Trey squeezed Michael’s left hand.
“If I do, tell Katrina I know what we have to do,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“We have to find the Sea Wolf.”
EIGHTEEN
“Multiple contacts.”
Timothy’s words crackled from the speaker system in the staging room, forcing X’s eyes away from the most beautiful sight he had ever seen through the open hatch.
The sun could wait.
“Two vessels,” Timothy confirmed.
X should have known that it was a bit early to celebrate. A place like this would be heavily protected, and he had a feeling it was the Cazadores doing the protecting. The rapid beating of his heart was no longer caused by joy.
He wasn’t ready for this. They weren’t ready for this.
Magnolia’s wide eyes suggested she felt the same, but she knew what to do. She hurried over to the rack where she stored her gear, and began putting on her armor.
“Where, Pepper?” X asked.
“Due east, about three nautical miles out and moving at only about ten knots.”
X grabbed his rifle, opened the hatch, and slipped outside.
For the first time in his entire life, the sky wasn’t cloaked in darkness. To the east, planks of gold streamed through an opening in the electrical storm, like a portal to another world. As much as he wanted to stare, he moved in a hurry to the mainmast. Grabbing the rungs, he started up to the crow’s nest for a better view of whoever had spotted them, although he had a fair idea.
The wind whistled around his armor and bit into his suit. The sail blocked his view to the east—right where these mysterious contacts were coming from.
Halfway up, his boot slipped off the narrow, wet rung, and he lost his grip. Hanging from one arm, he watched a magazine fall from his vest and clatter onto the deck below.
He swung his hand back up and grabbed the rung.
Come on, old man.
The spear and attached line were just above him, and he swung right to get past. As he reached up for the crow’s-nest rail, his eyes went to his HUD.
It can’t be…
The temperature was seventy degrees Fahrenheit, and there was virtually no trace of radiation. This isolated spot of what many would call heaven wasn’t there for the taking, though.
In the distance, two boats powered toward them, leaving a trail of engine smoke behind them. X jumped into the crow’s nest and unslung his rifle. Another, smaller boat with a single rider led the two larger craft.
Three contacts.
X zoomed in on the small boat, which had handlebars and looked like a seagoing motorcycle. Goggles covered the rider’s face, and long black hair flew over his shoulders. Green and brown clothing rippled in the wind, and the barrel of a slung rifle rose over his back.
This didn’t look like one of the Cazadores he had seen in Florida.
X moved his optics to the larger of the two big boats: a rust bucket that looked worse than some of the wrecks in the Turks and Caicos. Canvas tarps covered the bow, and fishing poles hung from the afterdeck. A cracked glass window obscured the cabin and the two people piloting the vessel. It had an old-world engine, the kind that ran on gasoline and not fuel cells.
It was as if the Sea Wolf had gone through a time machine and entered the Old World.
He studied the men for a few more seconds. Several of them wore some sort of breathing apparatus, but none of them had on the massive suits of armor he remembered from Florida.
For a fleeting moment, he thought that maybe he had found other survivors—people that the passengers of the Hive and Deliverance might live in harmony with.
Then he saw the octopus logo on the helm of the second boat. Just like the one he’d seen tattooed on el Pulpo’s forehead and engraved in his chest armor. There would be no living in harmony with these bastards.
“What do you see?” Magnolia shouted from the deck below.
“Nothin’ pretty!” he yelled back.
He continued scanning the vessel. This one wasn’t a fishing boat. It looked more like what he had seen in Florida. Many years ago, people had called them yachts. They were built for the rich, but this one wasn’t in much better condition than the other boat.
The hull had been stripped of paint and then branded with an image of a purple octopus stretching its arms across the rusty surface. Two men, both wearing helmets, stood at the windowless helm. Slung weapons protruded over their backs, and bandoliers crisscrossed their armored chests.
X moved the scope to a crate resting on the back deck. Three more men stood at the gunwales, weapons cradled. They were coming for the Sea Wolf, with a small army and plenty of guns. And they were quickly closing the gap. The one-man craft suddenly shot ahead, thumping over whitecaps, the driver jolting up and down.
X had waited a long time for this. But despite the longing for revenge, he didn’t feel prepared. His plan had been to surprise these murdering scum, and now he would have to improvise.
He lowered his rifle, staring out over a horizon the color of a ripe apricot. In the distance, miles beyond the boats, he saw structures. Carmine-and-gray towers rose on stilts above the water, looking like giant spiders.
Of course—the Metal Islands…
He focused on the nearest of the towers. He had seen these in picture books.
The fabled Metal Islands weren’t actual islands. They were oil rigs.
Dozens of them lined the horizon, forming a colony in the sea.
“X, what do you—” Magnolia began to call out.
He cut her off with a gravelly shout. “Get to the command room, kid, and use the cameras instead of opening the hatch. I’m going to need you on the controls, but do not raise that hatch. We’re about to have company.”
“Cazadores?”
“About eight of the ugly fuckers. Three vessels. Grab your rifle and everything you can carry.”
Magnolia went back inside the cabin, and he used the time to think. They couldn’t outrun the boats using their sails. Hell, if they turned now they would be tacking into the wind. No, there was only one option.
They had to fight.
X aimed at the rider on the one-man craft and shot him in the chest. The strange little boat coasted several yards farther as the man splashed into the sea and vanished.
X pulled a grenade from his vest and loaded it with a click.
Magnolia stood in the open hatch below, holding her automatic rifle, apparently having forgotten his orders. A bandolier of shotgun shells hung around her neck, and she had a blaster holstered and her curved blade over her back.
“What the hell are you doing!” he shouted.
“I want to fight! Let Timothy command the boat.” She stood there looking up at him from below, a hand shielding her visor. Human eyes weren’t used to real sunlight.
“No!” X boomed. “Get to the control room!”
She hesitated, then went back inside.
X was already aiming at the yacht. It had powered past the fishing boat and the idle one-man craft, not stopping to check whether its rider was alive.
A wide-shouldered man behind the wheel of the boat came into focus. X wasn’t sure how far out they were, but they were close enough for him to see the octopus symbol on an armored plate covering the man’s chest. Goggles covered his face, but X had a feeling he knew this man.
“El Pulpo, we meet again,” X muttered, zooming in closer. This was the king of the Cazadores—the man who had killed Rodger and tried to kill X and Miles back in Florida.