Hell Divers IV: Wolves

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  * * * * *

  The men and women inside the launch bay of the Hive were a diverse group. Les could see many shades of skin standing in front of the tubes that, for centuries, had launched Hell Divers onto the postapocalyptic world.

  But there was one thing these people all had in common: youth.

  Les hated seeing so many young volunteers standing in a room that most people stepped into only a handful of times. Seeing his son among them was especially painful.

  Trey will have to make his own way. Captain DaVita’s words repeated over and over in his mind as he looked over his son and the other volunteers.

  Trey stood between Sandy Bloomberg, the daughter of the head farmer on the Hive, and Jed Snow, an orphan that had lost his dad to diving and his mom to cancer. They were just months shy of their eighteenth birthdays, and it showed.

  Jed sported a thin beard that didn’t quite cover all of his pimples, and had his long dark hair slicked back. Sandy tried to make herself look older by liberally applying homemade makeup, but it only served to emphasize her lack of experience with the stuff. She directed light blue eyes at Les and smiled, two crooked front teeth showing.

  The veterans, Commander Michael Everhart and Layla Brower, weren’t much older than Jed, Sandy, and Trey. Only Erin Jenkins was in her midtwenties.

  Vish Abhaya and his twin brother, Jaideep, were also young, only nineteen years old. They were both handsome: tall and dark-skinned, but they had spent the past few years in and out of trouble. They came from a Buddhist family that still practiced traditions of the Old World. But the boys didn’t shave their heads, wear robes, or meditate multiple times a day—or at all.

  Ordinary brown jumpsuits draped their skinny frames, and gold hoops hung from their ears. Like many youths, the boys had rebelled, not because they were evil at heart, but because they were bored.

  Hell Diving seemed to attract kids like this until they realized what it really entailed or until they died, whichever came first. Les had seen it plenty of times before, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about their presence. Both Abhaya twins were failed students and had spent most of their teenage years working odd jobs or in maintenance. Their last name meant fearless, but he wasn’t sure they were cut out for the world of diving into the apocalypse.

  “You sure about this?” Vish whispered to his brother.

  Jaideep punched him on the arm. “I told you to keep your trap shut.”

  “Jeez, man.” Vish gave his brother a cockeyed look and rubbed his shoulder.

  “What you lookin’ at, old man?” Jaideep asked Les.

  Vish laughed. “You sure you’re not too old to dive?”

  “And too tall?” Jaideep added with a chuckle.

  “That’s Lieutenant Mitchells to you,” Trey said. He took a step toward the twins, but Les shook his head. The last thing he wanted to deal with right now was a fight that could end in Trey heading back to the brig.

  “Yeah, I’m tall, and I’m old enough to be your father, but if you’re serious about diving, you both better get serious, because diving isn’t a joke,” Les said.

  Jaideep smirked, but Vish nodded, apparently getting the message.

  The twins weren’t the only potentially problematic divers.

  Erin Jenkins had a chip on her shoulder. Her Mohawk glistened with paste under the overhead lights. She wore a sleeveless shirt that showed off her ropy, defined arm muscles. Michael and Layla were discussing something with her in private.

  “We have no choice,” Michael said loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Layla put a hand on his arm—a subtle gesture to calm the commander down. Les had seen her do it a hundred times, but this time it didn’t seem to have any effect.

  Michael stalked over to the porthole windows to look out at the swirling storm clouds. For the past two months, both he and Erin had developed anger problems. Erin’s was related to losing her dad, but Les wasn’t sure where Michael’s was coming from, unless it had something to do with X.

  Layla walked over to join Michael, and Les moved closer to Erin.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Erin shrugged a shoulder.

  Les liked the young woman, but he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of diving with her again until she got her emotions in hand. A prickly attitude could lead to poor decision making, and a single poor decision could kill someone.

  For Les, with Trey standing just a few feet away, more was at stake now than ever before. Les had to protect his son at all costs, but he wasn’t sure there would be a way to prevent Trey from diving with Erin in the coming months.

  The problem was simple math. They didn’t have a very big pool of people to recruit from. The passengers were getting stronger, thanks to an increase in food production, but the only volunteers so far were those now standing inside the launch bay.

  Katrina had privately communicated orders to Les, Michael, and Layla. She didn’t want any of them diving unless absolutely necessary. Their focus was to be on the airships, not the surface. X and Mags were in charge of the ground, for now.

  The metal doors screeched open, and everyone came to attention as Katrina finally walked into the room. She wore her braided hair over her shoulders, and her crisp white uniform pulled up over her forearms to proudly show off the Raptor and Angel tattoos.

  “Good evening, Captain,” Les said.

  “Evening, Lieutenant.” Katrina stopped in front of the group, who gathered in a loose rank before her. She spent a moment taking them in, and Les did the same.

  Jed, Trey, and Sandy stood stiffly and respectfully, eyes forward like soldiers. Jaideep and Vish were more relaxed, and Jaideep seemed to be whistling a tune under his breath. Les realized if you added up all their ages it still wouldn’t equal the amount of dives Xavier Rodriguez had completed over the years.

