Hell divers x fallout, p.34
Hell Divers X: Fallout, page 34
Kade had even started to hope they could be allies, maybe even friends someday. But even after so many close scrapes together, Lucky still saw him as a prisoner and not much more.
The knight opened a portable satellite dish and unfolded the legs. Then he took out a control panel with a screen and knobs.
“Keep your eyes peeled while I try this out,” Lucky said.
“A’ight,” Kade replied.
He went outside with Lucky, who held the dish. He secured it to the railing around the cupola, then positioned the booster dish to the northeast. Next, he put on a headset that connected by wire to the control panel. Once everything was set up, he turned on the screen and started twisting knobs.
Walking around the platform, Kade scanned for threats. That was the most important thing right now: to stay alive so he could deal with whatever was going to happen later.
He checked the Sea King and spotted Bulldozer through a window, snoring away. Waves slapped against the shoreline in the distance. Kade couldn’t help imagining what sorts of creatures were out there. He thought of the spawn back at the canal, and the cyclops monsters of the Sunshine Coast. Everywhere he traveled, different life-forms had adapted to their deadly environments.
The food chain out here was stacked high, and humans were nowhere near the top.
Kade went back inside the lighthouse after finishing his scans. “Got anything?” he asked.
Lucky shook his head. “Go down and wake Bulldozer up,” he said. “We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”
Kade descended the stairs spiraling inside the ancient lighthouse. Red moss grew in some of the damp areas where water seeped in from cracks or broken windows.
At the bottom of the tower, vines wrapped around the exterior, snaking upward around the grimy gray concrete.
He trekked across the rocky terrain to the road, where the Sea King sat parked. With his hand on his holstered pistol, he searched the dunes on the other side. He was down to his last bullet, but it was better than nothing.
The waves slapped the beach, rising up over the sand and then receding. Seeing nothing, he walked around the chopper to the cockpit. He grabbed the lever and opened the door, but that didn’t wake the pilot.
“’Dozer,” Kade said.
That didn’t wake him either.
Kade rapped with his gloved knuckles on the window three times before Bulldozer jerked awake and reached for his pistol.
“Whoa, relax,” Kade said. “It’s just me.”
“What’s wrong? Are those winged freaks back?”
“No. Lucky told me to come wake you up.”
“I just fell asleep, though.” Bulldozer lifted his wrist and stared at the watch. He shot up. “Shit, I’ve been out three and a half hours? Where’s Lucky?”
“Up there, using the dish.”
Bulldozer glanced up at the tower. “Oh. Probably trying to contact the Fore . . .” Bulldozer didn’t finish his sentence. He leaned forward and started to flip buttons.
Kade backed away and looked up at the circular deck atop the lighthouse, where Lucky was still fiddling with the dish. But now he had it pointed in the opposite direction, back the way they had come.
Of course. He’s trying to contact the Forerunner. But why had Lucky lied to him about that?
“How much fuel we got left in the canisters?” Bulldozer asked.
Kade walked around the chopper to the left side, facing the beach dunes. He searched them again for trouble before opening the sliding hatch and climbing inside.
The inventory took him a few minutes. They still had nearly a quarter of their reserves.
Kade made his way up to the cockpit to report the number as Lucky came running around the chopper with the crate.
“I picked something up with the dish,” he said.
“From who?” Kade asked, expecting it to be the Forerunner.
“Something about King Rolo and an order for the Sun Empire militia to be on high alert,” Lucky said. “That mean anything to you?”
“King Rolo?” Kade asked.
“Who’s that?” Bulldozer asked. “What’s the Sun Empire?”
They both looked to Kade.
“Rolo was the captain of my airship. He’s the one who nuked the ship back at Brisbane, trying to kill King Xavier. But the Sun Empire? I’ve never heard of . . .”
“What?” Lucky said.
A memory surfaced of being on the bridge of the airship Victory with Captain Rolo before Kade dived to Mount Kilimanjaro all those years ago.
“Soon we will start a new life under the sun,” Rolo had said. “A new empire for humanity.”
“Empire of the Sun,” Kade muttered. “Rolo must have got himself crowned king and has renamed the Vanguard Islands.”
“So this Rolo is in charge now?” Bulldozer asked.
“I guess so.”
“The guy that nuked your army? That’s great, really bloody great,” Lucky said. “Come on, let’s get back in the air.”
Kade knew this shouldn’t have come as a huge shock to him. It was hard to stomach that he had once trusted his old captain. But those days were a lifetime ago, before the machines had robbed them of their humanity. Some of his friends had never gotten theirs back.
Kade strapped back into his seat. The chopper lifted off, leaving Aruba behind and flying over the dark Caribbean Sea as Kade pondered what to do when they found the Frog. Several hours passed, and at some point he must have dozed off, because a loud pop over his headset snapped him awake.
“I got something on radar,” Bulldozer said. “Not one but two ships.”
Kade looked down at the blips on the screen.
“See if you can get us a view, but stay in the cloud cover,” Lucky said.
“You got it,” Bulldozer said.
