Evolution (5 page)

I heard someone else take up the speaker.

“Alex.” It was Makara. “Why the hell didn’t you make it?”

“Anna’s door didn’t open. I had to improvise.”

“Wouldn’t open?” Ashton said.

“Yeah. It stayed closed.”

“Our techs will take a look at that,” Ashton said. “That it would not work at a time like this...”

“Well, I’m fine now,” Anna said. “Thanks to Alex.”

Samuel was next to speak. “Keep your heads in the game. The Mid Ring should be online soon, though I expect there will be a hell of a mess to clean up. Until then, sit tight, and
don’t open that door
.”

“Copy that,” I said.

The radio cut out, leaving Anna and me alone on the bridge.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get out in time,” she said.

“For what? It’s not your fault.”

“It might be,” she said.

I paused. “What do you mean?”

“I honestly didn’t realize the door was shut. I was looking for my katana. It wasn’t where it normally was. I was searching for a good fifteen seconds until I turned around and saw that my door wasn’t open. That’s when I started to panic. Then, you came along and got it open.”

“Could you have opened it from the inside?”

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “I didn’t have time to try it.”

“Anna....”

I stopped myself. There was no point in getting upset about something that was over and done with. Anna seemed to guess my inclination to anger. She unstrapped herself from her seat, angling herself away from and toward the back of the ship.

“Hey,” I said.

I unstrapped myself as she pushed herself away. I grabbed her boot. Instead of stopping her, as I thought it would, it pulled us both together. Her head bonked into mine.

“Ouch!” she said.

We were now face to face. She stared at me a moment, her eyes at first angry. Then, they softened.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” I said. “That’s what matters.”

Then, realizing I was still holding her, I let go, even if part of me didn’t want to. Well, maybe most of me.

She smiled. “I can’t believe you shot open the door.”

“I’m glad that worked out, too.

She sighed, turning slightly away. “I don’t like playing the part of the damsel in distress. But maybe just this once.”

“It’s not that bad,” I said. “I know you saved my ass more times than I can count.”

“Well, we both know that’s true.”

We looked at each other for another moment. Something softened in her eyes, and for a moment, I thought we were going to kiss.

Anna turned aside. “Since we’re here, we might as well get some rest. There’s bunks in the back.”

I nodded, unable to push down my disappointment. “Might as well.”

Despite the scare the impact caused, sleep did not elude me. As soon as I lay down and strapped into my bunk, I was out.

A
fter twenty four hours, we were out of there. The EVA team sealed up the hole within a couple of hours, but pressuring the Ring took a while, nearly depleting the station’s oxygen and nitrogen reserves. The techs then restarted the Ring’s rotation. Finally, when the Ring hit that happy 1G, its rotation steadied.

The stuff we left in our habs was safe. Each hab’s door automatically shuts upon detecting a sharp pressure drop. The lack of gravity for hours straight had made a huge mess of things. Ashton dedicated the entire day to cleanup – anyone who could be spared was set to putting things back in order. It was amazing what a few seconds of chaos could do.

Skyhome’s techs later found the foreign object that had nearly sent us all to our deaths; a thin, titanium rod, a few centimeters long and half a centimeter in diameter. It looked like it could have been part of a satellite. I could hardly believe it could have caused such a scare. Skyhome’s tracking system had a lot of objects to keep up with, and it was amazing that it could predict such a small incoming object with such accuracy.

Just as I finished reordering my room, Samuel stepped in the doorway.

“We’re all meeting in Ashton’s office at 1930 hours.”

“What for?”

“One last briefing before we leave tomorrow morning. Also, can you find Makara and let her know? Can’t seem to find her anywhere.”

“I know just where to look,” I said.

Samuel nodded, then left.

My mind was set racing. In the two months I had been up here, it was starting to feel a bit like home. No, it wasn’t Earth, but Skyhome had all the amenities that I sorely missed and grew up with. There was plenty of food and water, warm showers, soft beds to sleep in, and people to talk to. There was routine in Skyhome, outside of the odd titanium rod clobbering it. Maybe that part wasn’t so great, but it was safer than the surface, with its monsters, raiders, and dust storms.

