Hell Divers

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  A crackle of static interrupted her morbid thoughts. Samson dialed down the volume while Jordan glanced over at Ash.

  “Try again, Samson,” Ash said.

  A moment later, the crackle of static broke into a voice that was soft and high—a kid’s voice.

  “Tin,” Ash said.

  “Can anyone hear me?” the boy asked.

  Ash took the mic from Samson and pulled the cord with her. “Yes, Tin, this is Maria. Are you okay?”

  “It’s really hot in here, and I can’t find the leak. It’s too dark.”

  “Do you have a flashlight?”

  “It’s not working.”

  She looked to Samson. “Is there any way to guide him through the bladder?”

  Samson scratched his head again. “Yes, but to locate the leak, we would have to fill the bladder with helium.”

  “Tin, do you have breathing equipment?” Ash asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Listen to me very carefully, son. Samson says that the only way to find the puncture is to flood the bladder with helium. You should be able to hear the leak.” Ash bowed her head, then brought the mic to her lips. “Are you sure you can do this?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  A smile spread across her face. The boy was just like his father. And like X, too: stubborn and determined. He would make a good Hell Diver.

  “Hold on, Tin,” Ash said.

  “It’ll take a few minutes to flood the passage,” Samson said.

  “Tin, you still there?” Ash asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Is your breathing mask on?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure how to work it.”

  “Just twist the top of the tube that’s connected to the mask part. You should be able to breathe in the filtered air.”

  “Hold on, I’ll try.”

  They waited a minute before Tin came back online.

  His voice was weakened by static. “Okay, it’s working.”

  “The tank’s got a thirty-minute supply,” Samson said. “Assuming it’s not broken like every other damn thing on this ship. Tell him that in order to hear anything, he’ll have to close the hatch to the tunnel and seal off the bladder.”

  Ash nodded. “Tin, you’re going to have to close the—”

  “Got it,” the boy replied.

  “Be careful, Tin,” Ash said.

  “I will.” There was a pause. “Okay. I’m ready. Go ahead.”

  Ash nodded at Samson. He gave the boy a few minutes to get the second hatch closed.

  When Jordan’s monitor showed it was sealed off, Samson said, “Hope this works.”

  He punched the button, and Ash closed her eyes, picturing Tin inside the dark, hot gas bladder.

  “Captain!” Ryan yelled. “We have a problem …”

  The words faded away, lost in the chirp and wail of emergency sirens. Ash didn’t need to hear Ryan finish his sentence, anyway. She could see the storm on the main display. It was growing again, and the Hive was right in its path.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Weaver had guided the divers along the border of the industrial zone for over an hour. X’s thoughts drifted like the swirling wind. He followed Weaver toward the tunnels that Weaver claimed would take them to the ITC towers on the other side of the craters—under the pits where the Sirens dug madly for radiation or whatever it was they were digging for. X still wasn’t sure he could trust Weaver, but he didn’t see any other option. The man had been down here for days, and he seemed to know his way around. He was likely their best chance of reaching their objective in one piece.

  Ahead, Magnolia suddenly stopped. Snow flurries rose around her armor, caking the matte black with a layer of white.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said. The static and whistling wind broke her voice, but X could still hear the trepidation there. Something had her spooked.

  X halted. “What you got, kid?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What do you make of that?” She pointed to the skyline to their east.

  “All I see are buildings.”

  “Beyond the towers, in the sky. It looks like a cloud, but it’s too low.”

  He zoomed in on the electrical storm stirring above the city. The skyline was the color of a bruise, with smatterings of scarlet. A network of blue electricity zigzagged across the swollen clouds, and thunder rumbled in the distance, the low, dull explosions following the flashes. Beneath the storm, a shadow crept across the horizon.

  “See anything?” Magnolia asked.

  “Why are we stopping?” Weaver shouted. “We need to keep moving.”

  X held up his hand for silence. He centered the binos on the shadows hurtling toward the eastern edge of the city. A web of lightning illuminated a carpet of white beneath the black clouds.

  “My God,” X said, taking a moment to comprehend what he was looking at. He panned from north to south. A solid wall of snow stretched for miles, farther than he could see with the binos. And it was heading straight for the frozen metropolis.

  Years ago, he had seen a sandstorm roll through another city, but it didn’t compare. This storm dwarfed anything he had ever seen.

  The street shook again as the wave of snow reached the eastern edge of the city. A moment later, snow, like an avalanche from the heavens, exploded through the desolate streets.

  “Run!” X shouted. “We have to get out of here!”

  Weaver was already on the move. “We’re almost to the tunnel. Come on!”

  The divers darted across the buckled street. X squinted through the blizzard. Ahead, he could vaguely make out a smooth embankment and what looked like grated steel gates, sealing off passages that led under the industrial zone.

  A chorus of screeching arose from the pits as the Sirens heard the storm barreling toward them. X ignored the sounds and ran faster.

  “We’re not going to make it!” Magnolia screamed, glancing over her shoulder and tripping in the process. She crashed to the ground and slid over a patch of ice.

  Barely breaking stride, X bent down and hauled her to her feet.

