Chapter 90 - Breach of the Primary Hull
The entire station shrieked as explosive charges blew the sea-valves open in the lower maintenance bays.
A deafening roar of rushing, high-pressure water vibrated through the floorboards. The lights flickered and died, replaced by spinning red emergency strobes that cast ghastly shadows across Clara’s smiling face.
"If I don't get the payout, nobody gets the data!" Clara screamed over the roar of the incoming ocean. "This whole shelf collapses into the trench!"
The pressure in the room spiked instantly as air was compressed by the incoming thousands of gallons of water. The floor tilted sharply as the station began to slip from its anchors on the canyon wall.
I fired a single round, deliberately hitting the keyboard interface between her hands, blowing the circuitry to sparks and plastic fragments.
I lunged forward, tackling Clara to the deck before she could draw another concealed weapon. We hit the metal grating hard as water began surging through the lower ventilation ducts, swirling around our boots, freezing cold and rising by inches every second.
I pinned her wrists with one hand, reaching with the other to rip the encrypted flash-drive containing the entire syndicate network from the server's main port.
"The abort cipher!" I shouted, water now swirling around my waist as the station groaned, listing at a violent thirty-degree angle. "What is the override code for the seismic charge?!"
"There is no override!" she shrieked, fighting like a wildcat, her fingernails clawing at my face. "It's programmed to fire the moment the station’s structural integrity fails! We die together, Marcus!"
The sound of shearing metal tore through the chamber. Overhead, a thick seam in the titanium dome cracked. A jet of razor-sharp, hyper-pressurized sea water punched through the ceiling like an industrial laser, slicing through the consoles and filling the room with blinding mist.
"Not today," I growled.
May you like
I struck Clara across the temple with the butt of my sidearm, knocking her limp.
I hauled her unconscious body over my shoulder, grabbed the data drive, and fought against the rushing torrent toward the escape airlock where her mini-sub was docked.
