by West, Kyle
Grudge sat quietly with some of his Suns in a corner, sipping a cup of wine – the gang was no more, but the friendship among their members had continued. Meanwhile, the guitarists from New America began to play music, and from time to time, Julian’s sister would get up to sing. I never really knew the songs. There hadn’t been much time for music in my life. Still, it was lively, and seemed good to dance to.
“Come on,” Anna said, grabbing me by the hand.
Some space had been cleared in one of the pavilion’s corners, near where the band was set up. I noticed that Anna and I were the only ones dancing.
“I never really learned how to dance,” I said.
Anna smiled. “Me neither. Now’s a good time to learn then, huh?”
I didn’t feel too nervous about it. I was only happy, and happiness made it easy to dance.
“Just do this,” Anna said, placing my right hand in the small of her back. “And hold my left hand, over here...”
She moved her feet, slowly to the tempo of the music. Everyone quieted as all eyes turned on us. I felt a bit self-conscious. I just tried to time my steps with Anna, which was harder than it seemed. After a moment, though, I got the hang of it. We danced and turned with ease, almost becoming one.
“Not bad,” Anna said.
“You’re really graceful,” I said.
Her face reddened a bit. “Well...I kind of lied. I had a bit of practice. My dad, when he was alive...he showed me how to dance when I was little.”
I nodded. That must have been a long time ago.
We continued dancing until the song was over. Anna suddenly stopped, but I didn’t want her to. But everyone around us was clapping, and the band struck up another tune, with a faster beat.
I then realized that we weren’t done dancing, only that everyone else was coming to dance with us.
An hour went by in what seemed minutes. We were only stopped when Ashton interrupted us, pointing to the cake.
“Not to stop the party,” Ashton said, “but we non-dancers are getting a bit impatient staring at that cake.”
“Then have some!” I said.
Ashton laughed, and shook his head. “Bride and groom get the first bite. And make sure you feed her the first bite.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s just a thing,” he said. “Trust me.”
We stood around the cake. Ashton did the honors of cutting a rather large piece. We didn’t have cake in Bunker 108. I’d heard about it, seen it in movies, but no one ever actually made it. Most of the desserts we had were fruit-based, and were actually pretty good. But the way this cake even smelled was heavenly; the frosting was wavy and looked sticky. I noticed the cake itself was brown.
“It’s chocolate,” Anna said, with wonder.
I’d never eaten chocolate before – it wasn’t really native to the Wasteland, but apparently, they grew it in the Empire. Ashton put the cake on my plate, looking almost sad to let it go.
“I haven’t eaten chocolate in almost twenty years,” he said. “This alone is almost enough for me to forgive the old bastard.”
I took the cake and a fork. I partitioned off a small piece, and lifted it to Anna’s mouth. She took a bite that was both eager and delicate at the same time. I didn’t see how she managed that.
After she took her bite, she did the same for me. When the cake entered my mouth, an explosion of rich sweetness radiated from my taste buds. Words could not describe how good it tasted. If it weren’t for all the people there, I probably would have started stuffing my face at that moment.
Now that we had our cake, everyone else started to get theirs. The dancing was suspended for the moment while everyone devoured the sweet dessert.
We ate and danced late into the night. By the time people filtered out of the pavilion, the rain had ceased. It was a strange thing, having a wedding all the way out here. For the first time, I realized that there was nowhere for people to sleep. That was when I realized that people would be sleeping aboard both of the spaceships.
The air was warm, even after the rain. I followed the procession of people into the night.
“What now?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m really tired.”
“You’re not sleeping, yet!” Michael said, stepping outside the pavilion. “There’s still the honeymoon.”
“And where will this honeymoon take place?” Anna asked. “Everyone is sleeping on the spaceships!”
“We have something set up for you guys on the beach,” Michael said, giving a wink. “Come on.”
Michael turned to the crowd, telling them that we were going away for a while. Everyone laughed and cheered; Augustus and Ashton raised their cups in tandem. Alcohol, it seemed, had made them forget their differences for the moment.
Michael led us down the hill and away from the crowd streaming in to the two spaceships for the night. They waved as we walked away from them. We arrived at the ocean, and Michael led us across the sand.
“Where are you taking us?” I asked.
“Almost there,” he said. “Just another minute.”
We rounded the promontory that jutted out into the sea – the rock formation arched over the sand, leading to a beach on the other side. Set up under a stand of palm trees was another pavilion – smaller than the one we had used.
“This is it,” Michael said. “It’s all yours. You have all day tomorrow to enjoy it.”
“All day?” I said. “What will we do?”
Michael chuckled. “You’re about to find out.”
My cheeks burned as he turned and jogged away.
“Not much for subtlety, that one,” Anna said, kicking off her shoes and leaving them on the sand.
“Well...” I said. “Yeah.”
Anna smiled, facing the sea. She still wore her white dress, of course, but the veil had been lost somewhere on the way.
“They didn’t really plan this well,” she said. “Having me wear this beautiful dress on this beach.” She pulled up the train, to show me how the sand had worked its way between the fine fabric and sequins. “See?”
