Mac also reemerged on the deck. He sheathed his sword—another sign that there were no apparent threats on board.
X eased off the gas and coasted cautiously forward.
Felipe threw Victor a rope, and they came up alongside the shot-up hull.
The two Barracudas’ sour looks told X they had found something after all.
“King Xavier,” Mac said, “there’s something you need to see below.”
He led X down into the cabin while Victor and Felipe remained on deck. The stench wafting out of the open hatch hit X so hard, halfway down the ladder he covered his face with his arm.
Mac went first, ducking low into the living quarters. In the small space, three skinned corpses lay on the deck. The bodies had been here since the battle, and with the heat and little air flow, the place was ripe with rot.
Mac held a handkerchief up to his nose as he bent down and grabbed something that was stuffed into the flayed hand of the middle body.
Mac unfolded the note he had plucked from one of the hands. X crouched down beside the bodies. They were skinned to the muscle and bone, but he already knew who they were.
X almost gagged, as much from the sight as from the smell. The bodies were so badly mutilated that he identified the one in the middle as Lieutenant Sloan only by the rank insignia someone had pinned through the flesh on her back.
He covered his mouth and rose to his feet, feeling as if he were about to puke. Mac was reading the note written in Spanish.
“What does it say?” X asked.
“Nothing good, sir,” Mac replied.
After being summoned, Les had taken a boat back to the capitol tower straight from the Shark’s Cage. But with communications down, he had no idea what to expect—only that something had been discovered on the eastern barrier.
From the marina he went straight to the council chamber, not even stopping to say hello to his wife and daughter. He carried an important message of his own for the king.
The double doors were shut, guarded by a militia soldier and a Cazador soldier.
They opened the door, and he walked into the room.
Dozens of faces turned in the dim torchlight. A group of Hell Divers, soldiers, and advisors had gathered around the council table.
X stood at the throne, Miles at his feet. “Captain,” he said in a gruff, defeated voice, “I hope you brought me some good news about Discovery.”
Les halted between Ton and Victor and ran a hand through his red frizz.
“She’s in bad shape, King Xavier,” he said. “Samson still isn’t sure he can get some of the systems back online without a trip to the wastes.”
X cursed under his breath. He looked much older this afternoon. The salt-and-pepper hair seemed mostly salt. The years of diving and fighting were taking their toll.
“There’s something you need to hear,” X said. “Have a seat.”
Les went to the council table. Every chair was occupied, but Edgar got up and offered his chair.
“That’s okay,” Les said. “I’ll stand.”
He took a second to scan the faces.
Rodger sat next to Magnolia, his head bowed in grief. Imulah, Colonel Forge, Mac, Felipe, and every living Hell Diver were sitting or standing around the table. Pedro was also here.
Everyone had the same solemn expression: frowns, wrinkled brows, sunken eyes.
“We have a decision to make,” X said. “And this time, it’s something that I can’t, and won’t, make on my own. It will affect everyone’s future, sky people and Cazadores alike.”
Imulah translated to Colonel Forge in a slow, almost slurred speech due to the medicine he took for his burns. When he finished, X stepped to the top landing of the platform.
“The mission this morning to find Raven’s Claw failed, resulting in the death of Alberto and the destruction of Cricket,” he said. “We know now that the mission never had a chance from the beginning—Raven’s Claw and the submarines retreated long ago.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and winced.
“The militia boat that Lieutenant Sloan pursued the submarines with during the attack was recovered, along with her skinned, mutilated body and the bodies of two of her soldiers,” he said. “I don’t know how we missed it, but we did.”
“What!” Les said. “How…”
“We don’t know,” said Sergeant Wynn in a quivering voice.
The discovery of her body, especially the brutality of her death, rocked Les to his core.
X bowed his head, clearly shaken. He gestured to Imulah. “Go ahead and read the note Mac found.”
Imulah stood up from his chair and held the note in his bandaged hand.
“If the occupying hostile force from the sky does not leave, and the false prophet Xavier Rodriguez vacate the throne, the Metal Islands will be destroyed,” Imulah said. “The recent attack was just a taste of our strength.”
“Let them come,” Arlo interrupted. “With the underwater sensors deployed and our fleet reorganized, they won’t stand a chance.”
“Quiet,” X snapped. He nodded at Imulah again.
“We have taken the face of your lieutenant and will return to skin the rest of you if you do not heed our orders. But it won’t be just us coming to take your flesh,” read the scribe. “We will send the metal gods to finish you off.”
Imulah paused to look at X, who nodded for him to continue.
“In the time Lord Horn has been away from the Metal Islands, we have searched for the machines, and we have joined them.”
“No,” Les whispered.
“If you do not leave the islands, you will experience the beautiful wrath of the machines in all their violent glory,” Imulah continued. He lowered the note. “It is signed by a scribe I knew long ago, a man who now serves Horn.”
“He’s bluffing,” Magnolia said. “The defectors wouldn’t join with humans. Their sole mission is to kill us.”
“Maybe, but we have no way of knowing that,” Michael replied. “We can’t ignore the threat and hope it’s a lie.”
“I agree,” Edgar said through his clenched and wired broken jaw.
“We have to go after Horn,” Rodger said. “That’s the only answer.”
“Rodge, I know you’re upset, but how are we going to do that?” Magnolia said calmly. “Finding Raven’s Claw and those submarines will be like finding a needle inside a haystack in a farm field full of haystacks.”
“I don’t care,” Rodger said. “I was a coward after el Pulpo tried to kill me, and now his son has killed my parents. I’ll do whatever it takes to find them. Even if it means fixing up the Hive and taking her into the air to search for these animals.”
“I disagree,” Wynn said. He looked to X and then to Colonel Forge. “I say the militia and the Cazador forces do everything we can to tighten the defenses, and then we wait for Horn or the machines to come.”
Arlo muttered something under his breath about their being screwed.
Les walked over to Pedro. Without an interpreter, it would be hard to communicate, but he had to try. The survivor from Rio de Janeiro was key to humanity’s future, maybe even more than X.
Everyone looked at Les as he moved around the table.
“There is another option,” he said. “One that will solve the problem of the machines forever.”
The room went silent, all eyes on Les. He thought of his wife and daughter, but his heart told him this was the only way to save them.
“King Xavier, once Discovery is fixed, I’m requesting permission to fly it to Africa, where I will destroy the ITC mainframe controlling the DEF-Nine units. From my conversations with Pedro here and Timothy, that’s what humans tried to do two hundred and fifty years ago.”