Hell divers x fallout, p.12
Hell Divers X: Fallout, page 12
“Don’t even ask—you aren’t getting a weapon,” Lucky said. “You’re lucky we took off your cuffs.”
He opened the door, then turned slightly. “And while I appreciate you saving my arse, that doesn’t mean I owe it to you.”
“Didn’t say you did, mate,” Kade replied. “But I definitely owe you for rescuing me from that dingo nest. I was a shark biscuit.”
Lucky snickered at the slang for kids at a beach with shark-infested waters. It was true, though; Kade would have been torn to pieces if it weren’t for the knight.
The man started up the stairs, giving Kade a good look at the weapons he had taken from him during that rescue. His Monster Hunter revolver was holstered around Lucky’s waist, along with a tac knife and another pistol. Over his back he had a slung crossbow, and he carried Kade’s laser rifle in front of him.
They climbed the stairs all the way to the surface, where lightning greeted them, flashing over the runways.
“So we’re going to the Crab Nest?” Kade asked. “How far is it?”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll be there by morning,” Lucky replied.
“Well, you are Lucky.”
“Comedian, are ya?”
“Not really. Just trying to be friendly.”
Lucky stopped just outside the door, then stepped up to Kade.
“We aren’t friends, or mates, or whatever you call it, so get that through your dense cranium, okay, Hell Diver?”
“Don’t worry, I got no illusions.”
“Keep close to me out here, but just know, if you try anything, I’ll kill you and sleep just fine.” And before Kade could reply, Lucky started off across the runway.
The knight easily skirted the various barricades and traps. Kade got close enough to a stake pit to see that the trap had worked. Skewered on one of the spear-length spikes were the remains of a Siren that had reached for the dangling bait before falling and impaling itself.
As they advanced, he got a better view of the surrounding area. In the green hue of the night-vision goggles, he could make out what looked like a long-ago residential area on the western edge of the airport. Most of the structures appeared to have collapsed over the years, but he could see enough peaked roofs to know that these were once houses.
He looked away from the structures to a river at the southern edge of the runway, where Lucky seemed to be headed.
Towering trees spread their mutant branches over the dark stream. Along the bank, mushrooms grew out of the dirt, their caps ranging in size from automobile tires to satellite dishes.
Lucky cleared the area with his rifle, then went to a chain wrapped around the base of a tree. He grabbed hold and pulled up, exposing the sunken links that stretched across the hundred-foot-wide stream.
The two men followed the chain down to a small covered boat. Lucky motioned for Kade to help. They stripped the tarp off, exposing a rickety skiff with long strips of weathered tape covering cracks along the hull.
Lucky pushed it down to the water, then waded out up to his knees and climbed into the bow while Kade held the boat steady.
“What about those cyclops things?” Kade said quietly.
“You just worry about pulling us across the river. I’ll take care of any critters.” Lucky crouched in the bow, laser rifle at the ready. He held the chain while Kade climbed into the stern.
The current caught the unstable craft, drawing them downstream.
“Come on, ya dumb bastard, start pullin’!” Lucky said.
Kade grunted and started pulling them along the chain. He was developing a strong dislike for Lucky, but right now he was in no position to do anything about it. Even if he could escape, where would he go?
Kade still didn’t know where his comrades were, only that the Frog was somewhere out there, damaged. Even if he managed to escape, searching for it would be no better than searching for the Coral Castle—especially alone and on foot, without provisions or weaponry.
For now, Kade just had to help Lucky and deal with his attitude.
The boat rocked as the current grew stronger midstream. Rapids churned around them.
Kade kept pulling, getting them closer to the other side with each tug.
Just past midstream, he thought he heard something over the clanking chain and the slurp of water around the boat. He pulled all the harder, keeping the opposite bank in his view, focusing on the goal line.
Then he heard the unmistakable call of the monsters. It reminded him of recordings he had heard of elephants trumpeting.
Lucky heard it, too, and rose up to a crouch, holding on to both gunwales as he searched the water. Then he jumped over the side, into waist-deep current. He helped pull the boat the rest of the way to the shore, where Kade also hopped out.
They dragged the boat out of the water before slogging up a hill. At the crest, Lucky motioned Kade down at the edge of a clearing. Weeds shaped like cutlass blades moved lazily in the breeze.
Kade got up just enough to look over the vegetation. He saw dense clusters of short mutant trees, and the occasional giant mushroom growing in the open field.
Radio chatter came from Lucky’s location.
“General, any word from Garrett?”
There was a pause.
“Copy that,” Lucky said. “We’re across the Mary River and heading east.”
Mary River. Kade didn’t have a map of the area on his HUD anymore—thanks, Bulldozer—but he remembered that river from studying maps back during the search for the Coral Castle. And there were only so many airports in the area.
This had to be the Maryborough Airport.
He got up when Lucky motioned again.
Crossing the field without a weapon was worse than crossing the airfield. At least there, one might lead a pursuer into a trap. Out here, they were at the mercy of Mother Nature—a horrible, mutant, lethal version of her.
