Chapter 54 - Platform Null-Seven
The rig rose out of the boiling, foam-capped waves like an iron leviathan. Rusted towers groaned against the force of gale-force winds, while dark plumes of vented gas flared periodically from an exhaust chimney at its western quadrant.
"We have no landing vector on the helipad," the pilot's voice crackled through Daniel’s headset. "The automated anti-air radar is locked on us. We have to fast-rope onto the sub-deck."
"Drop us," Daniel ordered without hesitation.
The side hatch slid back with a pneumatic hiss. Freezing sea spray hit Daniel's face like a shower of glass needles. Beneath them, eighty feet down, the grated metal catwalks of the rig swayed precariously over the howling abyss of the North Sea.
The magistrate strapped a tactical harness over Leo's shoulders, locking it to his own. "He stays behind me until we secure the control room," the old commander barked over the roar of the wind.
"He stays between us," Daniel corrected fiercely.
Daniel seized the rope and kicked out into the void, sliding down through the howling gale before his combat boots slammed onto the salt-encrusted steel of Platform Null-Seven. Seconds later, the magistrate and Leo touched down beside him. The girl, Subject Four, remained in the aircraft under the guard of two armed magistrates, acting as the living transponder tethering their comms to the mainland network.
The hatch to the primary maintenance airlock had been blown open from the inside.
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Daniel unholstered his sidearm, stepping carefully over charred hydraulic pistons and severed cabling. "Someone tried to get out," he said, shining his tactical light through the gloom.
"Or someone broke in before us," Leo noted, his flashlight beam catching fresh scarlet smears on the frozen threshold. The blood had not yet coagulated.
