Xenofall (The Wasteland Chronicles, Book 7) (21 page)

But that changed in an instant. A streak of fire zoomed down from the sky, followed by others, in supersonic, crackling trails, igniting on the ground below.

“Get to the surface!” Makara said.

Instantly, we dipped, hurrying to land as quickly as possible. Whether we went to the ground or stayed in the air, it didn’t matter. Those meteors would kill us all the same.

It was only a matter of time until...

A jet of fire exploded right on
Perseus’s
starboard wing, sending the ship careening. I was paralyzed with horror.

“Makara!” Anna screamed.

The ship spiraled as if it were a toy, a fire consuming
Perseus’s
starboard hull. Makara did not answer Anna’s call. There was no doubt;
Perseus
was going to crash.

All the same, the spinning stopped, but
Perseus
had slipped into an uncontrolled dive, leaving behind a thick trail of smoke.

“No...” Anna said.

A moment later, something shot from
Perseus’s
side. At first, I thought it was a piece of debris. But its flight path was too ordered.

“The escape pod,” Michael said. “They made it out.”

“Let’s hope so,” Anna said. “We have to follow it.”

Another fiery flash streaked downward, right in front of our windshield. Anna slowed the ship as we sailed through a blinding firestorm. Miraculously, we came out the other end.

As Anna turned the ship toward the burning ground, the escape pod had been lost. There was no sign of a parachute having opened, though a parachute might be hard to pick out in the darkness. As the meteors continued to fall, Anna went into a dive. The fiery surface rushed up to meet us as the falling rocks exploded on the ground.

Anna pulled up at the last second, the G-forces practically crushing. At the same moment, Anna engaged the retrothrusters, slowing us to a near stop in a matter of seconds. We now hovered over an empty spot of fungus that wasn’t consumed by flame. I realized that Anna meant to land here.

We descended to the ground, the fires burning brightly outside the windshield. Above, the sky seemed to be clear of further bombardments. Whether these had come from space, or had been shot like artillery from the Crater itself, I had no idea. We had to find
Perseus’s
escape pod, but it was hard to imagine it
not
landing somewhere in the flames.

We unstrapped ourselves and ran off the ship, taking the time to refill our canteens, grab some food, and load up on ammo.

I pressed the exit button, and when the door slid open, a wave of heat rushed inside, carrying with it the reek of charred fungal growth. I had to shield my eyes against the brightness of the flames. The sky above was dark, brooding, apocalyptic. We ran down the boarding ramp.

“I think it went down over there,” Anna said, pointing to our left.

The three of us ran away from the ship, carrying with us our weapons and packs.

From the sky came one final streak of fire.

“Down!” I yelled.

As we dropped to the ground, the meteor coursed downward, frighteningly fast...

...crashing right into
Orion.

The outward explosion threw us forward, a wave of heat licking my back. A thunderous boom echoed over the smoldering fires. I lay there a long moment before I even dared to move. I looked at the sky, fearing more stray meteors. But the air was velvet-black and empty.

I then turned to the look at what was left of
Orion.

Its hull was a smoking ruin, consumed by flame. Whether targeted, or just through horrible luck,
Orion
was gone, along with
Perseus,
which must have crashed somewhere nearby.

It was Michael, Anna, and me, alone in the Great Blight, thirty miles from Ragnarok Crater.

W
e climbed a hill not far from the wreckage of
Perseus.
The ship lay in a smoking ruin in the center of the flames. If anyone had been left on the ship, there was no way they had survived.

But there was still the escape pod, although from our vantage point, I couldn’t see it. We had to find it, which was easier said than done. The glare of the fires made it difficult to see anywhere beyond our immediate surroundings, and worse, standing on this hill made us targets for any of the
Radaskim
to see.

Finding our friends was more important than that issue, though. We had seen that pod fall, which meant there was a good chance they were out there now, looking for us.

“See anything?” I asked.

Anna pointed toward
Perseus.
“We should start by the ship.”

