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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.”
“How many men do you have?” Augustus asked.
“Twenty.”
“You have to be joking,” Carin said. “These are the reinforcements we’ve been waiting on?”
“They have the ship, too,” Augustus said. “That counts for a lot.”
“What’s your location?” Ashton asked.
“We’re sheltering behind a building, in Orion,” Augustus said. “There’s too many dragons out there. Every time we come out to fight, they chase us back to the towers.”
“How many dragons?” Ashton asked.
“Thirty, maybe,” Augustus said. “We shot down a few, but only one with the ship. The Reapers shot some others with SAM’s. We’re running low on rounds, though.”
“I can’t fight thirty dragons,” Ashton said. “I don’t care how long I’ve been piloting. That can’t be done with even two ships.”
“Then we have to find the Elekai,” I said. “It’s the only way.”
Finding the Elekai in time to save the city was a tricky proposition. We didn’t even know where they were. If they were relatively close, it might only take a few hours. If they were far, it could take far longer.
“Look,” Augustus said. “At this rate we won’t last until the morning.”
“You’ll have to,” Samuel said. “There’s nothing we can do from here. Even if we dropped off our men, what will twenty extra guns matter, and how can two spaceships fight against thirty dragons? We tried that fight already in Wyoming. We even had nukes, and still both ships went down. With the skies out of our control, Askala’s ground forces can run unchecked. We have to find the Elekai dragons, or no one’s surviving this night.”
Both Augustus and Black went silent on the other end.
“What’s our course?” Ashton asked.
Ashton’s question was followed by a silence on our end. Now that it was time to make a decision, it seemed like no one wanted to make it. Trying to find the Elekai was a risk – either we found them in time, or we didn’t.
But the way I saw it, we had no choice.
“There’s nothing more to say,” I said. “Head east. I can try to reach out for the Wanderer or Askal with my mind.”
“Will that work?” Makara asked.
“I...think it might. It’s always been involuntary, but maybe, if I try hard enough...”
“You don’t sound too sure,” Black said. “We need you here to fight those dragons. Together, we have a chance to kill them.”
After a moment, Samuel spoke.
“Finding the Elekai is the only way. Go east.”
Ashton turned back to the dash. “Augustus. Carin. We’ll return.”
“What?” Carin bellowed. “You can’t leave us to die here!”
Augustus said nothing, so I wasn’t sure what he thought. But no words of theirs could have stopped Perseus rising once more into the sky, above the clouds.
I exited the bridge. I needed to find a quiet place to try and communicate with the Elekai. Pray was more apt a word, because it would take nothing less than divine intervention to see us through.
In the wardroom I passed the Raiders, who looked to me for an update.
“Makara will explain,” I said.
I reached an aft cabin where I could get some peace. I sat on the deck, closed my eyes, and brought up an image of the Wanderer in my mind. It came surprisingly clear. I tried to let go of all thought, and let that image guide me, until a connection was made. The picture grew firmer as the world outside faded. My mind slipped into complete calmness.
It had worked.
Then came an awful, reptilian scream. Whether that scream was in my mind, or outside the Perseus’s hull, I couldn’t tell.
I had gone into a vision.
***
WHEN I AWOKE, IT WASN’T on the ship. It was in the midst of battle.
Not the battle for Los Angeles, but the battle for the Elekai.
A flurry of dragons circled and fought one another in midair in the darkness above the Great Blight. Xenofungus glowed in the night; from it rose a towering Xenolith, far larger than the one outside Las Vegas.
In the storm of dragons, jaws snapped, necks thrust, tails slashed, and flying bodies pummeled and collided. Cold screams shook the air. Hundreds of white eyes glowed in an aerial dance of death.
Once again, I was present in Askal’s mind, seeing the world though his eyes. I had no idea where this battle was taking place, but I needed to find out. On my right and left, other dragons flew in a V, of which I was the point.
Are you there, little human? Have you come to witness the last battle of the Elekai?
It’s not the last battle, I thought. We’re on our way. Where are you?
Askal flapped his large wings against the cold wind, lifting higher above the Great Blight. The other Elekai dragons followed suit. From the north, more opposing dragons flew toward the fray. The Elekai were outnumbered at least two to one.
