Four hours later, both Aeneas and Gilgamesh were in the air. We sped east toward the Rockies, across Northern Nevada, and into Western Wyoming. Though it was now dawn, there was no light in the sky. The clouds were dark and thick, blocking all light. Even going above them did little to help matters. We were as close to Ragnarok Crater as we had ever been, and somehow, it showed. Visibility was little to none.
“We can’t get visual on these dragons with these damned clouds.”
Makara’s voice exited the speakers. She was flying the Gilgamesh, which she was more comfortable with. With her were Samuel, Julian, and Michael. Ashton and Anna piloted the Aeneas. I sat up front with them both.
We would be the ones to pull the trigger, when the time came.
“Steady as she goes,” Ashton said. “Radar’s picking something up dead ahead.”
At long last, there was a break in the clouds, and we saw them. The vision had been real.
They flew in the dozens, flying high on the wind toward the west with a single purpose. The mountains below reached up in jagged spires, wreathed in cloud and covered in snow. The sun broke between two mountain peaks, casting a red, bloodlike light upon the flying dragons.
Both ships slowed to a hover. The dragons were probably about a mile out.
“Fire when ready, Ashton,” Samuel said.
There was no hesitation. Ashton pressed the button, and a streak of light shot out from Aeneas, hissing and creating a glowing trail in the cold mountain air.
As if on cue, the dragons broke, avoiding the path of the nuke. The missile tracked one dragon flying in the middle of the pack, igniting in a massive mushroom cloud.
The windshield tinted automatically, detecting the sharp increase in light. All vision of the dragons was lost as the massive wall of sound pummeled the ship.
Ashton guided Aeneas around, blasting in the direction from which we had come. This time Gilgamesh was right on our tail.
For the next two minutes, we sped away from the site of the blast. It came nowhere near to catching us.
“Are they gone?” Makara asked, her voice coming from the dash.
“We need confirmation,” Ashton said.
“We’ll check it out,” Makara said. “Be ready for anything.”
The ships turned back to face the site of the explosion. The clouds were lit with a fiery light – either from the dawn or from the remnants of the blast. As we advanced another thirty seconds, the cloud came into view, bulging upward and outward. It seemed as if there were no end to its colossal force.
“I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” Ashton intoned.
Anna and I looked at each other. She shrugged.
“It’s from the Epic of Gilgamesh.” Ashton shook his head. “Don’t you kids know anything?”
“Never heard of it,” Anna said.
“Well, I thought it was fitting.”
We hovered at a safe distance from the mass of clouds. Apart from that movement, nothing stirred in the air. It appeared as if...
Suddenly, everything rocked as the ship dropped to port. Red lights flashed. A terrible shriek sounded from outside the ship.
We had been attacked from above.
The ship was falling, fast. I held onto the dash for dear life as the mountains reached up for us. Something chewed on the bridge from above. Covering the upper right corner of the windshield was the pointed end of a wing.
“Mayday, mayday!” Ashton said.
“Ashton!” Makara shouted. “Engage retrothrusters!”
“I am!” he shouted back. “They’re not responding.”
Another crash jolted the ship, from further back. The ship spun ever downward. No sound came from the speakers.
We had lost contact with Gilgamesh.
I suddenly heard a series of pecks slam into the hull of the ship. I thought at first that it was the dragons. But I then realized it was Gilgamesh firing on us in an attempt to kill the dragons.
“Still going down!” Ashton shouted. “There’s too many of them!”
“We need to abandon ship,” Anna said.
I realized she was right. Aeneas wasn’t in a nosedive, but it would be soon. As more and more flying bodies slammed the top of the ship, it became increasingly clear that this was a fight we couldn’t win. We had to reach the ejection pods before it became impossible to even walk to them. They weren’t far – just off the main corridor leading to the bridge.
We unstrapped ourselves from our seats. Before turning for the corridor, I saw the form of a dragon spin down to Earth, spewing purple blood. Makara had at least shot one, but she still had dozens more to kill yet. That nuke had not killed off as many as we had thought.
I pulled Anna along, pushing her in front of me. She ran toward the corridor.
I reached a hand backward to assist Ashton. The old man gave me his arm, and I pulled him toward the corridor.
More dragons slammed into the hull from above, forcing the ship further downward.
“Come on!”
Anna pushed me into the ejection pod. Ashton lost his balance and was about to fall backward into the bridge from which we had climbed. I grabbed his arm, and Anna grabbed my torso. Together, we pulled Ashton into the pod. I slammed the door shut.
A second later, I was pushed back into the door as the pod shot out from the ship. I floated upward inside the pod, then slammed into the ceiling from the drop. From the port in the door I saw only misty gray.
A pair of hands pulled me backward, forcing me into a seat. I felt straps cover my body and snap into the buckle. Anna tried to do the same for Ashton.
“Help me lift him into the seat,” Anna said.
I helped pull on Ashton. As we fell down and down, somehow, someway, he managed to strap himself in.
“Now,” Anna said.
She pushed a button near the door. Suddenly, the pod lifted up again. She had deployed a parachute.
I could see nothing outside from the port. I could only hear the wind, whooshing by...
From somewhere distant, I heard a crash and explosion. Aeneas had fallen, crashed into some mountain where it would rest forevermore. We floated downward. I felt my breakfast come up, and forced it back down with great difficulty.
A few seconds later, a massive thud jolted us all. Our seats bounced up and down on springs, obviously built with suspension.
