Hell Divers (28 page)

The four remaining divers ran down the stairs, through the corridor, and into the lobby, where they skidded to a halt. The walls were crawling with Sirens. The creatures dispersed across the interior of the building, their faceless heads homing in on the divers.

“Come on!” X said. He made a dash for the front door and jammed it open with his shoulder.

Weaver slammed the door shut behind them just as one of the creatures rammed the other side with its thick skull. The area was clear, but it wouldn't take long for the monsters to fly out the open roof.

On his HUD, X found the nav marker for the supply crate. He set a breakneck pace, pushing through the wind and weaving around the domed warehouses, the cases and his rifle clanking against his armor.

The crate was a quarter mile away—less than three minutes if they ran. X led them around the last building and continued across a flat, snowy field that stretched as far as he could see.

Crunching across the snow, he scanned the whiteness for any sign of the crate. He ignored the screeches as long as he could, then finally glanced over his shoulder to see the first of the Sirens soar out the top of the tower. There was no way the divers would make it to the crate in time. He bumped his comm pad and said, “Murph, if you can hear me, now would be a good time to—”

An explosion as loud as a near lightning strike cut him off. A bubble of fire bloomed out of the sides of the building and mushroomed up from the top, engulfing the Sirens that had made it into the sky. Their smoldering bodies fell lazily back to the surface.

The building trembled, folded in the middle, and collapsed in a cloud of smoke and dust. The other divers stopped and stared in astonishment. Murph's sacrifice looked as if it had killed every creature in the tower.

“Come on!” X shouted. He pushed on across the white landscape, his eyes alternating from the beacon on his minimap to the ground, until they were on top of the nav marker. But the storm had buried the crate. They were going to have to dig.

“Watch our six, Weaver,” X yelled.

“On it.”

“Magnolia, Katrina, start digging!”

X set the cases on the snow and began shoveling with his hands, tossing clump after clump frantically to the side while glancing skyward every few seconds.

“I think I've got something!” Katrina shouted.

X scrambled over to her and wiped off the edge of a box with the white arrow symbol of the Hell Divers. He'd never been so happy to see the marking in his entire life.

“Help me,” he said. He uncovered the surface and then tugged on a handle to free the box. Katrina took the other side, and together they hoisted it out of the snow.

Flipping the lid, X wasted no time. He tossed the supplies and weapons into the snow to make room for the cells and valves. Weaver stooped down and picked up one of the extra boosters. After locking it in, he retrieved spare magazines and stuffed them into his vest.

“Hurry,” X said, stowing the cases inside. Then he set the valves over the top. Using the straps, he secured the goods.

“We got a problem,” Weaver shouted. “A big fucking problem!”

X glanced up and followed Weaver's rifle muzzle to the east. Dozens of winged Sirens flew across the industrial zone, moving in a V formation straight toward the divers.

“Grab a gun,” X said. He flipped the lid shut and punched in his key code on the security panel. With a loud pop, two balloons shot out of the external boosters, expanding as they filled with helium. The crate rose into a sky alive with Sirens.

“Clear a path, but don't shoot the crate!” X shouted. He stood beside Katrina and aimed his weapon. They came together back to back, moving as one. Magnolia and Weaver took up position a few feet away.

The crack of gunfire rang out in all directions. Bullets shredded wings, sending the fliers spiraling down. Some swooped away, but others soared directly into the incoming fire, shrieking their high-pitched cries. Lightning flashed overhead as the sky rained monsters. X grinned in spite of himself.

Eighty yards out, a single survivor landed and folded its wings into its back. “Someone shoot that one!” X shouted as it broke into a gallop. He pulled an empty magazine and reached for another.

Weaver fired two rounds into the creature, and it somersaulted and lay still in the snow.

X watched the crate vanish into the clouds. It could take a lot of abuse, but he still found himself praying it got back to the
Hive
in one piece, and that the
Hive
was still up there to retrieve it. He had put the gunshot he heard during the first seconds of the dive out of his mind—until now.

“That's the last of 'em,” Weaver said. “What's your plan now?”

X continued to look skyward. Hades had killed a lot of Hell Divers today, but despite the odds, they had completed their objective. Life would go on in the sky, at least for a while.

He turned away from the clouds to look back at the frozen city behind them. Hundreds of black dots rose above the skyline. The intermittent lightning flashes revealed a swarm of Sirens sailing away from the buildings.

X had never really imagined he would get to utter the words that left his mouth next. “Time to get the fuck out of here and go home.”

* * * * *

The
Hive
shook fiercely. The storm had completely engulfed the ship. Captain Ash clung to the wheel, but her throat burned so badly, she could hardly concentrate. It felt as if someone were holding a flame against her esophagus.

