Semtex and detonators.

  The commandos set about planting charges around the tier. A few headed toward the stairwell. While it would take only one or two bombs to implode the entire complex, the assailants weren’t taking any chances.

  Kowalski got them moving downward again. “Is there another way off the station? Maybe through one of the emergency airlocks at each level.”

  Byrd shook his head. “A submersible would need to dock there first.”

  Kowalski scowled.

  That’s not happening any time soon.

  Byrd hurried down. “Our only hope is to get to the lowest level in the station.”

  Kowalski followed, though he failed to see how burying their head two levels deeper in the sand was going to help. But the bottommost tier was the smallest and likely the most defensible.

  They reached the next level—Kalliste Tier—only to be confronted by a young woman hugging a laptop with a pack slung over her shoulder.

  She looked more pissed than scared.

  2:38 A.M.

  Jazz confronted the group of men. “What the hell’s happening?”

  “Come with us,” Byrd ordered and herded her down the steps toward Tethys Tier.

  Confused, she allowed herself to be swept along. She was too tired, too addled to argue. She wiped sweat from her brow and shivered, not out of fear, but due to a slight fever. The middle finger of her right hand throbbed and felt stiff. She opened and closed her hand, worrying about circulation, fearing a clot. The digit had taken on a worrisomely gray hue.

  But that was clearly the least of her problems.

  A gunshot above confirmed this.

  As they all hurried faster, she searched the group around her. She recognized Jarrah and Haru Kaneko. The last of the group towered over her. Though she hadn’t been introduced to Joseph Kowalski, his size, demeanor, and hard features had been a point of much conversation. He claimed to be a member of DARPA. His partner—a biomedical expert—had accompanied Phoebe to the Tonga Trench.

  Jazz eyed the huge pistol clutched in the man’s hand. Earlier, she had thought she had heard gunshots. At the time, she was sealed inside the benthic lab and had dismissed the noise as pops from the stressed walls of the station after the quakes. Anything else made no sense. Who would dare shoot inside a space surrounded by pulverizing pressure?

  She looked up at Kowalski’s stern face, smoke wafting from a cigar.

  This guy would.

  As they reached the bottom of the station, a sharp cry echoed down the stairwell. It was followed by a spate of angry shouting in Chinese.

  Byrd headed across the tier. “Hurry.”

  Beyond the ring of windows, the ocean continued to shine under the exterior lamps. The reef glowed in radiant hues. But now there was an ominous cast to the seas. More harsh shouts echoed, getting closer.

  “We need to seal off this level,” Byrd said.

  “How?” Haru asked.

  The trio had left Jarrah and Kowalski at the bottom of the stairs.

  Jazz tried to look both ways at once and asked the most important question. “Why?”

  Haru explained in crisp sentences. “We’re under attack. A military contingent arrived in the last shuttle of subs. They’re holding everyone at gunpoint.” He saved the worst for last. “And they’re planting bombs throughout the station.”

  Aghast, Jazz looked at the two men by the stairs. Hours ago, she could have left with the first evacuation group. She had been asleep up in the women’s dorm when the evacuation order had been announced. Byrd had assured them it was of no concern, that it was a decision made through an abundance of caution. She had taken the man at his word and, rather than leaving immediately, had gone down to the biology lab to secure all her research and collect samples to take with her. It was all too important to abandon.

  That’s what I get for being so diligent.

  She should have taken a page from her older brothers, who believed idleness was a great virtue and that the mere act of getting out of bed should be applauded.

  Byrd reached a slanted door along one side of the tier. It lay directly across from the emergency airlock on the opposite side. Jazz knew this door led down to a set of auxiliary controls, a redundant system of batteries and generators, allowing each tier to be self-contained in case of a disaster.

  This certainly counted as one.

  Byrd hauled open the door and freed a large key hanging from a chain around his neck. He then climbed down the two steps to a dark chamber below.

  Haru and Jazz remained at the door’s threshold.

  “Better do something quick!” Kowalski called over, raising his pistol higher.

  Down in the chamber, Byrd inserted his key into a console and gave it a hard twist. Lights flickered, then flared across a secondary bank of controls.

  Directly behind her, a thunderous gunshot made her flinch and duck. The blast deafened and stung her ears. Still, she heard a sharp shout of surprise from the tier above.

  Behind her, Kowalski shifted around the stairwell, angling for a second shot.

  And luckily, he did.

