My Daughter Was Beaten, Locked Away, and Threatened by Her Millionaire Husband’s Family—When They Laughed at Me and Said My Military Rank Didn’t Frighten Them, I Slowly Turned Around and Made One Move They Never Expected. / Chapter 77 / 100

Chapter 77 - Assault on Drydock 4

The interior of Drydock 4 was an astonishing monument to shadow-funded militarism.

The basin had been drained dry decades ago, creating an artificial concrete canyon ninety feet deep and six hundred feet long. Resting on massive timber keel blocks at the center of the floor was the *Astraea*—not a pleasure yacht, but a heavily armored, ocean-going surveillance vessel bristling with satellite domes, phased-array radars, and automated weapon stations.

Around the perimeter of the drydock, high-output LED floodlights were mounted to the concrete retaining walls, bathing the entire ship in harsh, blinding white light.

"Thermal scan," Chen whispered, pulling a handheld tactical scanner from her watertight drybag. "I'm counting twenty-four armed signatures on the catwalks, eight on the main deck of the ship, and a concentration of twelve signatures inside the ship’s central bridge deck."

"That's Marcus," I said, dropping my rebreather to the grated floor. "Miller, prep the thermite charges. We kill their power grid before we move."

"Charges primed," Miller grunted, unslinging two brick-sized remote detonators. "I’ll drop their secondary transformers on the north catwalk. When that blows, the entire basin goes dark, and their automated point-defense guns become expensive paperweights."

"Wait for my mark," I said. "Abigail, how does the perimeter road look?"

"Road is clear, Mom," Abigail's calm, resolute voice came through my earpiece. "Frank intercepted their primary radio relay. They still think the D.C. police are containing the Walter Reed incident. They have no idea you're inside the fence."

"Copy that. Stand by for fireworks."

I looked at my three operators. Men and women who had crossed oceans with me, bled with me, buried brothers with me.

"We move fast, we strike hard, and we leave no shadows behind. Miller... blow it."

Miller pressed the trigger.

Fifty yards away, the primary electrical transformer bank exploded in a blinding flash of turquoise and orange flame. The concussion wave slammed through the drydock, rattling the concrete walls like an earthquake.

Instantly, the blinding LED floodlights died. The industrial hum of the generators choked on severed lines, and the entire cavern was plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

"Contact! Sabotage on the north wall!" screams echoed across the basin in Spanish, Russian, and English.

"Execute!" I roared through the comms.

Vasquez was already moving. He dropped to one knee on the upper turbine platform, the suppressed barrel of his rifle spitting deadly, rhythmic bursts of 5.56mm fire into the darkness. Two guards running across the upper steel catwalk fell instantly, tumbling over the railing and crashing seventy feet down onto the concrete basin floor.

Miller and I bolted down the steel spiral staircase leading directly to the basin floor, our night-vision optics painting our targets in crisp, lethal green.

A team of three private contractors, armed with automatic shotguns, rounded the bow of the *Astraea*. They were completely blind, their white-light flashlights slicing frantically through the rising smoke, bouncing uselessly off the ship's black hull.

I didn't give them time to adjust. I brought my HK416 to my shoulder and squeezed off four controlled pairs.

The rounds found their marks with terrifying efficiency: chest, throat, chest, head. The three men collapsed into the oily puddles on the concrete floor before their flashlights even hit the ground.

"Bridge access is on the starboard gangway!" Chen yelled over the gunfire, sprinting across the floor while laying down suppressing fire toward an elevated machine-gun nest.

We were a four-man hurricane moving through a private army. Every step was calculated; every corner was cleared with the brutal, methodical efficiency of soldiers who had spent a lifetime perfecting the science of close-quarters violence.

We reached the base of the *Astraea’s* main boarding ramp.

Suddenly, a high-velocity sniper round ricocheted off the steel stanchion two inches from my ear, spraying iron shavings across my cheek.

"Sniper! Top deck, aft mast!" Vasquez shouted over the net.

Before I could bring my rifle up, the unmistakable, deafening *BOOM* of a high-caliber civilian hunting rifle echoed from the top of the drydock retaining wall—high above our heads.

On the aft mast of the *Astraea*, the enemy sniper’s head snapped backward, his rifle spinning out of his hands as his limp body plummeted onto the deck below.

I froze, looking up at the high concrete rim of the drydock.

Standing silhouetted against the dark sky, holding a customized .308 bolt-action rifle with smoking barrel, was Abigail.

Beside her, Frank was already reloading a heavy support machine gun.

"Target down, Mom," Abigail’s voice came through my headset, steady, cold, and unwavering. "Clear to advance on the bridge."

A fierce, savage smile spread across my face.