Allegiance

THIRTEEN

Michael stood on the bridge of Discovery, watching through a porthole as the ambush unfolded. At the airship’s altitude of a thousand feet, the vehicles, soldiers, and bizarre reptiles looked somehow not entirely real, but he had no illusions—humans were dying down there, and Magnolia and Les were right there in the thick of it.

Flames shot away from the perimeter the Cazadores had formed around their precious oil tankers, but even fire didn’t seem to deter the two-headed leviathans.

Both heads of another snake grabbed a Cazador and tore him in half as they pulled in opposite directions. Another line of liquid fire jetted up from the road and engulfed one of the monsters.

“They’re getting slaughtered!” Michael yelled. “We have to do something!”

Layla watched a screen displaying the feed from the ship’s cameras.

“What can we do?” she said. “We can’t fire on those things without risking the lives of Captain Mitchells, Magnolia, and the Cazadores.”

“She’s right,” Timothy said. “I have to tell the captain.” The hologram walked several steps and vanished. “Captain, we can’t get a clear shot from our current altitude, and going lower would put the airship at risk.”

Michael knew there was only one way to help. He took over the comms. “Captain, this is Commander Everhart, requesting permission to dive!”

Layla shot him a concerned look, but it was the captain who said no.

“Hold your position, Commander,” Les said. “Timothy, if you can’t get a shot, then lower those damn hoist cables. We have to get at least one of these tankers airborne!”

Michael looked back out the porthole. “How the hell are they supposed to attach the cables with those things picking them off?” he said.

He hurried over to Layla, kissed her on the forehead, and put a hand on her stomach. “I love you, and I promise I’ll be back.”

She held his hand to her and nodded. “Go save our friends.”

Michael rushed belowdecks, opening up a channel to Team Raptor on his way down the ladders as he realized that the only gun he had on him was the Beretta M9 that X had given him right before they took off.

It was a beautiful weapon, with a cursive engraving on the slide that read, “Face your future without fear.” But he was going to need something with more firepower if he had any hope of killing the reptilian monsters down there.

He bumped on his headset to Hell Diver Edgar Cervantes. “Get everyone to meet me in loading dock two, and bring me a rifle with at least two magazines of armor-piercing rounds.”

“Copy that, Commander. We’re on our way.”

By the time Michael arrived in the lower compartment, the other divers were already there helping Alfred’s technicians lower the hoist cables.

“What the hell is going on down there?” Alfred asked.

Everyone looked to Michael.

“Just get those cables down.” He moved over for a look out a porthole. The view here was angled and not as good as from the bridge, and he went from window to window for a better view.

At the last porthole, he glimpsed the silos and a few of the Cazador workers still holding the long rubber hoses attached to the front tanker.

“Shit, they aren’t done fueling,” he mumbled.

It wouldn’t matter in a few minutes, if those snakes or worms or whatever the hell they were got any closer.

Michael reopened the channel to Les. “Captain, we have to get down there!” he said.

A voice came through the static. “I said hold position, Commander! I don’t want to risk any divers. We have this under control.”

Michael’s eyes told him that was utter bullshit. Another two-headed beast broke through the ground near the road to snag a Cazador with a machine gun. As it pulled him into the air, the weapon sprayed bullets in all directions.

A round penetrated the hull of the ship. An emergency alarm blared, and an automatic message broke over the speakers.

“All nonessential personnel, report to the nearest shelter.”

“I’ve got a leak in compartment fourteen,” Layla said over the comm. “Sealing it off.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Michael saw Edgar and Alexander standing and ready to dive. Arlo and Sofia, however, were hunched down. He couldn’t see behind their mirrored visors, but judging by their posture, they were terrified.

It was then that Michael realized why Les didn’t want to risk letting them dive in this chaos. The meat grinder below wasn’t a fitting drop zone for the new boots’ first real mission. But that didn’t mean Michael had to stay put.

“We doing this, Commander?” Edgar asked.

