Hell Divers Series | Book 8 | King of the Wastes

by Smith, Nicholas Sansbury

  He reached out and helped Layla onto the boat.

  X led her into the command center of the yacht. Two chairs faced the dashboard, and behind them were two couches. Ton and Victor stood, but Layla took a seat next to X.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “I’m working on it,” X said. He pushed the button to lower the boat into the water. Waves slapped the hull as it met the violent sea.

  He guided the boat past the rows of other lifted boats. There hung the Sea Wolf, rarely used now.

  The marina doors opened to a hellish sight of lightning, rain, and big waves that dashed themselves against the viewports.

  “Go,” Layla said.

  She put her hand over his and pushed the throttle down.

  The boat motored out, its two 400-horsepower engines growling as if they couldn’t wait to cut loose and roar.

  “Easy,” X said. “I want to get there, too, but we do this safely.”

  Layla took her hand off his. The radio crackled with static as they entered the storm.

  X gave her a side glance, spotted the tears welling in her eyes.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Michael’s going to be fine.”

  That was how he always dealt with things: reassuring himself even when he wasn’t sure the words were true.

  It was how he had gotten through decades of diving and losing people close to him.

  But he wasn’t losing anyone else today.

  He flicked on the high beams, which speared through the heavy rain.

  He steered the boat over the growing waves, riding them up, then down, in a way that made Ton and Victor finally sit down.

  The rain pounded the viewport, and waves rushed over the bow.

  Even with the beams, X couldn’t see much in front of him.

  “Steve, do you copy?” he said.

  Static broke from the dashboard transceiver.

  “Buckets of Siren shit!” X growled. “Layla, see if you can get us a working frequency.”

  She fiddled with the radio, but the storm was interfering with everything. All X could hear were the muffled voices of the different crews.

  He steered around the oil rig that served as the trading post, keeping his distance. From the raised command center, he could see the rig’s bottom deck. Pieces of metal sheeting had come loose and were flapping in the wind, threatening to peel away and slice someone’s head off.

  A tarp flew away like a cape, vanishing into the night.

  X swallowed hard, the implications poisoning his gut with worry. If this turned into a full-strength hurricane, they could lose an entire crop and hundreds of lives.

  He wasn’t the praying type, but he hoped the vortex would pass through quickly.

  “I’ve got something,” Layla said.

  She turned up the radio, filling the cabin with the chatter between Deputy Chief Engineer Alfred and a Cazador officer aboard the flagship fireboat.

  “I think I can make it . . .” Alfred said.

  Layla picked up the transmitter.

  “Alfred, this is Layla on the One-Armed Bandit. Do you copy?”

  “Copy . . . Layla . . .”

  His voice was faint, but he definitely heard them.

  “Where’s Michael?” she said.

  “He’s with Rodger, but he’s okay.”

  X heard that loud and clear and smiled at Layla. She seemed relieved.

  “You have to get off that ship!” she said after a pause.

  “We will as soon as we get to the following coordinates.”

  “Plug those in,” X said.

  Layla tapped them into the dashboard as he rattled them off. When she finished, X looked at the digital map.

  “They’re making a run for the edge of the Vanguard Islands,” Layla said.

  “Yeah,” X said. “That sounds exactly like what Michael would do. Get as far away from the rigs as possible to keep the oil from polluting the waters.”

  Layla stared at X with wide eyes.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  But now he really wasn’t sure he believed his words.

  “Hold on,” he grumbled.

  Pushing the throttle down, he braced himself for the rough waves ahead. The storm was getting stronger, but he had no time to waste.

  For the next half hour, the One-Armed Bandit skipped over the waves, chasing Blood Trawler. By the time they were approaching the border of the islands, the radio was useless—just static from the almost constant lightning.

  But X didn’t need to hear updates from Alfred to see the location of Blood Trawler. Away in the darkness, a flame rode the waves like a bobbing candle.

