Allegiance

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  The hull rattled from a nearby peal of thunder.

  Les took them off autopilot and manually kept the ship steady while it received Cricket. He watched the robot on his screen, and when it was safely inside, he put the ship back on auto.

  Les, Magnolia, Rodger, and Michael had gone through detox along with General Santiago, a lieutenant named Alejo, and a third soldier named Ruiz. And now that they had the drone, and Timothy had dropped the damaged Cazador troop transport and the remaining fuel tanker back onto the deck of Star Grazer, the hard part was over.

  Les still wasn’t sure they had taken on enough fuel for the journey back to the Vanguard Islands. If not, the trip had been a waste of lives and equipment. The Cazadores had suffered ten casualties from a team of sixteen and lost one of their tankers.

  The mission had also cost Discovery. On his screen, he pulled up the damage assessment from the storm and the battle. They had damage across multiple sectors of the ship, from both lightning and random shots out of a flailing machine gun when they lowered toward the surface. But the ship was still operational, and Les was just happy they hadn’t lost any divers.

  “Timothy, transfer the data from Cricket to the briefing room,” Les said. “Layla, you have the bridge.”

  He caught up with the divers outside the launch-bay doors. Some were watching through the windows as the drone went through detox. Alfred and three technicians, all in hazard suits, sprayed the robot with chemicals.

  Rodger and Magnolia sat farther down the passage, leaning against a bulkhead and talking quietly. Seeing Les, they both stood.

  “Captain on deck,” Magnolia said.

  Michael, Edgar, Sofia, Arlo, and Alexander all turned away from watching the robot’s cleaning ritual.

  “Where are the Cazadores?” Les asked.

  “Our militia team is with them in the med bay,” Michael said. “Ruiz got hurt.”

  Les ordered Timothy to have the Cazadores escorted to the briefing room. Then he told the divers to follow him. When they got there, Timothy was already inside. His hologram cast a glow over the long table and dozen chairs.

  Three militia soldiers showed up a moment later with General Santiago and Lieutenant Alejo. Les had never seen the old soldier without a helmet. He had pale skin, a thick head of brown hair the color of his short beard, and only one ear.

  “Captain Mitchells,” Santiago said in his thick accent. “How are you?”

  “Bien,” Les said, using Spanish as a sign of respect. “¿Cómo está usted?”

  The general’s reply made no sense to Les, so Lieutenant Alejo took over. “Captain Mitchells, General Santiago says he is grateful for your support.”

  Alejo spoke nearly perfect English, which told Les he was like Rhino, a survivor whom el Pulpo had captured from a bunker or shelter and enslaved.

  “I’m glad you speak English,” Les said. “Maybe you can explain to me and to my divers what the hell those snakes were.”

  The divers all remained standing behind their chairs.

  Alejo and Santiago both looked around at the unsmiling faces that far outnumbered them. And while the general couldn’t understand Les, he couldn’t miss his angered tone. But Les didn’t care. He was sick of these people keeping secrets that endangered lives.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “We call them the oil serpents,” Alejo said. “They live in the old pipeline here, but they rarely venture this far.”

  “And you didn’t think to warn us about them?” Michael said, stepping up beside Les.

  Alejo glanced at the diver as if sizing him up. “Like I said, they don’t usually venture to the outpost. I guarantee, whatever caused that damage and killed our crew was something else.”

  Les searched the man’s face for a lie but saw none. “We’re going to find out,” he said.

  Alejo translated to Santiago, who nodded.

  “Have a seat,” Les said, gesturing toward the chairs. “Timothy, pull up the footage.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  The divers and Cazadores sat, and the AI walked around the table, massaging his neatly trimmed beard while they waited for the first footage from Cricket. Les hadn’t even asked Timothy what he had discovered, but he hoped it was enough to solve the mystery of whatever happened to the facility and its crew.

  The footage transferred to the main screen, and everyone scooted their chairs so they could see. Timothy walked up to the wall-mounted monitor.

  “Cricket was able to access the tower directly, through a broken hatch on the east side,” he said. “What you are seeing is from directly after the drone entered.”

  The robot’s new cameras had switched to night vision. Its hover nodes allowed it to fly through the open room, and the multiple cameras provided a nearly panoramic view of the space on multiple smaller screens.

  “Looks like a living space,” Michael said. He pointed at the bottom-right box on the monitor and told Timothy to pause the frame. Sure enough, there were several bunks, and a bank of radio equipment in the corner.

  “How many men did you have posted here?” Les asked.

  “Probably twelve,” Alejo said. “Maybe a bit more, but I don’t have the information on me at the moment.”

  Cricket continued into another room, whose floor was covered with puddled water. Les had hoped they might find a survivor somewhere, until he saw the broken hatch. Anyone inside here was dead.

  The robot hovered into a common area that looked like a mess hall. Cans of food and drinking glasses were scattered across the surface. A plate seemed to be moving in place.

  “Zoom in on that table,” Les said.

  The camera captured an image that made his stomach churn. Hundreds of red maggot-looking larvae were eating whatever rotting food was on the plate.

