Hell Divers IV: Wolves

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Magnolia saw the pain in his eyes. The despair. She felt it, too. You killed your friends, she said to herself.

  “I’m going to see if I can get hold of Katrina,” X said. He picked up the radio handset. “Deliverance, this is the Sea Wolf. Do you copy?”

  Static crackled.

  He looked over at Magnolia again, but she turned to wipe away a tear.

  The video continued playing on-screen, but she tapped the monitor to shut it off. She couldn’t bear to watch any more.

  “Deliverance, this is X, aboard the Sea Wolf. Do you copy? Over.”

  “Roger. This is Ensign White. Go ahead, X.”

  “Where’s Captain DaVita?”

  “She’s not here, sir.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not there’?” X’s brows scrunched together, almost closing the gap left by the scar.

  “She dived to the surface with several other divers,” Bronson replied gruffly.

  “What?” Magnolia said.

  “Captain DaVita dived to help the other divers.”

  X lowered his head in defeat. “Have you heard anything from them?”

  “Negative. They’ve been out of radio contact for about an hour now. How are things on the open water?”

  “Shitty.”

  “Stay safe out there, Commander. You’re our last hope.”

  X slammed the handset against its cradle, startling Miles and making Magnolia flinch.

  “This is why I didn’t fucking want them going to Cuba!” he yelled. “Now Katrina is putting her life in jeopardy, God damn it.”

  It was the second such outburst Magnolia had seen, but this time, she deserved it and more. She remained calm, holding his fiery gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He snorted again and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Sorry don’t cut it, kid.” He unlocked his harness and stood. “Flesh guns won’t do shit against those AIs. Their only chance of survival is using their boosters to get back through the storm. And those ain’t good odds.”

  X stormed toward the hatch.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “For some fresh air.”

  “It’s a monsoon out there.”

  Miles got up and followed X out into the passageway, but he turned and said, “Sit and stay.”

  The dog obeyed and watched his handler leave, letting out a low whine.

  “Don’t do that, Miles,” X said over his shoulder as he climbed the ladder to the second deck, vanishing from sight.

  A hatch opened and slammed shut, and a few minutes later, the hatch of the staging room opened and slammed.

  Magnolia tried to control her breathing. She felt as though she might throw up. After counting to ten, she tried to meditate. But nothing worked.

  She was definitely going to be sick.

  Unbuckling her harness, she decided to go back to her quarters. She grabbed a plastic pail and made it out to the passageway before throwing up.

  She got down on both knees, her stomach roiling and wrenching.

  The acid burned her mouth.

  She vomited a second time.

  A hatch above opened and closed again, and footfalls clicked above her. She clutched her stomach with one hand and closed her eyes to block out the stars floating before her vision.

  Behind her, Miles let out another whine. The dog nudged up by her side, sniffing and then licking the salt off her arm.

  “Mags!” X shouted. “Mags, get up here!”

  She opened her eyes to see him looking down from the staging area.

  “Kid, you got to see this shit. Hurry.”

  She wiped her mouth off with her fist and stopped in the bathroom to dump the pail of vomit. Then she grabbed a drink of water and slogged down the passage to the ladder. Climbing made her dizzy, and by the time she got to the staging room, she was seeing stars again.

  X was waiting there and helped her up.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You still gotta see this.” He led her to the hatch and opened it. Then he stepped back and gestured for her to go outside. The waves were still slamming the boat, but the rain had stopped.

  She blinked and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the bright gray sky. Maybe she really was seeing things now.

  X was suiting up behind her. She could hear the clanking of armor, but she didn’t turn. Her eyes were on the sky and the rays of gold streaking down to the surface.

  The tar-colored waves had magically turned teal green—water so clear she could see through it.

  The ocean wasn’t black after all.

  “Is it real?” she asked.

  X laughed. “I sure as hell hope so.”

  * * * * *

  “Erin …” Michael moaned. He tried to move the stump of his right arm, but pain ripped up his shoulder.

  “Don’t move,” Layla said. Her voice carried strength, but Michael could tell by the worry on her face that she was close to tears. They had lost Erin and Ramon back at Red Sphere, and he was in bad shape.

  It still hadn’t quite hit him that the arm was gone. But perhaps that was due to the pain.

  “Where the hell are the medical supplies?” she said as she rifled drawers and cabinets throughout the room.

  Edgar sat on a bed without a mattress across the medical bay, his head bowed, dreadlocks curtaining his face. Blood had dried on his armored chest and leg pads. Michael wasn’t sure how bad the injuries were, but Edgar wasn’t complaining.

  “How you doin’?” Michael asked.

  Edgar brushed the locks away from his face. “Ramon’s dead. He didn’t even have a chance.”

  “I’m sorry, brother …” Michael let his words trail off, not knowing what else to say.

  Edgar rubbed his forehead. “I can’t believe he’s gone. Just like that. I couldn’t do anything to help him.” His eyes met Michael’s.

