Red pulsed across Tinga’s vision—the countdown, etched into her sight by Diafotisi, edging into the danger zone.

  Kali Tyche had cut engines hours ago, anchored in the lee of Sfontili— a barren rock east of Delos. It was waiting for its military escort, the frigate that hadn’t yet arrived. That brief gap in timing was the only reason Tinga’s approach by water was even possible.

  Tonight’s parameters were brutal: a single air tank, good for twenty minutes under ideal conditions. But the moment she plunged into the icy black, Diafotisi halved that estimate. Between the drag of her soaked disguise and the water’s bone-numbing chill, her reserve crashed to nine minutes and thirty-nine seconds.

  Nine minutes to reach her extraction vessel—drifting silent and cloaked somewhere in the dark—or black out alone before she ever found it. And she couldn’t risk a Prax shard; lighting one would be the same as screaming her position to every predator and patrol in range.

  She was alone.

  Alone with grit, a dwindling breath count, and the kind of luck that got people killed.

  45 seconds.

  Cold cinched around her ribs like a vise. Every inhale tighter than the last. She forced her strokes steady—precise—fighting panic with discipline.

  40 seconds.

  Her shoulders burned. Her lungs clawed. The cold dragged at her limbs like a god trying to claim her.

  30 seconds.

  Her vision throbbed at the edges—black, pulsing. She kicked harder.

  She didn’t check the timer for the next drop; she didn’t need to. The ache in her chest told her enough.

  20 seconds.

  She scanned the dark through the augmented corners of her vision, begging for a silhouette, a shimmer—anything—but the deep swallowed every hope whole.

  10 seconds.

  Her pulse thundered. The crew. The mission. The Tetra. Her kingdom. All of it balanced on this mad, breathless sprint through midnight water.

  She filled her lungs to the edge of agony.

  Diafotisi triggered a second timer.

  58 seconds.

  Not much. But better than drowning.

  She brought her palms together in a prayer stance and summoned the last threads of strength she possessed. With a fluid arch, her hands sliced up, then forward—cutting the black sea as though through silk. She didn’t just swim—she committed.

  Red pulsed across her vision again.

  The timer jumped.

  45 seconds.

  The night pressed in, a single endless void where sea and sky blended into oppressive nothing. She searched for the promised signal—four lights in a square. Nothing. A bubble escaped her mask, skimming past her cheek like a whispered reminder of what she couldn’t afford to lose.

  She pushed harder.

  28 seconds.

  Her eyes burned. Her temples hammered. The world tunneled.

  Then—finally—four distant lights bled into view. Faint. Flickering. But real.

  Hope hit her like fire in cold veins.

  5 seconds.

  She exhaled in relief—and paid for it. Lost bubbles. Lost air. Her strokes turned ragged, sloppy with desperation as she tore toward the formation.

  3 seconds.

  Her vision folded inward, edges curling like burning paper.

  Only the lights remained.

  Only survival.

  0 seconds.

  Diafotisi triggered the emergency counter.

  One hit point per second.

  Her hand grazed metal—

  Then her head broke the surface.

  Air ripped into her lungs in a shuddering, soundless scream—like a corpse relearning breath. She barely processed the shock before strong arms seized her and dragged her out of the water.

  “Make room! MAKE ROOM!” someone shouted—a voice she should’ve recognized, but her mind was gone, reduced to two primal needs:

  Air.

  And the knowledge she wasn’t safe yet.

  “Captain, you made it! We heard the alarm—did you get the device?”

  No words. Just a storm of gasps. Her lungs clawed for oxygen, her voice refusing to rise above the primal instinct to survive. She flopped onto her stomach, goggles ripped away, a sharp snot rocket clearing her nose before she smeared her face clean. Crawling forward like a gutted fish, she staggered into the blood-red glow of the hold—emergency lights meant to preserve night vision but now painting everything in urgent hues of dread.

  In her head, the message screamed loud and clear:

  Stolen novel; please report.

  We are in deep shit.

  “Captain, the device?”

