Michael got the divers into a horizontal line in the middle of the launch bay. On his HUD, five beacons came online.
“Systems check,” he said.
“Raptor Two lookin’ good,” Edgar said.
“Raptor Three, good to go,” Alexander said.
Arlo and Sofia verified their suit and systems functions, and Michael uploaded their target and source of the SOS.
The airship groaned like a waking giant as it lowered into position.
“Stand by for biological scans, Team Raptor,” Les said over the open channel.
Michael scanned his team. Though he couldn’t see Sofia’s or Arlo’s faces behind the mirrored visors, he hadn’t missed the tension in their voices. This was their first real dive. They would soon discover how ready they were for whatever awaited on the surface.
“Not picking up any exhaust plumes from the machines,” Les confirmed. “We are picking up life-forms, however. Timothy believes it’s mostly vegetation.”
In a few seconds, he came back online. “All right, everyone, I’m giving the all clear for the mission. Taking the Sea Wolf down first.”
The white glow of Timothy’s hologram emerged in front of the launch-bay doors.
“What’s Ghost Man doing here?” Arlo sneered.
“Cut the shit and get your head in the game,” Michael said. “You don’t want to end up a statistic on your first dive, do you?”
Arlo shook his head.
“I would listen to Commander Everhart,” Timothy said. “Sensors are picking up a massive concentration of organic life in the zone marked on your HUDs.”
A map emerged on the divers’ subscreens. Most of the area showed red.
“What is it?” Edgar asked.
“I’d hypothesize that it is some sort of flora, perhaps a forest,” replied the AI. “But it is unlike the readings from other zones we’ve explored.”
“Great,” Alexander said. “Let’s hope this isn’t the type of flora that eats humans.”
Sofia twisted slightly toward him. “Eats humans? You left that out of training, Commander Everhart.”
“I didn’t tell you about the trees that eat people?” Michael replied. “Or the vines that eat people?”
“Uh, no.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be avoiding that area.”
“Still not detecting any exhaust plumes that the DEF-Nine units produce,” Timothy reported, “but I have located a hive of what could very well be Sirens.”
Another rectangular map replaced the digital telemetry on his HUD.
Michael cursed when he saw how close the hive was to their drop zone, but it didn’t surprise him—Sirens normally lived near where they were birthed.
“Please find me a new DZ, Timothy,” Michael said. “I’m not risking those things spotting our battery units on the dive in.”
“Already done, Commander. My suggestion is uploading to your HUDs… now.”
Michael checked his subscreen. It was nearer the coast, which meant they would dive partly over water. He was okay with that, since it was how they had trained Sofia and Arlo back at the Vanguard Islands.
“All right, Team Raptor,” Michael said, “we’re back in business. Prepare to dive.”
He pushed the button to the launch-bay doors. They parted, letting in a rush of wind as the airship lowered the Sea Wolf.
With light cloud cover and little electrical interference with their systems, the divers could see part of the shoreline in the distance. Roads of pulsating purple and red glowed like a network of luminous veins throughout the city.
“Guess we know what your scans are picking up,” Edgar said.
The ship jolted as the cables released the Sea Wolf onto the choppy water below. Michael caught a glimpse of it as it sailed away.
“Good luck, Mags,” he whispered.
“Stand by to retrieve Cricket,” Timothy said.
“Everyone, back,” Michael said, retreating to the red line with the other divers. The robot emerged a few moments later, flying across the city’s fractured skyline and then switching to hover modules to maneuver into the open launch bay.
“Good job, buddy,” Michael said, patting the robot on its smooth armored side. It chirped and flew over to the wall-charging unit for some extra juice. Michael closed the launch-bay doors as Discovery ascended back into the clouds. The view outside darkened.
“Team Raptor, prepare for launch,” Les said over the channel.
The airship slowed, and Michael reopened the launch doors. At twenty thousand feet, he couldn’t see much of the city except for the glowing vein of flora that pulsed as if it had a beating heart.
Somewhere beneath that poisoned surface were the first humans Michael had personally ever come across in the wastes who weren’t Cazadores. People who had lived underground for centuries.
On this mission, the Hell Divers’ motto had taken on a new and terrible significance. They dived so humanity survived—by saving the remaining humans before the defectors could find and kill them all.
“All clear, Team Raptor,” said Les. “Good luck, and Godspeed. Radio silence except in emergency.”
“Copy that, sir,” Michael said. He checked on Arlo, who gave a thumbs-up.
Michael shouted their motto and dived headfirst into the clouds. He pulled his body into stable falling position, arms out, elbows and knees at ninety degrees. Glancing up, he looked at the airship one last time, thinking of Layla and Bray. In his heart, he knew he would see her again and would meet his son.
A deep breath, and he put them out of his mind to focus on his team.
Edgar’s beacon began moving in the subsquare of his HUD. Next came Alexander, Sofia, and finally Arlo.
Michael’s suit whipped and rippled in his ears as he dropped through the clouds, eyes roving constantly between his HUD, the dark surface, and his aerial surroundings.
Fourteen thousand feet… twelve thousand…
At ten thousand, everything looked good. No lightning, turbulence, or rain. The cloud cover even seemed light. By all appearances, the pocket Timothy had discovered seemed to be a hidden paradise like the Vanguard Islands.
At eight thousand feet, one of the beacons on his HUD started picking up speed. It was Arlo, in a nosedive. For some reason, he was trying to catch up.
“God damn it,” Michael muttered. He kept the radio link off, observing the captain’s order of radio silence.
If defectors were down there, he didn’t want them picking up any chatter—even though he wanted to scream and tell Arlo to pull out of the suicide dive. The kid probably thought diving into the wastes was easy, because they’d had an easy dive today. But conditions could change in a heartbeat.
Sofia closed in on the right flank of Edgar and Alexander, just as they were trained to do. When Michael looked down again, they had broken through the cloud cover at five thousand feet. The pulsing mutant flora lit up the surface in a network of red and purple that looked like a vascular diagram.
He had never seen anything like this before.
The vegetation provided enough glow that they may not even need their night-vision optics on the surface.
The wind suddenly grew shrill, almost like a human scream.
Not the wind, he realized. The scream came from his speakers. Someone had bumped on the comm channel. Rotating forty-five degrees left, he saw that Arlo had clipped Sofia after coming out of his nosedive, probably due to a pocket of turbulence, as Michael had feared.
Both spun away from Edgar and Alexander.
“Son of a bitch!” Michael shouted in his helmet to no one but himself. He glanced back again, resisting the urge to yell orders into the comm link.
While Arlo quickly pulled himself back into stable position, Sofia cartwheeled through the air. Extending his legs behind him, Michael let the relative wind resistance push him toward them, but he was moving too slowly to help.