Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

Ash waited patiently.

“And they had no face. No eyes or nose—just a big-ass mouth full of shark’s teeth. Their skulls were coated with some scabby-looking shit and bristles. And their backs were covered in spikes, kind of like a dorsal fin or something. Some of them had scrapes on their wrinkled skin. It was leathery and tough, though. Reminded me of dried cowhide. I suspect it protects them from the radiation. I don’t know. Shit, it’s not like I had time to do a detailed examination. They weren’t holding still, and I wasn’t waiting for ’em to.”

Ash ran a finger over her lips. She had heard all the stories of the creatures the divers encountered on the surface, and she had combed the ships’ archives during nights she couldn’t sleep. But this? Nothing in the ships’ logs was even remotely close to what X described. No one had encountered anything with humanoid anatomy.

“What else can you tell me?” Ash asked.

X straightened in his chair. “I left out the worst part. They make these high-pitched noises like an emergency alarm—a sort of whine so loud it was paralyzing.”

“Are you saying these things could be part organic and part technological?”

“No,” X replied. “There wasn’t anything robotic about ’em.”

“You sure the radiation wasn’t screwing with your senses?” Jordan asked. “Organic or mechanical—it all sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”

X twisted in his chair. “So which is it you’re suggesting, sir: that I’m lying, or delusional?”

Ash glared again at her XO. Sometimes, she wondered if he had something against Hell Divers. This wasn’t the first time he’d questioned their acuity or their truthfulness.

“I think Jordan meant you were down there for a while and that maybe your eyes and ears were playing tricks on you,” Ash said in her calmest tone. “High doses of radiation can do that.”

“Was supposed to be a green dive,” X said. “There wasn’t supposed to be significant radiation, remember? Just something else you guys fucked up. Not giving either Ash or Jordan a chance to respond, he turned back to her and said, “I know what I saw.”

“I believe you,” she replied. “But right now we need to talk about Ares .”

A moment of quiet fell over the room. X stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. “We’re talking about the only other ship in the world, Captain. No one else is going to help them. We’re it.”

Ash nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but X beat her to it.

“If I were in your shoes, like you said: I’d plot a course and get there as fast as possible. You can reevaluate the situation when we arrive.”

“He has a point,” Jordan said.

“Indeed, he does,” Ash replied. “And I agree with the commander. I won’t abandon Ares . I won’t risk the extinction of the human race if there is something we can do.”

“Unfortunately, Captain Willis already put us all at risk when he decided to fly to Hades,” X said.

The words lingered as the PA system crackled and played an automated message. Ash used the stolen moment to check the clock. When the static cleared, she stood up. She had made her decision. “Jordan, plot us a course,” she ordered.

“Aye, Captain.”

Ash looked to X. “Get some sleep tonight, and lay off the ’shine. Tomorrow you start training your new team.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “I know, you said you were done. But Ares needs you. An endangered species—yours—needs you. Are you really going to say no?”

He glowered for a moment, then shook his head. “No.” He stiffened. “No, Captain. We dive so humanity survives.”

Commander Weaver ran like a man possessed, his lungs burning with every breath. No matter how fast he sucked in air, he couldn’t get enough.

He wasn’t running from the monsters in the pit. The beasts had retreated soon after they climbed out of their lair. Something had scared them off. He could still hear their faint wailing in the distance, but now there were other, equally disturbing sounds. A low rumble broke over the horizon, drowning out the cries of the monsters.

Weaver leaped over a rusted tangle of rebar jutting from a piece of broken foundation. A tremor rumbled beneath him, causing the snow on the surface to shimmer.

A dozen yards ahead of him, Jones fell. Scrambling back to his feet, he yelled, “What the hell is happening?”

Weaver turned, shielding his visor from the gusting snow, and scanned the city. Beyond the bare girders of high-rises, he could see only a solid wall of darkness.

“What is that?” Jones asked.

Weaver didn’t reply. He was frozen in place, staring in awe at the biggest, most powerful storm he had ever seen or even imagined. Half as tall as the highest skyscraper, the wall of snow stretched for miles across, and it was barreling toward the city at an astounding speed.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. Never in his life had he seen such a force of nature.

“Run!” Jones yelled, yanking on Weaver’s arm. “Come on, we have to get out of here!”

Weaver ran sideways for a few strides, watching lightning flash over the storm. The eastern edge glowed blue for several seconds before it reached the city and flooded the streets. In minutes, it would be on them. The sounds of cracking ice and groaning metal jolted Weaver to action, and he turned and sprinted after Jones.

The two divers were on the western edge of Hades now, almost to the industrial zone. Weaver could see the ITC warehouses spread out across the landscape. Their concrete walls were built to withstand storms. But this ? How could anything in Hades still be standing? It was a true testament to human engineering.

Fighting the urge to look over his shoulder, he concentrated on his breathing instead. Deep and steady, in and out… Little dots like swarming bees caromed about at the edges of his vision. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen, and his body was paying the price. Every pounding step forward came with a sharp jolt of pain. His calves and quads, at their functioning limit, burned with lactic acid buildup.

They were within a hundred yards of the nearest structure when a panel of corrugated sheet metal whistled past Jones’ head and buried itself edgewise in a snowbank. Weaver ran hunched over, bracing himself as gravel and shrapnel hissed and whined through the air all around them.

In a sudden whiteout, he lost sight of Jones, who then reemerged a moment later at the entrance to a two-story building. The exterior appeared to be metal, not concrete. Jones pulled open the door and waved him forward.

“Come on!” Jones shouted.

Weaver began to yell back when a blast of wind picked him up and cartwheeled him over the snow. The drift broke his fall, but the impact knocked the air out of his lungs.

“Grab my hand, Commander!” Jones shouted from the doorway.

Weaver fought for breath and reached up as waves of red swam across his eyes. A strong grip took his hand and pulled him through the open door.

The steel door banged shut as the screaming storm hit the building. The structure groaned in protest, and the metal walls seemed to sway. A heavy cable detached from the ceiling and whipped the floor next to where Weaver stood. He rolled to his side, shielding his visor, as the warehouse shook violently.

He was going to die. They both were. The storm was going to rip the building from the ground and grind them to paste.

Weaver curled up into a ball, trembling not from fear, but from cold, as the relentless wind pummeled the building. He fought his pounding headache, blinking away the stars, trying to focus.

“Sir! Are you okay?” Jones said. He was shouting, but the words sounded dull in the roar of the storm. There was something else, too: an electronic hum that didn’t belong. Jones was dragging him toward a concrete staircase. The noise faded away as the heart of the storm engulfed the building.