I was always shifting between hating this place and loving it. It’s hard to argue with safety, a full belly, and a community to support you. It’s strange that you can hate something like that, but I guess you can if it’s keeping you from doing what you’re supposed to do – in my case, going back to Earth to finish what all of us had started. If no one did that, then this community up here would end.

I remembered something else Ashton told me. People could not live up here forever. There could be another impact that might be much worse. There could be solar flares that fry all the electronics. It was only a matter of time, a question of when, not if. Everyone in Skyhome had to return to Earth, someday. It was all the more reason to continue fighting.

I headed out the door, making my way to the Outer Ring to find Makara. That was where she would most likely be. I liked to go to the Outer Ring to watch Earth below. The Outer Ring spun at a rate of one full rotation every four minutes, fifteen per hour. Every time, it afforded a slightly different view of our world. I always tried to catch a glimpse of California and America, but of course, most of the time they were not there. When they were, half the time they were dark with night. And if they
did
happen to be there, the cloud cover was so thick that it was hard to make out anything at all. Everything appeared all dusty and red, an effect that cast the oceans with a violet hue.

I entered the glass automatic sliding doors that led into the Outer Ring. These doors helped keep the Ring warm and humid. The thick aroma of plants and produce tickled my nostrils. The Outer Ring was the freshest part of Skyhome, and anytime the chill of space becomes too much, going here was a sure solution. All the crops were kept in neat rows on the floor, and metal tiers supported by struts added additional space.

I climbed some steps to one of these tiers, and walked along it. A small catwalk branched from the tier, leading to a large set of windows that is perfect for Earth watching.

When I reached the windows, my suspicions were confirmed. Makara sat against the wall, staring outside. Earth was just now entering Skyhome’s field of view. As I went to stand beside her, she continued staring outside, taciturn.

“Makara?”

She tensed at my voice, but did not stop looking out.

I sat down next to her. For a moment, we watched Earth pass by in silence.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She didn’t answer for a moment. She seemed drained.

“It’s freaky, isn’t it?”

Her voice was dull, monotonous, as if all life had been stripped from it. Now more than ever, I was worried about her state. None of us had known Lisa the way Makara had. Instead of improving over the past two months, she had withdrawn more into herself than ever. I didn’t know what it would take to bring her out.

Looking down at the planet below, I could see what Makara was talking about. It was a rare, cloudless day, and the dust was mostly absent from Earth’s atmosphere. On the surface, the sun might have even been strong enough to mostly break through the dust. It took me a moment to recognize that we were flying over the central United States.

Then, I saw it. There are no words to describe the horror of seeing that massive scar defacing what was once Wyoming and Nebraska. It dug deep into the Earth, and alien pink, orange, and purple bled from it like blood, spreading in all directions across the plains, creeping up the mountains, coating valleys, painting the surface a sickly pink and purple. At the edge of the western deserts, the Great Blight ceased its landward crawl. In the east, it extended all the way to the dark line of night that was now rushing to cover the land. Somewhere, in that crater, was the Voice, the thing we were trying to stop.

“We’ll be there before too long,” Makara said. “Count on it.”

“Hard to believe.”

I looked at her face – still beautiful, though sad. She didn’t meet my eyes. Her long, black hair fell over her shoulder in waves. She gathered the hair and clenched it, like it was a neck she was trying to choke.

“Whether I’m alright, I don’t know,” Makara said, answering a previous question I had forgotten I’d asked. “I’m just trying not to think about it. I’m just hoping there’s a happy ending and a reason for all this madness. I’m trying to figure out what I’m fighting for. Ashton talked about that, at the meeting. I don’t know what that is, yet.”

“You can fight for Lisa.”

“I need more than the dead to fight for. I need someone here, now. Only, I don’t think I will get that. Not until it’s too late, anyway.”

Outside, the Earth was nearing the edge of our vision. When it fully disappeared, Makara spoke.

“I think I will only be alright when we succeed,” she said. “When I find my place in this world. The Angels gave me that, but it was taken away. The raiders gave me that, to an extent.”

“Your place is here,” I said.

“Yes. But how long will that last?”

