Warriors

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Find us a path,” Michael said.

  “Northeast looks clear with several more outcroppings if we have to hide,” Edgar said, handing Michael his spotting scope.

  There were several clusters of buildings across the plateau. But it was the jungle at the base of the foothills that most interested him. If they could reach it, they could sneak to the foothills and then into the rocks surrounding the fortress at the foot of the mountain.

  He rotated the scope to look at the smokestacks and the fortress walls. They had to get inside there somehow.

  “We make a run for the jungle,” Michael said, “then work our way up to the rocks to look for a way in. Everyone on me, fast and tight.”

  He took off running. The trees were a mile and a half away—normally about a thirteen-minute run in armor, but he had to go slower for Lena.

  Minutes into the trek, he spotted the mounds of earth they had seen from Cricket’s camera. And while he couldn’t see cannons or turrets, he knew they were there, hiding.

  A branch snapped under Michael’s boot. He kept going, ignoring it. After another snap, he realized that they weren’t sticks. Bones littered the dirt ahead.

  He slowed his pace. They were in the graveyard they had seen from the sky. The round rocks he had spotted at their last position weren’t rocks, either.

  Shells of vehicles littered the ground. The nose of a helicopter and a wing of a fighter jet stuck out of the ground to his right. And bones were everywhere. Armor, too—all of it scoured by the wind over the centuries since the human army lost the battle to stop the machines.

  Michael kept walking, then broke into a trot. Every bone that snapped under his heavy boots made him think of the dead. These people couldn’t all have been soldiers. Like the Hell Divers, they had probably come from all walks of life. Teachers, engineers, chefs—people trying to save what was left of their world.

  And they had failed.

  Michael kept running, trying to put them out of his mind and focus on the mission. But every step was a challenge. He felt that he was in a graveyard possessed by the ghosts of fallen warriors, all of them counting on the Hell Divers to finish what they themselves had failed to do.

  His thoughts returned to Layla and Bray. He was trying to save his family, just as these people had tried to save theirs.

  Thinking of X enabled him to refocus. The king was off fighting the skinwalkers, to save not only his family but the Vanguard Islands, too. And if X and General Forge ran into defectors there, it could be a slaughter.

  Michael narrowed in on the trees, running faster, rifle cradled and eyes forward.

  To defeat the machines, he must become one.

  He was a quarter mile from the tree line when another drone rose into the sky. He didn’t see it at first—only the sound of thrusters. But then it burst through the smoke wafting away from the factory stacks.

  Michael kept running, close enough to the fortress now to see a dirt road leading away from two massive steel doors that must be an entrance. Both were sealed shut.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The divers were keeping up with him, even Lena. They bolted for the acres of trees and red sage-like bushes—ample concealment for scouting out the base.

  Somewhere behind them, another drone thruster roared. Everyone hit the ground, praying that their suits would mask their heat signatures.

  He stared ahead, not daring to move, staring into the empty orbits of a cracked and wind-polished skull. A rib cage stuck out of the ground nearby, and beside it a skeletal hand, a wedding ring still on the third finger.

  Michael again thought of Layla and Bray.

  You’re going to see them. You’re going to get out of this.

  As the machine closed in, that little promise to himself seemed hard to believe.

  Michael flitted his eyes to see the drone up close for the first time. This model was much more advanced than Cricket. It had no limbs and a curved shell. Spikes jutted from the armor, and an antenna tested the air.

  The thrusters in back turned off as the underbelly opened. It switched to hover mode, and all those spikes extended into what were surely weapons.

  Heart thumping, he resisted the urge to raise his laser rifle and blast the damn thing out of the sky. If he did, they were so close to the base that the machines would send everything down on them.

  The drone lowered until it was ten feet above him, close enough that the hover nodes kicked up a rooster tail of dust. The force of the draft exposed a skull still wearing a helmet that didn’t look much different from his own.

  Michael tried to calm his pounding heart as the drone flew over him. He waited for a flurry of bolts that never came. The draft of air passed right over him as it flew over the other divers.

  He remained frozen, and the noise moved farther away. He swallowed hard and then flinched at another noise—a beeping sound.

  Michael’s gut clenched when he realized what was causing it: his wrist monitor.

  He brought it under his body and shut it off, but too late. The humming returned, drawing closer.

  He prepared to roll away and fire his laser rifle, waiting for just the right moment. But just when he flipped onto his back, the thrusters on the drone fired. Blue flames scorched the air as it zipped away.

  He didn’t waste a second getting up. The team followed him toward the trees while the drone flew away to the eastern edge of the battlefield.

  Michael recognized the location. Cricket had somehow come back online—not to warn Michael, but to provide a distraction. He looked over his shoulder just as the enemy drone located Cricket’s broken body. A flurry of red lasers pounded the ground, finishing off the mechanical Hell Diver that had saved countless human lives, including Michael’s.

  Anger flared, and he halted, but Les pulled on his robotic arm. He chambered the anger for later and ran to the jungle on the captain’s heels.

  When they got there, Edgar was aiming his rifle toward the fortress walls.

