Captives

EIGHTEEN

The dirty yellow glow of the lighthouse beacon shone through the mist, providing a beacon for the two surviving members of the Barracudas and Hell Diver Xavier Rodriguez. They had hiked for hours through the mutated jungle. X was slogging along on fumes. By the time they got back to the outskirts of the city, he had reached the point of exhaustion that would make most men collapse.

Rhino moved by his side. The Cazador lieutenant hadn’t spoken of his injuries, but it was obvious he had taken a severe beating from the bizarre creature back in the jungle. Despite the pain, he marched on until Wendig finally raised a hand and sat down on a boulder to rest.

“Un minuto,” Rhino said to Wendig. “Take a minute, Immortal.”

X sat on the ground, using the time to catch his breath and do a systems check of his armor and suit. Blood and ash covered him from head to toe, as if he had taken a bath in gore and then rolled in a fire pit. But at least he’d been able to get his suit back online and operating.

He took a sip from the straw, sucking mostly air. The lonely shriek of a Siren made him reach for the sword they had retrieved from the debris pile. Rhino yielded the axe Whale had dropped, and Wendig raised a handgun, scanning the skies.

Seeing the two remaining members in their sorry state reminded X of just how much the Barracudas had suffered on this mission. And for what? The trophy head slung over Wendig’s shoulder?

What a waste of life, X thought.

In a way, these men reminded him of Hell Divers on a mission gone awry, like the one that killed his entire team ten years ago thanks to a faulty weather sensor. The day that his best friend, Aaron, died.

No, he realized. These men were nothing like Hell Divers.

X cursed himself for even making a comparison. Hell Divers risked their lives to save humanity. The Barracudas hunted for personal honor and privilege.

The shriek of the Siren faded away, and the team pressed ahead. Over the next ridge, X noticed that the glow from the lighthouse beacon had stopped.

“Why’d they turn it off?” he asked.

“Because they are getting ready to leave,” Rhino said. He said something in Spanish and reached out to help Wendig. After watching the beast kick him into the water-filled basement, X was surprised he could walk at all.

“Got to move faster,” X said.

Rhino simply nodded, and Wendig looked over but didn’t reply. His arm was in a sling, and he was having a hard time walking.

They pushed onward as thunder boomed above them. A light rain pattered on their armor, but it wasn’t a cooling rain—acidic, according to the readings on his HUD.

X wiped his visor clean and helped Rhino cut away vegetation growing on the path. They worked together for several minutes, but there was no good way forward.

The vines and spiny bushes grew in deep thickets around the foundations of ruined buildings. X stumbled as he swung his sword, nearly falling into a tangle of the carnivorous vines.

Keep it together, old man.

An exhausting hour later, they could finally see the beach. The boats still waited on the sand. He breathed a sigh of relief. The Cazadores hadn’t left without them.

Almost back… Keep moving.

X was going to reward himself with a long nap on the voyage back to the Metal Islands.

Rhino put an arm under Wendig as they moved down a steep incline to the debris-filled street below. Closing in on the lighthouse, X saw the first sign of the battle that had raged against the Siren hordes.

Several of the beasts littered the road in a circle around a single Cazador soldier. The man had killed five of the creatures before their talons opened his armor and strung his entrails away from his corpse.

The grisly sight reminded X of Hades, but he pushed the memory away and followed Rhino and Wendig around the corner. A group of four men on sentry duty brought up their rifles.

“Easy,” X said, raising his hands in the air. Covered in gore and dirt as they were, the team probably looked a lot like the monsters they had been fighting.

Instead of putting up his hands, Rhino yelled at the grunt soldiers, who quickly lowered their weapons and backed away from the makeshift barrier to let the group through.

All four helmets turned to Wendig and the bony head slung over his armored shoulder as he limped past.

“El rey demonio,” one of them said.

The four grunts all pounded the octopus logo on their chests.

“What did they say?” X asked Rhino.

“‘The demon king.’”

“That’s what you call that thing we took down?”

Rhino nodded. “But I call it the ‘bone beast.’ There aren’t many of them left.”

“What was it? I mean, what did it evolve from?”

Rhino shrugged his massive shoulders. “A bear, maybe? Who knows?”

“There weren’t bears out here, I don’t think.”

“Does it matter?” Rhino asked.

X shook his head. “Not especially.”

