“Still pretending to be a soldier?” my brother laughed as my entire family humiliated me at our backyard barbecue, but seconds later, a V-22 Osprey landed outside, two officers saluted me, and my father finally realized he had no idea who his daughter really was. / Chapter 27 / 100

Chapter 27 - Blood on the Catwalk

The noise was absolute, a wall of deafening, metallic thunder that ripped the containment chamber apart. Thousands of rounds of high-caliber ammunition chewed through the steel consoles, sending showers of sparks, shredded circuit boards, and pulverized glass raining down into the rising water.

"Down!" I screamed, tackling David behind the reinforced base of the main titanium vat.

The rounds slammed into the front of the tank with the sound of sledgehammers striking an anvil, denting the six-inch armor plate but failing to penetrate. But we were pinned. The water was already at our waists, rising by an inch every ten seconds as the external valves failed. If we stayed here, we would drown. If we moved, the automated tracking sensors would turn us into red mist.

"David, the control line!" I yelled over the din, pointing toward a thick bundle of red hydraulic hoses running along the ceiling above the turrets. "What operates the cooling pressure for those mounts?!"

David coughed, spitting seawater and blood onto his chest, but the fog in his eyes was clearing, replaced by the deadly, instinctive focus of a seasoned combat veteran. "The... the auxiliary manifold! Below the catwalk to your left! If you rupture the valve, the liquid nitrogen... it will freeze the swivel bearings!"

"Can you hold your weapon?!" I asked, thrusting my spare sidearm into his trembling hands.

David took the grip. His fingers were shaking, but as soon as the checkered polymer pressed against his palm, his muscle memory engaged. He racked the slide with one fluid motion, thumbing the safety down. "I can shoot, little sister. Go."

I didn't wait. I pulled a flash-grenade from my tactical harness, pulled the pin, and hurled it high into the center of the chamber.

*BANG!*

The blinding magnesium flare and concussive shockwave momentarily disoriented the optical tracking software of the automated turrets. For two critical seconds, their barrels swung wildly, searching for a target through the thermal bloom.

I broke from cover, diving through the freezing water, my boots churning against the steel deck. Sabot rounds chased my heels, tearing through the water and sending geysers of white spray over my head. I reached the lower catwalk, sliding on my knees beneath the access platform, and spotted the blue nitrogen manifold.

The valve wheel was rusted shut, sealed by years of deep-sea corrosion.

"Come on, you piece of garbage!" I screamed, drawing my combat knife and jamming the heavy carbon-steel blade into the spokes of the wheel to use as a lever.

Above me, a turret recalibrated. The twin barrels pivoted downward, pointing directly at my skull. I saw the red laser designator paint a crimson dot between my eyes.

*Pop-pop-pop!*

Three sharp cracks echoed from behind the titanium vat. Three 9mm rounds struck the camera housing of the turret with pinpoint accuracy, shattering the synthetic sapphire lens. The turret twitched, blind, firing a wild burst into the ceiling rafters.

David was leaning out from cover, his one good arm braced against the tank, his sight alignment flawless. "Turn the damn valve, Em!"

I threw my entire body weight against the knife.

*CRACK.*

The rusted wheel snapped. The manifold valve burst open with a deafening shriek of escaping pressure. A cloud of minus-two-hundred-degree liquid nitrogen erupted from the pipe, blasting directly into the housing of the automated turrets.

The effect was instantaneous. The hydraulic fluid inside the actuators froze solid in less than two seconds. The spooling motors whined, seized, and exploded in showers of blue electrical fire as the frozen gears shattered under their own torque. The heavy guns sagged forward, dead.

Silence crashed back over the room, broken only by the roar of the rising ocean.

I scrambled back to David, grabbing him beneath his arms and pulling him toward the emergency exit corridor. "Move! We have five minutes before the kinetic strike hits!"

We splashed through the doorway into the secondary access tunnel, David leaning heavily against me, his breathing ragged and wet. Ahead of us, through the haze of smoke and venting steam, I saw the silhouettes of Miller and the Ghost operators falling back toward the docking bay, firing controlled bursts down the lateral corridors to keep a swarm of Vance’s cybernetic contractors at bay.

"Miller!" I shouted.

Miller turned, his face smeared with soot, his eyes widening as he saw David upright and moving. "Director! The docking seal is cracking! The pressure outside is spiking—the orbital strike has already entered the upper atmosphere!"