After spending $110,000 supporting my family, I returned from a 21-day Navy mission to find my father giving my $4 million Lake Tahoe villa to my sister—but one message from my attorney was about to turn their champagne celebration into a nightmare.

We dropped down the vertical access trunk into absolute, suffocating darkness.

Our weapon-mounted tactical lights cut through the gloom, illuminating corridors lined with massive copper conduit, analog dials, and heavy steel bulkheads coated in peeling green paint. The air was bone-dry and freezing, circulated by automated fans that droned with a low, mechanical hum.

There were no beds, no mess halls, no signs of human life. *Tartarus* had been built entirely for machines.

"Radiation levels?" I asked, scanning the hallway with my carbine raised.

Reynolds checked his wrist monitor. "Elevated, but within tolerance. The reactor core is running hot, but the shielding is holding. Sir... look at the deck."

I lowered my beam. On the steel grating lay three fresh bodies, dressed in modern black tactical gear and equipped with European-manufactured diving rigs. Their skin was blistered with horrific third-degree steam burns, their weapons scattered across the deck.

"Clara's friends," Reynolds said grimly, nudging a dropped machine pistol with his boot. "They got inside before us."

"They tried to force the control room bulkhead," I observed, pointing my light down the passageway.

At the end of the hall, an automated turret mounted to the ceiling hung slack, its dual barrels smoking faintly. It had emptied a drum of high-caliber rounds into the foreign contractors before jamming.

Suddenly, the red emergency lighting along the ceiling flickered to life. The entire sub shuddered as a deep, resonant vibration vibrated through our boots.

An automated voice, flat and synthesized from magnetic tape, boomed through the overhead speakers:

*PRIMARY FIRING CAPACITORS CHARGED. MISSILE TUBE DOORS ONE THROUGH SIX FULLY OPENED. TARGETING SOLUTION LOCKED: TRAJECTORY WESTERN BASIN.*

"We have eighteen minutes," I snapped. "The control bridge is two levels down. Watch your corners—if there's one team of mercenaries on this boat, there could be a second."

We moved in tactical formation through the narrow corridors, our boots clattering against the metal deck plates. As we reached the central access ladder leading to the command module, a burst of automatic gunfire tore through the bulkhead above our heads, showering us with sparks and sheared copper.