Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

She pulled up on the wheel as far as it would go. The bow was at sixty degrees now. An explosion burst from a far corner of the room. Screams broke over the wailing sirens.

“We’re almost clear of the storm!” Jordan yelled. “Another two thousand feet and we’re home free!”

Ash scrutinized the main display. It blinked as if taunting her.

“Captain, I’m picking up a signal over Hades,” Ryan shouted.

She turned, scarcely daring to allow the thought. Could it be X? Could the divers really be on their way back?

“It’s a crate!” Ryan yelled. “The divers have sent back one of the crates!”

Ash felt a tentative wash of relief, but they weren’t out of this yet.

“Plot me an intercept course as soon as we get above the storm,” she replied.

“Captain Maria?”

Ash ignored the voice and concentrated on the main display. The data had solidified: they were two hundred feet from clearing the storm.

The voice came again. “Captain Maria?”

The glare of annoyance faded into a soft smile when she saw Tin looking back at her from the captain’s chair.

“What is it, Tin?” she said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the sirens.

“Is X coming home?”

“I hope so,” she replied. “Hang on tight, okay? I have a special surprise for you.”

“What kind of surprise?”

“I’m going to show you the sun.”

Everywhere X looked, the ground was littered with the smoldering bodies of Sirens. The divers had killed those in the industrial zone, but the explosion from the ITC building had attracted the creatures from the heart of the city like vultures to a kill. Wave after wave sailed across the horizon in a mass migration of beating wings that seemed to block out the skyscrapers behind them.

“Get in the sky!” X shouted. He peered up into the maelstrom. Even if they could escape the Sirens, they would still have to make it through the lightning. They were trading one hell for another, but they had no choice. There was only one way home, and that was up, into the soup.

X watched the approaching monsters with mixed dread and fascination. For a moment, their unearthly shrieks sounded like a warning for the divers to stay away from the raging storm—a warning that X didn’t heed.

“Deploy!” X shouted. “Deploy your fucking boosters right now!”

Weaver didn’t need to be told twice. He punched his booster, yelling in a hysterical voice about hell and leaving the wretched place. Katrina followed Weaver into the air, but Magnolia hesitated, staring at the Sirens soaring toward them.

“I said GO!” X yelled. He swung her around, but she had already punched own booster. They locked gazes for an instant—enough time for him to see the raw terror in her eyes. Then she was gone, lifted into the air, screaming at the top of her lungs.

X pivoted away, raised his rifle, and aimed at the first wave. Beyond it, a dozen more V formations were sailing in over the industrial zone. There must be hundreds of the monsters, and judging by their energized screeches, they didn’t want the divers to leave Hades.

X fired into the first wave. The rounds lanced across their flight path, catching the Sirens out in front by surprise. Several died instantly, their lumpy bodies spiraling toward the snow. Others took their place at the front of the line and climbed above the spray.

X squeezed the trigger selectively, focusing his fire on the nucleus of the formation. He killed three more before he was forced to replace the spent magazine. Katrina’s panicked voice crackled in his earpiece as he reached for another.

“X, get in the air!”

“I’m right behind you!” he yelled. He had to kill as many of them as he could before he hit his booster, since shooting when airborne was much trickier. He slammed another magazine into the gun, pulled the slide, and fired into the next wave until he had broken the formation.

The monsters spiraled earthward as X prepared to take to the sky. Letting out a deep breath, he reached over his shoulder and activated his ride home. The balloon exploded from the canister, filled with helium, and catapulted him toward the storm.

Letting his rifle strap dangle over his chest, he grabbed his toggles to steer away from the second wave of Sirens. He caught a draft of wind and rode it toward the other divers. It took only a few seconds to catch up with Katrina and Weaver, but Magnolia had disappeared in the low clouds.

The pop of gunfire pulled his gaze two hundred feet eastward, where he saw the weak glow of her battery unit rising. Flashes from her rifle lit up the clouds. The comm channel flickered in and out, but in the breaks from static, he could hear her screams.

“Pull up, Magnolia!” X yelled. “You’re heading…”

Thunder clattered above, cutting off the transmission. Glaring up at the swirling purple beast, he realized that their possible doom might also be their salvation. The lightning strikes could fry the divers, but they would also fry Sirens.

“Head into the storm!” X said. “Hurry!”

Weaver was already using his toggles to pull himself up faster. He was gaining altitude, and so was Katrina. They rose toward the low, bulging clouds.

“Magnolia! Pull up!” X repeated. In a blink, he saw that it was already too late. The second wave was only a thousand feet away. Even if she pulled away, they would hit her within thirty seconds or less.

The Sirens’ screeches morphed into a steady high-pitched blare. X tried to block out the noise. As he raised his rifle, a network of lightning speared overhead, and in its glow he saw the snarling eyeless faces homing in on Magnolia. Their membranous wings seemed to glow in the brilliant light.

The blue residue quickly faded away, and X raised his rifle with one hand and kept his other on a toggle. The kick from his rifle lurched him backward with such force he lost his grip on the toggle. He spun out of control, his harnesses twisting.

X fought back into a stable position, one eye still on Magnolia. The second formation had maneuvered into an intercept course. He centered his rifle on them, but she was directly in his line of fire.

“Magnolia, pull up, God damn it!” X yelled.

Her reply was a frantic scream. Two of the Sirens drove forward from the front of the wave. They exploded away from the others, their wings beating the air so fast, everything else seemed to move in slow motion.

X tried to find a target, but the world had ground to a screeching halt. The tug of his harnesses seemed weaker. The whistle of the wind and the shrieks of the Sirens seemed faint, distant. In the brief moment of peace, specters of everyone he had ever lost rose into his thoughts. Rhonda was there, the perpetual scowl on her once-pretty face softening into something that was almost a smile. There was Rodney, Will, Sam, Cruise and Tony, standing shoulder to shoulder. Murph waved sheepishly, his eyes hidden behind orange goggles. Aaron grinned and nodded, and X realized for the first time how much Tin looked like his father.

X had outlived all of them. Somewhere up above, Tin would grow up to be a strong, honorable man like his father, but X knew in his heart that he wouldn’t see it. With the crate on its way back up to the ship, he and the other divers had ensured that the boy and everyone else on the Hive would survive. They had completed their mission. Humanity would go on, at least for now, but if X didn’t help, Magnolia would never see the inside of the ship again. She was young, with her life still ahead of her. X, on the other hand, had already lived his, and even though most of it had been lousy, he had survived far longer than most.

I should have died a long time ago, X thought.