Chapter 67 - The Decompression Lock
The pod bay was already half-flooded, water sloshing against the magnetic seals of the launch tube. The digital telemetry board on the bulkhead flashed frantically:
*WARNING: EXTERNAL PRESSURE EXCEEDS SAFE LAUNCH MARGINS. MANUAL EJECTION WILL RESULT IN SEVERE CAVITATION RISK.*
"I don't care about cavitation!" Miller shouted, keying in the sequence from Victoria’s silver pendant into the pod’s docking terminal. "Get Leo inside! Strap into the primary harness!"
I lunged into the cramped, padded interior of the capsule, placing Leo into the central shock-absorbing cradle. My fingers shook uncontrollably as I clicked the five-point safety harness over his tiny chest, tears stinging my eyes. "Mama’s got you, Leo. Mama’s right here."
A deafening crash shattered the corridor behind us.
The watertight hatch was torn clean off its heavy steel hinges, flying across the room and crushing the launch terminal’s secondary monitor into a hail of sparks.
Eleanor stood in the doorway.
Her clothes were shredded, her flesh pale and mottled with grotesque veins of purple and black. She dragged her broken left leg behind her, but her right arm was raised, holding the jagged, two-foot metal rod she had ripped from the stairwell railing.
"The line ends... where it began," Eleanor croaked, her voice layered with a horrifying, dual-toned resonance. "In the blood of the children."
Miller stepped between the entrance of the pod and the matriarch, raising his empty shotgun like a staff. "Elizabeth, hit the interior launch toggle! Don't wait for me!"
"I'm not leaving you, Miller!" I yelled, reaching for the side holster of his tactical vest where a flare gun was still secured.
"Launch it!" he roared, lunging forward to tackle Eleanor before she could throw the spear.
The collision was catastrophic. Eleanor didn't yield an inch; she caught Miller by the throat with one hand, lifting a two-hundred-pound grown man clean off the floor like a ragdoll. Her fingers sank deep into his flesh, and Miller gasped for air, his face turning dark purple as he struggled futilely against her iron grip.
"You were a pathetic flatfoot when you investigated my daughter's balcony," Eleanor whispered, stepping toward the open hatch of the pod. "And you will die an unnamed corpse at the bottom of the sea."
She raised the metal rod to drive it through Miller’s chest.
I leaned out of the pod’s hatch, thumbed the hammer of the heavy 12-gauge marine flare gun, and pressed the wide orange barrel directly beneath Eleanor’s chin.
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"To the death of your empire, grandmother," I whispered.
I pulled the trigger.
