Hell Divers III_Deliverance

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “That garbled transmission we picked up this morning—I think I found out who it is.”

  Jordan sat up straighter. “And?”

  “It’s Michael Everhart, sir. He’s alive and …” Hunt shook his head incredulously. “If I’m not mistaken, he’s trying to hail another airship.”

  Jordan slowly stood at his desk.

  “The Hive isn’t alone, sir,” Hunt continued. “Captain Everhart has found a ship called Deliverance.”

  SIXTEEN

  Limp and pale, Michael lay on the cargo bay floor while Layla sobbed by his side. Magnolia leaned in for another breath while Rodger pushed down on the commander’s chest. Working together, they were doing everything they knew to save his life after pulling him from the swamp. His crushed armor lay in a heap on the floor.

  “Please, please let him be okay,” Layla cried. She shook Michael’s arm. “Tin! Tin, wake up!”

  The glow from Timothy’s hologram illuminated the scene. Magnolia still couldn’t believe it, but the AI had flown the ship low over the water to save them. If not for that, Michael would be dead.

  He is dead, Magnolia realized. They had pulled him from the water nearly five minutes after the snake hauled him out of the boat. Not long after, Michael had lost consciousness, and then he had stopped breathing altogether.

  “Hold on,” Timothy said. The bulkheads and floor rattled as the ship accelerated. He was taking them back to the original LZ, but they were smack in the middle of a storm.

  Magnolia prepared to give Michael another breath, but it caught in her chest. She couldn’t believe it. After everything, they were heading right back to square one. Their short journey had come at a terrible cost.

  “Come on,” Rodger muttered as he doggedly continued the chest compressions.

  Magnolia breathed into Michael’s mouth again, and Rodger pushed down on his chest. They continued trying to resuscitate him, but it didn’t seem to be doing any good. Layla grabbed Michael’s hand and squeezed, tears flowing down her cheeks. She leaned down and whispered something into his ear.

  The white illumination from Timothy’s hologram vanished as the ship continued to pick up speed. The liftgate door had sealed shut, locking them inside. Outside the portholes, lightning flashed like a hand reaching out for the ship.

  Magnolia flinched as a bolt struck the overhead. The raucous crack boomed like a blaster shot. She hit the floor hard but fought her way back to Michael and breathed air into his lungs.

  “Warning, power surge detected,” announced a female voice over the PA system.

  Magnolia focused on Michael. There wasn’t anything she could do right now to fix the ship. Their fate was in Timothy’s hands—a terrifying notion. She trusted the AI more than she trusted Jordan, but that wasn’t saying much.

  “Come on, Tin,” Magnolia whispered before giving him another breath.

  Had his eyelids just flickered?

  Rodger pushed down one more time, and Michael’s pale lips parted, disgorging a stream of water that smelled like raw sewage. Magnolia moved back to give him room and waved Rodger off.

  “Tin,” Layla said frantically. “Tin, are you okay?”

  “Are you ever going to stop calling me that?” Michael mumbled. He reached up and swiped a curtain of soaking hair out of his face.

  Layla gave a laugh of pure joy and bent down to wrap her arms around him.

  “Let him breathe!” Rodger said.

  “Sorry,” she said, pulling back.

  Michael managed to put an arm around her. “Where … where am I?”

  “Deliverance,” Rodger said.

  “Wha … How …?” Michael asked. He blinked rapidly, as if struggling to focus on the faces around him. Then he suddenly leaned over and vomited up more water.

  “Ugh,” he said, wiping his mouth.

  “We gave you something to make you puke,” Layla said. “Now, drink this syrup. It’ll kill whatever nastiness is still in you.”

  No sooner had Michael glugged down the beaker of clear liquid than a violent jolt rocked the divers, tossing them across the floor. Magnolia slid away from the others, reaching out for something to hold on to but finding nothing. She crashed into a bulkhead with a thump that took the air from her lungs.

  “Warning, threat level critical,” announced the same monotone female voice.

