Free Hell Divers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith Page A

worse.” He wrinkled his forehead and squinted as if he had a pounding headache—which, she reflected, he likely did.
    â€œI know it’s painful, X, but think back. We need to know what you saw, so we can prepare the other divers before the next jump.”
    X chuckled. “ Prepare them?” Tracing phantom quotation marks in the air, he said, “Nothing’s going to ‘ prepare ’ them for what I saw.”
    â€œAnd what, exactly, was it that you saw, Commander?” Jordan asked.
    X didn’t turn to Jordan, but met Ash’s stare instead. “Some sort of creature unlike anything I’ve seen on other dives. They were humanoid, with long arms and legs—bipedal, but to move fast, they went on all fours—like the baboons on the old nature vids. And …” X looked away.
    Ash waited patiently.
    â€œAnd they had no face. No eyes or nose—just a big-ass mouth full of shark’s teeth. Their skulls were coated with some scabby-looking shit and bristles. And their backs were covered in spikes, kind of like a dorsal fin or something. Some of them had scrapes on their wrinkled skin. It was leathery and tough, though. Reminded me of dried cowhide. I suspect it protects them from the radiation. I don’t know. Shit, it’s not like I had time to do a detailed examination. They weren’t holding still, and I wasn’t waiting for ’em to.”
    Ash ran a finger over her lips. She had heard all the stories of the creatures the divers encountered on the surface, and she had combed the ships’ archives during nights she couldn’t sleep. But this? Nothing in the ships’ logs was even remotely close to what X described. No one had encountered anything with humanoid anatomy.
    â€œWhat else can you tell me?” Ash asked.
    X straightened in his chair. “I left out the worst part. They make these high-pitched noises like an emergency alarm—a sort of whine so loud it was paralyzing.”
    â€œAre you saying these things could be part organic and part technological?”
    â€œNo,” X replied. “There wasn’t anything robotic about ’em.”
    â€œYou sure the radiation wasn’t screwing with your senses?” Jordan asked. “Organic or mechanical—it all sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”
    X twisted in his chair. “So which is it you’re suggesting, sir: that I’m lying, or delusional?”
    Ash glared again at her XO. Sometimes, she wondered if he had something against Hell Divers. This wasn’t the first time he’d questioned their acuity or their truthfulness.
    â€œI think Jordan meant you were down there for a while and that maybe your eyes and ears were playing tricks on you,” Ash said in her calmest tone. “High doses of radiation can do that.”
    â€œWas supposed to be a green dive,” X said. “There wasn’t supposed to be significant radiation, remember? Just something else you guys fucked up. Not giving either Ash or Jordan a chance to respond, he turned back to her and said, “I know what I saw.”
    â€œI believe you,” she replied. “But right now we need to talk about Ares .”
    A moment of quiet fell over the room. X stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. “We’re talking about the only other ship in the world, Captain. No one else is going to help them. We’re it.”
    Ash nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but X beat her to it.
    â€œIf I were in your shoes, like you said: I’d plot a course and get there as fast as possible. You can reevaluate the situation when we arrive.”
    â€œHe has a point,” Jordan said.
    â€œIndeed, he does,” Ash replied. “And I agree with the commander. I won’t abandon Ares . I won’t risk the extinction of the human race if there is something we can do.”
    â€œUnfortunately, Captain Willis already put us all at risk when he