Warriors

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Michael couldn’t see the airship, but knowing that it was up there, with Timothy, Samson, and the crew watching over the divers, gave him a new sense of confidence.

  Now he just had to get inside the base.

  That wasn’t going to be easy, even with two gaping holes in the fortress walls. The rocket impacts had opened the doors, but new tanks had shown up to plug them, with laser barrels aimed at the skyline.

  Michael couldn’t see the cannons that had taken out Cricket, but he knew they were waiting for the airship to move into firing range.

  Discovery had been lucky to get away on the first run. Against all that firepower, the chances of its surviving a second attack were thin. And it wasn’t just the cannons and tanks. A swarm of drones patrolled the sky. Michael guessed they couldn’t fly as high as Discovery, or they would already have blown the airship out of the clouds.

  It had wreaked havoc on the base. Four of the fourteen buildings inside the walls were now piles of rubble. The undamaged buildings looked manufactured—all the same metallic color, all in perfect rows, like a small old-world city for machines instead of humans.

  Centered in the small city was a massive steel tower with a spiked roof. It was ten times the height of the other buildings. Several rockets had hit the odd structure, leaving black streaks on the surface. But there didn’t appear to be any damage. Nor could he see a single window or doorway leading into the tower.

  Several DEF-Nine patrols marched down the roads, where the divers had little to hide them from the machines. A few trees grew in the dirt, along with clumps of weeds. Stacks of pipes and metal parts might also provide cover.

  There were still enough machines to make sneaking in difficult, especially with the drones. He ducked back into the rocks as another flew overhead. This would be harder than he had supposed.

  The drone hovered a moment, and Michael decided to return to the cave, where Arlo and Sofia rested. Lena waited at the entrance, holding a laser rifle. They exchanged a nod, and Michael went inside to check on the injured divers. Both sat on the dirt floor, leaning against the cave wall.

  The armor had saved Arlo’s life, but it hadn’t stopped the laser bolt that sheared off the top of Sofia’s shoulder. As Michael knew all too well, the only upside to being shot with a laser bolt was the cauterizing effect.

  “I can still fight,” she said, standing. “Did you find a way in?”

  “Not yet,” Michael said.

  Arlo remained seated, holding his side. The wound he got in Rio de Janeiro had flared up after his tumble down the hill, and he likely had a concussion.

  “Tell me when it’s time to finish these tin pots off,” he said.

  “Soon,” Michael replied. But we’re running out of time.

  If there were machines at the Outrider, X and his team could be in terrible danger, and not just from the defectors. The drones had changed the game, and seeing them here meant they could be out there, too.

  Crunching footsteps sounded, and Michael moved over for Les and Edgar.

  “Gather around,” Les said.

  His tone was grave. Michael wondered what Les had seen that he hadn’t.

  “I’m uploading video to your HUDs,” Les said. He tapped his wrist computer and fed the recorded video to their subscreens. “I still don’t know where the entry to their main hub is, but I did see a road . . .” He tapped his monitor and zoomed in. “Right here.”

  The road went straight into the mountain—something Michael had missed.

  “As we suspected, the mainframe must be buried,” Les said.

  Now Michael understood the grave tone.

  “So how do we get in?” Arlo asked.

  “By finding an alternative route,” Les said. “There has to be one. My guess is, there are underground tunnels from the main buildings to the base below. But they’ll surely be heavily guarded.”

  Michael studied the imagery. The road was just behind the factories built against the mountain. Les was probably right, but it was a big risk on a hunch. Then again, a hunch was all they were going on anyway.

  “We counted ten patrols of defectors, each four strong, and three more of those walking beetle tanks,” Edgar said. “Some of them are clearing debris piles, though, so that’s good for us.”

  Sofia checked Les’s arm. “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. You’re the one that—”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, eyeing the missing armor and the charred flesh beneath. “I can fight.”

  Les stepped closer to check the wound. “Good, because I need all of you,” he said. “Lena and Edgar, find a spot up here to provide covering fire if we run into problems.”

  “Wait, who is ‘we’?” Arlo asked.

  Les tilted his helmet. “The rest of us.”

  Arlo snorted but didn’t protest.

  “You’re with Michael,” Les said. “I’ll take Sofia. We’ll scramble up the rocks to get over the walls by those smokestacks. Once we’re inside, we split up and find a way into the mountain.”

  “You good to go?” Michael asked Arlo.

  “Sure,” Arlo said.

  “You don’t sound like it,” Les said.

  “’Cause I just tumbled down a goddamn hill after nearly getting turned into swiss cheese, and now we’re walking into a slaughterhouse.”

  The divers lapsed into silence in the dark cave. A drop of water spattered on the floor.

  “If that is true, it’s another reason we have to do this,” Les said. “Don’t forget why we came here. I need you now more than ever.”

  Arlo’s cracked helmet nodded. “I won’t let you down, sir. I’m sorry, I’m just . . .”

  “You survived Rio,” Sofia said. “You’ll survive this.” She gave him a pat on the back.

