But other grappling hooks hit the front from other Octos, scrambling up toward us like spiders on webs. Blackhawks swept down but they weren’t gunning for us. Their machine gunners were aiming for the tentacled monstrosities. Finally, the U.S. was fighting the real enemy. Took long enough.
An explosion rocked the Evermore. Oily black smoke swept into my face, like I was in a smelter burning Walmart plastic. An Octo leapt down on us, but Wren was there to cut the thing in half with her cleaver.
The bow swung about, shedding more rooms and the cockpit. Basically, we were a floating walkway under the air cells. The front of the airship was secured to the ground by the last Cargador. Cables from Sketchy’s zeppelin pulled from the back. There was a good chance the Evermore would be ripped in two at any second.
Down the swinging bridge of the corridor, about ten meters away, a woman in a black business suit was bent over in the ruins of a room, standing over a menacing black ammunition box. She glanced over at us, calmly. She must’ve been the Severin that had betrayed President Jack. No human woman would be so serene.
She rose and her Desert Messiah seemed to leap into her hands. She fired on us, but Wren caught the bullets on her Cleaver. Fist-sized indentations appeared in the reinforced steel.
Pilate raised his Beijing Homewrecker, screaming, “Luke!”
The shotgun blast struck her face, removing her nose, her hair, most of her skin. I raised my G18 and filled her full of darts but missed her eye sockets.
But that box—what was in it?
Then I knew.
“She’s got a nuke!” I yelled.
An Octo latched onto Wren before she could get her cleaver up.
“John!” Pilate fell past me and stuck the shotgun into the gaping mouth of the thing and pulled the trigger. Brains and blood sprayed into the air out of the Octo’s skull.
June Mai and Sharlotte were behind us, their assault rifles peppering the Octos that had made it onboard. But the bullets wouldn’t pierce their gray thick hide, living plastic, neofiber made into skin.
“Aim for the eyes!” I yelled.
“Trying to!” Sharlotte yelled back.
The Severin bent back down to the box. It was bolted to the floor.
Octos surrounded her, giving her time to trigger the bomb. Wren leapt onto them. Their sharp tentacles tore through my sister’s skin, but she ignored the pain. Wren ripped gray coils away from writhing bodies, tossed them out, and smashed skulls with her fingers. Still, my sister couldn’t get to the Severin.
Pilate knelt, reloading his Homewrecker.
The last of the hallway melted away. I grabbed hold of the Kevlar envelope to keep from falling. I pulled Jack in there with me. Likewise, Pilate, Sharlotte, the rest of us, gripped the remnants of the walls and envelope to stay on the floating walkway.
Wren fought alone. Which is what she liked. My sister threw the last of the Octos away from the Severin and the ammo box. June Mai raced forward and emptied her MG21 into the head of the clone, blowing her out of the way.
She reached into the box and didn’t move.
Pilate, Jack, Batista, and some other outlaws, stayed behind near the aft of the ruined zeppelin. Wren was near the front of the Evermore, fighting.
Sharlotte and I stumbled across the walkway to get to June, in that bit of room, with her hand in the box bolted to the floor.
A Blackhawk was hit by a missile and careened down to the field below. Two more ARK zeppelins, fast Jimmies, had joined the fray, guns blazing.
The Heartbreaker returned fire, trying to give us more time. We needed to get out of there. But where could we go?
“No!” Sharlotte called out, and I didn’t know why.
“Only way!” June Mai shouted.
The Evermore bucked and I was thrown next to the box. The readout blinked 00:01. We had one second before the device split a hydrogen atom and the resulting the explosion would consume us all.
June Mai’s finger held a lever. It was clear: if she lifted her finger, the last second would tick down and the hydrogen bomb would go off.
The Heartbreaker turned in the sky above us. The skeletal remains of The Evermore swung about. I figured Sketchy was running low on ammo and she needed to flee from the two new ARK zeppelins.
Octos clung to the bow of The Evermore, using the spines of their tentacles to grip the shredded Kevlar. They started creeping toward us.
“You are all going to go,” June Mai said. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can, and then I’ll let the Cleaner take them.”
But the bomb wouldn’t just blow up the ARK forces. The Americans trapped near the Pepsi Center would die as well.
All of Denver would be destroyed.
June Mai turned and grabbed Sharlotte’s head and kissed my sister with everything she had. “Remember me. Remember my love.”
“This is bullshit.” I went forward, to figure out that bomb, to save my sister’s wife.
I never got the chance. Left-handed, June Mae punched me in the nose. Like I’d punched her. She swiveled, picked up her assault rifle, and one-handed, took out the first Octo who was scrambling down the twisted corridor floor turned bridge.
Sure, my sister gets the kiss. I get the punch.
Back near the aft, where the Evermore was connected to the Heartbreaker, Pilate, Baptista, and others were firing into the Octos creeping up from the rear.
Wren took care of the monsters at the front, Sharlotte helped as well. She triggered Tina Machinegun’s grenade launcher and sent a shell into the creatures.
She calmly fed another shell into the launcher from the bandolier around her.
“You leave now, Cavatica,” my big sister said. “I’ll stay with June Mai. I want this.”
And she said it all so distantly, so calmly, like
