Hell Divers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith Page A

glasses and sat down at his station on the floor above where Ash and Jordan stood.
    A moment later, an image of Captain Willis emerged on the screen. Lines crackled across the display, the feed cutting in and out. But even with the fuzzy video, Willis looked awful. His white hair had receded even further. Deep creases on his forehead overshadowed a scar that ran from his eyebrow to his hairline.
    Ash took a seat in her chair.
    â€œMaria. Captain Ash. God, I hope this message gets through. Ares was severely damaged in a freak electrical storm a week ago. We lost several generators, and we’ve been forced to shut down all reactors. We’re running on backup power. I’m deploying an HD team to the surface to search for critical parts and cells, but we need your help.”
    Static crackled from the PA speakers above.
    Ash clamped the headset over her ears. A few seconds passed before the audio returned.
    â€œWe are hovering above the following coordinates: forty-one degrees, fifty-two minutes, forty-one seconds north; eighty-seven degrees, thirty-seven minutes, forty-seven seconds west.”
    A second wave of white noise sizzled across the room.
    Ash looked up at Jordan. A hint of fear flickered in his eyes. They both knew the coordinates by heart. It was the location of an Old World metropolis, dead in the center of a red zone. The radiation was so high, and the surface temperature so low, that only three missions had ever been attempted to retrieve cells from the area. All three had failed, with all divers lost.
    She couldn’t remember the city’s original name. Everyone on the ship just called the wasteland “Hades.”
    â€œCaptain, what are your orders?” Jordan asked.
    The transmission replayed over and over in her mind. Damn it, how could Willis have been such a fool? Sure, every captain knew that Hades was home to Industrial Tech Corporation, the company that had designed and built their airships, and that its headquarters was a gold mine of power cells and repair parts. But as with all great treasure troves, Hades was cursed.
    â€œCancel my visit to the lower decks, Jordan,” she said. “I won’t be visiting today.”
    â€œAye, Captain.”
    As Jordan turned to leave, she added, “Get me Samson and X. I need to see both of them, ASAP.”
    â€œUnderstood.”
    Ash sank back in her chair as Jordan loped up the stairs. She didn’t know what desperation had driven Willis to Hades. But even if Ash could fix the Hive, she wasn’t sure there was anything she could do to save Ares.

FOUR
    Commander Rick Weaver shifted in and out of consciousness. The closer he came to reality, the more he wanted to stay asleep. In his fragmented dreams, he was still with his family aboard Ares. He could still see his wife, Jennifer, and the freckled faces of his daughters, Kayla and Cassie, standing in the crowd of family members in the launch bay.
    â€œPromise me you’re coming back,” Jennifer said.
    He gazed into those green eyes for a moment. “I promise, baby.” He sealed the words with a kiss.
    â€œBye, Daddy,” Kayla said, looking up with the wide, curious eyes of a seven-year-old still innocent of the real world’s horrors. Five-year-old Cassie had even less of a clue. And that was fine with him.
    â€œI’ll be back in no time,” Weaver said. He leaned down and hugged them both, then gave Jennifer a last lingering kiss.
    A stab of pain shook him free of the memory. He opened his eyes to find his family gone, replaced by a sky the color of bruises. Lightning flashed overhead, splitting through the clouds like a network of veins.
    â€œNo,” he choked, reaching toward the storm. He closed his eyes again in a vain attempt to stay a few more minutes with his wife and daughters.
    The rumble of thunder kept him from slipping away. Reality slowly closed in. His family was four miles up there, waiting for him to return with the