Chapter 48 - The Battle on the Catwalks
Gunfire shattered the silence of the ancient cavern.
High-caliber armor-piercing rounds ricocheted off the basalt pillars, sparking bright orange in the twilight of the chamber. Michael dove behind a rusted torpedo loading rack from the *Acheron*, returning fire with short, disciplined three-round bursts.
A mercenary on the lower scaffolding took two rounds to the chest and tumbled twenty feet to the stone floor.
Lucas flanked left, his youth and agility overcoming his injuries. He fired with surgical precision, taking down a heavy-gunner who was setting up a .50-caliber machine gun on the submarine’s deck.
"Lucas, get to the emergency bypass console under the reactor!" Michael shouted over the deafening roar of automatic weapons. "You have to reverse the hydraulic extraction! If that core clears the secondary containment shielding, the thermal bloom will melt this entire chamber!"
"I'm on it!" Lucas scrambled across the slick, oil-stained metal deck of their former home.
Sterling, realizing his men were being systematically eliminated by a twenty-year naval veteran and his furious son, drew a customized high-powered pistol and began firing down at Lucas.
Michael saw the red laser sight paint his son’s shoulder.
Without thinking, without hesitation, Michael burst from his cover. He took a bullet through the left shoulder—the blunt force spinning him around—but he didn't stop. He roared, slamming his shoulder into the structural support of the scaffolding.
The metal groaned. The platform tilted violently.
Sterling lost his footing, his pistol flying out of his hand, clattering into the depths below.
Michael hauled himself up the iron ladder, his wounded arm hanging limp, his right hand gripping his combat knife. He pulled himself onto the catwalk, face-to-face with the man who had orchestrated the destruction of his family.
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"You're a relic, Mercer!" Sterling screamed, lunging at him with a hidden combat blade. "You're a dead man from a dead era!"
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