“Thirty-five thousand feet, Captain!” Jordan shouted.

The walls screeched in protest, and LEDs flickered overhead. Amid the chaos, Ash heard a familiar voice in her earpiece. “Captain, I'm not sure how much more of this she can take!”

It was Samson, and he sounded defeated.

“Do whatever you have to, to keep us in the air,” Ash said. “I don't care if you have to climb outside and flap your arms.”

“I've done everything but that,” he said. “I'm sorry, Cap. This is it.”

“God damn it,” Ash shouted into her mic. “I need you, Samson. Screw your head back on straight. You're a fighter!”

She pulled up on the wheel as far as it would go. The bow was at sixty degrees now. An explosion burst from a far corner of the room. Screams broke over the wailing sirens.

“We're almost clear of the storm!” Jordan yelled. “Another two thousand feet and we're home free!”

Ash scrutinized the main display. It blinked as if taunting her.

“Captain, I'm picking up a signal over Hades,” Ryan shouted.

She turned, scarcely daring to allow the thought. Could it be X? Could the divers really be on their way back?

“It's a crate!” Ryan yelled. “The divers have sent back one of the crates!”

Ash felt a tentative wash of relief, but they weren't out of this yet.

“Plot me an intercept course as soon as we get above the storm,” she replied.

“Captain Maria?”

Ash ignored the voice and concentrated on the main display. The data had solidified: they were two hundred feet from clearing the storm.

The voice came again. “Captain Maria?”

The glare of annoyance faded into a soft smile when she saw Tin looking back at her from the captain's chair.

“What is it, Tin?” she said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the sirens.

“Is X coming home?”

“I hope so,” she replied. “Hang on tight, okay? I have a special surprise for you.”

“What kind of surprise?”

“I'm going to show you the sun.”

Everywhere X looked, the ground was littered with the smoldering bodies of Sirens. The divers had killed those in the industrial zone, but the explosion from the ITC building had attracted the creatures from the heart of the city like vultures to a kill. Wave after wave sailed across the horizon in a mass migration of beating wings that seemed to block out the skyscrapers behind them.

“Get in the sky!” X shouted. He peered up into the maelstrom. Even if they could escape the Sirens, they would still have to make it through the lightning. They were trading one hell for another, but they had no choice. There was only one way home, and that was up, into the soup.

X watched the approaching monsters with mixed dread and fascination. For a moment, their unearthly shrieks sounded like a warning for the divers to stay away from the raging storm—a warning that X didn't heed.

“Deploy!” X shouted. “Deploy your fucking boosters right now!”

Weaver didn't need to be told twice. He punched his booster, yelling in a hysterical voice about hell and leaving the wretched place. Katrina followed Weaver into the air, but Magnolia hesitated, staring at the Sirens soaring toward them.

“I said GO!” X yelled. He swung her around, but she had already punched own booster. They locked gazes for an instant—enough time for him to see the raw terror in her eyes. Then she was gone, lifted into the air, screaming at the top of her lungs.

X pivoted away, raised his rifle, and aimed at the first wave. Beyond it, a dozen more V formations were sailing in over the industrial zone. There must be hundreds of the monsters, and judging by their energized screeches, they didn't want the divers to leave Hades.

X fired into the first wave. The rounds lanced across their flight path, catching the Sirens out in front by surprise. Several died instantly, their lumpy bodies spiraling toward the snow. Others took their place at the front of the line and climbed above the spray.

X squeezed the trigger selectively, focusing his fire on the nucleus of the formation. He killed three more before he was forced to replace the spent magazine. Katrina's panicked voice crackled in his earpiece as he reached for another.

“X, get in the air!”

“I'm right behind you!” he yelled. He had to kill as many of them as he could before he hit his booster, since shooting when airborne was much trickier. He slammed another magazine into the gun, pulled the slide, and fired into the next wave until he had broken the formation.

The monsters spiraled earthward as X prepared to take to the sky. Letting out a deep breath, he reached over his shoulder and activated his ride home. The balloon exploded from the canister, filled with helium, and catapulted him toward the storm.

Letting his rifle strap dangle over his chest, he grabbed his toggles to steer away from the second wave of Sirens. He caught a draft of wind and rode it toward the other divers. It took only a few seconds to catch up with Katrina and Weaver, but Magnolia had disappeared in the low clouds.

The pop of gunfire pulled his gaze two hundred feet eastward, where he saw the weak glow of her battery unit rising. Flashes from her rifle lit up the clouds. The comm channel flickered in and out, but in the breaks from static, he could hear her screams.

