Hell Divers

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Come on, he thought. Just show me where you are.

  His fingers scraped across a small fragment of metal. He picked it up between three fingers. Even in the darkness, he knew that it was a piece of a bullet. He dropped it and kept searching for the puncture. Working methodically, he gridded the surface out in his mind, running his hands over each section. A few minutes later, his right hand slid over the hole. Weak suction pulled on his skin.

  Tin let out a yell muffled by his breathing apparatus. “Yes!” Keeping his right hand on the leak, he pulled out one of the patch kits he had tucked in his pants, and placed it on the deck. Then he grabbed the tube of sealant and put it between his knees.

  Unzipping the patch kit, he pulled out a flexible metal sheet, peeled off the backing, and laid the patch, adhesive side down, over the leak. Next, he traced a finger around the edges, applying the sealant along the seam. He thought he had done it right, but the true test would be whether it held. Luckily, the hole was small. He just hoped it was the only one.

  Digging into his pouch, he felt for the Old World coin his father had given him. He rubbed its smooth contours and thought of his dad.

  Listening again, he no longer heard the hiss of escaping helium. It would hold—for now, at least. With luck, he had bought Captain Ash enough time to send in a real engineer.

  Tin pushed himself to his feet. Feeling a sudden rush of dizziness, he stretched his arms out for balance. After the feeling passed, he walked slowly across the bladder, hands out in front, and felt for the hatch. Finding the handle, he twisted it open and pulled himself into the tunnel, squirming on his belly across the floor. He closed it behind him and latched it, then crawled through the passage to the hatch that opened onto the farm.

  Tracing his way back through the tunnel, he felt a huge grin. He had done it—he’d really done it! The pride of knowing he had patched the bladder slowly drained from him when he reached the other end. He hadn’t thought about what came after. What would Travis and his men do to him? He was so hot and exhausted, he didn’t have the strength to care.

  Tin opened the hatch and scrambled out onto the catwalk. He stripped away the mask, squinting in the radiance of the grow lights. Then he sucked in the longest, freshest, most delicious breath of fruit-scented air he had ever known.

  “The kid’s back!” someone yelled across the room.

  Tin shielded his eyes with his hand and scanned the field to find the voice, but his gaze stopped on his tin hat, winking like a star in the dirt below. Smiling, he collapsed onto the catwalk, his vision fading to black.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The concrete shelter rattled as the blizzard raged outside. After the first fifteen minutes, fatigue began to set in as X felt the draining effect of seven and a half hours’ surface time. Snowflakes laced with nuclear fallout fluttered from the ceiling as he waited for the storm to pass. The rest of the team sat in silence with their backs to the wall.

  Bumping his comm pad, X said for the tenth time, “Murph, do you copy?”

  The howling storm was his only reply.

  “As soon as this passes, we need to get moving,” Weaver said. He stood looking at the knee-deep snow around the bend in the tunnel. “He’s gone. You have to accept that.”

  “I’m not leaving until we know for certain Murph is dead,” X said.

  Weaver kicked the concrete wall. “We’re wasting time just sitting here!”

  “Want to talk about wasting time?” X snarled. “How about that little sightseeing tour you took us on!” He stood up. “You may know where we’re going, but I’m calling the shots. You got that?”

  “And you’re going to get us killed,” Weaver said. He looked away. “Wouldn’t be the first time you tried.”

  Katrina held up her hands. “Guys! Please stop!”

  “I’m with X,” said Magnolia, still sitting cross-legged on the floor. “We’re not leaving Murph until we at least have a look. He could be unconscious, and that’s why he’s not answering.”

  “Or he could be dead and buried under five feet of snow,” Weaver said. “Dead is the more plausible—”

  “Stop it!” Katrina yelled. “Calm down, sit down, and stop acting like children. We need to work together if we’re going to get through this.”

  X was still glaring at Weaver when a sudden flash of gray, wrinkled flesh appeared from the darkness behind Katrina. The Siren lunged through the air faster than X could move. The beast, covered in snow, landed on Katrina, pinning her against the floor.

