Warriors

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Better get to it, then,” Alfred said. Clipping a rope to his harness, he set up the ladder to the first scaffold that was complete. Cricket had moved over to the right bank of thrusters, to assemble the platform for the other techs and engineers to use.

  Magnolia moved closer to the airship. The techs and engineers were arguing about who would join Alfred.

  “Screw it, I’ll go,” said a voice.

  Magnolia didn’t recognize it over the wind but figured it was Michael.

  She was wrong.

  Les wrapped a tool belt around his waist and slung a coil of wiring around an arm.

  “Watch my back,” he said to Michael.

  The tall former engineer, Hell Diver, and now captain moved quickly up the rungs. He had worn many hats, always putting everyone before his own safety.

  Another twenty minutes passed before the acid rain really started dumping. Cricket swayed slightly as it worked on the other scaffold.

  Alfred and Les had removed the access panel for the left bank of six thrusters and were busy pulling out the fried wiring.

  Magnolia wasn’t sure what they had to do, but she hoped they could do it quickly. The storm front was moving in fast. Lighting forked from the bulging clouds rolling across the island.

  “Michael, command Cricket to help us,” Les said. “Screw the right bank. We need to focus on getting the left bank up and running!”

  Michael tapped his wrist computer, and the drone hovered back to the first thruster to work with Alfred and Les.

  The public comm channel crackled to life again. “Commander Everhart, this is Banks. Your team might want to take a look at our view on the starboard side of the ship.”

  “Rodger and Sofia, stay here,” Michael said. “Magnolia, with me.”

  The two divers ran around the stern, pelted by sheeting rain. A gust slammed into them as they made their way toward the bow.

  “Timothy, you seeing anything on your cameras?” Les asked over the open channel.

  “Negative, sir.”

  Magnolia caught up with two of the militia soldiers. Banks stood halfway between the airship and the hangar with the jumbo jet, looking up at the swollen clouds.

  “I don’t see anything,” Michael said.

  Magnolia brought her scope up for a scan but couldn’t see anything, either. She switched to infrared, apparently the same moment Michael did.

  “What the hell . . .” he said.

  Magnolia tried to make sense of the readings. The entire skyline seemed alive with red dots, but that was impossible . . .

  “What do you guys see?” Les asked over the comm.

  “I’m not sure, sir,” Michael replied. “It could be Sirens, but I don’t think so.”

  The two Cazador warriors came running around the bow, talking in Spanish.

  “Timothy, you seeing what we’re seeing?” Magnolia asked.

  “Yes, it’s very odd,” he replied. “I believe Commander Everhart is correct. Those do not appear to be Sirens.”

  Magnolia started toward Banks, but Michael grabbed her by the arm.

  “Hold up,” he said.

  The other militia soldiers moved out into the rain, but the Cazador soldiers remained near the Hell Divers, as if sensing something was off.

  “We’ve almost got thrusters one through three online,” Les said over the comms. “Ensign Corey, how is that storm looking?”

  “It’s about to get pretty bad,” she reported.

  “We better get everyone back inside and finish the right bank of thrusters later,” Michael said. “I don’t want to risk having people out here when it hits.”

  “I need only a few more minutes,” Les said, “but pull everyone else back. I’ll stay out here with Cricket.”

  “Banks!” Magnolia shouted. “Get back here!”

  The wind howled like an enraged Siren, masking her voice. She bumped on the channel to the militia soldiers.

  “Get back to the airship!” she shouted.

  That got their attention.

  They all turned and began to jog across the dirt, but they were a good fifty yards out. Gusts slammed into them, knocking Banks down.

  Magnolia led the Cazadores and Michael back toward the stern. They couldn’t open the launch-bay doors lest they contaminate the new passengers, so they must return to the port side, where they had taken a ladder down to the ground.

  Finally back at the stern, she glanced up at the scaffolding.

  “Almost got it,” Les called down.

  Alfred was still up there with him, helping replace the final wiring.

  “Guys, come on,” Rodger said, waving at her and Michael.

  “I’m staying here with him,” Michael said.

  “Me, too,” Magnolia said.

  “Figured you’d say that,” Rodger said.

  The techs and engineers ran back to the hatch with the Cazadores, leaving only the militia soldiers still out in the field.

  Magnolia moved back to the port side of the stern, where Banks and his men were slowly making their way back in the screeching wind.

  “I’ve got a visual,” Timothy reported over the comm. “I’m running a scan in my database, but I think I know what those things are.”

  Magnolia zoomed in on the cloud closing in on the airship. Thousands of tiny dots moved at the outer edge of the bulging storm. Her heart caught in her throat when she saw the wings.

  Now she knew what had killed the Siren.

  “Fruit bats,” Timothy said. “Thousands of them, and these look a lot bigger than their ancestors.”

  “Same things that attacked me in Jamaica,” Michael said. He looked up at Les and Alfred. “Move it, guys!”

  “We’ve almost got it!” Les shouted back.

  Rodger paced. “Bats? That wall of black is really—” His sentence ended in a squawk.

  Only it wasn’t from Rodger at all.

