Chapter 48 - The Siberian Vault Protocol
We sprinted through the industrial guts of *The Boreas*, the baby shielded under my heavy coat, his cries muffled against my neck. Sofia led the way, clearing corridors with ruthless, surgical efficiency, dropping two of Christian’s mercenaries who tried to ambush us near the secondary turbine room.
Marcus followed behind us, his breath wheezing like broken bellows, his white hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and blood, but his eyes blazing with venomous fury.
We reached the central reactor vault—a massive, vaulted chamber of titanium and lead-lined steel suspended over the pulsing blue Cherenkov glow of the nuclear core. In the center of the catwalk hung a cylindrical console surrounded by six biometric scanning arrays and three high-resolution holographic monitors displaying real-time orbital telemetry.
"Lock the blast doors!" I ordered Sofia, who slammed the emergency lockdown lever, sealing two-ton hydraulic plates behind us.
Outside the door, heavy automatic fire began hammering against the iron, followed by the muffled curses of Christian Vane and his men.
"This is it, Victoria," Marcus gasped, leaning heavily against the console, his trembling, bloodstained hands hovering over the input keys. "The Siberian Protocol. You place your hand on the left scanner. You place the child’s hand on the right. And then you speak the authorization phrase: *In Sanguine Victoria*."
On the main holographic screen, a digital countdown was ticking:
*INCOMING TORPEDO IMPACT: 03:42... 03:41...*
"What happens when I do it?" I demanded, holding the baby back, refusing to touch the scanner. "Tell me the whole truth, Marcus! Not the banker’s lie. What happens to the world?"
Marcus looked at me, a terrifying smile carving through his pain. "The sovereign debts of sixty-two nations are instantaneously transferred into a private smart-contract trust registered in your name. Every commercial bank affiliated with the Accord will freeze. The global markets will crash fifty percent by nine o’clock tomorrow morning. And then... they will have to come to you to buy the gold to back their new currencies."
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"You want me to cause a global collapse," I breathed, horror tightening around my throat. "Millions of people... their savings, their pensions, their lives..."
"They are sheep, Victoria!" Marcus snarled, his fingernails digging into my wrist with unexpected, terrifying strength. "Alexander was a sheep! Camilla was a sheep! If you don't break them, they will slaughter you! Look at that screen! If you don't take the crown right now, those torpedoes will blow this ship into a thousand pieces and Christian will take the boy's corpse to open the vaults anyway!"
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