Angelo snorted. "I'll get the flitter; you grab some nuts."

Kerry and Stef burst out laughing while Krys blushed at the thought of grabbing his nuts. He grinned in spite of his red cheeks. "It's ready; come get it."

"Anything else we can salvage?" Stef asked. "We got a spare power cell, tools, the control pad, the picker, and some nuts."

"I'd love to tear the transporter down for parts, but we don't have time."

Kerry frowned and glanced around but the others nodded in agreement with Krys. "All right," Stef said. "Let's go. Mig's waiting for us."

Krys tossed down several coconuts to the others before he grabbed the satchel and climbed down. "Good job, Krys," Stef said with a smile as he gathered up some coconuts.

Krys smiled back and turned to look at a transporter. He noticed a crack near the front wheel well and froze. He'd cracked that transporter by running it into another one when he helped his dad do maintenance on them last winter.

"Krys? You okay?" Stef asked.

He shook his head and nodded. "Yeah, sorry. I just-never mind, it's nothing."

"What is it?"

He blinked the tears out of his eyes and coughed. "Let's go."

"Krys?"

He turned and shook his head. "Let's go. We've got to be gone before they can follow us."

She stared at him for a few more seconds before nodding. She turned to the others and said in a clear voice, "Come on, boys. Let's get out of here."

Chapter 14.

"We should have brought him back with us," Krys muttered. "We don't know anything about what's going on!"

"No good," Mr. Strain said with a shake of his head. "We might learn some things, but so would he. And then what, we kill him so he doesn't report back?"

Krys felt a chill run down his back. "Kill him? No! I mean, um-"

"Why not?" Janna asked. She was another farmer who managed to escape and join up with them. When everyone turned to look at her, she shrugged. "They killed us without thinking twice."

"They didn't," Mig argued. "The soldiers did. I got no problem with fighting them and doing what needs to be done; it's fighting civilians that don't sit right with me."

"Doesn't," Krys said without thinking about it. "It doesn't feel right to me either."

Mig raised an eyebrow at Krys's correction and then smirked. Janna looked at Angelo just as he looked away. "Killing civilians didn't bother them any."

"Let's change this up," Mig said. He looked at all of them before asking, "What do we not know that we need to?"

"How we're going to survive the winter," Stef offered.

Mig winced and then chuckled. "Well sure, but I meant that the people living in our town could tell us?"

They glanced back and forth at one another, looking for someone to speak. Krys considered the question and realized that there were a lot of things he'd like to know, but nothing that was necessary for his survival. He frowned and glanced up at the sky and picked out the faint twinkle of stars near the western horizon. That was where Lily was. And anyone else who had been taken away. Somewhere up there. Safe, or so he imagined.

"They can't tell us that," Mig said, startling Krys. "I have no idea why they took them. Reeducation? Or brainwashing? Maybe just slave labor. It don't make sense, killing all of us off and only taking the kids in the right ages that they could get."

Krys nodded. "I'd been wondering that. Where did they come from? Earth? Mars? Some of the orbiting habitats?"

Mig rubbed his chin as he considered it. "That's a lot of hardware. Too much for a habitat, I think. There's what, fifty some ag colonies here? All those ships alone, let alone the tanks and bots. Maybe Mars, but does that make sense? I mean, they'd need Earth, right? Earth is between us and Mars."

Krys frowned and glanced at the powered down infopads sitting under his lean-to that protected them from the occasional shower. If he hooked one up to a power cell, he could find out where Earth, Mars, and Venus were at in their orbits, but he wasn't sure it was worth the effort or the waste of power.

"Hard to know," Kerry said. "I don't think any of us has any idea where the planets were when they showed up. I don't even know how long it takes to get from Mars to here. The trip from Earth took me and Stef almost three months. I remember hearing somebody say going to Mars instead was only a couple weeks longer."

"As long as the planets are lined up and you take advantage of momentum," Krys added.

The adults glanced at him and then away. "Good point," Mig admitted. "All that astrophysics or astronomy or whatever it is confuses me."

