Kade wasn’t afraid of dying. His purpose was no longer as a father or a husband. It was as a steward of humanity.
At twelve thousand feet, the storm knocked out his HUD. He closed his eyes, rocketing earthward without a worry on his mind. Thunder boomed around him. He counted down the seconds.
A full minute later, at around four thousand feet, he opened his eyes again. His HUD was back online, and he instantly identified the positions of Sofia and Gran Jefe. Still in free fall east of him, they were about to pull their chutes.
Kade opened up out of the suicide dive and scanned their DZ with his night-vision optics. He made out the green-hued canal and the ship masts and bows and superstructures sticking out of the water.
He wasn’t sure what to expect on the ground, but with only one diver making it back up to the airship, he had to fear the worst.
Reaching down to his right thigh, he pulled his pilot chute.
The canopy burst out, suspension lines pulling taut. He toggled toward the DZ that Team Raptor had chosen. As the ground rose to meet his boots, he searched for their beacons.
Only one came online. Ada and her companion animal.
Kade swallowed hard. He had liked Magnolia, and Edgar, too. Maybe they were just out of range.
Although Kade knew how unlikely that was.
He sailed over the mounds bordering the canal. A rather fresh-looking crater had pushed up out of one of them. Double-checking his map, he confirmed what he feared. Ada and Jo-Jo were underground.
Toggling away from the riven holes in the earth, he flared and stepped out of the sky onto the mound about a mile to the north. At once, he began stuffing his chute.
By the time he finished, Sofia and Gran Jefe were on the ground. Kade ran over to hold security with his laser rifle.
Somewhere in the distance, an unholy roar rose from the ground. Kade zoomed his scope in on the closest bulge of dirt.
“What the hell was that?” Sofia said.
Gran Jefe took a grenade from his bandolier and loaded it into his launcher.
“El diablo blanco,” he said.
Kade turned to Sofia as Gran Jefe started down the mound. “What’d he say?” Kade asked.
Sofia paused, then said, “The white devil.”
* * * * *
“You have to get this damn boat running,” Michael whispered.
He couldn’t believe it. They had escaped Blood Trawler two hours ago, narrowly surviving the blast that slammed into their lifeboat, only to be lost at sea before the rescue boats could find them.
Worse, after racing away at twenty-five knots from the burning tanker, the lifeboat had stopped dead in the water. No engine meant no dashboard. And without a dashboard, he had no idea whether there was a working beacon on the boat. The radio was down, too, and every time he tried to connect Cricket 2.0, the signal failed.
The droid was still connected to one of the weather drones, but every time Michael tried to send a transmission, he got an error message.
What he could do was see the data the drone was collecting. As of five minutes ago, the winds were at 105 miles per hour with heavy rainfall.
“The islands are getting battered,” Michael whispered.
He could picture residential shacks being blown apart across the rigs. But those they could rebuild with scrap from the wastes. It was the crops they couldn’t replace.
Leaning down, he held Cricket up, spreading its glow into the mechanical compartment containing the two-stroke engine. Twisted wires and cobwebs filled the space under the deck.
Michael still wasn’t any closer to figuring out what was wrong with it, and Rodger wasn’t much help. He had taken in a lot of smoke and had burns on his arms and cheeks. He sat in one of the bucket seats, dabbing ointment onto the burns, groaning and mumbling something about his ass hurting.
Michael continued working, fishing carefully through the wires and pulling cobwebs away from components, checking for an open circuit.
After a few minutes, Rodger said something coherent. “How’s it coming, Tin?”
“It might be the ignition coil, but I’m not sure. The Cazadores did their maintenance, but everything down here is old as hell.”
“I’ll help. Just give me a few more minutes.”
“I can handle this, Rodge. You rest.”
Michael tried to focus on fixing it, but the image of Alfred falling into the ocean was seared into his mind. He kept seeing Alfred struggling to keep his head above the surface and then drowning.
He still didn’t know if Pedro had made it off the ship, either.
Often on dives, Michael had imagined dying in the wastes, being marooned out in the darkness and left to the creatures. But a cold, watery grave seemed somehow even worse.
He closed his eyes, trying to block out the images of Alfred drifting down through the depths, his bones being picked clean by all sorts of creatures.
I’m sorry, buddy. Michael thought. I’m so sorry . . .
The deputy chief had given his life to get the ship safely away from the islands. To protect his family and to keep their fishing grounds safe. Now Tammy and two-year-old Leonard would never see him again.
“I shouldn’t have let him come,” Michael said. “I should have—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Rodger said.
“I couldn’t save him.”
“We can’t save everyone. It’s the reality of this world.”
Rodger got up from his seat and sloshed through the inch of standing water in the boat. He went down on one knee and peered into the engine compartment.
