Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

“Does the Militia have a plan that won’t result in my entire ship being shot up?” she asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Jordan said. “Sergeant Jenkins radioed in a few minutes ago.”

Ash followed Jordan to his station, where he pulled up a map of the Hive on his monitor.

“This is an old access point to the farm,” he said, pointing to a blue line. “Jenkins has equipped a six-man fire team with crossbows. They plan on infiltrating the farm through this vent while the current strike team, positioned in the hallway, approaches the front entrance to the farm. That will keep Travis and his men distracted long enough for Jenkins to take them out.”

Ash leaned closer to the monitor. The old vents were unknown to most of the passengers. Travis would likely never see them coming, but if he did, the entire plan could backfire.

“I don’t like it,” she said.

“Captain, with all due respect, you can’t let your promise to X about Tin cloud your vision. There are over five hundred other souls counting on us.”

“Five hundred and ten, Lieutenant,” she said. “If you don’t count the divers—who, we both know, might die today.” Her voice softened. “Get me Samson.”

Jordan gave a low whistle. Hunt nodded from his station.

Samson emerged onscreen an instant later. His face was camouflaged with grime and grease. “Got any good news for me?”

Ash shook her head. “I was hoping you had some for me.”

“I’m doing all I can, Captain, but the turbofans and existing gas bladders simply can’t hold the mass of the ship. Not to mention, I had to divert some power to the rudders. We need that gas bladder. I’m working on two others that I might be able to fix, but I don’t think we have time.” Samson turned away from the screen as one of his engineers leaned in and whispered in his ear. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”

Ash wasn’t sure she could take any more bad news right now. A thought she had stuffed down many times before began to emerge from the depths of her mind: that maybe there was nothing she could do to keep the human race from extinction. No matter how hard she tried to believe that humans could change from their violent past, a man such as Travis would come along and shatter that illusion. She had fought her whole life, first in the Militia and then as captain, to save the people aboard her ship. She had given up everything for them, and now she had chosen to die from cancer rather than leave her post.

And for what?

In the end, it hadn’t been a storm that finally brought down the Hive . It had been a bullet.

Ash was tired. Tired of fighting gravity, tired of fighting the lower-deckers, tired of fighting the cancer.

Samson turned to face the screen and stood up. “I have another fire to put out. I’ll update you when I know more about the gas bladders. Good luck keeping us in the air, Captain.”

Before Ash could reply, the feed sizzled off. She felt Jordan’s intense stare as he waited. All the options crossed her mind. In the end, only one made sense, but she would not leave anything to chance. She unbuttoned the top of her collar.

“Tell Jenkins to stand by and wait for me.”

Jordan tilted his head to the side. “Captain?”

“Nope. That’s you now, Jordan, until I get back.”

“But—” Jordan began to say, when she cut him off.

“You didn’t think I’d sit here and watch our fire team raid the farms, did you?”

“Sometimes, I forget you were in the Militia,” he said. The hint of a grin formed on his face, and he threw a salute. “Good luck, Captain.”

Ash returned the salute and ran up the ramp. She burst into her office and hurried over to her armor hanging from the wall. She had kept her gear polished and ready all these years, just in case.

Three minutes later, she was running down the hallway with a two-man armed escort. Her armor didn’t fit as it had ten years ago when she was a lieutenant in the Militia. The cancer had cost her several pounds of muscle. It rattled as she moved, but she didn’t let it slow her down. Indeed, she picked up the pace when she saw the six-man fire team waiting two corridors away from the farm. Sergeant Jenkins greeted her with a salute. He had been just a kid when she was in the military; now he was one of the highest-ranking soldiers on the ship.

“Captain,” Jenkins said. “You coming in with us?”

She nodded grimly. “If that bastard wants to make demands, he can make them to my face.”

Jenkins handed her a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. The stock felt good in her hands. She had forgotten how powerful it made her feel—one more reason she had done everything she could to keep the crossbows and rifles from ever falling into the wrong hands.

In this, she had failed.

Buckling the quiver at her waist, Ash said, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

Weaver stopped at a concrete wall to listen. The faint shrieking was not the lonely cries from the night before—these were sounds of hungry, enraged creatures. The Sirens were searching. Hunting for the divers.

“Who the fuck are you?” someone behind him said.

Weaver straightened and offered his hand.

“Commander Rick Weaver, from Ares. If you want to survive down here, you’ll keep quiet and follow me.” He could see the man’s eyes narrow behind the visor.

“I’m X, and this is Murph, Magnolia, Katrina, and Tony. Let’s get going, then.”

Weaver nodded to the other divers who had crouched against the wall. He knew their names now, but part of him still wasn’t convinced they were real and not just figments of his imagination. After days of trekking on the surface, he was running on vapors and instinct. His bones, eyelids, even his lips felt heavy. And it wasn’t from a lack of nutrition. He’d found plenty, first on Sarah and then in the supply crate. His body was suffering from exhaustion. Sleeping for only a few minutes at a time had taken a toll. If the other divers suddenly turned into snow flurries in the wind, he wouldn’t be surprised.

Besides, what kind of a name was “X”? It sounded like something a disordered mind would dream up.

“Stay close to me and keep one eye on the sky,” Weaver said as the noises waned and faded to nothing.

“Where the hell are you taking us?” X said.

“Somewhere safe. Just remember, if those things find us, we power down.” He checked to see that the others heard him. They weren’t on the same frequency, and he almost had to yell to be heard over the wind. It was dangerous, but he had no choice.

“Let’s go,” X said. He waved his team forward.

Weaver slowly guided them through the dead city. He looked to the skyline as they crossed an intersection. Floor after floor of steel frameworks towered above, with here and there a section of granite-clad wall. Hundreds of years ago, any one of them had housed many times the planet’s current population. Now they were home to the Sirens.

Beyond the next high-rise, he saw the gap that his falling home had punched in the skyline. They were close now. In a few minutes, he would explain everything and try to make a plan to get off this cursed hell world. The idea of leaving Hades hadn’t entirely sunk in till now. Brushing with death for days had taught him to suppress any glimmer of hope.

That glow faded as one of the divers yelled, “Contact!”

One minute, the snow-covered street was lifeless and dead; the next, it was crawling with the creatures. Weaver didn’t even have a chance to tell the others to power down. In an eyeblink, Tony had swung up his assault rifle and fired a burst.

“No!” Weaver screamed. But his words were drowned out by the crack of gunfire. Shots pinged off the buildings, and bullet casings rained down with the snowflakes.