“I see that.”
We both turned to watch the waves, calmer now that the storm was over. The stars had come out in full, painting the sky with crystalline light.
“I’m going to change out of this,” she said. “Let’s sit by the water for a bit.”
She went into the pavilion. I kicked off my shoes and socks – the shoes were practically ruined from walking over the wet grass and sand. I took off my jacket and white dress shirt, following Anna into the pavilion.
The inside of the pavilion was covered thickly with fine carpets. A full-size bed filled with plush pillows and soft, luxurious covers dominated the space, all lit by an overhanging lamp.
“Where’d you find your clothes?” I asked.
“They left our stuff in here,” she said, pointing to a duffel bag filled with her clothes. “Yours is on the other side.”
I dug out a more comfortable pair of pants, and changed, leaving my dress clothes behind.
Anna looked at me before heading back outside. I followed her to the shoreline, to the edge of where the surf stopped and retreated to the vast sea.
We sat there, Anna sitting in front and leaning into me, our legs outstretched. The surf touched our feet, cold and dark.
We’d been sitting in silence for ten minutes, when she spoke.
“What do you think about, looking at those waves?”
I took a moment to think of an answer.
“I’m...just at peace, right now. I’m not really thinking of anything.” I squeezed her arm. “What about you?”
“I don’t know. It’s amazing, though. The sea. Each wave is like a generation. The ones that come after build on the ones that came before. Even as the greatest wave recedes, another rises to take its place.”
We sat there a while longer, watching the moon make its ascent. With it the tides rose, forcing us to get up and mov
e. I took Anna’s hand, making her face me.
We kissed under the stars and high moon, as the waves passed up the shoreline. When we broke, we walked back to the pavilion.
We undressed and lay on the bed together, and looked into each other’s eyes. I held her in embrace. I kissed her again, and we became one.
Chapter 26
Even after morning dawned, we continued to sleep. By midmorning, I finally forced myself up. I exited the pavilion to watch waves crash on the shoreline.
After ten minutes, Anna came out to join me, wearing a white tee shirt and shorts. Her hair was strewn by the strong wind.
“Good morning, husband,” she said.
“Good morning, wife.”
“I had to get that out of the way.” She paused. “I’m starving. Did they leave us out here without nothing?”
We went back to the pavilion to find an ice chest set against the leeward side. We must have missed it last night, in the darkness. I opened it, finding a jug of wine, next to some of the leftovers from last night’s meal.
“Guess that answers that,” I said.
We ate and spent the rest of the morning and afternoon together. Anna and I talked, about anything we could think of. From time to time, reality would cross my mind, like a dark cloud – what I had to do, or how this couldn’t last. Anna seemed to know when this happened, because she’d go quiet.
It was hard not to find myself thinking her way. Maybe she was right. Maybe there was a way for me to survive. I only had to do my job, and in the end, I might find a way to do it without dying.
I didn’t tell Anna what I was thinking. What was important was enjoying our one day together.
***
Dusk came at last. We lay on the beach, watching the stars appear one by one – just a few, and then hundreds.
“I wish I knew what they were called,” I said.
“There’s still time to learn.”
“Do you know them?”
“No. When you grow up without the stars, you don’t really think about them.”
The remains of the sunset were just a purple glow on the west. The stars were now full, bright, and spectacular. I felt like I could watch them for hours.
Anna pointed. “Look.”
It was a bright star, moving across the sky at a steady pace.
“Skyhome,” Anna said. “It’s so bright!”
“Wish we had a telescope,” I said. “It’d be great to see it up close.”
We watched Skyhome for another minute. I turned my attention to other stars.
“It’s changing,” Anna said. “Look!”
Skyhome brightened, dimmed, brightened again.
“That’s weird,” I said.
We continued watching Skyhome – over time, its brightness dimmed.
“What’s happening to it?” Anna asked.
“A trick of the light, maybe.”
Even though I said that, I suddenly got a very bad feeling.
“Come on. We need to find the others.”
We grabbed all our things and ran along the beach, back to the shoreline on the other side of the promontory. As we ran, Skyhome brightened, soon followed by falling streaks of light, streaming downward from above.
“What’s happening?” Anna asked, horrified. “It’s gone, isn’t it? Skyhome is gone!”
I looked up at the sky again – where once there had been one bright point of light, there were now two.
We reached the hill – the pavilion was no longer there, but Perseus was. Michael ran down the hill, as if coming out to meet us.
“Michael!” I said. “What’s going on?”
He stopped at the edge of the beach, staring upward as if he didn’t believe his eyes.
“Skyhome’s gone,” he said.
Dozens of lights streaked from the sky – pieces of the former sky city burning as they entered the atmosphere. I thought of all those people up there, how I had been there just two days before.
“We need to get everyone inside Perseus,” I said. “Is everyone still here? Did someone let Ashton know?”
Michael didn’t answer. From his silence, I knew something was wrong.
Ashton had been up there.
