. Standing up quickly, I took off running into the next group of trees away from where I thought I had heard the gunshot originate. Trekking across the rough and thick terrain of the dead flower weed and brush, it was difficult to move fast. Making my way down the hill as quickly and quietly as possible, I heard the rush of two ATVs pop over the ridge that I was descending and slow.

Instantaneously, the ground under my feet was illuminated with the bright floodlights and speckled with the shadows of the men behind me. Running was easier now, and whether it was delusional or brilliant, I had a thought. I slowed down to a jog, until I completely stopped.

Looking up ahead through the trees where I would have run, I turned the other way to face the men and ATVs chasing after me. The lights were blinding. I pulled an arm up to shade my eyes in an attempt to see past them, and they stopped and turned down the lights.

“Leslie with you?” I yelled over the engines, then I heard the motors shut down.

“No, he’s back at camp,” one of the shadows in front of the lights answered.

“So, you’re gonna take me to see him, right?” I asked.

“Of course, yeah,” they boasted.

“What’s he planning to do with me once I’m back at camp?” I asked. I twiddled my thumbs and looked down at the ground, nervous.

One of the newer civilians stepped forward and spoke. “Leslie just wants to talk with you. He needs help, and he thinks you can help him. We need help with the crops, and we need more people,” she said. “He’s not even mad at you, he just wants help.”

Nodding my head slowly, stealing a glance behind me, I noticed a glint of black reflecting off of the lights from the ATV’s in the trees. Perfect, I thought. “Really? I thought he would be mad. Well, if I’m welcome back at camp, I’d love to go back with you guys. I’m sorry I ran,” I said. Just as I began walking towards the woman, her smiling face was splattered with blood as the man standing next to her was shot. The gunshot rang out from behind me. It was part of the original scientist group that had shot him, anxious to deliver me to Leslie. I knew they would catch up to me, and I knew Leslie’s group would get ahold of me, I just hoped it was at the same time. I stalled until the last minute I had, and they took care of each other. One group couldn’t let the other group capture me or they would lose favor with Leslie, so it was a battle.

Once the shot was fired, I took off in the other direction into the woods. Gunshots rang out as they battled and fought, until I finally heard them start up after me. Hundreds of footsteps and ATVs alike were after me. I had no idea who had come out of that fight, or who was left of my group in the woods, but I knew I didn’t have a big chance of not getting caught. I was not going down without a fight though.

Chapter Sixteen

I ran. This was it. I knew they were going to catch me. My heart felt like it was going to explode, pounding out of my chest until it hurt. My lungs ached. I couldn’t run anymore. That’s when I saw it: a manual craft, landing just in front of me. It was large but much smaller than the ships we