Chapter 1
Raven had done her best to set her pod's coordinates to a clearing near where the kids had landed, but she wasn't exactly working in the best conditions, and even a genius like herself couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear - whatever that meant nowadays. Not that Abby had a clear idea of the kids' landing area since they'd lost contact with them, and no-one had even thought of putting GPS trackers on them to see where they were. It wasn't like there were enough satellites rotating uselessly around the earth, or like they were living on a giant one! She hadn't felt like the Council were this stupid in a long while!
But then she had other things to worry about, what with people coming for Abby, and her last-second escape. When she lost control of her pod, and right before she passed out, she just hoped, if the ground was habitable (and she had no doubt of that), she'd wake up to a friendly face. If she crashed; if she died then; she'd never see Finn again. And countless people would die! It needed to work! She needed to make it work, she needed to make it to the ground and find them, warn the Ark before it was too late!
When Raven came back to her senses, she first noticed pain flaring up in her body, from her back and legs to the throbbing ache in her head and behind her eyes. But she was alive! As she opened her eyes more fully, trying uselessly to blink away the pain, the light of the sun only made her headache worse. She looked around, trying to move. There was blood on the glass of her helmet, and she struggled with her aching arms to take it off, before she felt gentle hands help her take it away. She blinked at the person standing at the side of her pod, a tall woman, with sharp features and even sharper eyes, who stepped back and peered at her warily the second she had finished taking the helmet away. Well, it wasn't that she was wary of her, Raven soon realised. She was clearly hurt, and useless in a fight, the woman had nothing to fear from her really, but she was still careful, like she was weighing her, trying to decide if she could trust her, if she'd be an ally or enemy; if she would throw herself at her in spite of her terrible odds, like hurt animals did (so Raven was told). But Raven, however hurt, was cleverer than that.
"You're not one of the hundred," she observed. She may have just been passed out, but even in her hazy state she could still recognize a kid from the Ark, she'd seen most of these during her visit to Finn, and besides, she was certain the Council didn't hand them furs to keep them warm. The stranger was wrapped in piles of them. "Who are you?"
"You're hurt," the stranger noted, matter-of-factly, not bothering to answer.
Raven brought her hand to her forehead. "Just a bit of blood. I've seen worse."
Still, when she tried getting out of her pod to stand up, she felt dizzy, and sat back down. She ignored her difficulties. If there were humans on earth - humans who had survived, which was a miracle all on its own - the hundred, Finn included, should be alive! And, more importantly, she might gain some info as to where they were, and the world they were in, if she played her cards right, and for that she really didn't want to look weird. She really hoped the delinquents that shared Finn's plight hadn't managed to start a war already. She knew some of them who certainly wouldn't hesitate.
"Who are you?" she asked again.
"I'm the General whose village your ship nearly destroyed, so you're not asking the questions here."
Woah. Bossy. Raven smiled. That sparring match looked like it would be fun! "Well, you said it yourself, I'm hurt, so it obviously wasn't voluntary. If I wanted to destroy your village I'd have done it without a scratch to myself, no offense."
"You make it sound like you're a genius, but you did crash right into our fence," the General bit back.
"Well, see if you can fix a hundred years old ship in two days, with half the parts, without being caught, and then run for it when your boss lady gets thrown to prison and probably killed. This isn't my best work. But I'm alive, so, hey, success!" She wasn't about to say that her head was killing her, or that she wasn't too sure how she survived, but she wasn't as proud of that vessel as she made it sound. Still, it was a consolation to know that none of her colleagues on the Ark would have managed what she just did.
"We'll call it a success when you can stand," the General replied, but despite her harsh tone, it seemed like she'd decided Raven was straightforward enough to trust, because she helped her up and out of the pod.
Raven stood and looked around for the first time. She was on Earth! She made it! She mentally celebrated that feat; she'd never thought anyone would go back to the ground at any point in her lifetime, let alone herself! There were trees, and moonlight coming through the clouds, and wind! All things she'd never thought she'd experience any more directly than in a space suit... And there was life, too, birds chirping, and houses besides the wooden fence she'd destroyed upon landing, although they were not like the ones she'd seen in the books and records from the past. People were going about their daily activities, looking warily at the pod, and the stranger that just came out of it. They seemed normal, no different than the people on the Ark, really, rather more tanned, and some of them tattooed, but altogether... human.
