“No, we don’t,” Michael said. “I’m sorry, but we will do everything in our power to make sure everyone gets back inside unharmed.”
“No one gets eaten on my watch,” Rodger said.
The techs and engineers all looked at him with the same incredulous gaze, as if trying to decide whether he was joking or just stupid.
Michael resisted the urge to shake his head. “Any other questions?”
No one said a word—a good thing because Michael didn’t have the patience to deal with anyone else. He didn’t want to be out there any more than they did.
“Okay, get ready,” Michael said. “We’ll be there in about forty-five minutes. I have a few stops to make and need to grab some more gear.”
“Will you check on Sofia?” Magnolia asked. “I’m really starting to worry about her.”
“No need to worry,” said a voice.
Sofia Walters, the Cazador who had once been married to el Pulpo, stepped into the room wearing her Hell Diver armor.
Michael gave her a once-over, but the armor didn’t deceive him. She wasn’t ready to go back out there. Losing Rhino had broken her, and she could become a liability in the field.
“Can I speak to you a minute?” Michael asked her.
Sofia followed him into the passageway, and he shut the hatch behind them.
“I already know what you’re going to say, and I’m fine,” she said. “Not fine, but—”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. You’re not fine, but you can function.”
She raised a brow. “Something like that.”
“If you want to sit this out, you can,” Michael said.
“I need something to keep my mind off what happened to Rhino. If I stay another minute in those dark quarters, I’m going to lose my mind.”
Michael paused, unsure what to say.
“You need more boots on the ground to protect our engineering team,” she said. “I won’t let you down, I promise.”
She was right about him needing more security out there.
“Okay, you’re in,” he said, “but don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t, Commander.”
They parted ways, and Michael returned to the upper decks. His first stop was the medical ward. Arlo, Edgar, and the militia soldier injured by the Siren in engineering were all sleeping in their beds. Two medical staffers worked inside the dimly lit room, moving from monitor to monitor.
Edgar raised a hand at Michael, and Michael raised his robotic hand back.
“Hang in there, brother,” he said. Then he hurried off to the launch bay to check on their new friends. Two more medical technicians were inside, dressed in hazard suits. They worked on Pedro, who sat on a stool with his shirt off.
The Siren had done a number on him, leaving multiple gashes across his muscular flesh, but the tech was applying nanotech gel to the deepest of the wounds, ensuring a much faster recovery.
Pedro had risked his life to save his people, proving that they weren’t weak pacifists after all. Pedro, at least, could hold his own, having killed an adult male Siren with the leg of a cot.
Timothy had already spoken to him, and he was mad. Furious, in fact. But Michael understood his feelings. They had locked Pedro and his people inside the launch bay, inadvertently turning them into bait. Not the best way to start building trust.
“Timothy, have you explained to Pedro what is happening?” Michael asked over the headset.
“Not yet, Commander.”
“Please explain to his people that we’re touching down to make repairs, but do your best to keep them calm and assure them everything is fine.”
“You got it, sir.”
The hologram emerged inside the launch bay, in front of Pedro. Michael frowned and then returned to his quarters. Another message crackled over his headset.
“Radiation levels are in the yellow zone,” Timothy confirmed. “Biological scanners are still offline, but I’ll do a visual scan with our cameras once we get into position.”
“What about exhaust plumes?” Les replied over the comms.
“No exhaust plumes detected on the surface, Captain.”
On the way back to the lower decks, Michael grabbed his duty belt and a bag of tools from his quarters. His final stop was to get Cricket off the charging station.
When he got there, he hit a button to raise the crossbars. Hover nodes glowed red as the chirping robot flew away from the charging station.
“You ready for some more fun, buddy?” Michael said. He tapped his wrist computer to link with Cricket. Several more chirps echoed down off the bulkheads.
“Don’t get too excited,” Michael said.
He led the drone back down to the compartment where Rodger and Magnolia were still bickering.
“What’s this place called, again?” Rodger asked. “Barbarian?”
“Barabados, man! Do you ever listen?” Magnolia said.
Rodger slapped a magazine into his rifle and looked up as Michael came through the hatch. “Hey, Commander,” he said. “Do you think there are going to be those bone-beast thingies down there?”
“I don’t know, Rodgeman,” Michael said.
A technician still suiting up looked over. “Bone beasts?”
“He’s kidding,” Magnolia said, darting Rodger a warning glare.
The bulkheads groaned, distracting everyone during the last moments of the descent. Lightning slashed the sky outside the portholes.
Another blue glow filled the compartment as Timothy’s hologram emerged behind a pile of coiled cables.
“The cameras confirm that the landing zone is free of hostiles,” he said. “We’re going to land on an old runway, but keep your eyes peeled, as they say. There’s nothing in the archives about this place, besides a map.”
Timothy nodded at Cricket, who chirped back.
“Touchdown in T-minus sixty seconds,” said the AI.
The hatch opened again, and another man in armor walked in. He ducked under the overhead and into the light.