  “Timothy!” Magnolia shouted.

  “I’m working to address the issue,” he replied calmly over the PA.

  His voice had returned to the same smooth, calculated tone that Magnolia remembered from their first meeting back at the Hilltop Bastion. After his earlier meltdown, she wasn’t going to complain. But she hadn’t forgotten that he’d almost killed them.

  The ship continued rocking, but it leveled out enough that she managed to get to her feet. Michael lay on his back a few feet away. Layla scrambled over to him.

  Another bolt of lightning blasted the hull. The Klaxon screamed, and red lights flashed from recesses in the ceiling. The swirling color spread through the cargo hold as if a portal from hell had opened. Rodger put his hands on his ears, rocking back and forth.

  “Threat level critical,” the dry female voice repeated. “Please move to your designated shelter.”

  Magnolia helped Rodger up and followed Michael and Layla toward the row of safety harnesses hanging from the bulkhead. Quakes shook the floor, throwing them all off balance. Deliverance continued picking up speed, the thrusters propelling them downward through the storm clouds.

  This baby was way faster than the Hive, at least. Magnolia couldn’t help but marvel at the ship’s technological superiority. The Hive would already have crashed and shattered on the surface, but Deliverance kept flying through the onslaught of lightning.

  Michael was first to the harnesses. Layla helped him strap in as his hands fumbled at the buckles. Rodger and Magnolia were next. She took the harness on the far right, which gave her a view out the porthole. A wave of water splashed over the hull, spraying brown mist into the air as the ship lowered even farther.

  “Holy shit,” she said, hardly able to hear her voice over the screaming siren.

  “Hold on, everyone,” Timothy said over the PA system.

  Magnolia grabbed the harnesses and gritted her teeth. Loose armor rolled and clattered over the metal floor. Michael’s helmet smashed into a bulkhead, but the visor, built to handle blunt-force impacts, remained intact.

  Thunder boomed like a grenade exploding. The vibration rattled Magnolia’s bones, and her face shook from the g-forces. It felt a lot like diving through a storm.

  “I … I think I’m gonna puke, too,” Rodger said.

  Yup, exactly like diving.

  Magnolia looked out the porthole to her right. The ship lowered again, giving her an even better view of the water. They skimmed the surface, leaving a frothy white wake in the brown water. She closed her eyes, trying to keep her stomach down.

  “Almost clear,” Timothy announced.

  The ship groaned as every strut and bulkhead flexed with the strain. They were going to break apart; she knew it.

  When her eyes opened again, Magnolia could see terra firma below. The ship rocketed over an island, leaving both the swamp and the worst of the storm behind. Ten consecutive thunderclaps sounded in the distance, as if the storm were applauding their escape. She took a deep breath and relaxed in her harness.

  “The shit never ends,” she muttered.

  Timothy’s hologram reemerged in the center of the small cargo hold, his hands clasped behind his back.

  Michael coughed again and spat on the ground. “How in the hell did you find us?”

  “I received your transmissions but was unable to reply due to the electrical interference. I traced your last SOS. It appears I found you right in the …” He paused and brought a finger to the bottom of his close-crop
ped beard. “… in the nick of time, I believe is how the phrase goes.”

  “All that matters is you came back for us,” Rodger said. “Thank you, Timothy.”

  The AI dipped his head politely. “It is my pleasure.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Timothy,” Michael said, “but we’re not out of this just yet. Can you put together a damage report?” He staggered across the hold to his helmet and armor. Layla held his arm to keep him steady.

  The Klaxon had shut off, but the female voice continued to repeat, “Threat level critical.”

  “One moment,” Timothy said.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Magnolia asked as the hologram disappeared again.

  “Let’s wait to hear how bad the damage is before we start worrying about what to do next,” Michael said.

  “Several secondary systems are offline,” Timothy announced. “Lightning strikes damaged the stern. Several areas require patching.”

