Chapter 81 - The Fifty-Second Breach
The red digital readout on the bulkhead console didn’t blink; it bled.
*00:52... 00:51... 00:50...*
The blast doors were three inches of reinforced naval-grade steel, sealed with hydraulic locking bolts that had dropped into the sill like guillotine blades. Down in the bilge beneath the deck grating, the first of the high-yield thermite charges hissed into life, a muffled, primeval roar that vibrated straight through the soles of my combat boots and into the marrow of my shins. The air turned acidic, thick with ozone and burning synthetic foam.
"Elena! Elena, she's going to drown us!" Jake shrieked. He was scrambling across the oily diamond plating on hands and knees, clawing at my pant leg like a terrified animal. His tailored suit was torn at the shoulder, soaked in dirty bilge wash and hydraulic fluid. All the swagger from our backyard patio in Texas—all the smug, golden-boy condescension he had worn while laughing into his craft beer—had dissolved into cold, snot-streaked panic. "Do something! You're the soldier! You're supposed to have a plan!"
"Shut up and move," I barked, my voice flat, hard, and operating purely on conditioned reflex.
I didn't waste time on the central console. Eleanor had burned the local logic boards the second she cut the transmission. The screens were already melting from inside the housing, spitting sparks and blue smoke. Instead, I unslung my primary carbine, letting it hang against my chest rig, and pulled the breaching kit from my lumbar pack. Two shaped charges of C4-D, backed with adhesive gel.
*00:38... 00:37...*
"The door?" Jake gasped, pointing wildly at the steel slab. "Blow the door!"
"A shaped charge on three-inch rolled homogenous steel will only overpressure this entire compartment and turn our lungs into strawberry jam, you idiot," I snarled, stepping right past him toward the emergency sea-chest relief valve on the starboard wall.
It was an inspection hatch—an eighteen-inch pressure port designed to allow divers to clear intake debris from the water pumps while in drydock. It bypassed the bulkheads entirely, leading straight into the ballast ducting and out through the exterior hull below the waterline.
I slammed the two magnetic strip charges directly across the dog-latches of the inspection hatch.
"Get behind the turbine housing! Cover your ears and open your mouth!" I yelled, yanking Jake by his collar and throwing him bodily behind the heavy cast-iron casing of the primary condenser.
*00:21... 00:20...*
I lunged behind the turbine just as I thumbed the handheld remote detonator.
*CRACK.*
It wasn't a movie explosion. It was a sharp, concussive slap that felt like a telephone book swung against the side of my skull. The blast blew the pressure hatch clean off its hinges, sending the cast iron spinning through the air like an oversized coin before it clattered against the far bulkhead. Instantly, a torrential spout of black, icy seawater geysered through the opening under immense hydrostatic pressure, striking the hot engine blocks with a furious scream of steam.
"Elena!" Jake wailed as water hit our waists within four seconds.
"Through the tube! Now!" I screamed, grabbing him by the scruff of his collar and dragging him toward the roaring vortex.
*00:09... 00:08...*
May you like
Below us, deep in the keel, the structural ribs of the ship groaned. A deafening, metallic shriek echoed from the abyss—the main scuttle charges detonating in sequence. The deck heaved violent skyward, throwing us off our feet. The ceiling buckled, fluorescent light fixtures exploding into showers of glass and sparks.
I shoved Jake headfirst into the flood of the relief tube. He kicked and choked, but the sheer vacuum of the rushing water seized him and sucked him down into the darkness. I took one massive gulp of burning, smoke-choked air, checked the safety on my sidearm, and dived in behind him.
