Chapter 15
On the ground
"Hey, Sol! Found a place for them to live yet?" asked Raven, coming over to where she was sitting with her back to a tree, watching some birds on the branches above her.
"Not really. There are several places we could put them, but we need Clarke down here to negotiate for us."
"Can't wait for them to come down," Raven said.
"Do you know who they're bringing down?"
"Not yet, but Clarke said they were going to try to trigger some people and then bring others that are due to be floated in the next few months. They'll be unknowns," Raven said.
"They'll all be unknown to me, Raven and I'll be unknown to them."
"You may have known some of them in the last life."
"Yeah, but I don't remember that and I died in Factory Station. Not sure I want to remember that, besides, I wasn't part of your people. I was never part of the hundred."
"Well you are now! Don't worry, I'll tell you who's who." Sol nodded.
"Where's Jake?" Raven asked, looking around."
"Oh, he and Torvan went off to find some sturdy branches for something to do with that watchtower they're building."
"I think Jake may be looking to change careers and become a builder!" Raven said, laughing.
"He's enjoying himself," Sol said with a shrug.
"What's up?" Raven asked, sensing some unease within Sol.
"I don't fit in, Raven. I fit in with just us four, but once the others come down, what then? Clarke becomes our leader and makes all the decisions and then we go off and live somewhere else. I'm not sure that's the life for me. I just can't see myself living like that."
"You're uneasy about your role within Arker society?"
"No. I'm uneasy about how the Arkers will treat us. I want my sister down here, but I also know that once she is, she'll have to live her life. What if she wants something else? What if she wants that life? What if I don't? What happens then? I don't know if I can live with the Arkers again. I never really fit in there in the first place, Raven. I never quite fit. I was always either half a step ahead or half a step behind, I couldn't quite get it right and march with the rest of them. I was always out of sych, you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I do. It's how the delinquents felt when the Ark came down. The Arkers were all about protecting themselves and thinking that we had to be protected too. We were out of step with them as well - or rather they were out of step with us. Out of touch, really. Life on the ground was to be feared because it was different, but to us, the ground represented a new life, a fresh start. The adults of the Ark never got that. They wanted the Ark. I think that if they could have fixed the air supply before they came down, but after we did, they'd have stayed there where they felt safest and they'd have just written us off."
"So it's not just me then?"
"No, it's definately not just you. I feel that way too. I'm not sure about Jake, he's got family up there, but I think Rory feels the same way we do. Don't forget, she's an anomaly too, she had a second child. She had to keep one step ahead of the guards to keep Octavia safe and that meant not following the pack too closely that she got lost in it, but following along close enough to seem part of it, if you know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do."
"What about the others who remember the other life? Will you all be like lost sheep, wandering around wondering where you fit in?"
"Probably. We never got the chance to interact without suspicion and distrust the first time." Indra came over and sat with them.
"I was listening to your conversation. I want to know as well." Raven shrugged.
"The first time we knew we were not alone down here, was when Jasper was speared in the chest and dragged off somewhere. The second encounter with them was when Lincoln kidnapped Octavia and chained her to the wall in a cave. Bellamy led the team to track her down and when they did, Lincoln stabbed Finn with a poisoned knife. That was the day of that huge storm, Indra." Indra nodded.
"So you see, Indra the first three encounters with your people were hostile. We never started that war, your side did."
"You invaded though."
"No we didn't. You can't invade somewhere that is unoccupied, every person on the Ark was taught that no-one survived the war. The only people left alive were those on the Ark, therefore we were going home, not invading."
"You landed on Trikru lands."
"No, we landed on a patch of dirt that was the wrong mountain. We were supposed to land on Mount Weather. Good job we didn't, otherwise we'd have been killed for our bone marrow and you'd have been slaughtered when they came out of the mountain without their radiation suits." Indra was silent as she thought through everything Raven had just said. She'd need to digest everything from their point of view. She only had her own recollections and the stories of others to go by, but they all thought the same, that those from the sky were invaders.
"So if we'd come down a year earlier last time, you'd have killed us as invaders before we could tell you what happened?" Sol asked.
"Yes," Indra said.
"Huh. Glad that there was another life you remembered, then," Sol said with a shrug.