Michael shook his head. “Change of plans. You all stay here. I’m heading down on my own.”

“What!” Alexander said. “Commander, all due respect—”

“That’s an order,” Michael said, feeling like a hypocrite.

He bumped on his comm channel back to Les. “Captain, this is Commander Everhart. I did not catch your last transmission, over.”

He grabbed a harness and nodded to one of the technicians. Alfred moved over to an open hatch in the deck and locked Michael’s descender onto a cable. A moment later, he was sliding toward the surface.

Glancing up, he saw the Sea Wolf. He bumped off his comm system and whispered, “I love you, Layla and Bray.”

The wind jerked and buffeted him on the way to the surface. The harness held him in place, but he kept the prosthetic hand on the lever, governing the speed of descent. That proved to be a mistake when a gust of wind caught him, and the titanium-alloy hand snapped the lever off the lowering device. He picked up speed, zipping down the cable now, his guts floating upward with a queasy feeling.

“Shit, shit…” He looked down at the battlefield, where one of the bizarre reptiles had spotted him. Both mouths opened as the sinuous neck moved them into position to swallow him whole. Even from several hundred feet in the air, he could see the swordlike teeth.

An arrow of flame from below hit the creature in the neck, and it dived back into the hole it had emerged from.

Michael did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed the cable with his robotic hand and squeezed. Metal screeched against metal, throwing sparks as he slowed to a near stop just twenty feet from the surface.

Easing his titanium grip on the cable, he slid the rest of the way down, his boots thudding into the dirt. Then he unclipped his harness, unslung the assault rifle, and crouched down.

A few feet away, a body lay in the dirt. It looked untouched, without so much as a scratch or scrape. But when he lifted away the broken-off palm frond that had fallen over it in the fighting, he realized that the man’s lower half was simply gone but for a ropy pile of viscera. One of the arms twitched, the fingers flexing and then going limp.

Michael felt the burn of bile in his throat as he moved around the corpse with his rifle shouldered. He had landed on the south side of the road, between the troop transport and one of the tankers. Discovery had lowered overhead, and four cables were down, but no Cazadores moved out to grab them and attach them to the tanker’s load points. Most of them were dead or dying.

Another Cazador, helmetless, lay sprawled on the ground. His bloodshot eyes looked skyward, and pink foam bubbled from his mouth.

Gunfire and screams came from the north side of the road, where the Cazadores continued to battle the monsters. Michael kept low on his way over to the vehicles. One of the beasts rose over the troop transport and then slammed a coil of its body against the side, careening the truck precariously onto its right wheels. As he watched, a figure emerged in the turret, and the machine gun barked to life.

High-caliber rounds punched through the thick neck and up into one of the heads. Blood spattered in a bright violet arc across the tank trailer, but the creature kept coming.

The turret machine gun fell silent as the gunner scrambled to feed a new belt of ammo. Raising his rifle, Michael fired off a burst into the already wounded head, aiming for the eyes. He hit one with the second burst, and the creature reared away, screeching in agony.

That gave the gunner in the turret a chance to finish reloading. In the glow from the raging fires on the ground and the back of the armored transport, he saw that the gunner wasn’t a Cazador—it was Magnolia.

The snake slumped to the ground on the other side of the transport, and Michael ran over to the back hatch of the transport. It had opened, and Les was helping a Cazador with a broken leg and a badly burned arm inside.

“What the hell!” Les yelled when he saw Michael.

“Sorry, sir, but I figured you could use some help getting these rigs back in the air.”

Without warning, Les reached out and grabbed Michael by the chest armor, yanking him into the vehicle—not exactly the greeting he had expected. He fell to the floor just as a crunching sounded behind them.

Turning, Michael saw that one of the snakes had slammed into the side of the tanker behind them, pushing it onto its side. The filling hose’s head broke off, sending diesel fuel spurting through the air.

Les reached around Michael and slammed the hatch shut just as the spewing fuel caught fire. The explosion of superheated air and gases smashed into the armored vehicle, moving it several feet.

