Govern

by Heather Heckadon

  I couldn’t help but be mad and hurt, but I wished them luck. Maybe they would at least make it back to Earth and tell people what happened. What really happened. Maybe they hadn’t had the thought of leaving us in their minds at all, and instead thought they would bring back help. Maybe they would go back to Earth and lead productive lives, meaning at least it wasn’t for nothing, but probably not.

  Glancing back up at the sky, angry and hopeful, I watched. I watched until I could no longer see the ship. Then, BOOM! The echo ricocheted through the trees, accompanied by a force we felt on our skin. My eyes nearly went blind from the blast of light as they reached the mesosphere, and the ship exploded.

  Fiery debris from the ship rained down, burning up like a giant firework display before hitting the ground. Everyone watched in stunned silence. Tears were still streaming down many faces, both for the loss of our ship, and for the loss of the two we thought were our friends. We would never find out their true intentions for leaving, but now we knew one thing for sure: instead of abandoning us as we'd thought, they'd saved us.

  I sat in silence and bowed my head in relief. That could have been us, I thought. Only for a moment though, because the feelings of relief were quickly replaced with fear. We were stuck.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Our last hope had blown apart in the sky. No more tears fell from my eyes as I looked around at my fellow colleagues. My family. What I saw was heartbreaking, there were no more tears there, either. Most of them seemed to be just staring down at the ground or off into space. We were grieving the loss of our own lives. I thought back to sitting in a large room filled with desk and chair combos, all facing a professor talking about the Kubler Ross Theory. He explained to the classroom that there were five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I had never really dealt with hard, concrete loss. My mother had probably died on Earth, but I could never be sure, and I never got a chance to confirm it with everything that happened. I guess if I was honest with myself, I was still in denial about that, too.

  Denial was a strong feeling, one that I felt took hold of the group quickly. “They’ll come back,” I heard one in the group say.

  “There’s gotta be another ship on this planet, somewhere...” another said.

  “I think I’m hallucinating,” one man said.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. Someone had to bring the truth to these people. I didn’t want to believe it either, but it had happened. “Hey, guys, they’re gone,” I said. “Our ship exploded. The space crew took it and it exploded.” It was useless. I was talking to blank faces. I kept trying, though. “We are stuck here with Leslie. At least we weren’t on that ship, though, right?”

  That caught one man’s attention. He looked at me quickly, his eyes full of bewilderment. “It would have been better if we were on that ship!” he screamed. “It would’ve been quicker, easier, than what’s going to happen to us now!”

  Not expecting a reply, and definitely not one of that magnitude, I took a step back as he stepped closer, obviously infuriated. “I have no idea why we followed you! Look at the mess you got us into! How are we supposed to get out of this? We can’t!” As he yelled at me, people rallied behind him. Some came to stand behind him, while others shouted encouragement for him to continue his rant.

  I had nothing to say. After doing my best, taking the advice of those close to me, and trying to include everyone in the group in our decisions, I didn’t know what else I could have done. We had done everything in our power to ensure a victory and still failed. There was nothing left to be said. I just stood in shock, as his group grew larger to a count of roughly thirty people backing him. Thirty people turning into a lynch mob.

  Shifting topics, since they were getting no reaction out of me, one man in their group spoke loudly. “I bet Leslie would still have us, just not her,” he said. “We could probably work something out with him, right?” Everyone started mumbling to the person next to them. My heart was racing as Smith grabbed my arm.

  “We need to leave,” he said. “This is going to get ugly. We need to go now, Aella.”

  “I can’t,” I said. I shot him a glance and instantly noticed his brows furrowed and his hands shaking. Maybe he was right, we needed to leave. As everyone continued to talk amongst themselves, we slipped out through the trees. Quickly, Jane, Dr. Mayhew, Ronald, the old crew’s men, and Sierra joined us one at a time.

  “They’re already talking about turning Aella in to Leslie,” Jane told Smith.

  “I figured that would come up in conversation shortly,” he said.

  ‘“Why would they do that?” I asked.

  “You’re nothing more to them than a bargaining tool right now, Aella,” the leader of the crew’s men said. “Leslie wants the leader of the rebellion, and that’s you. They know that, and they want back in.”

