Hell divers x fallout, p.31
Hell Divers X: Fallout, page 31
“There,” he said.
Bulldozer curved west and began to pull up toward the clouds. Lightning sizzled across their flight path.
Kade searched the shoreline and quickly identified the broad maritime highway that ships had once used to transport goods around the world.
Lucky held up a pair of binoculars, bracing himself against the dashboard. “I don’t see any vessels in the canal,” he reported.
“Where’s the outpost?” Bulldozer asked.
“There,” Kade said. He pointed to what looked like bricks: the containers surrounding the base.
Lucky’s binos went there. “Nothing moving that I can see,” he said. “Circle a few times, but keep this altitude.”
The pilot began to cut around the base for a second pass, then a third. Nothing moved except a few mutant palms in the breeze.
“Take us down a little lower,” Lucky said.
Bulldozer descended toward the canal. The waterway was clear, and the outpost seemed unmanned. The gate was even open.
“They must have abandoned it,” Kade said. “The king must have continued north . . .” He let his words trail off.
“To your home?” Lucky asked.
Kade hesitated.
“We know it’s somewhere in the Caribbean; trust me on that,” Lucky said.
The chopper hovered over the outpost, rotor wash whipping tents and equipment.
“Want me to put down?” Bulldozer asked.
“I’ll go have a look,” Kade offered.
“Negative, we keep going,” Lucky said. “Our mission is to find the king, and Kade already told us that he continued up the canal.”
Lucky leaned over Bulldozer. “We good on fuel?”
“For now. About a quarter tank left; then it’s all the batteries.”
“No, that’s too risky,” Lucky said.
“What do you mean?” Kade asked.
For a beat, it seemed Lucky didn’t want to say. Then he went ahead. “This bird runs on mostly batteries but requires some petrol as well. We used up the tank that supplemented the batteries on the ride here. Now we gotta refuel.”
Kade nodded as if he understood, but he wasn’t sure how the setup worked. All he knew was they had switched it to hybrid power right before taking off.
“We’ll put down in Colón to refuel the tank,” Lucky said. “Then we keep looking for the king.”
Over the next hour, the chopper flew just under the clouds. It crossed over Gatún Lake, closing in on the northern stretch of the canal, and the Caribbean coast.
“Where we puttin’ down?” Bulldozer asked.
“Let’s find a place in Colón,” Lucky said. Hunkered over the display panels, he brought up the digital map, pointing to a city. “How about here, on the piers?”
“Copy that,” Bulldozer said after taking a glance.
He mumbled under his breath and flew the chopper over the ancient Gatún locks, made obsolete over two and a half centuries ago when the canal had been bored out to eight times its former volume. From this altitude, Kade could make out two canals running parallel. They connected with Limón Bay. Lightning illuminated the ragged skyline that had once been Colón.
“Croc shit on a stick!” Bulldozer shouted.
“What?” Lucky asked.
Kade peered out the cockpit windows at the ruined cityscape.
Bulldozer pointed downward. “Check that out!” he yelled.
A glowing sea creature the size of a warship swam beneath the surface, illuminating the dark bay waters.
“A leviathan,” Kade said. “A pod of them attacked us on our journey to the Coral Castle.”
“What is it?” Lucky asked.
“Cross between a giant squid and a whale, or something. I’m not sure.”
“Keep way clear of it.”
Bulldozer nodded. “Don’t have to tell me, LT.”
“Put us down over there,” Lucky said, pointing toward a peninsula along the coast of the city. “Kade, get ready. I want to make this fast.”
“Okay.” Kade went to the back of the troop hold and put on his helmet. Lucky met him there, also donning his helmet and grabbing a rifle.
“I’ll secure the area; you fill up the tank,” he said.
“Got it, mate,” Kade said.
He went to the secured tanks of gasoline. He loosened the harness around one of the canisters as the chopper lowered.
“Prepare for landing!” Bulldozer yelled.
The chopper set down with a jolt. Lucky opened the sliding troop hold door and hopped out. Kade hurried right behind him with the fuel and a funnel. They had put down on a pier that had once berthed large ships. Some of those ships were still moored here.
Kade looked out over the harbor, where shipwrecks protruded from the water like the bones of ancient beasts. Then he followed Lucky around to the gas tank.
Lucky stood guard while Kade unscrewed the cap, put the funnel inside, and started to pour. He watched Kade for a few moments, then stepped away to look out over the lighthouse.
“You know, this is where it happened, not far from here,” Lucky said.
“Where what happened?”
Kade kept his eye on the funnel, making sure no fuel sloshed out as he tipped the canister down.
“The lighthouse over there is where the Cazadores from the Metal Islands lured my father,” Lucky said.
Kade was so taken off guard, he wasn’t sure what to say. Instead of replying, he searched the shoreline as he carefully filled the tank. It only took a few moments to identify the rusted tower that once guided ships in and out of the bay.
“I always wanted to see this place,” Lucky said. “And I have always wanted to meet the barbarians who killed my father. They might be—”
Kade interrupted. “Those men are all gone, Lieutenant. The barbarians died with el Pulpo, the last king of the Metal Islands.”
