Revelation (28 page)

“This is all interesting,” Makara said, “but what’s the point?”

“I’m just trying to illustrate that there are lots of Bunkers,” Ashton said. “None will be as large as 108, unless we find the last in each sequence – which were all Command Bunkers.”

“So, to fit in everyone, we would have to find Bunker 12, 24, and so on,” I said.

“Precisely. And none of these Bunkers are close to each other. A great many are covered in Blight. Others are prohibitively far away, such as on the East Coast, or too far north.” Ashton sighed. “I will do some more research, but after all is said and done, it might
still
turn out that Bunker 108 is our best option.”

I hoped that wasn’t true, because Bunker 108 would be a horrible option.

“Well, we have to find something,” Rey said. “And it can’t be far. We don’t have time for that.”

Everyone was silent as they thought.

“We’ll talk it over with Samuel when he gets back,” Makara said. “I’m sure he’ll have his own opinion. For now, the plan remains the same. We keep going west, away from the Great Blight. We’ll stock up once we hit Pyrite. Hopefully, by then, we’ll have more information to go on.”

“I’ll start researching possible options,” Ashton said.

I was glad Ashton was giving himself another project. It meant he would probably forget about me, for the meantime.

As if reading that thought, he looked in my direction. “We’ll have to put that
Elekai
research on hold for a few days.” He gave a thin smile. “I’m sure you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” I said.

At that moment, Michael’s radio crackled to life.

“Michael? Michael, you there?”

It was Marcus. His voice was panicked.

“Yeah, come in,” Michael said, his eyes nervous. “What’s going on?”

There was a long, dreadful pause. Instantly, I knew something terrible had happened. Something we could never come back from.

“It’s Samuel,” Marcus said. “I think...I think he’s dead.”

Chapter 23

Immediately, Makara snatched the radio from Michael’s hand.

“What do you mean, you think he’s dead?” she yelled. “Answer me!”

The radio sizzled with static for a moment. From the other end, Marcus cursed, as we all sat in shock.

“We got ambushed by a crawler. We were speeding away on our bikes, back for the ship, but it was too fast. It tackled Sam, and he went crashing down. I stopped and fought the thing off. But now, Sam isn’t moving.”

“When did this happen?” Makara asked.

“Just now – I called you first thing.”

“Did you check for a pulse?”

“Of course I did! I got nothing. If he’s still alive, he doesn’t have long.”

“What’s your location?”

“We’re two miles out from the mesa. I can hear more of them coming...”

“We’re on our way,” Makara said.

Makara ran out of the conference room, followed quickly by Anna. Within minutes, the ship was in the air, flying east.

And all I could think was – Samuel was not dead. He couldn’t be. A single crawler couldn’t do this to him. It had to be another false alarm, like what had happened to Makara in the
Coleseo
.

A couple minutes later, we found Marcus far below, standing above a figure sprawled on his back. The twisted corpse of a crawler lay nearby on its side, facing the east. Sam’s bike lay sideways in the sand where it had crashed. All was just as Marcus had described.

When we landed, we all ran outside. The cold wind blew, stinging me with dust. In the distance, I could hear high-pitched screams. Marcus had been right on that count as well. More crawlers were coming.

Makara ran to her brother, grabbing his shoulders. His forehead was bleeding, and a giant black welt was forming there, even as Makara held him.

Char knelt beside Makara, feeling for a pulse. For a few, terrible seconds, he said nothing. Finally, he nodded.

“He’s not dead. Not...yet, anyway. He has a head injury, so it could be very bad. It’s hard to say now, but it looks like he hit his head on a rock or something during the impact.”

Makara did not react. She didn’t have the strength to. “Let’s just get him on the ship. Do what we can for him.”

Char, Julian, Michael, and I lifted Samuel, doing our best to keep his body even. He did not stir the entire time. We carried him to the ship. Once inside, we carried him to the clinic, laying him on the bed. Still, he did not move.

Char and Makara came in. “Give him some space. Everyone besides me, Makara, Marcus, and Ashton, clear out.”