Then the pod started to roll. But it only rolled once before sliding to a stop.
Our panicked breaths filled the pod, clouding the window.
“Everyone alright?” Anna asked.
I nodded, though there was little point to such a gesture. It was too dark to see anything. We were pointed away from the sun, and the clouds were so thick that little dawn light found its way inside.
“Ashton?” I asked.
He was quiet, his head slumped to the side. A trail of blood snaked its way down from the corner of his mouth.
“Oh no...”
Anna unstrapped her safety harness, making her way to the scientist. She placed two fingers on his neck, waiting a moment. Another.
“He’s alive,” she said. “He must have passed out from the G-forces.”
From above, I heard the wail of dragons. At least three shrieks sounded as they circled above.
“They know we’re here,” I said.
“So does Gilgamesh,” Anna said. “These pods have tracking devices built in. As long as we stay here...”
Ashton stirred. “That is not advised.”
“Ashton!”
I unstrapped myself from my seat.
“I’m fine,” Ashton said. “Thanks for asking.”
“We need to move,” I said. “Those things could knock this pod down this mountain for good.”
“How do you know we’re on a mountain?” Anna asked.
“Because we’re surrounded by them.”
“Now, don’t fight, you two,” Ashton said. “Let me just get this door so we can get our bearings.”
Ashton stood up on unsteady legs, reaching for the latch. Frost had already collected on the outer shell of the pod.
“Must be cold out there,” Ashton said.
“Like I said,” Anna said. “It would be best to stay here until Gilgamesh comes.”
“If it comes,” I said. “We have no idea if they’re okay, too. We need to get out and see what’s going on.”
“Unfortunately, all of our cold weather gear was on that ship. We wouldn’t last thirty minutes out there.”
Anna had a point. At the same time, oxygen was also a commodity, and this pod sure didn’t have a lot of that.
“We can’t stay in here forever,” I said. “This air’s already stale. We need to get out and scout around. Hell, maybe the ship didn’t crash too far away. There might even be supplies we can use.”
“I don’t know, Alex. I guess it’s worth a try.”
I nodded, and reached for the latch. It felt colder than ice on my bare hands. I took a deep breath, and opened it up.
And was greeted by an image of frozen Hell. Gray ice covered everything, and a tall precipice was only a few feet away, falling seemingly into colorless infinity. It took all of my gumption to step out of that pod. I was rewarded by slipping and falling on my butt, only to slide further toward the ledge.
“Whoa!”
I reached out, grabbing a rock that felt hot to the touch. No, not hot. Cold. So damn cold that it felt like a stovetop.
I switched to my other hand to take some of the pain off. Already I felt my bare fingers going numb.
“Alex!” Anna was standing in the doorway. She was too far away to reach me.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’ve got this.”
I reached my other arm up, pulling myself along the ice to where I was sitting on the rock. The pod was just a few feet up the ledge, sitting atop some more rocks – an island in a sea of ice. If we had landed just several feet to one side or the other, the pod would have surely fallen off the cliff and we would have died.
Well, that death probably would have been less painful than what we were about to face now.
I saw ahead about a hundred feet in every direction before thick dust cut off my vision. The harshest of all winds, like the devil’s breath, blasted me from the side, chilling me to the bone.
We wouldn’t last an hour out here.
“Get back inside,” Anna said.
That was easier said than done. I had to cross the ice again, and if I fell, I might not be lucky enough to catch myself this time.
There was no way I was staying out here. The dragons were gone for now, but the cold was my worst enemy. If I could get back in the pod, we could wait for Gilgamesh to pick us up. If there was a Gilgamesh left.
I took a careful step – then another – before slipping again. The ice was just so smooth and sloped. Anna was there to grab my arms. Together, she and Ashton pulled me inside the pod. As I sprawled on the floor the door slammed shut behind me.
“Well,” Ashton said, breath clouding the pod’s interior, “there’s our answer.”
“All we can do is wait,” Anna said.
***
FOR HOURS, WE DID JUST that. We huddled in the back corner of the pod. The air had barely warmed and was already stale.
“Should we open the door again?” I asked.
Anna shook her head, shivering. “I’d rather suffocate than feel that cold.”
Ashton said nothing at all, closing his eyes.
“Don’t die on me, Ashton,” I said.
“I’m not dying,” he said, raspingly. “Just taking a little nap, is all.”
“That’s how you die in the cold,” Anna said. “Just stay focused.”
Focused on what? It wasn’t like that would make Gilgamesh...
The sound of an engine swooped from above.
“There it is!” I said, standing. “They’re alive!”
Anna shook her head. “About damn time.”
Even Ashton managed a small smile.
“Come on,” I said, moving for the door. “We have to get out.”
I forced the door open again. The sun was at least shining a bit, but it had done nothing to warm the air. The cold was even more unbearable than before. We had to bear it, though. Just a little while longer.
I tested a step on a rock just outside the pod door. It held because it was not covered with ice. The ice ended about six feet to my right. There was no way I could jump that distance, so I would have to slide down the ice, angling myself to the right until I hit the bank of rock on the other side. However, I had to stop myself before reaching the precipice just ten feet downward.
It was risky, but there was no other way out.
“Here goes nothing,” I said.
I pushed out as far as I could, sliding both down and away from the pod. I reached out for a particularly large rock, grabbing with both hands. Thankfully, it held my weight. I pulled myself toward it, rolling onto the rock and off of the ice.
“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.