“It’s okay, kid,” he said, remembering X’s words. “You’re home now.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
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.