  Cricket pushed onward, but there were no bodies. The divers were getting visibly anxious.

  “Where are the corpses?” Michael asked.

  “Would you like me to fast-forward?” Timothy said.

  Les held up a hand. “No, I want to see everything you found.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  Cricket hovered through a storage room that had been ransacked and was now overrun with more of the red insect larvae as well as some wiry bluish worms. It went on into more sleeping quarters.

  Hatches sealed off the glass windows in the next room, which seemed to be some sort of command center. Several chairs faced a display of computer equipment.

  On the floor, a mug had fallen and shattered. The drone turned and moved through a passage where Les saw the first signs of a struggle.

  He had expected to see the holes from laser bolts but instead found long scratch marks and spattered gore along the walls.

  “This is where Cricket found the crew,” Timothy said.

  The robot buzzed around a corner, passing over a steel door that had been battered down. A bathroom came on-screen, with showers on the far wall, toilets, and sinks.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Michael said.

  Cricket shined a light on the ceiling over the showers and then on a wall around another corner. Several corpses were plastered to the tiles.

  “Sirens,” Les whispered.

  Alejo shook his head. “No,” he gulped.

  “Sirens didn’t do this,” said the AI. “Actually, there is no evidence of their being here at all.”

  The beam raked over what looked like dried skin manually stretched over human bones.

  “Holy Siren shit,” Magnolia breathed, cupping her hand over her mouth. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Les swallowed hard at the ghastly images.

  Several human eyeballs, noses, and lips had been stitched onto a skin blanket that was then stretched over a frame of limb bones. It looked a bit like a worn and wrinkled map.

  “Defectors,” Le
s said.

  “I don’t think the machines did this, either,” Timothy said.

  Cricket hovered into another room, whose hatch had also been broken off. The light hit a balcony and two more displays of skin stretched over human bones. Unlike the earlier remains, these sculptures were hardly recognizable after exposure to the elements.

  The remains reminded Les of a scarecrow in a book he had read as a kid.

  Then it dawned on him. These weren’t sculptures.

  They were a warning.

  He glanced to the two Cazador officers to see their reaction.

  To his surprise, General Santiago seemed uncharacteristically agitated, as if he had seen something like this before. He turned to Alejo and said something in a hushed voice.

  “All right,” Les said. “Shut the footage off, Timothy.”

  The screen went dark.

  Les put his hands on the table and looked at the two Cazadores in turn.

  “Before you return to your ship, one of you is going to tell me what the hell did that to your comrades. No more secrets.”

  Alejo translated to Santiago, who began speaking fast.

  Les looked to Alejo, waiting.

  Santiago spoke faster, growing more agitated.

  “Well?” Rodger said. “Someone going to tell us what turned those people into human scarecrows?”

  “So, I’m not the only one,” Les said.

  “Scarecrows are supposed to warn birds away, right?” Magnolia said.

  The general looked at Les, raised a hand, and then pointed at his chest.

  “What’s he saying, damn it?” Les asked.

  Alejo didn’t seem to want to explain.

  “What did that?” Les said. “Spit it out!”

  The lieutenant hesitated for another moment before saying, “We did.”

  FIFTEEN

  Magnolia shivered in her bunk. The images of framed human-skin canvases were seared in her mind. Rodger sat in the bunk across from her, his knees pulled up to his chest under a blanket.

  “I really want to know what the hell Lieutenant Alejo meant when he said ‘we’ did this,” she said.

  “Maybe one of the guys living on the outpost got cabin fever and decided to turn his pals into upholstery,” he replied. “I’m sure a few divers thought about doing that to me back in the day.”

  “Not funny, Rodge.”

  “We’ll find out soon, I hope.”

  “I’m guessing they’re still talking, since we haven’t lowered to drop them off on Star Grazer or climbed above the storm yet.”

  She rested her head and tried to calm her beating heart. She should be sleeping but was still riding high on adrenaline from an eventful day.

  Just when she thought she was going to get some answers in the briefing room, Les had kicked out all the divers except Michael. It left her and the others wondering what secrets the Cazadores had kept from them this time.

  Even with a vault full of records, there was still much they didn’t know about these people and their past.

  Rodger groaned. “First the snakes, then whatever bizarre, ghoulish stuff we saw in the tower, and we’re not even halfway to our target yet. Now I’m kind of wishing I hadn’t stowed away on the Sea Wolf, but I couldn’t let you come alone.”

  “You were supposed to be guarding X.”

  Rodger gave her a wry smile. “Mags, did you somehow miss seeing that six-foot-five badass that’s guarding him? I’m pretty sure he’s safe with Rhino. Guy is pure muscle.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but he could still use more eyes with all the enemies he has back at the islands. For the record, you don’t have to come on this mission once we get to the target.”

  “Mags, you can’t get rid of me,” he said with an extended grin. “I’d ride the back of a mutant whale if you were on it.”

  Magnolia forced a smile back, but she wasn’t in the mood for romance, which was what Rodger had in mind, judging by his gaze.

  She pulled the blanket up over her bra.

  “You shouldn’t have come, Rodge. X needed your help, and I can take care of myself.”