"It's all about speed and distance," Krys offered. He opened his mouth and froze as another idea came to him. "Hey! I know what to do!"

"What to do? About what?"

"About us and winter," Krys said. "Venus has sunlight for one hundred and seventeen Earth days, depending on how close to the equator we are. Then the same amount of time spent in the dark. It doesn't get too bad out, but we usually see some snow halfway through the night cycles."

"Right, and we don't have the clothes for it," Janna grumbled.

"We move. Be nomads," Krys explained. The stunned and confused looks he received prompted him to continue. "At the equator, Venus rotates around thirteen and a half kilometers an hour. That's a hard pace to keep for very long on foot, but if we head east we can prolong our daylight until we can't beat the sunset. Then we turn and head back, cutting the night in half."

Angelo was the first to speak up. "None of us have been to any other colonies. Where do we go? Where do we get food?"

Krys turned to the pads. "We have maps. There are mountain ranges that might slow us down but there are roads through them. It's going to be hard, yes, but can we survive even a single night cycle? One hundred seventeen days where it gets colder and colder. Snow will come. The trees won't bear fruit. If we kill many vison, they'll know we're here and come after us."

"They know we're here now," Mig pointed out. "After that stunt we pulled with the highpicker."

"Right! And we can use it at other colonies we find to gather food."

"You're talking about being on the move all the time," Janna said. "That's no way to live!"

"And this is?" Stef asked her. "Look around, Janna. There's six of us here and two more keeping watch. If we don't do anything, we're going to die. Then everyone we loved will have died for nothing!"

Krys glanced at Mr. Strain and saw him staring back. They shared a secret hope for Lily, at least. It bound them together but didn't make the approaching night any warmer.

"If we're always on the move, will we have time to gather food?" Kerry asked. "If we're more active, we'll need more to eat too."

Mig cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention. "It's late and Krys brought up a good idea. I don't know if it's the right idea, but it's a good one. Odds are we're not the only survivors, too. There's bound to be other bands of refugees out there. Maybe we can team up with them. Pool our resources. Gather enough strength to fight back."

"Fight back? Against tanks and robots and soldiers?" Janna snapped.

Mig nodded. "An army's only as strong as the fear it puts in the people standing against them."

"Guns help," Janna quipped.

"They help make us afraid," Mig corrected. "But with enough people, they can't shoot us all. If they did, they'd have no one left."

Krys lifted his head and stared at Mr. Strain with a newfound respect. It made perfect sense. Convince people to stand up and eventually even the people holding the guns would have to realize they were in the wrong. Wouldn't they?

"Get some rest and think about it, that's all I'm asking," Mig finished. "Come up with new ideas if you can, but if not, we've got to make our minds up quick or we're going to have to settle in for a long and cold night."

Chapter 15.

Lily stopped on her way back to her quarters by the small classroom that Palla had gotten assigned to them as a study area. She wasn't ready to be alone yet in her quarters and she figured if there was anyone she could talk to, it would be Trix or Kami. She didn't know if she should tell them about Krys; she didn't want to upset them if they'd lost anybody. Even though she was aching to at least talk about him.

She found Kami going over an infopad with Palla beside her. Both looked up as she entered. Kami dropped her eyes back down almost as quickly. Palla's lips curled up in a smile that was part smirk and part sneer. "Was the attention shifting? Did you need a new way to stand out?"

Lily felt the words hit like a slap to her cheek. "I didn't ask to-"

"What sort of punishment do they hand out for that sort of rude behavior?" Palla asked. "I've always wondered."

"Punishment?" Lily's eyes widened. Palla had no idea about President Ondalla! "Oh, that? Sorry. Well, I'm not going back to that class."

Palla shook her head and sighed. "All that potential and your mouth ruined it. You need a serious lesson in serving your fellow man!"

Kami lifted her head back up. "What are you going to do?" she asked in a timid voice.

