Chapter 95 - Bloodlines Fractured
Rounds sparked violently against the titanium frame of the *Titan-IV*. I dragged the stunned guard’s body in front of me as a human shield, feeling the kinetic thud of bullets burying themselves into his body armor.
With my free hand, I fired the captured carbine in precise, controlled bursts. Two of the syndicate mercenaries dropped instantly, their armor pierced at the collar line.
"Move! Bulkhead three!" I roared at Clara, kicking her sprawling body toward the heavy hydraulic blast doors on the port side of the bay.
Clara, driven by sheer terror, scrambled on hands and knees across the wet decking. Ricochets whined off the steel plates beside her, showering her in white-hot sparks. She had spent weeks treating my life like an obstacle to her luxury, but now, faced with Julian’s cold-blooded execution squad, she knew that staying close to me was her only chance of drawing another breath.
Julian fired three rounds from his sidearm. One grazed my left shoulder, slicing through the tactical fabric and leaving a line of searing pain along my deltoid. I returned fire, forcing him to duck behind a bank of high-pressure oxygen tanks.
"You can't leave this vessel, Marcus!" Julian’s voice echoed across the steel chamber, amplified by the acoustics of the bay. "The exterior doors are sealed! You are inside a four-billion-dollar ghost platform. There is nowhere to run!"
I didn't answer. I reached the port access corridor, grabbed Clara by the collar of her jacket, and hauled her through the opening. I slammed my fist into the emergency dogging lever. The heavy steel door slid shut with a deafening thud, the pneumatic locks hissing into place just as a hail of submachine-gun fire peppered the outer plate.
We were sealed inside the secondary service corridors of the leviathan.
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Clara collapsed against the bulkhead, sobbing hysterically, clutching her knees to her chest. "He was going to kill me... he was really going to kill me..."
"Pull yourself together," I ordered coldly, checking the remaining ammunition in my captured rifle. "We have about ninety seconds before they bypass that electronic interlock. If you want to survive long enough to face a federal court, you move when I move."
