Warriors

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  It wasn’t physical injuries that had X worried. Rodger had just lost his parents, but he insisted on going. And the truth was, they needed every single diver in the air.

  Ted and Lena had finished rigging their hang gliders and were checking their armor and suits. Hector and Alberto were also flying tonight.

  X didn’t trust any of the other rookies for a mission as tricky as this, but these four had enough experience under canopy that they should be able to figure out the gliders. He was more worried about himself. If anyone was going to have a problem up there, it was X, who had only one arm to steer with.

  “Boats are ready,” boomed Mac.

  “We’re good to go,” Michael said.

  “All right, gather around,” X said. “We don’t have much time. The plan is simple. We take boats out under cover of darkness, use our boosters to get into the sky, and start the search in the storms.”

  He gestured to Pedro and the Barracudas. “Our friends here will wait on the boats during our search. They will keep an eye on our beacons, and if you spot Raven’s Claw, you simply tap your wrist monitor to indicate hostiles.”

  Michael held up his wrist monitor and tapped the screen to demonstrate. Then he said, “I’ve analyzed the area Cricket has searched so far. I’ll upload that to our HUDs and then program the computer to assign us all grids that haven’t been searched already.”

  “Good,” X replied. “Sergeant Wynn and Colonel Forge will be patrolling to guard our home while we work. Once we find Raven’s Claw, we will relay the coordinates to our fleet.”

  “And the cavalry will charge,” Mac said.

  “Okay, then, let’s get to it,” X said.

  The divers picked up their hang gliders and took them to their assigned boats.

  X put his left hand on the wing of Rodger’s glider. “You sure you’re up for this, Rodge?” he asked.

  All trace of Rodger’s usual jocularity was gone. “Sir,” he said, “my parents are dead, and I’m damned if I’ll sit here and wait for you all to find their killers.”

  “You’re not going alone.”

  Both men turned toward the hatch that led into a stairwell. Magnolia stood there in armor still covered with ash. A bullet had dented the upper chest piece.

  “Mags, you—” X began to say.

  “Save it, sir,” she said, working the helmet carefully over her bandaged head. “You have no room to talk on this subject.”

  X grumbled under his breath. He hated when Magnolia made him look like an idiot just by being right.

  She walked over and gave Rodger a hug as X decided to let it go. She was needed in the sky, and he wasn’t going to tell her no when she wouldn’t listen anyway.

  The divers and support team loaded up the boats with gear. X holstered a pistol while the other divers grabbed assault rifles. Michael took one of the two remaining laser rifles.

  “Let’s move out!” X shouted.

  Miles got up and followed X to the boat where Victor and Ton had loaded the glider. Arlo was already on the deck.

  “No, boy, you have to stay,” X said. He waved the dog back toward the docks, but Miles wasn’t having it. He jumped into the boat.

  “I watch him,” Victor said in English that was getting better by the day.

  X sighed. He couldn’t win an argument with Miles or Magnolia tonight. The motors chugged to life inside the marina, echoing off the bulkheads.

  “Wait!” called out another female voice from the stairwell.

  X turned to see Layla walk out of the open hatch in a dress, a hand over her swollen belly.

  “Tin,” she said. “Come here for a minute.”

  Michael, who had already boarded a boat, jumped out and hurried over. X watched, pondering whether to leave Michael behind. There was no telling when the skinwalkers might attack again, and the storms could make this mission more dangerous even than diving.

  X was close enough, he could hear the conversation.

  Layla wiped away a tear. “Please be careful, Tin. Please . . .”

  Michael silenced her with a kiss. “I’ll be back by sunrise,” he said. “Meet me at the rooftop gardens. I have a surprise for you.”

  Layla glared at X but didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to.

  “I’ll watch out for him,” X said, raising a hand.

  She held her hand up, too, then brushed a strand of hair away from her face, revealing a gash on her forehead. Michael kissed her and ran to his boat.

  The marina door clanked open, and X put his helmet on as Victor guided their boat out into the night.

  One by one, the boats sped away from the rig, moving out in all directions to take the people he loved most on a dangerous mission. Moonlight sparkled in the dark water ahead of the boat.

  X decided to use the time before the mission to talk to Arlo. The young man sat by himself, looking at the sky. X took the seat next to him. For a few minutes, they sat in silence.

  “I hope this isn’t a bad idea,” Arlo said. “I didn’t do so great last time my chute opened.”

  X had heard the story but didn’t want to rub it in. He couldn’t remember a diver who had a worse landing and lived to tell about it. Arlo was lucky as hell to be here and not composting as Siren shit back in Rio.

  “I haven’t told anyone this, but the skinwalkers . . .” Arlo’s words trailed off as a memory seemed to surface. “When they ambushed me and Edgar in Rio, I thought they were some sort of mutants because of their shriveled skins.”

  “Worse than mutants.”

  “Anyway, they captured us, but there were only three of them, and they didn’t understand English. Edgar came up with a plan to escape, and when the time came for me to do my part . . . I got scared, King Xavier, and I ran,” he said. “I ran and I left Edgar there. That’s why he was beat worse than me. He tried to fight the three bastards by himself while I took off like a damn coward.”

