Chapter 57 - The Mother's Reckoning
The metal catwalk groaned under the violent vibrations of the collapsing geothermal core.
Pieces of industrial insulation and concrete dust rained down from the cavernous ceiling.
"Commander, the core pressure is redlining!" Julian yelled, desperately typing into an override junction box on the lower deck.
"Can you shut it down?" Thomas demanded, holding a cloth against his bleeding flank.
"Not from here!" Julian screamed over the deafening roar of venting steam. "The master manual valve is on the upper catwalk, right next to Hayes!"
Claire didn't hesitate for a single second.
"Thomas, Julian, get ready to secure that pod the second I move," Claire ordered.
"Claire, wait—he’s covered by an automated defense grid!" Julian warned.
Above them, mounted to the ceiling of the catwalk, two twin-linked remote sentry turrets swiveled, their red laser targeting sights sweeping the floor.
"Then I’ll be faster than the targeting sensors," Claire said coldly.
She slung her rifle over her shoulder, drawing two combat knives from her tactical vest.
"One-Eighty-Seven protocol," Thomas whispered, a grim smile forming across his bloodied face. "Show this bastard what Sangin created."
Claire lunged from the shadows just as the twin turrets locked onto her heat signature.
Heavy armor-piercing rounds chewed up the steel grating in a terrifying line behind her sprinting heels.
She dove beneath a bank of industrial valves, the heat blistering her exposed skin.
Coming out of the slide, Claire vaulted onto the maintenance staircase, leaping up the steps three at a time.
A sentry turret pivoted toward her, but Claire hurled her right-hand combat knife with pinpoint, lethal accuracy.
The heavy steel blade slammed directly into the turret’s optical sensor lens, cracking the glass and blinding the targeting computer.
The turret swung wildly, firing harmlessly into the ceiling as Claire bounded onto the upper catwalk.
Hayes’s eyes widened in genuine terror as he saw Claire emerge from the roaring steam like an indestructible specter of war.
He raised his pistol, but Claire was already inside his guard.
She drove her shoulder into his chest, slamming him against the reinforced glass of Richard Vance’s preservation chamber.
The pistol flew from Hayes’s grip, falling through the floor grating into the bubbling coolant pool below.
Claire gripped Hayes by the throat, driving her remaining combat knife into the steel panel just a millimeter from his carotid artery.
"Drop the detonator," Claire snarled, her eyes burning into his soul.
Hayes gasped for air, his fingers trembling around the plastic casing of the switch.
"If I drop it... we all burn," Hayes rasped, fighting against her iron grip.
"Then we burn together," Claire said without flinching.
Suddenly, the PA system crackled to life once more, but it wasn't an automated alarm.
It was Margaret’s voice, broken, bloody, but laced with a mother's venomous final defiance.
"Hayes... you miserable traitor..." Margaret gasped through the speakers. "I survived your strike team."
Hayes’s eyes flicked toward the ceiling speaker in shock.
"Margaret?" Hayes breathed.
May you like
"I’ve already transmitted your encrypted offshore accounts to the Department of Justice," Margaret whispered, the sound of federal sirens wailing in the background. "Your empire is dust, Arthur."
Hayes let out a strangled roar of rage and lunged forward, trying to slam the detonator against the wall.