  Automatic gunfire sparked where he had been standing. Rounds pinged and ricocheted off the steel floor. They struck all around, even off the glass.

  Jazz winced and ducked lower.

  Kowalski fired again with the cannon in his hand, then shouted over to them. “Now or never!”

  “Hang on!” At the auxiliary controls, Byrd pounded a fist on a red button with FIRE stamped on it.

  Immediately, a warning alarm blared across the tiers. Overhead, large bulkhead doors slammed closed, one after the other, sealing off each tier. The force was strong enough to shake the floor.

  Two objects tumbled down the steps, bouncing and spraying blood. They landed at the foot of the steps.

  A pair of severed legs.

  Jazz gasped and nearly fell back into the compartment with Byrd. She realized the shooter must have been perched at the level of the hatch—and suffered for his trespass.

  Kowalski stepped over the limbs, as if they were a couple of logs. He had to shout to be heard over the fire alarm. “This trick won’t buy us much time. They’ll just plant one of those Semtex charges right on top of us.”

  Byrd shifted over to a pair of red levers. “Then let’s not be here when that happens.”

  He pulled the smaller lever marked with the word ANCHOR. Sharp muffled bursts sounded outside. Beyond the window, thick cables fell away from the station’s sides and slithered to the seabed. Freed now of its attachments, Titan Station Down spun slightly over the reefs. The stabilizing thrusters kicked in, thrumming loudly as they fought to stop the station’s wobbling.

  “How’s this gonna help us escape?” Kowalski asked.

  “Like this.”

  Byrd flipped four toggles, lighting each up—then hauled on the larger lever. It required both hands and some body weight to pull it down. It was stamped with the word UNCOUPLE.

  As he snapped it into place, the entire station shook with a series of chunking clanks. Jazz lost her balance and grabbed the door jamb. The fire alarm immediately ceased. In the silence that followed, the noise of the thrusters grew in volume, tremoring the floor.

  Jazz stared out the window as the reefs drifted under them. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s how we assembled the five tiers of the station,” Byrd explained. “Piece by piece.”

  He turned over to a bank of controls that had bloomed into light behind him. Above it, the curve of glass extended in an arc across the space. Below it, Byrd grasped a large yoke that stuck out.

  “Each tier is its own self-contained submersible,” he explained. He pushed the yoke forward, and the thrusters thrummed louder. “How else could we position and join the tiers together down here? We needed some means of maneuvering them into alignment and stacking them together.”

  Jazz got her legs fully under her and stumbled to one of the windows. She leaned her palms on the glass and gaped back at the glowing bulk of Titan Station Down. It still shone in the dark, only now it was slowly coming apart, the tiers sliding past one another.

  “Unless interrupted, each tier will autonomously rise to the surface on its own.” Byrd glanced back to them. “Like I told you all, I designed multiple fail-safes and redundancies into this construction.”

  Haru stared at the fragmenting slide of tiers. “What about everyone else back there?”

  “When a tier is in motion, the submersible docks automatically lock down. It’s too risky to release them when moving. Could cause a catastrophic leak. There is a manual override, but I doubt the newcomers know about it.”

  Kowalski crossed next to Jazz and whistled out a stream of cigar smoke. “So you trapped the bastards with the station personnel.”

  Byrd shrugged. “Unless they’re suicidal, it should discourage them from exploding those charges.”

  Kowalski grimaced and looked up. “It’s not them I’m worried about—but whoever sent them. They may not care who dies down here.”

  20

  January 24, 2:40 A.M. NCT

  Four hundred miles off Norfolk Island (Australia)

  Captain Tse Daiyu frowned at the sonar array on the bridge of the Dayangxi. The data did not come from the equipment aboard their ship, a Type 076 helicopter landing dock. Instead, it had been transmitted to them via an array of sonobouys dropped into the waves around the tall research station floating atop the Coral Sea.

  The bright sonar screen revealed a 3D map of the seas beneath the research rig. She stared at the ruins two miles below. The deep-sea station showed up as a scatter of saucer-like blobs, which slowly fell apart as she watched.

  “I don’t understand,” Daiyu said. “Did Snow Leopard Team already destroy the submerged station?”

  A radio operator in blue camouflage sat at a console behind her. He held a headphone to one ear. “There remains confusion, sir. The men sent below have not yet surfaced. But so far, no underwater explosions have been picked up by the hydrophones on the sea’s surface.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Unclear, Captain. Current consensus is that there might have been an accident.”