Magnolia had foreseen the inevitable explosion and ducked back inside, closing the turret hatch. The fireball enveloped the vehicle, but the armored and heat-shielded sides protected its occupants from the blast.

“Tin,” she said. “What are you—”

“Disobeying orders,” Les said.

The captain climbed into the front seat, leaving Michael and Magnolia with the moaning Cazador. He cried out in pain as the vehicle jolted again with another body slam from one of the whipping serpentine coils.

The red flesh of the beast slithered past the windshield before going back underground. Les grabbed the shifter and double-clutched the transmission but couldn’t get it back into gear.

He cursed a blue streak—an unusual event—and Michael moved up to help. A moment later, after a light and brief grinding of gears, the vehicle jolted, and the heavy tracks rolled forward, toward the remaining tanker.

Several Cazadores were still holding their ground there, firing assault rifles and a flamethrower at a snake that had just broken through the ground.

“Someone get back in that turret!” Les yelled.

Michael pushed the hatch open and climbed up. Two of the reptiles had surfaced on the north side of the embattled Cazador warriors while a third tunneled beneath the road to flank the men.

The mound of dirt moved fast, and he swung the machine-gun barrel in hopes of stopping the monster before it could reach the Cazadores. Leading the rising mound just slightly, he pulled the trigger. Green tracer rounds cut through the darkness and punched into the soil, kicking up dirt.

The beast veered left, away from the silos and the Cazadores.

A flash from the sky hit the dirt twenty yards in front of the transport and detonated, forcing Michael down. Hunks of earth and snake blew into the sky.

Michael hunched down in case Discovery should fire another rocket.

“Target eliminated,” said Layla’s voice over the comms.

Michael smiled as he climbed back up into the turret. Smoke curled up from a four-foot crater lined with snake gore, purple in the light of the arc lamps.

“Good shooting,” Michael said. He swiveled the machine gun back toward the silos, where the remaining tanker continued to take on fuel. Two Cazadores had climbed to the top of the tanker and attached the four cables from the airship to the load points, front and back.

The remaining snakes had retreated underground, but one burst through the surface to snag one of the five Cazador warriors guarding the tanker.

A man strode out from between the cab and trailer, firing a shotgun into the thick flesh of the beast. Whoever the hell it was, he had ice running in his veins.

Both heads shot toward the soldier, one of them knocking him to the ground. The heads pulled upward and both mouths opened, letting out a long, warbling screech.

Michael seized the moment to fire the turret machine gun. Rounds punched through the shared neck that was in the process of gulping down the first Cazador it had snatched.

Another beast suddenly slammed the undercarriage of the troop transport, lifting it several feet off the ground. Michael fell back inside, landing on Magnolia.

“Tin!” she shouted.

The snake struck again, and this impact sent the vehicle rolling. The world went topsy-turvy, and Michael hit the ceiling, then the deck, then Magnolia again. The transport continued to roll, the hatch slamming shut, popping open, and slamming shut.

They finally came to a stop with a loud crunch.

Les crawled out of the cab, gripping his helmet and mumbling.

All four of them were on the ceiling near the closed hatch to the turret. The badly hurt Cazador lay at the rear of the vehicle with his back to the bulkhead, chest armor heaving.

He gasped for air, the muffled sounds resounding through the enclosed space. He reached up for a severed oxygen line and then put both hands on his helmet.

“No!” Michael yelled.

But it was too late. The soldier pulled off his helmet, to reveal not a man, but a young woman. Her face turned pink at her first gulp of toxic air.

The comm channel fired, but Michael hardly listened to the transmission—he was too horrified at the sight of the woman in front of him to respond.

Her eyes bulged, turning bright red as capillaries broke. Blood trickled from her nose, and pink froth bubbled out from the corners of her mouth. She reached out to Michael, trying to speak, and then slumped to one side, convulsed several times, and lay still.

“Fuck,” Les said, again resorting to uncharacteristic language. He looked to Magnolia and Michael.

