Chapter 45 - The Devil’s Throat
The *Leviathan* surged forward like a missile unleashed from the dark. The silence shattered into the roaring fury of twin electric turbines whining at maximum overload.
On the tactical display, the enemy hunter-killer submarine immediately turned, its powerful thrusters churning the water as it accelerated into an interception vector.
"They bit," Arthur growled. "Speed thirty-four knots. Closing fast."
"Elena, guide me through the spires!" Nicholas shouted, wrestling with the manual steering yoke as the submarine plunged into the narrow, terrifying shadows of the Devil's Throat. Massive granite walls rose on either side of our tiny vessel, appearing like black monstrous jaws in the perimeter lighting.
"Twenty yards clearance on port!" I called out, my eyes locked on the 3D terrain reconstruction. "Drop fifteen feet! Drop now! Overhead obstruction!"
Nicholas shoved the yoke forward. The hull groaned under the sudden spike in atmospheric pressure, descending into the narrow crevasse just as a jagged outcropping scraped along the upper communications mast with a hideous, screeching wail of sheared metal.
Behind us, the enemy submarine followed blindly, guided by the precise transponder signal broadcasting from the ring on my hand.
"Enemy range four hundred meters!" Arthur yelled. "They're attempting to align their magnetic capture harpoons!"
"They're too close to maneuver!" I shouted. "Spire dead ahead in two hundred meters! Nicholas, you have to break!"
"Arthur, drop mines one and two NOW!" Nicholas roared.
Arthur slammed the twin levers down. Two heavy, spherical magnetic ordnance units tumbled from the stern of the *Leviathan*, drifting silently into the narrow corridor between the jagged granite walls.
"Hard to port!" Nicholas bellowed, hauling the yoke with every ounce of strength in his arms.
The *Leviathan* skidded through the water, its titanium hull banking so violently that the starboard stabilizers clipped the granite wall, showering the ocean floor with debris. The submarine slipped through a hairline fissure in the rock face, clearing the main channel by mere inches.
A second later, the dark trench behind us turned into a blinding wall of pure white fire.
The dual magnetic mines detonated directly beneath the enemy submarine’s keel. The concussive blast in the enclosed space was catastrophic. A dull, monstrous *CRUNCH* tore through the water, followed by the apocalyptic sound of three thousand tons of steel collapsing inward under deep-sea pressure. The shockwave slammed into the *Leviathan*, throwing Nicholas and me across the command deck as alarms shrieked in crimson hysteria.
Emergency lights flashed yellow. The submarine shuddered, listing fifteen degrees to port before Nicholas dragged himself back to the helm, steadying the trim tabs.
Silence returned to the abyss.
On the sonar monitor, the acoustic signature of the enemy submarine vanished into a spreading cloud of static and sinking metal.
"Target destroyed," Arthur reported, exhaling slowly. He looked over at Nicholas, then turned to me, his cold eyes harboring a profound, unyielding respect. "You didn't blink, girl. Most people freeze when they see rock five meters from their face."
"I told you," Nicholas breathed, wiping a smear of blood from his forehead where he had struck the console. He reached out, his hand shaking slightly as he pulled me to my feet and checked me over for injuries. "She is the Sovereign. Now... we still have two corvettes on the surface."
"And they know their hunter is dead," I pointed out, steadying myself against his shoulder. "They won't send divers down. They'll drop saturation depth charges across the entire mouth of the bay."
"Which means we can't surface," Arthur said, crossing his arms. "And we can't stay down here. Our battery reserves are at thirty percent after that burn through the spires."
"Then we don't surface in the bay," I said, pointing at the nautical chart still glowing on my screen. "We go where they would never expect a warship to hide."
Nicholas looked down at where my finger rested on the map. A slow, dangerous smile crept across his lips. "Pier 44."
"The old commercial docks?" Arthur scoffed. "Water is barely twenty-five feet deep at low tide! You'll run aground!"
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"Not if we breach through the submerged warehouse locks," Nicholas said, turning the helm toward the harbor line. "The very locks Arthur built forty years ago to smuggle contraband under the noses of the port authority. It’s time to go home, Father."
***
