Allegiance

TWELVE

Captain Les Mitchells stepped into the launch bay, where the divers were suiting up.

“The refueling station on the coast has been damaged,” he announced. “And it appears the former crew is dead. General Santiago has no way to get his tankers ashore without our help.”

Magnolia knew what this implied, though Arlo clearly didn’t.

“What’s that mean?” he asked. “Without our help?”

“It means we’re going to give them a ride,” Michael said.

Yup, Magnolia thought. Maybe this time, we don’t drop ’em to their deaths.

“Look, this sucks for them,” Edgar said, “but we already took some damage descending through that storm, and this is a red zone. Why we got to risk our skin?”

“You don’t,” Les said. “I need only two divers for this mission, and you’re not one of them.”

The captain looked at Magnolia. “Mags, I want you to join me.”

“Wait. What?” she said.

“I need someone fast and agile and experienced on the surface,” Les said.

Arlo raised a hand. “I’m the first two things, Captain,” he said.

“You’re also the greenhorn,” Michael said. “But—all due respect, Captain—why are you going? Shouldn’t you stay on the bridge?”

“Because I owe them,” Les said.

Magnolia grumbled under her breath. The captain felt responsible for the crew of the Lion. They had trusted him to pull them into the sky, and he wanted to atone for their murder, which had happened on his watch.

“Fine, I’m in,” she said after only a slight hesitation.

“Thank you,” Les said. “Grab your gear and meet me in the hoist bay. The rest of you, be ready in case we need a team for support.”

“Captain,” Michael said, “I think we should send a few divers down to that tower to see what happened to the crew that was—or is—stationed here.”

“Absolutely not. We’re here for fuel, and that’s it,” Les said. “I will not risk a team for data collection.”

“What about Cricket?” Magnolia asked.

The robot chirped, and Michael frowned. He obviously didn’t like the idea of sending out his robot, armed with just a blaster. But it was safer than sending in divers.

“You okay with that, Commander Everhart?” Les asked.

“I’d rather go with Cricket,” he said with a sigh, “but I guess I can send it out alone.”

“Good.” Les walked toward the door, then stopped. “Absolutely no diving unless I give the order. Anybody who jumps the gun won’t get the luxury of shoveling shit with Ted.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Michael replied.

Magnolia nudged him with her elbow as she walked past, grinning.

He didn’t grin back. “Be careful down there, Mags,” he said in his all-business voice. “I got a bad feeling it wasn’t a storm that destroyed this outpost and killed those Cazadores.”

“We think alike, Tin.”

He handed her one of the laser rifles. “Just in case.”

Magnolia crossed the open launch bay, feeling the other divers’ eyes on her. No one seemed to like this mission, but there was nothing they could do to change the captain’s mind.

And part of Magnolia understood his decision. Not that she liked it, but she respected it. They had made a pact with General Santiago, and she would uphold their end.

Cinching down her helmet, she headed belowdecks, where Les was already getting the hoist cables down. Alfred and another technician pulled open the hatch levers. Both wore protective suits against the toxic air.

“Timothy, retract turbofans four and six,” Les ordered over the open channel to the bridge. “Be careful of the Sea Wolf.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” replied the AI. “Sea Wolf is secure.”

A deep rumble sounded underfoot as the two fans were retracted into their compartments. Les threw the strap of his laser rifle over his shoulder and bent down to help the technicians.

“Move us into position and tell General Santiago to have his men secure the cables to the first tanker,” Les ordered.

Magnolia peered down through the opening.

Star Grazer was directly below them now. On the deck were two old-world trucks with tank trailers. A third vehicle, which looked like a troop transport, was also there. A dozen soldiers in full armor waited to board.

The cables lowered, and Cazador mechanics jumped up to secure them to the four loading points on the troop transport. Magnolia put a harness on over her armor. Les, already in his harness, moved over to an open hatch in the hoist bay. The narrower cables here were meant for smaller cargoes.

“See you down there,” he said.

Les went first, clamping his descender onto the hoist cable before sliding downward into the darkness.

