Chapter 65 - The Iron Matriarch
The narrow metal corridor became a battleground of deafening gunfire and flying shrapnel. Evelyn used the watertight bulkheads to her tactical advantage, repeatedly triggering manual security doors to crush the operatives' advancement and separate their fire teams.
She was not just a mother defending her family; she was the chosen successor of Eleanor Vance, trained in the brutal art of asymmetric survival. Every corner she turned, every magazine she emptied, was calculated to burn down the clock.
On the upper deck, Caleb dragged the four children into the armored observation vault. Little Sophie was crying silently, clutching Leo’s jacket. Maya and Lucas stood shoulder to shoulder, their young faces hardened by the relentless crises that had pursued them since Lisbon.
"Dad," Leo said, his voice remarkably steady for a twelve-year-old. "Aunt Elizabeth’s submarine isn’t firing heavy munitions at us because she doesn't want to destroy the ship. She knows we are aboard."
Caleb paused, looking down at his oldest son. "What are you thinking, Leo?"
"The ballast controls," Leo pointed toward the master terminal on the vault’s control panel. "Mom showed me the schematics of this ship when we left harbor. If we flood the forward compartments, our ship will tilt twenty degrees down by the bow. Her boarding pods are clamped to the stern. If we shift the ballast, the pressure differential will rip her docking clamps right off our hull!"
Caleb looked at the boy, pride swelling through the terror in his chest. "Eleanor’s blood truly runs through your veins, son."
May you like
Caleb slammed his hand down onto the emergency ballast transfer console, entering the command code Eleanor had burned into his memory years ago. Deep within the belly of the ship, thousands of tons of Atlantic seawater rushed into the forward tanks. The massive flagship groaned under the sudden shift, its bow dipping violently into the ocean swell.
A deafening metallic shriek echoed from the stern as the immense mechanical strain tore the hydraulic docking clamps of Elizabeth's boarding pods completely in half, casting the invaders’ auxiliary crafts into the turbulent sea.