***
At first, we didn’t know how Skyhome fell, whether it was a chance collision with a stray piece of debris or rock, or something more nefarious. We knew it had to be something big, because the space city had torn in half.
Ashton had been up there, managing some business related to the sky city, when it was struck. Augustus had allowed him to use Orion to get up there.
Makara decided to go into space to survey the damage. Such a suggestion was dangerous – the amount of debris generated by Skyhome ripping apart would be huge. Makara thought there might be some clue about what had happened to Skyhome, and there was the possibility that Ashton had survived aboard the Orion.
If Ashton was gone, I didn’t know what we’d do.
Perseus broke through the upper atmosphere, and when we achieved orbit gravity loosened its hold. Everyone sat positioned in the bridge; Anna and I had to share a seat in order to give everyone else enough space to sit.
“Orion,” Makara began, for at least the sixth time. “Do you have a copy?”
She repeated this for the next five minutes as we orbited around Earth. At long last, the shattered remains of Skyhome came into view above the blue curve of the planet. Most of the colony was gone, burned in the atmosphere below. Only broken chunks were left behind
“Orion.” Makara’s voice had thickened. “Do you have a copy? This is Makara. This is Perseus. If anyone is alive out there...please respond.”
Silence was our only answer. Shredded metal and plastic swirled in a deadly, zero-g dance. Small remnants of the former city burned upon reentry above a blue-shining ocean.
Everyone was dead, destroyed in a single instant. It could have been an impact, but I knew the truth.
It was Askala.
“How did they get up here?” Anna asked.
No one answered, because no one knew. Maybe they had shot something. Was that beyond their capabilities? There were too many questions, too few answers.
“Can we track Orion?” Samuel asked. “Maybe they got out...”
“Orion had no tracker,” Michael said. “Sparks removed it.”
That was that, then. The only sliver of hope we had was that Ashton had escaped on Orion. If he had done so, he would have contacted us by now. We had no way to track him, so we could only assume the worst.
“Doesn’t Skyhome have escape pods?” Anna asked.
“Yes,” Makara said. “They would be on the surface by now. We’d have to search out their radio signal, and I have no idea what that signal would be.”
“Only Ashton would know that,” Anna said.
In the space of two days, my world had turned upside down. The Wanderer, dead. Now, Ashton was gone, too.
“He was a good man,” Samuel said. “Wise. Knowledgeable. He knew so much, not just about our mission and the xenovirus, but about life.”
To my side, Anna’s eyes watered with tears. Makara clenched a fist, no longer controlling the spacecraft.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
The bridge was quiet for a whole minute. There was no sound, no feeling but the shock. The idea of Ashton’s being dead was unimaginable.
“Sometimes, you lose someone so important,” Makara said, “so vital, that you wonder how you’re ever going to go on.” She wiped her eyes, and took up the controls. “That’s when you have to go on.” She nodded to Anna. “Get Augustus on the line. He needs to know.”
With shaking fingers, Anna opened the frequency.
“Augustus. You there?”
The Emperor responded shortly.
“If this is about the old man, he’s here in Nova Roma at the hospital.”
Everyone in the bridge started.
“What?” Makara yelled. “Why didn’t you call, you stupid...”
“Alright,” Makara said. “We’ll be there soon.”
“Park in Central Square,” he said. “And hurry.”
We left the shattered space city behind and ducked into the atmosphere.
***
We made landing in Central Square around midnight. Also parked in the square was the Orion, surrounded by the curious citizens of the Empire’s capital. Imperial soldiers kept the peace by holding the crowds back, also clearing space for our landing.
When Perseus touched down, everyone rushed off-ship, Makara taking the lead. We entered the warm night and were greeted by the pressing crowd. I didn’t understand why the crowd was so agitated, until I noticed that some of the buildings were in ruins.
Nova Roma, of course, had not recovered from the attack of dragons and crawlers it had suffered a few weeks prior. The people were obviously scared and in need of a leader – but Augustus was preoccupied with Ashton – Ashton, who could very well die, if he wasn’t already dead. We’d have no idea how bad it was until we got there.
“Come on,” Makara said.
She broke through the crowd, and people shouted questions at us in Spanish. Eventually, the crowd made way, and several of the soldiers pointed in the direction of the hospital. We knew the way from our time here before. Julian, along with Makara, led the rest of us onward.
We ran through the streets. Within a few minutes and various twists and turns, we found ourselves on the lawn in front of the hospital. The building looked rougher than the last time we’d seen it; several of the first-floor windows were shattered, their curtains billowing in the breeze. An entire corner in the northern section had crumbled, creating a cascade of rubble that buried the drive leading from the front doors. Perhaps a dragon had pummeled into it. Despite this, a few windows were lit on the second floor.
“There,” Makara said.
We ran inside the building. As we burst through the automatic doors, stuck open, a short woman behind the entry desk regarded us with widened eyes. We ignored her and found a stairwell down the right-hand hallway. Black and purple blood was still caked on the walls from our fight with the crawlers. There hadn’t been time for anyone to clean up the mess we’d made.