  A flurry of motion surged from the sky, homing in on Banks and his men as they kept near the hull of the airship. All three men turned just as the bats swarmed them. Their armor and suits vanished in a swirling cloud of wings and hairy skin.

  Magnolia watched in horror as the first wave of creatures flew up into the sky like a whirlwind, allowing the next wave to swarm in, and the next.

  Within seconds, all three men had been stripped of their armor, suits, and flesh. They didn’t even get the chance to scream. Or perhaps they had, and the shroud of wings muted the sound.

  Michael pulled her back around the stern. He raised his laser rifle, and she did the same, directly under the left bank of thrusters. They stood side by side, waiting for the wave of bats to move around the stern and attack.

  “Les, Alfred, come on!” Michael said over the comm.

  The two men descended the ladder, but Cricket hovered, working to take down the scaffolding.

  Shrieks rose over the wind like a macabre chorus.

  Magnolia and Michael waited at the bottom of the ladder with their weapons up. It was just the two of them now. Even Rodger had bailed.

  The bats’ vanguard curved around the stern, cutting through the air just as Les and Alfred jumped to the dirt. Laser bolts shot skyward, cutting off wings and erasing ugly faces. The mutant monsters came in droves, each with a wingspan of several feet, hissing like vampires.

  “Get down!” someone yelled.

  Magnolia dropped to the ground with Michael, and a stream of fire jetted overhead, coating the swooping bats in flame. Behind the long barrel, she spotted a Hell Diver with a Cazador flamethrower strapped to his back.

  Not just any diver. It was Rodger.

  Sofia joined him with another flamethrower, torching the beasts. Burning carcasses rained from the sky, sizzling in the pouring rain.

  “Hot enough for you ugly turd-faced fucks?” R
odger screamed as he raked the stream of flames back and forth. “How about you? Yeah? You guys want some, too?”

  Magnolia and Michael crawled below the twin gouts of flame and got up behind Rodger and Sofia as Alfred and Les led the way back to the hatch.

  “Timothy, can you get us out of here with just the left bank of thrusters working?” Les asked.

  “We’re going to find out, sir,” replied the AI.

  “Come on!” an engineer yelled from the open hatch.

  Alfred climbed the ladder, and the rest of the team followed. Sofia and Rodger covered their retreat, then Sofia turned to climb while Rodger stood guard.

  At the hatch, she fired again to give Rodger a chance to climb. But a burning bat latched on to his leg. He kicked and kicked, screaming all the while.

  The creature finally fell away, and Rodger nearly jumped up the ladder.

  The hatch slammed behind him.

  Timothy’s hologram waited inside the room, spreading its glow over the panting divers, engineers, and technicians.

  A bat slammed into a porthole, cracking the glass. More of them pounded the other windows, streaking them with blood.

  “Get those thrusters online now!” Les yelled.

  “Cricket!” Michael said. “We can’t leave without Cricket.”

  “Better get his mechanical ass inside, then,” Les said.

  Michael tapped his monitor. “I’ll have him latch on to the Sea Wolf.”

  The airship jolted as the turbofans clicked on and powered the ship skyward. The retracting legs clanked amid thuds from the bats assaulting the exterior.

  “I sure hope we plugged those exterior holes the Sirens found,” Magnolia said.

  “Me, too,” Rodger said. He turned around, and Les helped him shuck off the tank for the flamethrower. Sofia placed her tank on the deck and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

  “Glad you came with us,” Michael said. “Quick thinking by you two.”

  The bulkheads whined from the onslaught of wind, rain, and bats pounding the exterior. Over all the noises came a loud whine, like that of an engine that won’t start.

  “Trying thrusters again,” Timothy said.

  Another long whine.

  “Shit,” Rodger said.

  Magnolia grabbed his hand. “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For not leaving me.”

  He took off his helmet, and she took off hers while Timothy tried to bring the thrusters online.

  Another whine, another failed attempt.

  Bats crashed against the portholes, splintering the exterior glass and smearing it with blood.

  Magnolia reached over to take Rodger’s glasses off. Then she leaned in and planted a kiss on his lips. His cheeks reddened when she pulled away.

  The thrusters whined a fifth time, and she kissed him again.

  On the sixth attempt, the left bank of six came back online. The airship jolted with such force that she fell forward, landing on top of Rodger.

  He let out a squeak.

  Applause rang out around them as the airship picked up speed.

  “We did it!” Timothy said with a handsome smile.

  Les smiled back at the hologram. “Take us home, Pepper,” he said. “It’s finally time to show our new friends the home we promised them.”

  SIX

  The pebbles of dried blood continued up the stairs. X knew that the concrete stairwell wasn’t real. None of this was. He was stuck in a delirious dream state, trapped like a Siren in a cage, living in a nightmare.

  Only this wasn’t exactly a nightmare. It was a dream in which he was following Ada Winslow’s journey to his former home in Florida.

  And it was as clear as rainwater. So clear that he felt as if he were actually there. He could even feel his pounding heart.

  He kept going up the stairs, following the drops of blood, compelled to find Ada and help her.

