Hell Divers II: Ghosts

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Jordan considered telling her everything, but what good would it do? The only way to prove to her she was wrong was by sending Rodger to uncover the cryogenic chambers. He only hoped it didn’t cost the ship too much in the process. Losing Weaver, Andrew, and Rodger on top of Magnolia was an expensive but ultimately necessary way to prove his point. Their only hope of survival was to stay the course.

  “It pains me to see you look at me like that, but someone has to be the bad guy on the ship,” he said. “I’m willing to shoulder that burden if it means the survival of my child.”

  “Our child,” she corrected, sounding as though her thoughts were a million miles from him. Her hand moved ceaselessly, rubbing her belly in circles.

  “Life will go on, Katrina,” he said. “You just have to trust me. You’re the only person I truly trust on this ship.”

  A knock sounded on the hatch.

  “We’ll continue this conversation later.” He kissed her on the cheek and stood up. “It’s open.”

  Sergeant Jenkins opened the hatch and stepped inside. “Captain, I’ve got Janet Gardner in custody.”

  Jordan could feel Katrina glaring at him, but he kept his eyes on Jenkins.

  “Thank you, Sergeant. Bring her to the interrogation room. I’ll deal with her myself.”

  As soon as Jenkins was gone, Katrina seemed to snap out of her daze. “You arrested Janga?”

  “Yes,” Jordan said. He walked to the hatch and grabbed the handle. “Just trust me. That’s all I’ve ever asked from you.”

  Katrina straightened her back and threw up a stiff salute. Her eyes had gone cold and hard, and Jordan felt as though a door had been slammed in his face.

  “I’m going to deal with something that Captain Ash should have dealt with years ago,” he said. “In the meantime, you have the bridge, Lieutenant.”

  * * * * *

  Weaver hated being alone, especially on the surface. The days he had spent trekking across Hades after watching his home crash had broken him. For months after he came aboard the Hive, he had slept each night with the lights on and the door open so he could listen to the voices of the passengers in the hallway.

  For a man who hated silence and darkness, the Hilltop Bastion was a waking nightmare. The enclosed space was almost completely devoid of sound, as if he were walking in outer space. Sporadic high-pitched shrieks were the only break in the stillness—and the only thing worse than the silence.

  Halfway down the next hall, he stopped and considered opening the comm up to Magnolia and Rodger, or even trying to reach Andrew, just to hear a human voice. But he resisted the urge, knowing that it would give away his position to anything hunting him.

  The light from his battery unit and his helmet-mounted lamp spread over the passage. He moved out, keeping low and close to the wall. He had yet to see a single door, and the trail of blood had almost disappeared. Andrew’s bleeding had slowed to just a few drops here and there. If he lost the trail, there was no way he would find the man in time to save him—assuming he could be saved at all.

  Weaver halted to reconsider his plan. Andrew might already be dead. In fact, given what he knew of the Sirens, it was likely the case. He missed his wife and daughter just as much today as he had ten years ago, when he lost them in the wreck of Ares, but he wasn’t in any hurry to join them.

  A small, cowardly part of his soul worried that the darkness after death would be much worse than this, like being trapped underground for all eternity.

  Think and focus, Rick. Think and focus.

  The mission was screwed, no denying that. No one could have survived down here, and he didn’t buy the fairy tale about cryogenic chambers housing any survivors. He pulled out his coin to flip it. Would anyone blame him if he abandoned the search for Andrew and cut their losses while he still could? Jordan would probably give him a goddamn medal.

  But Weaver wasn’t one to leave a man behind. Ever since X fell back to the surface of Hades, Weaver had made a promise to do everything he could to get all the divers home, no matter whose team they were on.

  He put the coin away. Lifting his rifle, he continued into the darkness. The beam from his helmet illuminated a path that seemed to stretch on and on. He walked for several minutes until he saw what could be the outline of a door.

  Weaver slowed as he approached, listening hard. The city was crawling with monsters, from the massive carnivorous plants to the Sirens, and he had a feeling even worse things lurked in this facility.

  When he got to the door, he looked at his wrist monitor. His location was directly under the hill, but there were no details to show him what was on the other side.

  He took a knee and brushed the dust off the ground. Tracks ran up and down the hallway, but the drops of blood stopped here.

  Weaver stood and slung his rifle over his back. He drew his pistol and slowly pulled back the slide. The round clicked into the chamber. He winced at the noise and waited for a response.

  The vacuum of silence remained undisturbed.

  He grabbed the door handle. It felt loose. Bending down, he saw that it was already open. Claw marks covered the frame.

  He was on the right track.

  Okay, old man, let’s see if you still got it.

  He took a breath and slowly pulled the door open onto a stairwell landing. With his gun up, he stepped inside and angled the barrel up the flight above. Then he moved around the corner of the stairway and looked down. Up or down? This time, he was going to have to use the coin. He was reaching for it when the speaker in his helmet crackled.

  “Angel One, this is Raptor Three. Do you copy? Over.”

  The sound of another human voice was reassuring and terrifying at the same time. He reminded himself that it would be difficult for the creatures to hear the voices from inside sealed helmets. Several seconds passed as he listened, but the monsters never came.