"We'll have to talk about this invasion, but once you've been checked out by our healer. You're no used to us dead." the General lead her to a house, where a couple empty beds were all the furniture there was, and forced her to lie down.
"Jeez, thanks! Look, we're not trying to invade anything," she tried to explain as a big man with unkempt hair and blue tattoos on his face tried to examine her.
"The others who came from the sky tried to reach the Mountain. You tell me that is not an act of war?"
In-between answering questions about her pain and breathing slowly on the healer's orders (the man was glaring at his general to stop distracting his patient, but to no avail), Raven tried to explain.
"How can it be an act of war when we did not know any humans were still alive on the Ground? Did they manage to reach the mountain? That was the only place close-by where we knew there were resources, they're gonna die out there if they don't find them!"
"Your little friends are doing fine." the General assured her in a sneer. "They're learning to hunt, though they're scaring the beasts more than anything. And they've somehow managed not to poison themselves with plants, which on its own is incredible, considering how silly they look. Whoever your Commander is, they must not have thought very long before sending these kids to the ground!"
"No kidding." She sighed. "What's with the Mountain? Is it a sacred ground or something? Why couldn't they reach it?"
"We stopped them." The answer came stern, almost menacing. "We will not let you ally with the mountain, whatever your intentions."
Oh, so, enemies. "Like I said, we didn't know anyone was still on the Ground. All they thought they would find was some food!" A thought hit her. "You didn't hurt them, did you?"
"We might have." The General tilted her head. "You care about them."
"They're just kids!" Raven exclaimed, standing up quickly before realising this may not have been the cleverest idea, and standing down. The woman hadn't even flinched, she just quietly put her hand on the hilt of a dagger hanging from her belt, which Raven hadn't noticed before. Raven sighed. "If I tell you everything, will you help me?"
The General scoffed. "Why would I agree to that without even knowing what you're going to tell me? I don't break my oaths, and I don't make them lightly. And what would I gain from helping you? You clearly have nothing to offer me." The woman seemed to consider her for a moment, head tilted. Raven kept the eye contact, not flinching for a second. This could be crucial, and she needed that woman's trust. People clearly looked up to her around here, and Raven would need these people on their side if she wanted to save the hundred. The Council clearly wasn't on their side.
Their staring match was interrupted by the healer's "She'll be alright, Anya. She just need to rest, I'll give her something for the pain and check on her later."
Raven tried not to smile at the General's - Anya's - frown. She was clearly displeased that he'd revealed her name, making her lose the upper hand.
"I'm Raven," she offered with a smile when the healer had left. Maybe that would even the odds. She held out her hand, hoping handshakes were still in vogue, and hadn't become an insult.
Anya looked at her hand with eyebrows raised, maybe impressed that she knew of that custom, or just wondering what her next move should be in this improvised game of chess. She eventually took Raven's arm, clasping it before the elbow, and Raven mimicked the gesture, hoping it didn't show that she had no clue this was the actual custom.
"Alright, Raven," Anya finally said with a wry smile. It seemed she'd come to a decision eventually. "Tell me your story, and I'll see what I can do for you."
"You might want to take a seat, General. It's gonna be a long while. Besides, you're making me dizzy."
"Oh, well, we wouldn't want to inconvenience our patient." The answer was gruff, but Raven could discern the hint of a smile behind the woman's cold appearance. She was warming up to her. And if she were honest, Raven was warming up to her too. It wasn't just her ticket to saving the others and herself, or the people on the Ark. If they had to live on the ground from now on, they'd have to make allies. Friends. Anya seemed like a kindred spirit she could get along with.
She sat back into her bed of feathers and furs, leaning against the wall behind her. She may be weakened, and tired after a few days of nonstop work, and her literal fall from the sky, but she still had her pride, and she was not gonna slump into bed to tell her story to this General lady who already looked down on her for her weakness.
