Sunlight greeted Ash when she arrived at the launch bay. She hurried toward a crowd of yellow suits swarming around the plastic dome that covered the reentry bay. Tin was with her, his hand clasped in hers.
“Is X back?” he asked.
“I hope so,” Ash replied.
As they walked, Tin scanned the porthole windows, his eyes wide with awe. Normally, the sight would have mesmerized her, too, but she didn’t have time to stop and stare. Halfway across the room, she noticed something else.
“Where’s your hat?” she asked Tin.
“I don’t need it anymore,” he said. “Hell Divers don’t wear hats.”
“Hell Divers?”
He looked away from the windows and found her eyes. She saw strength there beyond his ten years.
“I don’t want to be an engineer anymore,” Tin said. “I want to be a Hell Diver, like X and my dad.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand.
“Captain,” a voice called out. Jordan came running from the crowd of technicians. He slid to a stop a few feet in front of Ash, his boots squeaking across the floor. “We recovered the crate and three divers.”
“Just three?” Ash said, dread rising in her voice.
“Afraid so,” Jordan replied. He glanced back at the dome. Ty motioned for the technicians to step back and yelled, “Repressurizing!”
A hiss sounded as air flooded the reentry bay.
“Sterilizing for contaminants,” Ty said.
Mist filled the inside of the dome, swirling and churning like the storm over Hades. Ash tightened her grip on Tin’s hand. Finally, the plastic clicked and unsealed, and a grappling hook pulled the dome away.
Floor vents sucked away the white cloud, and three divers staggered out. One of them dropped to both knees, dented armor shining in the sunlight. The other two stood, their visors roving this way and that as if they couldn’t believe they were indeed back on the ship. It took only a moment to see that X wasn’t among the group.
Tin pulled away from Ash’s grip. “Where’s—where’s X?”
The diver on the ground removed his helmet, and a man Ash didn’t recognize looked up. He wore green armor, and his layered suit was subtly different from those her own divers wore.
“Where’s X?” Tin asked again, his voice cracking.
“I’m sorry, kid, but he didn’t make it,” the man said. “Bravest damn diver I ever saw, though. What he did for Magnolia …” He shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. Extending a trembling hand, he said, “Captain Ash, I presume. I’m Commander Rick Weaver from Ares.”
Ash didn’t know what to say, so instead of saying anything, she shook his hand. Then she grabbed Tin’s hand again. She looked to the other divers as they removed their helmets. Katrina and Magnolia, their faces streaked with tears, wrapped their arms around each other.
“What do you mean, ‘he didn’t make it’?” Tin asked. “He promised he would come back.” Ash squeezed his hand, but he pulled away. “Where is he?”
Katrina shook her head. “He’s gone, Tin. I’m so sorry.”
Tin glanced back at Ash. “We have to go back for him!”
Magnolia cupped a hand over her mouth and sobbed.
“I’m sorry, Tin, but X is …” Ash considered her words, then said, “He’s dead, Tin. We can’t do anything for him now. I’m sorry.”
“Captain,” Jordan said.
Ash turned and saw the look on her XO’s face. They were out of time. They needed to move the ship. She nodded, feeling her heart break, and Jordan hurried away.
“No!” Tin said. “We can’t leave without X!”
“We have to, Tin,” Ash said. “I’m sorry, but X would want this. He gave his life so you and everyone else could be safe.” She grabbed Tin and pulled him close as Samson and his men entered the room. The engineer nodded at Ash and motioned his team of blue suits to the crate. They rummaged through the contents for the power cells and valves that so many Hell Divers had died for.
“X said he would come back,” Tin sobbed. “He promised he would do everything to return.”
“He sacrificed himself so that you and everyone else could live,” Ash said. Her voice was low and soothing. “He wanted you to grow up. He wanted you to become an engineer.”
Tin tilted his head back and wiped a string of snot from his nose. “He promised he would take care of me.”