Kade felt old injuries flaring up during the long trek. An hour and several miles later, Lucky finally sheltered at the remains of the first structure they had encountered. There wasn’t enough left of it even to figure out what it had ever been used for. All Kade saw was a pile of rusted scrap metal and a few broken brick walls.
They hunkered down behind one of these.
“We’re over halfway there,” Lucky said. “But this last stretch is the most dangerous.”
“Why? What’s out there?”
“A few known lairs of the Tasmanian devils, and some dingo dens. Plus, those cyclops creatures, as you call them, are known to hunt the dingoes.”
“So basically everything? We got all the monsters?”
“There are others too—rarer beasts.”
Kade was glad he didn’t explain further. The knight got up and started around the wall with his rifle up.
“Son of a bitch,” Kade whispered.
He eyed his pistol, holstered on Lucky’s duty belt, and quashed the urge to draw it and take the knight hostage. Maybe that was the way out of this. Take Lucky hostage and have him take Kade back to his people.
The idea marinated in his mind during the walk, pulling his attention from his surroundings. He almost didn’t see the trench carving through the dirt ahead. A stagnant stream filled the bottom.
Lucky got there first and slid down the bank. At the bottom, he waded out into muck that came up to his waist. He worked his way across, keeping the laser rifle above his head, then climbed up the other side to the top of the slope.
Kade followed him to the bottom of the trench and struggled to get across. The thick muck slurped and nearly pulled his boots off, but at last, he fought his way through the mire and clambered up the far slope. Lucky was on his belly, looking out over another open field. An intact fence surrounded three intact buildings and the operational Sea King.
This had to be the Crab Nest. Kade stared for a moment before Lucky yanked him down.
“Stay out of sight, numbnuts,” Lucky hissed.
Kade got down on his belly and stared through the weeds while Lucky pulled out a pair of binos. Holding them to his helmet, he glassed a swath of about 90 degrees—another perfect opportunity for Kade to take him out.
And yet, he hesitated.
His gut told him something was wrong, that they weren’t alone out here, and that Garrett was either hiding or dead.
“Stay here,” Lucky said. “I’m checkin’ it out.”
“What? Oh, hell no. I’m not staying here unarmed. Give me a knife at least.”
Lucky seemed to consider it, then shook his head. Kade reached over and grabbed him by his leg. He kicked free, then whipped the laser rifle around.
Kade stared up at the laser weapon, unflinching.
“You and I both know something’s wrong,” he said to the knight. “You go out there and get into trouble, I can’t fucking help you. Leaving me a knife, you risk nothing.”
“Except maybe a knife in the back,” Lucky replied.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I already had a dozen chances just in the last hour.”
Lucky kept the laser rifle on him for another moment, then finally lifted it. He reached down to his sheath and tossed the knife on the dirt.
“If there’s a monster out there, you’re better off using that on yourself,” Lucky said. “Beats getting eaten alive or, worse, dragged back to a nest like the one I pulled you out of.”
Kade picked up the knife and nodded.
“Be right here when I come back,” Lucky said.
And with that, he climbed out of the trench and headed toward the Sea Queen.
Kade went down on his belly and watched the knight advance toward the fence. He went for a gate, unlatched it, and moved inside, sweeping his rifle left to right, back again.
He went straight to the chopper and opened the cockpit door to an empty interior. The knight then went around the aircraft and headed toward one of the buildings.
Kade got up slightly but dropped back to his stomach at a distant sound. Straining to hear the source, he picked up a slithering, crunching noise. But it wasn’t coming from the direction of the helicopter.
He looked to the left of the trench, where some sort of tailed beast was advancing in the waterway. That wasn’t the source of the noise either.
He whirled to his right, to see another monstrous figure slogging through the mud a hundred feet away. It was moving so fast, it had already gotten this close undetected.
Kade jumped up from the trench and legged it for the fence. A trumpeting wail pierced the night as he squeezed through, tripping and falling to the ground.
As he pushed himself up, he saw Lucky emerge in front of a building. He raised his rifle in the direction of the trench.
Looking over his shoulder, Kade saw the single bulging eye of each beast homing in on them. Lucky saw it too and opened fire, drowning out their screeches with the sizzle of the laser rifle.
Kade clambered toward the knight as another of the one-eyed amphibious beasts started to flank them.
“Behind you!” Kade shouted.
Lucky didn’t have time to turn and fire at the approaching beast. The monster rose up on its tail, its clawed forelimbs wound up to strike.
Kade cocked his arm back and threw the knife right past Lucky’s head. The blade cartwheeled and smacked into the ribbed, soft belly of the monster. It roared and grasped at the blade, giving Lucky time to turn and blast the creature in the eye.
“Run!” Lucky shouted.
He took off toward the chopper and the open cargo doors. Kade beat him there, but instead of climbing into the cockpit to fire up the bird, he went straight to the M60 machine gun.
He trained the barrel on the two cyclopean beasts charging toward them from the trenches. Kade sighted up the closest one and squeezed the trigger.
Green tracer rounds tore into its back as it hunched down, blowing off spikes and punching through armor. A limb sheared off, and a burst of rounds punched into the scaly chest.