  “I’m sorry about your cousin, but there’s nothing you could have done. Just like there wasn’t anything we could do for Erin. We’re Hell Divers, and Hell Divers die. She knew the risk.” He stopped himself short of saying that Ramon had known the risks, too. Now wasn’t the time, and the pain in his shoulder made it hard to concentrate.

  “I’m sorry about Erin,” Edgar said. “I know she was your friend, Commander.”

  “She was a true Hell Diver,” Michael said. He wasn’t that close to Erin, not as close as Les, but he had liked her. Even after Florida, when she came back with attitude and a chip on her shoulder. Not that Michael blamed her. He had felt the same way after his father died on the surface.

  He drew in a breath, blinked at the bright overhead light, and closed his eyes. Every time he did, he saw the image of the machine with the cow skull, firing a laser through his arm.

  Knowing that it was still back at Red Sphere lying on the concrete stairwell was an odd feeling. A piece of him—an important piece of his body that had been with him his entire life.

  Layla continued going through the cabinets on the bulkheads, cursing, opening and slamming them, and cursing some more.

  “There’s nothing here,” she said. “It’s all been raided.”

  Michael looked over, groaning. The pain was deep inside his arm, as if his bone marrow were on fire. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He swallowed and tried to relax on the hard bed.

  The hatch squealed open, and Les ducked through the entryway, his brick-red tufts scraping the metal arch.

  “Commander Everhart,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  Michael tried to hold still. He was close to hyperventilating from the pain, but he managed to nod.

  “The laser cauterized the wound, fortunately,” Layla said. “But we need to find something soon to prevent infection. Same thing for Edgar. He’s got shrapnel wounds fro
m the blast.”

  “It ain’t nothin’,” Edgar said.

  Layla shot him a sideways glance. “It’ll be something if it gets infected.”

  “I’ll check with the others to see if they have anything in their gear,” Les said.

  “Where are the others?” she replied.

  “Trey and Jaideep are patrolling and searching the other decks to make sure the ship is clear. Katrina’s on the bridge.”

  “How are we doing on power?” Layla said, still going through drawers. “Didn’t look good when I got the ship running earlier.”

  “It’s not.” Les hesitated, scratching the red stubble on his chin. “This vessel runs off four nuclear fuel cells. Looks like they’re all around a ten percent charge. Not sure how long that will last us, and we have a major problem. The satellite uplink we were using to connect with Deliverance got left on Red Sphere in our escape.”

  Layla looked up. “So we have no way of contacting Deliverance?”

  “Correct.”

  Michael gritted his teeth and sat up on the bed.

  “So what’s Katrina’s plan?” he asked.

  “She said we sail until we can break through the electrical disturbance and contact Deliverance with our helmet comms.”

  Edgar gripped his belly and walked over from his bed to Michael’s bedside while Layla moved to a rack of lockers. She pulled on one of the handles, grunting. “Come on, you worthless pile of junk.”

  The handle broke off in her hand, and she staggered backward. Then she gave the door a kick with her steel-toed boot, making a loud bang. The doors popped open, revealing several shelves stacked with medical supplies.

  “Here we go,” she whispered.

  Michael gritted his teeth through another wave of pain. This time, though, the aches seemed to be coming from the arm that was no longer there. But how could that be?

  Phantom pains.

  Tears stung his eyes. The dull ache was worse than anything he had experienced yet. He blinked the tears away, taking in deep breaths until he was hyperventilating.

  “Hold on, Tin, I think I found something,” Layla said.

  “I’ll go see if there are any med packs upstairs,” Les said.

  A tall figure ducked through the hatch before he could leave. Trey walked into the room and said, “Ship is clear of life-forms and AIs, but we’re still searching the lower decks for supplies.”

  “I wonder what happened to the original crew,” Layla said.

  “Probably landed at Red Sphere like we did, not knowing the defectors were inside,” Les replied. “But how did the machines get there, and why didn’t they ever leave if killing humans is their purpose?”

  “No humans left to kill maybe,” Layla said. “All that matters is they don’t have a way to follow us. No one saw any aircraft back there, right?”

  Les shook his head. “None at all.”

  “I have to get back to patrol, but I wanted to check on the commander,” Trey said. He walked over to Michael and took his left hand. “You okay, brother?”

  Michael swallowed again and tried to nod.

  Layla walked back to his bedside with a bottle of gel. “It’s really old, but the container is still sealed.”

  Michael blinked through more tears to take a look at the bottle. The gel was the same kind they used in place of sutures to seal deep wounds and prevent infection. And it burned like hell.

  She slowly unwrapped his bandage to the scent of burned flesh.

  He craned his neck to look down at the wound.

  “Look at me, Tin,” Layla said.

  The ship groaned slightly and the overhead light flickered as they changed course. Layla put on a pair of plastic gloves and squeezed out some of the gel on a finger. “This is going to burn pretty bad, Michael. You might even black out.”

  Trey squeezed Michael’s left hand.

  “If I do, tell Katrina I know what we have to do,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We have to find the Sea Wolf.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “Multiple contacts.”

  Timothy’s words crackled from the speaker system in the staging room, forcing X’s eyes away from the most beautiful sight he had ever seen through the open hatch.

  The sun could wait.