  “Help!” she shouted, arms flailing.

  X cursed himself for not paying more attention. He pulled his blaster and fired at the creature’s back as it reared up straight, giving him a clear shot. A high-pitched screech louder than the gunshot bounced off the concrete walls. The monster grasped at a fist-size hole in its torso before slumping on top of Katrina. She pushed at the body and slid out from under its dead weight.

  The beast hadn’t come alone. A pack of snow-covered Sirens flooded into the tunnel. Katrina scrambled away. Weaver saw them at the same moment, shouldered his rifle, and fired. The muzzle flashes illuminated a passage crawling with the creatures, their lean, sinewy bodies shifting in the glow.

  X stepped in front of Katrina and fired off his last shell. The blast took the leg off of one of the creatures. It tumbled and thrashed across the floor.

  Others leaped to the walls and ceiling while X dropped his blaster and unstrapped his rifle. “Get behind me, Magnolia!”

  “I can shoot!” She raised her gun, but X pushed her back, not wanting her to kill Weaver or him in the process.

  “Get the fuck behind me!” X yelled. He squeezed off several shots as soon as Magnolia was out of the way. A beast that had been darting across the ceiling fell to the floor on its back, gurgling one last breath through its strangely wide mouth. The next volley of bullets ripped through more leathery bodies, spattering the concrete wall with steaming blood.

  Now he understood: the first pack were just stragglers trying to escape the storm. Six more came scrabbling down the passage, their spiked vertebrae cutting through the darkness.

  “Katrina! Help! Now!” X yelled.

  Katrina stepped up between Weaver and X and joined them, taking single shots as Sirens crashed into one another, trampling the fallen to get at the divers.

  “Changing,” Weaver said.

  “I still can’t get my gun to work!” Magnolia cried.

  X yelled to her, “Just retreat back to the gate!”

  Lean, stringy bodies thumped to the floor, tripping those surging into the passage. But on they came. When one fell, two more appeared, some of them taking to the walls and ceiling.

  “Get out of here!” X shouted at Magnolia. He squeezed the trigger again and again, watching more creatures fall shrieking to the ground as their blood spattered the concrete.

  “Hold the line!” X shouted, pulling a spent magazine out of the rifle and reaching for another. He didn’t need to look down to see that he had only two left. In seconds, he was firing again.

  With each beat of his heart, the Sirens moved closer. In almost slow motion, X saw scabby crested heads hurtling forward. He saw the abrasions crisscrossing their wrinkled skin, and their ropy muscles stretching as they moved. Gaping mouths opened and unleashed the screeches that made him want to drop his weapon and cover his ears. Undeterred, he kept shooting. The oscillating discord seemed impossibly loud, even overwhelming the racket of gunfire in an enclosed space. It continued to shock him no matter how many times he heard it.

  Katrina backpedaled as the monsters advanced.

  “Hold the line!” X yelled again. But Weaver was falling back with her, too.

  “We can’t hold them!” Weaver shouted.

  X fired quick bursts as he, too, retreated. The ammunition wasn’t going to do him any good if he was already dead. He flipped the
selector to full auto, sweeping the passage, no longer bothering to pick his shots. It was a final, desperate attempt to hold back the leathery horde. If they died here in this concrete tomb, the Hive was doomed.

  X knew they had run out of time when his left boot sank into the knee-deep powder that marked the curve of the tunnel.

  “Get out of the way!” someone shouted over the comm. X was shoved to the side as a hunched figure, covered in snow, limped past him.

  X stared, uncomprehending, at Murph. He didn’t know how it was possible, and he didn’t care. The sight energized him. Righting himself, he raised his rifle at three advancing Sirens and squeezed off a shot to the left, then the right, then the center of the pack. The monsters toppled and skidded across the floor.

  Murph lobbed a black ball the size of a really big apple into the darkness behind the dying beasts.

  “Run!” he yelled.

