Hell Divers III_Deliverance

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Les didn’t reply, because he didn’t know what to say. If the story was true, then Jordan was a liar and potentially a danger to everyone on the Hive. Les was a follower, not a leader, and he wasn’t about to try to overthrow someone who wouldn’t flinch at having him jettisoned from an air lock. He had his family to think about.

  The fifth number finally appeared, and the locking mechanism clicked. The heavy steel door slowly opened. Les moved out of the way and pulled the patch cords free from the control pad. He stuffed them back in his vest as he stepped back and raised his pistol. Ty kept his blaster leveled at the door. White helmet beams shot through the inky darkness, touching the edges of what looked like silos rising toward a vaulted ceiling.

  “Who’s first?” Ty asked, clearly hoping it was not him.

  Les held in a breath and stepped inside, moving his light back and forth over the massive chamber. Tubes with glass covers lined the sides of the silos like perfectly shaped eggs. He angled his light at the ceiling, where a crane hung on a metal track fifty feet above them.

  “This ain’t a supply warehouse,” Ty said quietly. He stepped up next to Les and shined his beam over a tower of capsules.

  “Then what the hell is it?”

  “A tomb,” Ty said. “We gotta get out of here.”

  “Why?” Les directed his helmet beam at Ty. The man’s features were clenched, and sweat dripped down his forehead.

  “This is where the Sirens came from,” Ty said. “I heard Jordan talking about it with Katrina. Those monsters … they evolved from genetically modified humans in places like this.”

  Les shifted his beam back to the towers. “So why the hell was X here?”

  “Don’t know, and I don’t much care.” Ty was already walking away, but Les stood his ground and examined the silos. There had to be thousands of the capsules.

  He took a few more steps over the dusty concrete, toward the silos. Dust motes floated down as his beam cut through the darkness. Were those really people frozen inside? If so, could they be woken up?

  He flinched at the crackle of static from his earpiece. “Phoenix Two, this is Phoenix One. Do you copy?”

  “Roger, this is Phoenix Two,” he said.

  “Where are you, Phoenix Two?” Erin’s voice was low, as if she didn’t want to be overheard.

  “We’re in some sort of cryo chamber. Over,” Les replied, following her lead and keeping his voice low. He looked over his shoulder to see Ty standing in the open doorway, waving at him to hurry up. Les shook his head, signaling for Ty to calm down.

  “Get out of there and head back to the atrium,” Erin said. “We need your help loading supplies. We hit the jackpot.”

  Les felt the tickle of a smile. Looks like we’re going home, he thought.

  “On our way, Phoenix One,” Les said.

  He started to back away when his light flitted over what appeared to be a broken capsule about three rows back and halfway up a tower. He pulled out his binoculars and focused on the tube while keeping the light angled on the silo.

  “Move it, Giraffe,” Ty said.

  “One of those is broken,” he said, pointing.

  “That’s why we need to get the hell out of here,” Ty grumbled. “Come on, man, or I’m leaving you down here.”

  Les tucked the binos back into his vest and turned to leave, his awe at what he was seeing finally overtaken by raw fear of what it might mean. He and Ty grabbed the doors and heaved them shut. Now they knew why X, or whoever had beaten them here, had locked the chamber. Something had awoken early from its artificial sleep.

  After securing the lock, Les and Ty made their way back up the stairwell. The twenty floors to the surface gave them plenty of time to talk.

  “Sirens were people once, huh?” Les asked.

  “From what I overheard.”

  “But how did they turn into those monsters?”

  Ty stopped on the next landing to catch his breath. “It took years. All those genetic modifications did something funny to them. Or maybe it was the radiation from the bombs. Hell, maybe it was both.”

  Les tried to wrap his mind around that, but it was almost too much for his brain to handle. He swallowed and kept moving up the stairs. By the time they made it back up to the atrium, both divers were winded, and Les had a dozen more questions rattling around in his skull. He hurried through the space, his heartbeat ramping up from more than the exertion.

