Michael nodded his thanks, grabbing his wife’s hand. Her eyes filled with unspoken relief.
Makara turned her eyes on me. “Alright, I think we’re in agreement. Is there anyone else who wants to stay behind?”
“I’m going to L.A.,” Julian said.
“I’m staying,” Ruth said. “Hydroponics still isn’t working efficiently, so hopefully I can figure out what’s wrong.”
“I’m staying as well,” Marcus said, pointing to his cast-encased leg.
“Of course, I can pilot Perseus,” Ashton said.
“And you will need a medic,” Char said. “I’ll go.”
Several other members at the table voiced how they’d support — most wanted to go to Los Angeles, while a few wanted to stay behind to help Michael and Lauren.
“That’s everyone,” Makara said. “Let’s regroup here in the morning. I’m going to speak with Augustus to determine our landing strategy.”
The meeting adjourned, and everyone began to stand. The crowd buzzed with excitement. I helped Anna back into her chair and to the ship.
The battle for Los Angeles was about to begin.
Chapter 16
I sat with Makara and Samuel aboard Perseus’s bridge. Anna had gone back to the cabin to rest while Ashton stood in the doorway, waiting. Michael was organizing the Bunker while Ruth made one final inspection of the hydroponics line. Julian was taking inventory of the food, determining how much should be taken and how much should be left behind. Char and fifteen of his best Raiders were also coming along.
At 20:30, Perseus lifted off. As we rose out of the hangar and into thick darkness, I looked out the windshield to see no moonlight or starlight slipping through the thick clouds. Ashton guided the ship upward, until the mist of the clouds soaked the windshield.
A minute later, we broke through, finding ourselves above a shadowed, misty plain, reflecting light from the starry heavens. The moon hung with a reddish hue, a waning crescent halfway up the eastern sky.
On the far eastern horizon came an ethereal glow.
Anna gazed toward the east.
“What is it?”
“The Great Blight,” Ashton said. “Much closer, now.”
“It’s amazing we can see it through the clouds,” I said.
The ship’s fusion drive hummed and the cloud-plain passed at a crawl.
“Some of it is the celestial light from above,” Ashton said. “But most of it is from the Earth. I’ve wondered if the Great Blight makes these clouds last longer than they should.”
“What do you mean?” Anna asked.
“I can’t prove anything,” Ashton said, “but the clouds seem to hang extra thick in Blighted areas, don’t they?”
“I thought that was everywhere,” I said.
“Maybe so,” Ashton said. “I’ve seen other places of the world, but none are as bad as this. I’d always assumed it was because Ragnarok hit here. And maybe that’s the case. But as far as Blights changing weather patterns…it’s a hunch I have.” Ashton paused. “The more the Great Blight grows, the more quickly it can grow.”
“And with more Blight comes more monsters,” Anna said.
“There’s no way we can fight them all,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Ashton said, turning to me. “But we’re never going to give up. The most important time to be brave is when it’s easy not to. That’s something those monsters will never understand, and it’s something they will never take from us.”
Ashton’s words rang right to me. From the moment Samuel, Makara, and I had decided to go after the Black Files, there had been an element of hopelessness. We had faced danger after danger, somehow surviving. At some point, the story had to end — for good or for bad.
But it wouldn’t end just yet.
The next leg of the journey passed in silence. A little over an hour later, the LCD showed us twenty miles north of Los Angeles. Ashton began to descend.
“Look!” Anna said, pointing at the dash. It showed the time to be 22:28.
“What?” I asked.
“Look at the date.”
It was December 31, 2060. Only a few hours left until the New Year.
“It snuck up on us,” I said.
“It’s easy to lose track of days when you’re just trying to survive those days,” Anna said. “This attack they’re making is like clockwork.”
Ashton shook his head. “I doubt they take our calendars very seriously, or even know about them. The measure of time only exists in the human imagination.”
“They see time differently than we do, anyway,” I said. “For the Xenominds, months, even years, pass like seconds. That’s what the Wanderer said, at least.”
“I can’t even imagine,” Anna said.
The ship lowered further. The plain of cloud rose to swallow us whole. We left the stars behind and were plunged into darkness. The bridge was lit, and we hung like a lantern in the clouds. Ashton flipped a switch, shutting the lights off. Now, the only illumination came from the glowing buttons on the dash and the LCD screen.
From the wardroom, voices murmured. Samuel came from amidships, and stood silently behind us. Makara must have still been back there. He gazed outward, waiting for the spread of the ruined city to appear before us.
At last, we broke through the clouds and it came into view. My eyes widened upon seeing the devastation. Flashes emanated from the metropolis’s eastern side, lighting the tall, shadowed buildings and twisting streets with arrhythmic bursts. Streams of violent light arced from the dark towers of downtown, streaking through the sky and exploding in white-hot plumes upon the city’s eastern side. Each flash revealed the silhouettes of dragons, swooping down on Augustus’s position.
“They’re being slaughtered,” I said.
“They could be gone by morning,” Makara said.
“It’s almost like the Radaskim and the Reapers are working together,” Anna said. “How can we throw our men into that?”
Ashton shook his head. “If they are, the Reapers’ number will be up, soon. The Radaskim might be fine with a temporary truce, if only to destroy the Novans first. It’s up to us to stop the war between the two sides.”
“That means speaking to Black,” Makara said.
Ashton switched frequencies, calling Augustus. It was a while before the Emperor’s voice came online.
“Where the hell are you?”
“The first of us are here,” Ashton said. “Where do you need men?”
“Where do I not need them? Those monsters are everywhere.”
“What about the Reapers?” Ashton asked.
“What about them?” came an unexpected voice, low and dangerous.
Carin Black.
None of us knew what to say. In that lull, Black spoke again.
“We’re working together now, Augustus and I,” he said. “Try not to find that so surprising.”
“But…” Anna said. “You’re bombing the airport.”
“Yeah,” Black said. “And we have been since this afternoon. What’s left of us are fighting behind the wall.”
There was little time to contemplate how drastically things had changed. If Augustus and Carin were working together, then it had to be bad down there.
“What do you want us to do?” Ashton asked.
“You have any nukes?” Black asked. “Because that’s the only way I see us getting out of this.”
“No,” Ashton said. “Perseus doesn’t have any. And I was speaking to Augustus.”