Wolves

NINETEEN

Katrina stood on the bridge of the naval warship, looking out over the broad deck and a helicopter landing pad. Gun turrets and machine guns pointed at the dark waters ahead.

Jaideep patrolled outside, his blue battery unit glowing in the darkness, holding one of the two laser rifles they had brought back from Red Sphere.

Katrina had considered going back for more of the weapons and the satellite dish to help boost their signal. They still hadn’t been able to contact Deliverance, the Hive, or the Sea Wolf, but she decided it was too risky to return to the facility. Who knew how many more robots were waiting inside the facility below Red Sphere?

No, for now they needed to stay the course, even if it felt as if they were drifting farther away from their home.

Deliverance was still hovering twenty-five thousand feet above Red Sphere, where she had instructed Ensign White to remain until further orders.

She moved over to the helm, where Layla had connected her minicomputer to start the ship. The powerful device was almost the same thing as having an AI on board, with the added benefit that they didn’t have to worry about the computers killing them.

Katrina brushed the dust off a plaque on the bulkhead, centered between two portholes.

Hundreds of years ago, a naval officer, maybe even a captain, had once stood on the bridge where she was now—someone with a family, with hopes, with dreams. They had given orders that affected not only the lives of their crew, but also the lives of thousands, maybe even millions, of others. Those orders had likely helped lead to the events that left Katrina in charge of some of the last survivors of the human race.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

Her last orders had killed two precious Hell Divers and injured two more. A tarp covered the headless corpse of Erin Jenkins, a few rooms away. At least they had been able to bring her body onto the ship. There was some consolation in knowing she wasn’t still back there.

The same couldn’t be same for Ramon Ochoa. The green diver was forever lost to the cold waters. The thought sent a chill through Katrina. It was odd to think that a man who had spent his entire life in the sky would spend eternity in the darkness of the vast sea, never having set foot on solid earth.

But, of course, he wasn’t the first diver left behind. Plenty of others had left their frozen bones back in Hades and elsewhere.

She studied the plaque another moment. What had happened to the crew? Why hadn’t the machines used this boat to leave Red Sphere after killing Dr. Diaz and his team?

“Captain, can we have a moment,” said a deep voice.

She turned to see Les and Layla entering the bridge.

“How are Michael and Edgar?” she asked them.

“They’ll both be okay, but Michael is…” Layla lowered her gaze.

“He’s a tough diver,” Katrina said. “Try not to worry. We need to stay positive.”

“Any luck contacting Deliverance?” asked Les, stepping forward.

She shook her head. “Still can’t break through that electrical storm. Haven’t been able to reach the Hive or the Sea Wolf, either.”

“At least you got what you wanted, right?” Layla asked.

Katrina frowned. “How do you mean?”

“This boat. I hope it’s worth the price we paid back at Red Sphere.” Layla took a step ahead of Les, a bold act in a place where, once, officers had never dared question their superiors.

Katrina wasn’t a military leader, but she couldn’t let her young friend get away with such blatant disrespect in front of her second in command.

“You’re out of line, Layla,” Katrina said, matching Layla’s step with two of her own so that they stood face-to-face. “I don’t expect you to agree with every decision I make. I do, however, expect you to trust me. I know that what happened is tragic, but we needed this destroyer.”

“For what? To take the Metal Islands?” Her tone bordered on incredulous. “We don’t even know they exist. For all we know, it was some made-up bullshit that X thought he heard when the Cazadores captured him. He wasn’t all there when we first found him, you know.”

“The Cazadores are real, and so are the islands they come from. We don’t have an army to take them when the time comes, but we do have something the Cazadores don’t have.”

Les swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He remained silent, stiff, and respectful. For a moment, Katrina saw a naval officer standing in front of her just as one might have done 260 years ago. Layla, on the other hand, still seemed to want to argue.

Katrina cupped her hands behind her back and walked over to the porthole windows to look out over the waves.

“Do you remember the prophecy Jordan tried to cut out like a cancer when he killed Janga? Her prophecy of a man leading us to a new home in the ocean?”

She turned back to the two divers. “I was never one to believe in stuff like that. ‘Fairy tales’ is what I called them. But…” She forced a half smile. “The Sea Wolf made me believe. Finding X made me believe.”

“So now you’re putting all your trust in a prophecy?” Layla asked. “In something based on the words of a woman that we all agree was crazy? I trusted you, Captain, up until the point you sent us to Red Sphere when you knew damn well it wasn’t safe. All so you could get this boat.”

“Captain DaVita risked her live to save ours,” Les said. “I say you give her some credit.”

Letting out a sigh, Katrina walked back over to Layla and Les. She put a hand on Layla’s shoulder and waited for her to meet her gaze.

