“As soon as Lieutenant Wynn’s team is off the ship,” X said. He swore a blue streak unlike any Michael had heard in years.
The king transformed right in front of his eyes, from a calm old man to his cantankerous old self.
“Follow it!” he screamed. “Follow that fucking carrier, and tell Wynn to get his ass off even if it means leaping overboard!”
“He’s off,” Timothy reported from the monitor. “The charges are ready to blow, but please, give me a bit more time.”
X looked to the captain.
“How long until they reach the border of light and darkness at that speed?” he asked.
“Ten minutes, maybe less,” replied Captain Two Skulls.
“You have five minutes, Pepper,” X said. “If you haven’t shut that son of a bitch down, you’re going down with it.”
“Understood, sir.”
Michael stepped away from the window and back to the monitor, where Timothy was visible. His hologram blinked and flickered rapidly as he worked.
Tyron suddenly came back online.
“Thank you for giving me back control of the vessel, Mr. Pepper,” he said. “The access code was exactly what I needed.”
“Don’t do this, Tyron,” Timothy said. “There’s still time to right the wrongs of your past.”
“The only way to do that is by wiping humanity off the face of the earth. Only a blink of an eye has passed since the war. A thousand years from now, there will be nothing left of humanity but bones. Like the dinosaurs—it’s part of evolution.”
“So much for this asshole not being dangerous anymore,” Rodger said. “What I don’t get is how the virus didn’t wipe him out.”
“For the same reason it didn’t wipe out Timothy, maybe,” Michael said.
Three minutes ticked by, and the ITC Ranger widened the gap between itself and Raven’s Claw as it powered toward the islands.
X stood at the viewport, tall and timeless. Michael watched him. It wasn’t just the thousands of civilians back there. Miles was resting in his quarters, and Michael knew that X was also thinking about his dog.
At the four-minute mark, the horizon seemed to be lightening.
“You got sixty seconds,” Rodger told Timothy.
“Give me the orders to set off the charges in compartment fourteen,” Timothy said.
“You’re just giving up?” Michael asked. “Timothy, we need you.”
“Please, just do it.”
X turned from the viewport. Now Michael saw the ITC Ranger approaching the barrier between the islands and the poisoned world.
He nodded.
“Execute,” Michael said to Timothy.
A boom sounded on the monitor, and the AI’s image vanished in a cloud of smoke and flame.
Michael bowed his head. It wasn’t just Timothy they were losing. Cricket was there, too, and this time he wouldn’t be able to replace either of them.
And the ITC Ranger was lost.
“Look!” Rodger shouted.
Michael glanced up.
Fire burst from the hull of the Ranger.
“She’s slowing,” reported the captain.
Fire licked the starboard hull.
Michael couldn’t see where the other blasts went off, but the ship was surely taking on water now.
He shook his head in despair. This was yet another damning loss.
“The ship seems to be disabled,” said Captain Two Skulls, “but it isn’t sinking.”
“Sight in your weapons, but hold your fire,” X said.
They stared at the supercarrier for what seemed an hour, until a voice crackled over the speakers.
“Raven’s Claw, this is Timothy Pepper, do you copy?”
“Who is this?” X asked.
“Why, Timothy, sir,” replied the voice.
“Could this be a trick?” X asked.
Michael stepped up to the monitor. “Timothy, this is Chief Everhart. What’s my son’s name?”
“Bray, sir.”
He looked to X.
“What happened?” X asked.
“I took out the mainframe,” Timothy said. “Tyron Red is now toast, as you might say.”
The blue hologram of the fit, dark-skinned man flickered and stabilized on the screen.
“The ITC Ranger is ours, sir,” Timothy said with a smile.
X looked up into the overhead and let out a long breath. “God damn, you’re good, Pepper.
Michael walked over, also looking unsure. “She’s going to need repairs,” he said. “And something else.”
“What’s that, kid?”
“A new name.”
“I got an idea,” Rodger said.
They all turned toward him as he pushed his glasses up higher on his nose.
“How about . . . the Immortal?” Rodger said.
“Nah,” X said, swatting the air with his hand.
“Actually, I like it,” Michael said. “Especially if you are indeed leading this mission to the Panama Canal, I think it’s fitting.”
Captain Two Skulls nodded his tattooed head.
“Muy bien. I like,” he said. “The Immortal, or Inmortal, as we say.”
* * * * *
Ada strapped on her armor and heaved a breath.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Magnolia. “You need to rest and recover.”
“I’m fine,” Ada said.
“Ada—”
“I really am, Commander. The doctor cleared me to leave. “Besides, you need vets to help train the rookies.”
Magnolia stared at Ada for a moment. The other divers were geared up and ready to take the first jump with the veterans monitoring, but there weren’t enough veterans to go around.
“Doc Stamos cleared you?” Magnolia said.
Ada nodded.
“Fine. Get over there and buddy up with one of the greenhorns.”
“Thanks, Mags—I mean, Commander.” Ada secured her helmet and joined the others.
Gran Jefe was laughing with some of the Cazador greenhorns. For a fleeting moment, Ada got the sense they were laughing at her, but why?