  Across the room, Jennifer and Erin were stacking ITC boxes. They had already dragged the Hive’s supply crates inside. The front door was wide open, allowing flurries of snow to blow in.

  “You guys find anything?” Erin asked when they arrived.

  “Nothing useful,” Les said. “I’ll tell you more later. Let’s help you get these into the crates.”

  “There’s more downstairs,” Erin said. “I want to make sure we get as much as possible. Ty, come with us. Les, you stay here and stand guard.”

  She started to hand him the machine gun but held it just out of his reach.

  “Just flick the safety off, aim, and shoot if you run into trouble. Simple as that. Okay?”

  “Yeah … okay.”

  She raised a brow, apparently reconsidering her order. “You’re sure you can handle this?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Les holstered his pistol and grabbed the barrel stock of the gun. The weapon felt surprisingly light in his grip. He watched the other divers return to the stairwell before walking over to the open front door. A light carpet of snow had collected over the tile floor. He shut off his helmet beam and chinned on his night-vision goggles.

  “Phoenix Four, this is Phoenix One,” Erin said over the open channel. “How’s it looking up there?”

  Les flicked the safety off before stepping out onto the landing, listening to the conversation as he scanned the street.

  “All clear, Phoenix One. The Siren I saw earlier is long gone. I’ve got the satellite ready. Just give me the word and I’ll relay a transmission.”

  “Roger, Phoenix Four. Contact Command and give them our coordinates. Tell them we’re sending up two full crates and will be coming back up in the next thirty minutes. Phoenix One, over and out.”

  Les crouched down behind a low wall for cover and brought the scope of the rifle up to his visor. He zoomed in on the tower Olah had scaled, but didn’t see the diver.

  A jag of lightning streaked across the skyline like a shooting star, illuminating the area. Shadows bent beneath the cloud cover, and the bones of buildings seemed to move in the flickering light. He moved right for a better view, trying to decide whether his eyes were playing tricks on him, or there were indeed Sirens hunting up there.

  Another fork of electricity shot over the city, backlighting the horizon enough for him to see that it was clear of Sirens. He relaxed and moved across the landing to scan the street. Purple weeds grew out of the shattered road, whipping back and forth. A beetle with antennae the size of pencils scuttled in front of his boots and into a hole in the concrete.

  Creepy, he thought. Wait till I tell my boy about that!

  The clatter of metal and plastic came from inside the building, and Les peeked back inside. The other divers were returning with more crates, some of them marked with biohazard symbols. Erin had explained before the dive that the supplies might not seem like much for a ship packed full of nearly five hundred people, but the compressed synthetic food would feed them for months, and the cancer drugs would heal dozens of dying lower-deckers.

  Les found himself smiling for the first time on the dive. Maybe being a diver wasn’t so bad. Then again, they still had to make the return trip. And Ty’s revelations about Jordan made him wonder what they would find if they did manage to get back to the ship.

  After loading each crate, two divers would carry it outside and put it down in the middle of the street, all the whil
e keeping a close watch on the precious cargo.

  “Phoenix Four, Phoenix One. Did you reach Command?”

  “Yes ma’am. They’re moving into position to pick us up.”

  “Good,” Erin replied. “Now, get down here. We’re preparing to deploy the crates.”

  Les handed the rifle back to her and unholstered his pistol. He stood sentry with Jennifer and Ty while Erin readied the boxes. She hadn’t said anything about Ty carrying a blaster, but Les had caught her looking at the weapon, so she must be okay with it.

  “Make some room,” Erin said.

  She bent down and typed a passcode into the control panel on the side of the first supply crate. Two balloons popped out of the external boosters and quickly filled with gas, and the crate lifted off the ground. She punched the code into the second box and stepped back as it rose into the air, carrying the valuable supplies heavenward.

  Olah arrived just as the crates vanished into the cloud cover.

  “You see anything on your way in?” Erin asked.