"Hey!" Rory said, rushing over to them. "I think I've found an underground shopping place!"
"Really!" Raven said, raising her eyebrows. "Where?"
"Look, here," she said, sitting beside Raven. Sol went over and looked over her shoulder while Indra sat on the other side of Rory. "This is a quarry on Sol's grandfather's maps, but on this newer one, it says it's an underground shopping centre called 'Subterranean Retailers'. I think someone bought the old quarry and built a shopping complex and then covered the whole thing in, only leaving the entrance. See here, where they built a car park."
"So you think there's going to be intact stores there?" asked Sol.
"I hope so. This may be far enough away from Washington DC that the bombs didn't hit it. People may have raided it for supplies after the war, but I think it's worth a look," Rory said, excitedly.
"How far away is it?" asked Indra.
"Hang on, I'll check," Rory said as she bent her head and tried to use the small ruler scale for measurement.
"About 23 kilometers. That's about… A kilometer is about point six two of a mile so roughly 14 miles or so?"
"Which direction?"
"East south east." Indra and Raven looked at each other then at Sol.
"I'll talk to Anya about it."
"If we're given permission and there's anything there, we'll share it with you," Sol said. Indra nodded before getting up and going to find Anya.
"Alright, back to this invaders bit, I think we need a place for them to come down before the negotiations can begin, Raven. If we have to wait then anyplace we land, we're invaders."
"I know, I was hoping that the Commander would come back and her and Clarke could thrash it out before anyone was sent down." Raven sighed. "Did you find anywhere we could put them?"
"Apart from a few Carribbean Islands, not really. I was looking around Newport News. It's on a spit of land, but the nearest barrier we could use to separate the lands doesn't quite go all the way across. We could put them on the lower end and tell them the boundaries, but you know what Arkers are like and they'd most likely go off and try to use someone else's lands for hunting and such."
"How big an area would that be?"
"Roughly 200 square miles."
"Where is it?" asked Rory, holding out the map. Sol took it and pointed to a spot way down the coast.
"Here, just about Norfolk naval base. There's a bridge across to this other spit of land as well. I'd rather they were not used otherwise they'd take it and spread out. This is a small airport roughly central to the land I thought they could live on. If we said they lived at the lower end, then they have access to the bridge. These ponds here are freshwater ponds so they could get their water from these. They need to live near them."
"It looks like one big one and several smaller ones," Raven said, slowly, tracing them.
"Yeah, I thought if they lived near the big one and used the little ones for watering their crops and animals, then they could live quite well there. It's also so far down the coast that the bombs may not have targetted the naval base. If they haven't, then the housing may still be usable. It's all down to the Arkers to check them for damage."
"On the plus side, there may be stores there just waiting for someone to come along and take them," Rory pointed out.
"True and if there is, then Kane's going to have to make sure no-one hoards stuff. Nygel would definately be setting up shop again and trying to get others to do her share of the work by 'finding' things they could use."
"I can think of a few others like that too," Sol said, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
"Tired?" asked Raven.
"Uh-huh," Sol said, yawning again. "Anya had me up at the crack of dawn to go off looking for other game. We saw some but she said it was just to see where they were and how many were there. She wanted to know in case we needed to use another hunting area during winter."
"I hope our people don't come down too soon," Rory said. That many people to feed over winter will be very difficult to do."
"Nearly impossible," Raven said. "We need to warn them not to have the ships ready to launch too soon. They'll need to slow down on construction if it looks like they'll be finished ahead of time. I know the Arkers would think they could just go then instead of waiting until there was enough food for everyone. That's what happens when we just go to the messhall and get our food when we're hungry. They don't understand that we can't do that down here. Getting food is hard work and not just the planting side of it. Hunting is exhausting and we'd need to go out everyday just to get enough food to feed everyone for one meal. This is not a good time to come down."
"Well, I'm off to bed. If Indra and Anya give us the go-ahead, you can tell me in the morning."
"Do you need woken for sentry duty?"
"Nope my night off," Sol said, smiling and then yawning and stretching.
"Go to bed, Sol and we'll see you in the morning," Rory said, smiling.
