Ghosts

ONE

Captain Leon Jordan jerked awake from a recurring nightmare. He sat up slowly to avoid the aluminum bulkhead that curved over his bed. Sweat traced the scar from his last run-in with it.

The nightmare was almost always the same. In it, X would somehow be in Jordan’s quarters, hovering over his bed with a combat knife in hand. What came next changed from dream to dream. Sometimes, X got his revenge slowly. Other times, he would kill Jordan with a quick slash across his throat. But every time, he would first ask Jordan one simple question: Why?

Jordan massaged his neck and shook off the fog of sleep. The buzz of an incoming transmission combined with the beeping of the alarm clock reminded him that he was already behind schedule.

He reached over Katrina DaVita, who lay sleeping beside him, to shut off the alarm.

“What time is it?” she murmured.

“Time to go over the night logs,” he said, yawning.

“And time for me to go back to sleep.” She patted the pillow and stuffed it back under her head.

Jordan studied her features in the faint glow of the computer screen across the small room. The rules on the Hive were clear—officers weren’t supposed to sleep together. But he couldn’t stop himself any more than he could stop himself now from staring at the beauty lying beside him. His eyes flitted down to the defined curves of her long, muscular legs. She was easily the most beautiful woman on the ship, and she was all his.

Good thing he was the captain. Rules could be bent when you were at the top of the pecking order. But with that power also came a heavy burden. Years ago, when Captain Maria Ash handed him the reins, he had realized just how heavy it was. This morning, he had a hundred things on his mind. They had just lost an entire harvest of corn, and power curtailments continued to cause unrest. Even worse were the whispers of a new illness on the lower decks. At times, it was almost too much to bear. Every minute of every day, there was a crisis somewhere on the ship.

He put a hand to his forehead. Not even fully awake yet, and already he felt exhausted just thinking about his to-do list. Years of sleeping no more than three hours at a time had resulted in a chronic migraine. But that was what it took to keep this rusting hulk of metal and helium bladders together.

With a sigh, he put his feet on the cold floor and crossed the small room, which was furnished with everything a person needed: a bed, a desk, a sink, and a shit can cordoned off by a faded curtain.

Jordan picked up a mug from his desk and took a slug of the cold coffee within. Better than nothing, but it still tasted terrible.

The incoming transmission alert was still buzzing.

“Will you turn that damn thing off?” Katrina mumbled.

He downed the rest of his mug and tapped the monitor. The screen flickered on at his touch, and he killed the sound with a swipe of his finger. He keyed in his security code and scrolled through the most recent messages. The first was from Chief Engineer Samson—something about a gas bladder issue that had already been solved. The next was an update from medical—a new case of the mysterious illness, and yet another stillborn baby.

He skimmed Dr. Tim Free’s notes about a lower-decker admitted to the clinic, suffering from hallucinations, fever, and internal bleeding. It had to be from the radiation. That was also why they were losing so many babies. He had to get Samson to fix the damn leakage, but doing so meant another dive to the surface to collect parts.

Jordan cursed, reaching again for the mug before he remembered it was empty. Even the captain didn’t get unlimited rations, but perhaps one of the junior officers would be willing to sacrifice for the good of the ship.

“What is it?” Katrina said. She sat up and brushed aside a wisp of hair that had escaped her braid.

“Another stillborn,” he replied. “That makes two this month.”

Neither of them said a word for several moments. Jordan discreetly directed his gaze at her stomach. She was three months pregnant now, but they hadn’t told anyone. Soon, they wouldn’t be able to hide her condition—or their relationship. Some people already knew, and he would just have to deal with any repercussions when the time came.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will be fine, I promise. Go back to bed. You need your sleep.”

Katrina gave him a strained smile and laid her head back on the pillow. They both knew the odds of having a healthy baby were stacked against them. The last healthy child had been born six months ago. With the population of the Hive down to 443 people, it was vitally important that their baby be strong.

He read through the remaining messages. A fire in engineering, a fight in the trading post due to a price hike on tomatoes, and a dispute over rations, which led to a mini riot on the lower decks. Typical day on the Hive. The final message, however, made him pause. He read the subject line a second time.

Midnight.

Jordan glanced at Katrina to make sure she wasn’t watching. Her naked back rose and sank rhythmically. She was already asleep. He positioned his shoulders so she couldn’t see the computer if she woke up again. She was his executive officer, but there were things that even the XO mustn’t see.

“Midnight” was a top secret code for radio signals or transmissions picked up from the surface. Captain Ash had wasted a lot of time on them. She had believed there were survivors down there and that someday she would find a habitable place to put the ship down. Everything Jordan had seen proved otherwise. The only transmissions they picked up were decades, even centuries, old. Many of the bunkers below the blasted surface had generators and batteries that lasted far longer than the occupants, thus allowing messages to replay long after the last humans were dead.