  The divers gathered around their commander, looking to him for guidance, but he could hardly stand. Vomit stippled the front of his dented armor, and blood trickled from a cut on his forehead. His long hair was matted to his shoulders, and he reeked of sewage.

  As if all were just business as usual, he straightened and said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Rodger and Magnolia, patch the hull while Layla and I work on getting the secondary systems online.”

  “And then what?” Rodger asked.

  Michael turned to him with a look that told Magnolia they were going to do something bat-shit crazy.

  “We’re going to fly this ship as low and as fast as possible until we get to X’s signal—or until we crash.”

  * * * * *

  Les Mitchells held a glove up to catch a snowflake drifting down from the swollen clouds. Lightning split the sky in a brilliant arc. By the time the flash faded away, the flake had melted.

  “Never thought I would see snow,” Jennifer said.

  “Radioactive snow,” Les replied. He lowered his hand and checked his wrist monitor. The rads were in the yellow zone.

  “Everyone, keep an eye on your suit-integrity monitor,” Erin said.

  “I don’t think my warming pads are working,” Ty said. “I’m freezing.”

  Les checked the temperature reading on his HUD: thirty degrees and dropping by the minute.

  “It’s probably because you’re as thin as a beanpole,” Jennifer said.

  “Shut up and keep moving,” Olah snapped.

  Erin brought a finger to her helmet, shushing them. They had been following her across the barren wasteland for hours, stopping only to raid the supply crates and pick up gear. She moved slowly but without hesitation.

  Les was more grateful than ever to have an experienced leader on the team, but after seeing Tom die in the first few minutes of the mission, he was worried that Phoenix would end up like Erin’s old dive team. How many more of them would be killed down here?

  Olah grunted as he dragged the ski-mounted supply crates over the snow. So far, he seemed to be handling the plastic boxes fairly easily. There wasn’t much inside, just the chutes and gear they had salvaged from Tom Price—not that the stubborn militiaman would ever ask for help if they were too heavy.

  They were moving toward their target, an ITC installation deep underground. Erin continued on point with the satellite dish from the supply crate strapped on her back. She cradled one of the two assault rifles.

  Les put his hand on the grip of his pistol for reassurance, hoping the cartridges would actually work if he ever had to fire the ancient weapon.

  He stumbled over a chunk of rubble. Stay sharp, Giraffe. He was still getting used to the night-vision optics, and it was damned hard to see where he was going in the green-hued darkness.

  There was a reason people referred to the surface as hell. Human bones littered the ground almost everywhere they went. They were in some sort of industrial zone now, trekking around old-world vehicles that rose out of the snow. Some of them Les recognized from picture books: cranes, concrete trucks, bulldozers. Others looked like nothing he had ever seen before. The area had been largely spared from the nuclear fires, but the crumbling infrastructure had suffered in the harsh conditions of the intervening two and a half centuries. Most of the vehicles were pocked and riddled with holes, just like the decayed network of roads they had once been driven on.

  To the east, streets stacked one on top of another led to a wilderness of steel and concrete. A carpet of snow covered the dead city like a layer of skin. A skeletal arm protruded from a drift to his right, and even though it was ancient, Les checked for tracks.

  He saw nothing in the fresh powder aside from ski tracks and the boot prints of Erin and the other divers ahead of him, but that didn’t mean there weren’t creatures out here. Hunting, stalking … watching.

  The divers halted at the edge of the industrial area when Erin raised her fist. Another road snaked through several blocks of pockmarked brick buildings. Their roofs had given way to the weight of snow over the years, the rubble bulging out of missing windows like bread that had overflowed its pan.

  Erin motioned for Olah to join her at the front of the group. She pulled the satellite contraption off her back and handed it to him, then pointed to the largest building in the distance.

  “Set up there and try to reach Command,” she said. “Les, you and Ty take over the supply crates.”

  Les followed her finger toward a building that was nothing more than a husk, with the exterior peeled away like the skin of an orange, exposing steel girders and a concrete stairwell. He was glad Olah was going and not he.

