Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

Jordan had plucked members from Team Apollo and Team Angel, just as X had expected. He looked them over without saying a word. On the left was Magnolia Katib. She wore a black jumpsuit and, over that, a gray coat held together by chains. Half his age, probably only twenty-one or twenty-two, she had shoulder-length black hair streaked with blue highlights. Her thin lips were coated in purple lipstick, and her electric-blue eyes were rimmed in heavy dark liner. The makeup was black market—expensive and hard to get hold of. Her vibe gave him the creeps.

Reaching into her coat, she pulled out a metallic pin and twirled it between her fingers. “You’re freaking me out mister. You gonna say something, or what?”

“Shit, and here I was sorta thinking the same thing about you,” X said. He glanced down at his notepad and skimmed the file that he had already memorized. “Says you’re a thief. You can sneak in and out of places. And you’re good with electronics.”

She cracked a grin. “Yeah, that’s right. Why—got a blown diode?”

“Let me guess: it was either this or the inside of a prison cell.”

X didn’t wait for her response. As the woman’s cocky grin withered, he moved on to Clint Murphy. The engineer was a head shorter than she, but his outfit was every bit as striking. A pair of crimson goggles hugged his receding hairline. His eyes darted back and forth, scanning the room, reminding X of a jonesing stim addict. Nice. Command had given him a thief and an anxiety case.

“You’re an engineer, Clint?”

“Y-yes sir. That’s r-right.” He repositioned his goggles and scratched his thin, curly hair. “People call me Murph.”

X turned to Sam Barker. The third diver, at least, held some promise. Dark-skinned and muscular, he stood ramrod straight even at parade rest. He had rolled up the sleeves of his skintight gray shirt to show the Militia shield tattoos on both biceps.

Sam stared ahead, his gaze unwavering. He was a soldier, through and through.

“Says in your file you were instrumental in quelling the riots a few years back.”

Sam dipped his chin. “I was in the first wave into the farms.”

X knew what that meant. The man had seen people die. He would fit right in on Team Raptor. The others were going to take some work. X had his task cut out for him.

“Welcome to Raptor,” X said in the sincerest tone he could muster. Tucking his notepad back in a cargo pocket, he waved the group toward the wind cylinders in the center of the room. When he got there, he propped his shoulder against the glass. He looked at his new team in turn and said, “How many dives you got under your belts?”

“Seventeen,” Magnolia said in a proud voice.

She had attitude to spare… like Rhonda. For a moment, he saw her superimposed there, staring defiantly back at him the way she had done so many times after one of their arguments. He blinked away the memories and looked to the engineer.

“Fourteen,” Murph said.

“Ten, sir,” said Sam.

X had more than twice as many dives as the three of them combined. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t unusual. Will and Rodney had been in the same position as the divers standing in front of him. Indeed, Aaron was the only diver on the Hive who had even come close to the number of jumps X had completed.

Murph took a half step forward. “Commander?”

X glanced up from his notepad. “What?”

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry to hear about your team. I want you to know I’m glad to be here.”

X nodded and glanced at Magnolia, catching her in a smirk. She flicked her hair out of her face and started spinning her toy again.

“What the fuck is that?” X asked. He snatched it from her hand.

“It’s a lock pick, man.” She held out her hand. “And it’s mine. ”

He clenched his jaw. “Magnolia, you have three choices. You can call me ‘X,’ ‘Commander X,’ or ‘sir.’ I don’t much give a shit which one, but that’s it. Got it?

She nodded, and he dropped the instrument back in her palm.

“How many dives have you made, sir?” Sam asked.

“Ninety-six. Now, do you suppose that’s all luck?”

Murph raised a hand.

“It was a rhetorical question,” X said. “I have survived because I learned from my mistakes and the mistakes of others. Hell Divers are rarely afforded that luxury. You all have an advantage: you get to learn what not to do before you saddle up in the launch bay again. I don’t know what you learned on your other teams, and again, I don’t much care. Because you’re going to learn my way of doing things.”

X gave this a moment to sink in and then said, “Diving requires more than courage. You have to bury your fear and realize there is more to life than your own survival. We dive for humanity. So get those selfish thoughts out of your mind,” he said, holding Magnolia’s gaze an extra beat.

She rolled her eyes.

X almost rose to the bait, then stopped himself. “Listen up, everyone. I’m here to train you and keep you alive when the time comes.”

“Like you did your old team?” Magnolia muttered.

“Excuse me,” X said. “What did you say?”

Magnolia tipped her head back, uncertainty in her wide eyes. “I said you couldn’t keep your old team alive.”

“Captain Ash dropped us into a fucking electrical storm,” X said. “My team was dead before they ever got to the surface.”

Magnolia nodded and took a step backward. “I’m sorry.”

X doubted it. But at least, he knew where he stood with his new team. They had about as much confidence in him as he had in them. And why should they feel any differently? They were replacing men he couldn’t save.

“I don’t expect you to trust me,” X said. “But I do expect you to listen—”

A voice over his shoulder cut him off. “Commander X!”

He turned to see Lieutenant Jordan, flanked by two Militia soldiers, coming across the room.

“Commander X,” Jordan repeated, stopping a few feet from him. He seemed uncharacteristically agitated. “Captain Ash would like to see you.”

X reached for his earpiece and realized he had left it in his locker. “I’m almost done here,” he replied.

“She needs to see you now, ” Jordan insisted.

X could read the urgency in Jordan’s eyes, and he doubted it was some half-assed rumor of civil unrest. The captain didn’t want to talk about a food shortage or a problem with the ship. This was about Hades.

Captain Ash stood with her back to the wall, studying the two Hell Diver team leads seated at the command table. Cruise, of Team Apollo, sat tapping his finger on the white table. He had big shoulders, a shaved head, and the air of a man you didn’t want to keep waiting.

To his right sat Tony, Team Angel’s lead.

At the knock on the door, the captain stopped massaging her neck as X and Jordan entered.

“Sorry we’re late,” Jordan said. “Commander X wasn’t wearing his headset.”

X nodded. “I was too busy figuring out what to do with the sorry excuses for divers you guys assigned to my team.”

“Sam and Murph are okay,” Tony said.

“Magnolia can be a pain, no doubt about it,” Cruise added. “She is a criminal, after all. But she ain’t all bad.”

Ash stepped to the table and gestured for the two new arrivals to take a seat. She could feel all eyes follow her as she sat at the head of the table. She had earned their respect over the years, but with it came responsibility.

“A day ago, we received a distress call from Ares . Captain Willis sent coordinates from a location directly over Hades.”

She saw the sudden tautness on the faces before her. Cruise shifted nervously in his chair. It was the first time Ash had ever seen him show any sign of apprehension.