The last time he had sent Hell Divers to follow up on a transmission, only one man returned. Still, part of his duty was to investigate any potential survivors, which meant listening to every radio transmission and signal they picked up, even if it was two hundred years old.

He put on his headset and hit the play button. A surge of static hissed in his ears; then a female voice.

“This is Governor Rhonda Meredith of the Hilltop Bastion, requesting support from anyone out there. The—”

Static.

“We are low on food and ammunition.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow at that.

“We can’t keep them back much longer. Please, please send support to the following coordinates…”

What were they fighting down there?

He cupped his hands over his headset. Flurries of static crackled across the line. The sound cut out. He clicked on the message again, but the signal was too weak. He would have to see whether Ensign Hunt could capture more of it. They had a deal: any messages picked up by the satellites came straight to Jordan. In return, he provided Hunt’s young family with a few extra credits each month. The last thing Jordan wanted were rumors flying around the Hive about people down there—or about the monsters.

Jordan and Hunt weren’t the only ones who kept the ship’s secrets. The Hell Divers followed similar rules. Never speak about what you saw on the surface. Never give the population any more reason to worry.

But not even the Hell Divers knew what Jordan did.

He was pulling off the headset when he saw a second message marked “Midnight.” Two in one night? The odds of that were basically impossible. The last time they heard anything from the surface was months ago, and that transmission had proved to be over a century old. It was the same one that cost him three divers.

Jordan settled the headset back over his ears. He clicked play and leaned closer to the monitor. This time, the message came through clearly. It was one he had heard many times, and he sighed as he listened to it yet again.

“If anyone’s out there, this is Commander Xavier Rodriguez. I’m leaving Hades and heading east toward the coast.”

Attached to the message was a note from Ensign Hunt:

Sir, we have a potential problem. Someone has been poking around in the restricted archives, and they may have intercepted this message.

Jordan groaned inwardly. Only a few people on the ship were capable of hacking into the archives, and even fewer were stupid enough to try it. Whoever it was needed to be dealt with swiftly.

A hand on his shoulder made him flinch. He craned his neck to see Katrina standing behind him with her arms folded across her robe, revealing the tattoos of an angel and a raptor on her forearms.

Jordan quickly pulled off the headset and said, “What are you…?” Then he saw the militia soldier standing in the open hatch.

“Sorry to bother you at this hour, Captain.” The young man’s features were tense in the blue light of the computer monitor.

“Speak,” Jordan said.

“It’s a storm, sir. Came out of nowhere. Ensign Ryan says they need you on the bridge.”

“I’ll be right there.”

The guard retreated into the hallway, where a second militia soldier held security with an automatic rifle. The passage outside was empty; most of the upper-deckers were still asleep. That would soon change when Jordan ordered his crew back to their stations.

Katrina frowned. “I guess I’d better get dressed.”

While she put on her uniform, Jordan sat back down and typed a message to Hunt:

I will deal with the security breach. Get me the coordinates for the Hilltop Bastion.

Jordan turned slightly to watch Katrina. She had made a damn fine Hell Diver, which was exactly why he had appointed her his second-in-command shortly after they started sleeping together. In doing so, he had saved her. He knew what was down there on the surface. The fate of every diver was always the same… except for one man.

Somehow, Commander Xavier Rodriguez had survived on the surface all these years. There were other messages from X, noting his trek across the wastelands, but the most common was the recurring dispatch from Hades.

Jordan had made the decision to keep the information a secret, despite the nightmares and the guilt that tore at him daily. He knew he was condemning a man to death—or at the very least, the worst kind of life imaginable, for however long X could survive it. A man who, of all people, certainly didn’t deserve that fate. But he couldn’t risk the cost in lives and fuel to return to Hades for one man. Plus, Katrina had loved X once, and it had taken her a long time to move past her grief. How could he tell her X had survived all these years? He couldn’t. She could never find out. He would do whatever it took to maintain order on his ship and protect his people from the truths they couldn’t handle.

Looking over his shoulder, he checked to make sure Katrina wasn’t watching. Her deep-brown eyes, the color of his coffee, focused on him.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked.

Jordan shook his head. “No, everything’s fine.”

“I’ll meet you on the bridge,” she said. “I need to stop by engineering first.”

As soon as she had gone, Jordan let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and turned back to the screen. He selected the SOS from X, tapped the message twice with his finger, and held it for a moment to delete it.

The voice on the transmission was nothing more than an echo.

A ghost.