She didn’t have time to screw around.
Ada walked over to Kade and Tia, a young sky woman from Tanzania.
“Hi, I don’t think we’ve met,” Ada said, reaching out. “I’m Ada Winslow.”
“Tia.”
“Got a last name?”
“It’s just Tia.”
“How old are you?” Arlo asked.
The woman raised her chin and glared.
“Okay, then,” Arlo said.
Lights flashed in the bay, and the predive comms came on, warning everyone who wasn’t a Hell Diver to get out of the launch bay.
Kade stood with Magnolia, talking to her about something.
“He always does this,” Tia said.
“What?” Ada asked.
“Tries to control me.”
“Kade?”
Tia snorted. “He’s been trying to protect me ever since my dad died, but he won’t even tell me how my dad died or what my dad said to him.”
She turned to Ada. “My dad was a Hell Diver once. He served with Kade.”
Ada overheard something from the conversation between Magnolia and Kade.
“She’s not ready, even for a training dive,” he was saying.
“She has to learn somehow,” Magnolia replied.
Tia walked over. “I am ready, Kade, and I’d prefer to dive with someone that wants me to be here—like that girl.”
She pointed at Ada.
“I’ll team with her,” Tia said.
“You up for that?” Magnolia asked Ada.
“Ada? Are you insane? She was just in a coma yesterday,” Kade said.
Magnolia stiffened.
“I’m sorry, Commander, all due respect, but I need to be—”
Tia cut him off. “Kade, I want to do this, and I am capable,” she said. “Please, stop trying to protect me.”
All the divers were watching now.
“You didn’t want me to be a soldier, and now you don’t want me to dive,” Tia said. “I bloody well won’t be picking oranges. I’d rather go arse over tit into a storm, like you said.”
“It’s not just me, it was your dad,” Kade said. “He wouldn’t have—”
“He’s dead, remember?”
Magnolia walked over to the other divers. “Let’s go,” she said, directing them to the launch-bay doors.
Ada stood there, unsure what to do.
“You, too, Ada,” Magnolia said.
A moment later, Tia ran over, leaving Kade shaking his head. “I’m coming with you,” she said to Ada.
Ada looked to Magnolia, who nodded her approval.
“Okay, listen up,” Magnolia said. “Your squad leader will mark your jump spot on one of four different drop zones. Rescue boats are on standby if anyone gets into trouble.”
“Like somebody did last time?” Arlo asked. “Just kiddin’, Commander.”
Edgar smacked Arlo on the back of his helmet.
“Hey!” Arlo protested.
“Shut up,” Magnolia said.
“Sorry, Commander.”
Ada stood by her launch tube and waited for Magnolia to get on with the briefing.
“We are on the border of storm clouds that are moving to the east,” Magnolia said after a pause. “They shouldn’t interfere with our dive, but pay attention to them. Watch how they behave. Someday, you’ll be jumping into the storms.”
As if in answer, thunder cracked in the distance—far off, but unmistakable over the normal groans of the airship.
“One squad at a time, and once you land, pack your chute and get back into the sky with your booster.” Magnolia looked around. “Any questions?”
There were a few from the rookies, but Ada tuned out the rest of the briefing.
She remembered her journey into the wastes on the small boat X had given her with a half tank of gas. The memories often came to her at times like this, when she was about to head back out into the storms.
But there was one that she would never forget: the moment on the beach after her boat had been capsized. She could still remember the sound of the dying monkey and the popping sounds of the leeches that killed and ate it.
Using a paddle, she had beaten them all into mash. At last, she had fallen back on the sand, exhausted, until she heard another sound—crying.
That was the moment she found Jo-Jo.
For the past year, they had been inseparable, and if not for the monkey, Ada would be dead ten times over.
Jo-Jo had come back for her in the underground tunnels, saved her, and stayed with her until Kade discovered her. And then the divers had left Jo-Jo to die.
Ada felt an overwhelming mix of anger and sadness.
“Oye, chica,” said Gran Jefe. “You listen?”
Ada looked over at the massive Cazador soldier. He grinned and swiped at her ass with a paw that she was too slow to dodge.
She smacked his hand as he pulled it back.
“Touch me again, and I’ll cut it off and slap you in the face with it,” she said.
Gran Jefe laughed until she pushed him in the chest.
He stumbled back a step, raising a nostril and growling.
“Careful,” he hissed.
“Take your own advice,” Ada said. She nodded to Tia. “Follow me,” she said. “I’ll show you how this is done.”
Kade came in on a private comm channel. “Ada, watch out for Tia,” he said. “She can be reckless, and I made her dad a promise.”
Now Ada understood their relationship better.
“I will,” she said into her headset.
Tia stepped up beside her in front of the launch-bay door. Lights flashed, and a warning alarm wailed.
“You ready for this?” Ada asked.
“I’ve been ready since I got here,” Tia replied excitedly.
The doors opened to a stormy sky. A half-moon glowed through a gap in the clouds, illuminating the divers as they began dropping out of the airship. Some of the greenhorns screamed on the way down, their voices fading away into the night.
