Warriors

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Rodger nodded.

  “First, we saw something that makes no sense,” X said.

  He pulled out his personal tablet and set it on the table. Then he tabbed it on and scrolled through to the footage time-stamped ten hours and fifty minutes into Cricket’s mission.

  “Here,” X said, pointing to the frozen frame.

  Magnolia and Rodger looked down at what appeared to be a group of people in black suits walking outside a building at the oil refinery. But these weren’t the skinwalkers Magnolia remembered. They weren’t wearing armor or human hides, nor did they carry weapons.

  “Who are they?” Magnolia asked.

  “We don’t know,” X said.

  “They aren’t Cazadores,” Mac said. “I can tell you that much. There are too many of them to have been crew from Raven’s Claw.”

  “Maybe they’re people from bunkers or ITC facilities that Horn kidnapped and enslaved,” Magnolia said.

  “That’s my guess, but there’s no way to know from the video,” X said. “What it boils down to is, the skinwalker army could be bigger than we thought.”

  “I still want to know what you meant by ‘if Moreto is there,’ ” Rodger said.

  “Like I said, I was going over Cricket’s footage again,” X said. “I noticed something and double-checked with several others, but there is no evidence that Colonel Moreto is at the outpost. Not a single video feed captured her.”

  Magnolia swallowed, implications sinking in.

  “You got to be fucking joking,” Rodger said.

  “Do you think she’s . . .” Magnolia began to say.

  “I think it’s possible she never left the islands,” X said.

  “We have to warn Lieutenant Wynn,” Magnolia said.

  X shook his head. “We can’t break radio silence now. Wynn is prepared for an attack, and I trust him to hold security while we’re away.”

  “We’re making good time,” Mac said. “At this rate, we’ll be there in less than twenty-four hours.”

  “We’re ready,” X said.

  “More than ready,” Rodger added. “I’m going to find that murdering witch and then I’m going to burn her alive.”

  thirty

  “All hands, approaching target. ETA fifteen minutes,” said Les.

  He put the handset back in its cradle. This was the moment they all had been waiting for—the moment he had visualized since Trey’s death.

  Almost sixty hours into their journey, they were nearing their destination above Tanzania, the home of the machines. If all went to plan, they would deploy Cricket in a few moments for a first glimpse at a zone no one had laid eyes on in decades.

  “Skies are clear, Captain,” Eevi said. She twisted from her station. “Only minimal storms from here to Mount Kilimanjaro, and zero sign of hostile contacts on radar.”

  “Captain Rolo reported the same thing: clear skies, then . . .” Les suddenly had a feeling he knew exactly what had happened to the airship that crossed the ocean before Discovery.

  “Timothy, you have the ship,” he ordered. “Keep us in the cloud cover, all systems in stealth mode. “Samson, everything looking good with the weapons systems?”

  The lead engineer stood over a station. He coughed into a hankie and glanced up.

  “Sorry,” he grumbled. “This damn—”

  He coughed again into the handkerchief.

  “All weapons are primed and ready,” he finally said. “And we have our defensive flares ready to deploy.”

  “Good. I’m heading down to oversee the launch of Cricket.”

  Samson went back to coughing, and Eevi turned to her monitor.

  The closed hatches in the passage leading from the bridge reminded Les of all the people who had lived here after Michael and his team found the ship at the Hilltop Bastion. It was no longer a life barge. It was a weapon.

  By the time Les arrived at the launch bay, the two teams of Hell Divers were suited up and ready. Michael crouched in the center of the open space, working on Cricket with Alfred and another tech. Two open crates of tools lay on the floor next to the crates of machine guns and blasters.

  “Captain on deck,” Ted said.

  “Not a captain now,” Les said. “As you were.” He thumped the Team Phoenix logo on the breastplate of his Hell Diver armor. “I’m one of you all.”

  Ted, Arlo, Sofia, Edgar, Hector, and Lena all formed a line beside Michael. They looked ready for battle. They wore bandoliers of shotgun shells and armor-piercing rounds, and blasters and knives were sheathed on their hips. Vests over their armor held extra magazines and grenades.

  Edgar, the best marksman of them all, had a slung sniper rifle that fired the armor-piercing rounds—the same model of weapon that Erin Jenkins had used to take down several machines at Red Sphere.

  But there was one thing they lacked. Only one precious EMP grenade remained in their stockpile. Michael had it in his gear. He also carried the one laser rifle and one of the USB sticks containing the virus that would reprogram the machines. Les carried the other.

  They looked like two teams of special-operations soldiers from the Old World. But if they did dive, they would face an enemy designed to be a more efficient killer than any special-forces soldier ever to walk the earth.

  “We’re ready to dive, sir,” Michael said.

  “Indeed, you are,” Les replied. “How is Cricket coming along?”

  “We’re making some last-minute changes to his system that will lighten his carbon signature and maybe keep him invisible.”

  Michael tapped his wrist computer, and the robot chirped. The hover nodes spun, but without the glow of before.

  “He’ll have to move slow on the surface,” Alfred said. “There’s not much we can do about the exhaust from his thrusters.”

