Chapter 101 - The Abyssal Breach
We circled each other under the torrent of icy ocean water, knives drawn, the entire submarine shuddering in its death throes.
"Look around you, Julian!" I yelled over the roar of the flooding bay. "The hull is imploding! If you don't release that escape pod right now, we all die in this trench!"
"I’d rather drown at the bottom of the ocean than spend my life in a federal penitentiary!" Julian roared, lunging forward with a savage diagonal slash aimed at my throat.
I parried the blade with my left forearm guard, spun inside his guard, and drove the hilt of my knife directly into his temple. Julian’s eyes rolled back as he dropped to one knee, completely dazed.
I didn't hesitate. I kicked his weapon off the catwalk into the flooded void below and sprinted toward the escape pod controls.
"Clara! Get in the pod! Now!" I screamed across the bay.
Clara emerged from behind the hydraulic manifold, scrambling desperately across the tilted, water-slicked catwalk. She reached the open hatch of the escape capsule, diving inside just as another catastrophic groan ripped through the vessel.
Suddenly, an armored hand clamped onto my ankle with crushing force.
I looked down. Julian was on the deck, blood streaming down his face, his teeth bared in a terrifying grimace. With his other hand, he pulled a manual detonator from his tactical vest.
"If I go down... you stay with me, Marcus," Julian whispered with a bloody grin.
He slammed his thumb down on the switch.
A violent explosion ripped through the pod's outer mounting clamps. The four-man titanium capsule broke free of its hydraulic moorings prematurely, sliding rapidly down the wet-well ejection chute.
"Marcus!" Clara screamed from inside the capsule as the heavy blast hatch slammed shut automatically, sealing her inside just before the pod shot out into the open water.
I kicked Julian hard across the face, breaking his grip on my ankle, and scrambled toward the ejection bay controls to trigger an emergency secondary hatch.
Then, the main acrylic viewport of the torpedo bay shattered.
A solid wall of black, freezing Pacific ocean smashed through the forward hull, obliterating the catwalk and tearing the structural steel apart like paper. The immense pressure knocked me off my feet, plunging me into absolute darkness beneath a churning torrent of ice and shattered metal.
As my consciousness began to slip under the suffocating surge of water, the submarine's emergency radio speaker, ripped from its wiring and dangling beside my ear, suddenly crackled through the deafening roar of the flooding bay.
A powerful, high-frequency active sonar pulse hammered through the water—the unmistakable acoustic ping of a United States Navy *Virginia*-class attack submarine.
And then, through the dying radio's speaker, a steady, authoritative voice cut through the static:
May you like
*"Unidentified vessel, this is the USS Hampton. We have a visual and acoustic lock on your position. Surface immediately and stand by to be boarded, or you will be engaged with extreme prejudice..."*
Then, the final emergency light went dead, and the ocean swallowed everything.
