Augustus was silent for a long moment.
“I don’t like this, but I see I have no option. You have your extra thirty minutes, but after that, you must help me with the Reapers.”
“Agreed,” Ashton said. “We won’t be long.”
We sped west over the Great Blight.
We stayed high in altitude at first, but once we were halfway over Arizona, Ashton lowered the ship in preparation for descent into Oasis. Once we broke through the layer of thick, red clouds, we saw a fraction of what we’d be up against.
The entire fungus-ridden ground boiled with wave after wave of crawlers, all speeding east in a blur. Above them flew dragons — at least a dozen of them. Behemoths lumbered across the plains at a run while other strange, nameless creatures scampered in their wake.
I realized where they all were headed. Los Angeles.
“Opening fire,” Sparks said.
“No!” Ashton shouted. “Hold your fire!”
But it was too late. A trail of bullets blazed from Orion’s turret, entering the back of one of the dragons. The dragon gave a high shriek that pierced the ship’s hull. Its wings folded as it spiraled to the ground, crashing into a startled Behemoth.
Immediately, the rest of the dragons changed trajectory, aiming upward toward us. Their white eyes blazed in fury.
“Lose them in the clouds,” Ashton said. “And hold on. This might get bumpy.”
The ship angled upward. The onrush of G-forces pushed me against my seat. The LCD revealed Orion lagging behind, two xenodragons clipping at its thrusters.
“Faster, Sparks!” Ashton said.
“I’m trying!”
We broke through the clouds, and Ashton kept climbing. From behind, Orion appeared. Seconds later, two xenodragons pierced the clouds, flying madly to intercept Orion.
“Keep climbing!” Ashton said.
“I can’t go any faster!” Sparks said.
Ashton looked at the LCD, shaking his head in frustration. “Your retrothrusters are facing the wrong way, you idiot! Point them aft!”
Below, Sparks struggled to control the ship. All the while, the xenodragons closed the gap.
Ashton turned Perseus around. “We can’t trust them to save themselves.”
“Target acquired,” Anna said. “Fire?”
“Jonas, out of the way!”
“What?”
“To port, to port!”
Finally, the message seemed to connect. Orion surged to the left, almost executing a barrel roll. The ships weren’t meant to fly upside down while in the atmosphere, and the move could have caused Orion to go down. But Sparks managed to right the ship, giving us the opening we needed to take a shot.
“Both targets acquired,” Anna said.
Instead of haranguing Jonas again, Ashton merely shook his head. “Fire.”
Two missiles streaked from beneath Perseus. One zoomed to left, toward a xenodragon chasing after Orion, while the other surged to the right, where the other dragon raced to cut off the Orion’s escape.
“Drop through the clouds!” Ashton said.
This time, there was no delay in reaction. Orion dipped, which must have thrown the Praetorians in the wardroom straight to the deck. Before the dragons could react to Orion’s change in course, the missiles connected, igniting in twin, fiery plumes of white and orange. A rush of purplish organic matter and chips of bone exploded outward, charred to crisps from the immense heat released by the missiles.
I looked at the section of cloud below the explosion, where Orion had disappeared.
“You still there?” Ashton asked. “Orion, you have a copy?”
There was no response. Perseus showed the ship to be online. Maybe Jonas had blacked out from the G-forces.
At last, Orion lifted above the clouds at a leisurely place.
“Sparks,” Ashton said, “you nearly got us all killed.”
“I know,” he said, almost sullenly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s real easy to piss off those dragons,” Ashton said. “We’re lucky only two came after us.”
“I wonder where they’re going, anyway,” Anna said.
“Los Angeles,” I said. “Carin Black picked a hell of a time to start the war.”
“There might be a way to stop it,” Ashton said. “But first, we have to get to Oasis. Our team’s waiting on us.”
Ashton turned the ship, facing it northwest.
“Follow my lead, Sparks,” he said. “And don’t do anything without my go-ahead. Got that?”
It was a long while before Ashton received his answer.
“Roger.”
Thirty minutes later, Perseus lowered through the red cloud layer to an Oasis under siege.
Legions of crawlers and monsters writhed outside its wooden stockade. From the ramparts guards shot into the teeming mass, to little avail. There were so many monsters that it would only be a matter of minutes before they broke through — if they hadn’t already. Three Behemoths clobbered a northern section of palisade near the interior farms. One of the giants fell under a barrage of machine-gun fire from a turret in a nearby watchtower. The fallen Behemoth was replaced by another.
On the southern section, the crawlers were so thick that they were piling up. The ones at the top leaped madly, trying to gain a foothold on the ramparts.
There was no way we could rescue everyone inside.
“We’re not going in there,” Augustus said. “It’s madness.”
Ashton hovered a moment above the walls.
“We could at least make a dent in their numbers.”
Ashton swiveled, pointing Perseus toward the main body of the swarm.
“Anna, fire in 3…2…1…”
A missile streaked from beneath Perseus’s hull. In a couple of seconds, it connected with the ground, bursting into bright, fiery plumes. The remains of monsters blasted outward.
There were thousands of them down there. My heart sank at the sight. There was no way we could survive this coming storm once it made it to Los Angeles.
“Look to starboard!” Anna said.
Ashton angled the ship slightly, to see the final nail in the coffin coming in the form of at least twelve xenodragons. They flew from the east in a wide V. They were still distant, little larger than specks on the horizon, but they would be upon us in minutes.
“We have to get them out quickly,” Ashton said. “Sparks, cover me. I’m landing inside.”
“No,” Augustus said, answering for his pilot. “You’re going to get yourself killed. We must retreat to Los Angeles.”
“Our friends are down there, and I’ll be damned if I’m leaving them behind. Go back to Los Angeles if you like. This is something we have to do.”
Augustus growled, but didn’t argue further. Orion remained hovering behind us, seemingly indecisive.
“Fine,” Augustus spat. “We’ll distract those monsters while you land. But we aren’t fighting those dragons for you. You’re on your own for those.”
At that moment, two missiles shot out from Orion, igniting near the crater where Perseus’s missiles had connected. A trail of bullets riddled the battlefield, tearing into the swarm.