He lowered the helicopter through the clouds, and the ocean exploded into view, dark waves and whitecaps stretching to the horizon.
“There,” Lucky said.
He pointed east at a long wake from a ship with containers stacked on the deck.
“That’s a carrier ship,” Bulldozer said.
“Yeah, but that isn’t . . .” Lucky said. “Is that the—”
“The Frog,” Kade said.
He smiled at the sight of the ship. X was still alive, and they had obviously found supplies, as well as the cargo ship in Panama.
“Get us back into clouds before they see us,” Lucky said.
“Let me hail King Xavier,” Kade said. “I can broker a conversation between him and your Forerunner.”
“You will do no such thing,” Lucky said.
Kade squirmed as the knight began to wrap a rope around him from behind.
“No! Stop!” he shouted.
“Hold still,” Lucky said with a grunt. “Don’t make this any harder on yourself.”
“What are you doing!” Kade said, although it was clear he was being restrained. It was also clear that all hope of being allies with the knights was dwindling fast.
“I had to lie to you,” Lucky said. “I don’t like it, but orders are orders.” He cinched the rope around Kade’s waist and the chair, then bound his ankles to the front legs. “I’m sorry. I know you’re a good man, not like the rest of your people.”
Kade cursed himself for not trying to do something earlier. He had wasted one opportunity after another, hoping that Lucky would see reason, especially after Kade had saved his life so many times. But that didn’t seem to matter to the knight.
Lucky went to a crate and popped the lid.
“What are you going to do?” Kade asked.
“I’m sending an encrypted transmission back to the Forerunner,” he said. “We’ve finally found your king. Now we’re going to follow him back to your home.”
* * * * *
X knew he was dreaming. This was a memory from almost fifteen years ago. Or maybe not—he couldn’t quite remember.
What he did remember were the steaming orange noodles he always bought from the noodle bar at the trading post on the Hive—Tin’s favorite meal.
After a long day of training the newbie Hell Divers, X was glad to be heading back to his apartment with the food. Some of the trainees were already driving him nuts. Especially this Magnolia, or Mags, the conscript with an attitude, a wave of blue hair, and way too much eye shadow. He had no idea how he was going to keep her or any of the other greenhorns alive when the time came to dive again.
And it would come again. They always needed divers.
The curious eyes of passengers followed X as he walked the painted corridors of the Hive with his plate of food.
He slowed as he came up on the Wingman bar. Marv was wiping down the surface with a filthy rag. The lights flickered.
He sure needed a stiff drink right now, but that would have to wait. He had other responsibilities after the loss of his best friend, Aaron Everhart. The thought of how Aaron had died made X want to down a few mugs of shine. He wanted to block it out. He needed to block it out.
As X walked the empty corridor, recurring images of the ill-starred dive played through his mind like a familiar motion picture. It started in the launch tube, at the last second, when X had realized this was no green-zone dive.
Team Raptor had launched right into an electrical storm that the Hive’s ancient sensors had failed to detect. Maybe human error was in there too; X still wasn’t certain. But one by one, the beacons of his team members went offline. Victims of the storm.
X made it through the strikes, exploding out of the storm above the skyline of a ruined metropolis. Aaron broke out of the clouds not long after.
For a moment, X had thought they both might make it to the surface.
“I can’t see!” Aaron had screamed.
X had tried to guide his friend safely to the surface. Past the jagged tips of scrapers. But one of those sharp girders snagged his chute. The sound of Aaron’s body hitting the concrete would stick in X’s memory banks forever.
In a matter of minutes, Team Raptor had been eliminated. But X was still alive, and he had a job to finish. His mission would determine whether the Hive could stay in the sky.
The images continued to play through his mind. He pictured the first Siren nest, then the electronic wail of the beasts that haunted his dreams.
But it was what had happened at the very end of the dive that had seared itself into his memories. The ravenous creatures with the rubbery flesh and ropy, muscular bodies had chased him to the corpse of his friend.
X had been forced to launch into the clouds while the beasts disassembled Aaron’s body in short order, dragging his limbs and trunk away to feed their young.
He lingered outside his apartment door, torn between going inside and marching right back to the Wingman. That dive had broken X. He was in no shape to raise a boy.
He opened the hatch to find Michael sitting on the torn carpet, wearing his tinfoil hat. He glanced up from a robotic vacuum cleaner in pieces.
“Don’t worry, I’m fixing it for you,” Michael said.
X held up the bag of food. “Hungry?”
The dream faded from his mind, replaced by a flood of other memories. The Hive flying away on the horizon while X hung from his helium balloon. Then finding Miles in a cryo-tube and being so lonely that he had broken his own rule of never opening a capsule. The dog had saved his life, helping him survive on the surface for a decade.
Those ten years were mostly just fragmented memories. Hiding from and fighting the abominations of the wastes: rock monsters, water snakes, giant bugs, Sirens. And then humans . . .
He remembered the bulky armored suits of the Cazadores who had taken him captive. And he could almost feel the pain of the cancer and radiation poisoning that had followed in the years after his escape.
