“Glad I’m not the only one,” Ted replied.
X sighed, shaking his head. “Lieutenant, I’ll meet you in the command center in five. Rhino, you’d better inform the other Cazador officers on Elysium about the transmission,” he said. “Report back here tomorrow morning.”
Rhino lingered after Sloan and Ted left.
“Did you hear me?” X asked.
“Yes, King Xavier, but there is something I want you to know.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve served many men in my life, but unlike most of them, you have the heart and the mind of a good man. You are the leader your people deserve, the leader we all deserve. And I know you will make the right decision about Ada.”
He stepped so close, X could smell his breath.
“But if you don’t, it will be the end of your people and mine.” He clapped X on the shoulder and then turned, twirling his spear once before tucking it under his arm.
If X didn’t know better, Rhino had just followed up a compliment with a veiled threat.
“Prepare to intercept Cricket,” Timothy said.
Several hours after the ambush at the fuel station, Discovery’s crew was finally retrieving the drone from the tower of the destroyed outpost. Les had just finished the detox procedures to ensure he hadn’t brought any dangerous chemicals or microorganisms back from the surface, and he was now back on the bridge of the airship.
An acid rainstorm had moved into the area, and it was coming down in sheets so thick he could hardly see the dark silhouette of the tower in the distance. But he could see the beam from the robot flying toward the airship with the new thrusters Michael had installed.
Sitting bolt upright in the captain’s chair, Les waited anxiously for the robot and for a chance to talk to General Santiago about the monsters they had encountered.
“Sir, I got through to Lieutenant Sloan and informed her of what happened,” Layla said. “Unfortunately, this new storm is playing havoc with outgoing transmissions.”
“Keep trying,” Les said. “I want to talk to X.”
“Will do, sir.”
“Cricket is preparing to dock,” Timothy said. “Alfred and his techs are on standby.”
“Good. How’s the radar looking, Ensign Corey?”
“This storm doesn’t seem to be getting worse, but I’ve got my eye on another front moving in,” Eevi replied.
“Keep me updated.”
She nodded, and Les checked the main monitor, which gave a view of the central tower. He had plenty of questions about this outpost—not only what had happened to the crew, but why the hell Santiago had never warned the Hell Divers about the snakes.
The hull rattled from a nearby peal of thunder.
Les took them off autopilot and manually kept the ship steady while it received Cricket. He watched the robot on his screen, and when it was safely inside, he put the ship back on auto.
Les, Magnolia, Rodger, and Michael had gone through detox along with General Santiago, a lieutenant named Alejo, and a third soldier named Ruiz. And now that they had the drone, and Timothy had dropped the damaged Cazador troop transport and the remaining fuel tanker back onto the deck of Star Grazer, the hard part was over.
Les still wasn’t sure they had taken on enough fuel for the journey back to the Vanguard Islands. If not, the trip had been a waste of lives and equipment. The Cazadores had suffered ten casualties from a team of sixteen and lost one of their tankers.
The mission had also cost Discovery. On his screen, he pulled up the damage assessment from the storm and the battle. They had damage across multiple sectors of the ship, from both lightning and random shots out of a flailing machine gun when they lowered toward the surface. But the ship was still operational, and Les was just happy they hadn’t lost any divers.
“Timothy, transfer the data from Cricket to the briefing room,” Les said. “Layla, you have the bridge.”
He caught up with the divers outside the launch-bay doors. Some were watching through the windows as the drone went through detox. Alfred and three technicians, all in hazard suits, sprayed the robot with chemicals.
Rodger and Magnolia sat farther down the passage, leaning against a bulkhead and talking quietly. Seeing Les, they both stood.
“Captain on deck,” Magnolia said.
Michael, Edgar, Sofia, Arlo, and Alexander all turned away from watching the robot’s cleaning ritual.
“Where are the Cazadores?” Les asked.
“Our militia team is with them in the med bay,” Michael said. “Ruiz got hurt.”
Les ordered Timothy to have the Cazadores escorted to the briefing room. Then he told the divers to follow him. When they got there, Timothy was already inside. His hologram cast a glow over the long table and dozen chairs.
Three militia soldiers showed up a moment later with General Santiago and Lieutenant Alejo. Les had never seen the old soldier without a helmet. He had pale skin, a thick head of brown hair the color of his short beard, and only one ear.
“Captain Mitchells,” Santiago said in his thick accent. “How are you?”
“Bien,” Les said, using Spanish as a sign of respect. “¿Cómo está usted?”
The general’s reply made no sense to Les, so Lieutenant Alejo took over. “Captain Mitchells, General Santiago says he is grateful for your support.”
Alejo spoke nearly perfect English, which told Les he was like Rhino, a survivor whom el Pulpo had captured from a bunker or shelter and enslaved.
“I’m glad you speak English,” Les said. “Maybe you can explain to me and to my divers what the hell those snakes were.”
The divers all remained standing behind their chairs.
Alejo and Santiago both looked around at the unsmiling faces that far outnumbered them. And while the general couldn’t understand Les, he couldn’t miss his angered tone. But Les didn’t care. He was sick of these people keeping secrets that endangered lives.
“Well?” he asked.
“We call them the oil serpents,” Alejo said. “They live in the old pipeline here, but they rarely venture this far.”
“And you didn’t think to warn us about them?” Michael said, stepping up beside Les.
Alejo glanced at the diver as if sizing him up. “Like I said, they don’t usually venture to the outpost. I guarantee, whatever caused that damage and killed our crew was something else.”
Les searched the man’s face for a lie but saw none. “We’re going to find out,” he said.
Alejo translated to Santiago, who nodded.
“Have a seat,” Les said, gesturing toward the chairs. “Timothy, pull up the footage.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
The divers and Cazadores sat, and the AI walked around the table, massaging his neatly trimmed beard while they waited for the first footage from Cricket. Les hadn’t even asked Timothy what he had discovered, but he hoped it was enough to solve the mystery of whatever happened to the facility and its crew.
The footage transferred to the main screen, and everyone scooted their chairs so they could see. Timothy walked up to the wall-mounted monitor.
“Cricket was able to access the tower directly, through a broken hatch on the east side,” he said. “What you are seeing is from directly after the drone entered.”
The robot’s new cameras had switched to night vision. Its hover nodes allowed it to fly through the open room, and the multiple cameras provided a nearly panoramic view of the space on multiple smaller screens.
“Looks like a living space,” Michael said. He pointed at the bottom-right box on the monitor and told Timothy to pause the frame. Sure enough, there were several bunks, and a bank of radio equipment in the corner.