Ash hesitated, considering her next words carefully. Thoughts of Mark, her cancer, her duty to the Hive, and her dream of finding them all a new home surfaced in her thoughts. It was overwhelming, but she was Captain Maria Ash. She was a fighter and always would be. She could still fight her cancer, pursue her dream of finding a home, and look after Tin with what time she had left.
“I’ll take care of you, Tin,” she said. “You can stay with Mark and me. How would you like that?”
The boy glanced up and met her eyes but didn’t say a word. Nothing she could say would make Tin understand why X had given his life—at least, not right now. All she could do was console him. She pulled his head to her chest and patted his back. “You can even sit in my captain’s chair if you want.”
Tin snorted—a cross between a grim laugh and a sob. He nodded, and hugged her. A tense silence followed the heartbreaking moment, and everyone in the launch bay worked quietly. Medics attended to Weaver, Katrina, and Magnolia while Samson’s engineers unloaded crates and whisked the precious cells and valves away.
Ash considered making a statement—something that would honor the sacrifices that X and the other Hell Divers had made on this day. But there was still work to do, and she knew that any words she said would ring hollow. Everyone in this room—everyone aboard the Hive—would know the names of the divers who had saved them. But first, Ash had to save their ship.
* * * * *
X opened his eyes to red-hued darkness. That was the first surprise. He wasn’t dead, but his entire body hurt—every muscle and bone and nerve. And he was cold—colder even than he had been without his heat pads. He knew that the chill came from loss of blood.
Even now, when facing certain death, he fought. He struggled to sit up, and when he couldn’t do that, he squirmed from side to side. The snow had hardened around him.
First things first. You have to get free.
X inhaled a raspy breath, trying to focus. He blinked heavy eyelids until his vision had cleared enough to see that it was a Siren’s wings, not snow, that had him trapped. The leathery shrouds covered him from neck to feet. Now he knew how he had survived the fall back to Hades: the creature that had tried to kill him had ended up padding his fall.
If he had survived, then maybe the Siren had, too. The realization filled him with energy that he didn’t know he had left. He wiggled and used his arms to push the tangled wings off him. When he was free, he scrambled across the snow, right into another dead Siren. He climbed over it and saw another. There were three—all limp and unmoving, riddled with bullet holes. These were the creatures the divers had killed before they deployed their boosters.
The smoke from the burning ITC building filled the horizon to the west. He smacked his helmet on one side until the flickering HUD solidified. The nav marker for the crate was gone, but he still remembered where it had been. If he could get to the supplies he had dumped, maybe he could use one of the extra boosters to get back to the Hive—if it was even still there.
The harnesses attached to his balloon pulled him back when he crawled away from the bodies. He reached for his knife, which wasn’t there. Then he remembered plunging it into the Siren.
Pushing himself to his feet, he gritted his teeth in anticipation of the wave of dizziness he knew was coming. Darkness washed over him, and he collapsed back onto the snow. The worst of the pain seemed to be coming from his stomach. He pulled a slimy hand away from his gut, warm blood steaming off his fingers. The wound was bad, but the threat of radiation poisoning was worse.
He had to get moving. The Hive wouldn’t wait forever. He doubted it was still up there even now, but he clung to the spark of hope. The spark grew as he pushed himself to his feet and worked his way carefully back to the first Siren. It lay on its back, wings outstretched. A halo of frozen blood surrounded the knife hilt protruding from its rib cage. He watched its chest for any hint of breath, but the bloody flesh was still.
X took a guarded step toward the monster. Certain it was dead, he bent down and plucked his knife from its chest. He staggered backward as a coarse tongue plopped out of its open mouth.
With one eye on the creature, he reached over his shoulder and cut the harnesses away. Then he yanked the useless booster from the slot in his armor and dropped it in the snow.
Ignoring every stab of pain tormenting his body, he struggled to a trot. He stumbled after a few strides, nearly toppling over in the snow. The crackle from his raspy breathing echoed in his helmet.
