She Joked That Everyone Forgot Her Birthday

The hatch of the *Leviathan* sealed with a definitive, pressurized hiss that cut off the wailing sirens of the subterranean bunker. Inside, the vessel smelled of recycled air, copper, and dry electric current. The glow of crimson tactical monitors washed over Nicholas’s profile as he strapped himself into the primary pilot station, his hands dancing across arrays of manual throttles and digital ballast controls.

Arthur took the weapons station without asking, his movements terrifyingly precise for a man who had supposedly been dead for a decade. I settled into the auxiliary navigation console, my Kimber holstered securely at my side, my left hand—weighed down by the deadly platinum band—clenched tightly against the console armrest.

"Ballast tanks flooding," Nicholas announced. "Flooding tube one through four. Disengaging umbilical docking clamps."

The submarine lurched beneath us as millions of gallons of Atlantic water rushed into the dry dock. Through the forward reinforced observation portal, the light of the cavern vanished, replaced by the murky, churning blackness of the coastal deep.

"Sonar contact," Arthur barked, fingers punching through encrypted keys. "Three contacts bearing two-seven-zero. Two guided-missile corvettes on the surface, one hunter-killer submarine holding position at thirty fathoms right outside the mouth of the bay."

"They're guarding the exit," I said, cross-referencing the underwater topographic map of the Massachusetts shelf. "They want to trap us in the harbor shallows and pound us with depth charges."

"Let them try," Nicholas said coldly. "Elena, feed me the bathymetric profile of the Devil's Throat. That underwater trench off the southern headland."

"Depth drops to four hundred feet, flanked by jagged granite spires," I read off the screen. "Passage is less than fifty yards wide. If we misjudge the drift by three meters, we’ll rip the hull open."

"Good. That means their corvettes can't follow us down, and their hunter-killer will lose sonar resolution against the granite reflections." Nicholas pulled the throttle back. The electric drive hummed, a low vibration that traveled up through our boots as the *Leviathan* shot forward through the subterranean tunnel, bursting out into the vast, freezing abyss of the open Atlantic.

Suddenly, an alarm blared across the navigation deck.

*PULSE DETECTED. RANGE: 1,200 METERS.*

"They've acquired the transponder," Arthur said, his voice dropping into absolute tactical ice. "Surface corvette launching acoustic torpedo. Impact in forty seconds."

"Brace!" Nicholas hauled the directional yoke hard to starboard.

The *Leviathan* banked sharply, pitching violently into a dive. Through the outer hull, the terrifying high-pitched scream of a cavitation propeller grew louder, screeching like an enraged demon cutting through the salt water.

"Countermeasures!" Nicholas ordered.

Arthur slammed his fist onto the release toggle. "Decoys deployed!"

Behind us, a cluster of acoustic noisemakers erupted into the wake. Two seconds later, an apocalyptic shockwave hammered the *Leviathan*. The submarine was thrown sideways like a toy in a bathtub, throwing me out of my seat. My shoulder slammed hard against the bulkheads, pain searing through my arm as sparks rained down from an auxiliary panel overhead.

"Hull integrity holding at ninety-two percent!" I gasped, scrambling back to my console despite the throbbing in my shoulder. "Nicholas, the hunter-killer sub is moving! It's cutting off the entrance to the Devil's Throat!"

"They want the keys, Nicholas!" Arthur yelled, the red emergency lighting casting demonic shadows across his lined face. "They don't want to sink us; they want to disable our screws and board! If they board this vessel, we die!"

"Nobody is boarding my ship," Nicholas snarled. He switched off the active sonar. "Running silent. Auxiliary thrusters only."

The hum of the main engine died. The cabin fell into an eerie, suffocating silence, broken only by the steady dripping of condensation and the ragged sound of our breathing. Outside, through hundreds of feet of pitch-black ocean, we could hear the slow, rhythmic *thump-thump-thump* of the enemy submarine’s massive screws hunting for us in the dark.

"Elena," Nicholas whispered, not taking his eyes off the passive hydrophone monitor. "The ring's ping. How often does it pulse?"

I looked at the tiny blue light beneath the diamond. "Every forty-five seconds."

"Next pulse in ten seconds," Nicholas said. He turned to look at me, a wild, dangerous spark in his eyes. "Elena... I need you to draw them into the spires."

"How?"

"We are going to run alongside the granite ridge at maximum speed. When the pulse hits, they'll calibrate their targeting solution to where you are. Arthur, be ready on the aft magnetic mines."

"You're using your fiancé as an acoustic flare," Arthur said, a rare, chilling note of approval in his voice. "Cold, Nicholas. Just like I taught you."

"Shut up, Arthur," I hissed. "Nicholas, do it."

Five. Four. Three.

The blue diode pulsed.