  “No ma’am. If those things are out there, they aren’t showing themselves.”

  Erin pulled her binos from her vest and glassed the sky in all directions.

  “Looks clear,” she said. “Let’s get into the air, but remember to keep your distance from each other. We don’t want to get tangled.”

  The divers all fanned out until they were about twenty feet apart. Erin pointed at Jennifer. “You’re first,” she said. “Ready?”

  Jennifer stood stock-still as Erin punched the booster over her back. The canister fired, filling the balloon with helium, and up she rose, just like the supply crates. She let out a yelp and reached for the toggles, her feet kicking at air as she lifted off the ground.

  “Don’t fight it,” Erin said. She watched for a few seconds before moving over to Olah and Ty. She punched their boosters, and the two men followed Jennifer into the sky.

  Erin stopped beside Les. “Good job today,” she said. “Now, get home safe.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I plan to.”

  She punched his booster, and the canister fired. He looked up over his shoulder as the balloon rose behind him. Erin ran to put distance between them before hitting her own booster. Within a minute, all five divers were floating toward the Hive, nearly four miles above them.

  Les straightened his trajectory, then let go of the toggles and pulled out his binoculars. He wanted one last look at the remains of this metropolis, where people had once lived under the bright, beaming sun.

  Sunken streets, crumbling scrapers, and block after block of flattened houses filled his view. Snow covered the graves of thousands, maybe millions, who had burned up when the bombs exploded.

  Les held the binos on a spot of red in the white landscape. It took him a second to realize that it was their DZ. Blood marked the spot where Tom had fallen, but when Les zoomed in, he didn’t see the body.

  After a quick scan of the area, he located an arm, and a trail of red streaking away from the site. He followed the path to a crater, where a frenzy of motion surrounded a pool of gore. Three Sirens ripped and tore at Tom’s remains.

  “Contacts,” he choked out. “Three, half a click from our DZ at six o’clock.”

  “They didn’t see us,” Erin said. “Stay quiet and steady. We’re about to hit the cloud cover. They won’t follow us into it.”

  Static broke over the channel—the electrical storm, already messing with their electronics. Any minute, his night-vision optics would flicker off, leaving him blind.

  A voice crackled through the white noise.

  “Commander, uh … I seem to be losing altitude.”

  It was Ty, his voice calm but shaky.

  Les scanned the sky. He spotted Jennifer and Olah to the west. To the east was Erin, and about three hundred feet from her was Ty. He appeared to be about twenty feet below the other divers. But how was that possible if he had been the second to take off?

  “Check your helium levels,” Erin replied.

  Ty’s reply was strained. “Must have a leak in the lines or the balloon.”

  Erin muttered a curse—a rare break in her calm demeanor.

  “I can hear it hissing out,” Ty said, his usual drawl taking on a panicked edge.

  “Listen very carefully,” Erin said. “Pull yourself up by your risers and find the leak. As soon as you find it, patch it with the kit in your vest.”

  Ty twisted and reached up for the balloon. “I can’t reach it!” he yelled.

  “Hold on, I’ll come to you,” Erin said. She used her toggles to direct her body toward Ty, dipping down slightly.

  An alien scream sounded in the distance, and Les knew exactly what had made the noise. The beasts had taken to the air.

  “We got c-company,” he stuttered. He pulled out his pistol and thumbed back the hammer. The divers were almost to the clouds. Lightning bloomed in the west, but the flight path overhead looked clear.

  “Help!” Ty yelled over the comm. “I’m falling!”

  “Shhh,” Erin said. “Just stay calm. I’m on my way.”

  She sailed through the air, knees bent and hands on her toggles. A few seconds later, she reached Ty and bent down to inspect his balloon. All the while, he continued slowly sinking back to the ground.

  Les felt his heart jump a beat when he saw more of the Sirens to the south. The beasts were flapping away from towers and climbing at an alarming speed.

