Chapter 69 - Iron and Salt
The Meridian Hub tilted violently to the port side, throwing empty chairs and computer monitors crashing across the polished rotunda.
The security forces panicked. When an offshore platform begins to list in heavy seas, protocol dictates immediate evacuation; automated blast doors slammed shut across the perimeter corridors, trapping combat teams in their staging areas as seawater flooded the lower utility decks.
Croft scrambled to his feet, blood streaming from his broken nose, his cashmere coat ruined. He lunged for an auxiliary console near the exit, his hand slamming down on the manual purge control to sever the data extrusion.
Ethan fired two rounds into the console inches from Croft's hand, showering the director in sparks.
"Step away from the board, Croft," Ethan barked, his weapon locked on the center of the older man’s forehead.
Croft froze, his amber eyes burning with an almost feral hatred. He looked at me, his chest heaving. "You are completely insane! You’ve doomed yourself! There are no lifeboats on the upper deck—we are two hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland in a Category 4 sea!"
"I spent six months in hell, Julian," I said, walking slowly toward him as the floor tilted another five degrees beneath us. "You think cold water scares me? My husband and children drowned in their own blood on an asphalt road because you wanted a cleaner balance sheet."
"David was nobody!" Croft screamed, the aristocratic mask completely gone. "A pathetic, mid-level bean-counter who couldn't look the other way! Victoria understood that sacrifices had to be made for the empire!"
"Victoria died on a concrete floor in Maine, choking on her own lies," I said, stepping right up to him. "And you're going to die at the bottom of the Atlantic."
Ethan struck him with the butt of the pistol, dropping Croft unconscious to the deck.
"Claire, the platform’s main generator is going to blow in less than four minutes," Ethan warned, grabbing my arm as the lights died completely, replaced by the amber flickers of emergency battery beacons. "We need to get to the sub-dock on the eastern strut. It’s our only way off this deathtrap."
We ran.
We tore through the service shafts as seawater cascaded down the emergency ladders like roaring waterfalls. The metal walls shrieked around us, rivets popping like pistol shots under the immense pressure of the twisting steel structure. Every breath tasted of ozone, burning wire, and bitter brine.
We reached the subterranean dry-dock just as the water level reached our waists. Moored inside a pressurized pen was an emergency four-man deep-submergence escape craft, its boarding hatch hanging open.
"Get in!" Ethan yelled, shoving me toward the narrow ladder of the sub.
May you like
Behind us, a bulkhead exploded inward under the weight of the sea, unleashing a wall of black water that swept Croft's abandoned world into the abyss.
***
