X flinched as the upper half of a flaming tree came flying across the road and through the open window in the other room. He turned just as the projectile smashed into Whale, in a shower of sparks. The biggest man X had ever seen flew backward like a straw doll.
Rhino shouted something in Spanish, then said, “I’m going to flank it.”
Before X could react, the lieutenant was running out of the room and down the stairs.
X looked back to the road just as a walking nightmare burst out through the wall of fire. Swollen muscles flashed orange across a body as thick as one of the tree trunks. The thing opened a bony jaw and let out a roar louder than thunder.
Wendig and X answered the cry with automatic gunfire. In the other room, Fuego directed his flame nozzle onto the road, coating the beast as it lumbered toward the building.
Looking through the iron sights, X hardly believed what he was seeing. Unlike the Sirens, the monster didn’t have a skin covering. And yet, the muscles didn’t appear to be unprotected, and the head was almost all bone.
The burning beast brought up black-taloned hands to protect its eyes from the gunfire and flames. X had never seen one of these before, but Tin and Magnolia had described something similar that they’d encountered at the Hilltop Bastion.
Was this the type of beast that killed Commander Rick Weaver?
The thick pectorals rhythmically flashed orange, as if in time with its thumping heart, as it reached over its back. When the creature brought its arm back down, the claws held a bony dart the length of a man’s forearm.
It threw the projectile, but X ducked just in time to avoid it. A long, sharp bone thudded into the wall and stuck like an arrow, quivering.
X rose back to his feet and waited to get a shot at the creature’s eyes, as Rhino had instructed. The monster hunched down as it ran toward the house. For such a large beast, it moved surprisingly fast, darting from tree to tree for cover.
As it moved, X saw it kept the bone shard darts stowed in the flesh of its own body, in the meaty part just above the shoulder. From this angle, they appeared to fan out around its neck like some kind of morbid spiky collar.
About fifty feet away now, it flexed its muscles and let out a deafening guttural roar. The noise was louder than a dozen Sirens at close range, and the upgraded speakers he had installed in his helmet amplified the noise even more.
The echo continued even after the monster stopped screaming. Ears ringing, X peeked above the window frame to see the beast pulling another bony dart.
He brought up his gun and held the trigger down, riddling the monster with bullets. It stumbled back but then threw the projectile, this time at Fuego, who unleashed another rope of flame at the same moment.
X looked over into the next room as the bony missile hit the tank over Fuego’s shoulder, punching right through the thick steel. The soldier screamed at the top of his lungs and continued hurling flames at the beast.
“No!” X yelled, diving away. But it was too late. Fuego exploded in a massive fireball that burst through the opening in the wall and slammed into X and Wendig.
Flaming shrapnel punched into the walls, ceiling, and floor. X felt the burn of something in his leg and then his arm, then all across his back. He rolled on the floor to put out the fire.
His optics winked off, shrouding him in darkness for a moment. The flames provided enough light to show Wendig, lying in a fetal position and groaning.
X couldn’t hear much, just the dull ringing and then a clanking sound and, finally, a human scream—not of pain but of anger.
He pushed himself up to the window to see Rhino standing in front of the structure. A wave of dizziness dropped X back to the floor, where he took several deep breaths. He felt no loyalty to the Cazador lieutenant, but he had to help before the abomination killed them all.
Come on, Xavier. Get up or get cooked …
X pushed up from the floor a second time and then crashed back down again. He rolled onto his back to find a hunk of shrapnel in his thigh armor. Another piece had stuck in his shoulder pad, and a third was lodged in the side of his helmet, just above the visor. He wasn’t sure any of them had penetrated, but he couldn’t swear that the warm wetness in his suit was just sweat. Could be piss …
I hope it’s just piss.
The floor of the room to his left suddenly collapsed, crashing to the first floor. X had a feeling the floor under his boots was next. He managed to get up, holding steady during a wave of dizziness. His vision cleared to see Wendig reaching up.
Fuck you.
X grabbed his rifle and walked away, but hesitated when he reached the doorway. He had killed this guy’s cousin, and now he was leaving him to burn alive?
He would leave you to burn.
Right?
“Don’t make me regret this, you prick,” X said. He stumbled back over and grabbed Wendig’s hand. Planting his boots against the uneven floor, moving inches at a time, he dragged Wendig out of the room. Then he helped him up, pulled the good arm over one shoulder, and got him down the stairs.
Outside the building, the grunting and roaring continued as Rhino fought the beast with his double-headed spear.
X began to cough as he staggered down the steps with Wendig. The smoke had started to infiltrate his helmet now that his battery wasn’t working to power the filter. He stopped to fiddle with the battery, which had been knocked loose from its socket, but even when he clicked it back into position, it didn’t activate.
It was just another way for him to die, he thought as they reached the bottom of the stairwell—cooked alive in this formfitting armor oven.
Most of the lower room was on fire when X spotted Whale lying beneath the half a tree that the beast had hurled through the window.
He and Wendig moved over to help, but it took only a glance to see that the big guy wasn’t getting back up. The log had crushed Whale’s chest plate, and a branch had sheared off the bottom of his helmet and unhinged his jaw.