Magnolia had done this only a few times and would have much preferred diving to using the harness system. It spooked her every time she slid down past the turbofans, knowing that if those whirring blades were ever reversed, they would turn her into shark chum. She bent down and watched Les touch down on Star Grazer’s deck.

She put her legs through the opening and locked into the cable system.

“You good?” Alfred asked.

She nodded and slid out, using the brake lever on her harness to slow her descent. The wind wasn’t bad, though it did rock her body slightly.

For a moment, she took in her surroundings without the aid of her night-vision goggles. Like most of the poisoned surface, this place was the color of rust. The ocean lapped a shoreline rimmed with fish poisoned by the petroleum spill.

The piers had broken away, leaving slabs and concrete pilings protruding from the water like broken bones. The beach was littered with pieces of a bridge and the craters of exploded land mines, but she saw no evidence of Sirens or other monsters.

She pulled on the brake lever again, slowing her descent to barely a crawl. Her boots hit the deck a moment later.

After getting out of her harness, she gave a thumbs-up, and Alfred’s team began winching the cable toward the ship.

“Mags, let’s go!” Les yelled from the back of the armored troop transport, which rode on tank tracks instead of wheels.

“Where’s General Santiago?” she asked.

“He must be staying belowdecks,” Les said with a shrug.

A Cazador opened the back hatch to the troop transport, and she ducked inside. Les joined her on a bench facing the warriors already inside.

Magnolia nodded to them, but looking back at her through their oval eyepieces, they may as well have been machines. Several more Cazadores squeezed into the vehicle before the hatch banged shut. The troop transport jolted, then swung slightly coming off the deck.

The front windshield provided the only view in the armored truck. Magnolia watched them rise past the warship’s command island. They rose above it, swaying slightly.

On the shore, tendrils of lightning illuminated the brown central tower of the outpost. Discovery pulled them higher until even the tower was out of sight.

The cables brought them all the way to the docking area underneath the airship, where cargo brackets locked the transport into place. Alfred used remote arms to secure the vehicle.

“Cargo secured,” Timothy said. “Proceeding to target.”

The ship’s thrusters kicked on, and the AI piloted them across the water, up the beach, and over the tower. They hovered there for a few moments while Team Raptor launched the drone.

“Cricket is deployed,” Michael confirmed over the channel.

“Stand by for landing,” Timothy said.

The cables lowered, and the troop transport’s stiff suspension jolted as the tracks touched down. The path they were on wound through a ravine that had to be on the north side of the refinery.

The hatch opened again, and two Cazador soldiers got out to unhook the cables. As Discovery lifted away to pick up and deliver the first of the two tanker trucks, Magnolia could see the road now, or what was left of it. Cracked red dirt covered most of the asphalt. The winding path led back to the shoreline and the central tower of the outpost.

Discovery pulled away and flew back out to sea.

An hour and a half later, both empty fuel tankers were on the ground and convoyed with the transport between them.

“Good luck, Captain,” Timothy said from the bridge of Discovery. “And good luck to you, Magnolia.”

She grinned at that. “Thanks for remembering me, bud.”

“Keep the airship in range,” Les said. “Just in case.”

“Roger that, sir,” Timothy replied.

The soldiers slammed the hatch, and Magnolia looked ahead through the windshield as the transport set off. Tracks crunched over the battered roadbed. The tanker ahead blocked most of the view, but what she could see was mostly barren wasteland.

Purple vegetation grew along the path and snaked over the road. A few minutes into the drive, the convoy had to stop for the Cazadores to clear the dense flora.

Flames shot away from the lead truck, and a soldier with a flamethrower walked into view. He raked the fire over the dense wall of foliage, which sizzled and curled back from the heat.

The troop transport drove on, the man with the flamethrower walking alongside.

A transmission from Timothy crackled over the encrypted channel.

“Captain Mitchells…” The voice was barely audible through the white noise.

It came again a moment later. “Captain Mitchells, do you copy?”

“Lots of interference, but I copy,” Les replied.

“We’re picking up some very big life-forms in your sector,” said the AI. “Do you have eyes on anything?”