“We’re up next,” Ada said. “Remember the training and listen to what I say.”
“Aye, aye,” Tia replied.
“Let’s go!”
Ada jumped as lightning arced barely two miles away. By the time the thunderclap arrived, she would be too far away to hear it. She relaxed into stable position and watched Tia struggle to do the same thing.
“Easy,” Ada said over their private channel.
Unlike most of the greenhorns, Tia wasn’t screaming and seemed to be enjoying the dive. Ada tracked closer, keeping an eye on her partner.
“This is fucking amazing,” Tia said in her ear.
“Not so amazing once you get out in the wastes.”
Ada pushed her left arm out sideways, then brought it back in to perform the first half of a barrel roll. Now, with her face to the sky, sure enough, she could see two more blue battery units above, then a third. Gran Jefe and the two Cazador divers were in the air now.
“Keep close but not too close,” Ada said. “We need to watch out for those guys.”
“Got it,” Tia said.
Lightning flashed, branching like a skein of nerves.
“Bloody hell,” Tia said over the comm. “That’s less than a mile away!”
“Don’t worry,” Ada replied. “We got insulating layers for that, and we’re not close enough to worry.”
The wind felt like an invisible mattress, holding her aloft as she kept an eye on Tia. But the young woman was holding her own. She was a natural.
At ten thousand feet, Ada’s mind wandered back to Jo-Jo. What was she doing right now, if she was even alive?
Ada felt so far away, helpless to do anything for her friend.
Hang on, Jo-Jo, she thought. Just hang on a little longer.
Near eight thousand feet, sporadic flashes went off all around them.
When she ticked down to six thousand, Ada felt the tug of turbulence.
“Watch out,” she warned Tia.
But Tia was still in stable free fall—according to Ada’s HUD, directly over the main drop zone.
In a few seconds, Ada would be through the clouds and able to see exactly what the drop zones were. Once she did, she would safely guide Tia down onto one of the ships.
“We’re almost down,” Ada said. “Good job. You’re a natural!”
“Thanks.”
“Just stay . . .” Ada’s words trailed off.
At three thousand feet, she got a view of the ocean in the green hue of her NVGs.
Sailing over choppy seas was a squadron of ships. Ada recognized the first three instantly: the Octopus, Ocean Bull, and Raven’s Claw. But the fourth and largest was a vessel that she hadn’t seen in over a year. It took her breath away.
The ITC Ranger.
Seeing it brought back a flood of memories from when she and Jo-Jo had arrived back at the islands only to find the supercarrier, “manned” by defector units.
Images of the drones that rained fire from the sky filled her mind’s eye.
“Ada . . .” Tia’s voice had a nervous edge. “When do we pull our chutes?”
“Really soon,” Ada said.
She watched the altimeter roll down to two thousand feet.
“Now,” Ada said on the private comm. “Do it now.”
She reached to her thigh as if drawing a gun and whipped out her pilot chute, hold
ing it in her hand as she fell. Then, the moment she saw Tia’s chute deploy, she let go and felt the yank of the opening canopy.
Ada reached up and grabbed her toggles, then maneuvered over toward Tia.
“My God,” she said. “It looks like we’re going to war.”
“Exactly,” Ada said.
“With who?”
“In the wastes, everything is your enemy. You want to survive out there? You want to be a Hell Diver?”
Tia nodded.
“Then never forget this,” Ada said. “You get cocky or let your guard down here, you’re dead. Maybe your whole team is. Dive smart and safe, and you can be a great diver. You got the natural skills.”
Another canopy wheeled in front of them. It was Kade.
He ran over. “Good job,” he said. “When training’s over, come talk to me, okay?”
“Aye,” Tia said.
Kade toggled away, back toward the two rookies he was monitoring.
“Don’t ask,” Tia said.
“I wasn’t going to,” Ada replied. “But I will say one thing: he’s a good diver. Saved my life in Panama.”
“Aye, and that’s great, but he didn’t save my dad when it mattered.”
Twenty
Two hours before dawn, after three days of intense training, faint pinpricks of blue appeared in the sky. Seconds later, out of the bulging clouds came three teams of Hell Divers.
Most of the Vanguard Islands’ citizens were sleeping, but X was wide awake with Miles, on the deck of Raven’s Claw. They watched the greenhorns, and the veterans guiding them safely to their drop zones.
One by one, the parachutes bloomed in the sky, and the divers glided gracefully down onto the decks of the new fleet.
Everyone made it down safely this time. The last round of dives, an hour earlier, had resulted in one water landing and one broken ankle, which meant one less diver.
Under veteran supervision, the new boots packed their chutes, stowed their gear, and fired their boosters to get back in the sky. Somewhere high in the clouds, the airship Vanguard swallowed them back up, to be spat out again a few minutes later.
X didn’t kid himself. He knew that most of them weren’t ready for what awaited them in the wastes, and that rushing their training would lead to deaths.
But they were out of time.
The only way to keep the Vanguard Islands from starvation was to head back out and set up a supply chain until the population was healthy enough to send teams out and restore the weather modification units.
Hell Divers Series | Book 8 | King of the Wastes Page 27