Hell Divers IV: Wolves

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Magnolia felt a twinge of dread at the news. This wasn’t that much different from diving through a storm. They were at the mercy of Mother Nature until they got back online.

  The boat swayed, and she hit the bulkhead with her palm to keep from falling. She found the rungs after a few steps and made her way up into the staging area, where X was already suited up.

  “We have to go out and fix this ourselves.” He put his helmet on and tossed her a bag of gear.

  She moved over to the rack where she stored her suit, armor, and helmet. Holding the butt of the flashlight in her mouth, she shined the light on the equipment.

  Miles barked from the passage below.

  “Calm down, buddy,” X said. “We’ll be back in a little while.” Holding two bags in his hands, he glanced over at Magnolia. “Meet me outside.”

  She dressed as fast as she could, but by the time she was finished, X was already climbing into the engine room on the deck. Smoke rose out of the opening, toward the mast and into the dark sky.

  A fire down there could mean a few different things, all of them bad.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted.

  A light drizzle hit her as she stepped outside. Waves slapped the hull, rocking them from side to side. She balanced herself by holding her arms out and moving in a straight line to X.

  Smoke sneaking past him, he popped his helmet out of the opening to see where she was.

  “Where’s the other bag, Mags?”

  She cursed and went back inside the boat to grab the tools. Two minutes later, she was climbing down the ladder into the cramped engine room—essentially a utility closet with an overhead barely four feet high.

  Getting down on her kneepads, she crawled after X, trying to see through the smoke and using her hand to brush it away. Her knees scraped over the metal deck and through puddles of salt water.

  X rounded a corner and ducked into the passage where the batteries were stored. Magnolia used her headlamp to scan the area, but the inky smoke was hard to penetrate.

  “Hand me that bag …”

  X reached back with one hand but kept his helmet light directed at the mechanical equipment ahead. Magnolia glimpsed engine one and the two lithium-ion battery units encased beside it.

  She pushed the bag forward, and X dug inside for several moments while she held her light steady. He pulled out the small computer they used to diagnose mechanical issues—the same one that had failed to diagnose the first bad battery. This time, though, X managed to find the issue quickly.

  “It’s a bad wire,” he said. “I should be able to fix this right now and bring the power back on. Battery still has fifty-five percent juice, too.”

  “Thank God,” Magnolia whispered.

  “Still doesn’t tell us what’s creating the smoke,” he said. “I’ll deal with that next.”

  After a half hour of cursing and clanking, he had the new wiring in place.

  “All right, should be good … to … go.” He let out a grunt, and the lights suddenly came back on, filling the space with a white glow.

  A confused voice immediately came over the comms.

  “What happened?”

  “Didn’t think I’d be happy to hear your voice again, Pepper,” X said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’m going to try and get the engine back online,” X said.

  “Can I help?” Magnolia asked. She crawled after him toward the still-smoking engine. Her hands slipped in a puddle—not water this time.

  “Careful, X,” she said. “We got oil.”

  “I’ve just run a quick scan of the boat,” Timothy said over the open channel. “Unfortunately, it looks as though engine one is damaged beyond repair.”

  X directed his helmet light inside the engine.

  “We have a melted corner of a piston crown,” he said after he opened the casing. Several curses followed.

  He played his beam over several areas while fanning away the smoke. “Looks like that last wave hit us so hard, it destroyed the compression ring lands and piston pin. I bet a lot of the metal is inside the crankcase and has contaminated the bearings and oil passage.”

  “What does that mean?” Magnolia asked.

  He twisted to face her. “Means we’re hosed unless we can get the sails up.”

  Or unless the divers find a boat in Cuba, she thought.

  * * * * *

  Michael crouched next to Erin. They had taken refuge on the deck of the ITC ship docked outside Red Sphere. Interference from the storm made it impossible to reach Command. Worse, they didn’t have a path home. It was one thing to dive through a pocket of electricity like that, but rising back up through it with a helium balloon was suicide, pure and simple.

  “Drink,” he said, bringing a bottle to Erin’s lips.

  She opened her thick lips and took a gulp, coughed, and reached up to wipe her mouth.

  “I can do it on my own,” she said, taking the bottle from him. “I’m not paralyzed.”

  No, but you’re still stubborn as ever, Michael thought.

  Erin was in bad shape, there was no denying it, and Michael had a feeling she wasn’t being honest about just how bad. They didn’t have any way of knowing whether she had internal injuries from the lightning.

  The suits were designed to help mitigate and distribute the three hundred kilovolts of energy from an oblique arc, but they couldn’t save a body from a direct strike. She was lucky to be alive. There was likely a lot of damage he couldn’t see, including burst blood vessels that could cause major problems later.

  What he could see was the burn mark on her back. They had already rubbed cream on the wound and applied a cool patch to help dull the pain, but it was still bothering her.

  “It itches,” Erin whispered.

  Layla thrust her fist in the air. “Everyone quiet.”

  The three divers sat in silence in the dark, listening to the clatter and groan of constantly shifting metal all around them as waves rocked and jostled the ship.