Magnolia could hear the transmission well enough to catch the emphasis he put on “very.” Les moved with her for a better look out the windshield.

“You guys see anything up there?” he asked.

The driver said nothing, either not understanding English or not pleased at having guests in his vehicle.

“Timothy, where do you see them?” Les said over the channel. “Sky or land? I can’t see shit.”

“Any of you speak English?” Magnolia asked the Cazadores sitting in the troop hold.

One of the men replied, “Un poco, nada más.”

“Ask your buddies if they can see anything up there,” she said.

The soldier shook his helmet. “No comprendo.”

Magnolia grunted, then reached up and turned the spin wheel to open the top hatch to the turret. Before anyone could stop her, she climbed up for a view.

A mounted machine gun with a large barrel was attached to the armored turret. She unslung her laser rifle, preferring its proven firepower to the archaic machine gun.

Ahead of their convoy, she spotted several low warehouses, a row of silo-shaped structures, and a three-story brick building that had taken some damage over the centuries. She didn’t study it long enough to determine whether the destruction was from Mother Nature or something else. Right now, other matters took precedence.

She brought up the laser rifle and scanned above for male Sirens.

Seeing nothing, she watched the surface for movement. Through her scope came a familiar view from other tropical wastelands: spindly purple vines, bushes with fishhook barbs, and the occasional thorn tree.

Nothing moved in the green hue of her optics. Switching to infrared, she picked up several small heat signatures, but nothing that would be a threat from this range.

Magnolia opened the channel to Discovery. “Timothy, I’ve got nothing in view besides a few oversized insects.”

The reply hissed into her ear. “That’s odd,” said the AI. “The scans are now showing nothing. Must have been a glitch.”

Magnolia felt like sliding back down into the shelter of the vehicle. Something was out there. She could feel a presence, but she couldn’t see anything.

The brakes screeched on the oil tanker ahead of them. It turned off toward the row of silos that contained the diesel fuel the Cazadores needed for their warship.

“Mags, you got anything up there?” Les asked over the channel.

“Nothing but poisoned earth and some truly nasty-looking plants.”

“Get back down here, then,” he said.

She did another scan of the cracked earth surrounding the settlement. The terrain here was mostly flat and barren but with a few random thickets of barbed purple bushes, and a lone tree whose skeletal branches reminded her of arms raised in prayer to an uncaring deity.

Lightning speared the horizon. The boom of thunder rattled the turret, but she stayed there, watching what appeared to be something slithering across the cracked earth.

“Wait a second,” she said into her comm.

Bringing the laser rifle’s scope up to her visor, she aimed at the first mutant creature and then almost laughed at what appeared to be a snake with two heads.

It wasn’t small—probably four feet—but didn’t really qualify as a threat.

Bumping on the channel to Discovery, she said, “I think I found your hostile contacts, Timothy: just your garden-variety two-headed snake.”

The creature slithered into a hole and vanished.

“Copy that,” replied the AI.

The first truck stopped at the silos, and two soldiers jumped out. The driver in the troop transport remained behind the wheel as the passenger got out to open the back hatch.

Magnolia stayed in the turret, watching for threats while the transport disgorged Cazador soldiers. A total of twelve moved out to form a perimeter while two teams of three went to work hooking up the tankers’ feed hoses to the silos and mounting generators to power the pumps and the arc lights that would let them see potential threats before they arrived.

Voices called out in Spanish, and three more men climbed down from the tanker behind the transport. Two of them carried only spears, and they flanked a man with an orange cape hanging over his oval neck guard. Instead of oval eye slots, the soldier had a face shield like those of the Hell Divers.

“Oh, shit,” Magnolia said. Bumping her comm, she opened a private channel to Les. “General Santiago is here, Captain.”

“Ah, glad to see him risking his neck alongside ours,” Les said.

The general shouted orders at the soldiers standing guard, and they set off into the wastes with their machine guns and flamethrowers.

Six men fanned out into the dirt off the road, three moved behind the rear tanker, and three more held security near the first truck.

