The Howling Dark has disappeared past the rippling waves of hot desert air. The salt flats have evolved into the rougher terrain of sandy dunes. Looking forward, I can see the gradual curves transforming into larger hills. Camels are built for these steep inclines on the slippery slopes; however, it makes our journey far longer as a result.
Wind howls past the wide windows of the cockpit, carrying the dust cloud kicked up by the tires high up to the teal-blue skies. It is the only cloud in sight. With my foot on the pedal, I push the Camel to its limits. It bounces and sways as it collides with the rolling dunes. Thoughts in my head persist of another Scavenger ship arriving and finishing off the crew. They’d put up a reasonable fight with their still-operating guns, but without mobility the ship would still be a sitting duck.
Those dark towers are growing. Tall spindling structures act as a beacon. Ulric sits next to me, looking out into the wide-open stretch of nothingness.
“I told you to let me call in the Drop…” Ulric says again, his eyes staying focused on the dunes outside. My fists clench around the steering wheel. I can feel my heart race faster, as this vehicle travels down the sandy desert.
“I’ve done that maneuver before,” I repeat.
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “You’ve done everything down here before, but you know what happened? You got arrogant. You thought this place was your personal little sandpit and that you could do whatever you pleased, but you were wrong.”
“Shut the fuck up…” I curse, closing my eyes for just a second.
“What happened to you, Ansel?” Ulric mutters in disgust. “Is this what the Kiln does? Changes people? When…when was the last time you were even in Germania?”
I think about it, my eyes feel like they are coming out of my sockets. What kind of situation is this? The fucking stress is going to kill me. I feel like my heart is going to explode.
“Eight years ago,” I say, feeling my head.
“In eight years you haven’t even been up north?” Ulric asks me, to which I respond with a “yes.” He puts his hands to his eyes. “This isn’t how regular Europeans act. You disregard the laws. You harm other Aryans. You act like a bloodthirsty savage when confronted with the opportunity—”
“They attacked our ship—”
“It wasn’t just the ship,” he cuts me off. “You did it to that girl as well. This place is not what the Reich aspired to what it would be. It isn’t like what Atlantropa was supposed to be at all. It’s savage. It makes people savage. It made you savage, just admit it.”
“Admit what?” I growl.
“Admit you only stay in this fucking desert because it’s how you can escape the prying eye of the Reich you pretend to so dearly care about.”
“I serve the Reich in my own way. I don’t need you coming to the Kiln and telling me how I act in this desolate wasteland is bad,” I mutter, keeping my eyes squarely on the dunes ahead of us. The towers of the Eagle Nest grow slowly the closer we get. Ulric doesn’t respond, and we sit in silence for a few minutes.
“It’s not even about the Reich,” Ulric says. “After the last few days, I’ve just been thinking about what the point of this place even is. I’m sure we could come up with some other solution for renewable energy. Do we even need to depend on the dams anymore?”
“What?” I laugh. “You want to just flood the Kiln?”
“What’s the point of this place?” Ulric argues, his voice rising. “If we got rid of the dams it’d put a barrier between us and the rest of the world. We’d have the sea again and we wouldn’t need to worry about Scavengers attacking our people.”
“They could just get water vessels,” I state. “Then they would actually attack Europe.”
“So you’re telling me the strongest nation on earth couldn’t keep out a few pirates?” Ulric concludes with a laugh.
I sit in silence, running my hand through my hair in frustration. “We’re talking about the fucking Atlantropan dams,” I say, staring out the window. “You know how insane you sound?”
“Do you know how insane you’ve become?” Ulric retorts. “Why would we want to keep the Kiln? All it is…is an immoral place that corrupts normal Aryans. It’s a burden on Europe, if anything…I can’t believe I’m even saying that.…”
“It’s the best option we have right now,” I say. “Without those dams, Europe wouldn’t have energy. We’d fall right back into chaos like the Great War.”
“I don’t know…perhaps if we could figure out some better way to have renewable energy…we wouldn’t need the dams,” Ulric concludes. “Say we did.”
“Say we did what?”
“Say we came up with a new form of renewable energy and didn’t need the dams anymore. Europe is still stable and we don’t need the Kiln. That’s the perfect solution,” he theorizes with an upraised, matter-of-fact finger.
I don’t say anything for a few seconds. The temples of my head are beating. I can feel my chest heaving faster and faster. Why can I not breathe?
“I can’t live up north,” I admit. There is no response from Ulric. “I’d go insane…doing anything else. This ship, the Kiln with all the flaws…this is the only place I thrive…I can’t go north again.”
“We’d never have to fight the Scavengers in our territory again. All those men who just died, the people in the Eagle Nests over the years, they’d be safe. Witzel, might be—”
“I enjoy it,” I say flatly. “All of it. Killing those Scavenger fucks. Seeing them squirm as I cut them up limb by limb…after everything I’ve seen. It’s makes life worth living. That’s your answer.”
Ulric looks at me with emotionless eyes before turning to look back out the window. There is no retort from him again. What were once distant and dark blurs have transformed into a forest of tall, spiraling towers sprouting out of the desert floor. As the ship slowly makes its way forward, the collection of buildings reveal themselves in all their glory. A traditional Eagle Nest colony often only has one tower. A wide, tree-like structure that stretches a kilometer-and-a-half into the air.
