Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

Magnolia whimpered. “Is that… oh, my God.”

X reached back for her and took her hand. “Close your eyes, kid.” He guided her down the hall, looking away as they passed Cruise’s remains. He didn’t want her to remember the man this way.

The next body was so badly disfigured, X didn’t even know whether it was male or female. It wasn’t one of theirs, though. The armor was green, not black like those from the Hive. The third corpse was in even worse shape. He had assumed that the divers perished from the electrical strikes, not at the claws of the Sirens, but the mask of horror on Cruise’s face told X he had still been alive when the Sirens found him. He had survived the jump only to be brought to this place by the monsters and torn apart.

X halted a few feet from the double doors at the end of the hall to check on Magnolia. Tears streamed down her face, making her black eye makeup run in spidery lines down her cheeks. “Was that Cruise? It was Cruise, wasn’t it?”

“He was probably already dead before they got him,” X lied.

“But their bodies… We can’t leave them like that.”

“We can’t do anything for them now. We have the living to think about.”

Magnolia sniffled and nodded.

X had never realized how much Cruise meant to her, but he had been her lead before she joined Team Raptor. Seeing Cruise like this had her rattled—hell, X was rattled, too. He needed Magnolia to keep it together, and he considered his next words carefully.

“I haven’t told many people this, but when I lost my wife, I felt like the whole world stopped. I drank until I blacked out, picked fights, took risks on every jump. I think I wanted to die. But you know what kept me going?”

She stared at him blankly, more tears welling around her eyes.

“My duty to the Hive . I dive…”

“So that humanity survives,” Magnolia finished.

“So you with me? Can I trust you to have my back?”

She nodded. “I’ll be okay. And the next time I see one of those fucking things…”

“Just stay focused,” X said.

Once past the corpses, he approached the doors slowly. The left was open just a hair. He propped a shoulder against the wall and peeked through the round window at shelves stocked with cases.

X chinned his comm. “Katrina, do you copy? Over.”

“Roger,” she replied. “We found the valves!”

“Excellent. We have eyes on cells. Regroup on second floor.”

“Roger that.”

“Wait,” X added. “We found Cruise and two others. They’re pretty torn up—better prepare yourself.”

“Roger that.”

X looked back through the window and noticed a hole in the ceiling at the other end of the room. Two of the bulblike nests hung from the exposed joist. Now he knew where the Sirens were that had fed off his friends.

“Shit,” X breathed.

Magnolia quickly peeked around his shoulder and pulled away. “I don’t see any movement,” she said. “Maybe I can get in there and grab a few cases without them ever knowing.”

“Those things weigh thirty pounds apiece,” he said. I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Magnolia insisted. “I’m faster and quieter. I can do this. I didn’t come all this way to have my hand held.”

X took another look inside. There was no hint of movement. He checked his mission clock. Fifteen and a half hours left. It was a lot of time, but they still had to make it back outside, avoid the Sirens, and launch the loot into the sky.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll cover you.”

“I can do this,” she repeated.

He wasn’t sure whether she was trying to convince him or herself. He patted her on the shoulder and slowly inched the door open. She slipped through the gap and disappeared into the shadows.

An impressively short time later, she was back with the first case of cells. She set it down at his feet.

“See?” she whispered.

“We still need more,” X said.

She moved back into the room as the other divers made their way down the hall. Weaver and Katrina gingerly placed the forty-pound pressure valves on the floor, next to the cells. He glimpsed their faces behind the visors. They had seen the bodies. Murph stood a few feet behind them. He was still holding on, but X could see the life slowly ebbing away from him.

“Weaver, Katrina, you two hold security,” X whispered.

They raised their rifles and took a few steps down the hallway to stand guard. Magnolia returned a few moments later with another case.

“One more to go,” she said. Then she was gone, melting into the darkness of the room. She was good; he’d give her that. Fast, sneaky, and cocky—the perfect thief.

Hearing a thump, X turned. Murph had collapsed to his knees. He pawed at his visor and flipped it open, cupping his mouth with one hand to hold back a cough. Fresh blood oozed from the gash in the midsection of his suit. Murph wheezed into his hands. His lungs sounded as though they had fluid in them, and he struggled to breathe.

“Weaver, help him,” X said.

Weaver crouched down by him and pulled something from his vest. It was a foil packet about the size of a credit voucher. Tearing it open, he shook out a couple of pills and offered them to Murph.

“Here. I was saving these. Strongest painkillers aboard Ares .”

There was a hint of reservation in his voice, and X wondered whether he had actually been saving them to end his life should it come to that.

Murph held the pills in his palm, eyeing them skeptically.

“It’s okay,” Weaver said. “They’ll help.”

Murph knocked back the pills and took a swig of water from his helmet straw. A moment later, the tension in his face eased.

“You’re going to be okay, Murph,” Katrina said. “It’s almost time to go home.” She massaged one of his arms softly.

X winced at her words. There was little chance Murph would ever see the Hive again. Whatever Weaver’s pills had done to dull the pain, they couldn’t fix the internal injuries. Even if they could get him back, he would endure a slow and painful death from the radiation poisoning. With as many rads as he had been exposed to, there was nothing the ship’s doctors could do to save him.

When X moved back to the window, Magnolia was carrying the final case across the room. But something else was moving, too. Blurred flesh, bristling with spikes, climbed out of the wall nests and plopped to the floor. The pair of Sirens perched there and let out angry squawks.

Magnolia’s luck had finally run out. The creatures darted after her.

“Run, kid!” X yelled. He kicked the door open and followed the monsters through the sights on his rifle. One of them climbed onto a shelf and tilted its deformed skull in Magnolia’s direction.

X pulled the trigger and sent the creature whirling into the darkness. A second lurched up to take its place, and he took off part of its head with the next shot. More came from the left, knocking over shelves and trampling the contents.

The flash from his gun lit up the room for a split second, illuminating long limbs and spiky prominences. Magnolia was halfway to the door, but her hands were full and the heavy crate was slowing her down. A Siren lunged from the shadows. X waited for her to get clear, then squeezed off a shot that sent the creature crashing into a wall.

“Come on!” X yelled. He squared his shoulders and squeezed the trigger until his gun clicked empty. Magnolia burst through the open door and spun as X punched in his last magazine.

“Duck!” she shouted.

X dropped to the floor, and Magnolia vaulted over his back and slammed the case of cells directly into the face of the Siren that had crept up on them. The metal crate shattered the creature’s teeth, and it let out an agonized shriek. She dropped the crate, pulled her pistol, and shot the monster through its scabby skull.