Chapter 63 - The Abyssal Cradle
"Move!" Daniel roared, hoisting Julian into his left arm while clamping his right hand around Leo’s wrist.
He didn't wait for the torpedoes to strike. He threw himself and the two boys down the metal maintenance gangway just as the first warhead slammed into the lower ballast tanks of Platform Null-Seven.
The world turned inside out. A concussive shockwave of heat, shattered steel, and vaporized salt water tore through the rig’s midsection. The platform groaned—a terrifying, screeching wail of thousands of tons of structural iron twisting beyond its breaking point. The entire structure canted fifteen degrees to port, sending loose barrels, chains, and debris skittering across the deck into the boiling ocean below.
Above them, the gunship swerved hard, banking away to avoid the column of fire erupting from the lower decks. The heavy anti-materiel rounds from the surfaced submarine chewed through the storm clouds, clipping the gunship’s tail stabilizer. Dark smoke trailed from the aircraft's rear turbine as it fought for altitude.
"Dad! The gantry is collapsing!" Leo cried, his boots sliding against the grease-slick grating.
"Hold onto me!" Daniel commanded. He dropped to a slide, tucking Julian against his chest, using his combat boots to brake against the angle iron of the lower catwalk. Julian didn't cry out; the boy was unnaturally silent, his pupils dilated, his breath fogging in rhythmic sync with Leo’s.
Beneath them, the dreadnought had glided within fifty meters of the burning platform. A massive magnetic boarding bridge telescoped from the vessel’s forward deck, its serrated hydraulic clamp slamming into the rig’s primary crane platform with the force of an artillery shell.
Hatch doors hissed open along the dreadnought’s spine. Out poured an assault team clad in slate-grey exoweave armor, their helmets bearing the crest of the Magistrate’s inner tribunal. But they weren't firing at Daniel. They formed an iron perimeter, raising heavy ballistic shields toward the sky to repel the gunship’s returning fire.
A tall figure stepped out onto the boarding gantry, oblivious to the freezing rain. He wore a heavy wool bridge coat over dark tactical gear, carrying a pneumatic restraint case bearing the exact biological serial number tattooed on Julian's inner forearm: *SUB-02-VALKYRIE.*
The man lowered his tactical cowl. It was Marcus Vance—the man Daniel had watched fall into the icy rapids of the Black Forest three weeks earlier.
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"You're a hard man to kill, Daniel," Vance's voice echoed through the comm-beacons on the catwalk. "And an even harder man to extract. But your role as biological shepherd ends tonight."
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