Chapter 35 - The Submerged Bastion
The descent through the Greenland trench was a descent into the void.
The diving bell, a spherical bathyscaphe reinforced with eight inches of syntactic foam and titanium alloy, groaned under the immense hydrostatic pressure. Outside the foot-thick acrylic viewports, the green-tinted light of the surface faded rapidly into indigo, then navy, until finally we were enveloped in the absolute, crushing black of the abyssal zone.
Every few seconds, the hull issued a sharp, resonant *ping*—the sound of metal contracting under hundreds of atmospheres of weight.
"Three thousand meters," the technician muttered from the control console. His face was bathed in the red glow of the instruments. Beside him, Victoria Duncan sat wrapped in a heavy fur-lined parka, her hands resting calmly on her cane, unbothered by the fact that a single hairline fracture in the acrylic would turn us all into organic paste within milliseconds.
Clara and I stood near the forward hatch, clad in black neoprene tactical drysuits. Beneath my thermal gloves, the biometric ring Jonathan had forced onto my finger burned cold against my skin.
"Look," Clara whispered, pointing toward the viewport.
A pair of high-intensity halogen floodlights on the belly of the sub cut through the darkness. Rising out of the abyssal plain like the ribcage of an ancient leviathan was Deep Horizon.
The facility was magnificent and terrifying. Massive titanium pylons, thick as sequoias, were driven directly into the fractured basalt floor. Swirling plumes of mineral-rich water rose from surrounding hydrothermal vents, shimmering in the sub's lights like smoke from an underwater furnace. At the center of the structure sat the primary vault—a polyhedral dome covered in layers of thermal shielding, surrounded by an intricate scaffolding of airlocks and fiber-optic umbilical cables.
"The secondary lock has been breached," the technician reported, zooming in on the docking ring. "Torn open with thermite cutting charges. Vance’s team is already inside."
"Then they have twenty minutes before the countdown reaches its zero phase," Victoria said, her voice completely devoid of panic. "Pilot, mate the collar. Evelyn, Clara, prepare yourselves. If Vance attempts to intervene, kill him. The terminal does not require him to be alive."
The submersible shuddered violently as its lower mating skirt engaged with the facility’s docking hatch. Hydraulic clamps fired with a series of concussive thuds. A pressurized hiss shrieked through the chamber as the atmosphere equalized.
The technician checked the air quality gauges. "Oxygen mix is normal. Facility internal heating is failing—ambient temperature inside is three degrees above freezing. The geothermal turbines are running on auxiliary backup."
Clara racked the bolt of her P30. She glanced at me, her face pale in the emergency red lights of the airlock, but her eyes steady as iron.
"Time to bury Jonathan’s ghost for good," she said.
May you like
The hatch spun open, revealing a dark, dripping corridor of corrugated steel that vanished into the cold heart of the ocean floor.
---