  “There she is,” X said. “Keep trying the radio.”

  “It’s not working,” Layla said.

  Other boats had joined the effort—all emergency vessels that didn’t have the yacht’s speed.

  Layla got out of her chair to stand, and X did the same thing, holding the wheel tight in his hands. He steered past the other boats, coming up on the stern of Blood Trawler.

  “What are we going to do?” Layla asked.

  X didn’t have an answer.

  The ship was heading out to keep it from poisoning their fishing waters, and perhaps Michael, Alfred, and Rodger were also trying to save the precious cargo of oil.

  Steering to starboard, X pushed the throttle down as far as he could. Waves slammed the hull, and a monstrous wall of water rose, threatening to sink them.

  He turned into it, riding up it the best he could, but water still broke over the decks and slammed into the viewport.

  As it cleared, he saw the fires venting out of Raven’s Claw’s bow. They didn’t seem as bad now. Maybe the rain would put them out.

  “See if you can spot any fire in the tower,” X said. “Binos are on the ledge.”

  Layla snatched them up and twisted the center wheel to zoom in when the center of the deck burst upward. A second blast blew up in front of the command center.

  “no!” Layla shouted.

  X turned the wheel, steering them away as Blood Trawler exploded in a brilliant, thunderous blast. Shrapnel whizzed through the air, peppering the yacht and shattering two of the viewports.

  Ducking, X reached out to Layla, who let out a scream unlike any X had heard in his life. He realized a moment later that he, too, was screaming out a deep roar of pain.

  Layla turned and moved past X, pulling out of his reach as she grabbed the hatch.

  “Stop!” X shouted.

  Ton and Victor grabbed her before she could get outside. They held her as she screamed in anguish at the sight of the burning ship.

  All X could do was stare as the sea opened its mouth and swallowed it whole.

  Six

  The airship Vanguard hovered directly over the Panama Canal, having beelined it there at maximum speed to escape the storm.

  Standing side by side in the launch bay were the members of Team Raptor. Arlo, Edgar, Ada, and her companion, Jo-Jo, all faced Magnolia. Even the monkey appeared anxious. Kade and Sofia were there, too, with the most promising rookie of the twenty volunteer divers: Gran Jefe. He wore part of his Cazador armor, along with a chest rig and battery unit that the technicians had managed to piece together at the last minute.

  Only four from Team Raptor would be diving, with the others staying behind just in case they needed backup.

  Everyone stared at Magnolia, waiting for a briefing.

  But this wasn’t about her words.

  In her hands, she held a tablet with a message from King Xavier, prerecorded for this very moment. She held it up and turned it on.

  “A message from the king,” she said.

  “The nature of this mission is simple: to survive, we must expand. And once again I must call on the heroes o
f the sky,” X said in his gruff voice. “I wish I could be there with you, but I have placed my faith in you all and Commander Magnolia Katib. She helped us find the Vanguard Islands, and I have no doubt she will help find the perfect location for the first of our new outposts.”

  The king paused, perhaps for effect, or maybe to consider his next words. Magnolia had listened to the message several times, and her bet was on the latter.

  “This mission has the potential to help secure our future and provide a lifeline to our families and friends,” X continued. “We can’t fail in providing this lifeline. Without it, we are doomed. Good luck, divers.”

  Magnolia handed the tablet back to a technician and clapped her hands together.

  “All right, Ada, Arlo, Edgar, you’re up,” she said. “We dive in ten.”

  “Wait,” Sofia said. “What about me?”

  “You’re sitting this one out,” Magnolia said. “I’m sorry, but we need Jo-Jo on the ground with Ada and—”

  “That’s not why, Mags, and you know it.”

  Sofia stormed off, clearly miffed, not that Magnolia blamed her best friend. Truth was, she didn’t want Sofia going because of the risk.

  Kade stepped over to Magnolia.

  “You sure you don’t want me to come?” he asked.