  “Does it look like I got the device,” she rasped. “There was a ghost-eye. A damned projection. Someone fed us a mirage and called it intel.”

  She had to move. Had to reach the bridge. Had to contact Antaeus.

  Tinga pushed off the floor, willing her body upright, but her legs buckled beneath her—the cost of every second spent battling the sea. Her knee cracked as it struck the grated deck. She winced, more from frustration than pain.

  "Captain?" Dante’s voice cut through the haze, low but urgent. He hovered close, always steady, always watching. His concern was a tether—one she refused to grab.

  She waved him off with a flick of her fingers, sharp and final. Sympathy was a luxury they couldn't afford.

  Not now.

  Her fingers found the pressure point below her collarbone. A practiced pinch sent a jolt through her nerves, a crude but effective method for unlocking a tight muscle. If her body had seized up back there, in the dark, they’d be dragging her corpse from the current—or worse, never find her at all. There were things in the deep that didn’t need sonar to feed.

  She staggered forward, gripping the stair railing like a lifeline. One step. Another. Her breathing evened out as her mind began parsing the chaos, assembling it into a sequence she could navigate.

  “Why does fate always rewrite the goddamn script?” she muttered to herself—or to whatever gods cared to listen. “First, this damn Tin-can is expected to replace my perfect ship. Then I’m sent after a ghost battery. Now we’re floating blind in enemy lanes on false intel.”

  The Tin-can—a name she spat with contempt even if it wasn’t official. A ship like this didn’t deserve a name. Not like the Kidemónas.

  Her Kidemónas had been a masterpiece—sleek, precise, and loyal. Every inch of her built not from scraps, but from sacrifice. Tinga had poured years of earnings into that hull, knew her vessel inside and out—from the wiring and water lines to the weapons systems and every stubborn seam of sea caulk. It wasn’t just a ship. It was hers. And while she’d been buried deep in a six-year infiltration op, they'd handed her over to Amanar. Amanar. That puffed-up, pomp-collared bureaucrat couldn't fare a dinghy through calm waters, let alone helm her Kidemónas. No one was worthy of her—not like Tinga. Losing it hadn’t just been tactical—it was personal. This scrap heap she sailed now? An insult.

  She crested the last step as the deck lights winked out one by one.

  Darkness swallowed the ship.

  Not just night—but void. Every navigation beacon extinguished. Radar deflectors humming in quiet compliance. Smoke and fog bled together, reducing the world to shadows and silhouettes. They were ghosts now. Invisible on any map. Forgotten, unless found.

  Her crew moved like whispers—loading gear, checking harnesses, calibrating anchors. They didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. They were trained for this. Still, no order came. They waited. For her.

  Tinga checked her HUD—stamina finally climbing above ten percent. Just enough.

  She took the next set of stairs two at a time, Dante following without a word. At the top, she kicked open the door to the bridge. Smoke surged out to greet them like an omen, thick and cloying.

  Inside, someone had lit a cigar—idiot.

  The figure responsible turned, ready to bark a reprimand. But his eyes found hers, and whatever snark had been loading on his tongue died instantly.

  He stood straighter. Shoulders squared. Heels clicked.

  “Captain, the ship is ready to go. We await your command.”

  Without a word, Tinga stepped past the saluting crewman, her body still slick with seawater, leaving a wet trail across the bridge's metal floor. She moved with deliberate precision, fingers steady as she adjusted the frequency dial on the radio console. Channel seventy-seven. The emergency line. The unspoken code for when things had truly gone sideways.

  The man glanced at Dante, brows rising in quiet question. The first mate only offered a subtle shake of the head—he didn’t know either.

  Tinga pressed the mic button, her voice rasping from cold and adrenaline.

  “Dreadnought, Dreadnought, Dreadnought, this is Tin-can on channel seventy-seven. Tin-can on seventy-seven.”

  Silence.

  She tried again, voice firmer this time.

  “Dreadnought, Dreadnought, Dreadnought, this is Tin-can on seventy-seven.”

