Chapter 28 - The Citadel on the Cliff
"Maya!" Arthur roared, lunging forward, but Victoria stepped into his path, driving the butt of her rifle into his injured ribs.
Arthur dropped to his knees, gasping for breath as Eleanor walked calmly past him toward the quantum console.
"She served her purpose, Arthur," Eleanor said, glancing down at him with genuine, chilling pity. "Just as you did."
The progress bar on the display wall flashed green, and a synthesized voice chimed throughout the bridge: *Upload Complete.*
"The Iron Synod is no longer a syndicate," Eleanor declared, pulling the Seventh Drive from the console port. "It is the law."
The submarine lurched violently as a sudden explosion rattled the outer pressure hull from the rear compartments.
Warning sirens wailed in shrill harmony: *Depressurization in Section Three. Automatic bulkheads sealed.*
"What was that?" Victoria asked, spinning toward the damage control monitors with sudden urgency.
"Maya," Arthur whispered, blood dripping from his split lip onto the floor as he forced himself back up. "She didn't die."
The bridge lights flickered and died, plunging the control room into the eerie crimson glow of emergency battle stations.
Arthur didn't hesitate; he tackled Victoria by the knees, driving both of them over the railing into the navigational pit below.
Her rifle clattered across the steel grates as they slammed into the deck, trading brutal, desperate blows in the dark.
Victoria was fast, trained in the brutal arts of the syndicate's private academies, her combat knife flashing toward his throat.
Arthur caught her wrist inches from his carotid artery, twisting the blade backward until the bones in her fingers snapped.
She let out a strangled hiss of pain, her mask tearing away to reveal the horrific, reconstructive surgical scars across her jaw.
"You're a monster," Arthur snarled, slamming her head against the steel decking until her body went completely limp.
He scrambled back to his feet, grabbing her dropped sidearm as he turned toward the captain’s gallery where Eleanor had stood.
The stateroom door was open, and the escape pod warning beacon was flashing with frantic, rhythmic pulses.
"Warning: Pod Two launching in thirty seconds," the automated system announced in a calm, digitized voice.
Arthur sprinted down the narrow corridor, firing through the viewing glass of the launch tube just as the pressure locks sealed.
Inside the tiny, spherical capsule, Eleanor sat strapped into the pilot seat, clutching the titanium briefcase against her chest.
She didn't scream or flinch as the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the reinforced transparent ballistic glass.
She merely looked at Arthur through the porthole, raised her hand, and placed her palm gently against the glass in a twisted maternal farewell.
The pod ejected with a deafening burst of compressed nitrogen, shooting out into the black ocean depths toward the Azores coast.
Arthur stood alone in the shuddering corridor, the submarine groaning around him as seawater began flooding the lower deck frames.
"Arthur..." a faint voice echoed from the darkness behind him.
He turned to see Maya stumbling through the smoke, clutching a bleeding wound in her side, leaning against the bulkhead for support.
"She shot me with a low-caliber round," Maya coughed, managing a grim, defiant smile through the pain. "Takes more than that to kill a fed."
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"The sub is sinking," Arthur said, rushing to her side and slinging her good arm over his broad shoulder. "We have one pod left."
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