"Night all," Sol said, with a backwards wave while walking to her tent.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
Two days later, Sol and Rory and several warriors were off looking for the underground stores. According to the map, it was outside the military zone, so it should just be a civilian place, but it was close to the border, so some military places could still appear there. They'd just have to wait and see.
"Is that it?" Rory asked, pointing to an open quarry, left alone since the war and was partly overgrown with scrub and a few pockets of rainwater here and there. Sol looked at the map.
"No, I think that's the smaller one here," she said, pointing to a small quarry west of their intended target. "We need that one," she said, now pointing to the bigger quarry.
"It doesn't look like a quarry now," Rory said. I didn't really see it until I looked at the older maps. This one blends in with the surrounding area now with all those trees on top of it." Sol nodded and they continued to walk until they were walking along avenues of trees in completely straight lines.
"Oh, yeah, this was completely designed," said Sol. I think this is an orchard of some kind."
"Different trees though. Think they just planted a whole load of fruit trees?" asked Rory.
"Looks like it," Sol said, picking an apple from a tree. She looked at it. It looked okay, not brown bits or parts eaten by insects or birds. It wasn't soft or wrinkly, but firm and looked quite nice. It was a small apple with red and green parts and Sol didn't know if that meant it was still unripe or not.
"What do you think? Edible or not?" she asked one of the warriors. He took it out of her hand and bit into it.
"Still good," he said, as he munched on the apple. Several warriors laughed and they stopped to pick any of the fruits they could find. It was a welcome bonus to their dwindling food stores. They carried on and came to the entrance to the underground shopping complex.
"Let's set up camp here first and then we can go exploring," Sol suggested. Rory nodded and soon they had one of the tents set up for themselves while the warriors put up their own tents. They were arranged in a circle around a central firepit. Sentry posts would be needed but only four would be needed a night to cover the entire area. Sol looked over to the places that looked dark on the maps and looked like they had ridges on them. She knew now it was a hangar type building. They'd have a look inside another day. For the rest of the day, they'd be exploring the stores for anything they could use or the Ark when they came down.
Four warriors took sentry duty, leaving eight more and Sol and Rory to go looking. They both had flashlights with them so they split up taking four warriors each. They planned on finding some more of them and having the warriors split into pairs to go explore for themselves.
Sol went left and Rory went right. Sol looked at the stores down the first corridor, right next to the outside wall. Stores on both sides of her and she started with the first one on her left. It was a stationary store. Writing pads, pens, pencils, rulers, binders, boxes and a whole host of other stuff. Some of it they could use but she wouldn't grab anything until all the stores had been checked and they'd then take only the needed stuff. They could always come back for other things later.
She checked each store down it's entire length. There were food stores, eating places, a stationary, pan store, bag store, clothes stores, electronics stores, a sports store, fishing supply store and an outdoor clothing store, all just on one aisle. At the end, she found a basic layout of the place and saw there were six aisles, each had at least ten stores on each side of them. There were 120 stores just in this one building. Sol could see that they'd need to prioritise what they took. Full inventories would be needed for each store. It would take a while. They only had three days to look around and then it would take another day to walk back again.
Rory was looking through a hairdressers. They could all do with a trim so she was looking at the scissors and wondering if they could use them. She'd bring back combs too. She went through to the back and saw a huge pile of smiled, those would be very welcome back at the village. Having to use a piece of leather to try to dry yourself with, was not easy, it moved the water around rather than mopping it up. She moved on to another store. This one was a men's clothing store and she saw more practical clothing in there that she had in the three women's clothes stores. Most of the women's stuff was flimsy and wouldn't stand up to the rigours of village life - plus she couldn't quite see Raven or Sol wearing skirts and some of the barely there tops. She moved through the store and was checking out the t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, sweaters, pants and underwear and socks. She looked at the coats and jackets as well, thinking that when the Ark came down, they'd have to come back and raid it for warm clothing for them.
That night they talked about what they saw and what could be used back at the village. The warriors listened to the two of them talking and added bits and pieces from what they'd observed. Not much was actually needed back at the village. They already had warm winter clothing and most of the things in the stores were not needed or wanted either.
