If she hit a radioactive zone, the enclosure wouldn’t protect her unless she sealed off every inch with caulking and tape.
For now, this was home. Sitting on the bunk, she took off her helmet and, wincing in pain, peeled off the gloves. Her palms were blistered, and the blisters had broken. Blood wept from the open cracks.
She searched for the first-aid kit and remembered it was in the second crate. It took her a moment to rearrange things, but she eventually pulled it out.
Gritting her teeth, she dripped antibacterial liquid onto the wounds, cleaned them, and wrapped both hands. The burn lasted several minutes, but the bandages helped relieve the pain.
Her growling stomach reminded her that she hadn’t had a bite all day. She fished out an apple and some fresh bread from her pack of perishables. The small pleasures made the rowing and darkness more bearable, but she was already lonely.
If X can survive out here, you can too.
She knew how crazy that sounded. Xavier Rodriguez was a Hell Diver, and not just any Hell Diver. He had survived more dives and missions than any in history.
Ada had a lot to learn if she was to survive even a fraction of the time he had spent out here.
She ate slowly, savoring each bite, knowing that soon the fresh fruit and vegetables would be gone and she would have to switch to fish jerky and, eventually, the packaged goods.
She decided to rest for a few hours before heading back out to paddle. The first few days at sea, she hadn’t been able to sleep in the constantly rocking boat. It was far different from sleeping on the Hive, where she rarely felt any sense of motion unless the airship hit a storm.
Sailing out here was like being in a never-ending storm, and she hadn’t even hit the big waves. Her gut told her that sea and storm would kill her before any mutant beasts got the chance.
The idea of drowning had never crossed her mind, but it would be karma after what she did to the crew of the Lion.
Everyone on the airships had pictured their death at one point or another. Living in the sky was like holding a stick of dynamite with the fuse just below a flame. Death was always there, hovering in the darkness.
Most people thought the end would come from crashing down on the surface or dying from the cough or from radiation-caused cancer. But drowning beat most of the other ways this could end.
She sighed and tried to get comfortable on her bunk. Memories of her family replaced the morbid ruminations. It wasn’t often that she thought of her parents, but recently she had found herself thinking of them more and more.
They had been gone so long, she had trouble remembering their voices. The cough had taken them fifteen years ago, when the flu swept through the lower decks of the Hive.
Somehow, Ada had never caught it. She had stayed in school, entered the academy, and graduated as an ensign. Years of working on the bridge had given her the experience to climb through the ranks to the second-highest position on the airships.
All the training had taught her to put her people first. To make sure whatever decision she made was in the best interests of the passengers and the airship.
Captain Katrina DaVita had gone beyond that training by teaching her what sacrifice was. Serving under Katrina was an honor that Ada had felt compelled to pay back.
That was why she killed those Cazadores.
Not just to avenge her friend and captain, but to protect her people from the barbarians who had mutilated Katrina’s corpse and displayed it like a trophy.
Ada jerked with the flash of anger. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, and exhaled.
You have to rest. You can’t dwell on the past anymore.
Another swell broadsided the boat, nearly knocking her onto the floor. She rolled back onto her side and clutched a rolled-up blanket, then closed her eyes and battled her demons.
A beeping sound jolted her awake.
She shot up on her narrow bunk, groggy and sick to her stomach. The beeping continued. It wasn’t part of the dream after all.
She searched for the source and finally found it in her backpack. Reaching inside, she retrieved the wrist computer the Hell Divers used to detect radiation, map their locations, and hack into ITC facilities.
X had uploaded a digital map for her to find his former home in Florida, but a message had replaced the screen she pulled up.
Radiation spike. Seek shelter.
Heart thumping, Ada slipped the gloves over her bandaged hands and placed her helmet over her short-cropped hair. She wasn’t sure why she grabbed her rifle, but touching the stock made her feel safe.
Taking in a breath of filtered air, she steeled herself before opening the hatch. Lightning speared the horizon, forking toward the water.
She searched the whitecaps but didn’t see anything in the glow.
A few moments passed before she finally saw something out there. Another flurry of lightning illuminated the ocean, and in the blue glow she spotted the first landmass since leaving the Vanguard Islands.
But that didn’t make any sense.
According to the map, there wasn’t supposed to be anything out here.
She raised her wrist computer to make sure she hadn’t veered off course. Tapping the screen, she pulled up her location.
Sure enough, she was still hovering around the red line she was supposed to be following, and there was no island in her path.
So what the hell was she looking at?
She raised the rifle scope to her plastic visor, but without night-vision goggles, she had to wait for another strike of lightning to see the shore.
The flashes came a moment later, capturing the object in the glow.
This wasn’t a landmass with rocky shores, mutated trees, and beasts prowling for prey. Zooming in, Ada saw a massive ship that seemed to be the source of the radiation spike.
And it was sailing right toward her.
Panicked, she hurried over to the controls and steering wheel. As she pulled out the key from her pocket, a dozen questions swam through her mind.
Were they Cazadores? Defectors? Something else?
She inserted the key and turned it, but the motor whined in protest. She tried twice more, cursing each time. The engine wouldn’t turn over.
“Come on!” she yelled.
The ship in the distance seemed to grow in size, dwarfing her vessel.
On the fifth try, the motor coughed to life.
She turned the wheel, pushed down on the throttle, and sped away from the huge radioactive ship, wondering.
ONE
Reinforced glass windows separated Michael Everhart, Layla Brower, and Les Mitchells from the thirty-one survivors they had rescued at the bunker in Rio de Janeiro. The group had spent the past twenty-four hours in quarantine inside Discovery’s launch bay.
Michael hated seeing them locked away and also hated that he had to post two militia guards and the two surviving Cazador soldiers outside.
But the guards weren’t here to protect the crew of the airship from these people—they were protecting these people from the airship crew.
Fear of transferring bacteria or a virus to the survivors had forced Captain Mitchells to isolate them at AI Timothy Pepper’s suggestion. The medical staff was busy running tests and treating them for exposure to radiation and toxins outside their bunker.
For most of them, this was the first time they had ever left their underground shelter, and the journey had already taken a toll.
Several of the adults and children coughed inside the sealed space. Technicians and medical officers in space suits treated the sick the best they could, but Michael feared they would lose some on the trip back to the Vanguard Islands.