  “Ty, listen to me,” Erin said. “I need you to—”

  Her instructions were lost in static. Les aimed his pistol at the bat-like creatures stalking them. The first group was a hundred yards out. He could see their shriveled skin and frayed wings now, but it was their oscillating wails that chilled his blood. He fired a shot, and the gun kicked in his hand.

  “Hold your fire!” Erin shouted.

  Too late, Jennifer’s blaster sent a flare arcing through the darkness and lighting up the sky around them. As if in answer, lightning flashed.

  In the eerie light, Les saw the eyeless face of a Siren—and the mouth full of jagged teeth as it unleashed a blood-curdling wail.

  It wheeled toward Ty, clawed hands reaching up for his boots. An instant later, Ty opened a private channel between him and Les and looked up at Les.

  “Don’t forget what I told you about Jordan. You’re the only one who knows the truth now. You have to—”

  The first Siren wrapped around Ty’s body, engulfing him in its membranous wings. A second grabbed his legs, and a third slashed the deflating balloon.

  Thunder boomed, drowning out Erin’s anguished cry as she lost the second member of her team that day. The green hue of Les’ optics flashed off as he broke through the floor of the cloud cover. The comms crackled offline, but the surviving members of Team Phoenix were forced to listen to Ty’s screams as the Sirens ripped his falling body apart.

  NINETEEN

  Jordan splashed cold water on his face and slicked his dark hair back against his scalp. Wearing a freshly pressed uniform, polished boots, and his sword, he stepped into the hallway. An entourage of heavily armed militia waited, led by Ensign Del Toro.

  “Ready, sir?”

  Jordan answered by setting off down the dimly lit passage. Passengers were already flooding the corridors, the curfew having been lifted hours earlier. The crowds didn’t concern him. He had soldiers with crossbows posted at every intersection, and the most experienced men carried pistols, with orders to use extreme prejudice to keep violence from breaking out.

  In the past, Jordan would have worried about a stray bullet puncturing a gas bladder, but right now he was more worried about a mutiny.

  So far, the show of force seemed to be working. Everywhere he walked, people fell silent and parted to make way. Lower-deckers in their tattered clothing retreated, pressing their backs against the bulkhead
s. Jordan could smell them as he passed: body odor, shine, and piss. The scents disgusted him.

  But at the next passage, several lower-deckers stood their ground. At the head of the group stood Cole Mintel, muscular arms folded across his chest, sleeves rolled up to expose his clock tattoo.

  Del Toro reached for his baton, but Jordan shook his head. “Is there a problem, Mintel?”

  Their eyes met, but Rodger’s father looked away first. “It’s not right,” he muttered. “You can’t—”

  “In a few hours, everyone on this ship is going to be very happy,” Jordan interrupted. “You’ll all be praising my name. In the meantime, step aside.”

  Cole watched him pass, and Jordan let him look. He wasn’t going to waste his time on an old clockmaker. The soldiers closed in protectively around Jordan, and he began to relax as he walked, putting the anger and worry out of his mind. He was focused on his goal. He would find the new ship and save humanity. Nothing else, not even Katrina, was more important than that.

  By the time he got to the launch bay, a crowd had gathered outside the doors. The few people who managed to squeeze past the guards jostled for a view, pushing each other against the portholes.

  “Should we push them back?” Lieutenant Hunt asked.

  Jordan scrutinized the grubby faces pressed up against the glass. Men and women, young and old—they were here to see which divers had made it back and what treasures they had found on the surface. According to the last radio transmission from Olah, the divers had come back with quite a haul.

  The launch bay doors screeched open, and Jordan stepped inside. Staff in red and yellow jumpsuits surrounded the two reentry domes. A grappling hook had already pulled the plastic roof off the first, exposing two supply crates that had recently been scrubbed for contaminants.

  A team opened the crates and pulled out boxes marked with biohazard signs. Those contained the rare cancer drugs and other medicines that would heal dozens of otherwise doomed people. Still more boxes bore the symbol of a bread loaf, indicating synthetic food.