Her harshness took me aback. “As long as we are together. As long as we fight. We go on, because that’s who we are.”

Makara gave a short laugh. “Inspiring.”

“You said it yourself, down on Earth.”

“Yeah, I know. I wish I still believed it.” She sighed. “Alright, enough with that. You came to see me for some reason, and I don’t think it was to inspire me.”

“Ashton wants you to go over the landing procedure again after dinner.”

Makara nodded. “Yeah, I knew that was coming.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “Come on. Let’s see what the old man wants.”

We left the star-filled windows behind.

***

T
he plan was this: we were to land in a mountain valley, surrounded by dense forest, about one hundred miles northwest of Nova Roma. We needed to land far enough away so that our spaceship would remain hidden and unnoticed, but close enough that the journey to Nova Roma wouldn’t take too long. From the landing site, we would travel south until we reached a settlement along the main imperial road, which we had found from satellite imagery. This road, when taken southeast, would eventually arrive at Nova Roma, the Empire’s capital.

And that was just the easy part.

Once we reached Nova Roma, we needed to find the Imperial Palace and gain an audience with Emperor Augustus – which we could accomplish by name-dropping Cornelius Ashton. Once we had secured the audience, Samuel would explain the situation with the Blights and the xenovirus – then give our solution – once which necessitated the Empire’s help, and also caused the Empire to cease their war with Raider Bluff. And, we had to hope Augustus agreed, and didn’t decide to kill us instead.

It sounded impossible. It seemed that we could make it Nova Roma alright. After all, what was one hundred miles when we had traveled a thousand miles to Bunker One in a mere three days? But trying to convince the most powerful man in the world to do something he probably didn’t want to do seemed practically suicidal. However, if Ashton was right about a scientist or some high-ranking officer from Bunker One being in Augustus’s court, then we might be able to reach the Emperor through him.

There were
way
more ifs and buts than I was comfortable with, but I also knew we had pulled off much harder things – like surviving in the Great Blight and its constant onslaught of monsters. If Augustus could be convinced that those monsters would be his Empire’s fate unless he acted now, it might be possible to convince him.

Or at least, that’s what we all hoped.

Ashton set a timetable for us to be done with everything in four weeks. That should be enough time to make it to the capital, secure the truce and troops from Augustus, and make it back to
Odin
in time to update Ashton, figure out what he learned about the Voice during our absence, and then head to Raider Bluff and let Char know the news. And after that, it was off to see the other leaders of the Wasteland, and find a way to coordinate everything to make the attack on the Great Blight work.

Yeah. This was going to be
real
easy.

“S
ystems,” Makara said.

“Check,” Anna said.

“Engines.”

“Check. Powering on engines.”

Odin
thrummed and vibrated. Makara and Anna sat side by side, pilot and co-pilot, Samuel and I strapped in behind them. Instruments and the dash glowed as the entire ship powered on. Makara clenched the control stick tightly. I couldn’t tell of the vibration of her fist was from the ship, from nerves, or both.

“Go?” Makara asked.

Ashton’s voice exited from the dash. “Go.”

Makara flipped a switch on the control stick, causing
Odin’s
deep, computerized male voice to speak.

Launch countdown: initiated.

A timer appeared in glowing green numerals on the LCD mounted on the dash between pilot and copilot seats. It read one minute, and began to tick down silently. We waited as the numbers decreased, as we felt the power of
Odin
surging throughout the ship’s entire chassis. I waited with bated breath, ready for the adventure to begin. When it got to ten, I couldn’t help but smile. We were finally getting started.

“Here we go,” I said.

Then, with a thunderous roar, the fusion engine in
Odin’s
stern powered up, causing a
thrum-thrum-thrum
to permeate the entire ship. That power crept into my muscles, tickling my nerves. The countdown timer reached zero. Slowly,
Odin
lifted from the launch bay. Makara watched the LCD as the ship autopiloted backward from the hangar. I could see the hangar ahead distancing. Soon, the blast doors behind us would open – but only after the air in the hangar had been pumped out of the hangar for use elsewhere in Skyhome. Air was too valuable a commodity to be wasted on the vacuum of space.