  “Roger that, Raptor Three,” he said quietly.

  “Commander, have you found Andrew yet?”

  “Negative, Raptor Three. I just found a door that leads to a staircase.”

  There was a short pause, followed by white noise.

  “Angel One, if you are where I think you are, then down leads to a water treatment plant and a generator room. The backup power is still on over here. I found a hologram terminal and a map.”

  “What’s above me?” Weaver asked.

  “I think that’s the lookout post we saw on our way in. Might be a command room; I don’t know. Maybe a comms station.”

  “Good thinking. Have you found anything else?”

  “So far, there’s no evidence of survivors, but we did find something …” Magnolia paused again. “Something big was here, sir. Hard to say when. Most everything is covered in dust, but someone did put up one hell of a fight to keep whatever it was out. We’re heading deeper belowground to find the lab.”

  “Roger that, Raptor Three. Stay sharp. I’m going to keep looking for Apollo One. Good luck. Over.”

  “Good luck, sir. Over and out.”

  Weaver flicked his light up the stairs and found muddy tracks, but no blood trail. He went back to the landing to check the descending flight of stairs. Specks of red dotted the treads. He unslung his rifle and raised both guns into the darkness.

  The beam from his helmet shifted across a stairwell as he made his way down into the black abyss. His cautious footfalls made little noise, but it was his battery pack that worried him most. The beasts couldn’t see the light, but they were drawn to energy sources. One of the reasons the divers had such a hard time getting power cells for the ship was that Sirens tended to nest near the storage facilities.

  The stairs led him deeper into the earth. With every step, he felt a growing sensation of being watched.

  He turned and played his light over the walls.

  Nothing.

 
The farther he descended, the stronger the sensation became. Something, or someone, was here with him. He could feel a presence.

  Weaver reminded himself that he had enough firepower to kill a small army of Sirens. He passed three more landings before he finally saw a sign that read water treatment plant.

  Magnolia’s map was right. He crossed the landing and was starting to walk around the corner when he felt the slightest draft of air rustle his right pant leg.

  Weaver whirled and trained both guns back up the stairs. The gray walls and ceiling were clear. No Sirens prowling about.

  He put his back against the wall and leaned left to peer around the corner. At the next landing, the double doors to the water treatment plant were wide open.

  He moved back to the safety of the wall, trying to control his pounding heart, and the thought occurred to him that perhaps he was getting too old for this.

  He licked the salty sweat off his mustache and holstered his pistol. Firing from the hip wasn’t going to save anyone down here. Calculated shots were the way to go.

  If Andrew was below, Weaver had to be stealthy. He pulled the sound suppressor from his cargo pocket and screwed it onto the end of his rifle. Next, he reached up and clicked off his headlamp. Darkness shrouded the stairwell. The blue light emitted by his battery pack gave him only a few feet of visibility, and even then he couldn’t see much but shapes. He bumped on his night vision, but nothing happened.

  Son of a bitch.

  He tried a second and a third time.

  A soft breeze hit his arm as he reached up for his helmet. His hand froze in midair. Was he imagining things, or was there a draft inside the passage? And if so, where was it coming from?

  A snuffling came from his left. Then overhead. Another sniff came from the upper right corner of the stairwell.

  Weaver closed his eyes and prepared to fight for his life. His heart was thumping like an air hammer. Could the monsters hear that?

  He backed away, clicking on his headlamp in the process. Stealth didn’t matter now. They knew where he was. The beam crossed over the cracked gray ceiling. A second pass didn’t reveal any living thing.

  Was he having auditory hallucinations?

  Weaver was taking another step backward when the cracks in the ceiling suddenly shifted. His light captured a sinewy creature with gray skin skittering away. Falling onto his butt, he swung the rifle up by reflex. The thing, whatever it was, vanished around the corner.

  For several moments, Weaver stayed on his backside, rifle shouldered and finger on the trigger. He had never encountered a creature with a camouflage response on any of his dives, but he had learned something about the monsters on the surface: where there was one, there were probably more.

  He drew no comfort from having been right all along. Something had been watching him, and it was still here. He could feel it by the prickling hairs on the back of his neck.

  He pushed himself up with one hand and held the rifle in the other. In quick movements, he scanned the walls, stairs, and ceiling.

  Every crack in the concrete became a clawed limb in his mind, every broken hunk a mouth. He resisted the urge to unload his magazine in a wide arc.

  His options were limited. He could run back up the stairs and abandon Andrew, or he could fight his way down to the water treatment plant.

  In the end, there was only one choice.

  X wasn’t the only man Weaver had left behind during his long career as a Hell Diver. Over a decade ago, on a dive to Hades, he had abandoned one of his teammates. Jones had been dead, or at least close to it, from what Weaver had seen, but the decision had haunted him ever since. Andrew was probably past saving, but Weaver couldn’t leave him down here if there was even a chance he still breathed.

  Running back to the surface would make Weaver worse than a coward. He would betray the oath he had taken as a Hell Diver.

