Chapter 57

David, Pascal and Eva came back three days later. They had found that the land was big enough for the Arkers to live on. There were cattle, deer, boar - or rather wild pigs descended from the domesticated pigs that were on the island. There were enough trees for building, though they would have to be careful as the island was small and only had so many trees. There was an old volcano on one end. The Floukru had told them tales handed down through the generations that when the war happened, a fire mountain appeared at that end of the island. They also told of another fire mountain making another island a few miles away.

The island of Bermuda was viable for the Arkers. They had somewhere to put the dissident Arkers who would not join with the hundred and become Skaikru.

Luna had also told them that the other island that they had named Corda was also livable. They would have to import some meat animals, but there was plenty of land to build on and enough space for planting and farming. All in all, it was looking good for the continuation of the Arkers. Now, it was just waiting for them to come down.

The next day marked a week since that had last spoken to Kane. In the command centre, Adara and Raven were standing by to talk to the Ark. Monty was just getting the signal to bounce around.

"Okay, it's done," said Monty. Adara pressed the button to connect to the Ark.

"Come in, Ark, you there Kane?"

"I'm here, Adara."

"Good. Are you coming down soon?"

"Yes. We're just getting everything ready. All the stations have been emptied into the ones that survived. Pike has been dealt with, as has his mutineers. We've had to pack the station to capacity, Adara. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

"What about the other ships, Kane? Are they able to be utilised?" asked Raven. Kane let out a gasp of surprise. He had forgotten about them. "Sydney didn't take the Exodus ship, did she? And I remember one other ship."

"Yes. The other ship is another dropship, just like yours. We could outfit it to hold maybe 70, 80 people. That would free up some space. The Exodus ship can hold up to about 700. The third ship can hold about 600."

"So that's just under 1400 people. There are what…? Just under 2000 on the Ark?" said Adara.

"Yes," said Kane. "I think that we can put some people aboard one of the Exodus ships and give us some room. I'm reluctant to use both ships. We know that Mecha and Alpha survived mostly intact so they are more reliable for getting down. Now that you have dealt with the mountain - I'm still not happy about that, by the way - we don't have to worry about Mount Weather jamming the signals and crashing the ship."

"I'm happy about that too. Is the navigation system working on the Exodus ship? We need to make sure that the ship comes down where we want it to. If it crashes into a village or farming area of one, then the Trikru could declare war on you. Remember, you are not part of Skaikru yet. They will see you as invaders, so be careful, please?"

"We will."

"Make sure that everyone there knows that the only stations coming down are Alpha and Mecha. Anyone who hides in the other stations will be left behind and would die up there. I don't want you to have to strong arm people into the stations coming down. If they don't want to, we can't make them. Just remind them that the air supply is running out and they will suffocate if they stay behind."

"I know, Adara, but I don't like to think of anyone staying behind."

"Their choice," said Adara.

"Kane," asked Raven, wanting to change the subject. "Your people do know that Adara is the leader down here, Right?"

"Yes, I've informed everyone on how things are run down there and that the Commander and the clans only see Adara as the leader. We, up here, have not proven ourselves, so we would have no standing down there. Most people are a bit reticent about having a kid in charge, but I reminded them of all the things you have done without needing our say so to do them. I don't think they thought of that."

"As long as they know who's in charge." said Raven.

"Okay, we're getting off track here. Kane, can you have the Exodus ship ready by tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow may be pushing it. We only have Jake, Sinclair and Wick to check things out. How about the day after tomorrow?"

"Okay. The Exodus ship comes down the day after tomorrow. Bring her down where the old dropship site was. We'll meet them there with Trikru support. You then bring Alpha and Mecha down the day after. Keep Jake and Abby on Mecha with you. Clarke would never forgive us if anything happened to them."

"So true," said Kane, chuckling.

"Okay. Get things done Kane, we want you down here in three days time."

"Will do. See you on the ground."

"Monty will give you coordinates for the site. See you on the ground." She pushed the button to end the call and sat back.

"Well? Did I do right?"