Rhino called out over his shoulder at the four soldiers.

“Somos todo lo que queda.”

The men all grabbed their gear and fell in line.

Rhino walked by X. “They thought there would be more of us,” he said. “Come on, let’s get back to the boats.”

The small group set off down another street, where they had to climb over a pile of rubble that blocked the way. At the crest, Rhino raised his hand to several soldiers on the other side. The men all looked up from their work of checking bodies and salvaging weapons and gear. Armored heaps lay on the asphalt—soldiers who had died of their wounds.

The thick of the battle appeared to have been right here.

Siren carcasses lay among the dead, their eggshell-white bodies hacked to pieces. Limbs, heads, and torsos littered the road while other bodies were still strangely intact, their charred flesh still smoking.

But they weren’t all dead.

The clank of metal rang out from the road ahead. X stopped to watch wagons laden with cages. The convoy crossed through the intersection. A boxy metal vehicle moved slowly on tracks over the broken concrete, pulling the wagons behind it.

An octopus symbol marked the hull of the ancient war machine, which reminded X of a vehicle he had taken refuge in years ago with Miles.

Rhino kept walking, but X stood staring at the wagons. Inside the cages, Sirens were chained to the floor, unable to move. Gags covered their mouths to prevent them from shrieking and biting.

X had captured a few of the beasts back in Florida, but he always killed them. He still couldn’t believe the Cazadores ate these things, but seeing their warrior culture, he now understood why. They believed that the meat of a worthy foe made them more powerful.

Rhino quickened his pace as the wagons began to move around another corner. The vehicle pulling them crunched over a pile of broken concrete, crushing it beneath the tracks.

A group of about forty soldiers marched alongside the wagons. Was this all that remained of the fighting force that landed on this beach only hours ago?

Catching up with the group, X saw the answer on the beach just below the lighthouse. The support crew of sailors in the green military uniforms had come up from the beaches and were stripping dead Cazadores brought down from the city.

Some of the men had already completed their tasks and arranged the corpses neatly in the sand. They made four rows, ten deep. Adding the other losses in his mind, X counted fifty to sixty dead soldiers.

On the Hive, such a loss would have been a disaster, but unlike in the sky, the Metal Islands seemed to have no shortage of warriors.

Still, he couldn’t believe how costly this mission had been for el Pulpo.

He walked up along behind the wagons. The very last cart carried Siren children. These weren’t chained like the adults, but their mouths were covered in gags and masks.

“For the sky arena,” Rhino said, jerking his helmet at the kids. “Whale used to fight them with his brass knuckles. I’m going to miss that.”

X picked up some sadness in his rough voice and had a feeling that it wasn’t just the breathing apparatus of his helmet. He didn’t exactly have empathy for Rhino, but he did know what it was like to lose close friends.

A crunch sounded as the tracked vehicle pulling the wagons ran over a dead Siren. The head imploded, painting the broken asphalt with blood and brains. The vehicle continued at a crawl and began turning toward the boat ramp.

Voices called out, and the final preparations began on the beach. The remaining soldiers moved to the rowboats while green-uniformed sailors loaded gear and weapons.

X scanned the ocean for their ship and saw it still anchored about a mile out.

“Immortal, come here,” Rhino said. He climbed onto a boulder and raised his arms, attracting the attention of the men. The soldiers and sailors abandoned their tasks to form a circle around him.

Most of these men were covered in blood and moved sluggishly. A few had severe injuries and cracks in their armor, which would end up killing them if they didn’t get back to the ships soon.

But whatever Rhino had to say was apparently more important.

“Today we have achieved victory,” he yelled. “Today we came and conquered the demon king.”

He repeated the message in Spanish to great applause. The soldiers raised blades and fists in the air as Wendig held up the head of el rey demonio, or, as Rhino called it, the bone beast.

The men beat their chests, riling up the Sirens, which struggled against their chains in the cages. The soldiers and sailors stood there for several minutes while Rhino continued his victory speech.

X turned away, unable to take part in what would have been a solemn gathering on the Hive. Most of the time, when Hell Divers didn’t come back, there were tears, not shouts of triumph.

As he looked out over the waves, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

X turned, expecting to see Rhino, but it was Wendig.

Rhino finished his speech and jumped down off the boulder. The other men dispersed, and he joined X and Wendig. “You did good today, Immortal,” he said. “Wendig agrees and would be proud to fight with you another day.”