  “Hurry it up!” Katrina yelled.

  The groaning of metal from the city they had left behind sounded in the distance. A hollow crack followed as one of the buildings met its long overdue fate. A hundred stories of twisted metal and glass came crashing to the ground. The ground under X’s feet shuddered, and the concrete fractured into a network of cracks. He leaped over a newly formed chasm in the dirt. Magnolia hurdled it after him. The tsunami of snow was gaining. If it caught them …

  No, X thought. We’re going to make it. We didn’t come this far to get taken out by a snowstorm.

  “Hurry!” he yelled. “We’re almost there!” The blaster strapped to his leg dug into his layered suit, and the assault rifle clattered against the back of his armor. The weapons pulled him off balance, making it difficult to run.

  There was another raucous crack, and a second building crumbled behind them, the structural steel snapping like frozen bones. He ran faster, harder than he even thought possible. His muscles ached, and each breath burned as if he were sucking in icy air.

  Murph and Katrina were right behind Weaver now. Magnolia was falling behind, but X could still see her black armor in his peripheral vision. The dark tunnel entrances were less than three hundred feet away, but the roar behind them was growing louder. In seconds, they would be engulfed.

  A blast of wind knocked X to the ground. He tumbled, then fought his way back to his feet as Magnolia ran past him.

  “Let’s go!” she shouted.

  Weaver was first to reach the embankment. Running to the tunnel in the middle of the hill, he grabbed the gate. He tugged for several seconds and then turned, waving frantically, screaming something X couldn’t make out. Katrina and Murph arrived a second lat
er, gripping the bars and pulling so hard, their boots slid over the ground. The realization hit X hard enough to prompt another shot of adrenaline through his veins.

  The gate was frozen shut.

  They were trapped with their back to a wall. If the storm caught them, it would eat them alive.

  X tried to slow as he approached, but slipped and fell against the upslope. He grasped the metal bars and heaved with every ounce of energy he had left. The gate inched open to the left, but the gap was too narrow even for Magnolia to squeeze through.

  “Pull!” he yelled.

  Together, the team wrenched the door open another foot.

  “Go!” X grunted. He held the gate open as Katrina slipped through. Magnolia followed, then Weaver.

  The outer edge of the snowstorm hit before X could pull himself inside. A torrent of snow blinded him, and Murph vanished in the cloud of white.

  “Murph!” X yelled.

  A muffled reply over the comm drowned out the next second in the roar of the wind. There was nothing he could do for the engineer right now.

  X pulled himself to the left, bar by bar. The gate was closing from the force of the storm, blowing against the sheet metal that was welded onto the gate’s upper half, above the grate.

  He wrapped his left foot around the edge of the gate and pulled himself into the opening. When he had wriggled halfway through, the bars pinned him against the concrete with the next gust. He squirmed as the metal pressed against his chest armor, crushing him against the tunnel wall. With the right half of his body stuck outside, he watched helplessly as the wave of snow came at him. He had only seconds before the storm’s full fury hit. It would crush him like an ant under a boot.

  “Come on, God damn it!”

  In a sudden fit of rage, he arched his spine against the concrete behind him and pushed the metal bars with both arms. After a few seconds, he let out a defeated groan. The force of the storm was too powerful. He was going to die right here, pinned with his back against the wall of a storm drain, and popped like a ripe tomato.

  A wave of helplessness and anger washed over him. He gritted his teeth and pushed again. The armor that had saved his life countless times cracked, and his chest plate pushed in on his ribs. He couldn’t breathe …

  The compression on his armor slowly let up. Before he knew what was happening, someone yanked so hard on his arm, he thought his layered suit was going to tear. He fell to the ground as strong hands dragged him over the concrete and around a bend in the tunnel.

  X lay there, sucking in deep breaths. He could hear voices over the comm but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  As his vision slowly cleared, the outlines of three divers came into focus. But where was …

  “Murph,” X mumbled.

  He sat up and scrambled toward the snow streaming around the corner of the tunnel. A hand pulled him back, knocking him to the floor.

  “No, X! You can’t go out there!” Weaver shouted.

  “We have to save Murph!” X yelled. He crawled across the floor, but the hand tightened around his ankle and pulled him back again. X dragged his fingers over the concrete, struggling for leverage.

  “Let … me … go!”

  “He’s gone!” Weaver yelled. “And you’re lucky as hell you weren’t crushed. If Katrina and I hadn’t pushed on those bars, you’d be dead, too.”

  X fell back to his stomach and probed the tunnel, praying that Murph would suddenly emerge. The passage was quickly filling with snow behind them.

  “We have to do something,” X said, more to himself than to anyone else. Murph was their best chance of hacking into the ITC security system. They needed him, and X wasn’t about to give up now. He pushed himself to his feet, and before anyone could stop him, he bolted toward the river of snow spilling into the passage.

  “X, don’t!” Katrina yelled.

  Ignoring her, he ran around the corner, into a gust of wind. The blast sent him flying backward before he could react. The fraction of a second was enough for him to see the barren landscape covered in a rolling wave of white outside the tunnel. A beat later, he smacked into a concrete wall. Air exploded from his lungs, and he slumped to the ground. He slowly raised a battered hand to shield his visor from the storm. The muddled shouts of the other divers calling him were lost in the screeching wind, and in that moment, X didn’t even care.

