Kyle West - Evolution

Yes — two months after we had left it, the Wasteland is a far more dangerous place. And the Wasteland is only the beginning. If we do not find some way to stop the Great Blight, the entire world will be swallowed by it.

With Raider Bluff gone, it makes sense for Vegas to be next on the Great Blight’s list. That city is the closest to the Great Blight, and that’s where all our roads lead — whether we are Angel, Exile, or Raider. With the alliance between Augustus of the Empire and Carin Black of Los Angeles, it’s up to us to grab whoever is left and take the fight to Los Angeles — taking out Carin Black before Augustus can arrive with his legions — before the worst of winter is upon us.

But before we can do that, we have to find the Exiles. We have to find the Raiders.

It is our newest challenge. It is hard to tell whether this will be easier, or harder, than what we did in the Empire. Now back in the cold, bare reality of the Wasteland, I have a feeling it will be harder. Our mission is getting a bunch of people who don’t like each other to work together. We have to convince them to leave the safety of their walls, strike out across the Wasteland in the dead of winter, and take out Black and the Reapers before Augustus arrives.

We have about two months to do it. Augustus’s army is far — but it could be here in as soon as two months. Winter might help us, but we are planning for the worst. Our success as a group depends on being prepared for the worst. Augustus said he was going to be here in two months. We will take him at his word.

Even if such preparation seems impossible, we have to try. The entire world, literally, depends on it.

I would say it is a lot of pressure, but we are used to that by now. We are a well-honed team. We each know our strengths and weaknesses. We have two spaceships at our disposal, meaning we can jump between points quickly.

Even though we have new capabilities, so does the xenoswarm. The dragons are a game-changer that none of us could have predicted, and I’m sure they’re not the last thing the Great Blight will throw at us.

First, we have to deal with the human opposition. Until everyone is standing together and on the same page, we can’t make our attack on the Great Blight. We can’t even protect ourselves from Augustus and Carin Black. If we do not unite, and unite soon, everything will fall.

And that’s exactly what the Voice in Ragnarok Crater wants.

Makara was still flying. It was night, and Odin hummed all round us, sailing through the air at three hundred miles an hour. She stared ahead as if her willpower alone could pierce the veil of darkness cloaking the Boundless below. Everyone else was sleeping. Anna dozed in the copilot’s chair, her head tilted to the side. Makara did nothing to wake her, taking the burden of both piloting and copiloting upon herself. It was very Makara-like.

Behind his sister, Samuel also slept. I was fighting my own battle with weariness, a battle I was sure to lose. It was two in the morning, and Makara had yet to cease her search for Marcus and the Exiles. This had been the story of the last three days, and still her reddened eyes scanned the desert floor with Odin’s two floodlights, revealing nothing but dune, hill, mesa, and the sudden pink of a patch of xenofungus. Periodically, Makara glanced at the LCD, which displayed topography, speed, and Odin’s location. We were somewhere in central Arizona.

I felt it was all useless. This time-consuming search was eating away at us all, and we could only take so much before it was time to examine other options. Samuel had told Anna and me as much in private earlier today. He dared not tell Makara; not yet. And with each day that passed with no results, no clues, she became edgier.

She still believed the Wanderer had wanted her to search here, when all seemed lost. And certainly, everything did seem lost. It was the four of us, and Ashton, expecting to stop an entire army that would soon be thundering its way north. And not only that army, but the army of xenolife readying itself to strike from the east. Everything depended on swelling our ranks, and all of us could feel the clock ticking.

With a curse, Makara leaned back in her chair. She sighed, shutting her eyes. It was the first time she had broken her concentration for hours. Odin flew on in a straight line, due east, about a thousand feet above the surface.

I closed my own eyes. My conscious mind faded under the weight of drowsiness. Makara’s voice snapped me to attention.

“Let’s call it a night.”

She slammed the controls, the sudden sound doing nothing to wake either Samuel or Anna. Out in the Wastes, both of them would have been up in a heartbeat at the disturbance. But Odin was a safe place, and there were allowances here that didn’t exist on the surface. Makara returned to the controls, angling the ship toward the surface. Again, the change in trajectory did nothing to shake either Samuel or Anna from their slumber. How I was still awake, I didn’t know. Even a week out of Nova Roma, I was exhausted from the entire ordeal. Makara’s side, which had been injured in the Coleseo , was still tender, but healing. But our time in the Empire had taken it out of all of us.

I would have thought sitting all day in a ship would be relaxing, but it wasn’t. We had to stay alert, for either the Exiles, the Raiders, or the ever-present threat of the xenodragons. None of those had ambushed us — at least, not yet — but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t at some point.

Makara guided Odin down, toward the top of a mesa that rose above the desert floor, its massive shape shadowy in the darkness. The dunes below were discernable around the mesa, but just barely. Now that we were back in the Wasteland, the atmospheric dust from Ragnarok had returned. I was already missing the feel of the sun on my skin. The sunburns I had received while in Nova Roma were still peeling.

Odin hovered, giving a tiny lift as it alighted atop the mesa. Powering off the ship, Makara unstrapped herself from her seat and immediately left the cockpit. Anna and Samuel slept on, oblivious to the fact that we had stopped. Samuel snored lightly, his head leaning back against the headrest. Anna’s head was still cocked to the side, a dribble of drool dripping from the corner of her mouth.

I touched her shoulder. “Hey. We’ve stopped.”

Her eyes fluttered open. She gave a nod, wiped her mouth, and unstrapped herself from the seat. She stood, and we left Samuel where he was, walking down the corridor toward the bunks in the back. I knew Anna would prefer sleeping in her own bunk, and would have been upset if I had left her in the copilot’s seat like that. Samuel, however, could probably sleep on a pile of rocks and not notice the difference.

When we got to the crew cabins, we were alone. Makara had appropriated the captain’s quarters off the galley to herself.

“Sleep tight,” I said, leaning in for a kiss.

She kissed me — not too enthusiastically, I must admit. She turned for her bunk, and I watched her lie down. Before she even covered herself with her blanket, her breathing became even with sleep. I’d always envied people with the ability to do that — fall asleep as if there weren’t a million things wrong with the world.

I sighed, turning for my own cabin, which I shared with Samuel. I lay down on my bunk, closing my eyes. The hum of the ship, on low power, lulled me to sleep, a sleep none too fitful.

The next day I awoke early, stepped out of bed, and got dressed. I ducked out the doorway, went through the galley, and headed to the kitchen. The air was cool in Odin’s metallic hull, automatic lights flashing on as I passed under them. I found the coffee pot and filled it with water, placing coffee grounds inside. Now back in civilization, I had the means to nurse my caffeine addiction with Skyhome’s own brew.