  “It’s settled, then,” Michael said. “Let’s get moving. We don’t have much time.”

  The divers left the cave and climbed back into the rocks. Storm clouds swollen with rain were passing overhead. The drones blasted in and out of them, uninterested in looking for the divers. Discovery was the threat. Once again the machines were making a mistake that Michael would use to his advantage.

  He led the divers by climbing carefully, keeping three points of contact on the unstable rock. The first drops of rain fell when he got to the next bluff.

  Les, Arlo, and Sofia took cover there with him while Edgar and Lena moved to a higher vantage.

  The slope below stretched into a valley, then up to the fortress walls. Rocks the size of a man and bigger covered the dry terrain in between.

  Orange and red crust grew on the fractured surfaces of the boulders. But they weren’t the only organic life. Purple blades grew out of the dirt, blowing in the wind.

  He also spotted a strange new grain with a corncob head attached to a long, curving stem. Patches of the odd plant grew all the way to the twenty-foot-high fortress wall.

  Michael didn’t spot any guard towers along the top, but that didn’t mean there were no defectors or cameras up there.

  Les stayed with him a moment, then signaled to advance, but Michael suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

  “What?” Les asked quietly.

  Michael stared at something on the ground near the base of the wall. He zoomed his laser-rifle scope in on a patch of the plants.

  A pinheaded metallic object jutted out of the end of the corncob-shaped grain head.

  These weren’t just plants. They were sensors.

  Michael whispered his discovery to Les, who twisted back toward the bluff where Edgar and Lena were moving into position.

  “What are you thinking?” Michael said quietly.

  “Either we need Timothy to come back in for another bombing run, or we use our boosters with the eastern wind,” Les said. “If we launch from the bluffs, it should be powerful e
nough to take us over that wall.”

  “Discovery won’t survive another run,” Michael said.

  “I know.”

  “Boosters it is, then.”

  Michael again led them back through the cliffs, following the tracks Edgar and Lena had left in the narrow passages between the jagged walls. The two divers were around the next bend, perched on an outcropping with a perfect view of the factories.

  Edgar swung his rifle around at Michael before realizing who it was.

  “Shit, Commander, you about lost your head,” he muttered.

  “Change of plans,” Michael said. “There are sensors down there. We’ll deploy our boosters and let the wind take us over the walls.”

  “Risky as hell,” Edgar said, “but I’ve got your backs from up here.” He set his magazines down on the rock and chambered an armor-piercing round. Lena got down on one knee beside him, laser rifle clutched like a baby against her chest armor.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Les said. “I’ll head east to the factories with Sofia; you start west and work your way back toward us.”

  “This is nuts,” Arlo muttered.

  Michael spotted the perfect place to land on the western side of the compound. Several warehouses with industrial equipment on top provided cover and a long, flat roof to land on. The bombardment hadn’t damaged any of those buildings.

  “We aim for that one,” Michael said, pointing.

  “Listo, jefe,” Arlo said. “I mean yeah, boss . . .”

  Michael scanned the base once more. The roof of a three-story building near the factories opened, disgorging a drone. The spike on the tallest tower flashed orange, then went dark, and the drone zipped away.

  The spike had to be some sort of signal. Michael searched for more drones but didn’t see any. He didn’t see any defectors or their human slaves, either—only the tanks at the shattered walls, and the drones patrolling the sky. So why the lack of interior defenses?

  Time to find out.

  The closest drone flew back into the base and hovered over the building where the last had emerged. The roof opened, and the drone descended inside.

  From a bluff to the east, Les gave the signal to deploy their boosters.

  “We fly so humanity survives,” Arlo whispered.

  He punched his booster first, maybe trying to prove he wasn’t scared. Michael followed immediately. His balloon burst from the cannister and filled with helium, yanking him off the bluff.

  As he expected, the wind pushed him toward the walls. Rain pattered his visor as he rose into the sky. For the first several seconds, he anticipated lasers riddling his body.

  They were floating targets—known in the Old World as “sitting ducks.” But their black armor and suits made them hard to see.

  Les and Sofia took off from the bluffs farther east, toward the factories on the opposite side of the compound.

  Michael headed for the warehouse, twisting slightly to look at the metallic tower centered in the base. The spire on top made it one of the oddest old-world towers he had ever seen.

  Ten defectors cleared debris from a destroyed building abutting the tower. None seemed to pay attention to the sky.

  The balloon carried him higher as the wind pushed him toward the walls. A patrol of defectors, visors forward, walked down the main road on the south side of the base.

  By the time Michael’s boots cleared the wall, he was already two stories up. Arlo was even higher and rising. They both let helium out of their balloons to descend.

  East of them, Sofia and Les were also lowering. They vanished from view a moment later, and Michael focused on the DZ. He checked for contacts on the ground again, but the western side looked clear of machines.

  The flat roof rose up to meet his boots.

  Arlo landed first. Pulling his balloon down, he took cover behind a block of industrial units. Michael joined him there after carefully deflating his balloon. They each had only one, and it was their ride back to Discovery.