"Yes. You did exactly the right thing. You need to establish your authority over Kane and the rest of them. You did that. Now we go and meet the Exodus ship in two days' time and the stations the day after," said Raven, putting her hand on Adara's shoulder.

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

Adara decided that a hunt was needed to feed those coming down and she wanted to go on it herself. She got a party together and went to Tondc to talk to Anya and Indra about hunting in the lands between them and the mountain. They agreed and Indra led a group of Trikru warriors. They set off on the hunt.

Adara had just brought down a deer with her spear and was knelt over it, giving it thanks for providing food for her people when she heard a snarl. Her head snapped up and she looked up to the small cliff face to the right of her. A panther leapt towards her, intending to kill her and take the deer. Fio shouted and tried to get to her, but Adara pulled the spear out of the deer and jammed the butt end of it against the ground, right up against a large rock. The panther was committed to the leap and couldn't alter course and as it got nearer, Adara held her position holding the spear, still kneeling. The panther landed chest first onto the spear point and Adara flung herself to the ground to the side as the Panther crashed to the ground. She wasn't quite fast enough and the panther's claws raked the back of her left shoulder as she dived, drawing three bloody marks on her. Fio came running up as did Indra, Octavia and Lincoln, though Indra stopped them from helping her.

"Let Adara deal with the panther. We help only if she needs it."

The panther wasn't dead and was trying to rise. Adara crawled up behind it and grabbed the panther around the neck with her arms and brought her long legs around its body, just in front of the back legs. Both of them were rolling around, the panther was thrashing around trying to get to her and kill her. With its teeth, front and back legs unable to attack her, she tightened her hold with her right arm and drew her knife with her left and slashed through the panther's neck. She held on until it stopped moving and then she slowly let go. The animal was dead.

She rolled onto her back, panting hard and sighed in relief. The panther had trapped her right arm and leg so she just lay there until they helped her. They looked on in awe as Fio told them exactly what had just happened.

"A little help here, please?" Adara asked, weakly gesturing to the panther pinning her down. Fio and Lincoln moved the panther and helped her up. Lincoln asked if she was wounded and she turned to show the clawmarks. He immediately took her to the small creek nearby to wash the dirt out and clean her up.

"You got a deer and a panther in less than two minutes?!" Octavia exclaimed, a little jealous.

"Yeah, but I didn't want the panther to attack me."

"You can't do things the easy way, can you?" Octavia said, shaking her head in amusement.

"If it's easy, then everyone would be doing it," said Adara, shrugging.

"If it was easy, then it wouldn't be worth bragging about," said Indra, stepping up to her side. "You can come hunting with us any time you want," she said, putting her hand on Adara's shoulder, greeting a fellow warrior. Adara nodded and then sat down to recover. Octavia and Lincoln dressed the kills and between the four, they carried the prizes back, while Adara walked beside them.

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

Two days later they were waiting for the Exodus ship to land. They waited a mile away from the old dropship site. Luckily for them the new dropship site was halfway between the old site and Tondc, so they wouldn't be landing on top of their dropship. Adara had long since sent a group back to their ship to get the supplies they left behind when they came down. Now it was nothing more than a wreck. They had taken as much of the metal off the ship as they could to use themselves. The next job for the rest was to cut it up and melt it down. Anything they couldn't melt or burn, was to be taken to one of the empty storage rooms inside the bunker and placed there. They had decided that nothing of the ship should remain. It was a reminder of the death sentence Jaha had placed on them.

Around them, Trikru warriors waited with them. Anya was standing in for the Commander and would talk to them about the ways of her people and the ways the Skaikru were doing things. She knew from Adara and Raven that a lot of the adults on the Ark were stubborn and set in their ways. She was determined that she would set them straight or ship them to the islands and be rid of them once and for all. Adara was a good leader. Anya admitted that - even though it was done grudgingly. The Skaikru had done exactly what they said they would and that was to live in harmony with nature and the clans. There had been no chopping down of trees at all. They only hunted for enough to eat and not waste any of it. Same with foraging and Octavia knew enough to not take everything from one place. They were people she could trust. These new people, however, had not proven themselves. They would be trouble, she could tell and they weren't even here yet.

