Chapter 88 - Hand-to-Hand at Crush Depth
The air inside the station smelled of old ozone, hydraulic fluid, and stale, recycled oxygen. The temperature was barely above freezing. Overhead, the thick curved bulkheads groaned under the unimaginable weight of thousands of tons of sea water.
I advanced through the narrow corridor, water dripping steadily from rusty overhead pipes. Ahead, a faint light spilled from the station’s main command sphere.
Footsteps echoed on the grating.
I stepped into the shadow of a heavy atmospheric scrubber just as two mercenaries in drysuits and tactical vests rounded the corner. They were carrying compact MP7 submachine guns, their eyes scanning the dark corridor.
Before they could acquire my position, I struck.
I lunged from the shadows, grabbing the barrel of the first mercenary’s weapon, redirecting it downward as he fired. The suppressed rounds chewed into the floor grating. In the same motion, I drove an elbow into his throat, shattering his windpipe.
The second man raised his weapon, but I closed the distance instantly, grabbing his tactical vest and driving him violently into the titanium wall. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs. I drove a knee into his midsection, followed by a sharp palm strike to his chin that snapped his head back, dropping him unconscious to the deck.
I stripped their extra ammunition, secured my sidearm, and moved toward the glowing hatchway of the command sphere.
Inside, computer banks from the 1980s had been retrofitted with modern fiber-optic terminals, satellite uplink decoders, and real-time seismic monitoring equipment.
At the far end of the chamber, standing before a glowing array of digital monitors, was Clara.
She had shed her diving gear, wearing a dark tactical sweater, her hands flying across a keyboard. Beside her, resting on a pedestal, was the primary telemetry terminal connected directly to the seismic weapon anchored in the trench floor just fifty meters below the station.
On the main display screen, a digital countdown was burning red:
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*DETONATION SEQUENCE LOCKED: 04:12... 04:11...*
"You don't know when to die, brother," Clara said without turning around. She had seen my reflection in the dark glass of the monitor.
