Chapter 58

Adara was sitting on a log near a fire at the Trikru camp. She was staring into the fire thinking about the execution. She knew it was needed, that kind of sickness would not be tolerated and yet, she couldn't get past the fact that she had killed someone. She had killed several guards in the mountain but they were at war and trying to kill each other. She had killed Shumway and that too, was because he was planning to do the same to her. This time, though, she killed a man who was unarmed and tied up.

Anya had been watching her struggle with the death she had caused. She walked over to Adara and sat down beside her.

"You are struggling with your decision. You did the right thing, Adara. A leader has to make these hard decisions for the betterment of their village and people."

"I know," Adara said. "Still makes me a cold blooded killer."

"You are not a killer, cold blooded or otherwise."

"Yes I am, Anya, I've had this conversation with Indra in Tondc. I cannot see myself as anything else. I know I'm a leader and Shaman and other things, but I'm also a killer. I will not deny that. I have to come to terms with it. To do otherwise would belittle my accomplishments in other areas. Each time I kill, I lose a little piece of my soul, Anya. It's the way I am. You were brought up to believe that strength is everything and emotions are weak. I don't think like that. I use my emotions to help me deal with things like this. Crying actually helps me get rid of the sadness I feel at having to kill when necessary."

"You Skai people are strange. You do what is needed and then cry about it. I have seen you do things that were necessary and you didn't cry about it. Would you rather you didn't kill him?"

"No. I know he had to die. I just don't like doing it. It's part of being a leader but it's one of those awful tasks that needs to be done. I'm actually surprised that none of my people have needed more discipline."

"Your people have been in shock at the way your leader in the sky betrayed his people. He is not a good leader. You have shown you are a good leader. Focus on that. The feeling will not go away, but it will fade. The choice you need to make now is if you are going to let it influence your decisions. Only you can decide that." With that Anya patted her on the shoulder and left her to think. Adara stayed by the campfire for a couple of hours more before bedding down beside it and going to sleep.

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

The next day, Monty reported that the two Ark stations were coming down. Through her earwig she heard Kane counting down before the stations separated from the Ark. Adara had sent Raven and Miller with several Skaikru and some Trikru under the command of Anya to the site of Mecha station. Adara would meet Alpha station when it landed. Kane had said that they would target the site of Arkadia to land, but that Mecha would probably land in the same place as last time. He and the Griffins were on mecha. Raven would be able to deal with those people with Kane's help. Adara had the harder job of dealing with the ones on Alpha. Most of those would try to take over as the leaders of the Skaikru. The Commander and Murphy were with her. Clarke elected to go see her parents.

They stood just inside the treeline waiting for the ship to come down. They had no idea who was in charge of Alpha at this time or who was aboard her, but she knew she would have to establish her authority right off the bat. They watched as Alpha Station crashed down to the ground and a familiar shape emerged from the dust. The outline of the station was now recognisable and they waited until the dust had settled. Once enough of it had, they cautiously walked towards it. A door opened and Jacapo Sinclair walked out with several guards behind him with their guns raised.

Adara held up her hand and everyone with her stopped. She waited to see what the inhabitants of Alpha station would do. Sinclair ordered the guns to be lowered and they were. Adara started forward again and so did the rest. Once they got closer, one of the Alpha guards raised his gun and fired at the Trikru.

"Grounders!" he yelled. Major Byrne swung around and knocked him down and took his weapon.

"You were ordered to lower your weapon! We were told that there would be grounders here!" She motioned for another guard to take him back into the station and held there. Adara had swung around at the gunshot and looked to see if anyone was hurt. Fio was holding his arm. She went to him and looked at the wound. She was glad that it was only a graze and she healed it up straight away. The Commander watched on, intrigued by the healing process.

Once Fio was healed, Adara turned around and asked the Commander what she wanted done to the one that injured her warrior. The Commander decided to let Adara deal with the man. Adara nodded.

She headed for the station with everyone again walking with her. She stopped several feet from Sinclair and asked that the guard who shot Fio was dismissed from the guards as punishment for his crime. Sinclair looked worried at that.

"This is non-negotiable, Sinclair. What he did was inexcusable. He shot one of the Trikru!"

"Is the man okay?" asked Sinclair.

"Yes, I healed him. I want him out of uniform and no longer given access to weapons," Adara stated, crossing her arms in front of her and standing tall. Sinclair reluctantly nodded. "Good. Now, were you informed that I am the leader of my people?"

"Yes."

"I am also your leader."

"No! You are the leader of the Skaikru. We are the Arkers as you call us. You stated that we are not your people so you are not our leader." Sinclair protested.

"Who told you that?" asked Adara, now confused. Adara and Kane had thrashed out the details several days ago. They had both agreed that Adara would be the leader as the Arkers would eventually become Skaikru so it made sense to start off as they meant to go on. Kane had said that he told everyone aboard.

"Kane said that you had separated off from us because you didn't trust us," Sinclair said.

"And when did he tell you that?"

"A couple of weeks ago."