  The plastic curtain he had used to block off the next landing was torn aside. He slipped around it, halting at the claw marks along the walls.

  More streaks marred the floor.

  X wasn’t the only one following Ada in this dream.

  Sirens were hunting.

  He had given her a rifle to defend herself with, but that didn’t matter if she didn’t know how to shoot it or was too injured to fight.

  He had also given her medicine, but that wouldn’t matter if she didn’t know how to dress a wound from the poisonous barbed weeds.

  But she had made it here, and if she got herself across the ocean in a crappy little fishing boat with only half the needed gas, then maybe she could put down a Siren or two.

  He ran up the stairs, determined to find her before the monsters did.

  The vivid dream flashed to darkness, then images of the young officer’s freckled features being torn apart by a pack of Sirens, her arms and legs being ripped away while she screamed.

  “Help me! Somebody, help me!”

  She stared at X.

  “You did this to me!” she shrieked. “You killed me!”

  X jerked free of the nightmare, panting like a dog.

  A scream echoed in the dark quarters. He recognized the rough voice.

  It was his.

  Something wet and cold hit his forehead. He shivered violently, his body clammy but burning at the same time.

  “Ada,” he muttered. “I have to save Ada.”

  A deep fog settled over his mind, as if his brain were suspended in tar. He squirmed, trying to break the mental chains.

  “His temperature is one-oh-four,” said a distant voice.

  “The antibiotics just aren’t working,” said another.

  X tried to make out the blurred faces hovering over his bedside.

  “Ada,” he mumbled again.

  A hand restrained his chest. More figures were in the hallway, where torches burned in mounted sconces.

  “Ada,” X said again. “They’re hunting Ada.”

  “Ada is gone, King Xavier,” said a faint voice.

  Another hand pushed down on his shoulders. The pain cleared his vision, and in that moment of clarity, he focused on the person holding him.

  Sloan’s lazy eye glared down at him.

  “Sir, you need to calm the hell down,” she said. “You’re burning up.”

  “Ada,” X said.

  “She’s gone, sir,” Sloan said. “It’s a tragedy, but she chose to take her own life over her guilt. You can’t blame yourself.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder, and X held her gaze.

  But X knew the truth. Ada hadn’t taken her own life. She was out there, and she was being hunted by the monsters, all because of him.

  Sloan’s lazy eye wandered right, to Dr. Huff. Samson was also here, watching with his arms folded over his sizable belly.

  “X, you need to settle down,” Samson said.

  Something nudged his feet, and X looked down to see Miles there, whining. The dog tried to get closer, but a militia soldier reached out.

  Miles growled at the man, who, X now saw, was Sergeant Wynn.

  More soldiers were in the hallway, guarding the room. Ton and Victor held spears, trying to look inside. Several militia soldiers also stood sentry with submachine guns.

  “Wynn, get out of here,” Sloan ordered. “Unless you want to lose your hand.”

  “Ada,” X mumbled. “We’ve got to find Ada.”

  He tried to sit up, but Sloan pushed his shoulders down.

  Huff said, “King Xavier, if you don’t relax, I’m going to have to give you a shot to make you sleep.”

  “Fuck you,” X said.

  The doctor stared, incredulous, but Sloan chuckled.

  “I think he’s getting better, Doc,” she said.

&nbs
p; “No, he’s not, actually,” Huff said. “If his temperature gets any higher, it could affect his brain.”

  That wiped the grin off Sloan’s face.

  X was delirious, but he registered what he was hearing. He blinked through the sweat stinging his eyes.

  For a moment, his brain ramped back up to normal speed, and he remembered the airship and everyone else still out there. Memories of the past few days flashed through his mind.

  Rhino was dead. So was Vargas.

  Ada was probably dead.

  And the crew of Discovery.

  “Where’s Tin?” he asked, trying again to sit up. He managed to break free of Sloan’s grip and sat up, his body on fire, sweat pouring down his bandaged flesh.

  X blinked rapidly, willing his brain to stay alert. But the fever, the injuries, and the uncertain fate of his friends in the sky felt like too much to bear, even for the Immortal.

  He was going to crash, and perhaps this time, he wouldn’t wake up again.

  Something pricked his arm.

  He looked down at his right arm. A needle had pricked his flesh, and holding it was Dr. Huff.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You son of a . . .”

  The fog clouded X’s mind again, and the room began to fade. He slumped back on his pillow.

  The voices grew distant until there were no voices at all.

  Darkness gave way to light.

  He was back in his apartment in Florida, standing in the hallway that led to the bunker he shared with Miles. The door was cracked open, providing a narrow view inside.

  Crates of supplies were stacked on the floor, and the windows were sealed with plastic.

  X squeezed through the opening and stopped just inside the doorway. From the bedroom came a sound like snapping twigs and someone chewing fatty meat.

  Five more steps brought him to the open bedroom door. A beast with skin the color of a hen’s egg hunched over a body on the floor.

  It was Ada.

  He stood there for a moment watching the beast slurp down her guts. Both legs had already been stripped to bone. But it was her face that most horrified him. The cute freckled features had swollen to four times their normal size, and both eyeballs bulged out.