Chapter 127 - The choice

Surprisingly enough, the Farm Station that we had thought to be inoperable was instead very much "alive" with all of the lights and critical systems online. I had no idea how the grounders managed to even repair this thing, not to mention find someone from their people knowledgeable enough to operate this station, after all, every Grounder we have ever met sees any kind of modern technology as if it was some kind of extraterrestrial magic. Unlike me, and probably Sergey, Miller, and Bellamy, Monty expresses his curiosity loudly.

"Harper, ever meet a Grounder who could power up a spaceship?"

"I don't think any of us have ever met one."

"No talking or …"

Before she could continue, her leader shuts her up, not wanting to start a conflict right now, when winter was quickly approaching them.

"Dakiva, they are not our slaves! They don't need to listen to your orders and please don't do something that will cost our lives."

"I…"

"Enough! "

Maybe the general didn't realize what his words meant or maybe he simply didn't care, but the fact that they had slaves made me question Monty's theory of grounders actually running this station. While that might be true since their slaves might be the ones doing it, that means that Azgeda had taken our people and forced them into slavery. Nevertheless, we would soon find the truth about this place, since the grounders stopped in front of a heavily guarded door at the end of the hall. The Azgeda General stopped and turned his head towards us looking at each one of us for a few seconds, no doubt thinking over his decision about letting us past this door one last time before he nods to the guards that stood beside the door. One of the guards turned and twists the wheel and pushes the door open. As soon as the door was open and the path clear, the general lead us into the room where the hydro generator was supposed to be held.

I barely managed to stop Sergey and Miller from opening fire upon the grounders when they saw our people, the people from the Ark, held captive and forced to run Farm Station for the benefit of this tribe that belongs to the Ice Nation. If that wasn't enough, as soon as we walked inside the room, all of them looked at us hoping that this might be the day they would finally be freed from their shackles.

One of the slaves, a kid stands chained to the wall, staring at Harper, begging her with his eyes to save him and that makes Harper attempt to reach out for him, only for Bellamy to stop her, as he shook his head.

"Up there, that's the generator."

The General motions towards the stairs, and Bellamy takes the lead, while I and Miller remained in the back covering our rear and at the same looking around, assessing how much of a threat these grounders would be if we were to fight them here and now. Just as we were about to reach the upper level, Miller recognized one of the teenagers that were chained to the wall.

"Riley? Riley is that you?"

The boy could barely move, but after a few seconds, he managed to nod at us. "We thought you were dead."

Just as he tried to reach out for Riley, the General pushes him away forcefully, separating them. "Only the machine. The rest is ours."

Unfortunately for the general, he made a mistake that might have just cost him his life. No one, not even my friends reacted in time for what happened next. Before the general could move away, I grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground putting the barrel of my rifle in his mouth. Unlike my friends, who quickly broke free from their shock, the Azgeda people didn't even know how to react to this. Dakiva was about to rush at me with a sword when seemly out of nowhere a gunshot resonate in the room before she dropped to the floor crying out in pain. She tried to get up, only to find Miller pressing his rifle at the back of her head, forcing the woman to stop any attempt of retaliating.

"You know, general, I thought that we could be friends, but it seems that you guys don't value friendship as much as we do. After all, a wise man wouldn't have invited the 'boy' that almost killed every single elite warrior in Polis in his home armed. Nevertheless, we weren't planning to fight, but now? It seems that we will have to save our people, above everything else."

"Y-you can't …j-j-just lea…"

"General, your slaves, are my people. They are Skaikru and while I might not know them personally, based on their looks, they've been through hell under your rule. Look at them, they are filthy, covered in dirt, grease, and blood, and their hair is tangled and matted. Some of them even have fresh wounds on their bodies, most likely thanks to your love. So tell me general, does freeing my people from slavery makes me a bad guy?"

"Leon! Let the general go! You too Miller! We have to get the machine, let's go."

"We can't just leave them, Bellamy! Do you think they would be able to live in peace now that these guys know we would retaliate?"

"Leon, Bellamy might be right. We're part of the Coalition now, so we can ask the King to free them. It's our best bet, one that will not result in bloodshed."

"Not if it means leaving Riley. I stand with Leon on this, sorry Bellamy."

"C'mon Miller, we all know, Harper's right, we decided to try diplomacy first. If that doesn't work, we come up with reinforcements for them. After we take home the machine, ok?"

A hard choice was again presented to me, by my friend nevertheless. A choice that would possibly doom these people if we were to abandon them today. Still holding the gun in the general mouth, I look around as Monty began working on the generator, I noticed a girl walking towards Sergey with a makeshift glass of water in her frail hands and a container of water in her hand. Just as she walked beside him, she dropped something near his feet before leaving in a hurry, seemly not aware of what just happened. But as she slips between you, she drops something near your feet. Sergey took his sweet time before he bend down and quickly picked up the small message that the girl dropped, unfolding the rough cloth to reveal a note. The words moving us tomorrow help! Were the only thing written on the cloth, but it was more than enough to give us an idea of what was going to happen to them if we left them today.

After reading the message, Sergey walked behind me and whispered to me what he had just read. "They're moving them, Leon. What's the plan?"

"Are there any other exits in here?

"I don't know since I'm not from this station, but Bryan was, maybe Miller knows something about it?"

"Take over Miller'\s job and have him come to me."

A few seconds later Miller returns in Sergey's place, stopping right beside me.

"Sergey told me, from what Bryan told me before we left this place is completely sealed. When they came down from space, all of the people in Farm Station stayed there since it was the best most defended, and hard place to be destroyed compared to the rest of the ship. Apparently, It was designed that way in case the hydrazine blew."

Suddenly, I looked at Monty and then at the generator. We might not have the numbers to take on a whole tribe, but we had something even better, a hydrazine bomb on a bridge, fueled by the crashed dropship

"We have a bomb. We can take out the grounders in one whole swoop before they could even react."

"Wait for a second, the end of the world is coming and you want to destroy the one thing that will save more people from being evaporated?"

"C'mon Nate, we both know that if the grounders were in our place they wouldn't have even blinked before leaving us to die. Our people are more important than anything else."

"So be it, Leon. I'll go and inform everyone of this, but be ready, since none of them would say no to saving our people, even if that means having Clarke yells at us for killing grounders."

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