Chapter 54 - The Admiral’s Betrayal
Gunfire erupted across the flight deck of the USS *Abraham Lincoln*, tearing through the roaring Atlantic night.
Vance’s personal guard, compromised operatives embedded within Naval Special Warfare, opened fire at point-blank range. But Maya’s strike team was faster. High-density kinetic flechette rounds shredded through the carrier’s rain-soaked air, cutting down the corrupt guards before they could clear their holsters.
"Lucas, down!" Michael roared, tackling his son to the steel deck as rounds sparked off the arresting gear cables inches above their heads.
Vance sprinted toward the carrier’s heavy blast doors leading into Pri-Fly. "Strike Command, initiate scorched earth!" Vance screamed into his lapel communicator. "Scuttle the *Lincoln*! Trigger the secondary charges on the tectonic anchors! We burn it all!"
"Maya, stop him!" Michael shouted, pushing himself up, pain exploding in his shattered shoulder.
Maya didn't hesitate. She drew a suppressed sidearm and fired two rounds with surgical accuracy. The first round punched through Vance’s right knee, sending the four-star Admiral sprawling across the wet deck with an agonized howl. The second round shattered the communicator in his hand into a shower of plastic and silicon.
Michael limped forward, his combat boots heavy against the steel deck, each step dragging a trail of crimson through the rain. He stood over the man he had called brother for thirty years.
Vance lay clutching his mangled leg, his face pale and contorted with hate. "Shoot me, Michael. It doesn't change anything. The Chairman isn't in Washington. He isn't in Geneva. He’s already aboard the *Archon's* sister craft, the *Tartarus*. You only stopped one engine. The Pacific fault line triggers in forty minutes."
Michael leaned down, grabbing Vance by the collar of his dress uniform, pulling the four-star Admiral's face inches from his own. "Where is Eleanor?"
Vance spat blood onto Michael’s cheek, grinning with broken, bloody teeth. "She’s at the command deck of the *Archon*. But she isn't your wife anymore, Mercer. She's their prisoner. She has her hand on the dead-man switch. If that platform drops below ten thousand feet, the atmospheric thorium charges detonate. She will incinerate herself to save the eastern seaboard from the seismic pulse."
Lucas stumbled over, his face pale, holding his ribs. "Dad... we can't reach the Pacific in forty minutes. It's impossible."
Maya stepped up beside them, holstering her weapon. Her eyes locked onto Michael’s, showing for the first time the unmistakable, unyielding fire of Eleanor Mercer. "Not for a conventional ship. But the *Archon* doesn't fly on jets. It rides the magnetic ley lines of the upper mantle."
She turned toward the drop-pods. "The pods have secondary atmospheric boosters. We can dock with the command bridge in six minutes. But we have to leave the surface fleet behind. Vance’s loyalists on the escort cruisers have already targeted this carrier with anti-ship missiles."
May you like
As if to confirm her words, three blinding flashes lit up the horizon to the west. The escort cruiser USS *Gettysburg* had turned its missile silos toward its own flagship.
***