X snorted. “Just because I helped you fight those monsters doesn’t mean I don’t think you guys are assholes.”

Rhino laughed, and Wendig tilted his helmet slightly in confusion as Rhino explained.

“We still think you’re an asshole, too,” Rhino said. “Now, come on, let’s get back to the ship.”

The Barracudas walked to their boat, and X helped them drag it back down to the water. It didn’t take long to load the boats and push them out into the surf, but several were left behind on the beaches—another reminder of the great losses the Cazadores had suffered here—wherever this was. To X, the island was just another nameless wasteland full of things that wanted to kill him.

He helped Rhino launch the boat through the surf and then pulled himself in to join Wendig and several other soldiers who would help row back to the main vessel.

A lone Siren’s shriek pierced the air as X pulled the oars through the rough water. The Cazadores had conquered this place, but if X knew anything about the wastes, it was that life would find a way.

Katrina climbed the ladder into the container ship, wincing with each step. Her eyes were on the water below. The sharks were still out there, but they were the least of her worries now.

Vish waited at the top of the ladder and bent down to help her up.

“Are you okay, Captain?” he asked.

She nodded and unslung the laser rifle. With her injuries, it was easier to handle than an assault rifle, and it didn’t need reloading.

Turning on a flashlight, she followed Vish across the cargo hold of the Cazador vessel. She felt naked without her armor and helmet, but she couldn’t get the chest piece on without cutting off her breath, and she didn’t need her helmet here in this green zone.

The clean air filled her lungs as she walked through the open space. She swept the light over rusted barrels, plastic crates, and several old-world vehicles. Vish, holding a submachine gun, was waiting for her near an open hatch.

“This way,” he said.

She followed him into a passage where several bodies lay, their naked flesh covered in tattoos. The beam from her flashlight confirmed they were Cazador soldiers.

A laser bolt had opened a hole the size of an apple in the chest of a male, melting his insides away. She stepped over him and saw the dead eyes staring at the ceiling. Her heart pounded at her first up-close view of another human being who wasn’t from the sky—something she had never thought she would see.

“You okay, Cap?” Vish asked.

She nodded and pushed on, trying to keep her breathing and heart rate under control.

As she took a ladder down to the next level, she couldn’t help noticing an eerie similarity. Just like the Hive, this area reeked of despair. The stink of shit cans, body odor, and the scent of cooking meat filled her nostrils.

Open hatches provided glimpses into quarters previously occupied by the Cazador warriors. Trays with half-eaten meals sat on tables, and mugs of liquid sat where they were abandoned.

The Hell Divers had caught the enemy in the middle of the last meal they would ever eat.

“Almost there,” Vish said.

Katrina readied her blaster as they made their way deeper into the bowels of the ship. Playing cards were spread out across a metal table in the next quarters, the chairs all pulled away, one of them on its side. The common area even had a flat-screen television mounted on the rusted bulkhead.

In the next space, hundreds of boxes were stacked, all of them marked with symbols that appeared to be painted on by the Cazadores. Vish opened a hatch and gestured for Katrina to go inside. She stepped out onto a metal vestibule overlooking a long room that smelled of moldy fruit and decaying flesh. She covered her nose with her sleeve. Boxes, crates, and two massive containers rested on the deck below.

“Down the ladder, ma’am,” Vish said.

She led the way, her boots clanking on the metal. One of the rungs near the bottom was missing. She stepped carefully past it and raked her flashlight over the deck.

“Let me go first, Cap,” Vish said. He moved out in front, his rifle cradled across his blue battery unit. The young diver continued to impress Katrina. So did his brother. Maybe they would live up to the standard of divers after all.

They walked through a maze of boxes ten feet high, and more stacks of crates marked with faded letters.

“Alexander, you over here?” Vish asked.

“Yeah.”

Coughing followed, and then what sounded like sobbing. Katrina hurried around the large brown container, where Alexander and Trey guarded a group of ten Cazadores.

The men and women wore black suits and didn’t appear to be soldiers, but they didn’t look friendly.

Grease covered the features of a heavyset male who reminded her of Chief Engineer Samson. She walked over and looked down at the guy. He avoided her gaze, keeping his head down.

