“Most of you have never fired a weapon in your life,” Jenkins said. “Ensign Olah has, but we all know he’s not the best shot.”
Olah’s cheeks reddened.
“I wasn’t a great shot when I started, either,” Erin said.
“But you’re not diving, so it doesn’t matter,” Jenkins replied.
Her smile vanished, and she caught Les’ gaze. He realized in that moment that she hadn’t told her father about her plan to dive with them, and Les wasn’t eager to see how that conversation went.
“Today, we’re going to train you in how to use the weapons that may very well end up saving your life when you land on the surface,” Jenkins continued. “The most dangerous part of a dive are the creatures that dwell down there.”
He plucked a blaster off the rack. “This is your primary weapon,” he said, opening the break and showing it to each diver in turn. “There’s room for two shotgun shells and a flare. Flicking the button up allows you to fire a flare. Flicking it down allows you to fire the shotgun shells.”
The sergeant replaced the gun on the rack and grabbed a rifle.
“This is an AK-47 that fires a thirty-round magazine. We also have M4s, M16s, and various other models salvaged over the years. They’re antiques, but they’re good, reliable weapons. Only two of you will be assigned rifles on this next dive: Olah and whoever ends up as the best shot in simulation training today.”
Jenkins pointed at the pistols next. “Everyone else will have a handgun and a blaster.”
“Go ahead and familiarize yourself with the grips of each weapon,” Erin added. “Then we’re going to get in the simulator for live training.”
Les picked up a shiny-barreled pistol with a wooden grip. It felt heavier than he had thought it would, and raising it, he couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to fire it at a living creature. He had never in his life killed anything bigger than a bug.
Erin led the team through another hatch. Smiling warmly and eagerly, she turned and gestured for Les and the others to follow. Les hadn’t trusted her up until now, but after hearing the story about the fateful dive that ended Team Wolf, he was starting to get more comfortable with her. Losing her friends and her lover explained her standoffish reputation—heck, anyone would be scarred by such an experience. The next time he heard folks talking about Erin behind her back, he planned to give them a piece of his mind.
The lights flipped on in the next room, revealing two desks with virtual-reality headsets, and three firearms with red tips on the barrels.
“This is how we’re going to train to shoot?” Jennifer asked.
Olah glared at her. “What did you expect? We’d let you waste real bullets? Besides, most of you would end up blowing holes in the gas bladders.”
Les ducked into the room and stepped up to the first desk.
“Olah is correct,” Sergeant Jenkins said. “We have always trained this way, both the divers and militia. Every bullet is precious.”
He looked about to continue his lecture, but then he reached up and placed a finger on his earpiece, turning his back to the divers to listen to a message.
“Roger that, Lieutenant,” he said after a short delay.
“What’s going on?” Erin asked.
“More crowds are gathering outside the trading post. I need to go. I’ll get back when I can.”
The sergeant hurried back into the armory, where he stopped to grab a crossbow. He unlocked the hatch leading to the corridor outside and vanished. Les heard the commotion as the hatch swung shut.
As soon as Jenkins left, two more people entered the armory: a woman with a shaved head, and a man wearing orange coveralls.
“Is that who I think it is?” Jennifer asked.
Erin turned to look. “Ah, they’re early,” she said.
Lauren Sloan, the hard-looking guard of the ship’s brig, pushed a thin man into the training room. The man kept his head down, and Les couldn’t see his face in the dim light.
“What the hell is this traitorous lump of shit doing here?” Olah asked. Apparently, he recognized the prisoner even if Les didn’t.
“He’s not to be given a weapon,” Sloan said. She unlocked the cuffs and patted the man on the shoulder in a surprisingly tender gesture. “Remember the agreement.”
“We have a guard posted outside,” Sloan said. “If you need anything, just holler, but I don’t think he’ll be giving you any problems.”
“I’ll take care of him if he does,” Olah said.
Sloan rolled her good eye and left the room. All five divers stood looking at the prisoner. Eyes downcast, he was chomping on a calorie-infused herb stick.
Ty Parker, Les thought. I’ll be dipped in hog puckey. He had thought the man was dead.
He looked halfway there, anyway. His face was covered in yellow bruises and scabbed cuts. He was thin as a whip, with sharp cheekbones and hollow eyes. The calorie-infused herb stick he was chewing on didn’t seem to be doing much good.
Les didn’t know the former technician well, but he had heard stories. Everyone said he was a good man to have at your back. He wasn’t sure what had happened between Ty and Jordan during the launch that left the other divers dead at the Hilltop Bastion, but Les had a feeling it wasn’t Ty’s fault. It seemed that a lot of things he had heard on this ship were turning out to be lies.
* * * * *
Rodger had taken cover behind a tumbledown brick wall with Layla. Standing side by side, they fired their pistols at the Sirens rising into the sky. His gun had quite a kick, and the hammer bit into his glove.
“Shit!” he grumbled, shifting his grip. His next shot missed the Siren. It swooped down, claws extended and leathery wings rippling in the air. Three of the beasts were trailing Michael and Magnolia out of the city. The storm illuminated the obstacles in their way: a metal guardrail, several rusted vehicles, a fence of downed power lines, and upended slabs of concrete.