Adara had her earwig and mic on when she heard Monty.

"Got them. They're right on target. Should be landing in 50 seconds."

"All right, people," Adara said, raising her voice and turning to everyone there. "50 seconds to touchdown. Be ready!" She turned back around and looked up to the skies, searching for the pinprick they would see.

"There!" yelled Sterling, pointing towards the ship. Everyone looked where he was pointing and sure enough, a shape was getting bigger and they could now hear the engines roar. The ship got bigger and the noise got smaller as the engines shut off and thrusters were used to manoeuvre it into position to land. They watched as it touched down. No-one moved at first until the dust had settled and then they walked steadily towards the ship. The door of the ship opened and a face appeared. Bellamy.

"Bell!" yelled Octavia, running towards him. Bellamy turned his head and saw her. He raced down the ramp and pulled her into a crushing hug, only wincing slightly from his injury.

"You're here! It's so good to see you. I missed you, O," Bellamy said, still hugging her. Octavia hugged her brother, the only siblings on the Ark were reunited at last. They broke the hug as the rest of them approached.

"Bellamy Blake, this is our leader, Adara Toril, formerly of Hydro station and now leader of the Skaikru," Octavia introduced. Bellamy looked at her, she was tall! She topped him by at least two inches. She held out her hand to him and he shook it.

"Good to finally meet you, Adara," Bellamy said, with a grin.

"Nice to meet you too. Octavia's been waiting for this moment ever since we came down," Adara replied, also smiling. "May I introduce Anya, Chieftain of Tondc and representative of Commander Lexa, leader of the twelve clans." She swept her arm towards Anya who took that as a signal to come closer. She clasped his arm Trikru style and said,

"Welcome to Trikru lands." Bellamy was a bit surprised they spoke English but he held that back.

"Glad to be here. The air smells wonderful and feels so good on my skin."

"Yes. The first of many firsts for you of the Ark. The Skaikru can show you many of them from drinking clean water to eating real food, from walking in a forest to watching the animals. You will see many sights for the first time. It is truely something to behold," said Anya, trying her best to be diplomatic when all she rreally wanted to say was 'fuck up and you die'. Adara took over again. She didn't want Anya to run someone through the first time they questioned anything.

"You'd better get the others out of the ship, Bellamy. Let them feel the ground under them for the first time in their lives." Bellamy nodded and walked back to the ship. Adara and the Skaikru also walked over to it, while Anya's people stayed back.

Adara watched as people came down the ramp and stared about them at the trees, grass, sky, and mountains.

"This is so beautiful!" one man said reverently. The man was in his late 60's and never thought he'd get to see the earth. He was overcome with emotion at the beauty of it all.

"This is real?" a woman asked, not really believing what she was seeing.

"Uh-huh," said Adara. "It's very real." They watched as more and more people came down the ramp and were milling about.

"Bellamy, how many came down with you?"

"642." Adara was astonished at that. She thought Kane was only sending 500 down at the most.

"Why so many?"

"Because they found that Mecha had two rooms that were unfit to house the people on the way down. Something about heat shields." Adara and Raven nodded.

"Okay. I think we'd better set up the tents for them. They may have to squeeze in. Kane told us that he was sending 500 down and we've only got enough for that many."

"How big are these tents?" Bellamy asked.

"We've got six tents that can hold 50 people each, twenty ten man tents and we've got a big marquee we were going to use as a kitchen area, but we can put the rest in there."

"Will there be enough space?"

"I hope so, Bellamy. We don't have any more tents other than the ones we're using." They had decided not to tell the others about the bunker, they would have wanted to live there instead of building a village on the ground. The bunker was on Trikru lands and too close to Tondc to use for more than a few months. The hundred were already in it and were hunting in Tondc's own hunting grounds. There wasn't enough food for the others too. They had to learn that they needed to build a village of their own away from any area that was already used by other Trikru villages. That was why she had sent Roma off to find a suitable area outside of Tondc's area. Indra had pointed them towards Tuck's river as being outside their area and away from anyone else.