The next morning, Sol and Rory were trying to figure out how much they could return with. The warriors had agreed to carry a backpack back with them so they were discussing how much they could take and still make it back safely. They'd only gone down one aisle each the previous evening, so they would go back and check the rest of them to see if there was anything different they didn't see last time.
They spent the rest of the day going through the stores until Sol found one store that sold car parts. In the back was a couple of wheeled bins with lids. They were unsused, but a look at the back of the store showed they were brand new replacements for the broken rubbish bins each store had. Sol grabbed them both. One was green and one was blue. She pulled them out of the store and to the front of the building.
"RORY!" yelled Sol.
"Yeah?" a faint voice called back.
"FOUND SOMETHING!" Sol yelled back. A few minutes later, Rory came to the front of the store and saw the bins.
"Fantastic!" she said, examining one of them. "How many were there?"
"Only these two. I think they were replacements for the store's garbage bins." Rory nodded. "Green or blue?" Sol asked her.
"Blue," Rory said. It was the one she'd been examining. Sol pulled her green bin down the aisle and parked it outside an outdoor clothing store. She filled it up with enough clothing for the four of them. Thermal shirts and underwear, warm shirts, sweaters, fleece-lined pants, thick socks and thick, warm jackets and coats. She also put in more warm hats, gloves and scarves. There were also some snow goggles, tinted against snow blindness - whatever that was. She put in a dozen pairs. She thought Indra and Anya would want them. She picked up some hand warmers too. She read what they were and how they were used. They didn't have a microwave, but some of the others just needed a barrier to be snapped and the two gels mixed together producing heat. She put them in the bin as well. She also threw in half a dozen compasses, some maps and she looked at the boots. They'd have to find Raven's and Jake's sizes and come back for some. Taking a whole load of different sizes would take up valuable space.
She moved on to the next store and found a toy store. She looked at some of the games and put several into the bin along with a 'football' and a 'soccer' ball. Sol liked the British version of football. Calling a game that was played 95% of the time with your hands 'football' seemed stupid to her. What the British called football was a game played 95% of the time with your feet. It was self-explanatory really. How hard was it to figure out. If you're going to play a game with your hands, call it handball! She knew there was a game called handball, so they should have called it American Handball. Instead they called it American Football and the Americans just dropped it down to football.
She moved to the next store and found an outdoor sports store. It too had some clothing, but it also had more outdoor activities like rock climbing. She put in several ropes and carabiners as well as some camouflage backpacks for when Clarke and the others came down. At the back of the store were some bicycles and off road four wheel drive quad bikes. Sol smiled. If Raven knew of these, she'd be here trying to convert them to solar power so she could have some fun with them.
That night, they compared notes again. The bins, when full, were heavy and they wondered if they'd be able to drag them back to the village. The land was fairly flat, but they had to manoeuvre around lots of trees and bushes. Sometimes there was no clear path other than space between the trees. They slept after their sentry duty and the next morning, Rory took two other warriors with her back into the complex. Sol, on the other hand, was looking at the hangar type building, wondering how to get into it. She took another couple of warriors and went to find out.
She walked around the outside of the building until she was on the other side of it and spied a small door into it. She hadn't found the big hangar door yet and surmised it was on the side she hadn't yet looked at. She tried the door, but it was locked. She looked around and saw a rock. She picked it up and took it back and started pounding on the padlock. The padlock was rusted and Sol was hoping just to bash it off. It took her several minutes of constant bashing, but she eventually snapped the lock. She dropped the rock and unlocked the door before bringing her flashlight up and switching it on. She walked inside. She expected to find it either empty or had a small plane in it. What she didn't expect was a hovercraft! She looked around it and realised it wasn't just a hovercraft, but some type of aerial vehicle too! She walked to the work bench on the wall to her right and looked at the stuff on it. Tools, certainly, but there was also something wrapped in plastic that looked like an instruction book. She opened it up and found a schematic and instructions on it's use. It was solar powered and there were several spare parts next to it. Sol smiled, she would look it over and if they could get it started, they'd take it back. She couldn't wait to see the look on Raven's and Jake's faces when they came back with one of the biggest toys on the planet!
