Chapter 6 - Breaking the SurfaceCrash!
The safety glass shattered outward in a spiderweb of jagged edges, letting in a torrential rush of cold rain, sea spray, and gray morning light.
Maxwell hoisted the girl up first, pushing her through the narrow opening onto the rain-slicked floor of the upper flybridge. Scrambling up after her, he pulled her into his chest as icy wind whipped across the open deck.
Below them, the main salon was rapidly filling with dark, churning water.
They were stranded one hundred and twenty feet out on the marina dock, surrounded by fog, with no way to signal the shore—their phones were locked inside the sinking hull, and Thomas had disabled the radio communications array.
Or so Thomas thought.
"Can you hear that?" Maxwell whispered, listening closely through the howling wind.
From the control console of the flybridge, a faint, rhythmic blinking light pulsed in red. It wasn't the ship's main navigation system—it was an independent, satellite-linked distress beacon that automatically activated whenever the hull's pressure threshold dropped below critical levels.
Maxwell dragged the girl toward the helm station, shielding her from the rain with his body. He slammed his palm down onto the manual activation switch of the beacon.
A sharp, high-pitched digital chirp answered him. Across the city, at the corporate headquarters and the Coast Guard station simultaneously, a high-priority alarm began to scream.
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Suddenly, the heavy metal door of the flybridge access stairwell rattled violently. Thomas had realized his mistake.
"Uncle Max! Open this door!" Thomas’s voice screamed from below, muffled by the sound of rising water and howling wind. The handle shook furiously, then stopped as Thomas realized the water pressure was trapping him on the lower level.
