Chapter 17 - THE SECOND SCAR
The impact of the blast door closing knocked me backward onto the wet deck. I lay there gasping, my left sleeve soaked in fresh crimson. The raw cable had carved a new, parallel line right beside my original scar—a twin mark of survival.
Ethan pulled me up into his arms, his hands shaking as he applied a pressure bandage to my bleeding arm. "You crazy, brilliant woman... You held a blast door."
"Just... another day in Combat Rescue," I choked out, offering a weak, blood-stained grin.
Arthur grabbed the encrypted hard drive Victor had dropped into the bilge water and held it up. "We have the matrix. Now get us out of here!"
We rushed into the Navy bathyscaphe, locked the pressure hatch, and hit the emergency release triggers.
As our small vessel launched backward into the open trench, the explosive charges inside Station Abyss Nine detonated. A massive underwater fireball bloomed in the abyss, crushing the secret facility and the rogue syndicate submarine into silence.
Our bathyscaphe shot upward toward the sunlight four thousand meters above.
Two hours later, we broke the surface of the Pacific Ocean into the brilliant golden light of dawn.
Surrounding us were three United States Navy aircraft carriers, four destroyers, and two rescue helicopters hovering low over the water.
Ethan opened the upper hatch. Fresh, salt-tinged ocean air filled the cabin.
May you like
As the Navy rescue basket lowered down toward us, Arthur Vance stepped out onto the exterior hull, raising his weather-worn face toward the warm sun for the first time in forty years.
He looked at me, then at Ethan, tears pouring down his cheeks. "My daughter... you brought me back from the dark."