  The ball plopped in the snow amid the front-runners of the next pack. Katrina and Weaver were already running for the gate, but X held back and grabbed the man that was supposed to be dead. Murph grunted as X helped him around the bend in the tunnel. The guy was short but dense, and heavy as hell.

  Magnolia was already at the gate, crouching with her hands cupped over her helmet.

  A thunderous explosion rocked the tunnel behind them. The blast wave propelled X and Murph into the air. X lost his rifle and braced himself with his arms folded across his head as he landed in the snow. Fragments of concrete rained down on him, one piece hitting his helmet so hard he bit his tongue.

  He tried to raise a hand to protect his visor, but the arm wouldn’t respond. Another chunk of rock hit his back, but this time he only heard the impact. Everything below his waist was numb. The trailing rush of adrenaline amplified his heart rate. Blood rushed in his ears, and behind the ringing were voices over the comm channel—faint and muddied, but he could hear them.

  Desperate to see if his team was okay, X tried again to move his extremities. A toe twitched. Then his entire foot. Good. It meant his spine wasn’t broken. He fought the stars in his vision, blinking until he could see dimly outlined shapes.

  The walls seemed closer now, as if the tunnel were shrinking around him. Suffocating, he struggled to draw air.

  Three figures moved at the opposite end of the hallway, near the gate. And another sat, back to the wall, a few feet away.

  As X finally managed to move his entire body, a rising melancholy screech echoed down the passage behind him.

  The Sirens!

  He crawled across the dense powder, fingers searching for his lost rifle, knees sinking with every lurch forward. His vision slowly cleared, and he checked over his shoulder. Smoke swirled through the tunnel, but nothing stirred amid the destruction.

  X turned and clambered toward the armored figure a few feet away. It was Murph, gripping his gut.

  “Did I do good?” he murmured.

  “Yeah, Murph. You did great.”

  The engineer gave a feeble grin. “Homemade grenade. I knew Ty would never let me bring it into the launch bay if I told him. Was saving it …” He broke into a coughing fit and brought his hands to his helmet, revealing a wide gash beneath his chest armor. Blood had frozen around the wound.

  “They’re all dead!” Weaver called out from the bend in the passage. “You killed every last one of those things!” His laugh carried an edge of hysteria.

  “You’re hurt,” Magnolia said to Murph.

  “I’ll be okay,” he choked. “Somebody help me up.”

  Katrina reached down to help X to his feet, and Magnolia helped Murph up.

  “You okay, X?” Katrina asked.

  He put a hand on his helmet and nodded, his vision still clearing. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “We need to get going,” Weaver said. “Come on, before those things find us again.”

  Murph leaned on X, an arm over his shoulder, as they followed the other three divers into the tunnel.

  “This yours, X?” Magnolia asked.

  She picked a rifle up from the snow and handed it to him. He threw the strap over his shoulder and continued around the curve, where they found dozens of mangled, smoldering bodies. Steam rose off puddles of cooling blood. One of the Sirens was still twitching.

  X pulled his knife and said, “Hold on, Murph.”

  The engineer winced as X pulled away and knelt beside the monster. It tilted its misshapen head in X’s direction. A bloody froth gurgled out of its mouth, and its lips stretched in what looked like a grin. Long, pointed teeth protruded from its swollen gums.

  “Come on, X!” Weaver hissed.

  “Hold up,” X said. He had never seen one up close like this. He took a moment to examine the small bristles dotting the mangy scalp, and the fresh abrasions on its pallid skin. Looking closer, he saw scars crisscrossing the creature’s body. It had been a fighter, a predator, and even in its final moments it remained so, snapping at X’s hand before he brought the blade down in the center of its skull.

  The metal punched through bone with a satisfying crunch. A muffled sigh burbled out of the Siren’s gaping mouth. X twisted the blade and then yanked it free, wiping the blood off on the leathery skin before sheathing the knife.

  A few feet away, he spied the handle to the blaster he had dropped earlier. The barrel was blackened from the blast, but it was still intact. He scooped it up and holstered it.