  “Two vessels,” Timothy confirmed.

  X should have known that it was a bit early to celebrate. A place like this would be heavily protected, and he had a feeling it was the Cazadores doing the protecting. The rapid beating of his heart was no longer caused by joy.

  He wasn’t ready for this. They weren’t ready for this.

  Magnolia’s wide eyes suggested she felt the same, but she knew what to do. She hurried over to the rack where she stored her gear, and began putting on her armor.

  “Where, Pepper?” X asked.

  “Due east, about three nautical miles out and moving at only about ten knots.”

  X grabbed his rifle, opened the hatch, and slipped outside.

  For the first time in his entire life, the sky wasn’t cloaked in darkness. To the east, planks of gold streamed through an opening in the electrical storm, like a portal to another world. As much as he wanted to stare, he moved in a hurry to the mainmast. Grabbing the rungs, he started up to the crow’s nest for a better view of whoever had spotted them, although he had a fair idea.

  The wind whistled around his armor and bit into his suit. The sail blocked his view to the east—right where these mysterious contacts were coming from.

  Halfway up, his boot slipped off the narrow, wet rung, and he lost his grip. Hanging from one arm, he watched a magazine fall from his vest and clatter onto the deck below.

  He swung his hand back up and grabbed the rung.

  Come on, old man.

  The spear and attached line were just above him, and he swung right to get past. As he reached up for the crow’s-nest rail, his eyes went to his HUD.

  It can’t be …

  The temperature was seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and there was virtually no trace of radiation. This isolated spot of what many would call heaven wasn’t there for the taking, though.

  In the distance, two boats powered toward them, leaving a trail of engine smoke behind them. X jumped into the crow’s nest and unslung his rifle. Another, smaller boat with a single rider led the two larger craft.

  Three contacts.

  X zoomed in on the small boat, which had handlebars and looked like a seagoing motorcycle. Goggles covered the rider’s face, and long black hair flew over his shoulders. Green and brown clothing rippled in the wind, and the barrel of a slung rifle rose over his back.

  This didn’t look like one of the Cazadores he had seen in Florida.

  X moved his optics to the larger of the two big boats: a rust bucket that looked worse than some of the wrecks in the Turks and Caicos. Canvas tarps covered the bow, and fishing poles hung from the afterdeck. A cracked glass window obscured the cabin and the two people piloting the vessel. It had an old-world engine, the kind that ran on gasoline and not fuel cells.

  It was as if the Sea Wolf had gone through a time machine and entered the Old World.

  He studied the men for a few more seconds. Several of them wore some sort of breathing apparatus, but none of them had on the massive suits of armor he remembered from Florida.

  For a fleeting moment, he thought that maybe he had found other survivors—people that the passengers of the Hive and Deliverance might live in harmony with.

  Then he saw the octopus logo on the helm of the second boat. Just like the one he’d seen tattooed on el Pulpo’s forehead and engraved in his chest armor. There would be no living in harmony with these bastards.

  “What do you see?” Magnolia shouted from the deck below.

  “Nothin’ pretty!” he yelled back.
<
br />   He continued scanning the vessel. This one wasn’t a fishing boat. It looked more like what he had seen in Florida. Many years ago, people had called them yachts. They were built for the rich, but this one wasn’t in much better condition than the other boat.

  The hull had been stripped of paint and then branded with an image of a purple octopus stretching its arms across the rusty surface. Two men, both wearing helmets, stood at the windowless helm. Slung weapons protruded over their backs, and bandoliers crisscrossed their armored chests.

  X moved the scope to a crate resting on the back deck. Three more men stood at the gunwales, weapons cradled. They were coming for the Sea Wolf, with a small army and plenty of guns. And they were quickly closing the gap. The one-man craft suddenly shot ahead, thumping over whitecaps, the driver jolting up and down.

  X had waited a long time for this. But despite the longing for revenge, he didn’t feel prepared. His plan had been to surprise these murdering scum, and now he would have to improvise.

  He lowered his rifle, staring out over a horizon the color of a ripe apricot. In the distance, miles beyond the boats, he saw structures. Carmine-and-gray towers rose on stilts above the water, looking like giant spiders.

  Of course—the Metal Islands …

  He focused on the nearest of the towers. He had seen these in picture books.

  The fabled Metal Islands weren’t actual islands. They were oil rigs.

  Dozens of them lined the horizon, forming a colony in the sea.

  “X, what do you—” Magnolia began to call out.

  He cut her off with a gravelly shout. “Get to the command room, kid, and use the cameras instead of opening the hatch. I’m going to need you on the controls, but do not raise that hatch. We’re about to have company.”

  “Cazadores?”

  “About eight of the ugly fuckers. Three vessels. Grab your rifle and everything you can carry.”

  Magnolia went back inside the cabin, and he used the time to think. They couldn’t outrun the boats using their sails. Hell, if they turned now they would be tacking into the wind. No, there was only one option.

  They had to fight.

  X aimed at the rider on the one-man craft and shot him in the chest. The strange little boat coasted several yards farther as the man splashed into the sea and vanished.