The other monstrosity seemed to hesitate slightly, giving Kade just enough time to sight up the single eye and fire a burst. The head exploded like a meat grenade.
He eased off the trigger, his ears ringing as he searched for more hostiles.
A hand grabbed him and pulled.
Kade could hear Lucky yelling but couldn’t quite make it out.
The knight pulled harder.
“Let go of the weapon!” he shouted.
Kade released the taped grip of the gun and put his hands up. “Okay, okay, relax.”
He hopped out of the chopper with Lucky. He could hear the knight sending a message on the radio.
“General, we found the chopper, but no sign of Garrett,” Lucky said over the comms. “What are your orders?”
Kade stepped over and fetched the knife from the monster’s belly, missing the crackly response. He turned and saw Lucky stopped in front of the other carcass. Then he saw what they both had missed earlier.
The dead monster was still gripping what remained of Garrett: his head and spinal column, hanging out of a flight suit.
Lucky kicked the dirt, cursing. Then he crouched down, putting his hands to his head.
Kade walked over with the knife. After wiping the blade on the dead monster’s fur, he handed it back to Lucky.
“Here,” Kade said. “Your knife.”
Lucky didn’t even look up. He kept focused on the gory remains of the pilot. “Keep it,” Lucky said after a pause. “You’re going to need it, and I figure if you were going to use it on me, I’d already be dead.”
He was right about that.
Kade hovered behind Lucky. From this angle, it would be nothing to slit his throat. Perhaps this was a test, to see if he could trust Kade.
It didn’t matter; he wasn’t going to murder the guy. Kade put the knife in his duty belt. “What’s the plan now?” he asked.
“Bulldozer is working on one of the choppers back at base. It’s almost ready to fly—just needs a few things from this one, including the storage batteries.”
“Wait, Bulldozer can fly?”
“Yeah, he has a few hours logged.”
“Then why doesn’t he just come out here and fly it back to base?”
Lucky pointed at the sky. “You see that storm?” he asked. “General Jack says we got even worse fallout heading our way, and he isn’t going to risk our last pilot by sending him out here to get cooked with us—or ripped in half like Garrett.”
The knight dropped his arm and headed to the chopper.
“Our only chance is to get back to base on foot,” he said over his shoulder. “Ride out the storm, then fly back home.”
“What about finding the king?”
Lucky scoffed. “Your king? Hate to break it to you, Hell Diver, but if he’s stranded here, him and the rest of your people are gonna bake like tits on a beach in a heat wave.”
NINE
The first rays of sunlight crept up the hallway in the brig of the airship. Remodeled after the Hive was damaged in the war with the Cazadores, the brig had only three small cells now.
Two of those three cells were occupied—one by Michael and Steve, and one with Eevi. Michael couldn’t see her right now and didn’t want to wake her if she was still sleeping.
He lay on the thin sleeping pad, watching the day come. It was shaping up to be another beautiful morning at the Vanguard Islands.
Michael closed his eyes, thinking back on all those days he had spent at the kitchen table with Layla, watching the sunrise.
She was probably sitting there now, worried sick.
The good memories were replaced by this nightmare he found himself in, caused by the very people he had helped save and who had now betrayed him and King Xavier.
The Vanguard military wasn’t lost to the monsters in the wastes. They were murdered by a pudgy, glum, cowardly monster named Captain Rolo.
The sky people from the machine camp were hell bent on taking the Vanguard Islands for themselves, which meant removing the only two people who could stop them: King Xavier and Michael.
He let out a deep sigh of anxiety.
“You get any sleep?” mumbled a gruff voice.
The old man looked somewhat better today. The swelling over his good eye had gone down, but the bruising was worse.
“I got a few hours,” Michael said. “How about you?”
“Slept like a baby.”
“You serious?”
“Hell, no. I got up to take five pisses in the corner bucket, and each one felt like I was shooting needles out of my dick,” Steve said.
Michael felt a grin coming and gave in to it, welcoming the momentary reprieve from the dread that assailed him.
Steve smiled right back. “Everything’s going to be okay, Chief,” he said. “We’re going to figure this out. I still got a few tricks up this old sleeve.”
“¿Qué?” said a voice from out in the corridor.
Out of the shadows came a man in leather Cazador armor. Seeing the black helmet with a Siren’s jaw attached, Michael knew who it was.
“Jamal,” he whispered.
The sergeant in the Wave Runners was the cousin of Hell Diver and former Cazador soldier Jorge “Gran Jefe” Mata. It was Jamal who had ambushed Michael, Wynn, and their team at the food depot, killing Ton in the process.
Steve pushed himself up off his sleeping pad and spat at the bars. “You’re a fucking disgrace,” he said. “Nothing but a pirate with a stupid hat.”
Jamal stepped up to the bars of their cage, reaching for his cutlass.
“A very rich pirate,” said a silken voice. “And if you spit one more time, you will be a very dead blacksmith.”
Charmer appeared next to Jamal and slapped him on the shoulder plate.
“Jamal is simply here to escort you, Michael,” he said. “I figured you need better security since so many people want you dead.”
