“Scared the crap out of me,” Michael said, lowering his rifle.
“Ship’s all clear,” Les confirmed.
Michael gestured back toward the quarters where Layla and Erin were waiting. Les ducked under the overhead and stepped inside.
“No one’s sailed this thing for hundreds of years,” Les said. “And I doubt Samson can get it running again. Everything’s old-school technology. Freaking engine room has diesels.”
“At least it’s not a Cazador pirate ship,” Layla said. “No sign of those freaks?”
Les’ helmet wagged. “None, but there is something I think you should see.” He looked to Michael.
“Can you walk, Erin?” Michael asked.
She pressed her hands to the deck and got herself up with Layla’s help.
“Just you, Commander,” Les said.
Erin and Layla both looked over at Michael.
“You two stay here,” he said. “We’ll be right back. Open comms if you need anything.”
He followed Les back into the passage and down a ladder to a lower deck. Their helmet beams guided them through the metal warren of dark passages. Cobwebs of rust covered the bulkheads, disguising any markings from centuries ago.
Michael racked his brain over how this ship was still afloat after all this time. Hurricanes, storms, barnacles, and rust had had their way with it, and yet here it still was.
There had to be another explanation. Perhaps it was resting on concrete piers, or…
“Down here,” Les said, gesturing right at an intersection. They walked through an open hatch and down another ladder, deeper into the bowels of the vessel.
Les ducked under another overhead and came out on a veranda overlooking a massive room that appeared to be some sort of warehouse. Metal crates, all of them open, rested on the deck twenty feet below.
“This is the place,” Les said. He walked out onto the metal platform and over to a railing, shifting his light to the deck beneath them. Michael joined him at the ledge and directed his helmet beam where Les was pointing.
“What in the wastes is that?” Michael asked.
Les shook his head. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
For a moment, he just stared at the mass grave below, trying to make sense of what his eyes were relaying to his brain. Below them, hundreds of bones lay in a bed of red moss. But they weren’t just randomly thrown there. The bones were put back together in a deliberate way, making the skeletons look…
“Pretty eerie,” Les said.
“Let’s get the satellite link up. I want to contact Command and let them know there’s something down here after all. Then we start looking for supplies and boats.”
Michael tried to back away from the railing, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the mossy red growth on the deck and the bones. These weren’t just human. There were animal bones down there, and robotic-looking parts mixed in like some sort of Frankensteinian fantasy.
“You think those are the defectors that killed Dr. Julio Diaz and his team?” Les asked. “Or maybe that is Diaz’s team.”
Michael had trouble formulating a response. He was too busy trying to make sense of a skeleton that had a buffalo skull attached to a human rib cage, robotic arms, and bony hands with claws.
“What kind of hell island did Katrina send us to?” he whispered.
“It was a rogue pocket of electrometric disturbance,” said Dave Connor, avoiding Katrina’s gaze. It was his job to decipher the hundreds of readings coming from the airship’s advanced sensors, but she didn’t blame him for this.
“This is not your fault, Dave,” she said. “This was my decision, and it’s on me. Besides, everyone knows how tough a rogue pocket is to spot.”
“I should have seen it,” Dave said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”
Ada twisted around from her station, concern written on her freckled face. “How will they get back up here if that storm doesn’t pass?”
“We’ll find a way,” Katrina said. She returned to the helm, where she slumped in the leather chair. The porthole window hatches were up, and she stared out into the ocean of black.
Seeking refuge here, away from the other officers, seemed cowardly in a way, but she couldn’t help feeling she had made a mistake in flying Deliverance to Red Sphere.
Somewhere twenty-five thousand feet below, the four most experienced divers aside from her were possibly dead or in serious peril. Even if they had survived the rogue layer of storm clouds, they were stranded with no way of getting home.
And she had no idea what was down there. All the data, transmissions, and videos from Dr. Diaz’s team suggested that this place was nothing but a tomb. But then, there were always threats on the surface.
The wait to hear from a dive team, though always agonizing, was worse than normal this time. Her boot rapped syncopated rhythms on the deck as, behind her, Ada, Dave, and Bronson continued monitoring their screens and sipping their cups of caffeinated water.
It was going to be a long day.
An hour had passed since the divers leaped from the belly of Deliverance, and it already felt like a lifetime.
An unenlightening half hour later, she got up and walked back to the circular command station. “Have you detected anything yet, Ensign?”
“Negative, ma’am,” Bronson White replied. “So far, none of the beacons are getting through the electromagnetic disturbance.”
“Nothing over the comms, either,” Ada confirmed.
An insane thought crossed her mind—one she didn’t dare say aloud. There were still over fifty people on Deliverance—farmers, engineers, cooks.
She couldn’t risk their lives.
Yet.
“Ada, get me the Sea Wolf,” she said.
“Will do, ma’am.”
Grabbing her headset, Katrina retreated back to her leather chair to stare out the portholes. She already knew what X would say, but she wasn’t calling him to ask for advice.
“Captain,” Ada said, “I’ve got Timothy Pepper on the horn, but he says X and Magnolia are preoccupied.”
“Patch him through,” Katrina replied.
“Hello, Captain DaVita, what a pleasant surprise to hear your voice.”
It felt odd to talk to the second AI after deactivating its clone on the Hive.
“Good to talk to you, Timothy,” she said politely. “Where are X and Magnolia?”
“They’re working to fix the mainmast,” he said. “Is there something I can assist you with?”
“I’d like to know if Magnolia or you have discovered anything else I should know about Red Sphere. If there’s anything vital that I may have missed in those files Magnolia sent.”
“What, exactly, are you wanting to know?”
“Based on what you have scanned in the files, do you believe there is anything alive down there?”
Timothy’s reply came without hesitation. “In my experience, life always seems to find a way, and while nothing on those files confirms it, I do believe it’s possible, Captain. In fact, I would say it’s very likely.”
FOURTEEN
Les was anxious to escape Red Sphere and get back to Deliverance, but they had their orders from Commander Everhart. The mission would continue, even after his horrifying find back in the guts of the ITC ship.
What the hell were those things?
He tried to push the ugly images from his mind as he proceeded across the pier and away from the ships. Keeping his rifle cradled across his chest, eyes roving for potential hostiles, he ran toward his next objective.