  “We’re not far,” Weaver said. “Follow me.”

  The green-hued darkness brightened around the next passage, and X could see another gate, this one wide open. The divers weren’t the only ones trying to escape the storm. Now the attack made sense: not an ambush, but an inconvenient meeting between two species just trying to survive.

  As he helped Murph down the final stretch, X checked the blue numbers ticking down on his mission clock. Sixteen hours and ten minutes remained.

  “I know we don’t have time to sightsee, but check this out,” Weaver said from a few paces ahead.

  He stopped and bent down next to two bodies on the floor. “I found these guys before but didn’t have time for a closer look.”

  Both wore some sort of spacesuit, not so different from those the Hell Divers wore. The face inside the first helmet was completely decomposed, with only thin strands of hair and patches of skin clinging to its skull.

  These divers had been dead for years, maybe decades, and if not for Murph, X and his team would have joined them in their concrete tomb.

  * * * * *

  The Hive breached the clouds, rising at a forty-five degree angle. Warning sirens blared over the bridge, and from speakers throughout the ship, a pleasant female voice reminded all aboard to please stay calm and report to their assigned shelters.

  Turbulence rattled the airship as it fought for altitude. Captain Ash put Tin, Mark, the Hell Divers, and every other concern out of her mind. All that mattered in this moment was getting the ship above the storm. She felt every rattle, heard every groan, as if it were her own body, and not the ship, in extremis. Beneath her feet, the last survivors of the human race waited in their shelters, their fate pinned to her success.

  She held the wooden spokes, feeling the burden but trusting her own aviation skills over the autopilot system. Drowning out every voice and sensor around her, she kept her eyes on the main display, analyzing, calculating, and responding to the data. She spun the wheel to compensate for a change in the storm’s speed and continued to steer the Hive higher, farther from the storm. With only one reactor online, she had limited power, and running it at full capacity, she risked a surge that could knock out the turbofans. If that happened, they would suffer Ares’ fate.

  Samson had warned her “not to push the old tub,” but the storm was closing in. If it swallowed them, they wouldn’t survive long. She had no choice. If the turbofans blew, they blew.

  “Eighteen
thousand feet, Captain,” Jordan said.

  “We’re two miles from the storm’s edge,” Ryan added.

  “We’re going to make it,” she said. She imagined Captain Willis offering the same reassuring words to his crew, right before he lost control of Ares.

  “Nineteen thousand feet,” Ryan called out.

  Ash glanced at the data. She had put some room between them and the storm. It would buy them time—maybe just enough for the divers on the surface to complete their mission. She leveled the ship out and took a long, relieved breath, even though the real battle was likely occurring nineteen thousand feet below. She could only imagine what X and the other divers were facing down there.

  * * * * *

  Tin woke up screaming. He sat up and clawed at the icy water streaming over his head. An emergency alarm whined, and a calm female voice repeated the same message over and over again.

  He opened his eyes to find Travis towering over him. Tin scrambled across the dirt and searched for an escape. Alex, Ren, and Brad had formed a perimeter around him and the other hostages. There was nowhere to run.

  “Calm down,” Travis said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He tossed the bucket on the ground and crouched down next to Tin. “You’re one hell of a brave kid; I’ll give you that.”

  Tin wrapped his arms around himself, his soaked sleeves providing little warmth. He shivered, and his teeth chattered. “I patched the bladder,” he said defiantly.

  “Yeah,” Travis replied. “You sure as hell did.” The Hive rocked slightly, and he looked up at the ceiling. “So Captain Ash was telling the truth the entire time.”

  “You’re really going to let the kid go?” Alex asked. “Without even trying to negotiate again?”

  The coldness in Travis’ eyes thawed a little. “Yeah,” he said. “He saved us, and he needs a doctor.”

  Alex snorted. “We lose him and we lose a prime bargaining chip.”

  Travis stared at him as if at some strange life form. “After all this, you still don’t get it, do you? We lost all our fucking chips after your shooting spree.”