  She reached up and cinched his parachute harness down tighter. “Look, I know you can dive, but there’s more to it than the actual dive. My team is used to working together, and adding a new member could . . .”

  “Aye,” Kade said. “I’m here if you need me.”

  The technicians and other divers cleared the room, leaving Team Raptor alone at their launch tubes. Magnolia looked at her people as they made their final preparations and cross-check.

  Edgar and Arlo were diving heavy, with extra shotgun shells, magazines, and flares stuffed into their vests. Their blasters and pistols were secured in their holsters, and laser rifles were strapped tight over their battery units.

  It was a new way of diving, without supply crates, and that was for a simple reason: they were likely dropping into a hot zone with mutant beasts. They wanted to be armed to the teeth from the moment they touched down.

  Ada stood in front of Jo-Jo, giving her a hand of bananas. The big primate had already eaten a bag of apples and oranges. And if Magnolia wasn’t mistaken, her friend was still growing.

  Jo-Jo grunted and reached up, brushing Ada gently on her face.

  Magnolia saw the same bond of love between X and Miles.

  A warning light flashed in the bay, and the technicians checking the last tubes left the launch bay. Flashbacks from Magnolia’s first days surfaced in her mind as she climbed into her tube and secured her helmet.

  As she checked her life-support systems, the open comm channel crackled in her helmet.

  “We’re directly over the canal,” said Captain Rolo. “Our sensors detect a yellow zone on the surface, and some lightning on the drop in. Be careful, Team Raptor.”

  “Always, Captain,” Magnolia replied. She bumped the comm channel to Team Raptor for a sound-off.

  “All systems clear,” Edgar said in his usual all-business voice.

  “Ready, boss lady,” Arlo said.

  “We’re . . . good,” Ada said. “Although I think Jo-Jo needs to take a crap.”

  “I thought I smelled something!” Arlo said with a laugh.

  Magnolia shook her head and checked her heads-up display. She saw all three beacons, plus a fourth for Jo-Jo.

  Blue light swirled in the launch tubes, and Magnolia looked down through the ballistic glass beneath her boots. Lightning bloomed in the floor of clouds miles below.

  The countdown ticked from one minute, and Magnolia bit down on her mouthguard, thinking of Rodger. She hoped he was safe and warm during the storm, but she had a feeling he was working.

  She hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. They saw each other more back when they were Hell Divers.

  The final seconds ticked down on her HUD, distracting her from her thoughts.

  “Cleared for launch, Team Raptor,” said Captain Rolo. “Good luck.”

  Blue light swirled in Magnolia’s tube.

  “We dive so humanity survives, baby!” Arlo shouted. “Whoo-ee!”

  The glass floor opened, and Magnolia slipped into the darkness, plummeting toward the thick mattress of clouds. She flipped before maneuvering into stable position, with arms and legs out and bent. The three other divers fanned away from one another.

  Lighting forked under their flight path and fizzled away.

  “Hold position,” Magnolia said over the comms.

  Her HUD snowed, then solidified.

  She checked each diver. They had covered their glowing blue battery units for stealth, but she easily saw their IR tags, which showed their names in red.

  Ada and Jo-Jo were in stable free fall and closing on Edgar. He tracked away, easing into the dive like one might an old lost shirt.

  At fifteen thousand feet, a shelf of clouds lit up with multiple flashes. The hair on her neck prickled from an arc that sizzled unnervingly close.

  “Screw it,” she whispered.

  Tucking her arms against her side and straightening her knees, she pulled into a suicide dive, plummeting like a dart and gaining velocity.

  The comms crapped out, but she knew that the other divers were doing the same thing.

  Magnolia mentally calculated her time to the surface. Her last observed reading was 110 miles per hour at twelve thousand feet altitude; now she was falling nearly twice as fast.

  She peered into the clouds, trying to get her first glimpse of the ruined surface.