Standing with his back to the wall in the launch bay of the Hive, Commander Michael Everhart watched the portholes on the starboard side of the ship. Rays of crimson shot through the filthy glass, filling the room with a warm light that showed every scratch, ding, and shoddy patch job. The ship was falling apart everywhere. It wasn’t that the occupants didn’t care. They just didn’t have the resources, and every time they fixed a problem, another would pop up. Hell Divers continued to scavenge the Earth below, and the engineers on the ship continued to recycle and repurpose, but there was only so much they could do.

Michael remained in the shadows, away from the warmth of the sunlight—not because he liked the darkness, but because it hid the worry on his face. His Hell Diver team needed a heroic leader. Someone like X. Michael hadn’t always liked or respected X growing up, but during the short time the man was his guardian following his father’s death, he had learned some important lessons about honor, sacrifice, and courage.

Now, ten years later, a lot had changed. Michael had traded in his tinfoil hat for a Hell Diver’s helmet, and the skinny kid was now muscular from countless hours working in engineering and training as a Hell Diver. With thirty successful jumps under his belt, he had quickly risen through the ranks to lead Team Raptor. His father had been a Raptor, and so had X. Could he live up to their legacy? At times like this, when the ship seemed to be hanging on by a thread, he wasn’t sure.

The screech of metal doors pulled him back from the darkness, and a woman’s voice reminded him that there was still light in the world.

“Sorry I’m late, Tin.”

Michael turned to face the one person he truly trusted on this godforsaken ship.

“I told you not to call me that anymore,” he said, grinning.

Across the room, past the rows of plastic domes covering the drop tubes, stood Layla Brower. She heaved the strap of a duffel bag higher on her shoulder and then closed the double doors to the hallway. They squeaked shut, sealing the room in shadows once again.

“The name’s endearing,” she said, dropping her bag and striding over to him. “As your girlfriend, I’m allowed to call you what I want, right?”

“Right,” Michael said. “Except ‘Tin.’ You can’t call me that.” He stepped away from the wall and met Layla in the center of the vaulted launch bay. They stood under a small pool of red light from the emergency bulb overhead. He held her gaze, staring into her curious brown eyes. He had fallen in love with those eyes when he was just a kid, and sometimes he still couldn’t believe that she felt the same about him. He never forgot how lucky he was, even when she was teasing him. Especially when she was teasing him.

“Fine, Michael,” Layla said. She wrapped her arms around him and pecked his cheek.

“That’s my good-morning kiss?” he asked. He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. When he pulled away, her smile broadened and her cheeks glowed. She reached out to touch his shoulder-length blond hair.

“You really need a haircut, Tin,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah.” Michael rolled his eyes. No matter what he did, she was never going to stop calling him that stupid nickname. But that was okay, as long as the other divers kept calling him “Commander.”

They walked together to the drop tubes. Layla stubbed her toe on the lip of a tube hidden in the dim light, and began muttering.

“I really wish they would extend the working hours,” she said. “Can’t get anything done with this stupid energy curtailment. I was hoping to cook us dinner tonight. I used our rations on some really nice squash, and now we probably won’t even get to eat it before it goes bad.”

“I’m not going to be home until late anyway,” Michael said.

Layla halted and let out an exasperated sigh. “Why not?”

“Samson wants me to pull another shift.”

“Again?”

“I’m sorry. You know how much I look forward to our dinners.”

“We only get one night a week together, Michael. Just one.”

He looked at his boots. He hated letting her down, but they both had duties they couldn’t neglect. He wasn’t the only one with two jobs. Layla doubled as an engineer in the water treatment plant when they weren’t diving to the surface.

Glancing up, he met her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to sneak away for dinner. Things will calm down soon.”

“Maybe, but before they do, we’re going back down there.” She stalked over to her launch tube and looked through the plastic dome. Clouds hid the surface, but they both knew the dangers awaiting them below.

They stood for a few moments in silence, both of them likely thinking the same thing. The ship was running low on fuel cells again. There were never enough. For over a year now, Michael and the other Hell Diver teams had been scouring every known green-zone location for the ITC-manufactured cells, but they had come back empty-handed more often than not—those who had come back at all.

Something had to give. There weren’t many green-zone locations left, and Jordan was going to have to start making some tough choices.

A sharp jolt rocked the Hive, throwing both of them against the side of Layla’s drop tube. He steadied himself and helped her back to her feet.

“What the hell was that?” Layla huffed.

The room lit up with a cool blue radiance that answered her question. Outside the porthole windows, lightning jagged across the sky. A massive storm was brewing.

“At least we can see now,” Michael said.

An emergency alarm barked from the public-address speakers in the corner of the room. The recorded female voice Michael had listened to his entire life repeated a message he had heard a thousand times.

He turned to watch the portholes.

“It never lasts, does it?” Layla whispered, leaning against him.

He didn’t ask her what she meant. He already knew. The silence, the sense of peace—they never lasted long. On the Hive, calm was an illusion.