“X!” she shouted, but her voice was lost in the howling wind.
The Sea Wolf swayed as she took her first step out. The engines continued to propel the craft through the mountainous waves that crashed and rose, over and over.
“X!” she yelled again.
Her light fell on a limp arm lined with suction cups, nailed by a spear to the rail.
Another sucker-covered arm hung off the cabin behind her, severed and dripping red off the second deck.
Her flashlight moved to the gore spattered behind the mainmast. Smoke rose away from a charred spot and a gaping rent in the deck.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered. The damage was, without a doubt, the result of a grenade. The blast had blown off two more of the creature’s arms, and a hunk of meat that she didn’t recognize.
“X, where are you!” she yelled, frantic now.
A reply came over the wind.
“Mags!”
The voice was faint but recognizable.
She hurried over to the side of the boat, cautious not to slide into the razor wire. Lowering her rifle, she used her flashlight to scan the ocean.
“Mags!” X yelled again.
But this wasn’t coming from over the side.
She looked up at the top of the bent mast and spotted X, hanging on to the crow’s nest. Another torn snaky arm was wrapped around the metal lookout, part of it coiled around his leg.
“You crazy bastard,” Magnolia whispered.
She stared for a second but quickly moved away from the side of the boat. Judging by the spatter around her, the beast was dead, but if she had learned one thing over her years of diving and fighting, it was never to turn her back on a monster.
With the rifle up and trained on the starboard rail, she backpedaled to the mizzenmast, boots slapping in the constant wash. “That thing still out there?” she called up.
“Nope, nothing but fish bait now!” he shouted.
She stopped when she got to the mast.
“You need me to come get you, or you coming down from there?”
X swung his legs over the side of the crow’s nest and kicked the hanging arm, but the suction cups had him and wouldn’t let go, even in death.
She kept an eye on the rails on both sides of the Sea Wolf as X made his way down the bent mainmast. One of the engines was still running, but if they continued losing power they would be forced to use the sails, which was going to be difficult with the mainmast so severely compromised. The mizzenmast looked fine, but if they lost the engines, they would need both sails.
A beeping came from her wrist monitor, and she held up the cracked screen to see the radar come online. The small computer was synced with the boat, and she had manually created a program to go off if the radar picked up anything.
Her heart leaped at the small green bleeps east of their position.
“X, uh, we got a problem,” she said.
“Yeah, I accidentally blew a small hole in the boat, I know, but I had no choice… and the mast is bent.”
He jumped to the deck and, pulling a machete from the sheath on his back, cut away the yard of octopus arm still clinging to his leg.
“No, we got other problems.”
“I know this already, Mags!”
Magnolia held her monitor in his face.
“Ah, damn!” he shouted.
“Either that thing was just a baby or it brought a lot of friends,” she said.
“I’m going to need more grenades.”
The boat swayed from side to side as they rushed back across the deck to the staging area and armory. Magnolia followed him down the ladder and into the passageway.
“Where’s Miles?” X shouted.
“In my bunk.”
Magnolia opened the hatch.
“You okay, boy?” X said, bending down by his dog. Tail whipping, Miles confirmed that he was just fine.
X led them back to the command center and took a seat in front of a console dripping with water. The metal hatch now covered the cracked and shattered windshield.
“Timothy must be offline,” she said.
“Shit, just when we need him.” X punched at the screen to reboot the system while Magnolia checked the navigation screen and the contacts to the east.
Timothy’s voice suddenly cracked from the console. “Sir, I am unable to retract the mainmast.”
“That’s because it’s bent,” X said. He looked over to Magnolia. “Those contacts seem funny to you?”
“What do you mean?” Mags asked.
“They aren’t moving toward us… We’re moving toward them.” X reached forward and flipped the metal hatch off the windshield. Another flip of a switch activated the searchlight beams. They penetrated deep into the darkness, capturing mountains above the waves on the horizon. These mountains weren’t more waves or giant sea creatures, or anything else that moved.
“Dry land,” Timothy said. “We’ve found another island chain.”
Magnolia studied the jagged silhouettes.
“You think this is the Metal Islands?” she asked.
X shook his head. “I don’t see the sun, and it’s only five o’clock.”
Magnolia picked up the radio handset. “I’ll inform the captain.” She pushed the button several times, but it wouldn’t come on.
“The radio has been damaged,” Timothy said. “I’ve activated the distress beacon, but we have no way of contacting the airships.”
“Why the hell did you do that?” X said. “Now they’re going to worry about us and possibly even send help—help that we don’t need.”
Magnolia didn’t reply right away, but she couldn’t hold back her thoughts. “X, I hate to break it to you, but we do need help. The boat has some serious damage.”
“I do not want them sending anyone. It was my decision to come out here, and you made your choice, too, Mags.”
She put down the radio handset, realization setting in. “You don’t want Michael to come after you, do you?”
“You just figured this out?”
“So what if we find the Metal Islands? Then what?”
X didn’t reply. He grumbled to himself under his breath. Magnolia was used to that; X still acted crazy from time to time. She had been fine with his rants and his conversations with himself, even when he screamed at night, but it was happening more often, and he was really starting to scare her.
She looked back at the islands. She wasn’t sure what was out there, but whatever it was, they would have to face it on their own.
Captain DaVita wouldn’t be coming to help them, nor would Tin and Layla. The storms in this area made a rescue mission impossible, and diving through the clouds was a death sentence.
“Pepper, shut that distress signal off,” X ordered.
“Sir, if we do that, they won’t be able to track us.”
“That’s the point,” X replied. “We can fix the boat on our own. Now, do it, or I’m shutting you off for good.”
Magnolia saw the anger in X’s face, and for the first time on the journey, she felt the tendrils of despair creeping in. What had started off as a new adventure to locate a place for humanity to call home—and a chance to avenge Rodger—was turning into a nightmare. She just hoped she could trust X to do the right thing if they found the Metal Islands.
Les Mitchells pulled on the cuffs of his white uniform as he approached the brig with his wife, Katherine, and seven-year-old daughter, Phyl. Both of them had recovered from their cough weeks ago and were slowly regaining their strength. But they both had a long way to go, especially Phyl, who had lost almost ten pounds and looked like a stick. Katherine brushed back a strand of dirty-blond hair and heaved a sigh as they stopped outside the brig.
Today was a big day for the Mitchells family, for today they were to be reunited with Trey, who had spent nearly a year in the brig for stealing from the trading post. Captain DaVita had greatly reduced his sentence after Trey’s vital help in overthrowing Captain Jordan, but they couldn’t just let him out, even with his father now serving as executive officer on Deliverance.