  “Welcome, and thank you, all of you, for volunteering,” Katrina said. “I started diving when I was about your age.”

  Moving down the line, she looked at each of them in turn, stopping to give Jaideep and Vish another once-over. Then she moved on to Trey and Sandy. Finally, she walked past Erin, Layla, Michael, and Jed.

  “Jed, I’m happy to see you here. Your dad would be extremely proud, and your mom would be, too,” Katrina said.

  “I’m proud to be here,” Jed said. “If it weren’t for some health problems, I would have been here when I turned sixteen.”

  Katrina forced a smile, and then looked at Les.

  “Lieutenant, may I have a word?” She gestured toward Michael and Layla. “You, too, Commander Everhart, and diver Brower.”

  The three followed the captain over to the conference room, where hundreds of Hell Divers had received briefings over the years. Les saw Sandy’s curious gaze follow them across the room before Katrina closed the door behind them.

  “This is not enough,” she said.

  Michael and Les exchanged a glance.

  “These are the only volunteers,” Les said.

  “We will need more.”

  Michael stepped forward, his back stiff. “I thought we didn’t have any upcoming missions.”

  Les was equally baffled. Did she have something planned that he didn’t know about? Just last night, she had told him there wouldn’t be any dives for months.

  He wanted to ask what had changed in the past twenty-four hours, but his job as her right-hand man wasn’t to question her in front of others. He would do that in private—unless she told them first.

  Katrina took a seat in her chair and put her hands on her head.

  “Ma’am,” Layla said, walking over to pat Katrina’s back in a sign of support.

  Les didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t seen Katrina like this since she first took the helm. But the trauma of losing her child, killing her former lover, and seeing X leave—again—and the burdens of being
captain had likely stacked up.

  She was a strong woman, but in the end, she was only human.

  Katrina pulled her hands away from her flushed cheeks and stood again.

  “Sorry. I’m fine. There’s just a lot on my mind, and I’m worried about our friends on the Sea Wolf.”

  “X is still out there,” Michael said. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  “He’s definitely a hard man to kill, but he isn’t immortal.” Katrina sighed. “I should never have sent him out there alone with Magnolia. We should have sent more boats. More …”

  After a pause, she looked to Les. “Lieutenant, I want you to meet with Sergeant Sloan as soon as possible. Tell her I need the best militia soldiers she can spare.”

  Michael raised a hand. “Captain, I thought I was in charge of finding new divers.”

  “Things just changed, Commander,” Katrina replied, still looking at Les. “I need you for something else.”

  He had finally figured out what had her so bothered. She wasn’t looking just for people who could dive—she wanted people who could fight.

  FOUR

  “I feel like I haven’t spent any real time with you in weeks, Tin,” Layla said as they walked down the passageway connecting the Hive to Deliverance.

  News of the Sea Wolf had rattled him, but he couldn’t do anything about it right now.

  They need you here, X had told him before leaving. If something happens, don’t come after me. Maybe so, but Michael was having a hard time sitting idly by while X, Mags, and Miles were potentially in trouble. To do nothing felt like abandoning them.

  He knew that Layla was upset, too, though she wasn’t showing it.

  “Have you missed me?” she asked.

  He squeezed her hand. “Of course. I always miss you.”

  “Great answer.” Her smile still had the same effect on him as when they were kids. The cute dimple and gleaming white teeth still sent a little shiver through him.

  “I don’t know what to do about X and Magnolia,” he said.

  Her grin vanished, and her hand went slack.

  “Don’t do that,” Michael said, taking her hand again. “I know you’re upset, too, and I think we should talk about this.”

  “Why talk about something we can’t control? We can’t go searching for them in those storms. You know that.”

  “Yeah, but …”

  “You can’t beat yourself up over this. Magnolia and X made their choice when they set off for the Metal Islands. They knew the risks, and besides, you said it best back in the launch bay: X might be in trouble, but he isn’t dead.”

  Michael looked at the Team Raptor patch sewn over his chest. Inside his vest pocket were the words he had given X over a decade ago.

  Accept your past without regrets. Handle your present with confidence. Face your future without fear.

  He carried the quote with him even though he had it memorized. He had lived his life by the motto, and handing the quote to people was his way of giving back. Each time he gave it to someone, he wrote it down again for the next person.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Tin,” Layla said.

  Michael kissed her softly on the cheek. “I know. Come on, I have a surprise for you.”

  Her smile returned, and she followed him down the empty passage.

  Around the next corner, two technicians were installing a monitor inside the relocated engineering school. Places like this gave him hope. This was where they would train the next generation of engineers—the men and women who would help keep both ships in the sky. Many of them would also become Hell Divers.

  The cog continued to turn, spitting out the innocent youth aboard the airship.

  Young men and women like Jed Snow and Sandy Bloomberg, who were still just kids in Michael’s eyes. He could still remember Jed and his mom in the trading post that day Layla and Michael had given him a fortune cookie.