“Pull up, Magnolia!” X yelled. “You're heading …”
Thunder clattered above, cutting off the transmission. Glaring up at the swirling purple beast, he realized that their possible doom might also be their salvation. The lightning strikes could fry the divers, but they would also fry Sirens.

“Head into the storm!” X said. “Hurry!”

Weaver was already using his toggles to pull himself up faster. He was gaining altitude, and so was Katrina. They rose toward the low, bulging clouds.

“Magnolia! Pull up!” X repeated. In a blink, he saw that it was already too late. The second wave was only a thousand feet away. Even if she pulled away, they would hit her within thirty seconds or less.

The Sirens' screeches morphed into a steady high-pitched blare. X tried to block out the noise. As he raised his rifle, a network of lightning speared overhead, and in its glow he saw the snarling eyeless faces homing in on Magnolia. Their membranous wings seemed to glow in the brilliant light.

The blue residue quickly faded away, and X raised his rifle with one hand and kept his other on a toggle. The kick from his rifle lurched him backward with such force he lost his grip on the toggle. He spun out of control, his harnesses twisting.

X fought back into a stable position, one eye still on Magnolia. The second formation had maneuvered into an intercept course. He centered his rifle on them, but she was directly in his line of fire.

“Magnolia, pull up, God damn it!” X yelled.

Her reply was a frantic scream. Two of the Sirens drove forward from the front of the wave. They exploded away from the others, their wings beating the air so fast, everything else seemed to move in slow motion.

X tried to find a target, but the world had ground to a screeching halt. The tug of his harnesses seemed weaker. The whistle of the wind and the shrieks of the Sirens seemed faint, distant. In the brief moment of peace, specters of everyone he had ever lost rose into his thoughts. Rhonda was there, the perpetual scowl on her once-pretty face softening into something that was almost a smile. There was Rodney, Will, Sam, Cruise and Tony, standing shoulder to shoulder. Murph waved sheepishly, his eyes hidden behind orange goggles. Aaron grinned and nodded, and X realized for the first time how much Tin looked like his father.

X had outlived all of them. Somewhere up above, Tin would grow up to be a strong, honorable man like his father, but X knew in his heart that he wouldn't see it. With the crate on its way back up to the ship, he and the other divers had ensured that the boy and everyone else on the
Hive
would survive. They had completed their mission. Humanity would go on, at least for now, but if X didn't help, Magnolia would never see the inside of the ship again. She was young, with her life still ahead of her. X, on the other hand, had already lived his, and even though most of it had been lousy, he had survived far longer than most.

I should have died a long time ago,
X thought.

Magnolia shrieked again. “Help! I can't … I can't get away!”

“Hold on!” X shouted. Letting his rifle hang across his chest, he grabbed both toggles and steered toward the Sirens. He wasn't going to let Magnolia join the ranks of dead divers, not when he still had some fight left in him.

She angled away from the Sirens' claws while X shot toward them. The two that had broken off from the pack were a hundred feet away now, their gangly arms already reaching up for Magnolia.

“No!” Katrina shouted over the comm. “Don't, X!”

X imagined she was looking down at them, watching as he soared through the sky toward Magnolia and the monsters. But he didn't have time to console Katrina or explain what he was doing. The clock was ticking, and he had time for only one message.

“Make sure Captain Ash takes care of Tin,” he said. He bumped off the channel and caught Magnolia's terrified gaze for a split second as he rocketed past her.

With his left hand on a toggle, X raised the rifle in his right. He aimed carefully, knowing he had exactly one chance to save his friends. The other formations were five hundred feet away, but maybe if he could kill the front two, it would buy the other divers enough time to escape into the storm.

The Sirens' vacant faces jerked in his direction. He closed one eye, then fired just as they changed course. The bullet hit the first Siren right between where its eyes ought to be. It dropped like a rock, and he squeezed off another shot that hit the second one in the chest. The bullet jolted the creature, but it fought to stay in the air and angled toward X.

He fired two more shots into its mass, veering it from its trajectory. The Siren torpedoed past X, narrowly missing him. An ear-splitting screech followed, waning as the monster tumbled into the dark void. When X looked back up, the heart of the formation was almost on him. They reached out with ropy muscles, maws chomping and wings riding the wind.

They were so close now, he could see their scarred flesh coming apart as the bullets hit. Blood ballooned into the sky. For a moment, he thought he might actually have enough bullets to kill them all—that maybe he would make it back to the
Hive
after all. He had killed six of thirteen before his magazine clicked dry.

X let the rifle drape from its sling. Then he let go of the left toggle and grabbed his pistol and his knife.