The thin towers ripple in the desert air. They are so close. As I gaze out toward them, suddenly everything goes bright…then silent. Pain shoots through my face. I clutch my eyes shut. I think I curse, but I’m not sure. Everything goes dark.
When I come to, there is wind. So much wind. As I attempt to open my eyes, I’m greeted with a blast of sandy desert air. My hand goes to my mouth, and when I look down, I see a palm covered in scarlet liquid. Fuck. Everything swirls about.
Feeling around, I can tell I’m no longer in my seat—everything is metal and steel. As my head swivels around, I notice that I’m lying by the side of the Camel. Why am I on the side of the Camel? To my right, I see glass scattered about the cabin, a remnant of the window that was once there. What hit us?
A pain swells in my chest and I violently cough. I suddenly realize I don’t have my helmet on. The air gets knocked out of me as I continue to cough. My eyes catch something floating above me. Is that sand? No, it’s moving too slow to be from the wind. It’s smoke. Fire. The Camel is on fire. Forcing myself onto my side, I prop myself back up with my arms. Blood trickles off the side of my face and hits the metal wall.
Where is Ulric? My eyes open wide at the realization.
“Ulric…” I cough, continuing to dry-heave, “Ulric…”
A moan radiates throughout the vehicle. It’s to my right, in the cockpit. Still in a daze, I force myself up and look into the shotgun seat. Ulric sits, slumped over in his chair. His face is speckled with bits of glass and blood cakes his face. His helmet got knocked off as well. My hands run over his chest and neck. There is no large piece. He didn’t end up like Witzel.
He’s still breathing as well. I tap his face a few times, calling his name. Eventually he comes to, and his eyes spring open, followed by a loud gasp.
“Ansel!” he exclaims, his arms clutching at his chest. “What…what the fuck…happened?”
“I don’t know…” I answer back. “I think we hit something.…”
He swivels his head around, and the full extent of our situation comes to him too.
“I don’t know, but I think the Camel got busted…” I say, through coughs. “We have to get out of here.”
“Out of here?” he questions. “We’re in the desert, what do we do?”
“Just…collect any supplies you need. We have duffle bags in the back. Water, food, extra energy packs…I think we got about a day of emergency…” I spit blood onto the floor; I think I lost some teeth. “Day of emergency supplies…go pack now…”
He nods his head and flops out of his seat, crawling and then stumbling about the cabin, which is now full of displaced items.
I cling onto the chair and lift myself up. A pain goes through my knee, but I try to ignore it. What the hell happened?
In a daze, we go around the busted Camel, as smoke continues to clog the vehicle. We keep our heads down, grabbing as much supplies as we can and shoving them into makeshift bags. I gather all I can fit, and sling one onto my shoulder. It’s a large brown bag that fits nicely wrapped around my back.
I look to Ulric, who is still trying to collect everything, but his hands are shaking too much to grasp onto the small packets of food and water. Migrating over, I help my distressed brother. Packing everything he’ll need, and then handing him his armored helmet.
He looks at me with panicked eyes. I’m stressed as well, but I keep a still façade and maintain my composure, giving him an encouraging look and a pat, before placing my own helmet on with a satisfying, pressurized thunk.
The wind disappears, and all I can hear is my own breathing.
“Can you hear me?” I say to him through the short-range radio, pointing to my helmet.
“Yeah,” he replies, followed by a cough.
“Alright,” I say. “We need to get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“To get help, same plan,” I announce.
I open the back doors of the vehicle, and we flounder our way out. I trip, feeling myself traveling through the air before landing hard on my chest in a pile of fine sand. More pain, more heaving from the hit. It feels like I’m in a dream, surrounded by vivid, illuminating colors shining down on us from a large white sun.
A hand grasps my bicep and gives a tug. I situate myself on all fours and look around before regaining my step. The ground slips under my feet, and I struggle for a moment to maintain traction in the ever-shifting sand.
“What did we hit?” Ulric questions me through the radio. I look at him in his silver armor, now covered in sand.
I shake my head.
“I don’t know.…”
We make our way slowly to the front of the smoking vehicle. The wheels rotate delicately in the air. A black, spread-out soot covers the front, along with more shattered glass. In front of it, there is a small crater. I know what we hit.
“It was a mine,” I declare, pointing a finger at the crater. “Must have…must have been planted by the Scavengers that we battled.”
“Why did it not blow us up?” Ulric asks.
I continue to cough, raising a finger for him to wait. The pain in my knee is not going away.
“Maybe…it was a smaller one…for treads…” I theorize. “Not all of them are ship killers.”
“Fuck,” Ulric curses, “shouldn’t we wait here? Wait for another Camel to come pick us up?”
“They won’t send out another Camel for at least another day,” I say. “And our armor only has energy for at a day, at most…I don’t want to risk frying out here.”
“So that means…” Ulric trails off.
“That means we have to walk. We’re already so close to the Eagle Nest. I’d say forty or so kilometers. And we’re about a two-day walk from the Howling Dark.”
“So I guess we walk then…”
“I guess we do.”