Santiago cradled a double-barreled shotgun and looked up at Magnolia. Then he walked away to monitor the fuel transfer. The generators kicked in with a loud chugging.

She looked back to the patrolling Cazadores who had walked out onto the barren rust-colored terrain. The two on point moved out cautiously, armed with a flamethrower and a machine gun. The two-headed snake she saw earlier wouldn’t stand a chance.

Lightning flashed over the ocean to the east, and in the glow, she glimpsed Discovery, hovering over the central tower that had once been a Cazador outpost.

A chill traced her spine when she thought about it.

Something was off about this place.

The generators continued to hum, and she rotated in the turret to check the loading status. Les was standing beside General Santiago, overseeing one of the teams.

A flicker of motion caught her attention, and she brought her scope up to the low rocky hills west of their location, just to the right of the three-story brick building.

She stopped and moved the scope back for another look. The red humps in the ground seemed to be moving slightly. She blinked to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

What in the wastes…?

The ground was definitely moving, the dirt humping as whatever moved beneath it pushed upward. She bumped on the channel to Discovery. “Timothy, are you picking up anything on your scans?”

“Negative,” replied the AI.

She cursed under her breath. The airship was likely out of range now. She switched back to the channel with Les and said, “Captain, I’ve got something moving east, toward the oil tanker behind my location.”

The underground creature was moving faster now and appeared to be moving right toward the chuffing generator. Two Cazadores had stopped patrolling to look at the mound of rising earth.

“Watch out!” Magnolia shouted.

An explosion of dirt made her flinch and blink. In that fraction of a second, one of the soldiers vanished in the cloud of dust. When it cleared, his comrade ran over to a hole in the ground.

He aimed his rifle downward and fired a burst. A blur of red shot up from the ground, and a crocodilian head swallowed half his body. It lifted him into the air, and only then did she see the second massive head connected to a red, rubbery neck as thick as a full-grown palm tree.

The first Cazador was now a bulge in the neck the two heads shared.

Magnolia aimed the laser rifle, but before she could get off a shot, the two-headed beast pulled the second man back into the hole.

Screams and gunfire seemed to ring out from all directions.

Les came running around in front of the troop transport, laser rifle at the ready. “What the hell was that!” he shouted.

“The mom or pop of the snake I saw earlier!” she yelled back.

The Cazadores on patrol made a run for the trucks, but three of them were a good distance from the road. Another explosion of dirt geysered into the air between the men and the vehicles.

Two more heads climbed into the air on a thick neck, swaying back and forth like cornstalks in a breeze. The heads suddenly shot toward the three stranded Cazadores.

One man tried to roll away, but too late. He and another soldier were snatched into the air. The third warrior turned and fired his flamethrower, setting the snake’s hide ablaze.

Both heads screeched in agony, dropping one of their victims back to the dirt. The man crawled away, pushed himself up, and ran. But the other man in its mouth was gobbled down whole even as the creature burned.

The line of soldiers on the road opened fire on the dozen yards of snake still writhing aboveground. Purple blood leaked out of the burning rubbery hide, and a guttural screech rose over the crack of gunfire.

Magnolia tried to aim, but the troop transport jolted hard, slamming her forward into the grips of the machine gun. She nearly lost her laser rifle.

“Captain!” she yelled as the ground around him humped upward from another snake circling the truck.

Les jumped up, and she reached down, catching his wrist and hauling upward as he clambered on top of the troop transport.

“Timothy! We need air support!” Les shouted.

“On my way,” the AI replied.

The snake behind the vehicle broke through the road in an explosion of dirt and broken asphalt. The first head that emerged grabbed a man with a flamethrower and rose into the air. The other head, now visible, snapped at the Cazador in the other pair of jaws, ripping off an arm.

The man’s other hand squeezed the trigger of the flamethrower, releasing a blast of fire, so that, for a few seconds, the snake became a fire-breathing dragon. The jet of fire zigzagged erratically through the air and then swung right toward the troop transport.

Magnolia ducked inside the vehicle with Les, who pulled the hatch shut just as burning liquid coated the armored turret.