  “Surely they wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “I know they’re panicking, but they wouldn’t!” I pleaded. I loved each and every one in our group. Even the people I wasn’t completely familiar with. They had banded together to fight with us. For us. They were just misguided right now. Once they had time to rationalize, they would think twice. They wouldn’t, I thought.

  Before I could get another word out, I heard someone running behind us through the trees.

  “Holy shit,” Smith said. “That was fast.”

  “We need to split up,” Ronald said. “We don’t want Leslie to have all of us at once.”

  “Please, no! We can’t split up!” I said.

  “We have to, Aella,” Smith answered. “Let’s go! You go with the crew! One of them still has a gun, and they’ll keep you safe. You trust them, right?”

  “Of course, but what about you?” I asked.

  “I’ll go with Jane and Ronald. Sierra and Dr. Mayhew can take off in the other direction. If we make it out of this, whoever does, we will meet back at the crater! Okay, go now!” Smith explained.

  “Please!” I pleaded.

  Before I realized what was happening, the leader of the old crew’s men grabbed me by the waist and dragged me away. I fought against the pull for a bit, yelling for Smith and Jane to stop, but before I knew it, they had disappeared into the cover of the trees. As I turned to run with the crew’s men, the roar of ATVs starting came from the direction we had begun to run.

  Dashing in the opposite direction of the ATVs and bright lights shining through the trees, we quickly ran into 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 to him.

  “Yes, I do,” he answered, and began to sprint toward 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 at me. His jaw clenched, making the muscles in his face bulge as he drew a long, deep breath. “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, at least for a time. They were trained for this sort of thing and I wasn’t, so it soon became a struggle to stay with them. It was unnerving to have people chasing us. The pressure came from everywhere. Everything was all-consuming, and my body was cracking under the physical strains of my demands. I was a regular runner, but I couldn’t breathe correctly, and my body shook. I kept pushing on, until I heard it.

  I wasn’t sure what it was or where it had come from, but it was loud and echoed like a whistle screaming through the trees. When I whipped around to see if I could spot what caused it, I saw one of the crew’s men laying in the dirt, lifeless. There was a bullet hole straight through his back, glisteni
ng with blood. Confused, I looked around the woods with the others as we attempted to spot the gunman. Then we heard another whistle through the branches. Two of them.

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

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

  “Run,” he said.

  Moving back in shock as his limbs went limp, I sat for a second, then remembered I was probably in the scope of someone’s gun as they watched me. I quickly stood and took off running into the next group of trees, away from where I thought I had heard the gunshot originate. It was difficult to move fast as I trekked across the rough and thick terrain of the dead flower weed and brush. As I made 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.

  Instantly, the ground under my feet was illuminated by the bright headlights and speckled with the shadows of the men behind me. Running was easier now. Suddenly, I had a thought. Whether it was delusional or brilliant, I didn’t know, but I slowed to a jog, then stopped. Looking up ahead through the trees where I would have run, I turned the other way to face the men and ATVs chasing 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 dimmed the lights.

  “Leslie with you?” I yelled over the engines, then 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 provide it. We need help with the crops, and we need more people,” she said. “He’s not even mad at you, he just wants help.”

  I nodded slowly and stole a glance behind, where I noticed a glint of black reflecting off the lights from the ATVs 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 toward 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 hold 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, until I finally heard them start after me. Hundreds of footsteps and several ATVs 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 my chances of not getting caught were slim. I wasn’t 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 in 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 had seen before. It lay horizontal to the ground, with the engines in the back and a large windshield up front. It looked like something straight out of a science fiction movie. Bright lights shone down through the open area in the trees just up ahead as the craft turned on the landing gear. Thrusters torched the ground below until shutting off just in the nick of time. I ran toward it. If I was going to go out, I was going out with a fight, and I was going to kick whoever’s ass was in that thing.

  Pushing forward, I approached the ship as the men behind me grew closer. ATVs chased behind them to make sure they got the job done. The men running behind me shouted, but I didn’t know what they said. I didn’t care. I knew they would get me, it was just a matter of time. I kept my word, though. I kept running. Kept trying.