It took Sol the entire day to read through the instructions and the manual, checking each part as she went. She soon realised that she only needed to get the solar panels and power packs outside to recharge and then she could start it up. She went to the main hangar door and pushed them open. She couldn't figure out how to push the vehicle outside and figured out that she'd have to take off the solar panels and take them out to power up. She did that and then went back to reading through the manual. She read about the hovercraft aspect, the basis for this new type of vehicle and that if it could fly at low levels by wind power, it could fly low level by using solar power to power the engines, making it a truly environmentally friendly vehicle. There were two engines, both powered by the sun. The first engine was for the hovercraft and used a quarter of the power, the second engine powered the low level flight controls and used the rest of the power available. Apparently, hovering was a form of flying and they just had to get to a minimum height before they converted to the wings and flew. It was still in progress so it couldn't go higher than about twenty feet, but for now, it would be enough. They'd get back faster and could carry much more goods than before.
Once the solar panels and power packs were fully charged, she fixed them back onto the hovercraft and had the warriors climb on board. They did so, warily. Sol grinned and started up the engine. It came on with a purr instead of a roar and Sol pushed the button to inflate the skirt and they started to float out of the hangar. The warriors were hanging on to the backs of the chairs in front of them, fearful of this new type of vehicle. It was tek and they didn't use tek, only the maunon used it.
Sol manoeuvred it out of the hangar and over to their camp before setting it down and deflating the skirt before switching it off. She looked at the two behind her and saw they were not fans of this new form of moving. She sobered as she realised that they would more than likely want to walk back rather than use this faster way.
Everyone got off and Sol went to find Rory. She brought her out and Rory was astonished when she saw it.
"Sol, should we be taking it?"
"Why not, it's not like anyone else other than Mount Weather uses tech. I think we need more tech to counteract whatever Mount Weather has. We can prove that tech is not a bad thing, it's only those that misuse it that are bad. The tech just does what it was made for."
"Raven's going to be so jealous when she sees you driving this!" Rory said, laughing.
"I know, Can't wait to see her face!" Sol laughed as well and soon they were in stiches, thinking of the two engineers when they found out about it.
"How much can we carry in it?"
"That's the problem. I haven't found anything in the instructions and manual about how much weight it can carry. We'll just have to try it."
"So we can take back more stuff?"
"Probably, we just have to figure out what. Those two bins can be put in here along with a couple of more bins if we could find them and clean them out."
"No!" Rory said, "I looked into one of those store garbage bins and it was all mouldy!"
"Yuck!" Sol said.
"So unless they are brand new and never been used before, we leave them alone. There are storage containers inside the stores we could use instead," Rory told her. Sol nodded.
"So we check those storage containers, find out how many we could carry and then fill them up?" Sol asked.
"I think that would be the best way to do it. Trying to lift them when they're full would be hard."
"Alright. We need enough room for the warriors, though I suspect they'd rather walk back."
"We can ask them," Rory said, shrugging. "If not, we can fill their spots with more of the fruits from the orchard on top of this place."
"Good idea. If we take some food back, then I hope Indra and Anya aren't too put out with us taking this."
The next morning they loaded everything on board, including some tools for the hovercraft. The craft had not been named other than 'hovercraft - skimmer, prototype mark 2'. Sol asked Rory what they should name it and Rory thought they should call it something with 'tree' in its name as it was found in Trikru territory. Sol nodded and they both tried to think up some names.
"Hey, Sol, Ilana means Beautiful tree, I think," Rory said.
"Ilana, I like that."
"So we naming it before Raven and Jake see it?"
"If we leave it to them, they'd give it a stupid name, most probably named after some obscure engineer." Rory laughed.
"Okay, then I name this vessel the Ilana," said Rory, laughing. Sol laughed with her.
"We'd better find something to paint the name on the side otherwise they'll rename it." Rory laughed again.
"Come on, let's see how many of these big brave warriors are actually scared to take a ride back with us." They walked back and talked it over with the warriors. They all said thay'd rather walk back. Sol nodded and told them since their places were going to be empty, they could help pick more fruit to take back for the village to use.
Two hours later, with the fruit picked, the warriors set off. Their camping equipment had all been stored in the Ilana and Sol and Rory were left to pack some more stuff into the spaces available. They only took more winter clothing as that would be used by anyone coming down from the Ark. They knew that Clarke would more likely come down as soon as she could and were planning for a winter arrival.