Come east, he said. The dragons will point the way.
They will point the way? What does that mean?
We will hold them here, Askal thought. Hurry, little Elekai. And...I am sorry we could not help you with the city. It will all be in your hands, soon...
Before I could ask anything further, the vision faded, and I found myself aboard the cold deck of Perseus.
***
WHEN I CAME TO, SAMUEL, Julian, and Char stood above me. The rest of the Raiders had formed a small ring.
“His eyes...” one of the Raiders said.
“They aren’t white anymore,” another said.
I looked up, focusing on Samuel.
“Did you see anything?” he asked.
“I don’t know where they are,” I said. “Askal said the dragons would point the way. There was a battle, and they were badly outnumbered.”
“We won’t give up,” Samuel said, grabbing my forearm and helping me up. “Not while we breathe.”
We returned to the bridge, where Ashton and Anna were seated at the controls. I had no idea how much time had passed. Makara stood behind, watching out the windshield.
“Where are we going, Alex?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Askal said the dragons would point the way. Their Xenolith is growing out of some hills on a large plain. There was a huge battle of dragons in the sky. More were coming out of the north from the Radaskim.”
“You sure it was from the north?” Ashton asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know how I know, but I do.”
“If that’s the case, then the place we’re looking should be south of Ragnarok Crater, more or less. If those dragons are coming from the Crater, they’d fly on the straightest path possible to get to the Elekai.”
What Ashton said made sense.
“Alright,” I said. “So find a dragon, and match his trajectory?”
“The dragons will point the way,” Ashton said. “Pretty simple and direct.”
“Where are we now?” I asked.
“Almost over New Mexico,” Ashton said.
New Mexico? There would be no way the Elekai dragons could get back in time, not even if everything went perfectly.
But before anyone could point that out, Ashton spoke.
“Two dragons, dead ahead.”
I strained to see two reptilian shadows beating against the wind, distant. They didn’t seem to see us.
“What’s their course?” Samuel asked.
“Almost due east,” Ashton said. “Assuming they’re going straight to the Xenolith, we can copy their angle.”
“Do it,” Samuel said.
“Alright,” Ashton said. “Hold on.”
The ship suddenly lifted. With the change in course, one of the dragons broke, coming back to attack us. I could see its white eyes glowing in the night.
We rose higher, piercing the cloud layer and going in the direction the dragons had been pointing. Once above the clouds, Ashton allowed himself to relax. The dragon would be unlikely to follow us up here, and even if it could, we’d outpace it.
“We’ll stay up here for a bit,” he said. “We’ll come back below when I’m sure we’ve passed them.”
A few minutes later, Ashton lowered through the clouds. Once again, we were above the pink shimmering of the Great Blight. The land had flattened, but a line of pointy mountains rose to the northwest. I had a feeling that we were close. The clock on the dash showed 00:30.
A minute later, the ground stretched before us. A line of hills rose in the east, only visible from the glow of the fungus. As the hills neared, I saw the Xenolith rising above them.
“That’s it,” I said.
As we passed over the hills, there were no signs of a battle. In fact, the wide fungal plain seemed empty. The battle had concluded.
Perseus swooped by the rising Xenolith.
“Where are the Elekai?” Julian asked.
No one had an answer for that.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But Anna and I need to get inside the Xenolith.”
“How?” Samuel asked.
“There’s an entrance at its base,” I said, “if it’s anything like the last one.”
“And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Ashton asked.
“Not sure,” I said. “Lift off, but stay in the area.”
“Radio us when you’re ready to leave,” Samuel said.
At last, Ashton lowered the ship, setting it down on the xenofungal bed. Samuel handed me his radio.
“The channel’s on the right preset,” he said. “Try to hurry.”
“I’ll let you know,” I said.
Julian brought Anna’s wheelchair around. Together, we lifted and settled her in. I took the handles and swiveled the wheelchair around.
I knew it was crazy to take Anna with me, but I also knew she would never forgive me if I left her behind. We probably had to abandon the chair at some point. Anna could walk, albeit in pain. I could only hope that the Wanderer didn’t make us go too far.
Whatever the Wanderer told us, we’d hear it together.