She launched into her story, from the very beginning, what little she knew of it from history classes - how the nuclear war started and ravaged the earth; how the people of the thirteen stations all thought it was too late to save anyone, and decided that at this level of radiation their best bet was to stay together, build the Ark, and wait the radiations out. How the 13th Station was destroyed. How the Council worked, in short. Then, her job, what little she could explain of it to a woman who had never been to space - she skipped what had happened with Finn, that was their story. How the kids got down to earth.
"You have to understand, on the Ark, every crime is punishable by death. From stealing medicine or food to killing people - same punishment for all. Only when you're still a kid, they give you half a chance to defend yourself when you turn 18, before they Float or release you."
"Float?" Anya frowned.
"Throw you out of the Ark without equipment. You're sent into space and die from exposure and lack of oxygen, almost instantly."
"Sounds painful.... So, these kids - they're them, right?"
"Yeah, some of them are bad news. Most aren't, though. They've stolen medicine to save their family, or tried to grab more food because they were still hungry, or got into a fight with the wrong person. I've heard one of them is in there just for being born.... Only child policy. Anyways, we're dying - I mean, the Ark. We can't fix the oxygen because these assholes had rather not tell us so we wouldn't panic, than let us fix it. So now they're running out of time, and they had to see if the ground was survivable. And what better than to sacrifice the kids - half of them is going to die anyways. And I kinda hate the Council but they're gonna sacrifice a lot more innocent people to buy themselves some time, if they don't hear back from the kids soon. If they're not warned that the Earth is survivable. And the kids, they're angry, obviously. So they're destroying the bracelets that kept the Ark knowing they're alive... I need to use my radio to warn them, tell them they can come to Earth safely." She was pleading by then. There was no use pretending the Council were nice, or benevolent, but surely for so many lives, Anya would understand!
"Tell me, now, what is the Ark for? If they don't care about how many people they're sacrificing, children included, so long as a few can survive, I'm guessing all they want is for humanity to go on. But we've never disappeared. And if they've reached this level of cruelty, why should we help them get here? So they can reproduce the mistakes of our ancestors? Why would we share our land with people who would kill their children, their civilians? They can't do right by their own people, why wouldn't they invade us, and kill us, the moment they get to the ground?"
"You can have no guarantees. I knew this lady at the Council, she's the one who told me all this - her daughter has been imprisoned and sent to the Ground for trying to warn people about the oxy problem. But sh's probably dead by now, they caught her when we tried to escape... But letting them all die would just make you as bad as them. You know things about the ground that we don't, though. I imagine things have changed a lot in the past hundred years or so. That's leverage. Not to mention the kids, some of them are from important families, close to the Council."
"Here I left from Polis to escape the politics," Anya mumbled.
"Polis?" Raven perked up. "Like Minneapolis?"
"That's what people called it before. It's our capital. It's just Polis now. It's not like there were many cities, or even villages, left to tell apart from one another, at first." She sighed. "I'll have to send back to the capital to check with our Commander, I'm afraid. I can't decide for the Twelve Tribes. How long before they start killing people?"
"A day, maybe less. I'm afraid they've rushed the process once they'd found Abby out."
"I'll do my best, we'll send our fastest horse."
"I could go with, so I could contact them as soon as we know."
"You're clearly not in a state to travel!"
"Well, I could show your rider how to use it. Although they might be suspicious if it's not someone they know who talks to them."
"All that matters is that they know Earth is survivable, right? Then, a day from then they can talk to you again and make sure you're okay, if they do care about that."
Raven couldn't tell whether it was her own portrayal of the Council, but Anya clearly didn't like them already. That made two of them at least...
"Alright, anything else?"
"The kids, I'm assuming you won't let me see them. But could you try and help them? Or just, not kill them?" Raven pleaded again.
"That I can do without the commander's blessing. But I doubt they'l like that. You know them, right? Some of them at least, you seemed really implicated."
Raven resented the implication that she would not have cared about hundreds of lives lost were they not friends, but Anya was perceptive and also right. she nodded.
"Then we'll wait til you're feeling better. And I can get a better idea of the situation from my scouts. It'll be easier to make contact with you there. If I still think it's a good idea," she added for good measure. "I'll let you rest."
When she'd left, Raven pondered that she was not "letting her rest" but leaving her to wonder about the fate of her people - and probably her own - with nothing else to do, while Anya was probably going on with her life as usual.