Chapter 148 - Changing minds

"We can reach, but how do we live there?"

Right after she heard Raven's question, Clarke turn towards her and explains to her what she had told us inside the rover.

"Our people had left a water reclamator there, and we know that there's an algae farm left on the station. We just have to get those two things up and running and we'll have food and water."

"Algae salads and recycled urine, Sign me up."

Like always, Murphy had to add his own jokes and remakes earning him a glare from his girlfriend. "It's better than dying."

"Yeah, you say that now, but once we are up there you'll change your mind."

"All right, slow down guys. Aren't you forgetting something as important as those two? We have to breathe to survive, that makes breathing important, too. So, what's the plan for oxygen?"

While Clarke was brainstorming for an answer, Monty caught everyone's attention with his own input. "Based on what Murphy says about the lighthouse bunker, I'm guessing, no I'm praying, there's an oxygen generator there. We take it with us, and you hook it up there Raven."

Raven stares at him in shock, but despite her shock, she still found so many holes in this plan which made her doubt Monty for a moment.

"You're an engineer, Monty. Because there are about a thousand things that could go wrong with that plan, right? So do you really find this as our only chance?"

"I know Raven and you are right about those holes in my plan, and yes, every one of those things would kill us. Of course, staying here will kill us, too, so…"

Monty trails off, not sure what else to say to convince Raven to join us in this mad run to the stars. Mostly because we all know that here, we'll never get the rocket off the ground, let alone survive in space. Seeing that Monty was running out of arguments to convince Raven, I decided to step in, much to the displeasure of a certain girl.

"C'mon Tinky, we need you to get us off the ground before the death wave hits. You know better than anyone else that you are our only chance of surviving this shithole. So what do you say, would you do it?"

"For fuck sake, Leon. You asked me what I say. I say that the death wave can kiss my ass."

"Thank god, it's settled, then. We're going back to the Ark."

Almost a year after we landed here and yet it felt like a lifetime hearing about Ark. I would have never thought that I would hear those words ever again, but here I'm putting my life at stake for those very same words. To be fair after a few hours of bringing things here and planning everything out, all nine of us realize how hard and how seemly impossible our plan truly was. Nevertheless, we pushed forward, not thinking about all of those thousand ways of dying.

When we were almost finished with everything, Clarke and Bellamy decided to contact both bunkers and inform them of our plans. Clarke and Bellamy talked with Octavia first, telling her everything and letting her know what challenges we are facing up there and how slim our chances are.

"Five years. Can you guys really survive up there for that long or at all?"

"Raven says we can. As soon as it's safe, we'll find a way back down. We will meet again, O."

"I'll be waiting…Under the floor."

"You're not that little girl anymore. I'm proud of you, O."

"I'm not sure I'm up for this, Bell. The clans look at me like I know what I'm doing, just because I won a fight. I'm not Clarke, nor am I Kane, who both knows what they are doing and I'm definitely not Leon who kept us in from dying."

Before either Clarke or Bellamy could respond, I walked inside the room

"Octavia, Leon here. The grounders look up to you because you saved them, but knowing them that won't last for too long. Trikru and their allies would always be behind you, but you have to step up and lead them in the right direction."

"How? I'm not a leader. It should be you or Clarke or even Bell…"

Suddenly, Bellamy cuts her off, doing everything he could to make his sister realize that she was their new pillar of hope. "O, stop. Most of us couldn't have done what you did there O, and it wasn't just winning a fight. You gave those people hope when there was none. You're Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and giving it back to the human race."

Damned history nerd, did he really have to do that now? Both Clarke and I smiled at our friends, while Octavia joked over the radio.

"Prometheus got chained to a rock so that eagles could eat his liver."

"Thanks for ruining my metaphor, O."

"I love you, big brother. Guess it takes the end of the world for me to say it."

"I love you, too."

Out of nowhere, everything went silent before the radio came back to life once more. This time though instead of Octavia's voice, only static came through, at random intervals, something louder while sometimes quieter every few seconds.

"O? Hey, O, are you there?"

When she didn't answer, Bellamy almost lost his cool. "Are you there, O?"

When nothing comes through for the nth time, he drops his head again, tears threatening to fall, before he forced them away. "May we meet again?"

Seeing that the radio is now dead, Clarke reluctantly shakes her head realizing that she won't be able to talk with her mother anytime soon. Her face falls when she realizes that before she walks forward surprising me and Bellamy when she hugs me, letting her tears fall on my shirt. In this situation, I could only comfort her, as Bellamy place his hand on her shoulder, letting Clarke know that he was there for her as well. Thought that didn't last for too long, thanks to our professional cockroach.

"Blonde Xena, Bellamy, Leon get down here!"

When we arrived at the office, all of our friends were watching one monitor where one of Becca's drones that were left outside of Polis was filming the tower, and in the background, we all saw Praimfaya approaching. It didn't last for too long as the enormous death wave destroys the drone enveloping everything in its path and with it the signal of our drone.

"It's 337.96 km (210 miles) from Polis to the island. According to what was our last drone, the wave is accelerating at an alarming pace. I know that none of us want to hear this, but if we're not off the ground at least 20 minutes before it hits, the electromagnetic charge in the pyroclastic cloud will shut down the rocket's avionics, meaning it won't fly. That gives us 90 minutes to run a 6-hour preflight check, retrieve the oxygen generator from the lighthouse, turn a cockpit designed for two into one that can carry 9, and load the cargo hold with enough food to keep us from starving in space while we wait for algae to bloom."

