Chapter 13 - Everyone Comes Home
The missile appeared on the tactical display as a single red line crossing the Atlantic.
Time to impact: fourteen minutes.
Voss stared at the screen.
“That is impossible.”
Brooks pulled him upright by his jacket.
“Where did Sloane obtain a launch platform?”
“I don’t know.”
“You funded him.”
“I funded research.”
“You funded murder.”
Daniel worked at the control station.
“Athena can transmit the countermeasure.”
The system rejected his access.
COGNITIVE COMMANDER REQUIRED.
I remained strapped into the chair.
“Reconnect me.”
Keating shook his head. “Your heart rate is unstable.”
“The Valor has five hundred sailors.”
Daniel met my gaze.
“He’s right. Another integration could cause neurological damage.”
“Transmit manually.”
“The missile uses adaptive tracking. We need Athena to predict changes.”
Voss pressed his good hand against the wound.
“There is another option.”
Everyone turned.
“The Valor can fire defensive interceptors.”
“Then order it,” I said.
“The warning systems classify the missile as friendly. The ship won’t engage without high-level override.”
“Give it.”
“My access was revoked when the system registered the shooting.”
Brooks checked the console.
“Keating?”
The admiral entered his credentials.
Rejected.
Daniel looked at me.
“The ship knows your future command authorization.”
“I haven’t assumed command.”
“But your biometric profile may already be loaded.”
I touched the sensor arm.
“Connect me to the Valor.”
Athena’s interface surrounded me again.
This time, I stood on the cruiser’s bridge.
The real commanding officer, Captain Laura Chen, appeared through a secure link. Alarm lights flashed behind her.
“Identify yourself.”
“Captain Evelyn Harrington.”
“I know who you are. Why are you inside my tactical system?”
“An adaptive missile is inbound. Your network is classifying it as friendly.”
Chen turned toward an officer.
“No hostile track.”
“Switch to optical detection, bearing zero-eight-two.”
Seconds passed.
Then someone shouted.
“Visual track confirmed!”
Chen looked back at me.
“Distance?”
“Eleven minutes.”
“How did you access this system?”
“Long explanation.”
“I dislike unexplained captains on my bridge.”
“So do I.”
She almost smiled.
“What do you need?”
“Authorize Athena countermeasure integration.”
“Athena was terminated after the Resolute incident.”
“Not completely.”
Recognition entered her eyes.
“You were the cognitive model.”
“Yes.”
“Can you defeat the missile?”
“I can give you a chance.”
Chen turned to her crew.
“General quarters. Set condition one throughout the ship.”
The familiar alarm sounded.
For a moment, I was back aboard the Resolute.
My body tried to freeze.
I looked at Captain Chen.
She was not a memory.
This was not the same ship.
The outcome had not been written.
“Captain Harrington,” she said, “the bridge is yours for countermeasure control.”
Trust passed between commanders who had never met.
Athena generated thousands of possible tracking patterns. I recognized one sequence repeating beneath the variations.
Sloane had designed the missile around my original emergency code.
He expected me to use the same solution.
So I changed it.
“Deploy decoys in an asymmetrical spread. Turn starboard twelve degrees. Cut active radar for four seconds.”
Chen repeated the commands.
The missile adjusted.
“Now hard to port.”
The cruiser heeled through the turn.
“Fire interceptor one on bearing zero-seven-eight.”
A defensive missile launched.
Sloane’s weapon changed direction.
“It’s evading,” Chen said.
“I know.”
My mind moved through patterns faster than conscious thought. Childhood puzzles, navigation training, and combat memories aligned.
“Interceptor two, delayed launch by three seconds. Aim behind the target.”
“Behind?”
“It predicts pursuit. Make it retreat into the strike.”
Chen did not hesitate.
“Fire.”
The second interceptor crossed the screen.
Sloane’s missile changed course to evade the first.
It moved directly into the second.
The display turned white.
The connection filled with cheering.
Then silence returned as debris fell harmlessly into the ocean.
Captain Chen faced the screen.
“Threat destroyed.”
My body sagged against the restraints.
“Good work.”
“Captain Harrington?”
“I’m here.”
Chen’s expression softened.
“The Valor will be waiting.”
The connection ended.
I woke in the chamber with blood running from my nose.
Daniel released the restraints.
“You did it.”
“Where’s Sloane?”
Brooks pointed toward a maintenance map.
“He escaped to level eight.”
Keating stood beside the service hatch.
“My son is down there.”
We opened the hatch and found a narrow ladder descending beneath the facility.
Level eight contained detention rooms, a communications center, and an underground vehicle tunnel.
Thomas Keating Jr. was locked inside a cell, bruised but alive.
His father gripped him through the bars until Brooks found the release control.
In the communications center, we discovered Sloane’s final transmission.
He had sent every Athena file to multiple foreign buyers.
Daniel checked the upload status.
“Ninety-two percent complete.”
“Can we cancel it?” I asked.
“Not from here.”
The transmission source moved on a tracking map.
Sloane had entered the tunnel in an armored vehicle.
I looked at the access route.
It emerged near the Potomac River.
Brooks called federal tactical teams.
“Ten minutes.”
“He needs six,” Daniel said.
Keating Jr. leaned against the wall.
“There’s a flood-control gate midway through the tunnel.”
“Can we close it?”
“Manual control only.”
Daniel and I exchanged a look.
Brooks saw it.
“No.”
“Stay with Voss,” I said.
“You are not pursuing an armed traitor into a tunnel.”
“I need only reach the flood gate.”
“I’m coming.”
The three of us took a facility vehicle and entered the tunnel.
Ahead, Sloane’s taillights vanished around a curve.
Daniel accelerated.
Brooks activated the emergency barrier controls, but Sloane had disabled them remotely.
We reached the flood gate with less than four minutes remaining in the upload.
I climbed onto the maintenance platform while Daniel and Brooks continued the pursuit.
The manual wheel resisted.
My injured ribs screamed as I pulled.
The gate began descending.
Sloane’s armored vehicle appeared in the distance.
He accelerated toward me.
I turned the wheel faster.
The steel barrier dropped halfway.
His vehicle did not slow.
At the last moment, Daniel’s car struck Sloane’s rear quarter.
The armored vehicle spun.
It crashed into the tunnel wall before reaching the gate.
The upload froze at ninety-eight percent.
Sloane crawled from the wreckage with a pistol.
Daniel emerged from the damaged pursuit car.
Brooks aimed her weapon.
“Drop it!”
Sloane looked at me on the platform.
“You think you won?”
“Yes.”
“Athena belongs to everyone now.”
“Only fragments were uploaded.”
“Fragments are enough.”
He raised the pistol toward the control station.
Daniel fired.
Sloane fell.
The weapon slid across the wet concrete.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then distant sirens echoed through the tunnel.
The danger was over.
Or as close to over as such things ever became.
I looked at the flood gate standing between Sloane and freedom.
For five years, he had shaped our lives from the shadows.
Now he lay beneath harsh utility lights, exposed at last.
May you like
Everyone was coming home.
But home would not look the way any of us remembered.