“Take us back to the army, Anna,” Makara said, her voice thick.

Anna nodded, turning to me. “Come on.”

Before leaving, I took one last glance at Samuel. His eyes remained closed, and he had not moved a muscle, other than in the almost imperceptibly small breaths he took.

Michael, Anna, Julian, and I walked to the bridge in silence. It was not looking good. Boss Dragon and Rey stood in the galley, watching us, their faces unreadable. They said nothing as we passed through the galley, into the main corridor, and to the fore of the ship.

“Will he be alright?” Julian asked, after Anna had settled down in the captain’s chair – a place I had never seen her sit before.

Anna shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe he gets better. Maybe he doesn’t.”

Slowly, Anna took off for the hill we had left behind. It wasn’t until we were gone that I remembered we had left both bikes, including Marcus’s, in the dust. It was too late. As the ship spun away, the last view I had was of crawlers overwhelming the position. They were just a few miles out from the army’s camp.

“Julian, go tell Makara that we’ve got contact with crawlers,” Anna said.

Julian nodded, and turned down the corridor.

Samuel was hurt, and maybe dead, and an army of crawlers lurked just miles away from two thousand people. And even if we survived those two things, it was only the beginning.

***

Anna landed in the camp. As we rushed off the ship, Makara met us in the galley.

“Char and Ashton are going to stay with Samuel,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do there besides worry. We have to get everyone on the hill immediately and set up whatever sort of defense we can. There’s no time to run.”

We ran out into the cold. Evening was coming on, and in the oncoming dusk, hundreds of people were already fleeing toward the hill and the safety of the ships, many of them women and children. Any who could took up arms, pointing them in the direction of the east, where already I could see the teeming mass of the Blighters swarming. There were so
many
of them – hundreds – maybe even thousands. If they surrounded this hill, there was little chance of any of us living to see the dawn. We didn’t have any sort of perimeter set up. We hadn’t thought we’d be staying here this long.

Both ships sat pointing toward the east, meaning the turrets could be aimed at any oncoming threats. That had been intentional. But even with hundreds of men and women armed with rifles, it wasn’t going to be enough.

We were all going to die, right here on this hill.

The first of the crawlers broke into the camp, ripping through tents and shoddy shelters, canvas and rubble flying through the air, in their mad search for something living to rip into. Still, the people flooded up the hill, screaming in terror. Those who were not armed ran up the boarding ramps and into the ships for shelter. It wouldn’t be enough space for everyone – not by a long shot.

In the madness, we all just tried to get anyone with a gun to the front – in a protective ring around those who couldn’t fight.

Anna drew her katana, facing the oncoming horde. I stood nearby, raising my AR-15 to my shoulder. I took my first shot into the mass of creatures. I had no idea if I was hitting anything – it was so chaotic, so loud, with both screams and gunfire and alien screeches.

Then,
Odin’s
turret opened up, followed by
Gilgamesh’s
. Someone was in those ships, firing – perhaps Ashton, perhaps Char or someone else. The spewing bullets made a dusty line at the base of the hill, where the crawlers charged up.

The frontrunner of the crawlers, a nasty, sizeable beast, shot straight for me. Its white eyes glowed with hatred, and I
knew
I was the one he was coming after. Maybe these creatures could somehow sense that I was
Elekai
. I aimed my rifle, shooting at the creature multiple times. My bullets did nothing against its thick exoskeleton.

The crawler was just a few dozen feet away, now. I thought for sure I was going to die. Anna readied her blade for the inevitable impact.

That was when something swooped right in front of me with a beastly roar. Talons extended outward, pummeling the crawler in the side. The crawler screamed in pain, its wide-open mouth revealing twin, forked tongues and long, yellowed teeth. It flew through the air, landing with a sickening crunch far away from the action.

The crawlers hesitated for a moment at the sight of Askal, who was now wheeling around for round two. As Askal entered another dive, the crawlers spread, trying to avoid his sharp talons. One particularly unlucky crawler got the full brunt of the attack, spiraling several times when Askal slammed into its neck. The crawler squealed, its long, spiked tail twitching in a feeble attempt to protect itself.

