Chapter 29 - The Vault of the Fallen
The shockwaves of the detonating torpedoes rattled the *Manta*’s pressure hull, sending screams of shearing metal throughout the auxiliary compartments, but Claire’s maneuver held. The acoustic decoys absorbed the blast, and the submarine slipped through the churning thermal wake, gliding silently beneath the outer defense net.
"We have reached the airlock collar of the central docking bay," Commander Ross reported, wiping sweat from his eyes. "We can lock on, but once we breach, we’re entering an unpressurized dry compartment controlled by hostiles."
Claire turned toward Dante. "You know the layout of the interior vaults. Thomas gave you the schematics."
Dante racked the slide of a combat sidearm handed to him by the ship’s armorer. "I know where the master terminal is. But the facility’s defense core will only deactivate with the biometric pendant. You have to be at that console, Claire."
"Then we go together," Claire said.
Leaving a security detachment to protect the sleeping Leo in the submarine’s reinforced med-bay, Claire and Dante, flanked by four DEVGRU operators, locked through the boarding umbilical and stepped onto the rusted steel gangway of the secret facility.
The air inside the cavern smelled of sulfur, ozone, and old hydraulic grease. Floodlights flickered along the towering steel walls, illuminating the colossal hull of the rogue submarine suspended in the dry dock below them.
As they approached the central command sphere, a smooth, mocking voice echoed over the facility's public address system.
"Welcome home, Claire. I must say, your promotion was well-deserved. Your tactical pathfinding is unmatched."
Claire stopped dead in her tracks, her weapon raised toward the observation balcony above the master terminal.
Standing behind the bulletproof glass, dressed in immaculate dress blues adorned with the medals of thirty years of naval service, was Vice Admiral Arthur Sterling. And standing at his side, bruised but smiling like a hyena, was Julian Vance.
"Sterling," Claire said, her voice dropping into a lethal, venomous tone. "You disgraced the uniform."
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"Disgraced it?" Sterling laughed, his voice amplified across the cavern. "I evolved it, Ellison! The old world is rotting. Politicians arguing over budgets while true power lies in the shadows! With the *Leviathan*, we dictate the terms of global trade, not the White House, not the Kremlin, and certainly not the Moretti crime family!"
***