Sol started it up once Rory had strapped herself to the co-pilots seat and watched where she was going. Rory watched the right side while Sol watched the left and the front. Sol manoeuvred the craft into an open area and then set off back for the village. She was taking it up to the highest level she could, which was only twenty foot, but soon they were skimming along over the brush and between the trees. Both Sol and Rory were grinning at the fast pace they were setting. It took them only an hour to get back to the village - way faster than walking.
Raven and Jake rushed out when sentries called out an alarm at a flying vehicle. Raven looked up at the hovercraft type vehicle with jealousy. She didn't know who was piloting it, but she really wanted to do it herself. She watched as the vehicle started descending and then she saw Sol at the controls. She waited until the vehicle was on the ground and the engines turned off before she ran over to them
"Where the hell did you find this!" she demanded.
"It was in a hangar by that underground shopping complex."
"Any more of them?" she asked, looking it over, checking out the instrument panel, steering and engines.
"No, it's a prototype."
"Really?" Raven said, finally looking at them.
"Uh-huh." Then Raven spotted the goodies in the back of it.
"What did you bring back?"
"We found loads of stuff the Arkers can use, but not much the Trikru can use. Torvan's brother… Genden - can never remember his name - said that the only thing the Trikru could use were weapons like theirs, but we only found a few knives. They're mostly for Anya and Indra. Payment for letting us go there. We did bring back some telescopes and binoculars too. We'll keep some for those coming down and give the rest to Anya and Indra. I swear Indra is turning into a tech-head," Sol said, shaking her head.
"She doesn't see those as tech," Raven said, "so she'll use them until the Commander says she can't. She can see the advantage it gives them. They are not weapons so she can't see how the Maunon could complain."
"From what I've heard, the Maunon will only be happy once they're all wiped out. Anything technological is not for savages to use," she said shrugging.
"The sooner they're dealt with, the better," Sol said. Rory said nothing, but silently agreed.
Jake came over and looked it over avidly.
"What do you call that?" he asked.
"It's a hovercraft - skimmer hybrid. This is the second prototype."
"Where's the first?"
"No idea. This was the only one there. We brought back spare solar panels and powerpacks for it too."
"Can we name it?" Raven asked eagerly.
"No, we already named it. This is the 'Ilana'."
"The what?"
"The 'Ilana'."
"And what does that mean?"
"Beautiful tree," Sol replied.
"Why?"
"Because it was found in Trikru territory and they are the tree people, so we chose a name associated with trees. I like it." Raven looked at Jake and shrugged.
"So can I have a go?" Raven asked.
"It depends on what Anya and Indra say. If they say we can't use it, we'll have to go put it back."
"WHAT? But-?"
"Sorry, Raven, we have to abide by their rules."
"But we could use it," she said, stubbornly.
"WE could, yes, but the clans don't use technology and that is definately technology."
"So why did you bring it back then?"
"Because we can use it. I'm going to argue just as hard as you are to keep using it, Raven. This is a godsend for us."
"So what can it do?"
"I'll tell you later, right now I need to talk to Anya and Indra," Sol said, looking over Raven's shoulder. Raven turned.
"Go, I'll look through this lot."
"That green bin has winter clothing for the four of us and a few other things as well." Raven nodded and shooed Sol away to talk with the leaders of the village.
After a lengthy talk about just what the vehicle could do and why they wanted it, permission was given pending the Commander's approval. Sol agreed to that and then pulled out several bags of assorted fruit.
"We found the place had an orchard on top of it. We picked as many as we could, but there may be some still there," Sol said. Anya and Indra smiled. More fruit was always welcome coming into winter. It would eke out their supplies and could be the difference between eating and not eating enough at the end of winter. They'd have to eat them first before they went bad, but that meant more food available later on.
"Could you go back and pick the rest of it?" asked Anya.
"Yes, I'll take Raven with me and show her how to drive it. If I don't, she'll sulk until she can." Indra chuckled, she remembered when Raven was denied playing with tech by Clarke. Raven had indeed sulked.
"We brought a large tent to store the things we brought back with us as well. Some of it is for you, but most of it is for those who come down next. I assume that's Clarke and whoever she brings down with her."