  The overeager militiaman gave a stiff salute and said, “Yes, Commander.” They all watched him jog through the snow with his rifle shouldered.

  As much as he disliked the guy, Les didn’t want to see him get killed. So far, they hadn’t been able to get any messages through to the Hive, and while Erin claimed it was normal to lose contact sometimes during a mission, they were counting on Olah to make sure they could reach Command.

  Circling back, Erin crouched in the snow and brought her wrist monitor up. Les, Ty, and Jennifer bent down to look at the map on the small screen.

  “We’re one mile away from the target location,” she said, pointing.

  She sounded nervous, or maybe that was just the distortion over the comms. Not that Les would blame her if she were. He was pants-pissing scared out here, his thoughts shifting from his family to all the things hiding in the radioactive landscape, waiting to feast on his flesh.

  “Once we enter the facility, we’re looking for an underground entrance,” Erin continued. “I’ll stay on point until we get there. Keep sharp, and if you see anything, tell me.”

  Erin moved out, shifting her rifle barrel from window to window. The divers fanned out on the next street, with Les and Ty keeping to the right, and Erin and Jennifer on the left. Jennifer carried a blaster, but Ty was weaponless. As a criminal, he hadn’t been entrusted with a weapon. Les really wanted to ask him a few questions, but they hadn’t gotten the chance to talk one-on-one, and it didn’t look as if that was going to happen anytime soon.

  They entered a tunnel with leaning concrete walls that looked precarious at best. If one of the slabs fell, it would crush them like ants. Erin studied the concrete beams for a moment before passing underneath. Les squinted to see what lay at the end, but could only vaguely make out a pair of metal doors bent outward.

  A gust of wind swirled the powdery, poisonous snow around the divers as they made their way through the tunnel. A skeleton lay facedown in the snow ahead. Most of the clothing had been stripped away, leaving nothing but a pair of boots on the corpse.

  Les looked back up at the storm clouds and then at the street, checking for any contacts that may have flanked them. But he saw only the same cold, dead world in every direction he looked.

&nbs
p; They came to the end of the passage a few minutes later. Across the street, a sagging structure towered above them. Though decayed from centuries of neglect, it was still impressive.

  “I think this is it,” Erin said. “Can anyone make out that sign?”

  Les tried to read the metal sign hanging above the double doors of the entrance. His eyes flitted up the ten-story structure. Black squares where windows had once been dotted the gray exterior.

  Was that a flash of movement, or were his eyes playing tricks on him?

  “Tech something,” Jennifer said, straining to make out the words. “Industrial Tech Corporation?”

  “We’re here,” Erin said. “Drop the crates on the landing.” She moved across the road toward a wide concrete platform at the entrance to the building. The front doors were sealed shut. Les hoped this meant there was nothing nasty inside. He dropped the crates where Erin had pointed, and helped Ty unclip the towropes.

  Erin brought her wrist monitor up again, letting her rifle sag across her chest armor while she wiped the screen.

  Radio static crackled over the comms. “Phoenix One, this is Phoenix Four. I’m moving into position.”

  “Roger that,” Erin replied. “We’re about to enter the facility. Stand by.”

  She looked back at Ty and Les. “This place looks pretty massive. We’ll need to split up. Jennifer, you’re with me.”

  “Then, I guess that makes us buddies,” Les said, turning to Ty. The former technician just stared at the doors of the ITC building.

  The team advanced up the stairs, and Erin tried the doors. The handle snapped off in her hand, and she dropped it in the snow. She put her shoulder into it and, with the other divers’ help, pushed the doors open to reveal a gloomy atrium littered with upended furniture.

  Erin raked her helmet beam over a mosaic on the high ceiling. Many of the tiles lay scattered on the floor, but enough remained to show that it had once been beautiful. At the end of the room, a desk stood in front of what looked like some sort of artificial waterfall, long since dried up. He couldn’t believe that people used to waste good water so foolishly.