Chapter 43 - The Admiral’s Burden
The secondary blast shook the ship with enough violence to crack the tactical plotting glass into a spiderweb of green fractures.
"Maya, we don't have time!" Grant yelled, grabbing my arm, his face desperate. "The core timer is at twenty-five minutes! If the decoy doesn't light up now, those torpedo drones will vaporize the entire trench!"
I stared at my father. He stood tall amid the smoke and the spraying seawater, his hand resting on the emergency manual scuttle lever. The man who had worn four stars on his shoulders, who had dined with presidents and commanded entire battle groups across three oceans, looked smaller now—stripped down to the bare essence of a father trying to buy his children one more breath of life.
"Take Eleanor’s ledger," Thomas said, thrusting the leather-bound book into my chest. "The intake shaft of the hammer has an access hatch marked with the symbol of the Annapolis anchor—class of 1941. That was your grandfather's class. The override isn't just DNA, Maya. It's a biometric lock tied to the family motto."
"What motto, Thomas?" I choked out, tears finally burning hot against my cold, salt-encrusted cheeks.
He smiled, a faint, weary curve of his lips that I hadn't seen since I was eight years old, watching him walk down the pier in San Diego.
*"From the depths, we preserve the shore."* He gripped the scuttle lever with both hands. "Now go, Commander. Show the Syndicate what a real Brooks does with an impossible mission."
Grant pulled me backward through the pressure door. The heavy titanium hatch slammed shut between us, the locking wheel spinning with a sharp, hydraulic hiss that sounded like a tomb closing. Through the narrow observation slit, I saw my father salute. Not the crisp, parade-ground salute of the Pentagon brass, but the quiet, humble salute of an old sailor seeing his flagship into the harbor.
Grant shoved me into the tiny, spherical cockpit of the *Nautilus-II*. The air smelled of metallic lithium and cold ozone.
"Sealing launch tube!" Grant yelled, strapping himself into the auxiliary navigation seat. "Release sequence in three... two... one!"
A deafening pneumatic roar kicked us from the belly of the *Audacity*.
Through the forward canopy, I watched our mother ship ignite all twelve of its auxiliary rocket flares simultaneously. The massive black hull of the *Audacity* surged directly into the path of five incoming neutronium torpedoes, drawing the entire drone swarm away from our tiny escape pod.
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The explosion behind us lit the abyss like a dying star. The concussion wave tossed the *Nautilus-II* end over end, sending us tumbling into the dark, screaming down toward the gaping, fiery intake maw of the two-mile tectonic hammer.
***
