Chapter 14 - The Ship Coming Home
The Talon reversed course.
Captain Cross pushed the submarine to maximum silent speed.
Calloway received Hannah’s warning.
The base radar showed no unidentified vessel.
Then Hannah instructed them to search for a friendly signal.
A Navy logistics ship appeared twenty miles offshore.
USS Meridian.
Calloway frowned.
“The Meridian is scheduled for resupply.”
“No,” Laura said over the secure line. “That is the Resolute.”
Nightglass had replaced the ship’s identity.
Docking authorization had already been approved using Calloway’s codes.
The base expected a routine arrival.
Beneath the false name was a vessel carrying dozens of armed contractors and the remaining prisoners.
Its objective was the source-key vault.
Calloway ordered the harbor closed.
The command failed.
Nightglass reopened it.
He tried to alert coastal defense.
His voice transmission changed mid-sentence and ordered them to stand down.
The enemy now controlled how his commands were heard.
Calloway disconnected every digital system.
He returned to handwritten orders carried by runners through the base.
Old methods.
Unhackable methods.
Hannah guided him through the defense plan.
No missiles.
No gunfire near the harbor.
The surviving crew might still be aboard.
The Talon approached beneath the Resolute.
Hannah proposed attaching an emergency ballast device to the ship’s stern.
It would force the vessel to list and prevent safe entry into the narrow base channel.
Cross warned that the Talon would need to rise dangerously close.
One mistake could crush the submarine beneath the larger ship.
Hannah accepted the risk.
Divers exited with the ballast device.
The Resolute’s sonar detected movement.
Charges dropped into the water.
The first explosion rocked the Talon.
Lights failed.
A pipe burst.
Sailors were thrown against bulkheads.
Hannah struck her bruised shoulder against a console and nearly collapsed.
Cross caught her.
“You’re done.”
“No.”
“You can barely stand.”
“My crew is above us.”
The second explosion struck farther away.
The divers attached the device.
The Resolute began tilting.
Its speed dropped.
The false Meridian signal disappeared briefly.
Base radar saw the truth.
The missing warship had returned.
Calloway ordered physical barriers raised across the harbor.
The Resolute stopped outside the channel.
But Sloane’s voice transmitted across every emergency frequency.
“Commander Mercer, come aboard or I execute one sailor every sixty seconds.”
A live camera showed the five prisoners kneeling on the ship’s bridge.
Sloane stood behind them.
Silver-haired.
Calm.
Wearing a vice admiral’s uniform.
Hannah looked at Laura.
Laura shook her head.
“It’s a trap.”
Hannah knew.
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But the first sixty-second timer had already begun.
👉 Hannah had spent three years trying to escape the Resolute—now she had to board it willingly to save the crew she left behind.
