Chapter 29 - The Son's Choice
Four hours later, the red immersion lights bathed the lower staging bay of the *Tartarus* in an eerie, bloody glow.
The air pressure inside the bay had been equalized to prevent decompression sickness. Suspended from heavy hydraulic davits in the center of the cavernous moon-pool room hung the *Hades-4*—a five-meter sphere of polished black ceramic and diamond composite, looking like a demonic pearl forged in the fires of hell.
Eleanor stood on the elevated gantry, flanked by four operators armed with submachine guns. Her face was an emotionless mask, though the tension in her hands betrayed her nerves. Below her, Michael and Lucas stood at the boarding bridge, clad in high-pressure flight suits designed to protect against explosive depressurization.
"Thirty-six thousand feet," Eleanor announced through the bay’s comm system. "The descent will take ninety minutes. Once you reach the hull of the *Acheron*, you will link the *Hades* to the umbilical port on the conning tower. The biometric terminal is located inside the pressure vestibule. Michael, your right retina. Lucas, your left palm."
Lucas turned around on the bridge, looking up at his mother through the transparent visor of his helmet.
"Is this what you wanted, Mom?" he asked, his voice transmitted clearly through the tactical frequency. "When you held me as a baby... did you imagine this?"
Eleanor flinched. For a fraction of a second, the mask slipped. Her fingers tightened around the railing until her knuckles turned white.
"I did this to protect you, Lucas," she whispered, her voice betraying a hint of cracked fragility. "A mother builds whatever armor her child needs to survive. The world was going to burn you alive. I am giving you the power to burn it first."
"You aren't protecting me," Lucas said coldly. "You're using me as a key."
He turned his back on her and stepped through the circular titanium hatch of the *Hades-4*.
Michael paused at the threshold. He looked up at the woman he had loved for a quarter of a century—the woman whose memory had sustained him through frostbite, starvation, and decades of soul-crushing loneliness.
"You should have stayed dead, Eleanor," Michael said quietly.
"Michael—" she started, but the words caught in her throat.
"The crew of the *Acheron* died believing they were serving something good," Michael said, his voice echoing with absolute finality. "I won't let you turn their grave into a slaughterhouse."
Michael pulled the heavy hatch shut. The titanium locking rings rotated with a loud, mechanical thud. Inside the tiny, two-man cockpit, dozens of digital monitors flared to life, illuminating Michael and Lucas in a pale green light.
"Hatch sealed," the automated voice chimed. "Pressurization nominal. Internal oxygen: twelve hours."
Outside, the gantry retracted. The moon pool beneath the sphere parted, exposing the black, bottomless void of the Pacific Ocean. The hydraulic davits lowered the *Hades-4* into the churning water.
With a soft release of magnetic clamps, the sphere decoupled.
Gravity seized them.
May you like
The *Hades-4* began its long, silent plunge into the abyss.
***