It was the distraction all of us needed. Although the number of crawlers running up the hill swelled, they all hesitated upon seeing Askal. This gave us the chance to push back. With a yell, I ran forward, taking shots into some of the frontrunners. Others followed my example.

“Aim for the gut!” I yelled.

Hopefully the message would be passed along. Any time one of the crawlers exposed itself, I aimed carefully and shot. Some of the hideous monsters were starting to fall. But for every one we killed, more replaced it in the ranks.

Soon, several of the creatures had broken off, watching Askal’s movements carefully, marking when and where he would next fall. When Askal made his next dive, these crawlers ran forward to that location, readying their long tails to swipe. Noticing this, Askal ducked away at the last moment, before he could be struck.

The battle was in full force now. Red and purple blood hit the ground. Before my eyes I saw a Raider get rent in two from the swipe of a crawler blade, a flood of red pulsing from his torso. Anna, beside me, skewered a small crawler through the side, expertly pulling her blade from the creature’s insect-like form. From around me, gunshots rang out, deafening. The cold air stank with the smell of human blood and the fetid stench of the crawlers.

As time passed, I noticed fewer and fewer human forms among the crawlers. We had retreated to the base of
Gilgamesh’s
ramp, and the crawlers were forcing themselves on us. We were outnumbered at least three to one.

And, as a further sign of our doom, I could see in the distance at least twelve Askala coming to join the fray.

“It’s over,” I said.

Anna hacked at another crawler, fighting for her next breath. She looked at the dark sky, her blade falling to her side.

The Askala swooped down toward the ship with primal, reptilian screams. The remnants of the Exodus braced themselves for impact.

But the Askala ignored us, and instead started attacking the crawlers.

“They’re on our side!” I said.

Once again, our ships’ turrets opened up, letting out the last of our volleys. What people were left let out their own war cries, waving guns in the air. In the mix I saw Cain and Grudge, both of their faces bloodied, charging forward with what men they had.

The crawlers had been halted in their tracks, unable to fight the dozen or so Askala now in their midst. Just a few feet in front of me, an Askala with crimson scales swooped down, picking up a crawler with its talons. It beat its wings, rising into the air, dropping its payload into another group of crawlers that had ganged up on a grounded Askala bleeding purple blood. The crawlers screamed as their comrade crashed into them from above.

Blood and bits of crawler flesh sailed through the air as the
Elekai
dragons ripped into the
Radaskim
horde. Even though this was more crawlers than we had ever fought, I knew this was just the beginning. This was but a small fraction of the entire horde – and if it weren’t for these
Elekai,
we would be dead right now.

Finally, we had the edge. Between the aerial attacks of the dragons and our comeback on the ground, the crawlers were routed. They scuttled away down the hill, fleeing to the east.

I stood, dazed, as I watched the hundred or so crawlers that were left disappearing into the darkness. In a mere minute, they had vacated the entire battlefield. They had, as one, been called back. Had the Dark Voice summoned them home?

While it was good that they were gone, they had dealt a mortal blow. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, lay dead on the hill around us. Severed limbs and heads lay in gory piles. While we had won the battle with the help of the
Elekai,
we were now much weaker for it.

And, in the distance to the east, I could still hear the screeches of the crawlers. I couldn’t help but feel it was them having the last laugh.

Chapter 24

The
Elekai
Askala landed among the survivors, the dead, and the dying. The Askala had suffered no losses, but the one that had been grounded had several lacerations and puncture wounds on its side. It said a lot for the power of a crawler that the dragon’s thick skin could be breached like that.

I found Askal among his Askala brethren. Rushing up to him, with Anna at my side, I placed a hand on his neck.

Are you alright
?

We are fine, brother. It is you that I am worried about.

I didn’t answer for a moment. No, I wasn’t fine. None of us were.

Did you call for these Elekai to come fight?

This is all of the Elekai dragons. They did not want to come, because they still remember losing the Xenolith. But our Father told them to come help. So like good children, they listened.