Chapter 43 - Shadow in the Sickbay
The secure sickbay of the *Farragut* was locked down under heavy guard. Two armed sailors stood outside the hatch, their carbines slung low, helmets locked tight. Inside, Sterling was strapped securely to a gurney, his vitals monitored on the bulkhead display while Lieutenant Miller stood watch with a medical scanner.
I stepped inside, still smelling of saltwater and burnt cordite, holding the black external drive I had wrenched from Sterling's terminal.
"Lieutenant, leave us," I said calmly.
Miller nodded without hesitation, stepping out into the companionway and dogging the heavy watertight door shut behind him.
Sterling watched me approach, his arrogance completely drained, replaced by the hollow gaze of a cornered man. "You’re an outlaw now, Eleanor," he rasped, coughing weakly. "You shot down military-grade ordnance deployed under classified Pentagon orders. You can't explain that away. Arthur's sworn confession is already in the hands of the Judge Advocate General. They have bank transfers. They have forged signatures in your name going back ten years."
"They have paper," I countered, setting the encrypted hard drive down on the small stainless-steel tray beside him. "Paper forged by cowards in Dayton who thought envy was an ambition. But I have your server logs, Sterling. And unlike my father's pathetic fabrications, your drive holds raw cryptographic signatures from the Office of Naval Intelligence."
Sterling swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "You don't understand who’s behind this. Arthur didn't reach out to some rogue contractor. He reached out to someone wearing three stars on their shoulder. Someone who owed his family money from the early days of Whitaker Tool & Die."
A cold stillness washed over me. "Three stars. Name him."
"Vice Admiral Sterling Ross," Sterling whispered, his lips trembling slightly. "My uncle. Arthur thought he was just protecting his son's pride when he asked to have your academy recommendations buried. But Ross saw an opportunity to use your father's business as a front for covert off-book procurement. When you kept climbing the ranks anyway—when you became commander of a bleeding-edge prototype warship—you threatened to expose the very supply line your father helped grease."
I stared at him, piecing the puzzle together in terrifying clarity. My father hadn't just tried to stunt my life out of petty misogyny or wounded ego. He had bound himself to a corrupt flag officer, turning the family business into an illegal conduit for defense kickbacks, terrified that my rapid rise would bring real oversight down on their criminal enterprise.
"You're going to give me the encryption keys to this drive," I said, stepping closer until my eyes bored into his. "Or the next port we make will be Guantanamo, and you will be listed as lost at sea during an unacknowledged strike."
May you like
Sterling looked into my eyes, searching for a tremor, a doubt, a single drop of hesitation. He found none.
***