They got the tents up and Octavia took several people hunting and foraging for them. Bellamy didn't want Octavia to go. He wanted her to stay with him - where it was safe. Octavia set him straight on how things happened on the ground and that she was the Chief hunter for the Skaikru and it was up to her to find the food. Bellamy wasn't happy, but let her go. It wasn't like he could stop her and he knew it. Octavia was her own woman but that didn't mean he would give up his big brother role. He just knew he had to pick his battles.

Adara watched Bellamy and Octavia interact. She remembered how Bellamy would try and protect her from everything. Back then, Adara thought that he didn't want to give up the protector role for her. He seemed to want to keep her under the floor so she was safe. He hadn't realised that she no longer had to hide under the floor and she was now free to move around on her own. Seems like this time he wanted to do the same thing. She would give Octavia time and space to deal with him and she'd only step in if Octavia asked for help or if she thought Bellamy needed to be exiled.

After they had eaten, the new citizens of earth sat around with the Skaikru while Adara told them of how things were run on the ground. She outlined the vision she had for the village they would build, for the jobs they would need to learn to do and the way she had set up the hundred. Everyone had a job, even those who didn't have a regular team helped do whatever jobs needed extra help or others that needed doing. One thing she emphasised was the 'you don't work, you don't eat' way of getting people to work. She would have no deadbeats or malingerers in her village. Of course, she didn't tell them that. She would see who was genuine about working for a better future. She would wait until she had a group of people who wouldn't work or take orders from her.

She also told them that the ones on the ground already were in charge of the teams and if they joined a team, they had to take orders from their team leader - especially if the team leader was one of the hundred. Ability was more important than age. Age did not make you wise, experience and maturity made you wise - sometimes. Not one of the Arkers had any experience of the ground so they couldn't say that they should be the leaders just because they were older. That shit would not happen here!

Most of the group nodded their heads, it was just as Kane had told them. Several of them were parents of the hundred and they were proud of their children for living without adult supervision. They wondered if they could still parent them or if they thought of themselves as not needing it anymore. Adara had sent off one of her people to fetch those hundred whose parents were here.

As they were talking around the fires, a group of the Skaikru came up to them. Jill looked around them and spotted her parents.

"Mom? Dad?" she said, shocked to see them. She ran to them as they stood up and hugged her tightly.

"I missed you, Jill," her father said.

"Me too," said her mother, crying.

"Yeah, me three," Jill said, laughing.

"Peter?" Peter Coulton spun round at the voice.

"Dad?" he asked, staying where he was.

"Hello, son," his father said. Peter backed up.

"Don't give me that shit! You used to beat the crap out of me and told me that it was normal, that all kids got 'special treatment' from their fathers!" Peter backed up further and the rest of the Skaikru closed ranks around him.

"You don't believe him, do you? He's just a kid and doesn't know what he's saying."

"I'm not a kid anymore. I grew up fast when I found out that Jaha had sent us down here to die. We all did. We survived. We grew up. You cannot do anything to me now." said Peter.

"Mr Coulton?" said Adara, looking at him. When he turned to her, she closed her eyes and read his mind. Something she didn't want to do, but it was something she did to protect Peter. She had to find out exactly what Peter's father did to him. She opened her eyes and was enraged at what she found out.

"Mr Coulton, you are not welcome in our village. You will be held here until we can exile you with anyone else who abuses kids!"

Sterling and Miller peeled off from the group and took hold of his arms and held him. He tried to shake them off, but they pushed him to the ground and held him there.

"Get off! I haven't done anything wrong! I only showed him how much I cared for him! You can't do this to me!"

"Yes, we can. We do not want abusers in our community. If you persist in insisting you are innocent of any wrongdoing, then I shall kill you. I have that right. This is the ground and neither the Ark rules nor the Exodus Charter apply to us. I have not had to kill any of my people because they follow the rules and respect each other. You do not. You do not respect me as the leader, you do not respect people because you think they are stupid and you could do a much better job of disciplining kids. You beat your son because you liked it. It made you feel like a real man. I can read you mind, Coulton and yours is a sewer."