“We cleared the ship and took these people prisoner,” Alexander said. “But when we were finishing our sweep, we found this…”

He motioned away from the group of prisoners, toward the open doors of a long storage unit. Katrina made her way around one of the doors to find bars covering the entrance. She brought up her flashlight, and the filthy faces of over a dozen men, women, and children looked back at her.

Blankets, sleeping bags, and other filthy garments were spread out across the deck. Her light illuminated metal dishes and a row of buckets near the bars.

Now she knew where the shit-can stench was coming from.

“They don’t speak Spanish,” Alexander said. “Or English.”

Katrina held her light on the prisoners. One of the men moved away from the huddled group at the far end and approached the buckets as if immune to the smell.

He held his hand up to shield his eyes as she moved the beam over his dark skin. Salt-and-pepper black hair and a mostly gray beard clung to his emaciated features. A torn shirt hung from his bony frame.

The man tried to speak, but all that came out were noises. When the other divers directed their beams at his mouth, she saw why.

Someone had cut his tongue from his mouth.

Katrina swallowed hard at the gruesome sight. She moved the light to check the other people, focusing it on several young girls and a middle-aged woman, all with dark complexions. They all were rail thin and looked as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Both girls looked away, but the woman glared back at her.

Katrina could only imagine what these people had gone through. She holstered the blaster in an effort to seem less threatening. No need to terrorize these people any further.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” she said, holding up a hand. “We’re going to get you out of there.”

Several voices responded, all in the same foreign tongue. Nothing she recognized.

“Ma’am, there’s something else you should see,” Trey said quietly, as if he didn’t want to show her.

She stepped away from the barred gate and ordered Vish to stand guard. What could they possibly have found that was any worse than the sorry state of these prisoners?

“Steel yourself,” Alexander said. “This ain’t pretty.” He walked to another container, and with a shriek of metal, Trey opened one of the doors.

The sleeve over Katrina’s nostrils did nothing to keep out the rancid smell coming from the container. She shined her beam inside. On a table lay a rusty saw and a bloody hatchet right next to a hunk of…

She almost turned away from the grisly sight of a corpse, both legs sheared off and cauterized at the knee. Straps held down the dead man’s wrists. A carpet of dried blood surrounded the table.

Now she knew what was on the trays she had seen in the cabins earlier. The Cazadores’ final meal had been a feast of human flesh.

She walked back to the Cazador prisoners, fury building inside her. She wanted a closer look at the people capable of such an atrocity. Several of them looked away, but one man broke out in laughter.

She ended his mirth with a kick that broke out several teeth. The other prisoners began to squirm in their restraints, but Trey stilled them by firing a shot into the overhead. The round ricocheted off a wall.

Crying came from the container, but it wasn’t until something wet rolled down her face that Katrina realized she, too, was weeping. She forced her gaze away from the cannibals, back over to the bars of the container.

The man in tattered clothing pointed at the Cazador prisoners and then clenched his fists.

“Is he saying what I think he’s saying?” Trey asked.

“Hell if I know,” Vish replied. “Dude has no freaking tongue. How gross is that?”

Another man emerged from the back of the container and gently helped the old man to the side. This man wasn’t as thin, but Katrina could still count his ribs through his T-shirt.

He opened his mouth and tapped his chest.

“Victor,” he said.

“Captain Katrina DaVita,” she replied.

The man spoke again, pointing at the guy with no tongue. “Ton.”

Katrina nodded and said, “Nice to meet you, Ton.”

The man tried to speak again, but he could make no intelligible sound.

“Victor. Ton. Fight,” Victor said, raising his fists. He pointed at the Cazadores. Then he grabbed the lock in the bars and glared at Katrina.

“Victor. Ton. Fight.”

Alexander stepped up beside her.

“I think he’s saying, if we let them out they’ll help us fight,” she said.

“Ma’am, I’d highly advise against that,” Alexander said quietly. “We don’t know if these people are any better than the Cazadores.”

Katrina took a moment to scrutinize the other captives inside the container. It struck her then that she could just as easily have been staring into the lower decks of the Hive.

These people weren’t murderers. They weren’t cannibals. They just wanted to survive.

“Get them out of there and fed,” she said to Alexander. “I saw boxes of food on the way in.”

“What about the Cazadores?” Trey asked.

Katrina looked over her shoulder at the savages. She had no empathy left for these people. Snorting in disgust, she said, “Maybe those sharks are still hungry.”