  Edgar had apparently kept the story a secret. As far as X knew, no one had said anything about what had happened there.

  “And you know what he told me when we were rescued and safely on Discovery?” Arlo bowed his helmet.

  Lightning cleaved the skyline. They were getting close now. The boat thumped over waves as Victor opened it up. A distant crack of thunder sounded over the motor, and Arlo finally looked back up.

  “Edgar told me he just wanted me to get away, and he was sorry I didn’t. He was sorry I didn’t get away. Can you believe that?”

  “Yes,” X finally replied.

  “And Alexander—he gave his life to give us a chance to escape when those freak bone-beast things were about to rip us limb from limb.”

  “Everyone freaks out on their first dive,” X said. “It’s a natural human emotion to feel fear when you’re on the surface for the first time in your life. Don’t beat yourself up too much, kid.”

  “Yeah, well, I realized in Rio what it means to be a Hell Diver.”

  Another fork of lightning speared the horizon, illuminating the dark clouds. Arlo kept talking, seemingly oblivious to the storms.

  “I realized diving is a duty and it requires sacrifice,” he said. “I’m ready to do my part, King Xavier. I’m ready to give my life if need be, for our people and for this place.”

  X stood and patted Arlo on the shoulder.

  “That’s good, kid, because tonight you’re going to need courage.” X looked out at the skyline. “Tonight, we’re heading out there.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Michael rose into the sky for the second time in as many days, but this time he was strapped to a hang glider. His black helium balloon rose above the triangle of aluminum struts and sailcloth.

  The rig was awkward, but the weight wasn’t as bad as he had expected. Fortunately, he didn’t need to rise to twenty thousand feet. This search would be much lower, at only two
or three thousand feet above the water. When he reached the proper altitude, he would let out most of the helium. Then, when he needed to regain altitude, he would dial the booster to add more helium. It was a brake system in a way, but it was also dangerous as hell.

  As he rose toward the black clouds, he twisted in his harness for one last look at the capitol tower, still visible in the distance. Leaving Layla after the attack was the hardest it had ever been. The only consolation was that Dr. Huff had cleared her of major injuries, and the ultrasound showed Bray doing just fine. The kid was a fighter like his mom and dad.

  But they had been lucky. A few feet closer to the elevator cage on the rooftop of the Hive, and they could have ended up like Cole and Bernie Mintel.

  Michael tried not to think of the dead and focused on the living.

  He checked his wrist monitor. The beacon representing Cricket was going in and out from the electrical interference. For a small drone, it had covered a lot of surface area, but it hadn’t detected anything beyond the barrier.

  Where the hell are you bastards? Michael thought.

  Horn and his skinwalker army were out there, waiting and scheming to strike again. He could feel it in his guts. But there was one thing Horn and his demon soldiers hadn’t planned for.

  Hell Divers.

  They would never see the hang gliders until it was too late.

  Thunder boomed overhead, rattling the control frame. The wind pushed the sail deeper into the storm until the barrier around the islands swallowed him, blocking his view of the last rig.

  Darkness enveloped him like a shell, only to be shattered by lightning strikes across the horizon. Wind pulled and tugged on the balloon, jerking his harness. He prepared to let out helium and start the hunt.

  Lightning burst above him. In the residue of fading light, the clouds seemed to churn. He sailed higher into the void, trying to remain calm as thunder boomed like artillery going off.

  A warning sensor beeped in his helmet, indicating he was nearing three thousand feet. A glance at his HUD confirmed the other divers had already let helium out of their balloons. They were picking up speed and swooping toward the surface.

  Michael did the same thing, using his wrist monitor to start the slow and controlled release of helium. Once it reached 35 percent, a valve closed. The sails caught and propelled him forward. The rig picked up speed, whistling under the storm.

  He embraced the wind as he did at the start of a dive. Using the control bars, he eased his glider all the way down to nine hundred feet. The sail carved through the air, over water flecked with whitecaps.

  For the first few minutes, the rush of flight was more intense than he had anticipated. There was also more to manage than on a dive. He alternated his gaze from his HUD to the water, making sure he didn’t deviate from his assigned search grid.

  Lightning reached down like a skeletal hand in front of him. He flinched and then weaved right. The balloon dragged slightly, and once his rig was level again, he tapped his wrist monitor to let out more helium.

  Once it was released, he swooped two hundred feet lower to avoid other strikes, although there was no way to get below their range. Going lower just lessened the chance of being hit. The synthetic material installed around the aluminum bars would help, too, at least in theory.

  At seven hundred feet, he had a great view of the surface. There was no sign of a warship or submarines amid the galaxy of whitecaps. He alternated from night vision to infrared, hoping to pick something up.

  The minutes ticked by. By two in the morning, the other divers and Cricket had covered a combined hundred square miles. Michael feared they must expand their search even more if they didn’t find Raven’s Claw soon.