“What a piece of shit,” he said.
“Tell me about it,” Michael replied.
The archaic two-stroke engine had likely swallowed some debris, preventing proper carburetion.
“Let me take a look,” Rodger said. “In the meantime, see if you can figure out where we’re at.” He paused abruptly and pulled his head out of the engine compartment. “Have you tried patching Cricket to that interface?”
Michael brightened. “Damn, I never thought about that . . .”
He sat in front of the dark control panel.
“Come on Cricket, help me out, buddy.”
The droid chirped as he inserted the patch cords into the interface. The main screen flickered on, spreading a cool blue through the dark compartment.
“Brilliant, Rodge!”
Michael tapped the touch screen to bring up their location. The digital map showed they continued to be pushed farther away from the Vanguard Islands. They were now twenty-five miles from the western boundary and completely at the storm’s mercy.
Michael knew there wasn’t much mercy to be had in the wastes.
He tried the radio, but static from the storm obliterated any signal.
One thing was certain: if the beacon was working, someone would come looking for them. He tapped through the control panel, trying to locate it.
It wasn’t a matter of whether X would mount a rescue; it was a matter of whether they could survive long enough for a rescue team to find their beacon and chase it down.
“I don’t see the EPIRB,” Michael said. “This boat has to have one, right?”
“I didn’t want to tell you earlier.”
“Tell me what?”
Rodger glanced up, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
“Emergency position-indicating radio beacons are dedicated to transmitting distress signals, and if ours works, it will have turned on when we launched the boat. However, without satellites, the only way they can find us is from the weather drones. And right now they’re probably too far away to detect us.”
“One is close enough I can see the data,” Michael said.
He tapped Cricket, pulling up the data. The screen flickered, indicating the signal was already weakening.
Michael swallowed hard at the realization. The drone was already starting to move out of range.
“We need to turn this tub around,” he said.
Michael looked out the viewport above the dashboard. Walls of waves rose and subsided under almost constant lightning.
At this point, he must put his faith in the people who would be searching for them, beacon or no beacon.
Rodger coughed and then backed out of the engine compartment. The deep rattle in his chest was hard to ignore.
“You okay?” Michael asked.
Rodger wiped snot from his nose and sat back in the bucket seat.
“I’m having a hard time breathing.”
“You need to rest. Let me handle the engine.”
After settling Rodger in his seat, Michael bent down to get back to work on the engine compartment when he noticed the scent of gasoline.
“What the hell?” he whispered. He went back to the control panel and tabbed through the dashboard to look at the gauges.
“Fucking shit,” Michael growled.
“What now?” Rodger asked.
“We’re low on gas.”
“This day just keeps getting rosier!”
Michael cursed a blue streak that X would have approved of.
Even if they could get the engine running, they didn’t have enough fuel to get back to the islands. And without a transmitting beacon, finding them would be like finding a dropped snowflake before it melted.
They would never see home again. Never see their loved ones.
As Michael shook his head in despair, something slammed into the boat, knocking him to the deck.
“What was that!” Rodger cried.
“I don’t—” Before Michael could finish his thought, something hit them again, knocking him against the hull.
“Strap in,” he said.
Michael climbed into his seat and secured his belt.
Rodger said, “Man, I never pictured my life ending like this. But, Tin, if we die, I’m proud to be by your side.”
Michael took his hand.
“Thanks for coming back for me,” Rodger said.
“Handle your present with confidence. Face your future without fear, brother.” Michael smiled.
“I try, but it seems like everything’s always trying to kill me.”
“I can relate to that.”
The two men stared out the portholes, waiting for whatever had slammed into them to do it again. Michael didn’t even want to imagine what was out there.
“Maybe it was just a wave,” Michael said.
They were silent for a few moments.
“I just hope Mags is okay,” Rodger said after the pause. “I wish I could still dive. I would do anything to be with her, but this damn foot of mine . . .”
He shook his head.
“You ever miss diving, Tin?”
“Only every day.”
“Maybe if we survive this, we’ll dive again someday, together, just like old times.”
“My diving days are over. I made a promise to Layla to keep safe.”
Rodger didn’t answer, but Michael knew what he was probably thinking.
There wasn’t anything safe about his job now.
They would be lucky to survive this, and even luckier if the islands survived the storm now pummeling them.
Once again the gravity of the situation hit Michael like a heavy weight.
The divers were heading on a dangerous mission, he was drifting aimlessly in sixty-foot seas without a working engine, and the Vanguard Islands were being hammered mercilessly by what would soon be a hurricane.
It was astonishing that humanity had survived this long.
Ten
The stench of rot made Magnolia gag. She had woken in a dark, damp space, with a pounding headache.
Another breath picked up the scent of something so awful, she didn’t recognize it.
