Chapter 38 - Deep Water Sabotage
The ballroom descended into instant, screaming bedlam.
Billionaires and oligarchs shrieked, dropping their crystal glasses, diving beneath velvet-covered tables as the smoke cleared to reveal three figures standing in the ruined doorway.
Claire stepped through first.
Her wet evening dress was torn, her violet eyes burning with such terrifying intensity that the nearest mercenaries actually stepped back in instinctive, primal fear.
"Going once," I said, my assault rifle coming up to my shoulder. "Going twice."
I squeezed the trigger.
The three-round burst took Vance’s lead bodyguard in the center of his chest plate, the kinetic impact hurling him backward off the stage into the digital display screen.
"Kill them!" Vance shrieked, dropping the microphone and pulling a gold-plated semi-automatic pistol from his jacket. "Kill them all! Protect the subject!"
The mercenaries opened fire. The ballroom became a thunderous echo chamber of muzzle flashes, shattering mirrors, and flying wood splinters.
Miller dropped to one knee, laying down a devastating field of suppressing fire with his machine gun, chewing through the ornate mahogany pillars and keeping the right flank of guards pinned behind the bar.
Claire moved.
She didn't take cover. She sprinted directly down the center aisle, vaulting over tables, weaving through the hail of lead with inhuman agility. A contractor lunged at her with a combat shotgun; she slid beneath the barrel across the polished floor, drove her combat knife through his boot into the deck, and used his falling body as a springboard to launch herself ten feet into the air.
She landed directly on the stage.
Vance fired three rounds at her point-blank. Two missed; the third grazed her shoulder, tearing through the flesh. Claire didn't even acknowledge the wound. She closed the distance, her hand clamping onto Vance’s throat, lifting the grown man six inches off the marble floor with one arm.
"Claire!" Vance choked, his legs kicking wildly, his face turning dark purple. "You... you can’t kill me! I have... the only dose of the stabilizer! If I die... you burn!"
Claire tilted her head, her violet eyes drilling into his soul.
"I would burn in hell for eternity," she whispered, her voice vibrating with terrifying resonance, "just to keep your hands off my daughter."
She slammed him down onto the stage, the impact cracking the marble tiles. Vance screamed as his collarbone shattered.
I reached the stage two seconds later, my rifle smoking. I didn't look at Vance. I sprinted to the acrylic pod.
"Lily!"
"Daddy!" she sobbed, pressing her tiny palms against the glass.
The pod was locked with an electronic biometric console. I raised my rifle to shoot the hinges, but Claire caught my arm.
"No! The glass is pressurized! If you shoot it, the explosive decompression will hurt her!" Claire grabbed the heavy steel locking bar with both hands. The black veins on her arms pulsed violently; she let out a guttural, agonizing scream of pure exertion as her muscles tore against her own bones.
With a deafening screech of tearing metal, Claire ripped the hydraulic locking mechanism completely out of the frame.
The acrylic door swung open.
I reached in and scooped Lily into my arms, pulling her tiny, trembling body against my chest. She buried her face in my neck, sobbing uncontrollably. "Daddy... Daddy, you came... Mommy came..."
"I’ve got you, baby," I whispered, tears blurring my vision as I held her with one arm, my other hand reaching out to touch Claire’s cheek. "I’ve got you both."
"Daniel," Miller shouted from the back of the room, reloading his weapon behind a shattered pillar. "We’ve got a problem! The bridge crew just locked the watertight bulkheads! They’re scuttling the lower decks to trap us here!"
From the deck beneath our feet came a deep, ominous groan. The ship was tilting. Vance’s loyalists in the bridge, realizing the auction was compromised, were executing the scorched-earth protocol.
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The *Leviathan* was beginning to sink.
***