I hesitated. Just because the ship was over there didn’t mean the escape pod was, too. Walking over there would put us right in the center of the flames, and fires had a tendency to be unpredictable.

“They could be anywhere,” I said. “Even outside the fires.”

“They might have seen us land,” Michael said. “They could be walking to
Orion
right now, hoping to find us.”

Anna and I turned in
Orion’s
direction. The ship, red-glowing, was still being consumed by the flames, perhaps half a mile away. I strained my eyes, trying to see anything moving down there. I saw nothing but the dancing fires.

If they had landed in there, their priority would be to escape the flames, not search for us within them. Survival came first, as it had for us.

“If they made it, they would’ve gone outside the fires,” I said. “They don’t know that we saw the escape pod. For all they know, we’re heading for the Crater right now.”

Michael grunted. “Makes sense.”

“We could go back to those fires,” I said. “But I think if they’re anywhere, it’s not there.”

Anna hesitated. “No. Probably not. But if they think
you’re
in there...”

“I guess you have a point.”

“Try the radio again,” Michael said.

I raised the one radio we had between us. It was already on the group channel.

“Makara? Samuel? Anyone?”

As expected, there was no response.

“Maybe you’re right,” Anna said. “If we waste more time here, crawlers will swarm us. We need to head east, find somewhere to lie low...” She sighed. “It looks like we’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Won’t the crawlers be able to see us while we’re walking?” Michael asked. “Detect us, somehow?”

“I don’t see how we have a choice in that,” I said. “We just have to hope for the best.”

“If they’re around, this crash will draw them like flies,” Anna said. “We should get moving.”

“Lead on, then,” Michael said. “Both of you take point. I’ll keep an eye out behind.”

I made one last scan of the fires, making sure no one was walking down there. I saw nothing but the flames crackling in the night, burning more intensely than before. I became convinced, more than ever, that they weren’t here.

With that conviction, we started down the hill, heading due east.

***

T
he air cooled as we descended the hill and entered the glowing fields. In the distance, a molten radiance lit the horizon. It was hard to believe that beneath the surface there, Askala was watching. Waiting.

Full night had come, and the sky was a dark mass above. The light of the fires had been left behind, and the way was lit only by the luminescence of the fungus. We had thirty miles to go.

I stared out at the wide, glowing plain pockmarked with stands of alien trees. Besides those trees, the land was empty, and the only movement came from the warm, humid wind.

“We’re going too slow,” I said. “With the distance we have to go...we should be running.”

Both Michael and Anna looked at me. After a moment, each of them nodded.

So, we ran, our steps padding on the fungus. We kept a steady pace for about an hour, running between two hills, each one covered by thick forest. I felt we were exposed out in the open, that thousands of watchful eyes gazed at us from the cover of the trees.

After that hour passed, we began to walk again. I drank deeply from my canteen until it was only half full. As we caught our breath, I realized that this long distance on foot was only the beginning. Once we got to the Crater, we’d have to climb into the earth, through tunnels and caverns filled with monsters and magma. Assuming we passed that, then we had to deal with Askala. I still had no idea what to do when I got there.

The farther we moved from the crash site, the more hopeless it seemed. If the others were alive, surely they were moving in the same direction by now. But there would be no stopping until we reached our goal – it was either that or dying from exhaustion.

Fifteen minutes later, we increased our speed to a steady jog, moving more slowly than in our first stint. We’d gone anywhere from six to eight miles – not even a third of the distance to the Crater. It was already past 21:00, and assuming this same pace and no major obstacles, we’d be at Ragnarok Crater by 04:00 or so.

“It’s quiet,” Anna said.

“We can’t get this close just to let our guard down now,” I said.

Right after I’d said that, a gunshot sounded in the distance. It was impossible to tell where it had come from.

Anna drew her katana as Michael and I drew our handguns. We paused to listen. Several more gunshots were fired. The echoes reverberated between the hills and forest.