But how could she smell . . .
Panic gripped her at the realization that she wasn’t wearing a helmet.
She tried to move, only to find that she was paralyzed.
No, you aren’t, she thought.
Moving her fingers and toes, she confirmed that. But she felt something cold binding her—a material that felt like metal.
She squirmed, swaying slightly.
It was then she noticed that the pressure in her head wasn’t from a headache.
She was hanging upside down, without her armor and helmet.
Her first instinct was to scream for help, but the memories came rushing back of the bird-faced creature that had hit her on the deck. The same creature that captured Edgar.
She stared into the darkness, searching for her comrade, but it was simply too black to penetrate.
“Edgar,” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”
No response.
Magnolia replayed the events in her mind. First the turtles, then the massive mother, and finally the beaked beast that had ambushed her on the deck.
Was it some sort of highly intelligent Siren?
She tried to move again, but all she could really do was sway her body. The chains or whatever held her feet were wrapped around her chest and arms as well, making it difficult to do anything but squirm.
After a few minutes of trying, she stopped to rest.
Magnolia breathed in the same putrid scent of rotting flesh and raw sewage.
Her stomach felt queasy. It was probably from the scent, but it could also be from a low dose of radiation poisoning. Without her suit, she was at risk.
Grunting, she swung her body back and forth, the chain whining and the overhead creaking.
A banging thud answered the noise.
She stopped struggling at once, her body slowing until she was hanging still.
The sound grew louder. Footsteps. Right above her.
A scratching sound sent a chill down her spine, to her toes.
This was it. Something was coming to eat her.
She cursed herself for being so stupid. There was a reason the crew of Sea Sprite had never returned and no other Cazador crew had tried to get through. The canal was a death trap.
As the steps moved closer, she did what she often did when she was scared. She thought of Rodger.
This time, regret burrowed into her heart—regret that she had never fully given herself to him even though she loved him and he loved her. Regret that they would never have a chance to get married or have a family.
It always seemed as though moments of fear made her regret not doing those things before, but then, after that fear passed, she would go right back to putting them off.
She had given everything to her life as a Hell Diver—far more than she had ever given Rodger.
She blinked away a welling tear. Don’t do that, she thought. You don’t get to do that!
If Magnolia had learned one thing in the wastes, it was that you always had a chance to survive, however bad the situation. But you had to be positive, you had to be smart, and you had to fight.
She gritted her teeth as the footsteps tapped closer, until they were right outside the room where she hung.
Metal creaked, and the hatch clicked open, allowing a spear of light inside the space. She saw a sign on the hatch in a language she didn’t recognize, but she could make out the symbols.
She was above the ship’s sewage ejectors.
The hatch creaked open a few inches more, allowing in more light—not electric light, but some sort of flame, like a candle or torch.
Magnolia remained still but kept her eyes open. And what she saw in the glow made holding still very difficult.
Directly in front of her was an open hatch down to a primary receptacle for sewage.
Footsteps entered the room, and something s
harp poked her in the side hard enough to make her yelp.
The beast answered with a hiss.
She squirmed hard, swaying back and forth.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed. “i’ll kill you!”
Shouting was all she could think to do, hoping that whatever creature was behind her would back off and leave her alone until she could break loose and escape.
The hissing response continued, and the light danced around the room as the thing holding the torch moved. She bucked and struggled like a being possessed, swinging and squirming, screaming as loud as she could.
Something sharp stabbed her arm. She screamed in pain, only to hear a demonic roar in the distance.
That shut her up, and the torchlight flitted out of the room.
Magnolia felt the warmth of blood running down her arm as the awful screeching continued in the distance.
There was no mistaking that sound—or the tremors that came with it.
A quake rumbled through the overhead, rattling the chains that secured her feet.
She hung there waiting for the creature that had captured her to come and finish her off, but whatever the thing was, it just hovered in the doorway, listening to the chitinous abomination outside what she assumed was the ship in the canal, where she was being held captive.
Suddenly, the light moved again, and Magnolia stared at a long beak and feathered head. The creature leaned down until she was face-to-face with it.
She recoiled as it brought up a clawed finger to the tip of the yellow beak, as if telling her to keep quiet.
Magnolia flinched as it reached up to its head and removed, not the head of a mutant bird, but a wildly decorated helmet, revealing the youthful Asian features of a man.
“You’re human,” Magnolia whispered.
The young man, who couldn’t be any older than sixteen, put the gloved finger back to his lips. “Shh-h-h!” he said.
She managed a nod as she tried to piece together what was happening. The hissing was actually this kid trying to shush her, but the helmet had muffled the sound.
She stared at him, wondering whether he had been a passenger on this ship.
Hell Divers Series | Book 8 | King of the Wastes Page 14