In an out, X. Focus. You can do this.
The eerie call of a Siren broke his concentration. Two others immediately answered its call. These screeches weren’t coming from the sky. They were coming from the ground. He didn’t need to turn to see the monsters advancing across the snowy landscape.
He reached for his weapons, but his hand came up empty. He had lost both the rifle and the blaster in the fall. There was only one thing to do: run—and pray that he reached the supplies in time. Pain shot up his legs and burned through his gut as he fell into a jog.
The sight of Sirens loping across the snow energized him. All at once, their screeches seemed to collide in a wavering, electronic-sounding whine that shocked him into motion. He could see still more of them behind the first wave, fighting through gusts of snow in the distance. They rushed toward him, closing in from all directions. He pushed harder through the deep drifts, gasping for air, running on adrenaline and little else.
The supplies weren’t far now. He could see them just a few yards away—boosters, weapons, boxes of extra ammunition—lying in the snow, where he had tossed them to make room in the crate.
X launched himself in a headlong dive for the gear. The uncontrolled slide ripped at the wound and packed it with dirty, radioactive snow so cold it ached. Swallowing the pain, he searched frantically for a weapon beneath the light coat of powder that had fallen.
He gripped the stock of a blaster and brought it up to meet the four Sirens galloping in from the north.
Without thinking, he fired a flare at the cluster. A split second later, he realized his mistake. As the flare exploded in the snow between the creatures, he chinned the pad to shut off his night-vision optics. The Sirens squawked away, darting off into the gusting snow.
X scooped up a new booster, slid it into the slot on the back of his armor, and secured it with a click. Then he grabbed one of the assault rifles and turned to see two dozen Sirens stalking him.
He could power down and pull his battery unit, but he would never survive the trip back without the heating pads in his suit. His only option was to fight.
X planted his boots in the snow and struggled to shoulder his rifle. His arms shook as he raised the weapon. The crack of his own gunfire was a welcome sound, blotting out the encroaching wails. He fired in short bursts that punched through leathery skin and shattered bone. Four bodies pitched into the snow. He killed three more before ejecting the empty magazine and shoving in another. Smoke curled from the muzzle as he trained it on the six Sirens drawing closer. He squeezed the trigger, moving his sights from target to target.
Between the cracks of gunfire came a shrill cry above. He looked up to see three Sirens cutting through the sky in a nosedive. Swinging his rifle skyward, he fired single shots into the mass. One of the creatures veered away, wounded, but the other shots went wide as panic threw off his aim.
X concentrated this time, aiming with greater precision, knowing that each round was precious. He closed his eyes and flinched as the two Sirens crashed headfirst into the snow around him, sending up a cloud of white. He didn’t check to see if they were dead. Now was his chance to escape. He changed out his magazine, then reached over his shoulder to hit the booster. The balloon shot out of the pack and launched him skyward.
Two converging Sirens bashed into each other right where he had stood a moment before, throwing up more snow. He angled the muzzle toward the ground as soon as he was in the air. Ten of the creatures writhed just under his feet, their eyeless faces turning this way and that, as if confused by the cloud of snow.
Not wanting to waste the stolen moment, X squeezed the trigger at one of the monsters as it looked skyward. Several of the rounds punched through its skull, spraying the others with fresh blood and sending them into a frenzy.
One down.
The next shot left another flopping spastically in the snow, with a shattered leg.
Two down.
He mowed down three more with a single controlled burst, but the rifle’s recoil pushed him higher into the air in erratic jerks.
The remaining Sirens locked on to his position from the ground, squawking furiously. He dropped three more with calculated shots before the final two got airborne.
X centered the weapon on them, but the stock felt light in his hands, and when he went to squeeze the trigger he realized his fingers were almost completely numb. His entire body shuddered. Shock and blood loss were taking a toll. The wind whistled over his armor as he rose toward the clouds.