  The divers all followed the drone across the open space. Les walked over to the portholes by the launch-bay doors. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the sky was a deep charcoal gray, with no hint of sunshine bleeding through.

  “Timothy, take us down to fifteen thousand feet,” Les ordered into the headset. “Slowly and cautiously—first sign of any hostile contact, you haul ass out of here.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Les went to his locker and carefully peeled the giraffe picture Phyl had drawn off the metal door. She had added a mother and two baby giraffes to the image. It was the only picture of his family he had.

  With the utmost care, he tucked the piece of paper into his vest. Then he walked back to grab a blaster from the crate. He sheathed it and started the manual process of checking his systems.

  The airship switched to turbofans, lowering through the sky without a lick of turbulence against the hull.

  “Phoenix One, online,” Les said.

  “Phoenix Two, online,” Ted said.

  “Phoenix Three, good to go,” Edgar added.

  “Me, too,” Lena said. “I mean, Phoenix Four, ready.”

  Team Raptor went through the same routine with Michael, Arlo, Sofia, and Hector all confirming that their systems were working properly.

  “What did you paint on your dome?” Lena asked Arlo.

  “Thunder and lightning,” he replied. “My two different nicknames.”

  “Who’s calling you ‘Lightning’ now?” Michael asked.

  Arlo smirked, exposing a missing tooth. “I believe she actually called me ‘el relámpago.’ ”

  “Gross,” Sofia said. “And I think you mean ‘el poco peso,’ as in ‘lightweight.’ ”

  “Okay, let’s get serious, people,” Les said. He appreciated a little humor to take the edge off before the mission, but they were in enemy territory, on what could be a turning point for humanity.

  “Eevi, how’s it looking up there?” Les asked over the comms.

  “Sir, I’m picking
up some sort of heat signatures on the surface.”

  Les looked out the portholes and saw nothing through the darkness but clouds. The other divers tried to get a glimpse of the ground.

  At eighteen thousand feet, Les turned to the techs, who were going through final prep on Cricket with Michael. They checked the newly installed cameras and each of the jointed mechanical limbs. Two of the extensions were made of scrap metal, but they looked secure.

  “I don’t like sending Cricket in without any weapons,” Michael said to Les.

  “Not a lot he can do against the machines, anyway, right?” Edgar said.

  “He sure kicked some skinwalker ass and saved our hides from them back in Rio, but this time he’s just doing recon.” Michael patted the robot.

  “Nearing launch altitude,” Samson reported over the comms. “All noncritical systems are ready to go dark on your mark, Captain.”

  “Stand by,” Les said.

  “That also means no external comm use unless necessary. Everything is internal for now,” Les said. “Everyone got it?”

  “Ted, Arlo, I want to see nods,” Michael said.

  Both helmets dipped.

  Les waited another moment before he gave the order.

  The lights winked off throughout the ship, leaving the launch bay in near darkness. Emergency lights came on, emitting a red glow in the corners of the room.

  Michael patted Cricket on the back as he might a human friend. “Be careful down there, buddy,” he said. “I know you’ll make me proud again.”

  Cricket chirped as it hovered toward the launch-bay doors.

  “Alfred and team, get back to the secure area,” Les ordered. “Rest of you, behind the red line.”

  The technicians followed Alfred’s flashlight to the exit as Les moved behind the red line with the other divers.

  The AI’s hologram appeared in the middle of the launch bay, but even it was dimmed almost to invisibility.

  Once Alfred and his men were outside in the hallway, Les gave the order to open the launch-bay doors. They let in the gusting wind and revealed the dark skies over Africa.

  Michael typed commands into his wrist computer. Cricket’s hover nodes whirled, propelling it forward.

  “Godspeed,” Les said.

  The drone passed the threshold outside the ship and into the black. It hovered for a moment, then dropped like a rock, vanishing from view.

  The doors closed, and the divers went to the portholes. But as before, they could see nothing but random lightning streaks in the soupy black.

  “Timothy, take us down to twelve thousand feet,” Les said.

  Michael watched the robot’s descent on his monitor.

  “Thirteen thousand and feet and lowering,” he said. “Should be getting a visual of the surface in a few seconds.”

  “Timothy, Eevi, sitrep,” Les said into his headset.

  The internal comms crackled with static.

  “No change in weather conditions,” Eevi reported. “Just a few pockets of heavy clouds and sporadic lightning. The heat signatures are still coming through on my scans, and best I can tell, they seem to be isolated to six or seven locations.”

  “Any idea what they are?” Les asked.

  “Looks too small to be fires of any size,” she replied.

  “Samson, Timothy, you got any ideas?” Les asked.

  “A few theories, but . . .”

  Les staggered as a pocket of turbulence rocked the vessel. White clouds blocked the view through the portholes.

  “Eevi, talk to me,” Les said.

  “Just some turbulence, sir. We’re hitting a patch of clouds.”

  Les managed his nerves with deep, slow breaths.

  “Three thousand feet,” Michael said. “Turning on the hover nodes in T-minus three, two, one . . .”

  He tapped his wrist monitor.

  Les pictured the drone suddenly halting in the sky.

  “Okay, switching feed to our HUDs,” Michael said.