“I have a plan. You have to trust me. I know that plan may put Michael at risk because of how he feels about X, and I know that’s where some of your angst comes from, but we have to think of the future of humanity.”

Layla’s eyes flitted to the floor, then back up to hers. “I know. I’m… I’m sorry. I do trust you.”

“No need to apologize. Every captain has had a different plan for the souls aboard the Hive. Mine is just as fragile as the others, but it gives us all hope.”

Layla took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Les, try the radio again,” Katrina said. “Layla, let’s take a walk.”

She guided Layla out of the bridge and up a ladder to the command center.

“They used to call this the ‘island,’” Katrina said. “Best view on the ship.”

“I should really get back to Michael.”

“I thought he was sleeping.”

“He is.”

“Just stay up here for one minute,” Katrina said. “I want you to see something.”

The hatch at the top of the ladder opened to a room no wider than twenty feet. The cracked glass windows provided them a panoramic view of the ship and the ocean around them.

Lightning speared the clouds overhead, firing up the sky for a single moment before letting it shade back into dark.

Katrina walked over to a view of the bow. Although they were more than 150 feet above, she could still see Jaideep down on the weather deck, his battery unit spreading a cool blue glow over the metal surface. A heavy mist hovered over the ocean. They were heading farther and farther away from Red Sphere.

“Quite the view,” Layla said.

“Yes, it is.”

Katrina looked up at the sky, wondering where Deliverance was in this moment.

“Did you want to talk to me about something?” Layla asked, turning slightly to study Katrina in the sporadic flashes of lightning.

“No. I just wanted you to see this view. To understand why I have made the decisions I’ve made.”

Layla nodded as if she understood, but Katrina wasn’t sure anyone could understand what was going on in her mind and heart. Michael was a good man, one of the best left in this apocalyptic world. Her orders had almost killed him on this mission. Of course Layla resented Katrina for it.

On top of that, the events of the past few months continued to fill her with the poison of regret. Losing her child was the worst part. Katrina had never felt so alone in her life. Part of her had wanted to die back at Red Sphere.

“Are you okay, Captain?” Layla said.

“Yes, I’m…” Katrina’s words trailed off when she saw something in the wake of a lightning bolt. “What is that?”

Layla followed her gaze toward the radio towers overhead. Halfway up, a figure clung to one of the metal posts.

“Is that a body?” Katrina asked.

“Sure looks like one, but it’s got to be fifty feet above us.”

Katrina reached for her holstered blaster, but slowly let her hand fall back down when the next lightning flash showed the skeletal corpse—not a threat.

A voice yelled up from the bridge below, and Katrina moved back to the ladder and looked down at Les.

“Commander, I just picked up a scrambled transmission from the Sea Wolf,” he said.

Both women hurried down the ladder to the command center, where they met at the communication station. The worried mask on Les’ face told Katrina something was wrong.

“It’s an SOS,” he said. “Here, listen.”

Magnolia’s voice crackled through the room.

“If anyone picks this up, we’re at the following coordinates and need help. We’re under attack by Cazadores. Several boats. X is overboard. I’m trying to…”

The feed fizzled out.

“Did you get the coordinates?” Katrina asked.

Les nodded. “Hold on… There’s more.”

He twiddled the knob. Static filled the room, then cleared.

“We found the Metal Islands,” Magnolia said. “They’re real. They’re real and there’s sun here.”

“By God, they found it,” Layla whispered.

Les looked up at Katrina, eyes wide with amazement and fear.

Fear for their friends—fear for the future of the airships.

“The boat is being boarded,” Magnolia said. “I don’t have long, but here are the coordinates. If we die, don’t let it be for nothing. Bring Deliverance and the Hive here. This is what we’ve all been dream—”

The feed shut off.

“How long ago was this message sent?” Katrina asked.

“I’m not sure, but I did manage to get the coordinates,” Les said. He took a seat at a station, typed, and said, “Here’s a map.”

Layla leaned over to read. “Pyooerta Ricoo,” she mumbled.

“Virgin Islands, actually,” Les said. “But not quite. The Metal Islands look to be off the coast…”

Katrina took a few seconds to think before giving orders she had never thought she would give. “Set the course, and gather everyone. It’s time to start planning for a war.”

Magnolia stared out at what was supposed to be her future home—the place in Janga’s prophecy, where the population of the Hive was to live. X was supposed to lead them here.

And lead them he had. But when they finally discovered the Metal Islands, things hadn’t quite gone according to plan. In fact, things could not have gone much worse. She had pinned her only hope on a last-minute SOS to the Hive and Deliverance—a final act before the Cazadores broke down the command-center hatch and beat her into submission.

Her swollen eyelids all but blocked out the view of the oil rigs in the distance, but she forced them open to see the clusters of towers. The rusted metal poles and platforms rose out of the water, like scrapers built in the ocean.