Slowing them down were two small boats. They dragged the boats across the dirt, stopping every few yards to fire into the sky. Only a quarter mile of rocky terrain separated the divers from Rodger and Layla, but the Sirens were closing in.
“Keep them off us!” Michael yelled over the comms.
Layla and Rodger continued firing, empty casings dropping to the mud. The near-constant flash of blue light from the storm gave enough illumination to see the creatures, but flying targets were nearly impossible to hit with small-arms fire from this distance.
Rodger gripped the handgun in both hands, closed one eye, and trained the barrel ahead of the Siren diving toward Michael. The ugly creature had its wings pulled back into a delta, leading with its eyeless conical head.
As Rodger pulled the trigger again, he couldn’t get past the fact that these things had evolved from humans. There wasn’t much that was human about them anymore, but that shared ancestry somehow made the creatures even more terrifying.
The shot nicked the upper part of the creature’s wing, but it continued streaking down toward its prey. Rodger squeezed off another shot, but the monster was undeterred. A second one joined it, the beasts flanking Michael.
“TIN!” Layla screamed at the top of her lungs.
The first beast clawed at Michael’s helmet while the second plowed into his torso, knocking him to the ground. The third Siren circled above, biding its time.
Magnolia dropped her boat and ran over with both curved blades drawn. She struck from behind, lopping the scabrous head with a double strike. Then she sheathed the blades and unslung her rifle to fire at the second creature, which was coming in for another run. Rounds tore into the sinewy body, blood gushing from the holes as it spiraled into the loom of power lines.
Magnolia made killing look easy. And sexy.
Focus, Rodgeman.
In the distance, more Sirens rose into the sky, flapping like
monstrous bats above the buildings. It took them only a few seconds to home in on the divers.
“We have to help them,” Layla said. She moved away from their position behind the brick wall, limping out into the mud to fire her semiautomatic pistol.
“Get back here!” Rodger shouted. He bolted after her, reloading his weapon as he moved. One of the bullets fell into the mud, but he didn’t waste time to bend down for the precious round.
Thumbing back the hammer, he raised the revolver and searched for a target. Only one of the original three Sirens remained. It continued circling at a safe distance, calling for reinforcements in a high-pitched wail that made Rodger shiver.
Michael had pushed himself to his feet and was now dragging the long blue boat across the dirt again. He appeared unharmed, but he might just be too stubborn to realize he was hurt.
Layla limped farther out into the muddy field, navigating the trip-me hunks of concrete and tangled rebar jutting out of the ground. She slipped, righted herself, and kept moving.
Seeing her press on like a madwoman reminded Rodger how much she cared for Michael. For the first time in his life, Rodger, too, was fighting to save someone other than himself or his friends. His feelings for Magnolia had grown into something bigger and stronger than he had ever felt before. He needed to tell her, but first they had to live through the Siren attack.
“On my way, Mags!” Rodger called out.
She dropped her boat and knelt behind a rock to aim at the next flight of Sirens coming in from the city. There were six, all of them full-grown with eleven-foot wingspans. Their hellish screeches rose into a macabre chorus.
Rodger slipped and fell in the mud, hesitating there when he saw the Sirens move into a V formation. The beasts were expert hunters and had survived, even thrived, in the apocalyptic wastelands. How could the divers fight such aberrations of evolution?
Get up, Rodger! Magnolia’s in trouble.
He pushed himself back up and jogged after Layla, who was already halfway to Michael and Magnolia.
The beasts were preparing to dive toward the field. Their wings flapped through the air, and their clawed feet hung low, ready to grasp and tear.
Layla stopped to fire, and Rodger followed suit. Their pistols spat .45 rounds into the sky, but neither found a target.
“Get back to the swamp!” Michael shouted.
Layla ignored the order, and Rodger ran after her a beat later.
Michael’s frantic voice surged over the channel a second time. “Timothy, are you out there?”
By now it was obvious to Rodger that the AI had left them. The storm couldn’t be blocking out all their transmissions. The broken program was probably off sulking somewhere, having taken their only means of escape with him.
“I never trusted him,” Layla said.
Rodger didn’t reply. He was too focused on the monsters moving in.
He planted his boots the best he could and picked out a target. With the barrel lined up, he held in a breath, closed one eye, and led the beast in his sights.
The bullet hit the creature in the spine. It somersaulted limply through the air. Amazed, Rodger watched it crash into the foundation of an old building.
“I got it!” he yelled.
“Then get another!” Layla shouted back.
Magnolia and Michael were almost to their position now, but the other five Sirens were still flying undeterred beneath the storm clouds. Michael had the kayak on his shoulders and ran without glancing back. Magnolia continued dragging hers.
The Sirens all dived at once, as if a signal had coordinated them. Magnolia dropped her boat and fell on her butt. She pulled her rifle and raked the barrel back and forth, spraying bullets into the sky. Several found targets, disrupting the formation and sending the Sirens flapping in different directions.
Lightning lanced through clouds, and the thunder overwhelmed the eerie electronic shrieks.