  Michael motioned for Arlo to follow him. As they crept across the rooftop, a drone blasted across the horizon, forcing them down.

  Once it had passed, Michael glanced over the building’s edge. Below were several windows and a closed door. He had a feeling his wrist computer couldn’t hack in as easily as on ITC facilities. He would do this the old-­fashioned way.

  Hunching down out of sight, he explained his idea to Arlo. The answer was predictable.

  “That’s crazy, man.”

  “That’s why it’s going to work,” Michael replied.

  He scanned the sky for enemy contacts, then the ground. Seeing none, he swung his legs off the roof, placing his boots on a narrow ledge.

  Then he turned and bent down, lowering himself to the next ledge. The window was shaded, but a light inside messed with his night-vision optics.

  Michael turned them off, and in the moment it took to process what he saw behind the glass, he gave an astonished gasp.

  “What?” Arlo whispered from above. “What do you see?”

  A little boy holding a tattered stuffed elephant stood inside, looking at Michael. He narrowed his big green eyes, then waved.

  Several other people came running over, all of them covered in ash and grime. There had to be ten of them.

  Michael waved them back.

  One of the men inside understood and herded the group of filthy workers away from the glass. Michael aimed his laser rifle at the center and fired a bolt. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the hole.

  Slinging his rifle, Michael used his robotic fist to finish the job. On the third punch, the glass shattered and rained to the ground.

  He entered the room, which ran the length of the building. Bars segmented the long space into cages, each holding a dozen people—young, old, white, brown.

  Michael froze as the implications set in. There had to be a hundred people on this level, and there could be even more below this floor. Chatter broke out, and the people in the cage Michael had entered stared at his robotic arm with wide eyes, like terrified animals.

  “It’s okay,” Michael said, raising his gloved hand. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  His words did little to curb their fear. Or his.

  Panicked voices came from the other cages as people huddled close to get a look at Michael. He moved out of the way to let Arlo in.

  “What in the hell . . . ?” Arlo said. “Where did all these people come from?”

  Michael had an idea, but he was too worried about the machines to stop and theorize.

  “Quiet,” Michael said, bringing a finger to his helmet. “Please, you have to be . . .”

  In the next cage, a middle-aged man with a long beard and sunken cheeks spoke. So did a gaunt gray-haired woman. He didn’t recognize either language. Maybe French and German?

  “Does anyone speak English?” he asked.

  More voices in different languages. The noise made him cringe. He held up a hand again, trying to quiet them. People crowded the cages, jostling to get a look.

  Someone whistled, and silence filled the long space.

  Several people in the cage across from Michael moved aside for a shirtless man with a faded bird tattoo on his chest. He grabbed the bars of his cage.

  “I speak English,” he said.

  Michael and Arlo walked over to the bars of the cage, and Arlo fished a lock-pick kit from his vest.

  Something told Michael this man had survived horrors as bad as anything X had seen.

  “I am Commander Everhart,” Michael said, “from the Vanguard Islands. We’re here to destroy the machines, and we’re going to get you out of here.”

  “I’ll be damned,” the man said. “We thought we were all that was left of mankind.”

  He gestured out to the other cages.

  “We’re passengers from t
he ITC Victory, ITC Requiem, and ITC Malenkov all brought here under the premise of salvation, saying the war was over.”

  The man looked back to Michael and patted his chest. “Never thought I’d see one of us again.”

  Michael saw the tattoo as the man pulled his hand away.

  Not just any tattoo. It was a Raptor.

  “You’re a Hell Diver?” Michael stammered.

  The man sighed. “A lifetime ago. I’m Kade Long.”

  “Kade, this is Arlo Wand, and there are four more of us out there. We need to know where the machines’ mainframe is.”

  Kade shook his head. “Did you see that metal tower next door with no windows?”

  Michael nodded.

  “That’s your target, Commander,” Kade said. “But the only way in is through the machines, and nothing short of a nuke set off inside is going to destroy their mainframe.”

  Arlo pulled the lock pick away.

  “Screw this,” he said. “Just use your laser, sir.”

  Michael motioned everyone back and fired a bolt. It blasted through the lock, punching into the floor. The gate swung open, and Kade stepped through.

  Reaching back, Michael unholstered the pistol X had given him. He handed it to Kade.

  “Thank you, Commander,” he said. “I never thought anyone would come for us.”

  “Don’t thank me until we get you out of here. Let’s start with freeing everyone else. They can’t kill us all . . .”

  His words trailed off because the machines could damn well kill everyone in this room if they wanted.

  Michael directed Arlo to the steel hatch while he and Kade walked down the passage between cages. Kade spoke to specific people in each, mostly older men and a few women.

  One by one, Michael shot the locks, freeing the prisoners.

  The strongest men and women converged behind Michael and Kade, eager to fight for their freedom.

  At the final cage, Kade beamed a yellow smile. Two prisoners helped an old man with white hair to his feet. A threadbare white uniform hung over his bony frame.