Lucky scoffed. “So what do you call your people, then?”
When Kade didn’t respond, he laughed. “That’s what I thought, Hell Diver.” Lucky shook his head. “Your people dropped a goddamned nuke on the new king and his army of Cazadores. It’s hard to bloody believe we could trust any of you.”
It was no wonder Lucky felt the way he did. The sky people had poisoned his home, and the Cazadores had killed his father. If Kade were in his boots, he wouldn’t like any of them either. But with all that said, Kade felt it was good to remind him of something.
“You trust me now, right?”
Lucky waited a beat before shrugging. “I trust you aren’t going to slit my throat when I’m sleeping.”
“Look,” Kade said, “I know I’m at your mercy, but hopefully I have gained enough respect to ask you something.”
“Ask away, but keep fueling.”
Kade tipped the tank in the rest of the way to drain the rest of it.
“This Trident—it’s a beacon, right?” Kade asked. “When you activate it, it’ll send out a signal to the Coral Castle about the location of the king and the Frog?”
Apparently, Lucky didn’t trust Kade enough to give an answer. He looked at the lighthouse, then walked away.
“If you came for a fight, I don’t think you can win it,” Kade called after him.
The knight kept walking, toward the lighthouse.
Kade sighed and set the empty canister on the ground. He hurried back into the troop hold to retrieve another canister. When he got back to the tank, he heard an alien cry over the wind.
Bulldozer hopped out of the chopper. “Crap,” he said. “They got those things here too?”
“Sirens,” Kade said.
“You think they saw us?”
Lucky ran back over.
“Did they see us?” Bulldozer asked again.
“Not sure, but we’re not sticking around to find out,” Lucky said. “Hurry it up, Hell Diver. And Bulldozer, get ready to fly.”
The pilot got back into the chopper and shut the cockpit door.
Lucky aimed his rifle toward the noise coming from the heart of Colón. Ruined high-rises lined the skyline like the jagged teeth of the Cazadores who had eaten the knight’s father.
Kade watched the sky as he poured in the fuel, some of it sloshing out of the funnel despite his best efforts. That was hard to do when he spotted a formation of the monsters. He counted twelve circling on the horizon.
Kade finished off the canister and went for another. By the time he got to the fifth one, the Sirens were starting to flap away from the city.
“Those bloody beasts are coming this way,” Lucky said. “Bulldozer, how we lookin’ on fuel?”
“Got a half tank now if the gauge is right,” he called back over the channel.
“That good?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Lucky turned to Kade. “Do one more; then we’re outa here.”
Kade dropped the canister on the ground and ran back into the troop hold. He rushed back to the tank and started pouring. The Sirens were closing in, electronic voices screeching.
Lucky aimed at the leader. “Hurry,” he hissed.
“I’m hurrying!” Kade replied.
The V formation of blind, screaming beasts dived toward the piers.
“Almost there,” Kade said. “Almost—”
“Let’s go. We got to get the hell out of here!” Bulldozer said over the channel.
The rotors swung overhead, the blades passing once, then twice. Kade finished off the last of the fuel canister. Then he followed Lucky back into the troop hold.
They went to close the door, but both fell back to the deck as Bulldozer lifted off. Kade fought his way up to a seat, grabbing on.
“Hold on to your biscuits!” Bulldozer yelled.
He banked hard to the left, pulling over a rusted ship’s hull, then over the harbor. Lucky managed to get up and over to the door. He began to close it as one of the Sirens flapped right for the opening.
“Bulldozer!” Lucky shouted.
“I see it!”
The chopper pulled to the right, dipping almost on its side. They heard a thump, and fluid peppered the windshield.
Kade held on to the seat and watched the Siren gore drizzle down the windshield after its losing encounter with the blades.
Bulldozer let out a laugh.
“Got it!” he said. “Roadkill, or rotorkill!”
Kade went over to help Lucky shut the door. They were flying low over the water, with the other Sirens still pursuing them but falling behind.
“Look, it’s one of those beasts,” Bulldozer said calmly.
Kade and Lucky held on to grab handles and watched in awe as they passed over a single leviathan in Limón Bay. The glowing abomination burst through the surface as they passed overhead. Squid-like arms suddenly fired up at the chopper.
“Oh, bag o’ dingo shit!” Bulldozer yelled.
The bird jerked hard again as Bulldozer got them higher. Lucky lost his grip and flailed toward the open door. In a swift move, Kade grabbed him and hauled him back into the chopper. Lucky landed on the deck and heaved the door shut with a thud. He stayed there, looking out the porthole at the bay below. The limbs curled back into the water as Lucky pushed himself up and grabbed a handle for support. The glow of the monster vanished under the surface like a dying light bulb.
“That was too bloody close,” Bulldozer said.
“Yeah,” Lucky said, still panting. “I guess Kade here is seriously my guardian angel.”
“Just returning a favor,” Kade said.
“Storms, winged beasts, sea monsters the size of a ship—what’s next?” Bulldozer said. “Oh, I know, we got to worry about getting blasted out of the sky by this crazy king, or getting blown up when we hit the Metal Islands.”