For Kami's sake, Lily tried not to sound too smug when she said, "Coordinator Sykes is moving me into classes with the sixteen-year-olds."

Palla's lips fell open and a few choked sounds emerged.

Lily drove the nail home. "I guess it was President Ondalla's idea. He told me to work hard and challenge myself-everybody was going to be watching."

Kami shook her head and glanced back down at her pad. Palla managed to close her mouth but her nostrils flared twice as she breathed through them. Finally she managed to ask, "The president sent you a communication? Personally?"

Lily shook her head. "No."

Palla's shoulders dropped as she released some of the tension in her back.

"He told me in person."

Kami jerked her head up again and Palla resumed her imitation of a fish out of water gasping for breath.

The door opened behind Lily to admit Trix. "Did you guys hear the rumor about the new president being here? Do you think-what's wrong?"

Lily turned to face the other Venerian girl and offered her a weak smile. "I met him a few minutes ago."

"You met-no way! That's so-so-I don't even know. I mean, it's cool and all, but this is the guy who sent an army to take over Venus. He killed almost everyone we know, right?"

"He's very passionate about his beliefs in sacrifice and the future of humanity," Lily said. What she kept to herself was that she didn't share his beliefs. Her family had been ranchers, not idealists or terrorists. They could have kept on ranching just fine regardless of who wanted to be in charge.

"That's unbelievable!"

"You don't believe me?"

"No! I do! I mean, yes, I believe you. It's just amazing. We're just kids, right? And you got to meet the president!"

"I don't think we've been kids for a few months now," Lily said. "Not since I watched one of my best friends get blown up and saw my village destroyed."

Palla cleared her throat. Her complexion was still a little pale but she'd lifted her head back up and was standing now. "Lily, have you read up on President Ondalla's past? He endured terrible hardships before he could be chosen as the man who would fix our selfish and foolish ways. Not just endured, but overcame. He learned from them and discovered that only in working for the greater good and putting aside personal pride and greed could we ever hope to evolve as a species."

"What are you trying to say?" Lily asked.

"Only that you might not understand why things have happened the way they have, but you must trust the people who are in charge. They have been around longer and they've seen more than you have. If I had to shoot one of you right now so that the other two could go on to survive and be better for it, I would. I would hate it, but I would do it if I had to."

"I'm not so sure you'd hate it if it were me," Lily snapped without thinking.

Palla jerked her head back. "Lily! That's not true at all! Why would you say that?"

Past the point of going back, Lily knew she had to push forward. "Because you don't like me. You feel threatened by me. We used to have a girl in my colony we called the Golden Child. She was my friend, but only because I never challenged her. I let her think she was special because it didn't matter. I had all I wanted and I didn't know there was any more I could need out of life."

Palla shook her head, not understanding. "This girl, did she come to TLC-1 with you?"

"No, she got blown up by one of those biomechs," Lily said. Palla flinched at the news, allowing her to drive her point home. "You're the same as Pita was. You had all this attention because you had something special, but as soon as someone more special comes along, you don't think you're any good anymore. Nobody cares, and that hurts you. You want people to care. You want to be special again."

"Lily! That's not true! I-I'm here to help you all. I'm here to-"

Kami stood up and slipped her pad in her bag. She rushed past Lily and Trix on her way out the door, causing everyone to follow her with her eyes. When the door shut, Trix shook her head to warn Lily not to ask. Lily turned back and saw Palla open her mouth to continue defending herself.

"Palla, stop," Lily said. "I was mean to you, too. I said things and I pushed you. Teased you, even. I'm sorry."

Palla's eyes went from wide open to rounded in confusion. "What are you doing?"

"I'm apologizing," Lily said. "Because I don't want to end up like Pita or you."

Palla snorted and lowered her head a few degrees to affect a glare at Lily. "You don't need to apologize. I'm not a golden child and whether you're some sort of prodigy or not, I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about!"

"You are special," Lily said. "Maybe I'm more special, maybe not. It doesn't matter. We're all special, in different ways. We have to remember that, even if the president doesn't want us to."