TWO GROUPS OF COLONY troops were lined up facing each other, waiting to undertake a training exercise. Cherry walked toward them quickly. She didn’t want to be late and miss the beginning.
In the time they could spare from farm work or child care, the colony’s able-bodied men and women had been undergoing training organized by Aubriot. Ethan had kept Cherry so busy with regular colony business, she’d been forced to leave her ‘leftenant general’ to organize the defense force. He’d mentioned to Cherry he was calling Concordia’s militia a ‘commando’ and had divided the troops into ‘companies’ and ‘platoons’, but in truth the divisions didn’t matter too much at that stage. Everyone who was able to fight needed to learn how to do it to the best of their ability.
Aubriot had begun to call the
