Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

He shut off his lamp and activated the night-vision optics. You can do this, he told himself. You have to. Jones could still be alive. The words sounded hollow and unconvincing.

Holding the pistol in one hand, he grabbed the knob and rotated it. The loud click of the latch made him cringe, and he braced himself for the high, keening wail that was sure to follow.

Nothing.

He inched the door open and peered into the darkness. He could see the outline of another mezzanine, and the top rows of shelves. Curiosity won out over fear, and he sneaked through the opening.

He was on the third level of the massive warehouse, standing over hundreds of shelves. Some had come crashing down, perhaps decades ago; others leaned against each other like some giant’s house of cards. The catwalks stretching over the maze sagged or listed in places, but the one in front looked study enough.

Weaver stepped out onto the nonskid metal grate. It creaked under his boot, and a shriek answered. He froze like a child caught stealing cookies.

The noise came again, echoing through the space. He whipped his head around, searching for the source, but nothing moved in the NVG’s green-hued field of vision.

The otherworldly shrieking died away until he could hear only the echo of his breath inside his helmet. He had to find Jones and the salvage they had come for, and get back to the ship.

He took three silent steps without attracting any audible response.

Jones, where the hell are you?

At the end of the walkway, he stopped and grabbed the railing to look over the side. A shelf had collapsed below, spilling its contents across a floor he could hardly see.

He continued, searching the darkness for any sign of Jones, when a distant screech stopped him in mid stride. Another came from the east, and a third from the west corner of the room. They rose and fell in a whine that made him shiver in his warm suit.

Weaver trained his pistol in each direction, but he couldn’t see much of anything. His night-vision optics simply couldn’t penetrate the darkness of the warehouse. The battery unit under his vest glowed weakly, giving off barely enough light to see a foot ahead.

The gun shook in his hands as the eerie wailing started up again, coming from all three directions. With a bump of his chin, he deactivated his night vision and let the darkness swallow him.

You’re fine. Everything is fine…

Weaver listened to the alien vocalizations. Everything was not fucking fine. He took another long, calming breath and reached up to click on his headlamp.

The slight motion cued a symphony of the strange cries. He moved the light over the floor below, seeing nothing. Then he swept it over the catwalks, stopping on something bulky. Lying in the center of one of the walkways, a body. Jones’ right arm dangled over the side, his hand open.

The whines sounded louder and closer, but Weaver felt stuck, frozen in place. His light had captured a naked, leathery creature kneeling next to Jones. The shape looked almost human, but of course, that wasn’t possible.

He moved the beam over the spikes jutting from the wrinkled skin of the creature’s back.

The thing suddenly tipped its head in his direction. The beam of light caught it where its eyes should have been, and Weaver saw lips, stretched into what looked like a wide grin, flecked with blood.

Weaver’s beam stopped on Jones’ limp hand, dangling over the edge of the catwalk. Leaning over the railing, he saw a case on the ground below.

The sound of scrabbling claws pulled his gaze upward. Three of the creatures scampered effortlessly across the ceiling. The sight shocked him into motion, and experience took over. Taking a step backward, he raised his revolver and aimed it at the shrieking things.

He fired off a shot that went wide and ricocheted off the wall. The long-limbed monsters darted away, nails sparking against the metal.

Steady, Weaver. Steady .

Closing one eye, he squeezed off two more shots. Both pinged off the wall. The creatures were so damn fast, he had to lead them more. By pure luck, he hit one in the back, and it dropped from the ceiling, arms flailing as it caromed off a catwalk and went cartwheeling to the floor. The sound of the squishy impact sent the Sirens into a frenzy. They fanned out in all directions. Motion below revealed more of the eyeless monsters scuttling across the floor of the warehouse.

He lined up a shot and hesitated.

How many bullets did he have left in the cylinder? Two? Three? He could hardly think. He was operating on instinct and adrenaline. The beam of his light rolled over a half-dozen bulb-shaped nests on the eastern wall. The area was alive with movement. One of the Sirens landed on the platform in front of him and dropped to all fours. It lunged, and a hollow-point bullet blew out the back of its skull. The beast slumped to the floor and slid to a stop inches from his boots.

He heard the clank of another Siren dropping to the platform behind him. He whirled and shot it in the neck as it charged. It flopped to the walkway, choking on its own blood.

Weaver fired until his revolver clicked, then kept squeezing the trigger, hoping for a bullet that wasn’t there. Talons scraped across the metal platform as more of the beasts closed in. Their screeching reverberated from every corner of the warehouse.

He looked at Jones’ inert body once more, glanced back down at the case of cells, and ran.

Ash felt the Hive slow as they reached airspace above the edge of Hades. She stared at the surprisingly crisp feed from the bow of the ship. Flashes of electricity streaked across the main display and danced across the horizon, illuminating a shelf of storm clouds that stretched across the entire skyline.

“I hope to God Ares isn’t in there,” she whispered.

Every officer on the bridge had stopped to stare at the monitor. Jordan stood at Ash’s side as they waited anxiously for any sign of their sister ship.

“Have we heard anything?” she asked.

Jordan shook his head. “The last transmission we received came over seven hours ago.”

“What about radar? Have we detected anything ?”

“Negative, Captain. The interference is too strong. If they’re out there, they’re blind, deaf, and mute.”

Ash sighed. “Willis, where the hell are you, you old bastard?”

“Captain?” Jordan asked.

“Nothing.” She changed the subject. “What’s our current power situation?”

Jordan held up a clipboard. “Samson reported that we’re running at ninety-two percent of power. That was three hours ago.”

“A bit better than yesterday.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Ash took a moment, painfully aware that whatever decision came next could put the entire human race in jeopardy. She had hoped Ares would be waiting on the outskirts of the storm. Then she could have sent Hell Divers with fuel cells and whatever parts Willis needed.

Now she didn’t have many options—at least, not many good ones. Ash couldn’t leave the ship to die, but she couldn’t risk navigating the storm to find it, either. An impossible choice, but she already knew what she had to do.

Flashes of lightning bloomed across the screen in brilliant arcs, and in that fleeting glow, she saw an outline. Could it be…?

“Did you see that?” Ash stepped closer to the screen.

Another bright net lit up the sky, but this time she saw only churning clouds. Perhaps that was all she had seen: a dark pile of cumulus in the form of a ship.

Jordan came and stood by her side. “What madness do you think drove Captain Willis inside there?”

“Desperation,” Ash said.