Chapter 12 - Broken Hull
The yacht slammed into a six-foot wall of black sea water, the impact shuddering through the deck plates and rattling the navigation screens. The port engine sputtered with a violent, metallic cough before dying completely, leaving the ship wallowing heavily in the troughs of the waves, running on half power.
Julian fought the wheel, his muscles screaming in exhaustion. "Clara! Plug the drive into the main console! The satellite router takes three minutes to acquire a signal in this weather!"
Clara crawled on her hands and knees across the cabin floor, dragging the portable infant pod beside her. She reached the console, jamming the thumb drive into the USB interface with shaking hands.
The screen flickered, displaying a digital progress bar: Connecting to Global Media Uplink... 12%... 24%...
"It's transmitting to the metropolitan press network and the federal prosecutor's secure server," Clara gasped, her fingers clinging to the edge of the desk as the yacht tilted sharply to the right. "Julian... she's not alone out here. Look behind us."
Julian glanced out the salt-encrusted rear window.
Two more sets of navigation lights had appeared through the curtain of rain. Evelyn hadn't relied solely on a private boat; she had mobilized the Sterling shipping fleet’s fast offshore interceptors. They were closing the distance with lethal speed, carving through the swells at forty knots.
A spotlight suddenly bathed the yacht's bridge in brilliant light once more. Then, a sharp, metallic ping echoed through the wheelhouse, followed by the spiderweb shattering of the upper windshield.
Sniper fire.
"Get down!" Julian yelled, diving over Clara and the baby's pod, pressing them both against the reinforced deck.
More rounds punched through the fiberglass cabin walls, tearing through upholstery and shattering the electronics panel in an eruption of sparks. The digital display sputtered: Transmission: 78%... Signal Lost.
"The satellite dome took a hit!" Clara screamed over the deafening scream of the wind. "The upload stalled! Julian, it didn't finish!"
Julian looked at Clara. Her face was soaked with salt spray and tears, her maternity gown stained with dried blood and sea water, but her eyes held no fear—only an unbreakable resolve.
"We don't need to finish the upload," Julian said, his mind making a cold, irreversible calculation. "We just need to make it to the light."
He pointed through the shattered windshield toward the distant, rocky silhouette of Blackthorn Reef, where an ancient, automated lighthouse warned commercial vessels away from the granite teeth of the coast.
The waters around the reef were a graveyard of shipwrecks, impassable to large vessels and treacherous even for modern navigation. But Julian had sailed these shoals since he was twelve years old.
"Julian, you can't steer through the reef at this speed with one engine!" Clara cried. "We'll break apart!"
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"They can't follow us in there," Julian replied, his hands gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. "If we hit the rocks, we hit them on our terms. Hold our daughter, Clara. Hold her tight."
He threw the remaining engine throttle to maximum overload. The yacht surged forward, hurtling directly toward the foaming, deadly maw of the granite shoals.