Somehow, despite all odds, X and Miles had survived. Even more miraculously, they had managed to find Michael in Florida. Half-crazy, malnourished, and on the edge of giving up, X had been a broken man back then. Just as he had been a broken man after losing all of Team Raptor a decade before. And once again Michael had brought him back from the darkness. Taught him to live again. To love again.
X awoke from the dreams to find himself in a dark space. Miles slept beside him, deeply enough that X didn’t even wake the old dog when he sat up.
Cold despair filled X as the confusion wore off and he remembered he was in his private cabin on the Frog. That despair metastasized through him when he also remembered what was about to happen. He snatched his wrist computer off the table. In a few hours, Michael would be dead, executed by the very people who were alive only because Michael had saved them.
X put the wrist computer down and tried the hatch. It was locked from the outside, on his orders.
“Don’t let me out,” he had said to Magnolia and General Forge. “I will be my own worst enemy and yours too. Don’t let me close to the radio or a bottle of shine.”
They both had agreed, and Magnolia said she wouldn’t be far when the time came.
X paced in front of the hatch, drawing Miles’s attention. The dog let out a whine.
No matter how hard he tried, X couldn’t help but picture Michael being murdered. Morbid images clung like cobwebs in his mind.
Soon, Michael would join the ghosts of the countless people X had failed over the years. Divers like Michael’s father and X’s best friend, Aaron. People like Katrina, whom X had loved more than any other woman.
Rhino. Les. Arlo. Ada. Rodger . . . The list seemed to have no end.
Many had believed the prophecy that X was an immortal. Maybe he was, but whatever the case, his survival had become a curse. He continued to live while the people he loved were killed.
X closed his eyes and counted to ten, but it was no use. The anger erupted like an exploding can of gasoline. He rushed to the hatch, pounded on it.
“Let me out!” he shouted. He pounded the metal again with the bottom of his fist. “Mags!” he yelled. “Mags, let me out!”
His voice echoed over his pounding fist. He slammed his forearm against the hatch. Each blow sent a jolt of pain through his beaten and sore body.
“Shine! I need shine!” he shouted.
Oblivious to Miles’s sad whining, he pictured Michael on his knees, a sword above his head in the grip of a Cazador executioner.
“Let me out!” he screamed.
X grabbed the handle and strained against it. When that didn’t work, he slammed his head against the hull. Blood trickled down his forehead. He didn’t care. He hit his head again.
Miles barked at him to stop, then howled as if to say, I’m still alive—don’t leave me!
X fell to his knees in front of the hatch, sobbing. He wished for something to numb the pain. Something to take away the guilt and clear the horrific images of Michael’s impending death.
It’s your fault. You couldn’t save him.
Again X slammed his head against the hatch, leaving a smear of blood. Miles latched onto his arm, pulling him back. The dog pulled harder, until X fell away from the door.
He went up on his knees, face to face with the wet muzzle of his best friend. Miles licked his face and whined.
And it all came crashing down on X. He put his arms around the animal and hugged him, listening to his pounding heart through his furry coat.
“I’m sorry,” X groaned. “I’m so sorry, boy.”
A knock came on the hatch, followed by a voice. “X, are you okay?”
It was Mags.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“I can’t let you out,” she said. “You know why. You told me to—”
“I know.”
X let go of Miles and crawled over to the bed. The dog followed him and hopped up onto the mattress.
“I won’t be far,” Magnolia said. “We’ll get through this. Remember what you said. We have to focus on those we can save.”
X let out a sigh and fell back on the bed. His head pounded, and blood dripped down the side of his head onto the pillow. He was a wreck.
Miles lay against his side.
“We sure have been through a lot together, haven’t we, boy?” X asked.
But none of those times compared to how helpless X felt now. Another morbid image of Michael made him wince.
“Fucking hell,” X mumbled. He sat up and forced his eyes open. Closing them was worse.
Over the next hour, he was tortured with the images. He went from the bed, to pacing, to resisting the urge to smash his skull into the hatch.
As he stared at the drying spot of blood on the hatch, he heard footsteps outside. Several pairs, moving fast.
They stopped right outside the hatch.
“He said to keep it locked,” Magnolia said.
“I know, but this is urgent,” said General Forge.
The locking mechanism clicked, and the hatch creaked open. X stood looking at Magnolia, Slayer, and General Forge.
“Sir,” Forge said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but—”
“What is it?” X asked.
“We’re picking up radio chatter at the Vanguard Islands—something about an attack on the rooftop of the capitol tower.”
X narrowed his eyes and looked to Magnolia. His mind was muddled, but the report could mean one of only a few things.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” X asked.
“Someone’s trying to save Michael,” Magnolia said.
“There’s something else, King Xavier,” said General Forge. “Captain Two Skulls has reported something on radar again.”
“The airship Vanguard?”
“He doesn’t think so, but one thing is certain: we’re being followed.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Michael lay in his bunk, awaiting his fate. In a few hours, the new day would dawn at the Vanguard Islands. It would be his last sunrise.