“Are you guys okay?” he asked. “How are your suits?”

Michael managed a nod.

“I’m…” Magnolia gave up finishing her sentence and made an O of her forefinger and thumb.

“Timothy has the tanker airborne, but our cable snapped,” Les said. “We have to get—”

Another coil of reptilian flesh bashed the side of the capsized transport, sending it skidding across the ground. The next blow dented the armored side and knocked Michael against the bulkhead.

“We have to get out of here,” he said, wincing. “Get ready.”

Les and Magnolia checked their laser rifles, and Michael slapped a fresh magazine into his assault rifle.

“After the next hit,” Les said. “Then we go out the hatch and sprint for the tanker.”

Michael and Magnolia nodded.

The next impact was not long in coming. The transport vehicle rolled again. Michael hit the floor and used the bench to pull himself up.

Disoriented, he took in several breaths and looked for the back hatch.

The monster shrieked again outside, and he braced for another impact, but all he heard was the boom of a gun firing. A wail of agony followed, then two more booms.

“Now!” Michael shouted.

Les turned the handle and pushed the hatch open. A Hell Diver moved into view before any of them could get out of the troop hold.

“Come on!” yelled the diver outside, waving.

Les jumped out, and Michael followed, wondering which diver had broken his orders after he broke the captain’s. The armored man stood near a harpoon as long as he was. The head was buried in the ground, and a rope trailed from its aft end up into the sky.

If Michael didn’t know any better…

He glanced up, following the rope to the bottom of the Sea Wolf. The remaining oil tanker was already secured to Discovery’s hull, beside the boat.

“Shake a leg, people!” shouted the diver.

Michael had a hard time hearing his voice, because he wasn’t using the comm channel, but it sounded familiar.

When he turned toward the diver, he saw why. It wasn’t a member of Team Raptor.

“Rodger?” Michael said.

The diver threw a slovenly salute and said, “Rodger Dodger, reporting for duty!”

Plum-colored blood poured from the half-severed neck of the snake curled across the road. Three Cazadores stood guarding the beast. One of the three held a double-barreled shotgun.

General Santiago, Michael realized.

Rodger hadn’t saved the divers all alone. He had worked with the Cazadores who stayed behind to fight the beasts, to give the crew a chance to get the tanker off the ground.

Magnolia grabbed Rodger. “What are you doing here?” she yelled.

“Just enjoying saving your arses.”

“We can talk about it later,” Les said. “We have to get out of here!”

Michael looked up at the airship. There was no way they could get the three Cazadores back there using their boosters, and Rodger didn’t even appear to have one. Or a chute. Had he really slid down a cable to get here, without a way back up? And had he been stowed away in the Sea Wolf this entire time?

Whatever—it didn’t matter right now. What mattered was getting back to the ship before any more of those infernal snakes surfaced.

“Timothy, send us another cable down,” Les said. “We’ll get the transport attached again. The rest of you, form a perimeter. We hold our ground right here.”

Michael raised his rifle and scanned the terrain for more threats as Alfred’s technicians worked on lowering more cables to bring the disabled transport back up to the airship. Discovery would be seriously overweight, but she could probably do it.

Flames from the tangled wreckage of the tanker down the road provided a grim view of Cazador bodies and parts lying where they had fallen. A severed snake head the size of an oil drum protruded from a hole in the ground, and shreds of another beast hung like moss from the tree branches around Layla’s rocket crater.

Michael’s boot slid on a hunk of scaled flesh in the dirt. He had never seen creatures remotely like these or even read about them in the archives. But he knew that the Cazadores had encountered them before. The men who held this outpost for years had to know they were out here.

General Santiago broke open his shotgun and reloaded with shells from a bandolier slung over his shoulder. His mirrored visor turned to Michael and then looked away.

When they all got back to the airship, Michael was going to find out why the old warrior hadn’t warned them about the snakes. And if they were lucky, Cricket would be able to shed some light on the fate of the Cazador crew manning this outpost from hell.