And yet, somehow, he was still breathing.
Wendig reached down with his good hand. He yelled in Spanish, gesturing for X to help.
“You fucking serious, man?” X said. It didn’t take a genius to see that Whale was done.
But to X’s astonishment, Whale grabbed his axe off the ground and then used the haft to push himself to his feet. Blood leaked out of his cracked chest armor and trickled from his broken jaw.
He brought the axe up, and for a fleeting moment, X backed away, thinking Whale was going to swing on him. Instead, he stumbled through the burning room and led the way outside, where Rhino and the beast dueled.
The fires in the forest and the building gave X his first close-up view of their enemy. It stood seven feet tall and had a muscular frame wider than two men.
Its taloned hands parried Rhino’s double-headed spear, deflecting the blow with a loud clang. The beast took several steps backward, turning a gray armored back with the collar of spikes.
It brought a fist down toward the top of Rhino’s helmet. Rhino raised the spear, but the shaft snapped in two, and a talon shrieked down his chest armor.
Whale staggered forward and swung his axe down on the back of the beast, lodging the blade between two of the bony spikes. It let out a roar and turned on its attacker.
“No!” Wendig shouted. He fired the handgun in his good hand, and X pointed his submachine gun at the eyes, but the weapon clicked on a jammed round.
Rhino jabbed one end of his broken spear into the monster’s neck from the side, earning himself a backhand that sent him crashing to the ground. Whale punched the monster in the face with his brass knuckles, with an audible cracking of bone. Doubling over in pain, he fell to his knees in front of the beast as it reared backward, one hand to its face.
Letting out an enraged scream, it grabbed Whale by the helmet in both hands and popped
his head off like a cork from a bottle. Then it tossed the head at X as the body slumped over, squirting twin jets of blood into the air.
Wendig struggled to change the magazine in his pistol, and X grabbed the sheathed blade off his duty belt as the monster lumbered toward them.
Behind it, Rhino was getting back to his feet. He picked up one of the broken spear shafts and made a run for the creature as X and Wendig backed away.
A boom and crack sounded behind them as the house collapsed in a billowing cloud of glowing embers. Sirens, spectators to the violence, circled overhead, waiting for a chance at fresh-killed meat.
When X turned back to the monster, it had stopped to sniff the air. Rhino used the opportunity to grab the haft of the axe still jammed in its back, and wrenched it free. When it turned toward him, he jammed the other half of his broken spear into its eye.
X moved to flank the thing while Rhino brought the axe down on its chest, sinking the blade deep in its muscle. Blood welled out, covering Rhino in carmine.
The shriek that followed sent all three men reeling backward. The noise was unbearable, even now that X’s speakers were offline. He fell to his knees, gripping his helmet where his ears were to no avail.
In its rage, the creature turned and kicked Wendig, sending him skidding across the dirt and into the flooded basement of a neighboring house.
X stood and turned away from the beast, making it a few feet before it picked him up by one leg, and flung him through the air. He landed on his back near Rhino. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, but it also saved his life. If he had landed facedown, the shards of shrapnel would have been driven through his armor, suit, and flesh.
Another roar sounded as X rolled up to a sitting position. He blinked and blinked, trying to get a view of Rhino. The lieutenant, weaponless, was back on his feet now with his fists up as the creature approached.
He jumped back to avoid a swipe of curved talons. Then he threw a punch at the jaw, which did little more than fuel the creature’s rage. It reached out and grabbed Rhino by the neck, lifting him off the ground, as X finally got to his feet.
He staggered the first few steps but then managed a trot. The creature lifted Rhino higher until his boots were a good three feet off the ground. X looked for something to fight with, and his eyes narrowed in on the spiky apparitions on the beast’s back. He grabbed one and pulled with all his strength.
The beast dropped Rhino’s limp body to the ground and whirled toward X, hunching down and screeching. X jabbed the spike at its remaining eye but missed, and talons slashed his chest armor.
He smacked down on his back again as the monster towered over him. Reaching down, it plucked him off the ground and raised him into the air. The huge hand clamped down on his throat, cutting off the air and threatening to crush his windpipe.
He flailed with his arm, trying to find something to grab—something to fight back with. Over the years, he had survived because he always left himself an out, but this time, he didn’t have any.
The beast pulled him closer to its face. As X’s vision faded in and out, he looked into the soulless gaze of a monster straight from the pits of hell. And in the reflection from that baleful eye, he saw the triangle of shrapnel sticking out of his helmet, just above the visor. Leaving the pointed shard lodged where it was, he rammed his head into the monster’s eye.
The mutant howled in agony and dropped X to the dirt, where he scrambled away.
X filled his lungs with air, and as his vision cleared, he watched a dripping wet man limp across the dirt with a broken spear in his hand. He approached the monster, waited, and then jammed the blade into the roof of its open mouth.
The ground shook as if a tree had fallen.
X also collapsed, allowing himself a breather.
He felt a hand on his shoulder a moment later and glanced up at Wendig. Reaching down with his good hand, the warrior helped X to his feet. They staggered over to Rhino, who was slowing coming to.