"Would they be the ones who came down last time?" asked Anya.
"Some of them, but others are more likely those kids that are due to be floated on their 18th birthdays. Don't forget, with us coming down a year early, there are going to be a year's worth of kids who were floated last time because of their birthdays. This time, Clarke will try to save as many as possible."
"Where are you going to keep that...vehicle?" asked Anya.
"Outside the village. I don't think it'll fit inside here anywhere there's space, it's too big." Indra nodded.
"There's a large meadow to the north of the village. You could keep it there," she said.
Sol nodded.
"I'll take Raven and a few bags and go get the rest of the fruits. Those we've brought may be all mixed up. We'll try to separate the fruits into apples, pears, plums, peaches, cherries and limes or lemons or whatever they are." Anya nodded and walked off with Indra, taking the bags of fruit with them to the stores.
Sol and Raven took the 'Ilana' back to the orchard. Raven watched and listened to the instructions Sol was telling her and she asked questions that Sol didn't know the answer to. She resorted to giving the manual to Raven, but Raven was torn between reading it and watching how to pilot it. In the end she said she'd read it at night.
They arrived at the orchard and Sol set it down just outside the hangar and turned off the engines.
"Come on, we'll go grab some bags to put the fruit into," Sol said, hopping over the side of the vehicle. Raven followed her into the complex and moved with Sol to the bag shop. Raven pulled her own flashlight out and looked around. She could see where they'd taken bags from to use and she went and grabbed several more large ones. Sol had gathered several more.
"Let's put the apples into the green holdalls, and the plums into these red bags. The limes/lemons can go into the blue ones and the peaches will have to go into smaller bags, they tend to bruise easily," Sol said.
"Is there a place that sells fruit inside?" Raven asked.
"Probably, but I never saw one. Maybe Rory did. Why?"
"Sometimes they put fruit in boxes instead of bags, they kept better or something," Raven said.
"We can look," Sol offered. They went down the aisles Rory had checked and came to a store that had rotten fruit out front. Raven went into the shop and came back with several empty wooden crates and three cardboard boxes designed especially for fruit.
"We can try these," Raven said. They went back and picked all the fruit they could reach. They tried shaking the apple trees to bring the top fruit down, but the trees had grown strong and it was not easy. Only a few were shaken down. They picked them up and put them in the vehicle. Next Raven went and looked at other things inside the complex. She was there for a long time and eventually Sol went down to find her.
"Raven, what are you doing?" she said. Raven popped her head out of the toy store.
"I was just playing with some of the stuff in here. They have models of cars and tanks and planes and even trains!"
"Raven, if you want to take one with you, you can, but we need to go back."
"But I'm having fun!" Raven complained. Sol sighed.
"You could also have fun driving the vehicle back to the village, too," she said, hoping to entice Raven away from her new toys. Raven's eyes widened.
"Really?"
"Yes, now come on, I want to get back before it gets dark."
"We haven't been here that long!" Raven said.
"Raven, you've been down here for the past four hours." Raven stared at her then looked at her watch.
"Shit! How did that happen?"
"You got sidetracked," Sol told her. Raven picked up the model she was building and put it into one of the bags. She put in the glue and all the tools she'd been using and followed Sol out and back to the vehicle.
"Can I really drive?" Raven asked.
"Only if you don't speed or try doing barrel rolls," Sol said. Raven nodded, but Sol could see her mind turning, wondering just what the vehicle was capable of.
They made it back before dark and handed the fruit over to the villagers. Sol and Raven decided to take the ignition key with them- just in case. Sol took it knowing if Raven kept it, she may take off in it just to have some fun.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
Sol and Raven decided it was a good enough excuse to radio up to the Ark to her secret radio.
"Come in den, come in den, Raven here."
"Hey Raven," said Clarke.
"Hey, how are you doing?"
"We're all good up here. Listen while I'm alone here, I need to tell you all about what we've discovered." Raven looked at Sol.
"I'll go round them up," Sol offered. Raven nodded and told Clarke to wait a few minutes while they rounded up Jake and Rory.
Soon they were all round the radio.
"Go ahead," Raven said.