  Michael checked the time again. Les should have been back. He stood up with his rifle and moved over to the hatch. Not wanting to break radio silence, he decided to take a look for himself.

  “I’ll be right back,” he whispered.

  Layla’s helmet dipped once, and Erin gave a thumbs-up.

  Michael gritted his teeth as he walked into the hallway. Erin wasn’t the only one injured. Smacking into the ocean had hurt both his legs. His right was really bad—a sprain or maybe even a hairline fracture.

  Keeping low, he moved down the passage.

  Water dripped from the overhead, collecting in a puddle on the floor. He stepped around it, cautious not to make any extra noise. The NVGs provided an eerie, narrow green view of the passage ahead. He headed for the bow, where Les had last gone to scope things out.

  Halfway down the hall, Michael froze at a noise that could be footfalls. He listened to the echo, trying to home in on their location.

  Turning, he saw a hulking figure at the other end of the hall.

  A flash hit him in the face shield.

  “Just me, Commander,” Les said.

  Michael raised a hand to block the light and clicked off his NVGs. If Les was using his helmet light, then he thought the coast was clear.

  “Scared the crap out of me,” Michael said, lowering his rifle.

  “Ship’s all clear,” Les confirmed.

  Michael gestured back toward the quarters where Layla and Erin were waiting. Les ducked under the overhead and stepped inside.

  “No one’s sailed this thing for hundreds of years,” Les said. “And I doubt Samson can get it running again. Everything’s old-school technology. Freaking engine room has diesels.”

  “At least it’s not a Cazador pirate ship,” Layla said. “No sign of those freaks?”
r />   Les’ helmet wagged. “None, but there is something I think you should see.” He looked to Michael.

  “Can you walk, Erin?” Michael asked.

  She pressed her hands to the deck and got herself up with Layla’s help.

  “Just you, Commander,” Les said.

  Erin and Layla both looked over at Michael.

  “You two stay here,” he said. “We’ll be right back. Open comms if you need anything.”

  He followed Les back into the passage and down a ladder to a lower deck. Their helmet beams guided them through the metal warren of dark passages. Cobwebs of rust covered the bulkheads, disguising any markings from centuries ago.

  Michael racked his brain over how this ship was still afloat after all this time. Hurricanes, storms, barnacles, and rust had had their way with it, and yet here it still was.

  There had to be another explanation. Perhaps it was resting on concrete piers, or …

  “Down here,” Les said, gesturing right at an intersection. They walked through an open hatch and down another ladder, deeper into the bowels of the vessel.

  Les ducked under another overhead and came out on a veranda overlooking a massive room that appeared to be some sort of warehouse. Metal crates, all of them open, rested on the deck twenty feet below.

  “This is the place,” Les said. He walked out onto the metal platform and over to a railing, shifting his light to the deck beneath them. Michael joined him at the ledge and directed his helmet beam where Les was pointing.

  “What in the wastes is that?” Michael asked.

  Les shook his head. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  For a moment, he just stared at the mass grave below, trying to make sense of what his eyes were relaying to his brain. Below them, hundreds of bones lay in a bed of red moss. But they weren’t just randomly thrown there. The bones were put back together in a deliberate way, making the skeletons look …

  “Pretty eerie,” Les said.

  “Let’s get the satellite link up. I want to contact Command and let them know there’s something down here after all. Then we start looking for supplies and boats.”

  Michael tried to back away from the railing, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the mossy red growth on the deck and the bones. These weren’t just human. There were animal bones down there, and robotic-looking parts mixed in like some sort of Frankensteinian fantasy.

  “You think those are the defectors that killed Dr. Julio Diaz and his team?” Les asked. “Or maybe that is Diaz’s team.”

  Michael had trouble formulating a response. He was too busy trying to make sense of a skeleton that had a buffalo skull attached to a human rib cage, robotic arms, and bony hands with claws.

  “What kind of hell island did Katrina send us to?” he whispered.

  * * * * *

  “It was a rogue pocket of electrometric disturbance,” said Dave Connor, avoiding Katrina’s gaze. It was his job to decipher the hundreds of readings coming from the airship’s advanced sensors, but she didn’t blame him for this.

  “This is not your fault, Dave,” she said. “This was my decision, and it’s on me. Besides, everyone knows how tough a rogue pocket is to spot.”

  “I should have seen it,” Dave said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Ada twisted around from her station, concern written on her freckled face. “How will they get back up here if that storm doesn’t pass?”

  “We’ll find a way,” Katrina said. She returned to the helm, where she slumped in the leather chair. The porthole window hatches were up, and she stared out into the ocean of black.

  Seeking refuge here, away from the other officers, seemed cowardly in a way, but she couldn’t help feeling she had made a mistake in flying Deliverance to Red Sphere.

  Somewhere twenty-five thousand feet below, the four most experienced divers aside from her were possibly dead or in serious peril. Even if they had survived the rogue layer of storm clouds, they were stranded with no way of getting home.