“You okay?” X asked.
Rhino pushed himself up and looked at the dead monster. All three of them stared for several seconds, catching their breath.
“Impressive, Immortal,” Rhino finally said. “Only one thing left to do now: take the head.”
“I wasn’t the one to bring it down.” X nodded to Wendig, who had already grabbed Whale’s axe. Using his good hand, the injured Barracuda hacked at the neck, in the flicker of the raging fires.
SEVENTEEN
“Timothy Pepper of the Sea Wolf is not responding to any messages,” Sandy said from the bridge.
Katrina swore under her breath. Losing the AI had severed their one connection to the Metal Islands. She had just left the medical ward, where Eevi had wrapped a bandage around her chest.
Pain from the bruised rib stopped her halfway up the ladder. The dent in her armor could be pounded back into place, but it would take weeks to recover from the injury.
Wincing, she took in a shallow breath and let it out. She was lucky. The bullet could easily have pierced her armor and killed her. But it didn’t. She was still alive, and she was about to have an enemy ship and a trawler in her possession. Aside from the news about Timothy, today was shaping up to be a good day.
But before she could celebrate over the two captured craft, she had to make sure she had neutralized the threats on them. She continued up to the ops command center for a better view. Trey and Alexander were here, scanning the waters for any Cazador soldiers who may have escaped the slaughter.
The USS Zion was a good distance away from the two main enemy ships and the expanse of sea where the .50-cals had chewed apart the smaller vessels, but the Hell Divers were not to take any chances.
The other divers were belowdecks in the combat information center or on the bridge, monitoring the weapons and scanning the water for heat signatures.
“Captain,” Trey said.
Alexander nodded and handed her a pair of binoculars. She aimed them at the bay, where smoke rose off the smoldering flotsam, and corpses wearing life jackets floated amid the debris.
“Captain, we have the MK-65 turret aimed at the container ship,” Alexander said, “but so far we haven’t seen much movement.”
Katrina centered the binos on the ship. Fire still burned in the operations tower, whose metal skin splayed outward like a crown.
On the deck, several stacks of containers had toppled onto their sides. Others floated low in the water. The starboard hull had gaping holes from several shell impacts, some of them still billowing smoke.
The devastation made her wonder whether the vessel could be salvaged. She was honestly surprised it wasn’t on the bottom of the bay.
“What should we do with the live ones?” Alexander asked.
“I say let ’em drown,” Trey replied.
She moved the binos back to the water between the Zion and the Cazador container ship. Clicking a button, she turned on the infrared function. Multiple heat signatures lit up.
Several soldiers hung on to their damaged vessels. Of the original warriors, only about ten to fifteen were still alive, and many of them had to be mortally wounded.
“We could always run ’em over,” Trey said.
Katrina lowered the binos to look at the young diver. “Your father would not be proud of that suggestion.”
“Why have mercy on them?” Trey asked. “There’s no way in hell they would do the same for us.”
“If I may,” Alexander said. “We used almost thirty percent of the working ammunition, so whatever we do, it shouldn’t involve any more of our reserves.”
“I do agree with that,” Katrina replied. She looked back out over the flaming junkyard strewn across the water. She didn’t have enough personnel to take these people captive, or the medical supplies to treat them for their injuries.
The other divers looked at her, waiting f
or her decision.
“We leave them,” Katrina said firmly.
Alexander and Trey both nodded, awaiting her next orders. She considered them carefully and decided to move forward with the salvage operation.
“I want a fire team ready to board the container ship as soon as possible,” she said. “I’ll take lead again.”
“What!” Alexander said. “All due respect, Captain, but you’re injured, and needed here. Let me take lead.”
“I agree with Alexander,” Trey said. “You need to rest.”
Katrina put a hand to the bandage wrapped around her chest. They were right; she just didn’t want to admit it. She was used to leading by example, but this time she was in no condition. If anything, she would just be a liability to the other divers.
“Okay, fine, but take Vish with you,” she said.
Alexander forced a smile. “Don’t worry, I got this.”
“What do we do with the live ones on that ship?” Trey asked.
“Depends on who they are,” she said. “If you discover civilians, then we’ll take them captive, but if they’re soldiers, you shoot to kill.”
“Understood, ma’am,” Trey said. He turned, but Katrina thought she saw him crack a half grin.
“Be careful, Trey. You, too, Alexander.”
They both nodded and walked down the ladder to the bridge, where Eevi and Sandy were busy monitoring their stations.
“Weigh anchor,” Katrina ordered. She pulled the receiver off the comm station and connected to the CIC. “Vish, report to the cargo bay ASAP. Jaideep, Edgar, you stay on those weapons and fire on anything that comes close to us. We’re leaving the bay.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Edgar replied.
Katrina turned to see Alexander and Eevi embrace. They held each other for several seconds in a tight hug. The stolen moment gave her time to question her own orders. What if more enemy sailors were hiding on the boat?
“Captain, how are you feeling?” Sandy asked.
Hell Divers V: Captives Page 20