  Hades had taken another diver—this time, the man who was supposed to get them inside the ITC building.

  * * * * *

  Captain Ash stood behind Jordan’s station. Her eyes shifted from the storm on the main display to the status of bladder twenty-one on her XO’s monitor. She massaged her throat and longed for a cup of tea—anything to soothe the burning ache.

  “Captain,” Ensign Ryan yelled from nav. “The disturbance on the surface appears to be a massive storm. Sensors indicate it’s about ten miles in diameter.”

  “How the hell is that possible?” Ash asked, glaring at the ensign. He was just doing his job, but every time he spoke, it was to deliver more bad news.

  Ryan shook his head. “My guess is, the electrical storm must have caused it.”

  “Must have?” Ash shouted.

  “Captain, with all due respect, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Jordan said. “That electrical storm is headed right for us. At its current speed, it’ll hit us in about thirty minutes if we don’t maneuver out of its path.”

  There was no time to think. Ash had to make a decision immediately.

  “There’s something else, Captain,” Jordan said. “The surface storm has already moved through the city and is passing over the industrial zone right now.”

  Ash met his eyes. “The divers …”

  “I’m sure they would have seen it coming in time to take shelter. Right now we have to focus on the ship. The Hive just sank to fourteen thousand feet. Even if we get those bladders fixed, it’s going to take us a while to regain altitude.”

  Ash clasped the back of her chair. “Has Tin found the leak?”

  “He’s been in there for ten minutes. So far, nothing …” Jordan cupped his hands over his headset. A beat later, his eyes brightened. “Samson just reported they got bladder three online. He’s filling it with helium right now!”

  Ash felt a wave of relief, as if the helium were buoying her spirits along with the ship. “Finally, some good news. Tell him to direct all power to the turbofans and rudders. If Tin patches bladder twenty-one, we should have a good shot at getting above that storm before it can hit us. Without it, I don’t know if we can make it.”

  Ash gripped the spokes of the oaken wheel and stared at the monster storm raging toward them on the main display.

  “Jordan, take us off autopilot,” she said. “I’m taking the helm.”

  * * * * *

  Travis stood with his back to the wall, by the comm speaker. Besides the humming of air handler units above, there were only random grunts and clucks from the livestock. No one spoke, not even Alex.

  Brad had just informed Travis of the strike team’s retreat from just outside the farm entrance. That meant Captain Ash had more important things to deal with than the farm. He suspected now that she wasn’t lying about the gas bladder or the danger the Hive was in. The ship continued to shudder and shake every few minutes. Turbulence was common, but this felt different, as if the ship was fighting to stay in the air.

  Alex broke the silence by shouting from his sentry post on the platform above. “We just going to sit here all day and wait for the Militia to make a move, or what?” He climbed down the ladder and jumped onto the dirt.

  Travis thought of Raphael and wondered what he would do in this situation. His big brother hadn’t always been a violent man, but over the years, the Hive had broken him as it had so many others.

  Sometimes, you have to sacrifice the innocent for the grea
ter good.

  Raphael’s words echoed in his mind. The dark-skinned farmer whom Alex had kicked in the gut glared at Travis before looking back down at the dirt.

  “Trav, you hear me, man?” Alex said.

  Travis scarcely heard Alex. He loved Raphael, but they had always been different. He couldn’t bring himself to kill one of the hostages. That was never the plan, and he wasn’t going to change it now. Ash had either called his bluff or was too busy trying to save the ship from whatever was happening with those dark clouds outside.

  “Trav!” Alex shouted. He stopped a few feet away and pulled his knife. “Only way the bitch is going to take us seriously is if we stick one of them hostages.”

  There was a rumble from a close lightning strike, coupled with the creaking of the bulkheads around them. Travis held out his hands to steady himself as the deck beneath him shook violently. The panicked sounds of the livestock and the frightened screams of the farmers added to the general din.

  Alex fell to his knees. “What the hell’s happening?”

  “Everyone grab on to something!” Travis yelled. He looked up at the hatch to gas bladder twenty-one and hoped the kid inside knew what the hell he was doing.

  * * * * *

  The lump on Tin’s forehead throbbed as if it had a heart of its own. He was light-headed and exhausted, but he continued through suffocating heat and darkness, toward the faint hissing sound. His sweaty clothes clung to his body. He stopped to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes, then crawled ahead.

  Working his way toward the noise, he took shallow, conservative breaths from his finite air supply. The leak was close now and sounded as though it was coming from the bulkhead. He waved his hand over the hot surface of the bulkhead.

  The ship lurched again, and the entire room seemed to shift to his right, sending him sliding across the floor. A moment later, it had leveled back out, and Tin pushed himself to his knees. Captain Ash was probably trying to maneuver away from an electrical storm. The realization filled him with dread.

  He continued, crawling blind on his hands and knees, back toward the faint hiss. Even with the air tank, his breathing was jagged and raspy. And he was dizzy. Really dizzy.