It was Rhett, the elder son of the murdered sky engineer. He came running at Javier with a knife in his hand, screaming about his father.
“No!” Rhino shouted as Javier got to his knees and brought up his sword.
The boy leaped.
An anguished scream followed as X came running across the arena. Rhino got to Javier first and flicked the spear point under his jawline, slicing him from chin to ear.
X slid on his knees to where the boy lay crumpled with a foot of bloody steel jutting between his shoulders. He took two more breaths, gave a rattling gasp, and fell limp in the king’s arms.
X closed the staring eyes and looked up at Rhino.
“What have I done?” he moaned. “What have I done…?”
ELEVEN
The encrypted radio channel crackled with a message from Star Grazer. Les could make out snippets of General Santiago’s words, but not enough to string into anything meaningful. Not so much because it was in Spanish, which Les had gotten tolerably good at, but the warship was twenty thousand feet below them, and the electrical storm was chopping up their comms.
The Cazadores were nearing the first stop on their journey: a fuel depot that no sky person had ever seen. Known as Bloodline, it was one of two such hidden outposts.
Les glanced at the map on his monitor again to confirm that they were almost to the coastline of a country once named Venezuela.
“I always wondered where they got their oil,” he said.
Timothy had explained how, before the war, ITC scientists had developed a stabilizer to preserve both gasoline and diesel fuel indefinitely. The sky people had never needed gasoline to power their airships, which ran on nuclear fuel cells. Other than parts and medical supplies, the only other thing they needed was helium, to keep the ships in the air.
The Cazadores, by contrast, needed petroleum-based fuels for practically everything, including this mission. Since the depot was on the way, the ship had left port without refueling from the dwindling reserves back at home. Without stopping to refuel now, they wouldn’t have enough diesel to get to Rio de Janeiro and home again.
The Iron Reef was in the opposite direction, two hundred miles west of the Vanguard Islands, at a place called Belize.
Another message broke over the channel.
“Timothy, you get any of that?” Les asked.
“Some of it, sir,” he replied.
“Well, enlighten us.”
Eevi and Layla looked over from their stations.
“Sir, they are asking for our assistance,” Timothy said.
The speakers popped again with another message from Santiago. This time, Timothy was able to translate in real time.
“General Santiago said they sent an advance team,” the AI said, “but the outpost has been damaged severely. He’s worried there could be defectors or… something else.”
“Or maybe it could have been the hurricane,” Layla said.
“Highly unlikely,” Timothy replied.
“So what’s he want us to do?” Les asked.
“To lower Discovery and check it out from the sky—or send a team of divers.” Timothy’s voice caught slightly, as if he understood the perils implicit in such a request.
“Could be a trap,” Eevi said.
Les frowned at her cynicism.
“Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt,” Layla said. “If they wanted to kill us, they could shoot us out of the sky pretty easily with the ordnance they have.”
Les appreciated having Layla back on the bridge. She had always been a voice of reason, much as her mentor, Katrina DaVita, had been during her time as captain.
“Look, I think we all should be suspicious,” said Eevi. “My husband is one of the divers they want to go down there.” She paused and then added, “Has it occurred to you that they might want our ship?”
“Yes,” Les said. “It has, actually. If they could steal Discovery, they would have the upper hand in both numbers and firepower. But that isn’t going to happen.”
“No, it won’t, because you have me,” Timothy said, smiling.
Les would have smiled, too, but the airship shook viciously in a pocket of turbulence.
“Going to get rougher before it calms down,” Eevi said, checking her monitor. “This storm is growing, so I hope you aren’t seriously considering descending. What about sending Cricket?”
“The drone will never make it through the storm,” Layla said. “But maybe if we do descend, we could deploy it. Assuming Michael has finished his modifications. I know he’s been working on the thrusters.”
Les took a moment to consider his options. The hurricane had already pummeled Discovery during the first leg of the flight. And the threat of lightning made this storm even worse.
As if to emphasize the danger they were still in, thunder rattled the hull.
“Timothy, do you have a map in the database of this facility?” Les asked.
“Negative, sir,” Timothy replied. “All we have is an old map of the surrounding area, and the current readings from our sensors.”
“Pull them up on the main monitor.”
“One moment, sir.”
Les unbuckled his seat harness and walked over to the mounted wall screen. Eevi and Layla joined him there.
“No wonder General Santiago wants our help,” Eevi said. “It’s a red zone.”
“And they have a team that actually lives here full time?” Layla asked. “How could they survive?”
It wasn’t just radiation that had Les concerned. “Those toxicity levels are sky-high,” he said. “A minute without an air filter, and you’d be dead.”
“Definitely a hostile environment,” Timothy said.
Ten minutes later, another message broke over the open channel.
“General Santiago’s advance team has returned from reconnoitering the facility,” Timothy reported. “He said they can’t access the piers or the facility, and is again asking us to recon from the sky for a separate route.”
Les could tell right away that Eevi didn’t like the suggestion, and Layla didn’t seem too fond of it, either. But their preferences didn’t really matter. What mattered was that they do their part, because when they reached the main target, they would need every warrior they could get, and without fuel, Star Grazer wouldn’t make the journey home.
“Prepare to take us down, Timothy,” Les ordered. “I want to see what we’re dealing with before I commit to sending in Team Raptor or Cricket.”
Timothy nodded. “On it, sir.”
“Layla, ready the weapons. I want to be ready for any hostile contacts.”
“You got it, Captain.”
Les pulled the handset off the dash and opened a channel shipwide.
“This is Captain Mitchells. We’re heading to the surface, and things are going to get bumpy. Please report to your shelters or buckle in wherever you are.”
He returned to his chair, strapped in, and fingered his monitor to make sure their exterior shields were fully deployed.
All but one of the fifty panels flashed operational. As long as they didn’t take multiple lightning hits, the shield over that sector of the hull would hold.
“Execute, Timothy,” Les said. “Forty-five-degree down angle.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” the AI replied.
The bow slowly dipped, and the airship cut through the clouds, accelerating. Lightning arced across flight path. A strike hit but was absorbed by the shield.
Layla shot Les a concerned look.
“We’re fine, Lieutenant,” he said.
Halfway to the surface, the storm intensified, and Les almost choked on his words. The ship took multiple strikes, resulting in several alarms.
“We’ve sustained damage on the starboard side,” Layla reported. “Two shields are at ten percent. Another hit, and we could see some internal damage.”