Chapter 5 - The Double Agent in the Engine Room
"Hold your fire, Mercer," Sarah hissed, keeping her weapon steady as she glanced nervously toward the stairwell leading down from the bridge. "One wrong move and the internal sensors will pick up your heartbeat before we even clear this sector."
I stared at her, my chest heaving as I yanked my arm from her grip. "Sarah? What the hell are you doing on this ship? Your assignment was supposed to be running back-channel coordination from Oahu!"
"Oahu was a blind alley," Sarah replied sharply, stepping closer and pulling me behind a bank of auxiliary generators out of the line of sight of the upper security cameras. "We intercepted a level-one priority intercept meant for Kane's handler in Manila. Project Chimera isn't just an illegal arms drop—it's an active-duty testbed for a black-budget bioweapon, and Kane is using this deployment to sanitize the trial evidence by sinking the entire ship with all hands aboard."
Chief Engineer Miller wiped a greasy rag across his forehead, his face pale under the harsh yellow emergency lights. "She's right, Petty Officer. Kane’s plan all along was to stage a catastrophic 'boiler explosion' three days out from the Marianas Trench. Five hundred sailors and Marines are nothing more than collateral damage to cover up the missing test subjects."
"I have the core data drive," I said, tapping the waterproof pocket containing the download. "I pulled ninety-one percent of the transfer logs before they locked down the network."
Sarah’s eyes widened. "Good. Because we don't have three days. Kane just initiated the automated scuttling sequence from the bridge. The engineering locks are overriding our manual controls, and the ship is already taking on water through the primary ballast flood valves."
Before I could answer, a deafening mechanical shriek echoed through the entire ship. The deck beneath our feet tilted violently to starboard, and the emergency klaxons abruptly stopped, replaced by an eerie, total silence across the main systems.
Far above us, over the central PA system, Colonel Kane’s voice boomed across the empty compartments, calm and chillingly final.
May you like
"Attention all hands. We have suffered an unrecoverable engineering casualty. Abandon ship protocols are canceled. May God have mercy on your souls."
A heavy, explosive thud shook the keel of the USNS Resolute, and the lights in the engine room flickered out completely, plunging us into total darkness.
