On the bridge, Les watched the main display and tried not to think about the precious cargo inside the Hive. Deliverance had its own precious cargo to protect: a cargo bay full of soldiers and Hell Divers to deliver.
“We’re clear,” Dave said.
Les nodded and did a systems scan, his eyes stopping on the display for the armaments. They had twenty cruise missiles ready to fly, and thirty bombs, including the remaining nuclear weapons.
He flipped the nukes offline. Red Sphere was one thing, but they weren’t going to use any of them at the Metal Islands, even if they did lose the fight. Poisoning the one known habitable spot on earth would doom anyone else out there.
And now Les knew. There were more bunkers and more people hiding beneath the surface in multiple places.
Ada suddenly hurried away to her station, pausing near Les.
“Sir,” she whispered, “I’m picking up something over an analog station that I think you might like to hear.”
“What message?”
“It’s really weak, sir, but I think it’s Magnolia.”
“Mags?” Les asked.
Michael and Layla both looked over at him.
“Yes,” Ada replied.
“Well, what did she say?” Les asked, locking eyes with Michael.
“Sir…” Ada cleared her throat. “She said don’t come to the Metal Islands. She said it’s a fight we can’t win.”
“They found the missing ship,” Rhino said. “Visibility is bad, but so far, it looks like no one’s on board.”
X rubbed his eyes. He had managed a few hours of sleep, but to feel human he needed another day.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Time to get your dead ass up. Come on.”
X got off his bunk and stood. His body felt a hundred years old.
“So, we’re going to look for the missing crew?” he asked.
Rhino scratched his head and walked back into the gangway—his way of saying yes. X limped after him down the narrow, rusted passage. Water leaked from a pipe, dripping into a brown puddle on the deck ahead.
He passed the berthing area, where Wendig and several other wounded soldiers lay resting in their bunks. She sat up and grinned at him.
X forced a smile. He still couldn’t believe the burly soldier had been a woman all along, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to like her. Her aggressive personality, manners aside, reminded him of Katrina.
A part of him even felt bad about killing her cousin, Hammerhead. But the feeling passed. The guy had been trying to rip his head off, after all.
Rhino continued to the armory, where the other soldiers were already getting suited up and grabbing weapons under the Barracuda banner. X went to his locker and felt a little tug of nostalgia as, for a second, he was transported back to the launch bay of the Hive. He no longer remembered how many times he had suited up there with his brothers and sisters over the years. He missed those days.
But more than anything, he missed his dog.
He was anxious to get back to the Metal Islands. Maybe, his conduct during the fight would earn him a trip to see Miles.
The fleeting moment of wistfulness passed. The men and women inside this armory were not his brothers or his sisters.
They were his enemies—even Rhino, whom X had taken a liking to over the past few days. Wendig, too. He couldn’t let his guard down against them. They would kill him if given the order.
He opened his locker and grabbed his armor, wondering whether his real friends had anything to do with the missing crews on the two Cazador vessels.
X finished suiting up and took the sword and pistol that Rhino handed him. They walked through the ship to the weather deck, where the rattle of chains greeted them. Dozens of Sirens, exposed to the elements, pulled on their restraints and kicked the bars of their cages.
X kept his hands on his weapons. He didn’t pity the beasts, but he took no pleasure in antagonizing them.
Several of the children lay curled up in the corner of a cage, their eyeless faces keying on his battery unit. Shrieking through their gags, they sounded almost like birds.
X looked away to an island in the east. An orange river of lava poured into the ocean, raising a cloud of steam. To the west, the abandoned container ship drifted in the water. Beyond it, almost out of view, was a fishing boat with sails up.
He hurried to catch up with the other Cazadores gathering at the railing. Rhino gave quick orders, breaking a dozen soldiers into two groups. He led one group of four Cazadores plus X, and Sergeant Lurch led the other group of five. The men climbed down the rope boarding net to rowboats already in the water.
X grabbed the oars as Sergeant Lurch and his team veered off toward the fishing boat, which was much farther out. Instead of rowing, Lurch fired up the engine. Rhino cursed, and yelled after them, but Lurch didn’t respond.
Rhino sat down and grabbed a pair of oars. The team started rowing, and X joined in, though his arms were already aching. He still wasn’t fully awake, and fatigue made his movements sluggish. The other soldiers weren’t in much better shape.
X glanced at the dark water slapping the starboard side. Through the years, he had seen all sorts of mutant beasts, but the creatures that lived in the sea scared him more than those on land.
He looked up at the dark sky, exhausted and lost in his thoughts. The rowing became mechanical, and when he came out of his fugue, the container ship was just a few hundred feet out.
The rusting hulk towered over the little boat. Above the barnacles and red moss that encrusted the hull, bullets had pocked the steel plating. Flotsam drifted in the surrounding water, and several containers lay on their sides, on a deck blackened by an explosion.
This had to be Deliverance’s doing.
Trying to be discreet, X moved his helmet to scan a bit of sky with every pull of the oars. He had a feeling they were long gone after making a hit-and-run attack.
That was exactly what he would have done if he were trying to pick off the Cazador vessels. But where were the soldiers who had crewed this ship?
He shipped the oars as another soldier waited to tether the rowboat to the massive container ship.
Rhino raised a spear gun with a grappling hook and rope and fired it over the ship’s rail. The smallest man on the team grabbed the rope, which was knotted every few feet, and pulled it snug. Then he started climbing. When he reached the top, he dropped two thin lines of nylon cord. A man sitting in front of X tethered the boat to one line, and the end of a rope ladder to the other. Then the climber hauled up the ladder and fixed it to the rail.
X was the next to last up the rope ladder and down into the dark hold. He bumped on his headlamp. Flashlight beams penetrated the inky darkness, revealing crates stacked four high, and a tracked vehicle like the one they had used to pull the wagonloads of captive Sirens.
Rhino grabbed X by the shoulder and spun him around.
“You listenin’?” he asked.
X shook his helmet. “I didn’t hear you say anything.”
“I said, you’re with me and Stirling.”
X nodded. He was out of it and needed to get his shit together.
The other three soldiers set off through the ship, and X tagged along behind Stirling and Rhino, his pistol locked and loaded. They made it about five minutes before finding the first sign of a battle. Several bullet-riddled corpses littered the narrow passage. But some of the wounds looked different from those left by a bullet.
He bent down to examine one.
“You ever seen somethin’ like this?” X asked Rhino, who hovered over his shoulder.
“Yes, once before. Those are made by weapons we don’t possess.”