Michael should have known that Captain Mitchells wasn’t going to sit this out.
“What do you say we get the damn thrusters back online so we can go home,” he said with a half grin.
It was the first smile Michael had seen on him in days.
“Prepare for landing,” Timothy said.
The turbofans held them just above the ground as the legs extended. There was a slight jolt as the ship touched down on the tarmac.
Michael looked outside. A dark, hellish world surrounded the airship—broken runways, a collapsed central terminal, and a dozen debris piles that had once been hangars.
This place was no different from most of the places Michael had seen. Not a square inch spared from the bombs over 250 years ago.
He opened the hatch, raised his laser rifle, and prayed that Timothy was right about this place being free of hostiles—especially the killer machines.
FIVE
Lightning sizzled through the bulge of clouds above the demolished airport. The armored shape of a Hell Diver with a robotic arm trotted over to the edge of the runway.
Magnolia stepped up to the ladder, keeping her night-vision optics off. She was second in line to climb down, standing right behind Sofia.
No one knew what Michael had said to Sofia behind the closed hatch, but he had let her join the team on this mission.
Magnolia hoped it was the right decision. With a heavy heart, she watched Sofia descending the rungs. The young woman had endured much in her short life, and after finally securing her freedom from el Pulpo, she had lost Rhino.
As much as Rodger annoyed Magnolia, seeing the loss Sofia was dealing with reminded her that she loved Rodger, even though she hadn’t let herself fall in love with him. She had thought she lost him back in Florida years ago, and now they had a
second chance together.
Hell Divers rarely got second chances. Seeing Sofia lose Rhino made Magnolia realize she had to let her guard down with Rodger if she wanted to embrace love.
She also had to stop worrying about Sofia right now. There would be plenty of time to help her on the ride home and after they returned to the islands. But first, they had to make it back home.
Near the bottom of the ladder, Rodger held up a hand to help Magnolia. She took it and jumped onto the cracked asphalt. The militia soldiers came next. For all three men, this was their first time setting foot in the wastes.
“So this is what it’s like,” Banks said.
“Damn, what is that?” Sofia asked, pointing toward the airport.
Magnolia brought her rifle scope up and zoomed in on several hangars on the eastern edge of the main hub.
“ ‘Damn’ is right,” she murmured.
A massive old-world airplane sat inside one of the hangars, whose metal walls had protected it from the elements. There didn’t appear to be any windows left on the plane, and the paint was gone, but the shell was there and both wings were still attached.
“I think that’s a jumbo jet,” Rodger said. “They used to ferry people around really fast—much faster than the airships.”
“That one doesn’t look too fast,” Magnolia said. This was the first passenger plane she had ever seen on a dive. Most planes had crashed during the early days of the war, some of them falling from the sky after EMP blasts or after the computer virus that disabled their electronics.
Rodger looked all around. “I wonder if there are any fighter jets here.”
“Come on, guys, we’re not here for the sightseeing,” Les said, waving the three divers after him. “Let’s get a perimeter set up.”
The militia and the Cazadores were already doing that. Banks used hand signals to position his men. Neither of the Cazador warriors could speak English, but they understood his gestures.
They fanned out across the dirt field, their spears ready to skewer anything that moved. The militia soldiers brought up their rifles, the barrels roving back and forth as their virgin eyes took in the sights.
Michael tapped his wrist computer, and Cricket flew above the divers, its red hover nodes glowing in the dark.
They all had the robot to thank for getting them out of Rio de Janeiro alive. It wasn’t the first machine to save Magnolia’s life. Timothy had protected her several times.
But that didn’t mean she trusted robots. Plenty had tried to kill her, and as she looked out over the desolate terrain, she found herself wondering whether any defectors were out there hunting.
“Come on, Mags,” Rodger said.
Les led the group around the hull of the ship, toward the stern. Magnolia switched on her night-vision optics and glassed the area.
A mound of rubble was all that remained of the control tower, and most of the other structures were no better. Pockmarks in the runway painted the scene of what had happened during the war.
It wasn’t a nuke that had taken out this place, but rather smaller weapons that leveled the concourse and cratered the runways.
The machines hadn’t quite finished the job, though, leaving one airplane behind.
“Timothy, you seeing anything out here besides us?” Les asked over the public comm.
“Negative, Captain.”
“And no exhaust plumes?”
“Correct, sir.”
Magnolia glanced over her shoulder. The militia and the Cazador soldiers continued their patrol around the perimeter of Discovery. The section of flat runway was the perfect place to put down, with a panoramic view of the surrounding fields and buildings.
To get to the airship, a hostile would have to cover major ground and make it past waves of gunfire and the grenade launcher strapped to Cricket’s mechanical arm.
Unless the beasts came from underground . . .
Magnolia scanned for any unexplained mounds of earth like those she had seen back at the fuel outpost. She shuddered at the thought of seeing the monstrous two-headed snakes again.