"I thought you said it was gonna be hard."

"That's not the hard part, Murphy. Becca designed her rocket to dock with Polaris, not the Ark. That means I have to pilot it into the hangar bay on the ring."

"What's so hard about that?"

"Well, Harper, that's not the hard part, either."

"What is the hard part, Raven?"

"Assuming we blast off in time, CO2 scrubbers on a two-person rocket won't support 9 of us."

"And can't we use more oxygen?"

"Well Leon, our tank can only hold an hour of oxygen. Making everything even more challenging than it already is."

"Monty's right. We'll have one hour to get into orbit, land in the hangar bay, and fire up the life support system using an oxygen generator built to supply a lighthouse bachelor pad, not an entire space station."

"You suck at talking people into things. You know that, right? Can we have Leon do that next time?"

"Oh, you are so sweet. I love you too, John. So does anyone need to be talked into this mad run? No, then that's perfect. Since we now know in how many ways we might die today, why don't we have Raven here to tell us what we have to do to live?"

"Monty and Murphy, I need the two of you to go to the lighthouse bunker and get the oxygen generator."

She hands them the tools they'll need and the two boys nod and quickly leave the lab. Raven turns to Harper, Emori, and Echo. "I need you three to help me get the rocket ready, run the preflight check, and pack up the food."

The three girls nod at her, before Raven turns and looks over at me, Bellamy, and Clarke. "I need you three to go over the plans again, thoroughly, and make sure all the calculations are correct. Otherwise, this is all for nothing. Everything is up top on the next level of the lab."

She points us to where we need to go, and all three of us leave her. As soon as we reach that place we all start to look over the plans, schematics, and data laid out before us, making sure that everything was correct or at least seemed correct considering how little time we have for fixing stuff.

"So, let's go over this again. We think that in two months the algae farm would produce enough food to feed us. If we ration the MREs, we should make do until the farm is ready."

We all look over all of those plans, systems, and god knows how many numbers for what seemed an eternity, but just as we were looking over some of the less important areas of our plan, Raven's shout forced us to stop what we were doing and rush towards the lab.

"We're not going anywhere!" Raven took one last look at the panel before she storms out of the rocket, yelling at the computer as she leaves. "Computer, terminate launch sequence."

We all exchange a worried look before we quickly rush to catch her. Once we caught up to her, Clarke up her hand on Raven before asking the one-million-dollar question.

"Raven, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong, Clarke? It's simple, there's no power in the ring. Two minutes ago, I thought it wasn't a problem because I could activate it remotely."

"Using the rocket's comms system."

"So we turn the power on from the inside. "

"We can't get inside, that's the point. Without power, we can't even open the hangar door. Meaning that we either die here or up there in space."

"C'mon Raven, you have to think. After all, you've solved bigger problems than this ."

"Of course I did, but not in 53 minutes."

"Raven-"

"It's over, guys! You know, maybe if I still had A.L.I.E's code inside my brain, then despite the damage that it would have done to me, we might have a chance. But without it, I'm not smart enough myself."

No one knew what to do right now and with Raven in such a state, our chances of finding a solution have just dropped to zero. Seeing that no one had anything to say, Raven sits on the steps trying to accept the fact that we are going to die. Both Clarke and Bellamy looked at me, no they were pleading with their eyes towards me to change Raven's mind. Even if they didn't ask me, I would have still tried to cheer her up, after all, I'd rather not be the reason behind all of our deaths. When they saw that I sit beside Raven, all five of them left, leaving me alone with my girlfriend.

"What happened to you, Tinky? Where did the girl that I fell in love with disappear?"

Raven lean on my shoulder, trying to comfort herself, but instead of achieving that, she only got sadder thinking about what would happen to us now. "I can't do it, Leon. I hate how powerless I'm right now and because of me, you guys will die."

"C'mon Raven, you can do this. I know you can do it. How many times have you saved all of our asses before we even knew something like A.L.I.E exists?"

"Too many to count."

"You're damn right. We don't need an A. I on the Ark, we need you, I need you."

Out of nowhere, she jumps and kisses me before rushing over to a computer. Seeing the sudden change made me confused as hell.

"What have I said?"

Everyone other than the two boys that were outside, quickly came when they heard my shocked shout, making them look at Raven in expectation. She just looked at them for a second before she turned her attention to the panel once more. "A.L.I.E was on the Ark, A.L.I.E was on the fucking Ark! I was right there, so close to the kill switch, but she got away by transmitting herself to the ring."

"Using the pod in the temple."

"Yes, Emori! If she could do that, so can we."

Clarke looks at her, not sure how she expects to get to the pod in the temple in under an hour. "Raven, we'll never make it back to Polis on time, besides the radios are dead."

"We have something better than radios, Clarke. We have a satellite tower. Now, you three, back in the cockpit, finish those restraints. We are making it up to the station!"

Once Emori, Echo, and Harper went to the cockpit and the computer resumed the sequence, Raven grabs her helmet before signaling us to take ours, as we follow her out of the lab and to the surface.

"The tower's less than a mile away. All you have to do is plug this into the junction box at the base of the tower. Sat-Star-One is the name of the dish."

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