  “Guys, we have a major fucking problem,” he said quietly.

  The gate Michael had seen earlier widened, giving them the first look inside the base. Marching forward were three DEF-Nine units, followed by another three.

  Within seconds, a small army had left the base, marching down a sloped road.

  “Holy shit,” Edgar said. “Take a look at this.”

  He handed Michael the spotting scope, and Michael zoomed in, expecting to see even more machines inside the base. But he saw other figures—not machines at all.

  These were humans, all of them shackled and chained.

  A drone hovered over the group, and a defector led them across an open area, toward the factory smokestacks. The gates slowly closed, again blocking the view.

  Mechanical joints clanked in the distance as the defectors marched down the road and spread out.

  “What do we do?” Arlo asked.

  Les looked toward Michael.

  They both answered at the same time.

  “We hide.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Magnolia climbed the interior stairwell in what appeared to be an abandoned building. X and Victor followed her, their helmet beams raking back and forth, illuminating a reddish crust that covered the stained walls like warts.

  Head pounding from her injuries, she felt like an insect stuck in a web, being pulled in all directions by a family of hungry spiders. Using her body, she burst through a web covering the stairwell.

  She hoped that Lieutenant Wynn would be able to protect their home until the Hell Divers could shut down the machines. Not knowing how Les and Michael were doing made her feel helpless. But that wasn’t her only worry. Leaving Miles and a gravely wounded Rodger on the beach tugged on her heart.

  At the top floor of the building, she entered a hallway with cracked walls. Switching off her helmet lamp, she used
her night-vision optics to scan the passage. The doors were gone, allowing a view into each room.

  X and Victor followed her, clearing the spaces one by one. At the final room, Magnolia went inside, sweeping her rifle barrel over the rotted desks and rusted chairs. Broken windows looked over the refinery.

  Keeping low, she spotted a figure on a silo.

  The skinwalkers weren’t hiding anymore. Several walked on the round rooftops, watching the ground and the air for hostiles. She counted five of them, and on the ground another two patrols of four men each inside the fenced-off compound.

  X and Victor took up position along the wall, sneaking glances out the missing windows. Magnolia checked out the compound.

  Two fences sealed off the main buildings inside. A third barrier, of brick and mortar, surrounded the buildings. Weeds and bushes with stubby branches grew inside the fenced zone.

  Something moved in the purple foliage, parting it like a dorsal fin cutting through the water. An eyeless head emerged, and a spiked back. A prowling Siren—another layer of security around the outpost.

  And not just one Siren. She spotted several of the creatures. All were males, their wings sheared off, leaving jagged stubs protruding from their bony backs.

  X saw them, too, then raised his binoculars to the ocean. Magnolia aimed her night-vision monocular in that direction, looking for Shadow. The remaining Cazador warship was nowhere in sight, but she could see another vessel.

  Zooming in, she confirmed that it was Raven’s Claw, sailing about a mile out to sea. This warship was different from the ones she had seen in the Cazador fleet. Several modifications had been made over the years, but it was the ribs of some gigantic sea beast mounted along the gunwales that caught her attention.

  On the bow, the skull of the largest shark she had ever seen bared its teeth at the darkness. Raking the scope over the deck, she spotted several sailors, though not as many as she would have expected.

  X stood beside her, scanning with his binoculars while Victor stood guard.

  “I don’t see Shadow,” he said.

  They turned back to the view of the outpost buildings. The skinwalkers were hunkered down, and Magnolia had a feeling she was seeing only a small portion of their fighting force. They also had the people they had woken from ITC’s cryo chambers, not to mention the Sirens.

  Horn and his men weren’t just evil. They had to be insane.

  “How are we going to get inside?” she asked X.

  He kept his binos on the industrial buildings inside the fences. The structures were mostly metal warehouses built on concrete foundations. Like the Raven’s Claw, they had been reinforced with plate steel. Bars covered the shaded windows.

  Train cars, no longer on tracks, served as barracks. Rusted containers also stood inside the compound, probably containing more horrors.

  “Three against thirteen men,” X finally said. “I’ve faced worse numbers.”

  Victor didn’t seem to understand.

  “Plus the Sirens,” Magnolia said.

  “Exactly,” X said.

  Magnolia gave him a puzzled look.

  X flipped up his face shield and spat on the ground.

  “You take out the guards on the rooftops, and Victor and I will take the patrols outside the outpost,” X said.

  “You want me to sit here and snipe?”

  “Victor’s injured, and as you know, I can’t shoot for Siren shit with this damn toothpick arm.”

  X was right, but she wanted in on the action when they found Moreto. She had a feeling the woman was hiding in the buildings directly in front of them.

  “Once shit hits, meet on the west side of the outpost,” X said. He pointed to the boatyard with its motley fleet in various states of decay, then to a cargo ship laden with containers.

  “There,” he said. “We use the chaos to pick off anyone coming outside; then we enter the outpost to mop up any survivors.”

  “Got it.”

  “Good luck, Mags.”

  “You too.”