"We've found another stash spot of theirs inside the skybox - or more specifically right on top of the hatch to that escape pod. Someone's personal possessions are in the pod. Murphy and Miller along wih Octavia found it all."
"How? Miller and Murphy are still in the skybox, aren't they?" Raven asked.
"They are. Kane let them out of their cells to go investigate. Octavia found the back way through to the hatch they needed to go through and led the way. At no time were they outside the skybox, so technically, they were still in it and no escape happened. Kane and Colonel Byrne hatched a plan and set up covert surveillance on it. Byrne is not in on what we are doing, but she is helping Kane to clean up the Ark."
"And what did they find?"
"Would you believe me if I told you that Pike was staying there? When he was arrested for trespassing, he said that he wanted to make sure he went to the ground and was living there. He was paranoid that he'd be left behind."
"Did they float him?"
"Yes, he admitted to living there and that's trespassing."
"So what now?"
"That stash spot has been cleared out and Monty has been officially put in charge of making sure that no-one can take it. Monty's been told what we want to do and he and Harper had decided they needed to stay up here."
"If he's actually fixing it for your use, then when you take it, wouldn't he be suspected of being in cahoots with you?"
"Yes. They've decided now to come with us. We've woken up Murphy, Miller, Monroe, Drew and Jones so far. All of them are willing to help us in return for a pardon when we reach the ground. I've already given my word as the leader on the ground that when we go down, all of them are pardoned."
"So how many of our people are coming down?"
"In this one, Me, Octavia, Miller, Drew, Jones, Monroe, Monty and Harper along with Erin. Murphy wants to stay up here and help Kane figure out the rest of the places the cabal could be using."
"Is that safe for him? He's in prison, how's he going to do that?"
"He's going over the schematics Monty found in Jaha's files when he's taken to the interview rooms."
"Too many times and people will get suspicious why Kane keeps pulling him in for a chat."
"I know. It would be safer for him on the ground. Anything on your end?" Clarke asked, changing the subject.
"Oh yeah, Sol and Rory found an underground shopping complex and raided it. There's an orchard growing on top of it and we've picked a shit load of fruit for the village. Sol also found something else - wait for it - a hovercraft!"
"She what?"
"She found a hovercraft of sorts. It's a prototype for a kind of low flying skimmer. It only goes twenty feet high, but it can fly, Clarke! It's beautiful!" Sol took the mike.
"Raven's in love with her. I've had to hide the ignition key so she can't take off with it." Clarke could hear the humour in Sol's voice and smiled.
"So do we get to play with it when we come down?" she asked.
"Depends on who's coming down, Clarke. We can't let just anyone take it out for a spin. We're still waiting on approval from the Commander before we can use it too much. Anya and Indra have only given us their permission this morning. The Commander has the final say."
"Is she there?" Clarke asked.
"No, she's still in Polis. Until she knows you're coming down, she won't be back until spring. She's got meetings and stuff to do there and apparently there's a festival they have during winter."
"Oh, yeah, I remember that. Are you going?"
"Don't know, we haven't been asked."
"Well, we're getting things in place and when Monty gives us the go-ahead, we'll be staging a jailbreak and bringing as many of those due to be floated down with us. They'll be unknowns, but once they're on the ground, they'll have to play by the Commander's rules. We need to establish that from the beginning."
"Well if Indra and Anya agree, they can come with us to wherever you land and lay down the law."
"Probably a good idea, make them see that the land isn't ours."
"Good, call when you know when you're coming down and where you intend to land. Wells will have to eyeball the ground to find it, but if you tell us roughly where you want to land, we can lay out some kind of markers for him to follow."
"That's a good idea. Once Monty's okayed the ship, I'll call you and we'll figure it out together."
"Alright. Anything else?"
"Not at the moment, but this transmission never happened as far as anyone else is concerned, okay? Not even Octavia. I dont want one mention of that escape pod leaking out."
"Got it."
"Okay, I have to go, Erin's due to relieve me in about ten minutes. Talk to you later. Out."
Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo
AN: I have absolutely zero knowledge of engines so I have no idea if the hovercraft/skimmer would be feasible, but hey, this is a work of fiction.
Thanks for reading, Samdagger.