Chapter 85 - The Severed Umbilical
My reflexes took over before my conscious mind could even process the movement.
I didn't shoot to kill; if her dying hand seized, she could depress the switch. Instead, I drove forward, sweeping my left arm up to strike her wrist while driving the muzzle of my HK416 into the detonation console.
The shot from her Glock cracked through the bridge, the round burying itself into the overhead radar display. The remote console flew from her hand, skittering across the slick deck toward the navigation table.
Clara screamed like a wounded animal, lunging forward with a hidden ceramic trench knife she drew from her tactical vest. The blade slashed through the air, catching the fabric of my combat blouse and scoring a thin line of fire across my ribs.
I sidestepped, grabbing her knife arm at the elbow, using her own momentum to drive her violently against the bulkhead. The knife dropped from her numb fingers, clattering onto the deck.
"It's over, Clara!" I roared, pinning her against the steel frame.
"Never!" she spat, blood flecking her lips.
With her free hand, she slammed down on a bright yellow emergency switch on the ship's control panel.
A mechanical siren began to wail throughout the hull.
*WARNING: MOON POOL HATCH OPENING. AUXILIARY SUBMERSIBLE RELEASE ENGAGED.*
Through the glass floor of the bridge that overlooked the internal moon pool, I saw the water churn white. A titanium-hulled midget submarine, built for ultra-deep sub-surface exploration, had its clamps released.
Clara kicked violently against my knee, twisting her body with desperate strength. She ripped herself free, abandoning her storm coat in my hands, and vaulted straight through the broken rear storm door of the bridge.
"Marcus! She's heading for the secondary ladder!" Harris shouted over the comms, just as he burst into the bridge.
"The detonator!" I yelled, diving across the floor to grab the Pelican case.
The screen was flashing an ominous message:
*REMOTE LINK TRANSFERRED TO HOST SUBMERSIBLE: TITAN-IV.*
*MANUAL OVERRIDE LOCKED.*
*DETONATION COUNTDOWN: 14:59... 14:58...*
"She transferred the firing sequence to the mini-sub!" I said, my teeth clenched in pure rage. "She's taking the sub down to the trench to ensure the seismic charge couples directly with the fault plane!"
"We can't stop that sub with small arms," Harris said, staring through the shattered window as the sleek black form of the *Titan-IV* slipped beneath the turbulent surface of the moon pool. "It's armored against small-arms fire and rated for six thousand meters!"
"She's not the only one who knows how to dive these trenches," I said, looking across the moon pool deck.
Secured in the secondary service cradle was an atmospheric diving suit—a pressurized, hard-shell EXOSUIT rated to two thousand feet, alongside a pair of high-speed naval diver propulsion vehicles mounted with acoustic tracking gear.
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"Marcus, you can't go down there in that storm," Harris warned. "The currents in the trench will tear you apart."
"If that charge blows, nothing on this coast survives," I replied, sprinting down the ladder toward the moon pool. "Get on the radio to Fleet Command. Tell them to scramble an attack sub from Bangor immediately. I'm going down."