  Just as I neared the craft, about fifty yards away, I looked ahead to see hatch doors open out on both sides of the windshield, similar to suicide doors. I kept watching while running, until I saw two figures whip their guns around and rest them on the doors. They were going to shoot me, which just made me run harder. I screamed an angry growl as I got closer and the first rattle of bullets exploded behind me. Automatic rifles rang through the woods, but I immediately noticed the scared voices behind me and the screams of the men as they were hit. Were they shooting at me or them? I shot a glance backward. Several men lay on the ground behind me, lifeless, as the others retreated. I looked ahead once again and noticed the men from the craft had withdrawn their weapons and waited for me with smiles on their faces.

  I staggered to a stop directly in front of the craft. My chest rose and fell rapidly as I tried to catch my breath. Sweat ran from my face, and I couldn’t seem to get a word out. I just stared at them, wide-eyed. Who the hell were these guys?

  They grabbed onto the door hatches and hoisted themselves to stand half in, half out of the craft. They stared down at me from the suicide doors, one on each side of the ship. Both of the men had jet black hair and neatly trimmed beards. They were almost indistinguishable, except that one wore glasses. They were decked out in black tactical gear and looked eager to see me.

  “Are you Aella Toms?” the one in the glasses yelled from the ship.

  I faced him and replied, “Who’s asking?”

  “Us!” the other man answered. “The Harrold brothers! Phillip and Ross Harrold. We heard your message and decided we wanted to be part of the revolution.” His eyebrow on the left raised in challenge as he answered.

  “Revolution?” I asked. “What message?” My voice was raspy.

  “You really don’t know?” the one in glasses asked, obviously flabbergasted. They looked at each other in utter disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  “You mean the fight here on Circadia?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course, but the fight hasn’t just been happening here. Everyone’s been fighting for you back on Earth, too. You didn’t know?” he asked. “You really have no idea, do you?”

  I stared back. I didn’t know what to say. I was so confused.

  “Aella Toms, you are not only the revolution leader here on Circadia, but you started the revolution back home, too. It started with a newsroom intern taking the voicemail you left for a small news station and making it global, which led to uncovering the Circadia Scandal. You know, the one where the government took bribes to send people to safety during the nuclear winter? When everyone found out about it, there were riots, and a revolution was started. We’ve been fighting the government for about six months now, but we’re evenly matched, and it's been never-ending,” he said. “We happened to have a private space operation before all of this started, and once we decided to join the cause, we knew exactly where we needed to be.” Phillip looked down from his glasses at me, waiting for my reaction, but there wasn’t one. I had no idea what they were talking about. “Earth has one government now,” he said. “One government that supports Leslie Marshal. One government that wants you dead.”

  The reality of the situation hit me hard. We were never going to go home, and we were never going to win. They had a whole government on their side, and we just had a small rebellion. “So, what are we supposed to do? Just give up?” I asked. It sounded cold and dead as the words left my lips. “I can’t.”

  “Quite the opposite, Ms. Toms,” Ross said. “We have a solution to end all of your problems. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked. The sarcasm dripped from my words. “What’s that?”

  “We have a g
od rod,” they answered together.

  “What the hell is a god rod?” I asked. I was exhausted. We had tried every idea we could think of, and nothing had worked.

  “It works like a nuclear bomb, but without the fallout and damage afterwards,” Ross answered.

  I stared in astonishment. No way.

  “It still gets a clear point across, though, and quickly,” Phillip said. “We figured you should decide how it will be used, since you’re the rebellion leader and all.” He winked.

  “Basically, it’s a large steel rod we have positioned above Earth like a satellite,” said Ross. “It can be moved around Earth or to a location on Circadia within a moment's notice and has supreme accuracy. We were involved in a secret project for our private space program before all of this happened, so we quickly launched, and now have the upper hand. It took a little bit to firmly decide which side we stood on. Once the video of you standing up to Leslie and offering your own life for others’ was transmitted through, we knew. We stand with you, Aella.”

  “Let’s give ‘em hell,” Phillip added.

  As I stood there, feeling like nothing could surprise me after their revelations, Jane ran up from behind and stopped when she stood next to me. Her eyes darted back and forth as she searched the dark woods for any movement.

  “Let’s go!”

  I turned to her, still in shock. “We don’t have to run anymore, Jane, but we do have somewhere we need to be.”

  Beyond where Jane stood, I caught a glimpse of someone limping out of the woods. Jane turned around to see what I was looking at. It was Smith.