  Or maybe they were wasting their time. Maybe his gut was wrong about the warship being close.

  His mind wandered as he searched.

  At three a.m., he struggled to stay awake. The longer he flew under the storms, the more fatigued he became. Part of that was the darkness. Spending so much time in the sunshine had changed him in some ways, making the real world feel more suffocating than ever before.

  He drank through his straw, wishing he could splash water on his face.

  Lightning sizzled across the horizon, and his HUD flickered off, on, then off.

  The map on his display vanished. Worse, his night-vision optics went dark from the electrical interference.

  A pocket of turbulence shook his glider violently. He held it steady, waiting for his systems to come back online.

  For what felt like another hour, he flew in almost complete darkness, using the glow of lightning to scan the surface and make sure he didn’t go too low.

  By the time his optics came back on ten minutes later, he was a mile off course. But seeing that the other divers were still alive helped him concentrate.

  He took another drink, trying to break through the fatigue. There was always the stim pill in his vest, but he decided to save it. He had functioned on far less sleep before.

  Better to save the precious pill for when he really needed it.

  Leaning forward on the control bar, he spotted something on the surface during a flash of lightning. He blinked again, thinking it was an illusion. When he activated his night-vision optics, he saw the curved shape of an airship resting on the top of an oil rig.

  Exhaustion had messed with his memory before, but this was no illusion.

  The rig was real, and so was the airship.

  Discovery had landed on top of the Cazador prison they called the Shark’s Cage. Dozens of boats were docked outside—ferries that had taken Samson and his small army of workers to repair the airship.

  It was a dangerous place to do work, but it was the only rig on the Vanguard Islands that didn’t see sunshine—the one place the skinwalkers would probably not think to look.

  Michael decided to check it out before veering back to his search grid.

  He swooped down to about five hundred feet. Sparks glowed across the airship’s bow. The workers were busy patching up the exterior, but they still had much to do. A dozen mechanics and engineers stood on scaffolding around the exposed bridge. No one seemed to notice as he ghosted past.

  He steered away from the airship and headed back out to hunt for skinwalkers. To pick up speed, he let out most of the remaining helium in his balloon.

  That did the trick. The sail caught on a gust of wind to send him streaking beneath the clouds.

  Arriving back at his search grid, he added some helium from his booster. The balloon both slowed and lifted his rig.

  He went back to scanning the whitecaps for Raven’s Claw. But the longer he searched, the more his eyes started to play tricks on him, making waves look like ships. He drank more water and decided it was finally time to take a stim pill.

  Fishing in his vest pocket, he retrieved the last one from his stash back at the islands. He flipped his face shield open, the cold wind buffeting his face as he popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it.

  By the time he closed the shield over his cold skin, he had a blip on his HUD. One of the beacons flickered, then vanished.

  Michael’s heart sank when it didn’t come back online. They had lost a diver.

  Terrified to look, he finally brought up his wrist computer and saw that it was Alberto, one of the new Cazador divers. Michael didn’t know him well, only that he had served in the military as a boat mechanic and had jumped at the chance to dive through the sky. And now he was dead.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael whispered.

  He flew for the next few minutes thinking of Alberto and all the other divers they had lost over the years. And as always, he did his best to push the grief aside and concentrate on the mission.

  The stim pill was already kicking in, and the exhaustion seemed to wash away as the glider took him deeper into the storm beyond the barrier. Wit
h the stimulant working, his mind multitasked, focusing on the hunt but also on his worries, hopes, and dreams of the future.

  One thing had become clear to him in the past year: life was even more precious than ever before. It could vanish in a blink, as it just had for Alberto.

  Michael had struggled between duty to his people and duty to Layla, but out here, flying through the sky, he realized now what he must do, both for his people and for the only woman he had ever loved.

  The gift of life growing inside her womb had to be protected at all costs. The very future of their people depended on children like Bray.

  Lightning rickracked across his flight path, and he swooped lower. Rows of waves rolled across the black surface, stirred by the violent wind that drove his glider through the sky.

  Another beacon winked on his HUD. But this wasn’t one of the divers—not a human one, anyway.

  Cricket’s beacon flickered in and out, which could mean the robot had sustained damage or that the electrical disturbance was affecting the signal again. It appeared to be the latter, Michael realized when he brought up the drone’s location.

  For some reason, Cricket had veered away from the search grid, heading farther away from the islands and into the darkness. Michael tapped his wrist computer to give it new orders, but the signal flickered off altogether. He waited a few seconds, hoping it would come back online, but the beacon had stopped transmitting. They had lost contact with the drone.

  The loss hit Michael hard. In some ways, Cricket had become his friend. Not quite in the way Miles was to X, but so much more than a mere machine.

  The loss of Alberto, and now Cricket, filled him with anger. He felt his prosthetic hand dent the aluminum of the control bar.

  For the next hour, he searched the water. The only thing on his mind was finding the demons.

  At five thirty in the morning, his HUD beeped again—this time, not for a lost diver. The alarm meant he needed to head back to the islands.