Admiral’s Gambit

A heavy, mechanical klaxon wailed from the ceiling speaker, followed instantly by the deep, echoing thud of the primary sector blast doors slamming shut at the far end of the corridor.

A wall of reinforced titanium dropped from the ceiling ten feet behind Cynthia, sealing the flooded hallway into a claustrophobic concrete tomb.

Through the heavy wire-mesh observation slit above the door, Admiral Hudson's face appeared, illuminated by the red emergency glow of the auxiliary grid.

"Medic Kane!" Hudson shouted through the thick steel plate, her voice distorted by the intercom amplifier. "The intake valves are fully compromised! We cannot purge the lower level without flooding the entire maritime foundation!"

"Don't open that door, Admiral!" I yelled back, keeping the knife raised as Cynthia turned her head toward the control barrier. "She isn't just infected! She is a biological anchor for the entire marine colony! If she breaches this sub-level, your harbor is finished!"

"I am not opening the door, Kane," Hudson replied, her eyes cold and absolute behind the observation glass. "I am flooding the compartment. The secondary seawater intake is unlocking right now."

Cynthia shrieked, the sound splitting into a deafening, multi-layered roar that cracked the wire-mesh glass of the upper observation slit.

She ignored me entirely, launching herself straight at the steel blast door where the Admiral's face had just vanished.

Her jagged bone talons hammered against the titanium plate, sending massive shockwaves through the concrete walls with every strike.

"Valerie, the ceiling vent!" a new voice crackled from the static-filled radio clipped to the dead soldier's collar in the water.

I looked down.

The emergency communicator was blinking a bright green light through the floating grease.

"Who is this?" I gasped, stepping backward as a second torrent of high-pressure seawater burst from the upper ceiling valve, raising the water level to my waist.

"Get to the maintenance ladder above the monitoring console!" the voice repeated, sharp and commanding despite the heavy interference. "Hudson is venting the high-pressure lines to drown the chamber! The access hatch to the upper deck is unlocked!"

I looked up at the shattered monitoring window.

Just above the broken glass frame, a small, yellow-lit service hatch was embedded in the concrete ceiling, its manual release wheel spinning freely in the rising current.

Cynthia abandoned the blast door, her massive, barnacle-crusted body turning around in the water to face me.

She didn't look angry anymore. A terrifying, knowing smile split her charred face.

"You think someone is coming back for you, Valerie?" she laughed, her voice bubbling through the water. "There is no surface left."

The seawater rose past my ribcage, freezing and thick with the smell of marine grease.

"Climb, Valerie!" the radio on the dead guard's floating vest crackled through the roar of the incoming torrent.

The small black device bobbed against a chunk of shattered safety glass, its green indicator light flashing with a weak, dying pulse.

"The Admiral just authorized the emergency harbor purge! If you are still in that pipe when the third valve opens, the hydraulic pressure will tear your limbs right off your torso!"

I didn't answer the radio. I couldn't.

Every breath required me to lift my chin toward the wet concrete ceiling, my boots slipping on the slick tiles below as the current from the intake pipes grew more violent.

I lunged through the broken window frame of the monitoring booth, the jagged glass edges tearing through the sleeves of my jacket, and grabbed the bottom rung of the iron maintenance ladder.

"You can't leave the room, Valerie," Cynthia's voice bubbled from the center of the flooded corridor.

She wasn't swimming. Her dense, bone-crusted muscle mass was too heavy for buoyancy, but she didn't need to float.

She was walking along the floorboards beneath the surface, her talons digging deep into the concrete tiles to anchor her body against the rushing water.

Through the clear, swirling green of the harbor flood, her eyes glowed like two hot coals under the ice.

She reached up, her long, gray arm breaking the surface to grab the heel of my left boot.

Her grip felt like a vice of cold iron, the bone claws sinking through the leather into my flesh.

"Let go!" I screamed, using my right leg to stomp downward onto her mutated wrist.

The blow hit the hard, barnacle-crusted scales of her forearm, a sharp pain radiating up my leg as if I had kicked a block of solid granite.

Cynthia didn't flinch.

She pulled downward with all her weight, the force ripping my fingers away from the first iron rung of the ladder and dragging my chest beneath the freezing water.

The world went entirely dark green, the sound of the rushing water turning into a muted, thumping vibration inside my ears.

I opened my eyes beneath the salt surface.

Cynthia's split face was inches from mine, her jaw wide open as a stream of thick black fluid drifted from her lips, mixing with the seawater like ink in a glass.

I didn't try to pull away from her grip this time.

I reached down to my hip, my fingers wrapping around the handle of the knife.

With one swift, desperate motion, I drove the long steel blade directly into the enlarged, pulsing gill slit running down the right side of her neck, the new maritime adaptation Thorne's pathogen had grown to let her breathe beneath the waves.

Cynthia froze, her eyes widening in pure shock.

A thick fountain of dark, greasy fluid erupted from the wound, fouling the water around us.

Her fingers loosened from my boot heel as she clamped both of her hands over her bleeding neck, her body twisting in a violent, uncoordinated spasm as the seawater flooded her internal respiratory tract.

I kicked off her shoulder, launching my torso back toward the surface of the pool.

I burst through the water, coughing and choking as my hands found the ladder rungs again.

I climbed frantically, my muscles burning from the sudden rush of oxygen, until my head hit the manual release wheel of the yellow ceiling hatch.

A loud, mechanical boom echoed from the lower foundation pipes.

The third valve had opened.