Episode 19
The alarms from the flooded ballasts below the deck shrieked in unison with the roar of the black ocean water surging over the edge. The massive cargo ship was tilting violently, its deck turning into a treacherous, slippery incline of marine oil and freezing saltwater.
Julian stood in the narrow gap between the towering container walls, his breath escaping in frantic white clouds into the freezing night. The iron crowbar in his hand was freezing cold. On the other side of the crushed steel container, the man in the grey suit still stood, entirely unbothered by the screaming helicopters overhead or the stray bullets chewing into the metal around them.
"You have forty-five seconds, Julian," the man’s voice crackled through the radio speaker, unnervingly calm. "Make your choice. Bring the boy out and save your lives, or watch this ship become a steel coffin at the bottom of the Atlantic."
Thomas spat a mouthful of bloody saltwater onto the deck, leaning his back against the steel wall as he racked his shotgun. "Don't listen to him, kid. If we give them Leo, the Board will erase all five of us the second they regain network access."
Julian looked back. The path to the communications room was completely blocked by a forty-ton shipping container. But through a rusted, warped tear in the corner of the steel structure, he caught a glimpse of Leo’s small silhouette running out of the hatch, followed by a limping Sarah and Echo holding her weapon at the ready.
Leo wasn't hiding. He stared through the narrow gap, his nine-year-old eyes burning with an intense, calculated defiance. In his hands was the military-grade tablet from the comm room, its screen flashing a crimson progress bar: Global Network Deletion: 94%... 95%...
"Juju!" Leo screamed over the howling wind. "Don't back down! I'm breaking their backbone! Just one more minute!"
"You little rat!" the man in the grey suit snarled as Leo’s face appeared on his handheld tracker. Stripped of his polite demeanor, he barked an order to his remaining guards: "Blow that hatch! Kill the women, keep the boy's head intact!"
The two tactical submachine guns instantly pivoted toward the narrow gap where Leo and Sarah stood.
In that split second of life and death, Julian didn't think about his own safety. He threw his entire weight forward, slamming his shoulder into a massive, empty steel oil drum nearby, launching it rolling down the slick incline toward the guards to break their line of sight.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Automatic gunfire erupted, chewing into the rolling drum and sending a blinding cascade of sparks into the dark. One of the stray rounds splayed across Julian’s shoulder, tearing through his vest and leaving a hot, bleeding gash. At the same instant, Thomas leaned out, his shotgun blasting a heavy spray that shredded the shoulder of the first guard.
But the second guard managed to recover, his laser sight locking squarely onto the gap where Leo stood.
"Leo! Get down!" Julian roared. Lunging forward, he threw the iron crowbar with everything he had left. The spinning metal bar struck the guard’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger, forcing the gunfire wide. The stray bullets tore into the heavy steel cables of the massive cargo crane looming directly above them.
SNAP.
The thick, load-bearing steel cables snapped with the sound of a cannon shot. The massive crane lost its balance, dragging a stack of multi-ton containers down with it, crashing directly between the man in the grey suit and Julian's group.
The impact tore the deck open. The steel floor buckled violently beneath Julian’s boots, and the sheer force of the shockwave threw him sideways, his hands slipping from the wet metal. He tumbled across the oil-slicked deck, his body sliding toward the black ocean before his fingers desperately caught the links of a heavy anchor chain.
As the dust and steam cleared, a horrifying scene materialized. The falling crane had practically broken the ship's spine. Freezing black ocean water began to cascade onto the deck like a waterfall through a massive fracture right down the center.
On opposite ends of the dying ship, the corporate destroyer's boarding team and the black-ops frigate's mercenaries began firing wildly at each other, a desperate scramble for the only remaining escape route: a tactical helicopter hovering low, dropping its extraction lines.
Julian forced himself up, his vision spinning. Through the thick cloud of cordite and smoke, he saw Leo. The boy was trapped on the section of the deck that was sinking the fastest. The military tablet had been knocked from his hands, sliding across the deck, its screen flashing: Global Network Deletion: 99%... PAUSED due to connection loss.
The man in the grey suit, bleeding heavily from a deep cut across his face, crawled out from the debris. He was clawing frantically toward the fallen tablet, his fingers just inches away. If he reached it and cancelled the command, the Board’s global empire would survive.
At the same time, the commander of the rogue state submarine faction broke the surface of the rising water on the far side of the deck, raising a tactical net-gun aimed directly at Leo's chest.
Julian looked at his little brother, then at the tablet, then at the bleeding man in the suit. The distance was too great, and the ship was now tilting at a catastrophic forty-five-degree angle, preparing to roll over completely into the abyss.
"Juju!" Leo screamed, his eyes locking onto Julian through the raging storm. He wasn't crying out for his own life; he was staring at the tablet. He wanted Julian to finish it.
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The freezing ocean water was already up to Julian's knees. The roar of the helicopters, the endless gunfire, and the agonizing groan of tearing steel filled the night. Julian had exactly three seconds to make the ultimate decision: sprint toward his brother before the sub-aquatic mercenaries could drag him under, or dive for the tablet to erase the monster once and for all, gambling the life of the one person he had sworn to protect at all costs.
The next massive wave crashed over the bow, burying the tilting deck in a blinding wall of white water, swallowing everything from sight.