  There were only a few logs in the Cazador archives about journeys to the Panama Canal. The Cazador ships Anaconda and Sea Sprite had tried to find a way through, and neither ever returned. But a Cazador rescue party had discovered the Anaconda drifting off the coast of Colón, with no sign of the crew and only a log entry that the Sea Sprite had continued into the canal.

  Rumor had it the skinwalkers had also tried to make it through but failed. Something was definitely out there—something terrible.

  She counted the seconds, flinching at a lightning flash that came uncomfortably close.

  Glancing up, she spotted Arlo and Edgar’s IR tags. Ada and Jo-Jo were off course but moving back toward the DZ.

  At six thousand feet, the carpet of clouds began to thin. The storm weakened over the next two thousand feet, and Magnolia bumped the comms back on as her HUD activated.

  She gasped to find that she was already at three thousand feet.

  Rolling out of her suicide dive, she hooked her thumbs in the sleeve loops of her suit to deploy the braking wings Rodger had designed for her. He had told her he got the idea from an archival video of some small old-world rodents called flying squirrels.

  At two thousand feet, she had reduced her speed to under a hundred miles per hour, just in time for a first glimpse of the Panama Canal’s southern extremity, Balboa.

  In the green hue of her night-vision optics, her eyes traced down a small section that was the only thing she recognized from this vantage. She had to check her minimap to tell which side of the canal was their DZ.

  Arlo’s and Edgar’s IR tags slowed suddenly in Magnolia’s HUD as both divers pulled their pilot chutes. Ada did the same with Jo-Jo.

  A moment later, Magnolia pulled her pilot chute. It caught air, the parachute exploded from its pouch, and the lines didn’t twist. She grabbed her toggles and steered toward the others as they sailed toward Cocoli, once an expensive enclave a few miles north of the port of Balboa. Along with Panama City to the east, Balboa had been devastated by a nuclear blast, and the resulting tsunamis had flattened most of what remained.

  The crater was on the eastern side of the city—its bustling commercial epicenter now a vast bowl surf
aced with dark glass where the extreme heat of the blast had melted the underlying sand. It was hard to imagine this place bristling with skyscrapers.

  Magnolia toggled over to the DZ that they had selected for its proximity to the entrance channel of the fifty-mile-long canal. Five hundred feet down, and she was low enough to make out the rusted masts and upended prows and superstructures protruding above the surface.

  But not all the ships had sunk. A single container ship stood in the canal. Flying over it, Magnolia thought the deck didn’t seem as damaged or weathered as the others.

  This one had come here after the war.

  She considered changing course, but it was a bit late now that Edgar was already leading the way toward the DZ—a command center that once served to guide those ships through the canal.

  Edgar was the first one on the ground, stepping out of the sky and shouldering his laser rifle.

  Magnolia flared and gently touched down. Ada made it down without crashing onto Jo-Jo, but Arlo was a little less graceful. He landed crosswind and face-planted in the dirt, sliding to a stop entangled in his lines a few yards away. Fine dust poofed up around him.

  “Some things never change,” Magnolia said. She secured her gear, listening for Sirens, but the shrill electronic voices were mercifully absent.

  All she heard was the breeze and Arlo’s muted cursing. She went over to help him while Edgar and Ada both stood watch with their laser rifles at the ready.

  “You good?” Magnolia asked.

  “Yeah,” Arlo said.

  She helped him to his feet, then checked her Geiger counter. The reading was still in the yellow zone.

  “Pack up fast,” she said. “We need to move.”

  With their gear secure, Magnolia flashed hand signals, moving everyone toward a lookout tower over the canal. The concrete structure was still standing, but the two adjacent buildings were completely destroyed, their blue roofs caved in and the white brick walls now reduced to piles of rubble.

  Jo-Jo sniffed the ground as they trekked toward the tower. Ada had taught her to search for other creatures, and for that, Magnolia was grateful. On their last mission with the Vanguard navy, Jo-Jo had sniffed out a Siren nest before anyone even suspected them in the area.