  In the subscreen at the upper right corner of his visor came the grainy footage from one of Cricket’s cameras. Les strained to make out the picture.

  “I don’t see shit,” Ted said.

  “Wait a minute—need to switch on night vision,” Michael said. He tapped his monitor again.

  There was no mistaking what came on the subscreen this time.

  “Wow,” Lena said. “I never knew the surface was so colorful.”

  The drone descended over many acres of flat ground covered in glowing purple and red forests. But it wasn’t the vibrant jungles or the open fields of blue weeds that amazed Les—it was the snowcapped mountain in the distance.

  “Mount Kilimanjaro,” he said.

  “That’s our target?” Ted asked.

  “You see any other mountains out here?” Arlo asked.

  “Switching feed again,” Michael said. Another view came online, to the east of the mountain.

  The terrain in that direction seemed desolate, with hardly any flora growing on the sand-colored dirt. The desert stretched to an area near the base of the mountain, where fields of purple grass and weeds grew. Dense red jungles snaked up into the rocky slopes.

  But something didn’t fit with the mutant landscape on the southern base of the mountain.

  Massive tubes the color of dirty eggs reached toward the clouds behind the foothills. The towers were human in origin.

  Or machine . . .

  “Can you zoom in on those towers?” Les asked.

  “Got to get closer,” Michael said. “I’m taking Cricket down to one thousand feet, okay?”

  “Roger that.”

  Waiting for the bot to get into position, they gazed at the vast purple fields and jungle carpeting the hills. From this vantage point, it was almost impossible to see any sign of bipedal life—or machinery, for that matter.

  Most of the trees had red umbrella canopies and thick, curved trunks. Les had never seen any like them. The jungle thinned, giving way to dry riverbeds and cracked earth.

  Cricket flew slowly, giving them a panoramic view.

  “Steady, buddy,” Michael said. He tapped his screen, slowing the drone’s thruster speed as it approached the silos they had seen east of the mountain.

  “What are they?” Sofia asked.

  “Must be the source of the heat signatures,” Les said. “They look like smokestacks from old-world factories.”

  “Why would the machines have factories?” Lena asked.

  No one had an answer. Not even Timothy hazarded a guess.

  As Cricket got closer, it became apparent they had found part of the machines’ base. According to the data Cricket was sending over their HUDs, black metallic buildings made up the interior of a compound the size of four old-world city blocks.

  In the center was a rectangular metal tower with a spike on top. Warehouses and small structures, all the same metallic color, surrounded the tower in neat rows.

  Several radio towers rose along the base of the mountain. There were satellite dishes, too—some of the biggest Les had ever seen. Perfect for sending the signal out if he uploaded the virus successfully.

  “Timothy, you seeing this?” he asked.

  “Yes, Captain,” Timothy replied, “and I’m mapping it to upload to your HUDs. I’ve located two main roads so far, twenty buildings, and . . .”

  “What is it?” Les asked.

  “I’m detecting movement in the feed.”

  “Where?”

  Les saw the vehicles before the AI responded. From this height, they were hard to make out, but they had central turrets like those on a tank, built on a central core unit. But they differed from old-world tanks in one major way. Instead of tracks, each had six segmented beetle-like legs, but they were anything but slow. Les watched as they ran at an
alarming speed down a road curving through the rocky foothills.

  “Commander Everhart, I would highly recommend pulling Cricket out of there,” Timothy said. “I think our robot friend has been compromised.”

  Michael tapped at his monitor, cursing.

  On the screen, the tanks bolted away from the compound, their jointed legs pounding the ground. They halted at a wall built into the rocky landscape. It was hard to say how tall, but it looked thick.

  The entire area seemed to be one massive fortress that made the most of the terrain.

  Beeping sounded from the wall-mounted speakers.

  “What is that?” Les asked.

  “It’s an alert,” Timothy said. “I set it up should any sensors detect exhaust plumes.”

  Les felt his pulse ramping up. “How many is it detecting?” he asked.

  “Hard to say. Give me a minute . . .”

  Cricket had turned now to retreat, but its cameras were still on the compound. The tanks remained at a gate in the fortress wall.

  Cricket was flying back toward the jungles now, passing over the last stretch of desert. This time, Les saw something else on the subscreen. It looked like mounds in a rocky field.

  “Zoom in on those,” he said.

  Michael tapped his wrist computer and the drone’s cameras focused in on the rocky field.

  “Now have him zoom in on those humps in the earth,” Les said.

  The image clarified further, confirming his fear. They weren’t rocks. They were weapon nests.

  Cannons protruded from the ground. And these were just the ones he could see.

  “Those are some big-ass guns,” Arlo said.

  Les considered having Cricket search for more of the hidden emplacements so they could try to take them out, but he had a feeling more defenses were buried out of view. The weapons confirmed what he had already known: Plan B was the only option.

  “Do we even have enough missiles to take them out?” Ted asked.

  “No,” Timothy said. “Not from what I have already seen.”

  “Get Cricket out of there and have it return to the launch bay,” Les said.

  Michael nodded and tapped his screen again.

  “Not too fast,” Timothy said. “You don’t want the thrusters to give away . . .”