Chapter 132 - The Shadow of Leviathan Prime
The blinding glare of the icebreaker’s forward searchlights stripped away the Arctic dark, painting the inside of our escape capsule in sterile, merciless white. Outside, the sheer steel wall of the four-hundred-foot hull groaned against the shelf, its reinforced bow rising out of the sea fog like the black blade of a guillotine. The displacement of the massive vessel sent violent shockwaves through the pack ice; hairline fractures spiderwebbed across the frozen crust, whistling as seawater surged through the cracks beneath our skids.
"Vance," I said, my voice dead and raspy, the metallic taste of adrenaline flooding my mouth. "Get up. We have to purge the transponder."
Vance didn’t answer with words. He pushed himself onto one elbow, his uniform soaked in hydraulic fluid and dark blood, his teeth clenched so hard I could hear the enamel grind. His trembling hand reached toward the pod’s auxiliary power panel, ripping the wiring harness out with raw, desperate force. Sparks hissed against the damp floor, but the phosphor screen remained illuminated, fed by an auxiliary umbilical embedded in the capsule’s skin. The text on the terminal continued to blink with sickening calm:
*LEVIATHAN PRIME IN DOCKING ALIGNMENT. STEP ASIDE FROM THE HATCH.*
"It’s not just a ship," Vance breathed, his breath puffing in rapid white clouds as the interior heat dropped. "That’s the Sovereign Fleet’s flagship... It was supposed to be decommissioned in Murmansk ten years ago. Eleanor... she didn't just escape the trench. They were waiting for her. The entire extraction was planned before we even hit the water."
Behind us, tucked into the survival recess beneath the secondary avionics, Clara stirred. Her breathing was shallow, raspy, rattling against her chest. The thermal wrap around her small body was frosty with frost from the sub-zero draft leaking through the fractured viewport. Her eyelids fluttered, revealing the pale, glassy blue of her irises—the Sterling eyes, the genetic marker that Eleanor and Sarah had treated as high-yield collateral for three decades.
"Emily..." Clara whined, her voice barely louder than the wind scouring the glass outside. "It’s so bright. It hurts."
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"Close your eyes, Clara," I whispered, pulling my sidearm from the waistband of my tactical trousers. I checked the chamber: three rounds left. Three lead slugs against four thousand tons of reinforced naval steel and an army of private contractors. "Keep them closed. Don't look at the light."
A heavy metallic clang reverberated through the capsule’s hull. Above us, the hydraulic arm of a heavy-lift recovery crane slammed onto our primary latch ring. The magnetic winches engaged with a bone-jarring hum that vibrated through the soles of my boots. Slowly, sickeningly, the capsule tilted upward. The frozen shelf fell away below us as the crane hoisted the pod toward the gaping maw of the ship’s lower vehicle bay, hanging open above the churning, black surf like the throat of a waiting monster.