Even with numb fingers, he managed to fire off another volley, ripping through the wings of the Siren to his left. It tumbled away before smashing into the ground. He focused on the other now, holding the rifle as steady as he could.
The monster soared through the sky. It was almost elegant, the way it caught the air currents. Even as it closed on him, X found himself marveling that somehow these creatures had survived in this harsh environment. Maybe it was the next step in evolution on earth. Maybe humans’ time was indeed over.
No. We still have time.
Holding in a breath, he lined up the sights and fired into the creature’s torso, knocking it off course and sending it spiraling out of control. He pulled the trigger again, but the gun wouldn’t fire.
X reached for his final magazine just as a crosswind knocked the rifle from his hands. He watched helplessly as it disappeared into the clouds. All he had left now was his knife. If the Sirens returned, he would have no choice but to use the blade.
He searched the darkness for any sign of them. His vision was tinted red, the field growing narrower, the images dimmer.
Almost there. Almost home.
He pressed against the wound on his belly and groaned at the stab of pain. Ascending higher, he drifted closer to unconsciousness. He fought it, but this wasn’t a foe to be vanquished with grit and a tactical knife.
Lightning shot across the clouds to the west, and ten seconds later, he heard the dull roll of thunder. X had drifted to the east, his balloon pulling him away from the storm.
He grabbed his toggles and focused on the flashes. Watching them helped him concentrate, kept him barely present. Despite his injuries, he began to relax. There was something serene about the darkness. He imagined that it was a lot like death: infinite and everlasting.
As he coasted away from the storm, his HUD solidified. He was at ten thousand feet now.
Were the Sirens still searching for him?
He listened for their high-pitched shrieks but heard only wind and the echoes of thunder.
X closed his eyes, he wasn’t sure for how long—maybe just a moment, maybe much longer. But when he opened them again, the brightest, most beautiful light he had ever seen flooded his vision.
A carpet of yellow stretched across the horizon. White, fluffy clouds drifted across an ocean of blue. And there to the east was a black speck that might just be the Hive. Above it all, sat a flaming ball so bright, it hurt his eyes. He had seen the sun only a handful of times in his life, and never so clearly as this.
X squinted into the sunlight, shielding his visor with a shaky, bloody hand. Could it be? Could he really have made it back?
He shifted his gaze back to the tiny black sphere and bumped his comm pad. “This is Commander Xavier Rodriguez …” He broke into a cough, then sucked in deep gasps to control his breathing. Stars floated before his vision, encroaching on the beautiful view. “Does anyone copy? Over.”
Static rushed out of the speakers in his helmet. He blinked away the fuzz and watched the only home he had ever known fly slowly away. He pleaded that someone would hear him and come back for him. Several minutes passed, and he tried again.
“This is Commander X. If anyone can hear me, I’m drifting east with eyes on the Hive. Anyone copy? Over.”
White noised crackled in his ear.
The Hive continued gliding through the blue, carrying its precious cargo to safety. X felt his lips curl into a smile. They had made it. Captain Ash was steering the ship away from Hades, leaving the death and despair behind while his balloon pulled him toward the sun.
X let out a sigh and searched his vest pocket for the fortune Tin had given him. He pulled it and read it in the sunlight.
“Handle your present with confidence. Face your future without fear,” X said. Tin had taught him what it meant to live again, and even more importantly, what it meant to be courageous. In the end, it was with the boy’s help that X had fulfilled his promise to Aaron. It didn’t matter that X wouldn’t be there to see the boy grow up; he’d given Tin the chance to grow up.
He let the wind take the piece of paper from his fingers and watched it swirl away. Ares was gone, but the Hive was still flying. Maybe Captain Ash really would find a place to land someday—a place where the survivors of the human race could finally start over. The fate of humankind was now in the capable hands of others. He had done all he could. He didn’t need to fight anymore. His battle was finally over. X loosened his grip on the toggles and let the balloon pull him into the warmth of the sun.