  He made his way across the landing, stopping at the corner. Putting his back to the stair wall, he peeked around the side. The beam from his headlamp captured a skeletal gray figure the size of a six-year-old child, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  He ducked back around the stair wall and pressed his shoulders against the concrete, taking in a long breath. Risking another look, he shined his light on the floor beside the monster. The thing still didn’t move. It stood on two peg legs, its webbed feet splayed for balance. Its bony back was turned to him.

  Did it think it was hidden?

  The beast was one of the most bizarre things he had ever seen, and he had seen his share of strange sights. It had three legs—two in back and one in front—and a torso that tapered to a narrow midsection, like an hourglass. Feathers sprouted from its round head, turning to shaggy fur on the rest of its body, but the oddest part of all was the stemlike growth on its forehead, which supported a single eyeball the size of an apple. The eye turned toward him, blinking in the light, then quickly swiveled away.

  His first instinct was to shoot, but this thing didn’t seem to be violent like the Sirens. A hard moment passed before he finally got up the nerve to step around the corner.

  The creature remained frozen, almost blending in with the shadows. Past the beast, Weaver could see inside the water treatment plant. He tilted his headlamp for a better view, revealing a network of platforms and bridges over dozens of pools filled to the brim with liquid. The plant was many times larger than the one on the Hive.

  As he played the light back and forth, something let out a scream. It was an unusual noise for a Siren, and Weaver wondered if there might be something even worse living in the plant. He cupped his hand over the light when he heard footsteps slapping toward him.

  Weaver raised the rifle and pulled his hand away from the light just as the odd creature jumped to the ceiling above him. There it hung, tilting its feathery face at him. Beaklike jaws slowly opened and closed as if tasting the air.

  The creature’s eye focused on him for a fleeting moment before the stem curved back over its head to look at the treatment plant, and the same odd scream echoed through the room.

  In a flash of gray, the beast darted up the stairwell.

  The high-pitched shriek of a Siren rang out. It was then Weaver realized that the first scream hadn’t been from a monster at all. It had been Andrew.

  FOURTEEN

  Michael stood in the shadows of the hallway as a crowd filed toward the trading post. At the head, Sergeant Jenkins led Janga toward the stockade. There was no telling what Captain Jordan had planned for her, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  Michael looked at the piece of paper Janga had given him. He hoped the log-in and passcode would answer all his questions.

  “We need to find a terminal that can’t easily be traced,” he said.

  Layla grabbed his arm. “I know just the place.”

  A frantic shout echoed down the hallway. “They’ve got Janga!”

  The throng of passengers shifted away from the trading post and trailed after Jenkins and Janga.

  “There’s going to be trouble,” Michael said. He jogged with Layla toward the corner and watched as Norma, grubby hands pressed against her bent back, shuffled after Janga.

  “Where are you taking my friend?” she yelled.

  Jenkins turned and swatted at Norma. “Get back to work.”

  “Commander Everhart, is that you?” a voice called. “What’s going on?”

  Michael looked back toward the trading post and saw Rodger’s father. Cole Mintel had a clock in one hand and a rag in the other.

  “The militia just arrested Janga,” Michael said.

  Cole wiped off the clock and shrugged. “Been a long time comin’, if you ask me.” His expression turned grim. “Have you heard anything about my boy? The divers have been down there for a couple hours now.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but Layla and I haven’t h
eard anything yet.”

  Cole nodded solemnly and walked backed to the trading post. By the time Michael looked back down the passage, Jenkins and Janga were gone. Norma hobbled toward them, tears running down her wrinkled face.

  “They’re going to kill her,” Norma muttered as she passed Michael.

  Layla frowned and turned to him. “You don’t think they’d actually hurt her, do you?”

  Michael shook his head. “The captain isn’t a barbarian. Besides, too many people saw her being arrested. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  Layla didn’t seem convinced, but she led the way into the trading post and down a passage, past the entrance to the farm and the water treatment plant. Michael’s heart was beating fast, and not from childhood memories of this place. He and Layla were close to finding out the truth at last.

  They continued through the living quarters for upper-deckers and past several small shops, including the Wingman. Back in the day, if X went missing, the bar was where Michael would look first. Layla turned into the hallway where she had grown up. Michael could see the drawing of the sun on the hatch. At first, he thought she was heading there, but she stopped two hatches down and knocked.

  “Don’t worry,” she said while they waited for a response. “Deborah’s working right now, but she was a friend of my mom’s. I’m sure she won’t mind if we use her old terminal.”

  When no one answered, Layla opened the hatch and stepped inside.

  “Over here,” she said, crossing the cramped living space to a monitor on a small desk against a bulkhead.

  Michael shut the hatch behind them with a click. “I don’t like this. I know Jordan has someone monitoring log-ins. If this one’s flagged, it won’t take long for the militia to show up, which puts Deborah at risk.”

  Layla smirked. “You asked me if I trust you, Tin. Now I have to ask you the same thing. Do you?”

  She sat down at the desk and held out her hand for the paper.

  “You know I do.”

  He handed her the credentials, and she sat down at the monitor and placed the paper beside the keyboard on the desk.