Letting out a guttural scream that rivaled even the Sirens' shrieks, he extended his arms, brandishing both blade and gun at a bulky Siren at the front of the second formation. Its wrinkled flesh was covered with scars. Well, X would give it some new ones. He managed to fire a shot into its neck before they smashed into each other. He plunged the blade into the monster's torso as they collided. The pistol flew from his hand, and air exploded from his lungs. He was spinning now, his knife still stuck in the Siren's lean muscles.

It flapped its wings, screeching and tearing at him. Claws scratched over his chest armor, and he felt the hot burn as one of the talons ripped through his layered suit and caught the flesh in the gap beneath his armor and his belt.

X wrenched the blade from its neck. Blood spurted out, half covering the outside of his visor. He plunged the knife back into the monster again and again. Piercing shrieks, filled with rage, answered each thrust.

The field of view beyond his visor blurred with scabrous, wrinkled skin. He could see leathery wings and little else. A moment later, a pair of wings wrapped around his body, and darkness enveloped him.

“No!” X shouted as the dense weight pulled him downward. Fear gripped him as he squirmed in the membranous shroud, struggling to move his helmet. Through a hole in the cocoon of tattered wings, he glimpsed three flickers of blue from battery units above. In the blink of the eye, they vanished into the storm clouds. While the other divers rose to salvation, X fell back into hell.

* * * * *

Weaver had flinched at the sound of a single gunshot below. He watched in shock as X crashed into the Sirens. They swarmed him, flapping their wings like prehistoric flying reptiles. In a heartbeat, the diver plunged into the darkness and disappeared with the roiling mass of monsters.

In that instant, Weaver had considered helping X, but a gust of wind sent him and the thought spinning away. There was nothing he could do to help. He had known X for only a few hours, but his courage and sacrifice had reminded Weaver that diving wasn't a job or an obligation; it was a duty and an honor.

He stared at the storm as the balloon pulled him through the sky. Flash after flash of blue lanced through the muddy clouds. The panicked screams of the other two divers broke over the distant clap of thunder.

He glanced down to see Magnolia pulling frantically on her toggles and scanning the clouds below her feet for X. Katrina was doing the same thing. It seemed unfair that X had led the divers through hell, only to perish at the very end. Katrina and Magnolia might not understand his sacrifice now, but they would if they would just get back to the
Hive
. Life in the sky was harsh but precious, and X had spent his life protecting it. The moment of his sacrifice would forever be embedded in Weaver's memories.

Another torrent of lightning flashed above, arcing out like blood pumping through veins. Low, dull thuds boomed as his balloon pulled him toward the heart of the storm.

Until now, Weaver hadn't even thought about their ascent, but the booming thunderclaps reminded him that Hades hadn't let go of him yet.

His HUD was flickering now. In a few seconds, the storm would knock it out entirely. They were nearing eight thousand feet.
If
the
Hive
was still up there—and Weaver seriously doubted it—then the divers were almost halfway there.

He searched the clouds for any sign of escape—for a place that he might squeeze through. There, maybe a hundred feet to the west, he saw an area where the clouds seemed lighter.

“Come on!” Weaver shouted. He waved at Katrina and Magnolia with one hand and pointed with the other toward the paler clouds framed on both sides by denser bulging masses.

As he rose into the sky, he found himself trying to remember the words of Jones' prayers, but the thunder all around him made it hard to think. He still didn't know why he had survived while his family and so many others had perished. Finding a divine reason seemed disrespectful to the memories of everyone else who had died. Why was he so lucky? Why would God save only him?

There was no simple answer, nothing to explain the air in his lungs or his beating heart. There was no time to think at all. Lightning zipped overhead, raising the hair on his neck. He tensed and eyed his balloon, his heart skipping. The ball of precious helium continued its ascent. He exhaled a sigh of relief. The aftermath of the strike shook him, and he lurched in his harness, glimpsing a view of the clouds below. The air hadn't even left his lungs when the roar of thunder came crashing in.

Weaver blinked away beads of sweat and tried to focus. Using his toggles, he directed his balloon toward the break in the storm. Magnolia and Katrina were still right below him. Lightning backlit their outlines, each flash making his heart pound faster.

They had to be around twenty thousand feet up now. He couldn't see anything on his HUD, but his mind could estimate his location by habit.

Tendrils of electricity reached out toward the divers as they scaled the clouds. The subsequent cracks of thunder rattled his body again and again.

He was in the heart of the storm now. The electricity arced to his left and right, below and above. He was floating in a stew of lightning bolts. Before he knew what had happened, one of those streaks licked him. He saw the bolt in the corner of his eye before it passed through him. The strike jolted his body so hard, it felt as if he had landed without a chute.