“It’s coming from the east,” Anna said.

We ran forward, toward the edge of a forest blocking our path. North, south, and east were all covered by the thick xenotrees, completely halting our advance. If we wanted to keep going east toward the gunshots, we’d have to go through these trees. I had a horrible feeling about it, but there was nothing else to be done. They were on the other side, and in trouble, and trying to go around the forest would take hours of backtracking.

I knew we didn’t have hours.

“Let’s get through quickly,” I said.

We entered the trees, weaving through the tangled undergrowth. The thin trunks and limbs glowed pink and purple, lighting our way. At first, we were able to just push through, but as we advanced, the forest thickened so much that it was almost impossible to proceed. It seemed incredible that the others had gone through this. In fact, they
couldn’t
have. They had to have gotten there another way.

Before I could mention this to Anna and Michael, several more gunshots sounded, followed by a high scream. It was
definitely
coming from the east, beyond the forest. Anna raised her blade high and brought it down on the encroaching undergrowth. Vines snapped with her precise cuts, spewing pink fluid.

The trees were close and ominous, as if trying to bar our path. Gunshots sounded from ahead, followed by the high shrieks of crawlers, just on the other side of the trees.

But our progress had come to a standstill. Anna hacked at the vegetation, one mighty swipe after another, until she could no longer even lift her blade.

Now, I was sure that the trees were closing in, their branches blocking every path of escape.

“Back,”
I said. “We can’t get through.”

We turned, but the path Anna had cut was all but gone. About thirty feet of thick, tangled growth stood between us and the clearing we had left.

Then, I heard the sound of voices – not from the east, but back to the west. A female voice was shouting, muffled through the trees.

“That
has
to be Makara,” Anna said.

“She was just on the other side!” Michael said. “We
heard
them.”

“Maybe she went back,” I said.  “There must be a path we missed.”

However, the vegetation was not going to let us through so easily. I took my Beretta, aiming it at a nearby tree trunk. When I fired, the trunk shuddered and bled pink goo. The tree gave just enough of an opening for us to push through a few more feet. Michael took my example and fired on another tree, right on its roots, while Anna slashed with her katana. Now awakened, the forest fought back with a vengeance. Trees closed in chokingly, pressing from every side, wrapping our arms with writhing vines.

From outside the trees, I heard voices. I realized they were trying to get to us. More gunshots came from that direction.

We pushed through, until at last we broke free. I tumbled to the fungus, scrambling up to see Makara, Samuel, and Ruth covered with scratches and dirt.

Anna and Michael came out from behind, all of us ending up on the ground and gasping for air by the light of the xenofungus.

“Why the
hell
did you go into those trees?” Makara asked.

“We heard you on the other side,” Anna said. “Gunshots.”

Samuel and Makara shared a glance.

“That wasn’t us,” Samuel said.

I looked around. Makara. Samuel. Ruth.

Julian was missing.

“Where...”

No one answered my question, and that was answer enough.

“He...didn’t make it,” Samuel said. “We got in the pod, and the door closed. He was on the wrong side.”

Makara and Ruth were quiet, saying nothing. Makara just stared at the ground.

“We could have waited,” Makara said. “We could have waited ten more seconds...”

“The door closed,” Samuel said. “It must have been automatic. None of us did it. The door closed, and we shot off. There was
nothing
we could have done.”

“I should have been the last one on. I...” Makara turned her face away, her eyes filling with tears. “It was so pointless. He didn’t even have a chance to fight.”

“It won’t be long until we all go to join him,” Michael said. “I guarantee you that. We need to keep it together for a few more hours at least. We need to find a way past this forest. We have a mission to finish.”

At last, Makara nodded. “I know that. We just need to keep going.”

“Keep going,” I said. “How is it you guys got to the other side of the forest, then back here so quickly?”

“We were never on the other side,” Samuel said.

“We heard you,” I said. “That’s why we went in.”

“Something was over there,” Anna said. “We all heard it.”