“Stay here!” Rodger said. He sprinted past Michael until he reached Magnolia.
“You shoot; I’ll carry the boat,” he said.
She nodded and stood with her rifle aimed into the sky. Rodger holstered his pistol and bent down to grab the paddles from the boat. It took some coordinating, but he managed to get it on one shoulder and keep the paddles in his other hand. The crack of gunfire followed him as he ran across the sludge of radioactive dirt. A human skull poked out of the mud ahead, and his boot crunched through it.
A quarter mile away, he could see the border of the swamps. They were almost there. He ran harder, eyes on his goal. Layla grabbed Michael’s rifle and took over, firing as she backpedaled.
“Changing!” Magnolia said.
In the lull of her fire, high-pitched wails filled the air. He could picture the beasts swooping down and pulling him into the sky, but he couldn’t turn his head to look without losing the kayak.
Do not piss yourself, Rodger!
He wasn’t used to fighting eyeless freaks that wanted to eat him alive. He was a carpenter and engineer, not a soldier. He should be back at home on the Hive, working on his latest carving or having dinner with his family. He should never have volunteered to be a Hell Diver. He wasn’t cut out for adventure and danger.
A memory of being dragged across the water treatment plant by the monsters back at the Hilltop Bastion surfaced in his mind. The thought of it made his skin crawl, and he filled the piss container in his suit to the brim.
A burst of automatic fire from Magnolia’s weapon snapped him out of his trance. They were almost to the edge of the swamp now. Michael lowered his boat and slid it down the slope into the brown water.
“Got one!” Magnolia shouted.
That left three, if Rodger had counted correctly.
He made the final push across the field, dropped the boat on the ground, and pulled his pistol back out. Three Sirens remained, flapping into the darkness away from the wall of fire the four divers had put up, but there were more shadowed figures back in the city. Smaller creatures.
The youngsters.
The sight evoked another memory of the water treatment plant. If not for Weaver, he would have ended up eaten alive back there. Thoughts of the brave old diver who had given his life for the others fired Rodger with new confidence.
“Conserve your ammo!” Michael ordered.
Rodger holstered his pistol and pulled the ax off his belt. The three adult Sirens were coming back in for another run, with their children on both flanks.
“Let’s get in the water!” Magnolia shouted.
Rodger hefted the ax and watched the squadron of monsters coming at them. Magnolia stepped up to his side. She was working the action of her rifle, trying to free a jammed round.
“Son of a bitch,” she growled.
Behind them, Layla and Michael were pushing both boats out from shore.
“We have to stand our ground here,” Rodger said. “We get out there, and we’ll end up drown—”
A flash of motion came from the left before he could finish his sentence. A Siren had flanked them. It leaped toward Magnolia, but Rodger pushed her out of the way at the last second.
The beast slammed into him, knocking him backward. He landed on his back and found himself staring into the monster’s mouth opening. It struck at his helmet, cracking the glass.
Blood sloshed over the visor, and the body pinning him to the ground went limp. A hand gripped his and pulled him to his feet.
“You okay?” Mags asked.
Rodger wiped the gore from his cracked glass and nodded. Magnolia grinned. “Good. Now, get out of the way.”
Pivoting to face the Sirens swooping toward them, she opened fire. The fusillade cut through the beasts, sending them flopping to the ground less than a hundred feet away.
The others suddenly wheeled away. Slowly Magnolia lowered her weapon.
“Is everyone okay?” Michael asked, panting.
Rodger looked down at his suit. He didn’t see any tears or feel any injuries, but he raised his wrist monitor to make sure. Several agonizing seconds passed before he got the reading.
Suit integrity: 100 percent.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Let’s get in the water,” Michael said.
Working together, the divers pushed the two long boats out into the swamp and put their gear inside.
“Timothy, do you copy?” Michael asked again. “This is Commander Everhart. We’re heading into the swamps to continue the search for X. If you’re listening, please respond!”
Rodger got into the boat with Magnolia and grabbed a paddle. She suddenly let out a gasp and pointed at a long humpbacked creature rising from the water. It ducked back under the surface, sending out ripples.
Perhaps the Sirens weren’t fleeing the divers after all, Rodger realized. Maybe they just didn’t want to tangle with whatever beasts lived beneath the murky waters.
THIRTEEN
Two years earlier
Xavier Rodriguez coughed up something that looked like an egg yolk, and spat it on the cold concrete floor of the military bunker.
His fever had broken, but his throat wasn’t getting any better. It hurt to speak, and each breath felt like sandpaper. He didn’t say much these days anyway, even to Miles—because of the pain mostly, but also because he didn’t have much to say.
Raising his arm, he wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his new camouflage jacket and continued down the hallway toward the supply room. The small bunker consisted of only three rooms. He was headed for the smallest: a large closet filled with neatly stacked rows of vacuum-sealed items ranging from medicine bottles and high-calorie food bars to water purification equipment, soap, bedding, stacks of clothing, and batteries.
Most of what he had salvaged was already in the saddlebags of the motorcycle he had been working on, but he wanted to do a final check to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything useful behind.
Hell Divers III_Deliverance Page 14
