Silver Saint

Fourteen: Scars

//Report: Quinn, Jackson.

//The interior of a dropship.

//Designation: Seraphim 1.

//Airspace over the Grand Canyon.

//Two hours later.

//Resume log.

"Eyes up, folks!"

The call came from the front of the cockpit. I glanced up from the cards in my hands to see Carver had swiveled his chair toward us expectantly, pushing his mirrored sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to make eye contact with me.

"Thank god," Kedrick sighed. He tossed a handful of cards to the deck, abandoning the game of solitaire he'd been struggling with. "This game is impossible."

"Are we in American airspace yet?" I inquired.

"Airspace?" Lucas smirked. "Jax, we crossed that border an hour ago! We're here."

"About time," Amani agreed. She stood up, scattering the small house she'd constructed out of stolen cards. "You can have these back."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Kedrick barked.

I stepped toward the front of the cockpit, peering out through the canopy to stare down at the landscape below.

The view from Seraphim 1's cockpit was both breathtaking and utterly horrifying at the same time.

The first thing I saw was stone. The landscape was like nothing I'd ever seen before, a vast desert of red rock that seemed to shift like a crimson ocean, consuming the landscape. The rising sun at our backs splashed across this stony canvas, painting the world in an even deeper shade of red.

In the decades following the thaw of the nuclear winter that defined the Age of Steel Skies, the western United States had undergone a catastrophic transformation. The gradual return of sunlight, coupled with the long-lasting ecological damage from radiation, had triggered a period of rampant desertification. What had once been distinct arid regions-the Mojave, Great Basin, and Sonoran deserts-had merged into an expansive wasteland that came to be known as the Southwestern Wastes. Stretching from the southern reaches of California and Arizona to the northern borders of Nevada and Utah, the desert swallowed entire ecosystems, leaving behind a barren, windswept expanse of sand and cracked earth. This new megadesert, punctuated by sporadic, toxic salt flats and ghostly remnants of pre-war settlements, extended as far north as the Grand Canyon, which had become a desolate chasm devoid of plant life. Harsh winds carried scathing dust storms across the desert, and temperatures soared during the day, plummeting to freezing levels at night. For decades, the Southwestern Wastes had been a near-impenetrable barrier to human life.

But not to mechs.

The Grand Canyon stretched out below us, a natural wonder now twisted by industrial scars. The vibrant hues of the canyon walls-deep reds, oranges, and streaks of white-seemed muted by the creeping spread of metal and concrete that marred the landscape.

At the canyon's heart lay The Forge, an industrial monstrosity embedded into the very rock. The facility clung to the stone like a parasite, its metallic pathways winding up the walls and sprawling across the canyon floor. Massive smokestacks pierced the sky, their plumes of smoke blotting out patches of sunlight. The air seemed to shimmer with heat and pollution, the sheer intensity of the manufacturing operation palpable even at this distance.

The main complex was a labyrinth of towering factories and dense infrastructure, an amalgamation of harsh angles and jutting pipes. These conduits, some large enough to carry mechs, snaked across the landscape, feeding coolant and raw materials into the insatiable hunger of Axion's war machine. On the far end of the base, near the canyon rim, enormous satellite dishes gleamed under the sun, their massive parabolic structures pointed skyward.