Chapter 160 - The Pontoon Incursion
The inside of the southwest pontoon was a vertical labyrinth of steel grates, rusted pipes, and screaming exhaust vents.
As the SEAL team breached the lower airlock, the violent roar of the Pacific storm outside was replaced by the deep, industrial drone of heavy machinery. The air was hot, suffocating, thick with the stench of ozone, burnt transformer oil, and high-octane aviation fuel.
"Clear left," Bennett whispered, his suppressed barrel tracking across an empty, dimly lit maintenance corridor.
"Clear right," the point man confirmed.
We moved in high-speed tactical formation—two up, four down—clearing every junction with surgical, practiced lethality.
This was not a civilian oil platform.
Every corridor was reinforced with heavy watertight blast doors bearing the deactivated stencils of the Department of the Navy: *PROJECT DEEP TRENCH – CLASSIFIED LEVEL FOUR.*
Victor Vance had not merely built a rogue base; he had reclaimed a forgotten Cold War black site that the federal government had abandoned in the late 1990s.
"Commander," Bennett whispered, pointing to the security cameras mounted in the overhead bulkheads. "Optics are live. They know the perimeter’s been breached."
"They know we're here," I said, checking my weapon's optical sight. "Victor wouldn't expect anything less from a Vance."
Suddenly, the red emergency sirens throughout the pontoon began to scream.
*CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.*
The heavy blast doors at the end of the 200-foot maintenance tunnel began slamming shut with automated hydraulic speed.
"Move!" I barked.
We broke into a full combat sprint across the grated deck.
Sparks erupted from the far end of the corridor. Heavy automatic gunfire—7.62x51mm armor-piercing rounds—tore through the narrow passage, ricocheting off the curved steel walls with deafening, ear-splitting shrieks.
Two PMC mercenaries clad in modern titanium-reinforced body armor had taken up defensive positions behind a heavy steel forklift at the far junction.
"Suppressing fire!" Bennett yelled, dropping to one knee and emptying a controlled twenty-round burst from his carbine.
The rounds sparked furiously off the engine block of the forklift, keeping the mercenaries' heads pinned down.
I didn't stop running.
As the first hydraulic blast door descended to four feet above the deck, I dropped into a flat, sliding dive across the slick, oil-covered steel grating. My back scraped against the bottom edge of the descending three-ton door, the titanium teeth missing my faceplate by less than four inches.
I cleared the threshold, popped to my feet in a low crouch, and brought my HK416 up to my shoulder.
The nearest mercenary was reloading his drum magazine, his face exposed beneath his ballistic visor.
*Double tap.*
Two 5.56mm hollow-point rounds cracked through the dim corridor. The mercenary dropped instantly, his weapon clattering across the grating.
The second mercenary spun his weapon toward me, but Bennett, sliding through the closing door behind me like a shadow, fired a single shot that took him through the side of his tactical helmet.
The blast door slammed shut behind us with a final, vibrating *BOOM*, cutting us off from the rear half of our strike team.
It was just Bennett and me.
We stood back-to-back in the central elevator vestibule of the rig’s primary core.
Mounted on the central wall was a large, glowing tactical map displaying the entire Cascadia fault line. A glowing digital countdown timer was ticking down on the primary screen:
`CASCADIA MEGATHRUST STIMULATION: 00:12:45.`
`SECONDARY CHARGES: ARMED.`
`CORE ACCESS: LEVEL FIVE ONLY.`
Beside the elevator, an intercom speaker clicked to life with a dry, static hiss.
A voice echoed through the cold steel chamber—a voice I hadn't heard in eight years, but one that carried the same aristocratic, arrogant cadence as my father and sister.
May you like
"You always were the most capable soldier in the family, Marcus," the voice said calmly.
Admiral Victor Vance.