  The two men left, and Magnolia unslung Rodger’s assault rifle. She rested it against the wall, then laid out the magazines.

  Getting on one knee, she trained her laser rifle at the silos that X and Victor crept toward. The skinwalkers had spread out on the tops. They must have night-vision goggles, because none were using flashlights.

  X and Victor neared the area where the Barracudas had been ambushed. Blood from fallen soldiers darkened the soil. Spotting the area where Felipe fell, she aimed at the skinwalker who had killed him. Flaps of bloody skin draped the sides of his helmet. Magnolia noticed the dark tattoos on the patches.

  He was wearing Felipe’s face and scalp.

  “Bye-bye, ass wart,” she whispered.

  A bolt flashed through his mouth and out the back of his head. He crumpled to the silo roof, out of view. Seconds later, she dropped another skinwalker with a bolt through the chest. She could see through the glowing orange hole in his middle as he teetered and fell.

  The other three soldiers seemed oblivious.

  She used the lag time to take off a third skinwalker’s arm at the elbow. Before he could cry out, his head slid off and rolled against the severed forearm.

  The fourth guard turned, looking around wildly as he raised his rifle. Magnolia took his hand off, then blew through his helmet with a second bolt.

  Seeing his comrade drop, the fifth and final soldier swung his rifle toward her. She vaporized his chest armor before he could squeeze the trigger.

  Victor and X had advanced toward the first patrol of four skinwalkers. The men all carried rifles and had bows slung over their backs.

  X took up position behind a low concrete wall and pulled the other half of Rhino’s spear from the sheath over his back.

  Victor stood with drawn cutlass, hugging the wall of an adjacent silo. Even from here, Magnolia could see that the blood had soaked through the bandage on his arm.

  The skinwalker patrol marched toward the ambush until the leader, a hulking man sporting a human jaw on his helmet, stopped and held up a hand. He looked up at a corpse hanging its head and arm over the edge of a roof.

  Magnolia aimed right at the jaw on the bulky skinwalker as he raised an arm. Before she could pull the trigger, X materialized from behind a concrete wall. With a swift jab, his prosthetic spear pierced the man’s helmet. With his left hand, he drove the other half of the spear into another soldier’s chest.

  Victor had flanked, bringing his cutlass down on the back of a neck, severing head from spine. By the time the fourth soldier knew what was happening, both X and Victor had stabbed him twice.

  He dropped to the ground, and X finished him off with a spear through the eye slot.

  The patrol was dispatched in less than a minute, and Magnolia hadn’t even fired a bolt.

  The king and Victor took off for the final patrol outside the fences.

  Gunfire cracked in the distance. Magnolia looked back toward the wind turbines. The noise seemed to be coming from that direction.

  Rodger . . . Miles . . .

  More shots popped toward the beach west of the compound—where the other Barracuda team had gone to flank the outpost. Trying not to think about what was happening out there, she focused on finding the last patrol.

  X and Victor ran down the dirt road, following streaks of blood toward the fences and the area where she had last seen the other patrol.

  She moved to another window but still didn’t see the four warriors.

  Where the hell did they go?

  Magnolia went back to the window where she had rested her assault rifle. Using her night-vision monocular, she combed the ground, finally spotting boot prints.

  She followed them to a silo, where they vanished from view. Panning left, she finally saw part of a soldier. Just an arm and back of
the helmet of a man who had stopped behind the silo.

  X and Victor were walking right toward the skinwalker patrol.

  If she didn’t do something, they would be the ones ambushed.

  She aimed at the exposed helmet, but the angle was tricky. And even if she made the shot, there were still three more.

  Acting quickly, she swung the barrel to X and Victor and sent a bolt across their path.

  They both retreated and looked up at her position. She pointed at the location of the patrol. X nodded and started to flank with Victor, each moving around one side of the silo. She kept her rifle barrel aimed at the still-exposed helmet of the soldier standing sentry.

  The distant pop of gunshots came again, but it was more sporadic. Voices drifted in the lull.

  Magnolia took her visor away from the scope for a moment, looking east, toward the field with the wind turbines. It took a moment of scanning to see movement. Figures marched across the ash-covered field. The ITC slaves were returning with their masters.

  Shit, shit . . .

  She panned back to X and Victor. Both men were inching around the silo from opposite sides, preparing to strike the final patrol.

  The voices of the skinwalkers guarding the workers grew louder, but neither of her friends seemed to notice.

  Again she moved her night-vision monocular to the slavers. She counted six. They were heading right for the refinery. She couldn’t take them all out before being spotted.

  When she turned back, X and Victor had moved around the silo. A scream rang out, then a gunshot. Metal clanked on metal.

  She tried to get a shot but saw only a blur of armor.

  A skinwalker flew backward, limp, already dead. She still couldn’t get a clear shot, and the slaver soldiers were about to reach the refinery.

  “Come on, X,” she whispered.

  Zooming in, she saw another skinwalker hit the ground. Someone grabbed his boots and dragged him out of view. Victor emerged and did the same with the other dead men.