“You expect me to do that, boy?” Ashton asked.
“I’ll give you a boost,” Anna said. “Alex can catch you.”
Ashton shook his head, his white hair blowing wild in the wind. Already, his lips were blue.
He knelt on his knees, and Anna shoved with all of her might. Ashton shot across the ice — far faster than I expected him to — and started to slide down toward me. I reached out, grabbing him by the arms. Thankfully, enough of his momentum from Anna’s push allowed me to pull him the rest of the way. He slid right on top of me, cursing.
When he rolled off of me, Anna took her turn. She slid with ease down the ice, grabbing the rock as I had, albeit with more grace. Her katana was strapped to her back; at least it had been saved.
I stood, and I could now see a good ways over the cliff. The sun had broken through a lot of the dust, and below, between the mountainside and another mountain, I could see the wreckage of Aeneas. Fires burned throughout its hull, snapped in two. Metallic pieces of the ship littered the packed snow and ice, like a gigantic insect that had been stripped of its exoskeleton.
“Come on,” Anna said. “There’s nothing for us there.”
She pointed upward, toward the slope. Barely discernable on the wind was the sound of Gilgamesh’s fusion drive.
“It’s just over that rise,” she said. “Come on.”
She struck a course up the slope, picking her way carefully. Ashton and I followed her trail.
Finally, we came to the rise. The bright sun shined, and the glacier upon which we stood was blinding. Two men stood at the bottom of the ship’s boarding ramp, waving us on board. Probably Michael and Julian. Each toted a semiautomatic rifle. I didn’t remember them having those.
I started forward a few steps. Anna grabbed my arm.
“What?” I asked.
Then, I saw. Ashton’s face was pale in a way that had nothing to do with the fierce cold.
I read the name along the hull of the ship. Orion.
This wasn’t Gilgamesh. It took a moment for that thought to register.
This ship was not Gilgamesh.
Then, my eyes drifted above the name of the ship to rest on a man who stood on the ship’s bridge, watching us. A smile was on his lips, and a familiar, almost friendly gleam was in those brown eyes…
There was no way.
It was Emperor Augustus of Nova Roma.
Chapter 24
I didn’t know whether to run, hide, or scream. The Emperor of Nova Roma had somehow caught us in the last place we expected to see him: the sub-zero mountains of Wyoming on a cold, late December day.
I fell to my knees, not even caring about the sting of the cold glacier through my pants. I was done. I had fought as much as I could. We were as good as dead, whether we ran from that ship or toward it.
I had to decide between a bullet and the cold.
“Come on,” Ashton said, pulling on my arm.
He walked forward a few steps. Realizing we hadn’t followed, he turned around. Anna and I stared at him, uncomprehending.
“You kids want to die out here or what?”
Of the three of us, Ashton should have been the last one to urge us forward. Augustus had an axe to grind with him. Because of Ashton, Augustus hadn’t been allowed inside Bunker One. I supposed Augustus was fairly happy with the way things turned out, seeing that Bunker One fell in 2048. Thirty years later, Augustus was getting his reunion.
Ashton resumed his forward march. Anna and I looked at one another for a moment before forcing ourselves onto weary feet. My hands and feet were so numb I couldn’t feel them and my lower legs were starting to feel the same way. We had to get inside to warm up.
We caught up to Ashton. The two guards flanking the boarding ramp motioned us onto the ship. They were covered head-to-toe in warm clothing, their outer layer a white, fur-lined parka. Masks covered their faces for further protection against the cold. Clearly Augustus had taken time to ensure his men were well-equipped — probably something we should have done ourselves. As soon as we started walking up the ramp, the blast door opened. I wasn’t sure what would meet us inside.
When we stepped in, the air was warm but it would take a while for us to thaw. We stood huddled and shivering as the two guards came in behind. The blast door shut. I heard the boarding ramp retract.
The two guards conversed in Spanish for a moment before one of took off his mask. I recognized him as Maxillo, Chief Praetorian of Nova Roma.
“Maxillo!” I said, unable to restrain yourself. “You’re alive!”
I’d last seen the Praetorian on the mountain road outside of Nova Roma. Along with his guards, we had been ambushed by a group of crawlers, and later, a xenodragon.
He shook his head. “Yes. Only five of my Praetorians survived that night. Many in the city died. But we are here. The Emperor knows this is where the true battle will begin.”
The deck of Orion vibrated as its engine thrummed. The ship was preparing for liftoff.
From what I could see, Orion’s interior was exactly the same as Odin’s. Ashton had once mentioned that those two ships, along with Perseus, had been based on the same schematics.
“Augustus has ordered that you seat yourselves until the ship is in flight,” Maxillo said. “For safety reasons.”
Ashton muttered something about safety and his butt, but in the end, allowed himself to be led to the wardroom table. More Praetorians found a wall on which to support themselves in preparation for the ship’s liftoff. It looked as if Augustus had taken the time to select new Praetorians for his elite guard, only it did not look as if all twenty-five were aboard the Orion.
As the ship lifted, I felt Anna touch my hand under the table.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, opening my hand to hold hers.
“The tracker,” she said. “That’s how he found us.”
I looked at her questioningly. Then, I remembered what she had said about the escape pod. Each one was equipped with a tracking device so that another ship could find it. Only it wasn’t Gilgamesh, but Orion, that found us.
I had no idea if Makara, Samuel, Michael, and Julian were okay. Had they crashed as well? Or had they gotten away? If they had escaped, then they would have saved us rather than Augustus.
As these thoughts spun in my head, Orion stabilized and reached a steady cruise speed. My biggest question was how Augustus got his hands on a spaceship and how he had found someone to pilot it.
Maxillo entered the wardroom from the corridor leading to the bridge. I hadn’t even noticed that he had left in the first place.
“The Emperor will see you now.”
We sat at the table for a moment before rising. Two Praetorians flanked the corridor. The one on my right reached out his hand.
“Your weapons.”
Begrudgingly, I handed over my cherished Beretta and my combat knife. Anna unstrapped her katana from her back while Ashton handed the other Praetorian his handgun.
They waved us ahead, and I followed Ashton down the corridor — past the conference room and into the bridge.
Already Augustus sat facing toward us in the co-pilot’s chair, a smile stretched across his face. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, still facing ahead, was a man I had never seen before. I looked at Ashton. Maybe he knew who this man was. If he did, he gave no sign of recognition.