"I have rights!" Coulton shouted.

"So did your son! He had the right not to be beaten just for existing! You cannot see that you did anything wrong. You are sick in the head, Coulton. The sooner we are rid of you, the better." Adara went back to Peter.

"What do you want done with him?"

"He won't stop, you know? He'll find another kid to pick on. Exile is too good for him. I can't tell you to kill him because for all his faults, he's still my father. Do what you want with him." Peter started to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

"Back. I'm going home," said Peter, pointing over his shoulder towards the bunker. Adara nodded and when Peter set off again, she looked at Bruno and jerked her head towards Peter. Bruno nodded and took off after him. She could trust Bruno to look after Peter. She turned back to Coulton. Now it was a real test of her leadership.

"Tie him between the trees. He can face our justice." Miller and Sterling dragged him to the treeline and tied him between two trees with leather binding the Trikru had brought.

Anya was watching with fascination. She had seen Adara rule her people, but none of them had disobeyed her too much. The only punishment she had given people were the crap jobs no-one wanted to do but needed to be done. Now she waited to see the justice she would mete out on those who were abusers.

Adara approached Anya.

"Do you have a strap or whip I can use for punishment?" Anya raised her eyebrows and turned to one of her warriors and told him to fetch one. Adara was given a whip. She had never had to deal out corporal punishment so she had no idea how to use it. She asked for instructions on its use. Again Anya's eyebrows rose. She gave Adara the instructions needed.

Adara approached the tied man.

"For the crime of beating your son, 5 lashes. For the crime of sexual abuse against a minor, 10 lashes. For the crime of helping Commander Shumway cover up yours and his crimes, you will be given the deathstroke." Gasps were heard from the Arkers but Adara didn't turn her head. She looked straight into Coulton's eyes which had become wide with horror.

"You can't kill me!" he said, incredulously. You're not my leader."

"Yes, I am and yes, I can." Adara went behind him and drew back the whip. She flung it forward and felt the whip lash at his back. He shouted out in pain. "One." She drew back again and again until fifteen lashes had been given and his back was marked in a criss cross pattern. He had fainted after four and now it was time to revive him and carry out the last of his punishment. "Revive him," she said to Miller who nodded.

Adara walked back to Anya and was surprised to see both Clarke and the Commander there.

"What did he do?" asked Clarke.

"Peter Coulton's father. Used to beat his kid as a way to show him he was 'special'. I read his mind and found that he had sexually abused a girl as well as helping Shumway to cover up crimes. Fifteen lashes for the first two. Death for the last. Peter's gone back to our base. Bruno's gone with him. Peter said exile was too good for him and left it to me to decide what to do."

"Death is the only way to deal with those people who believe abuse is a way to deal with life," said the Commander. Clarke looked sick.

"He really did that?" Adara nodded.

"He never refuted the claims and only stated that he had done nothing wrong." Adara turned to Anya. "May I borrow a sword?" Anya silently and slowly pulled her own sword from her sheath and handed it to her.

"Aim between the ribs just below his nipple." Adara nodded her thanks and went back to Coulton.

"I haven't done anything!" Coulton was still proclaiming his innocence.

"You did not challenge the charges laid against you. You just stated that you did nothing wrong. That means you are guilty of the charges and don't care about your victims. Your death shall serve as a reminder of what justice is down here. You should have been floated on the Ark. Now I have to do it down here." Adara lifted the sword and pointed at Coulton's chest. She looked at him.

"Yu gonplei ste odon" she said and plunged the sword between his ribs and into his heart. He slumped down and Adara withdrew the sword. Miller checked his pulse and shook his head. Adara nodded and turned around to see the surprise and horror on their faces. She held up the blooded sword.

"Justice has been served. You think this is barbaric? This is no different than what the Ark did, only on the ground we cannot send the condemned into space to die. I do not kill those who do not deserve it! His crimes made him a predator and someone who had to be stopped. You would do well to remember that. Life is not easy and people like him are not wanted." Adara motioned for Coulton's body to be cut down. When it was, she had a pyre built and he was cremated immediately.