He twisted in his seat. “I didn’t sign up for this bullshit!”
“When we hit the Metal Islands?” Kade asked. “The hell does that mean?”
Bulldozer looked back to the cockpit, and Lucky said nothing.
“What’s that mean?” Kade asked.
Realization came over him when he still didn’t get a reply. How had he not seen this?
They weren’t just searching for the king; they were searching for his home, which they already knew about because the Cazadores had killed Lucky’s father.
If they found the king, the Frog might lead the knights right back to the Vanguard Islands. Kade slumped in his seat as they flew toward the Caribbean. He couldn’t let that happen.
I won’t let that happen.
He would have to make a decision sometime, perhaps very soon, on what to do if they did find the king and tried to follow him.
TWENTY-FOUR
Michael stood on the top of the prison rig, letting the rain wash off the blood caked to the back of his head. The cool water felt good on the aching wound.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since a Cazador soldier knocked him unconscious. He wasn’t even sure what had hit him, but it had enabled them to take his only weapon.
He looked down at his shoulder. Blood seeped from where his prosthetic arm had been removed when he was out.
His eyes shot back to the two Cazadores guarding him on the rooftop. Dressed in full armor and holding their cutlasses aggressively, they clearly would love to slash him down.
He would have taken them all on earlier—probably killed Charmer, too—but it would have been at the price of Layla’s life. He couldn’t let her die. He couldn’t leave his son an orphan.
Overhead, he heard the turbofans slow, lowering the airship to take him into the sky one last time to await his execution.
He felt like screaming, but he would be just a voice in the void, with no one to hear him.
The verdict should never have been a shock. The trial had been rigged against him all along. But part of him had clung to that thin wisp of hope that he might be spared.
That would have been the peaceful way back to his family. He had also tried violence, but it was too late for that. Now he had lost his last advantage: his arm.
He was nothing but a broken man on this rooftop, waiting to die.
Maybe he should just get it over with, go down right this moment. He could whirl around and take on both these soldiers. Rain sluiced off their black helmets and down their visors. Behind those glass plates, their eyes were no doubt watching Michael, hoping he would make a move.
The turbofans hummed louder as the airship descended. A rope with a harness dangled down, and one of the guards strapped Michael in and raised his hand.
The pulley system jerked Michael off the rig and into the storm. He looked down at the rig and the water surrounding it. The boats at the docks were long gone now. Layla would be back at their home, holding Bray. The sun would be up over the islands, spreading its bountiful golden glow over the last bastion of humanity.
The thought filled Michael with sorrow. He would probably never see that sun again, or his family. He hung there in the dark sky, his tears lost in the rain.
Two militia soldiers waited for him in the airship’s cargo hold. They pulled him up and unbuckled his harness. From there, they led him down a passageway to the brig.
When they got there, Steve hopped up and grabbed the cell bars. “Chief,” he said.
The master bladesmith didn’t need to ask what the verdict was. The look on Michael’s face and the missing arm left little doubt.
“Sons of bitches,” Steve growled.
Michael kept his mouth shut. The guards locked the cell gate and left him alone with Steve.
“You okay?” he asked, looking at Michael’s shoulder. “Your head . . .”
“It’s nothing.”
Steve gestured for Michael to lean down. “Nothing, my ass. You need stitches.” He looked out the bars, left and right. “It ain’t over, Chief,” he said. “I got a plan.”
“Not if it involves you dying for me,” Michael said.
“I’m old. I’ve lived a long life. Dying to set you free and kill Charmer would be a nice touch.”
Michael smiled at his old friend. They didn’t come more loyal than this.
“So you want to hear my idea, or what?” Steve asked.
“It’s over,” Michael said. “Without my arm, I can’t fight.”
“You don’t need your arm for my idea, so you want to hear it or not?”
“Indeed, I do,” came a familiar silky voice.
Steve groaned as Charmer appeared in the passageway.
“Am I interrupting?” Charmer asked.
Neither prisoner responded.
“You’re not going to tell me your idea?” Charmer asked.
“I am, actually, because it’s for you,” Steve said.
“Interesting.” Charmer stopped in front of the gate. “Enlighten me, then.”
Michael looked over at Steve, wondering what he had up his sleeve.
“The seeds Rolo brought back from the Hell Diver mission,” Steve said. “They’re a good start to keeping the population fed here.”
“A solution to our problems.”
“And you see, that’s where you got it all wrong.”
Charmer’s grin hardened. “Speak, then,” he said.
“The solution isn’t food, because the storms will continue to ravage these rigs,” Steve said. “I’ve seen it over all my years here. El Pulpo knew it. That’s why he tried to find alternative sources and expand like King Xavier. While X never resorted to cannibalism, King Rolo might have to.”
“That will never happen.”
“No? What happens when the next crop is wiped out?”
“It won’t be.”
“Bullshit. You know it will happen again and again.”
“What, pray tell, is your solution? To fix the skies?”
“Well, since we seem to be going all Shakespearean now, why, yes, sirrah, verily.”
