She paused for a moment, lowering the receiver before bringing it back up to her lips. “If things go wrong, you will be all that’s left of us. And if the worst does happen, you have your orders. Promise me you will follow them.”
Static crackled. This time, Samson was the one to hesitate.
“I promise, but don’t talk like that, ma’am. Everything is going to work out. I believe in you. Our people believe in you. Just do what you do best, Captain. Give ’em hell.”
The line cut off, and Katrina checked her wrist monitor again.
Twenty minutes.
In fifteen, they would break through the barrier between darkness and light.
Her heart pounded even harder, and she took several deep, slow breaths. This wasn’t like her. She had dived into the wastes dozens of times, fought monsters, survived the madman Leon Jordan.
So why did she feel that this was the end?
She rested her hand on the sword’s pommel. It was a symbol of her people, and she would wear it proudly into battle.
A beep from the radar snapped her to instant alert.
She opened a line to the bridge.
“You see this contact, Eevi?” she asked.
“Copy that, ma’am. Looks like a single boat.”
“Edgar, ready the MK-65,” Katrina said.
“On it, ma’am.”
Katrina stared through the binos. A hint of light appeared through the gloom. Was that the moon, or just her eyes playing tricks on her?
Another blip showed up on the radar. This one was much bigger than the others. It had to be one of the oil rigs.
Her eyes went from the monitor to the horizon. She didn’t need the binos anymore. The darkness seemed to pale. The wall was becoming translucent, with a weak but visible white light showing through the other side.
In five minutes, they would be through the barrier. Deliverance would be moving into position now, and Michael, Trey, Les, Alexander, and Vish would be preparing to dive.
Layla had taken over for Les as acting captain, and Katrina had full faith in her younger friend. She also had a sense of why Layla and Michael had decided that she not dive—something Katrina had suspected for a while now after a conversation with Layla in the locker room a month ago.
Their child would be the first born on earth to people of the sky.
The thought gave Katrina the reassurance she needed. Another blip appeared on the outer edge of the radar, then another.
Two minutes before breach.
She alternated her gaze from the radar, which now showed five contacts, to the view outside the porthole windows. The sky suddenly lightened, and a dot sparkled above.
The dot became two, and then twenty, and then a dazzling sky of stars.
She stared upward in awe as the mission clock hit sixty seconds.
“Are you seeing these?” Eevi asked over the comm.
“Yes,” Katrina replied. “I never saw anything so beautiful.”
“There are way too many,” Edgar said over the comm channel.
Katrina brought her gaze back down to a view of an oil rig, and dozens of silhouetted shapes in the water. She switched the binos to night vision.
Dear God…
In the green hue of the NVGs, she saw dozens of vessels. An entire armada was spread in a long row across the water. Fishing boats, speedboats, armored boats, and WaveRunners mounted by one or two riders carrying weapons.
Beyond the fleet, three long speedboats waited.
“El Pulpo,” she whispered.
A commotion on the nearest boat, a twin-hull vessel like the Sea Wolf, drew her attention. A sailor moved to the top deck and aimed binoculars at her. Then he waved wildly, and two men swung mounted machine guns toward the USS Zion.
“Captain, what are your orders?” Edgar asked over the comm.
She could hear the near panic in his voice, but there was none in her reply.
“Open fire, and give ’em hell.”
The MK-65 fired a shell at the twin-hulled boat, and the man with the binos vanished in a puff of smoke and debris. The blast consumed two WaveRunners, setting the riders ablaze.
“Manual firing,” Katrina ordered, keeping her voice calm. “Conserve ammo. Pick your targets wisely.”
“Copy that,” Edgar replied. His voice had calmed, too. “Firing on three, two…”
Another shell from the enclosed turret blew up a fishing boat with mounted machine guns. Orange flames spread across the dark water.
They had caught the armada flat-footed, but the Cazador sailors were quickly moving their vessels into combat intervals. Small-arms and machine-gun fire from the armada pinged and ricocheted off the armored warship’s deck and hull.
Katrina watched as one of the ships rotated a turret mounted with what looked like a rocket launcher. The barrel stopped, pointed right at the top of the island.
She grabbed her rifle and ducked as the glass shattered around her, raining onto the deck. Keeping low, she moved to the ladder. Just as she was about to duck into the opening, she glimpsed a missile streaking toward the command center.
Michael stood at the launch bay door on Deliverance, peering into a cloudless sky in the early morning hours. The half-moon was high overhead, shining through a sky so clear, he could see the oil rigs twenty thousand feet below.
But if he could see the surface, maybe the Cazadores could see him. That was where Katrina came in.
She had already started the attack. Miniature explosions flickered in the distance—shells and missiles exploding over the water.
He raised his prosthetic arm and turned to his team. They had already gone through their systems checks and were ready to dive.
Les, Trey, Vish, and Alexander stood behind him, carrying assault rifles, blasters, pistols, and one of the two laser rifles. Michael carried the other. They had covered their battery units with strips of black tape to hide the glow, and they all wore black jumpsuits under their dark armor.
All lights on the airship were turned off to conceal their approach. The light cloud cover passing below also helped.
Static crackled in his earpiece, followed by Layla’s voice.
“Team Raptor, you are clear for launch,” she said.
“Good luck,” Timothy said. “I hope to see you all again very soon.”
A private channel opened between Michael and Layla.
“Be careful, Tin. I love you.”
“Copy that. I love you, too.”
He had already promised her he would come home to her, and hearing her voice reminded him again of what was at stake.
He opened a channel to his team.
“Our target is the capitol tower below,” he said. “The one with the saucer-shaped rooftop. We believe that Magnolia, X, and Miles are being held there. Look for aerial defenses on the way in. Our second objective is to identify those and report back so Deliverance can take them out with missiles.”
The helmets all dipped in acknowledgment. He took a sip of water from the straw in his helmet. He wasn’t well rested, and the flesh where his stump connected with the prosthesis throbbed despite the fresh application of nanotech gel, but he was ready for this.
Ready to dive into the first habitable drop zone in the history of Hell Diving. As he scanned the surface, he thought of all the divers who would have loved to see this.
“This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “The moment that humanity has been waiting for. Hundreds of our brothers and sisters have dived so we could survive and find this new home. We just gotta dive one final time.”
He stepped toward the edge, his gut tightening. The other divers stepped up behind him, getting their first view of the Metal Islands. Michael pointed his robotic hand at the capitol tower.