Smoke billowed from the slow-moving boat’s makeshift stack, choking her every time the wind shifted. The slow ride gave her plenty of time to check out this strange city on water as she contemplated her fate. If she was going to die, she at least could die having seen the sun.

Rays streamed through a gap in the clouds that seemed to go on for miles. The Cazadores were taking full advantage of the sunshine. Solar panels hung off the decks like satellite dishes pointing toward the sky for a signal, feeding energy to the people here.

Lush plants grew out of rectangular troughs at the edge of several of the levels. The vibrant canopies and vines drooped over the edge like a green waterfall. Dozens of platforms and the top of the oil rigs were dedicated to green and brown plots of farmland. There were even… Could those be real?

She tried to push herself up for a better view over the smoke, but her ribs ached and her eyelids were continuing to swell. Grasping the bars, she pulled herself up until her head bumped the bars overhead.

On the upper decks of the oil rigs, thick brown trunks supported leafy green branches that arched toward the sunlight. This was no garden.

This was a forest full of mature trees.

Real freaking trees!

Rodger would have loved this place.

Miles growled beside her, obviously not as impressed with the view as she was. He snarled at an approaching Cazador soldier, who banged the outside of the cage with the butt of his speargun.

“Cállate, perro,” the man growled, baring sharp teeth of his own. “¡Cállate!”

Magnolia put her fingers to her swollen eye. The man gave a pitiless grin. He was one of the three who had beaten her on the Sea Wolf and ripped her shirt.

I’m going to cut that hand off soon.

She just needed a chance to escape. Either that or to hold on long enough for X to mount a rescue. Knowing him, he was already coming up with a plan. She prayed that Katrina had picked up her SOS.

If they’re still alive.

Something told her X was still out there, but she had no idea what had happened to the divers at Red Sphere.

The guilt and pain hit her hard—a messy combination that filled her with a deep despair. Being trapped like a wild animal in this cage didn’t help.

She grabbed the bars and shouted, “Let me out of here!”

The men exchanged glances and then broke into deep laughter, one of them gripping his belly he was laughing so hard.

“Go ahead and laugh it up, you ugly fools,” she hissed, backing away from the bars. Her body hurt all over from the beating back on the Sea Wolf. She had fought hard, killing one of the Cazadores. She could see the body lying on the deck near the stern, dark blood pooled around it.

Fucker isn’t laughing now.

To the right of the corpse lay her gear and helmet—the only connection she still had to the outside world. Miles nudged up against her side. He had a nasty cut on his forehead, and she was surprised he was still standing.

The fight replayed in her mind as she tried to calm the dog. The three Cazador soldiers had broken into the Sea Wolf and climbed down the ladder to the first deck, where she had killed the first man.

She might have gotten the other two, but her magazine had jammed, and by the time she grabbed her curved blade, they were running down the hallway. She would have slammed the hatch, but Miles jumped out to attack them. That was when he caught a rifle butt to the head.

When Miles went limp, she had done the stupidest thing ever and run screaming at the two attackers, with her blade out. She hacked and stabbed, but their thick armor reflected most of the blows, and within seconds they had her on the deck, where they beat her until she stopped fighting.

Pinned to the deck, she was helpless as they stripped her down to her T-shirt and pants. The bastard with the rotting grin ripped her shirt, exposing her breasts, but a third man had come inside and shook his head.

“Aún no,” he had said.

Magnolia swallowed at the memory. She sensed that they were saving her for someone. And she had an idea who.

She pulled her torn shirt across her chest and scooted away from the bars, avoiding the gaze of her would-be rapist.

The boat slowed again as they approached the cluster of oil rigs. Several of the structures had bridges connecting them. People fanned out across them for a look at the prisoners as the vessel approached.

She pulled Miles close, wrapping her arms around him. His blue eyes darted across the decks, and his nostrils flared, taking in information.

“Don’t worry, X is coming for us,” she whispered, though the words didn’t reassure her all that much. She tried to keep her fear in check, but she knew what would happen to them shortly. The Cazadores were going to rape and probably torture her and eat Miles.

She had to do something. But what could she do?

Hundreds of people stood on the platforms and the bridges between them. She was close enough now to see their grubby skin and tattered clothes, which reminded her of lower-deckers on the Hive. Many were heavily tattooed, with skin bronzed by a life outdoors—nothing like the pale complexions of people who had never seen the sun in all their lives. A few had skin that gleamed almost black, and scattered among them were others almost as pale as she was, with straw-colored hair even lighter than Captain DaVita’s. Surely, these people or their ancestors had come from many different places.