  Rodger seemed a bit taken aback by her response, and for that she was sorry. After all, he had helped save her on the surface. Who could say what might have happened if he hadn’t ridden the cable down to help.

  “Look, it’s not that I don’t want you here,” she said. “I just worry about X.”

  “I understand. With flawless hindsight, I see that I should have stayed behind. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Rodger laid his head back on the pillow. “We’d better try and get some sleep,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” said a voice.

  Michael’s head poked through the open hatch.

  Wearing jumpsuit and armor, he looked ready to dive.

  Rodger was wearing nothing but tight-fitting shorts similar to those he had worn in the sky arena. He hopped out of bed and stretched, his face distorting from trying to suppress a yawn.

  “Man, what’s going on now?” he moaned.

  Michael looked away from Rodger. “Rads and Sirens, man! Get some clothes on and meet me on the bridge.”

  Magnolia laughed and threw off her blanket as soon as Michael had closed the hatch. She didn’t mind giving Rodger a quick peek. He deserved that much.

  Rodger swallowed and pushed his glasses up.

  “Your hands are shaking,” she said.

  “What?” he said. Then he put his hands behind his back. “Oh, sorry.”

  Magnolia walked over to him in her underwear, kissed him on the lips, and then left him standing there, quivering, while she changed.

  They met Michael on the bridge a few minutes later. The other divers were there, too, but General Santiago and Lieutenant Alejo were gone.

  Acid rain continued pounding against the portholes of the bridge.

  “All right, listen up,” Les said. “We’ve got a massive storm front bearing down on us, so we’re going to stay below it and follow Star Grazer east and south, the rest of the way to Rio de Janeiro.”

  Timothy nodded and said, “Ready to lower the Cazadores back to their ship, Captain.”

  “Get it done.”

  The airship began to descend toward the warship on the seas.

  “So, what’s this situation?” Rodger said. “The storm?”

  “No,” Les said. “The skinwalkers.”

  “What?” Magnolia asked.

  Les walked over to the portholes.

  “Apparently, there are more Cazadores than we thought,” he said. “The defectors and mutant life-forms aren’t the only things we have to worry about out here.”

  Timothy joined Les at the windows and whispered something that she couldn’t make out. The captain nodded at the AI.

  “Lieutenant Brower, you have permission to fire on my mark,” Les said.

  “Fire at what?” Magnolia asked.

  Les kept his gaze out the porthole, his hands cupped behind his back. She crossed the room to join him with the other divers.

  “Mark,” Les said.

  A thump sounded belowdecks, and a missile streaked away. The vapor trail curved away from the ship and over the ocean. It hit the central tower of the outpost a moment later, a bright explosion blooming in the darkness.

  The fiery blast lit up the tower as it collapsed into a pile of debris. Hunks of glowing shrapnel rained down onto the coastline.

  “Fire again, Lieutenant,” Les said.

  Another missile roared away from the ship, this time going past the flames of the tower. Two more beats passed before it exploded.

  “Is that the fuel station?” Magnolia whispered.

  Layla looked at her screen. “Both targets destroyed, Captain.”

  “Good,” Les said
. He returned to his captain’s chair. “Now we can focus on the real mission.”

  Magnolia stared out the windows, watching the distant orange glow. “What if we need to come back here for fuel?” she asked.

  Les tabbed his screen, not looking up. “We won’t ever be coming back here. The location was compromised, and we can’t allow the precious fuel to fall into enemy hands.”

  Magnolia recalled Santiago’s words about his people being responsible for what happened in the tower.

  The skinwalkers weren’t a new group of humans on the surface. They were another faction of Cazadores that had split off and destroyed Bloodline.

  “Timothy, set the course to Rio de Janeiro,” Les said. “Time to see what’s really waiting for us there.”

  * * * * *

  A day had passed since Discovery and Star Grazer departed, and Rhino was going crazy with worry about Sofia. In less than a week, she would arrive at the target and jump from the sky to look for survivors and possibly battle the metal gods.

  Rhino would bet his monthly rations that no one was alive there. If the metal gods had intercepted the transmission, that put everyone at risk and could result in a Jamaica-style shit storm or worse.

  He tried not to think about Sofia on the ride from the capitol tower to Elysium.

  With the loss of the fuel outpost Bloodline and the decimation of their fleet in the battle for the islands, things weren’t looking good for their once powerful armada.

  If his subordinates knew the truth about the Lion and her crew, he would have enough swords sticking out of his back to get mistaken for a bone beast. Worse, he still hadn’t recruited for the Cazador team X wanted.

  The ride from the capitol tower to Elysium was long, giving him plenty of time to think about it. There were so many places he would rather be. In bed with Sofia, for instance, or at one of the ale shacks where he could soak his worries into submission—even the trading-post rig that he so despised.

  The thought had given him an idea.

  The only surviving member of the Barracudas lived there now. Mac had retired from service after multiple injuries all but killed him on a mission six years ago, long before Rhino took over the team. It had been a while since he last saw his old friend, but no matter. Mac was someone he could trust.