Chapter 133 - The Iron Maw
The vehicle bay of the *Leviathan Prime* was cavernous, smelling of bunker fuel, sea salt, and ozone. Heavy halogen lamps buzzed overhead in iron cages, illuminating wet iron catwalks and rows of tracked Arctic personnel carriers chained to the deck. As our capsule slammed down into the cradle with a deafening metallic crash, the hydraulic locks engaged with the snap of a bear trap.
Before the echoes died, the capsule’s external manual release hissed. The pneumatic seal ruptured, blowing a cloud of frozen vapor into the hangar.
"Drop your weapons! Hands on your heads!"
The shouts came from six men in slate-gray tactical gear, their submachine guns raised, their faces concealed behind matte-black ballistic masks. They formed an impenetrable semi-circle around the pod’s egress door. They weren't common mercenaries; their uniforms bore the silver, three-pointed chevron of the Sovereign Security Directive—the private guard that had protected Arthur Sterling’s offshore shell corporations long before I was born.
I stood in the hatchway, the three-round pistol hanging low at my side. I didn't raise it. Raising it would mean dying before I could draw another breath, and my life was no longer mine to throw away; it belonged to the child shivering behind me.
"Step out, Emily," a voice called from behind the ring of rifles.
A tall man stepped forward, unbuttoning a heavy navy-blue bridge coat. His hair was iron-gray, cropped close to his skull, his face carved with the rigid symmetry of an old naval officer. Commodore Hayes. I remembered him from the high-stakes board retreats my father used to host in Martha’s Vineyard—the silent man who stood near the radar screens while my mother poured gin and laughed about the peasants whose land they were seizing.
"Commodore," I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my knees. "I see you’re still taking orders from corpses."
"Eleanor Sterling does not die easily, child," Hayes said coldly, stopping just out of arm’s reach. "She was pulled from the tertiary diving bell ten minutes after the shelf collapsed. Her hypothermia is severe, her lung was punctured by structural debris, but her heart is stubborn. More stubborn than your father’s ever was."
He gestured with two gloved fingers toward the interior of our capsule. Two contractors immediately surged past me, their heavy boots thudding against the metal floor.
"Touch that child," Vance snarled from the floor of the pod, lunging forward with a broken hydraulic wrench, "and I’ll detonate the capsule’s emergency lithium battery! We all burn together!"
May you like
Hayes didn't flinch. A guard struck Vance across the temple with the butt of an assault rifle. Vance collapsed back against the avionics bulkhead, blood blooming across his forehead, his breath rattling in his throat.
"Secure the girl," Hayes commanded, his eyes never leaving mine. "Transport her directly to Resuscitation Suite Three. Eleanor is waiting for her match."