  A crackle. Static. The barest flicker of a voice, warped and unintelligible.

  Maybe they were being jammed. Maybe the Dreadnought was too far. Maybe both.

  Tinga leaned in, urgency pressing down on her chest. “If you're transmitting, we can't hear you. Here’s the situation. The lead was false. Project Energizer Bunny is a bust. I repeat—Kali Tyche was not carrying the—”

  Somewhere beyond the fog to the north, a low horn bellowed — the frigate, finally arriving for its rendezvous. Not ideal. Not now.

  A distant BOOM cut her off. The bridge jolted. Tinga’s hand shot up reflexively, dropping the mic.

  Then she saw it—blazing through the dark like a comet, a projectile the size of a bowling ball, zeroing in.

  Too fast to dodge. Too close to pray.

  They’d been found.

  The projectile struck the Tin-can’s deck with a sickening hiss—not an explosion, but a repulsion. The metal didn’t crumple inward. It parted, distorted as if pushed by an invisible magnetic field. For a moment, the ship itself seemed to recoil, its plating warping unnaturally around the impact site.

  Then the sound came—a shriek of tearing steel, followed by human screams. And then... silence. Not the silence of peace, but of breath held, of the universe bracing for the next blow.

  Through smoke and heat, Tinga blinked back tears that had nothing to do with emotion. Firelight painted the bridge in flickering reds and golds, and everywhere, glass shards sparkled like dying stars. She coughed, wiped her sleeve across her face, and scanned the chaos.

  “Dante,” she whispered.

  No sign of him.

  Her boots pounded the floor as she lunged toward the shattered window.

  “Shit, Dante. Don’t tell me you jumped the bridge. Come on. Come on...”

  Pressed against the window’s broken frame, she scoured the carnage. Below, a gaping wound split the ship’s side nearly bow to stern. Smoke billowed from the cavity, flames licking up from its heart like a hungry beast. The fractured remains of the Tin-can groaned under their own weight, and in the eerie firelight, she spotted bodies—some moving, most not.

  A sudden crunch of glass behind her snapped her attention too late.

  A hand seized her wrist.

  “Captain,” came the voice—familiar, alive, grounding. “We need to go. One more hit and this thing’s going under.”

  Before she could savor the relief of Dante’s voice—alive, urgent, grounding—a second boom split the air. The ship shuddered violently, and Dante didn’t wait for her reply. He yanked her back from the shattered window.

  “I know you want to fight. I know you want to save them. But the best thing you can do now—the only thing—is run. Now GO.”

  As if to drive the point home, a fresh explosion ripped through the deck. Fire and steel erupted in tandem, followed by the unmistakable rush of seawater breaching the hull. The Tin-can groaned beneath their feet, its death rattle undeniable.

  “Captain—it’s now or never. Follow my lead.”

  Without hesitation, Dante bolted toward the door, vaulted onto the railing, and disappeared into the storm-choked night.

  Tinga stood frozen, her jaw clenched so tightly it ached. Her shoulders quaked—not from fear, but fury. A scream ripped free, raw and unfiltered, a guttural cry that seared through the dark like a flare. It carried her grief, her rage, and her refusal to let the universe dictate terms. That scream emptied something inside her—cleared it. And in the silence that followed, she knew: Dante was right. They couldn’t win this. Not here. Not tonight.

  And the blame? That was hers to bear. She’d made the call. Intercept Kali Tyche. Retrieve the battery. Prove the lead true. But the battery wasn’t real. The trap was.

  If.

  The word burned like acid.

  If I hadn’t—

  No. Enough.

  She turned toward the railing, legs primed to run, when the radio behind her crackled to life—just enough static and clipped syllables to halt her in her tracks. Her breath caught.

  A beat passed. Then another.

  Tinga pivoted back, her boots echoing against the scorched floor as she marched to the mic. She gripped it with white-knuckled resolve, stared out into the smothering dark, and pressed transmit.

  Her voice, low and level, cut through the static.

  “Tin-can, sunk. Over.”