  He memorized it a long time ago.

  Accept your past without regrets. Handle your present with confidence. Face your future without fear.

  Michael and Layla walked past several kids drawing on the bulkhead, and he wondered if they too would end up in the cog someday.

  Fresh paint glistened in the light. There were four kids, all about eight to ten years old. One of them was Phyl, Les Mitchells’ daughter. She reminded Michael of Layla at that age: innocent, fun, aggressive.

  “That drawing stinks, midget,” Paul said to his friend Jimmy Moffitt. “You should just give up already.”

  Michael shook his head. “Hey, there—”

  But Layla beat him to the punch. “Paul, you apologize right now. I happen to think Jimmy’s drawing is really good.”

  The short boy turned away from the bulkhead, where he had painted a stick figure of some sort of animal.

  “Oh, yeah? What is it, then?” Paul asked.

  Layla stuttered. “It’s art; that’s what matters. And name-calling is just going to get you into trouble.”

  Paul lowered his paintbrush, looked at Jimmy, and said, “Sorry. Your drawing doesn’t suck.”

  “And …?” Layla said, hands on her hips.

  “You’re not a midget.”

  “There, that’s better,” she replied. “Now, have fun, and don’t get that paint all over the place.”

  She left Michael standing there with the kids. He cracked a half grin at Jimmy and then hurried to catch up with Layla.

  “That totally reminded me of something from when we were kids,” he said. “Remember the time we were standing outside the school, and Pipe was teasing me about my tin hat?”

  “That happened a lot.”

  “I’m talking about the time you did something about it.”

  Layla blushed. “Oh, yeah, I kicked him in the balls.”

  “I believe you called them ‘marbles.’”

  They both laughed as they walked on through the ship.

  “Pipe was a good man,” Layla said. “A bit of a dick when he was younger, but I miss his jokes.”

  “Me, too. And Rodger, and Ty, and Weaver, and …” Michael let the words trail off. “But enough about the past. Let’s focus on the present and how lucky we are.”

  “Deal.” She gave him a sly grin. “So where are you taking me?”

  “I told you, it’s a surprise.”

  They passed several technicians and engineers in yellow coveralls, readying quarters for more lower-deckers from the Hive.

  Michael and Layla had kept their quarters there. Deliverance had saved their lives, but the Hive would always be his home.

  Until they found a place on the surface.

  The thought reminded him yet again of X, Magnolia, and Miles. They were down there somewhere, in danger while he took his girlfriend on a date.

  As if sensing his thoughts, Layla took his hand again. “Just you and me right now, remember?” she said.

  “Right.”

  Leaving the construction site behind, they turned into a passage already occupied by new passengers. Several hatches were propped open, providing glimpses into the lives of people who had lived belowdecks on the Hive for most of their lives.

  Chloe and Daniel sat on a bunk in the room to his left. Both kids wore fresh bandages on their hands and over their heads.

  “I’ll be right back,” Michael said.

  Layla waited for him as he knocked on the hatch.

  “Where are your parents?” he asked the kids.

  They both gave him a nervous look.

  “It’s okay, I’m not going to get us in trouble or anything,” Michael said. He pulled two pieces of candy from his vest pocket.

  “Here you go.”

  “You’re a Hell Diver, aren’t you?” Daniel asked.

  “I am.”

  “What happened to that old guy?�
��

  “Old guy?”

  “Rick,” Chloe said. “That’s what Janga called him. He gave us candy jam.”

  Michael felt Layla’s presence behind him.

  “He’s gone,” Layla replied. “He died so we could have this new home.”

  Chloe looked at the ground and then overhead, chomping nosily on the hard candy. She and David were just two of the many kids who had deformities from the radiation poisoning.

  “Will you come back sometime?” Chloe asked.

  Michael smiled. “You betcha.”

  He waved, and they continued down the next passage. Neither spoke at first. They had grown up privileged—the child of a Hell Diver or of parents who worked in the brig. Seeing how these kids lived made his heart hurt. But at least, they had a future now, for the first time in their lives.

  “Here we are.” Michael stopped outside the armory, where two militia guards stood sentry.

  “Commander Everhart,” said O’Toole, a fit-looking man with a crossbow cradled across his chest armor.

  “We weren’t expecting visitors,” said Monk, the other sentry.

  “That makes three of us,” Layla replied, looking at Michael.

  “We’re just checking something out,” Michael said.

  O’Toole punched an access code, and the double doors unlatched. He nodded at Monk, who stepped back.

  It still felt odd to Michael that men twice his age held him in such high regard, especially after thinking him a traitor just two months ago. But after capturing Deliverance and helping overthrow Captain Jordan, he was now one of the most respected men on the ship, second only to X, who was legend.

  Empty darkness greeted Michael and Layla as they stepped inside.

  “Lights,” Michael said. The voice-activated overheads clicked on, spreading a cool blue glow over metal bulkheads that flickered like water.

  “You brought me on a date to the armory? How romantic!” Layla quipped. “You really know how to get a girl out of her jumpsuit.”