As the boat passed under the first bridge, several of the adults, and even some of the children, opened their mouths and clacked their sharpened teeth together. Their origins didn’t matter, she realized. They were cannibals, the lot of them—as foreign to her as if she were making first contact with an alien race. The clacking of teeth and squawking of children rose into a macabre cacophony.

Magnolia wondered whether inbreeding had played a part in their devolution. There had to be something going on—normal humans weren’t supposed to act this wild and barbaric.

She remembered, when she was younger, reading Locke’s concept of the state of nature. The social-contract theories delved into hypothetical conditions of what life was like before societies came into existence.

The Metal Islands clearly had some sort of social structure, but they were vastly less civilized than the Hive. On the airship, they had strict rules about not breeding with family members and not eating one another, for starters. Both those terrible acts resulted in physical and mental problems.

Most of the people she saw seemed crazy. And not the kind of crazy she could see in X after his ten years alone on the surface—more like demented.

Their hollow gazes, squawks, clacking teeth, and hollering followed the boat as it passed between the rigs. Magnolia took in a breath that smelled like manure and roasted meat.

She saw the source just overhead, where an entire deck of pigs and other livestock roamed on a dirt-covered floor. On the next deck, a roasting pig turned slowly over a low fire.

The boat continued between the stilts of the third rig, which blocked all else from view. The Cazador soldier rattled his speargun across the bars to get her attention. He leered at Magnolia, his eyes on her chest.

“Eres muy caliente,” he said.

“Fuck you,” she said, and gave a flick of her chin—a gesture that transcended the language barrier, a subtle way to tell him to screw off. This just made his smile even wider. He snapped his fingers at the driver of the boat, yelling “¡Caliente!” and then panting like a dog.

Miles let out a low whine.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

But it wasn’t okay. This was supposed to be heaven, not hell.

She would have preferred to face Sirens in Hades than these inbred, brutish cannibals.

“¡Rápido!” yelled one of the Cazadores.

The pilot pushed down on the control stick, and the boat surged ahead, picking up speed and creating a sizable wake behind them. She turned to watch the Cazadores on the oil rigs. A girl on one of the decks raised a hand and waved at Magnolia. The mother slapped her hand.

A memory surfaced in Magnolia’s mind, of her own mother doing the same thing many years ago. That was the worst part about her memories from that age: she remembered only the bad ones—at least about her parents.

Because there were no good ones.

She sighed and turned back to stern. In the distance, dozens of rigs rose above the water, shimmering in the sun.

This wasn’t just a city of islands—it was a small state.

There had to be hundreds of people living here, perhaps even thousands.

How could the Hive and Deliverance fight that many? They were down to just under five hundred people, and most weren’t fighters. Hell, most of them weren’t even well.

There was another option, of course.

If you can’t fight them, join them.

Maybe she should try to make peace. Negotiate the fate of her people with whoever was in charge here. Maybe there was a way to live in harmony.

Another memory surfaced in her mind: the day that el Pulpo had skewered Rodger like a bug.

No. There was no negotiating with these people.

The man with the speargun yelled at her, but she ignored him, stroking Miles softly behind the ears. She had to stay strong for when the end came.

The boat continued toward the next rig, a two-story structure with an open roof. Instead of slowing as before, the driver picked up speed and swung around the platforms, giving Magnolia a view of what the Cazadores were storing inside their warehouse.

Shriveled drapes hung from hooks in the open floors. But no, not drapes at all. They were hundreds of fish and other animals, filleted and drying in the sun that streamed in through the open roof.

Magnolia squeezed Miles tight when she saw the light-gray hide of a sea creature she had always dreamed of seeing since first saw them in a book as a child. Two Cazador workers used a hatchet to cleave away hunks from the recently caught dolphin.

Blood ran down the drying flesh and added to that on the deck.

“No,” she choked.

How could these people kill such a splendid animal, among the smartest on the planet? A tear caressed her cheek.

She looked away from the slaughterhouse to watch a ship carving through the water to the west, away from the dark horizon where the storms still reigned. Containers were packed three deep on the deck. The ship must be returning from a supply run to the mainland.

As they drew closer, Magnolia could see on the deck cages like her own. Animals of some sort were moving inside them.

Over the cough of the engine rose the electronic wails that had haunted her sleep since her first dive.

Not animals. Sirens.

She hugged Miles at the ghastly sight that further confirmed there was no making peace with these people. The Cazadores didn’t just eat humans—they ate dolphins, and captured Sirens to use for God only knew what.

She couldn’t imagine the civilized people on the Hive and Deliverance ever coexisting with such horrid people. But when Hell Divers did make it here and went to war with the Cazadores, they would try to save everyone who was willing to join the civilized society they had established in the skies.

If the Hell Divers came. She just had to hope they would, and survive until then.

“It’s going to be okay, buddy,” Magnolia whispered. “Our friends are coming for us.”