Nicholas Smith - Deliverance

TWENTY-EIGHT

Jordan stood in the bridge of the Hive with his hands clamped to the oak wheel. The countdown ticked away in his mind. He couldn’t wait to see his beautiful new ship. The ship that would keep humanity alive and thriving for centuries to come and would ensure that every child who grew up in the sky knew the name Leon Jordan.

“Sir, we’re receiving a broadcast,” Hunt reported from his station.

“Relay it to my headset,” Jordan replied.

His earpiece crackled, and Samson’s voice boomed, “Captain Jordan, this is Chief Engineer Samson, do you copy?”

“Good to hear your voice,” Jordan said, pulling the headset away from his ear to escape the deafening volume. “What’s the condition of Deliverance ?”

There was a short pause, long enough to fill Jordan with anxiety.

“Sir, we took a beating on the way out of the city and are down to one thruster and three turbofans. But the engine is holding steady, and we should be able to make all necessary repairs in the skies.”

Jordan breathed out, his nerves settling. Deliverance had survived the storms, not that he had any doubts about her abilities.

“Excellent news, Samson. Stay safe, and we will see you soon.”

He shut off the comms and slowly turned the wheel toward the updated coordinates marking Deliverance ’s position. The dark clouds swirled on the wall-mounted main display, and he scanned them for the first signs of the airship.

“How far out are we, Ensign Ryan?” Jordan asked.

“About five minutes, sir,” came the reply from the station above.

Jordan nodded, eyes flitting from the screen to the monitor displaying altitude, speed, and systems data. It was hard to contain his excitement. After all his sacrifices, they were finally entering a new era of human history. Today would mark a new beginning for the survivors of what had once been the dominant species on the planet. And someday, long after he was dead, his legacy would live on through their descendants, when Deliverance and the Hive finally set back down to repopulate Earth.

“Should be getting a visual in a minute or so,” Ryan said.

Hunt walked down the ramp and stood next to Jordan. “Sir, I just wanted to say…”

Jordan looked over at his second-in-command. “Yes?”

“To say thank you and that I’m proud to serve with you,” Hunt finished.

A quick scan of the room revealed officers from all directions looking down at Jordan, excitement and something else in their gaze—something that Jordan hadn’t seen for a very long time.

Hope.

He nodded proudly and turned back to the screen. He pushed the mike back to his lips and ordered Hunt to open a shipwide transmission.

“To every soul on the Hive , this is Captain Jordan speaking. In a few minutes, we will be docking with the airship Deliverance. This ship is newer, faster, and better in every way than the Hive , and I’m proud to bring her home to us in the skies.”

What he didn’t tell them was that not everyone would be moving over to the new airship. The lower-deckers, the sick, and any other undesirable passengers would stay on the Hive. And while the two ships would remain in the skies together, they wouldn’t be connected.

“In the coming months, we will deploy more Hell Diver teams to the surface to retrieve the parts we need to make Deliverance a second lifeboat for humanity,” Jordan continued. “Once our engineers have retrofitted Deliverance , we will have the ability to grow more food, recycle more clean water, and provide a better standard of living.”

He left out the part about where the Hell Divers would come from and how many would likely die in the process. All that mattered—and all that these people needed to hear—was the promise of more food and nicer accommodations.

Jordan thought of Katrina, and then of their child, who would never get to see Deliverance. But this time his heart wasn’t filled with sorrow. The sacrifices were all worth it. And best of all, Janga had been wrong all along. There would be no man to lead them to a new home under the water or in the water.

There was just one man—Leon Jordan—the hero who had found a new home for humanity in the skies.

Several voices rang out behind him, and he followed Hunt’s finger to the wall-mounted monitor.

“There she is,” he whispered.

The smooth hull of Deliverance was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Every porthole in the central section of the ship glowed white, and on the top, red lights flashed—a beacon of hope in the darkness.

Magnolia sneaked a glance through one of the portholes as the Hive came into focus. She had seen the ship from the outside dozens of times during her dives, but now that she compared it to Deliverance , she could appreciate just how battle scarred and rickety the old ship was.

“Keep away from the windows,” Michael said. “They must have removed the hatches over the portholes for some reason.”

“I told you,” Les said. “Jordan purged the ship of the past.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Magnolia said. “There’s no way he’d get away with something like that. The people would riot.”

But would they really? People got used to things, even terrible conditions, if they were downtrodden long enough. Part of Magnolia wondered why they were even bothering to rescue the Hive from Jordan’s control.

Because Rodger’s parents are still on board. The Mintels are worth saving—and I still have to kill Jordan for what he’s done.

She wriggled in the oversize armor that had come from Del Toro’s corpse. X was brilliant, retrieving the gear and weapons from the field in Miami before Deliverance took to the sky. It was odd wearing the suit of a dead man, but if it got her close to Jordan, it was worth it. The idea of throttling him was the only thing keeping her going.

They hadn’t been able to retrieve Rodger’s body. He was out there on that terrible ship, floating toward the metal islands. Magnolia wished she’d been able to bring him home to his parents, but she could at least tell them that he was brave to the end.

Magnolia looked over at Michael, who was wearing Lore’s armor. He looked so young standing next to X. It was strange to see the current and former commanders of Team Raptor side by side. X was wearing the armor he had taken from Sergeant Jenkins—a fact that had Erin on edge. She stood near the hatch with Les and Samson, and although the rest of them carried automatic rifles, none of the three standing up front were armed.

“Remember, Samson,” Michael said, “as soon as we dock, you go straight to engineering and take control of the systems. Les, you get your ass to the brig and release Katrina—and your boy, too, while you’re there.”

“Understood,” Samson said.

“You got it, Commander Everhart,” Les replied.

Magnolia cast a wary eye over them. Samson was brilliant, but he was also part of the system. She barely knew Les, although he seemed a decent enough man. And as for Erin, she had just lost her father. But even before that, there had been something off about her. Ever since she came home from the mission that killed most of her team, she had been withdrawn. Back in the good old days, Magnolia had gone drinking with her a few times, but after that last dive, she had stopped socializing with Hell Divers. Magnolia wasn’t sure she could trust any of them.

She looked at Michael next. Could she trust him to lead them on this mission when Layla was fighting for her life back in the med ward?

Of course you can. He’s never let us down before.