Chapter 98 - The Remote Breach
The amber terminals along the command perimeter began scrolling through thousands of lines of encrypted code at dizzying speed, overriding our manual inputs with contemptuous ease.
"Someone is accessing the primary reactor core from the surface!" Miller yelled, his weapon raised as he scanned the catwalks above us. "How is that possible? We’re four miles down! The only umbilical connection is through the *Vanguard*!"
"It’s not coming from the *Vanguard*," I shouted back, stepping behind the master engineering console and pulling the emergency manual breaker handles. "The foreign surface vessels Vance warned us about! They’ve established a high-frequency acoustic laser link through the water column!"
On the tactical plotting tank, three red surface contacts had just appeared directly above the trench, arrayed in a triangular formation over the *Vanguard*’s position.
"They aren't just here to seize the facility," I realized, looking at the thermal telemetry. "They’re forcing an emergency core meltdown. They want to vaporize the archive and use the explosion to trigger the seismic charges! They want the catastrophe, and they want the Navy blamed for triggering it!"
"Primary coolant valves closing!" Dawson yelled, fighting the hydraulic controls. "Emergency shutdown bypass engaged! The reactor temperature is climbing through the safety threshold! In twelve minutes, the containment seals will crack!"
"Dawson, get back to the *Triton-IV* and prep the propulsion systems!" I commanded. "Miller, with me! We have to sever the primary power couplings manually in the lower maintenance bay!"
"Captain, if we cut those couplings while the reactor is at critical mass, the electrical backfeed could ignite the atmospheric scrubbers!" Miller argued, his face tight with grim determination.
"If we don't cut them, this entire ocean shelf tears loose and drags the eastern coastline into the Atlantic!" I snapped, pulling two heavy steel fire axes from the bulkhead emergency kit and tossing one to him. "Move!"
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We bolted down the spiral steel staircase leading into the lower engineering deck. The air down here was already suffocatingly hot, thick with the stench of boiling coolant and burning plastic insulation. Steam hissed violently from overhead relief pipes, obscuring our vision in blinding white clouds.
Through the mist, at the end of the narrow catwalk, stood the central junction box—a massive steel pillar encased in titanium shielding, pulsing with blinding blue arcs of high-voltage static.