  And she had no idea what was down there. All the data, transmissions, and videos from Dr. Diaz’s team suggested that this place was nothing but a tomb. But then, there were always threats on the surface.

  The wait to hear from a dive team, though always agonizing, was worse than normal this time. Her boot rapped syncopated rhythms on the deck as, behind her, Ada, Dave, and Bronson continued monitoring their screens and sipping their cups of caffeinated water.

  It was going to be a long day.

  An hour had passed since the divers leaped from the belly of Deliverance, and it already felt like a lifetime.

  An unenlightening half hour later, she got up and walked back to the circular command station. “Have you detected anything yet, Ensign?”

  “Negative, ma’am,” Bronson White replied. “So far, none of the beacons are getting through the electromagnetic disturbance.”

  “Nothing over the comms, either,” Ada confirmed.

  An insane thought crossed her mind—one she didn’t dare say aloud. There were still over fifty people on Deliverance—farmers, engineers, cooks.

  She couldn’t risk their lives.

  Yet.

  “Ada, get me the Sea Wolf,” she said.

  “Will do, ma’am.”

  Grabbing her headset, Katrina retreated back to her leather chair to stare out the portholes. She already knew what X would say, but she wasn’t calling him to ask for advice.

  “Captain,” Ada said, “I’ve got Timothy Pepper on the horn, but he says X and Magnolia are preoccupied.”

  “Patch him through,” Katrina replied.

  “Hello, Captain DaVita, what a pleasant surprise to hear your voice.”

  It felt odd to talk to the second AI after deactivating its clone on the Hive.

  “Good to talk to you, Timothy,” she said politely. “Where are X and Magnolia?”

  “They’re working to fix the mainmast,” he said. “Is there something I can assist you with?”

  “I’d like to know if Magnolia or you have discovered anything else I should know about Red Sphere. If there’s anything vital that I may have missed in those files Magnolia sent.”

  “What, exactly, are you wanting to know?”

  “Based on what you have scanned in the files, do you believe there is anything alive down there?”

  Timothy’s reply came without hesitation. “In my experience, life always seems to find a way, and while nothing on those files confirms it, I do believe it’s possible, Captain. In fact, I would say it’s very likely.”

  FOURTEEN

  Les was anxious to escape Red Sphere and get back to Deliverance, but they had their orders from Commander Everhart. The mission would continue, even after his horrifying find back in the guts of the ITC ship.

  What the hell were those things?

  He tried to push the ugly images from his mind as he proceeded across the pier and away from the ships. Keeping his rifle cradled across his chest, eyes roving for potential hostiles, he ran toward his next objective.

  In the center of a spherical island stood a three-story metal building. Like many of ITC’s facilities, this one had no windows and few entrances. But unlike most of the buildings back in the wastelands, this one had no markings whatever—no signage, nothing.

  The aerial view had him wondering whether this might in fact be one of the Metal Islands that X and Magnolia were searching for. But there was no evidence of the cannibalistic Cazadores, or sunshine, or anything alive. And so far, the only two ships they had found were rust buckets.

  They had several other vessels yet to search, though. He had seen them on the dive in and planned to get a better look as soon as he had the satellite uplink set up.

  He glanced up at the swirling storm above him, where the clouds expanded like a rising loaf of bread. Lig
htning punched through the mass, to give a fleeting glimpse higher into the heavens.

  Trey was up there, wondering where the hell his old man was.

  I’ve got this, kid. Leave it to Pops.

  Wind-driven salt spray beat against him on the final stretch away from the pier. He looked over the side, at the waves slapping the concrete. It would take hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of years for wind and sea to finish the structure off.

  Les jogged the rest of the way to the central structure where two massive steel doors sealed off the only entrance he had seen so far. As he ran, the howling wind gained strength, slamming his body. He pushed through a gust, toward a rusted ladder leading to the flat rooftop three stories above, where radio towers rose into the sky.

  That was his objective, the place Michael had told him to set up the satellite comm and try to get a signal to Deliverance. He slung his rifle and started up the ladder.

  A glance over his shoulder halfway up gave him a decent view of the pier he had left behind. Two massive naval cruisers stood moored at the dock. On the weather deck of the ship to his left stood Michael, watching him with a pair of binoculars.

  Les continued up to the roof. Several lightning scars marked the flat concrete surface. It would have been a great place to land a supply crate, but they couldn’t risk dropping precious supplies into the ocean.

  He trotted across the roof, past the radio towers, to search the rest of the facility. Four piers stretched away north from the platform, and several more to the west and east. With his rifle scope, he zoomed in on a boat docked below, tethered by chains to thick steel bollards.

  This vessel looked different from the two ships where the other divers were sheltered. Barely a third their size, it looked like a fishing boat, with nets still lying on the deck where they had been abandoned.

  No way that’s been here for two hundred and sixty years …

  Les scanned the area a final time and discovered two more ships, one of them a military vessel with gun turrets and angular armor plating. He zoomed his scope in on the hull. Although the flag painted there was faded, he could make out the blue and red stripes and white stars.