What the hell was he doing?
Les finally stopped behind the curved blades of a turbofan that had broken off. The other divers of Team Phoenix clustered behind him, checking the sky in all directions. From here to the airship, there was scant cover for someone as tall as Les, and the howling wind made drones hard to hear.
Edgar glassed the skyline with his spotting scope.
“We’re clear, sir,” he said.
The wind stirred up a vortex of dust, blocking his view of the airship. It blew open a suitcase, the contents long gone.
For a fleeting moment, the wind seemed to die again, and he saw the full outline of the airship, including the whipping forest canopy growing out of the rooftop.
He gave the order to advance. The other divers kept close as they navigated the field. Lena was limping again, with Ted helping her fight the wind.
Halfway across, the storm kicked up dust that brought visibility down to just a few feet. Sand scoured his armor, pushing him backward.
Les kept his helmet down, eyes on the barely visible ground. The storm continued to gather strength until the team found itself in near-blackout conditions.
Les looked back to Ted and Lena, scarcely able to make them out. He couldn’t see Edgar at all. There was nothing to do but hunker down and wait it out.
Over the howl came a thrumming sound that sent a spike of fear through Les. The thrumming grew to a blast.
Another drone.
The team was trapped in the open, unable to move, as the unmanned hunter hovered somewhere overhead.
Les pressed his long frame into the dirt, wishing he could shrink. He motioned for Ted and Lena. They started crawling.
Leading the way, he squirmed over to a dislodged fin. He grabbed the side and tried to lift it up, then halted when he saw the faded lettering on the metaclass="underline" “ITC Requiem.”
But that made no sense.
He didn’t have time to figure out where this airship came from or where the ITC Victory was. Lena moved toward him on all fours, about ten feet away.
Les still didn’t see Edgar, but he spotted Ted.
The diver was battling the wind from a standing position. Les tried to wave him down, but Ted was looking away, his helmet down.
The thrumming came again, drawing Ted’s attention.
He looked to the sky and raised a hand to his visor. Les got up on one knee, ready to run over and pull Ted down.
A bolt of light flashed through the swirling gust, too blue and straight to be lightning.
Ted fell backward in the dirt, a sizzling hole in the upper-left quadrant of his chest armor, where his heart had been.
No!
Les held in a scream and dropped back down with Lena.
More bolts punched into the ground, kicking up dirt and leaving little smoldering craters. Les pushed the fin up and pulled Lena underneath.
Then he raised his assault rifle to the sky, aiming at the source of the lasers. A bolt blasted the ground to his right. He rolled away, banging into another piece of debris from the airship. A laser whizzed past his helmet.
Les got up on a knee and aimed where the bolt had come from.
This time, he spotted the drone hovering.
A flurry of bolts zipped from the drone as he pulled the trigger. Rounds from his rifle found the target, sparking on impact and sending the machine spiraling away.
Les looked at the burning holes in the ground to his left and right, then at the one that had missed his crotch by inches.
He was lucky. Far luckier than Ted.
Partly in shock, Les crawled back over to the metal fin to get Lena out. Before he got there, the drone’s hum rose over the whistling wind.
The noise sucked the air from his chest.
He spotted the same drone flying back toward his location, smoke fanning away from the holes he had blown in its outer armor.
Bolts sprayed the ground, and Les bounded away, back toward where Ted had fallen. Edgar was there, on his back next to Ted’s body, searching the sky with his NVGs.
Laser beams pounded the dirt as the machine homed in on their location. Les rose on both knees, raised his rifle, and was aiming when bolts cleaved the sky, slamming into the smoking side of the drone.
It burst into pieces, raining shrapnel on the surface.
“Over here!” yelled a voice.
Les turned to see Michael, who had run out into the storm.
“Help me with Ted!” Edgar shouted over the wind.
“We can’t take him with us!” Les called back.
Grabbing Ted’s rifle, Edgar jumped up and followed Les to the dorsal fin, where Lena had crawled out. Together, they made their way to Michael and, finally, to the cover of the airship hull.
Arlo and Sofia stepped away from the hull.
“Where’s Ted?” Arlo asked.
Les shook his head, and Arlo bowed his. The two had been good friends and had grown even closer since joining the Hell Divers.
But this was the reality of being one.
“We can’t stay here,” Michael said. “Gotta keep moving!”
He ran along the starboard side of the airship, under broken portholes. The legs had collapsed long ago, and the bottom of the ship had pushed dirt outward into a low, sloping wall smoothed by the wind.
Fighting strong gusts, the divers came up on the stern. Michael shouldered his weapon as he reached the debris of broken fins and rudders at the back of the ship.
Beyond there, Les couldn’t see much in the swirling grit. According to his HUD, they had another four miles’ march to the mountain, most of it in the open, in the wind.
If they made it that far, they must then infiltrate a base, find the mainframe, and upload the virus.
Passing another hatch, Les looked inside. Maybe they could shelter in the ship. Not much was left. Pitted bulkheads were covered in dark moldy growth. Electrical wires hung like spilled guts from the overhead. More discarded suitcases littered the decks. One contained a plastic doll.
It was as if these people had landed and then disembarked, leaving their belongings behind. But why? And if these were not Captain Rolo’s people, who were they?
“Captain,” called a voice.
Michael had stopped ahead, kneeling to glass the terrain in the distance. He waved Les over. The other divers followed close behind, hugging the bulkhead like scared children, except for Edgar, who stood tall with his rifle, scanning the debris field they had crossed.
Les squatted beside Michael.
“No sign of drones,” Michael said. “But we’ve got to cross that.”
He gazed out at a flat, desolate windswept area. Grit clouded the view, but there was something moving out there. An orange glow.
Michael saw it, too, and aimed his laser rifle.
“Get the others into the ship,” he said. “Tell them to hide.”
Les spotted three orange lights moving in the storm. Gripping his assault rifle, he thought of Phyl and Katherine.
He had known that this moment would come, but somehow he didn’t feel ready.
Did you expect to get in there without a fight?
“I’ll take them, sir,” Michael said. “You should go with the others.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Les replied. He motioned for Edgar to get the other divers inside the airship. Edgar nodded and corralled Sofia, Lena, and Arlo into the open hatch where they had found the doll.
The orange lights on the plateau brightened until Les could see the titanium-alloy skulls. Seeing the defectors sparked something inside him. He inched away from the hull.
“What are you doing, sir?” Michael asked.
“Aim for the chest or the head. I’m going to get us three new laser rifles.” With that, Les took off running into the storm, away from the orange visors and back out into the debris field.