Her scans still came back empty—nothing but decaying buildings, and mutant vegetation growing out of the cracked dirt fields. The wind was picking up, though, and a rainstorm was brewing in the east.
Alfred and his three technicians set down their crates and pulled out the folded-up scaffolding they would need to access the banks of thrusters.
At Michael’s command, Cricket picked up the folded platforms and flew them up to the circular thruster tubes protruding just below the two tail fins.
“Timothy, we’re in position at the stern,” Les said. “Engage ladders.”
Two aluminum ladders clanked down to the ground. Alfred grabbed a rung and looked at Michael, then Les.
“Good luck,” Michael said.
Footsteps sounded behind them, and Magnolia turned to see Sofia walking out on the cracked runway with her assault rifle.
“See something?” Magnolia asked.
Sofia peered through the scope, then lowered the rifle. “I thought I did, but I guess it was nothing.”
“Don’t go too far,” Michael called out.
Magnolia stayed at the edge of the runway, searching the rubble piles for signs of life. She finally spotted the first creature: a beetle the size of a shoe.
The purple chitinous head emerged from a hole in the dirt, antennae waving back and forth, before it ducked back into its lair.
The howling wind picked up. A vortex swept across the dry fields, whipping up a cloud of dust. Grit pelted her visor, and the first fat drops of rain spattered on her helmet.
The wind had exposed something in the dirt between the runway and the hangar. She set off to examine it.
“Hey, hold up, Mags,” Rodger said.
He trotted over, and they squatted down by what looked like bones. Most of them were covered in dirt, but the skull was exposed. She nudged it with her rifle barrel.
“Holy hog balls,” Rodger breathed.
Magnolia stared at the chipped and cracked eyeless skull. This wasn’t human. It was Siren.
She slung her laser rifle and brushed away the dirt with her gloves, exposing more of the skeletal remains. Rodger bent down to help while Sofia watched from the runway.
A few minutes later, they had unearthed most of the skeleton, including the wing bones of a male Siren.
“Wow,” Rodger said, standing.
Magnolia remained on her knees. The remains had been here for years, maybe longer, judging by the weathering of the skull.
Michael opened a private channel to Magnolia and Rodger. “What are you two doing over there?” he asked.
“We found the bones of a male Siren,” Magnolia replied. “It’s been dead a good while, but better keep an eye on the sky.”
Michael sent out a heads-up over the public channel.
“More of those things?” Banks said.
“I’ll redirect my cameras,” Timothy said. “I’ll let you know immediately if I spot anything on the feeds.”
“Gee, thanks,” Banks deadpanned. “That makes me feel so much better.”
“Timothy, do our records show any ITC facilities on this island?” Les asked.
“Negative, Captain. My guess is, that Siren flew here many years ago in search of food.”
“So what killed it, then?” Banks asked. “I doubt it was starvation.”
The screaming wind died down, and they heard Cricket chirping away as he worked on the scaffolding. The robot used one arm to attach the platform around the left bank of thrusters, and the other arm to secure it. Alfred helped from the ladder while the other techs and engineers waited on the ground.
Magnolia left the Siren’s bones and went back to the stern with Rodger.
While the other divers stood sentry, Magnolia stole
a moment to check on Sofia, who was staring out over the bleak landscape.
“How you doing?” Magnolia asked.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Magnolia wanted to give her a hug, but now wasn’t the time. That didn’t mean they couldn’t talk, though.
“He gave his life to protect what he believed in—a home where our two societies can live in peace,” Magnolia said.
“There’s more to the story than that, and I’m going to find out what it is.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Magnolia replied.
Much had happened back at the Vanguard Islands since they departed, and the Hell Divers had only a piece of the puzzle. Les had kept most of what he knew, including King Xavier’s condition, to himself.
She was starting to worry that it might be worse than they all thought.
“I just hope we get home before his burial at sea,” Sofia said.
“We’ll be home before you know it.”
Sofia finally looked over at Magnolia. Though she couldn’t see through the mirrored visor, Magnolia knew that her friend was crying.
A gust slammed into them, knocking Magnolia back a step. Sofia slid a foot before digging her boots in.
“Watch out!” one of the techs yelled.
The top crate on a stack of three toppled over, scattering the contents in the dirt. Alfred descended the ladder, battling the rising gale.
Static broke over the comm channel. “That storm is picking up and heading right for our location,” Eevi reported from the bridge. “Looks like we can expect fifty-mile-per-hour winds and heavy rain.”
As they picked up the tools, one of the engineers said to Les, “Captain, maybe we should consider pulling everyone back inside for now.”
“Or maybe we should get out of here while we can,” suggested a tech. “Use the turbofans to get us away from the storm.”
Les looked at the sky in all directions. “Ensign Corey, how long until the worst of it hits us?” he asked.
“We’ve got about forty-five minutes if we’re lucky.”
Les seemed to think on it another few seconds, then said, “We’ll keep working for now, then head inside if it gets really bad, but it’s too late to flee. We’d never make it with the turbofans alone—we need those thrusters online.”
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