Chapter 75 - Echoes of Betrayal
The compartment fell into an icy, reverent silence. Miller lowered his head. Chen stared at the floor, unable to meet my eyes. The brutal reality hung suspended in the damp air: my family had not simply disowned me out of petty jealousy or traditional domestic prejudice. They had sold me. They had been on Vance’s payroll from the very beginning, acting as the domestic anchor to ensure my mother remained compliant, and later, using my career as the ultimate sacrificial bargaining chip to keep their failing industrial empire afloat.
My promotion to Captain had not been an honor granted by a benevolent command. It had been the final bait to lure me into this trap, to place me at the helm of an asset they intended to sink, liquidating every secret and burying every liability beneath two miles of ocean.
I stood there in the flickering crimson gloom, the agony in my shoulder completely forgotten. The grief that should have shattered me never came. In its place was something ancient, cold, and absolute. The Dayton ties were severed not by emotion, but by lead and treason. I was no longer a daughter trying to earn the approval of a family that saw me as a pawn. I was the commanding officer of an American war vessel, and the enemy was holding court forty feet above my head.
"Chen," I said, my voice eerily calm, stripped of all tremor. "Can we override the *Dauntless*’s external broadcast transmitters using the quantum key?"
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The petty officer looked up, startled. "Override? Ma'am, that would broadcast across every naval channel in the Atlantic Fleet. Every cruiser, every destroyer, every carrier strike group within three thousand miles would hear it."
"Not just the Atlantic Fleet," I replied, tracing the digital signature of the quantum drive. "Broadcast it directly across the global civilian and military emergency maritime channels. Route it to the naval tribunal in Norfolk, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the press corps in Washington. If Admiral Vance wants a sacrifice, he’s going to get an execution."
