Chapter 33 - Beneath the Leviathan
The icy brackish water of the Chesapeake Bay chilled my synthetic neural links to the point of agony. Water seeped through my wet suit, but the carbon-fiber casing of my mechanical arm held firm, its waterproof seals resisting the immense salt pressure as Julian, Liam, and I slipped through the submerged drainage grates beneath Pier 14.
We breached the surface inside Auxiliary Cooling Bay 4 of the *Gerald R. Ford*. The hum of the twin A1B nuclear reactors reverberated through the steel deckplates, a low, subsonic rumble that rattled the fillings in my teeth.
The smell of ozone and superheated steam hung thick in the air.
"Twenty minutes until the automated purge initiates," Liam whispered, checking his waterproof chronograph. His skin was gray, but the marine combat veteran inside him moved with terrifying precision. "If the coolant diverts into the ballast tanks, the carrier’s core will crack."
"Look at the distribution manifold," I pointed my waterproof penlight at the main coolant junction.
Mounted directly onto the primary cooling loop was a rogue hydraulic bypass cylinder—the exact same design Derek Halston had used on the *USS Gallant* twelve years ago, the very device that had severed my real arm and cost twenty-four sailors their lives. Seeing it again made the phantom nerves in my missing flesh burn with searing fire.
"I built that system," I said, my voice barely audible above the machinery. "And Derek corrupted it."
"Not Derek," a smooth, arrogant voice echoed from the catwalk above.
A dozen tactical lights snapped on simultaneously, blinding us in a crossfire of white beams. Standing on the grated catwalk sixty feet above the cooling bay stood Vice Admiral Donald Croft, clad in crisp dress blues beneath an open foul-weather coat, accompanied by six armed mercenaries.
Beside him, hands zip-tied behind his back, was four-star Admiral Vance. Vance’s uniform was torn, blood trickling from his weathered brow, but his posture remained as rigid as a steel spar.
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"You really are a persistent little ghost, Eleanor," Croft sneered, leaning against the railing. "You survived the *Gallant*. You survived the gala. You survived my cleanup crew at Bethesda. But you cannot survive mathematics."
***
