Chapter 72 - Iron Claws in the Dead Sea
The hydraulic winch system groaned with the force of ten thousand tons. The steel cables connected to the magnetic harpoons began hauling Daniel's battered submarine directly toward the open moon-pool underbelly of the massive dreadnought. Below them, the water churned white and frothy, ready to swallow anything that dared slip into the abyss.
"Daniel, we can't let them take us into the belly of that ship!" Claire shouted, firing burst after burst from an abandoned submachine gun into the descending waves of mercenaries. "If they seal us inside the Tartarus deck, the magnetic dampeners will paralyze Lily permanently! Her brain will fry under the feedback loop!"
"Then we cut the lines!" Daniel roared. He sprinted toward the portside harpoon assembly, dodging a hail of tungsten-tipped rounds that chewed the submarine's conning tower into jagged shrapnel.
The deck tilted violently at a forty-five-degree angle. Every muscle in Daniel's body burned as he slid across the slick, blood-stained steel. He reached the primary cable housing where a three-inch-thick braided steel cable held their vessel hostage. The clamp mechanism was locked behind a solid titanium casing.
"Lily, can you break the lock?" Daniel yelled over his shoulder.
Lily was slumped against Claire’s chest, her skin turning an unnatural alabaster gray, the crimson light in her eyes sputtering like a dying flame. "Too heavy... Daddy... the golden voice... it’s drowning me..."
"Stay with me, Lily!" Daniel screamed. Desperation turned to primal fury. He reached into his tactical vest, pulled out a thermite breaching charge, slammed it onto the magnetic anchor, and primed the detonator with his thumb. "Fire in the hole!"
He dove backward just as the thermite erupted in a six-thousand-degree plume of blinding white fury. The extreme heat melted the titanium housing in three seconds flat, vaporizing the hydraulic seals. The thick cable snapped with the whip-crack of a sonic boom, whipping violently through the air and bisecting an approaching enemy mercenary before plunging into the churning waves.
The submarine lurched violently to the right, three harpoons remaining. The uneven tension caused the vessel to spin wildly, throwing Daniel against the perimeter rail.
From the shadows of the dreadnought’s hangar doors, a new figure stepped forward onto an exterior gantry. He did not wear armor. He wore a sharp, bespoke black suit, his face identical to Daniel's, but his eyes glowing with an artificial, cold amber sheen. It was Subject Prime—the premier clone of Project Black Horizon.
"You're fighting a biological certainty, brother," Prime's voice boomed through the wind. "You were engineered to be the battery. I was engineered to be the hand that rules the new world. Give up the child, and Mother might let you live as a donor."
Daniel dragged himself up, spitting blood onto the deck. "I'm nobody's battery, you lab-grown freak. And Sarah Vance isn't your mother—she’s the devil!"
Prime sneered, snapping his fingers. "Kill the woman. Bring me the architect."
Four elite heavy-assault drones detached from the dreadnought’s hull. Armed with dual-mounted Gatling cannons, their optical sensors locked onto Claire and the unconscious Lily.
"Daniel!" Claire screamed, shielding Lily with her entire body.
Daniel didn't think. He didn't strategize. The instinct of a father overrode every human limitation. He kicked off the bulkhead, grabbed a severed steel cable still sparking with live high-voltage current, and launched himself across the listing deck.
He swung the live cable like a whip, hurling the electrified end directly into the sensor pod of the lead drone. The massive electrical surge arced through the machine’s chassis, causing its internal munitions to detonate in a fiery fireball. The explosion knocked the remaining three drones off trajectory, sending two spiraling into the ocean while the third crashed violently into the conning tower, bursting into flames.
"Claire! The emergency hatch! Get Lily inside the pressure chamber now!" Daniel ordered, his hands charred and blistering from the electric cable.
"What about you?!" Claire cried, tears cutting through the grime on her face.
"I’m severing the rest of these leashes!" Daniel grabbed two more thermite charges. "If we go down, we go down on our own terms!"
High above, on the observation deck, Sarah Vance watched through reinforced macro-binoculars. A cruel, predatory smile curved her lips. She tapped her communicator.
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"Enough games," Sarah commanded smoothly. "Deploy the Sovereign Twins. Let them show their older sister what true perfection looks like."
***
