Chapter 44 - The Red Mutiny
Klaxons howled through the bowels of the *Gorgon*, painting the observation room in pulsing, violent strokes of crimson light.
*“CRITICAL SECURITY BREACH IN BIO-LAB FOUR,”* the automated voice bellowed. *“LETHAL COUNTERMEASURES AUTHORIZED.”*
Daniel ripped the dead scientist’s security keycard from his belt and jammed the needle-sharp tip of the drill into the hydraulic release mechanism of the remaining restraints. With a series of sharp clanks, the leg and neck shackles disengaged. Daniel tumbled to the floor, landing on hands and knees in a pool of blood and hydraulic fluid.
His body was a battlefield of torn muscle and shattered nerves, but his mind had never been clearer. Lily was alive. His daughter was fighting for her soul behind that silver mask.
He stripped the dead scientist’s tactical sidearm—a suppressed carbon-frame automatic—and slapped the emergency airlock override. The heavy glass door slid back.
Out in the observation deck, Lily had collapsed onto her knees, clutching her tiny head with both hands. She was screaming in two distinct voices—Claire’s furious shriek colliding with a toddler’s terrified wail.
"Shut up! Silence the flesh!" Claire’s voice snarled through the child’s lips.
"I want my Daddy! Go away, bad lady!" Lily’s pure, sweet voice wept in reply.
Daniel rushed forward and scooped the thrashing child into his arms. The moment his chest touched hers, an electric shock arced between them—the biological signature of the cipher reacting to his proximity. Lily’s small hands instinctively gripped his bloodied tactical vest, but suddenly her eyes flashed entirely silver, and she drove her small, razor-sharp nails into Daniel’s neck with superhuman force.
"You should have died in the laboratory, clone!" Claire's voice hissed from the child's mouth as she tried to crush his carotid artery.
"I am your father," Daniel growled through gritted teeth, refusing to drop her. He clamped his muscular arm around her, immobilizing her limbs against his torso without breaking her bones. "And nobody takes my girl. Not even the ghost that built me."
Before Daniel could reach the lab's exit, the blast doors at the end of the corridor blew inward with a deafening concussive roar.
Smoke, fire, and shrapnel tore down the hallway. Daniel turned his back, shielding Lily with his own body as heated steel fragments peppered his shoulders and back.
He raised his weapon, expecting a squad of Black Horizon commandos to execute them. But the men emerging through the smoke were not wearing Black Horizon insignia. Their uniforms were scorched, their helmets stripped of visors, and their chest rigs were marked with crude slashes of red spray paint.
"Hold your fire!" the lead soldier shouted, sweeping a submachine gun down the hall. "We have the asset! Operative Seven is operational!"
Daniel aimed his pistol directly at the man's forehead. "Take one more step and I paint the bulkhead with your skull."
May you like
The soldier raised his hands, revealing a silver tattoo of a broken compass on his forearm. "Stand down, Seven. We’re the Echo Cell. Claire Vance didn't just build one fail-safe—she built three. And half the fleet just realized what she really planned to do with the orbital strikes. She’s not liberating the world. She’s cleansing it."
***