"And you didn't hear the announcement that I was to be your leader from the beginning because you would eventually become Skaikru?"

"Well, yes, but-" Sinclair started.

"No buts, Sinclair. I am your leader. Get used to it. We Skaikru have been on this planet longer than you. That gives us more life experience about the planet." The Commander then spoke up.

"You are mere children down here until you have proven yourselves. Adara and her people have proven themselves when they helped us take the mountain. They have proven themselves by living as we are - with nature. They do not overhunt nor take all the food plants from one area. They do not kill animals for fun. They do not cut down trees because they can. These were actions from the old world and it nearly destroyed it. You will learn a simpler way of life. Tech can be useful, but we do not allow too much, for it was made to kill. Adara is your leader, we accept no other."

"Sinclair, this is Commander Lexa, leader of the 12 clans." Sinclair looked at the Commander and realised that she wasn't much older than the kids that had been sent down. He also realised that if she was the Commander at such a young age, then age was not a factor down here, and, as the Commander had pointed out, they did not see them as kids, but people. People who had shown their desire to fit in with the ones already living here. Sinclair was worried. He had some major adjustments to make to his own mentality, which was nowhere near as flexible as he thought it was. Sinclair nodded.

"I accept Adara as our leader," he said, simply. The Commander nodded. Adara walked up to Sinclair and shook his hand.

"Welcome to Earth, your new home."

xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx

Roma was staring at the river near Mertle sanctuary. Mud flats. There were a lot of mud flats around. Atom had instigated a new rule when one of the exploration team sank knee deep into the mud and they'd had a hard time pulling him out. If the ground was not solid one inch below your foot, don't try and stand on it. She saw trouble when she looked at the mud flats. She checked the map again. This area would be ideal for farming but the low level of the land and the mud flats suggested that this area was prone to flooding when there was enough water flowing through the river. Even Roma could figure that out - even if she had never seen it in action. It didn't take a genius to work out that a lot of mud on the banks of a river meant they came from somewhere and if there was enough of it, then it would flood.

She wondered if they should go upriver instead of down. She checked the map that Indra had given her marking the territories of each village and their hunting grounds. Tondc's area was quite large, no doubt due to there being no other village east of theirs and none close enough to the south east to worry about. In fact the nearest village southeast of Tondc was near a place called Milltown Landing. Roma decided to go north.

They followed the riverbank where possible and skirted around any mud flats they found - they found a lot of them, some of them quite far inland as well.

They travelled for hours, eventually reaching a small town called Marlbor… the rest of the name was obscured. Roma deduced that this was part of a small community. They had followed a branch of the river and came across old roads and decided to explore the town - or what was left of it.

Following the two lanes of the old road over the river and going north, they came upon what could only be described as a concrete clearing. They could tell that buildings once stood here but there was an awful lot of broken concrete around too. Seth looked at it. It had lines on it - regular lines in rows. He was wondering what they were for. Regular lines of the same length and the spaces between them were the same size, too. Will came over to him. Will was one of the oldest of them, he was due to turn 18 and therefore be floated only 3 days after they were sent down. He was thankful that he had been chosen. He didn't know that Kane had also picked people who were due to be floated in the time period between sending them down and getting in touch with them to find out if the earth was survivable. Kane had put four of them aboard, but it seemed that they were working out quite well.

"Car parks," said Will, looking at the lines.

"What?" asked Seth, looking up at him.

"Car parks. That's what these were. Each vehicle, mostly cars, were parked here when their owners wanted to go into one of the buildings." Seth looked about them.

"Why are there so many? It looks like there were only two buildings on this site but there are loads of car parks."

"Three buildings, there's one behind you and those are the ones we know about. There may have been loads of little buildings around here."

"Did everyone have a… car?" asked Seth, still unable to believe the size of the area the car parks were in.

Randy - another of those already turned 18 - came over.

"The whole area is called a car park and the space between the lines are called bays. My dad was into the history of cars so he told me a lot about them. He showed me books that had pictures of car parks in them full of cars."

"There are a lot of bays. Was this a busy place then?"

"Probably was for this area. I mean, why build a park this big if you didn't think it would be filled?" Both boys agreed.

"Okay," said Roma. This area can be considered for farming. We have a branch of the river to the south, lots of trees and some clearings to the northeast. There seem to be a few small ponds too. Don't know if that's due to flooding or because the level of the land is so low that the water comes up from the ground."

"In other words, don't dig too deep?" asked Randy.

"Yep. Surface farming only. We'll keep going north until we come to areas that belong to other villages and work out where to go from there. Now the mountain is no longer a threat, we could look directly south of Tondc. The ground there would be safer and more likely to contain small town shopping areas. If we could find one, then we could possibly dig it out and see if anything survived that we could use."

"Okay, let's move north and then return to the bunker and consult with Adara and maybe the Trikru on where to look next." said Will.

"Sounds good," said Roma. "Let's get going, I want to be home in four days. I haven't had a decent wash in ages."

The guys laughed and went to grab their packs, getting ready to move out.