  Her frown deepened, detesting such uncertainty. “Do we still maintain full control of the upper facility?”

  He nodded sharply. “Shì.”

  She stepped over to the windows facing the stern. The dark seas lay flat around them, as if beaten down by the press of the low, dark skies. Even the Dayangxi’s exterior lamps had been dimmed by a shroud of falling ash. Occasional flashes of static discharge snapped through the roiling clouds of powder.

  To the west, eighty nautical miles off the stern, a small torch glowed through the pall. It marked the upper tier of the research rig, which still burned following the initial missile attack. Snow Leopard Team had destroyed a helicopter, which allowed one of their own birds, a Z-8 transport chopper, to land and deploy a well-armed assault force. At the same time, a trio of attack boats, each loaded with forty men, had sped out of Dayangxi’s flooded well deck. They had reached the station and quickly subdued it.

  Daiyu had overseen the attack from afar. Already, the Dayangxi was steaming away under the full power of its gas turbine and diesel engines. She had barely slowed the ship as it passed the research rig at a distance. It was of secondary importance. Instead, she continued swiftly toward their primary objective—the Tonga Trench.

  Still, she had monitored the assault behind her from the Dayangxi’s combat information center. She had been prepared to deploy additional forces, both by sea and air. Even now, a Hongdu GJ-11 Sharp Sword—a stealth combat drone—waited atop one of the flight deck’s electromagnetic launchers. She was somewhat disappointed she hadn’t needed to dispatch the drone—which was no surprise. She knew the research rig had minimal security and firepower.

  As she stood by the bridge window, she watched the site burn for another two breaths, then crossed back to the sonar station.

  Once there, she pointed to the radio operator. “Alert Snow Leopard Team. After their divers are clear, blow everything below and have their demolition force sink the rig above. Then rendezvous back at the Dayangxi.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Snow Leopard’s helicopter and attack boats were far swifter than the two-hundred-meter-long Dayangxi. The assault team could easily close the distance while the landing dock made slow passage to the trench. Within the next hour, she planned to take advantage of another swift vessel, one still stored in the well deck of the ship. She intended to use it to reach the trench well ahead of the Dayangxi.

  She pictured the boat waiting below her and clenched a fist.

  It’s only fitting that I command such a craft.

  The PLA Navy had taken Daiyu’s design specs for the AI-driven Zhu Hai Yun, along with its complement of autonomous drones. They had built a militarized version of it and mounted it all atop a Yema, a Type 726 air-cushioned landing craft. The boat could sweep across the ocean at eighty knots, nearly three times the speed of Dayangxi. It would put her at the trench in roughly five hours. Once there, she would coordinate with the hunter-killer submarine that was on approach. The sub was under a standing order to only patrol the waters until she arrived.

  Her fist tightened.

  No one will steal my thunder.

  She refused to allow the hunter-killer’s captain to take command of the site where the Changzheng 24 had gone down. Instead, she intended to prove the military prowess and worth of her autonomous design systems. The modified LCAC waiting in the well deck carried a battle tank and a fleet of her drones, each one unique and deadly. It also held a deep-sea bathyscaphe, a submersible capable of reaching the bottom of the trench, a craft as dangerous as any of her designs.

  She smiled at this thought. She would sideline both the attack submarine and the lumbering Dayangxi. She would turn both into mere support vessels to her own ambitions. Instead, she intended to prove to Beijing that it was time to look beyond the old weapons of warfare. She would show them a new path—a better one—into the future.

  And I will lead us there.

  “Captain Tse, sir,” the radioman alerted her. “I’ve passed on your orders to Snow Leopard Team. But communications are growing patchy as the ash cover thickens. Between the charge in the air and physical compromise of our antennas, it may grow worse.”

  As if emphasizing this threat, a bolt of lightning chained across the sky in a blinding display.

  She scowled at the low skies. Off the starboard side, fires glowed out in the darkness, marking the volcanic eruptions along the chain of Solomon Islands. She pondered the mystery—and opportunity—they presented.

  Seven hours before, she had landed aboard the Dayangxi and taken command as the ship transited these waters. While at sea, she had failed to feel any of the reported quakes. She had only witnessed the volcanic eruptions and the blackening of the night sky, which was concerning enough. Afterward, she had taken a brief call from Choi Aigua. He believed the tectonic activity was further proof of his theory—inflaming his hope for what might lay hidden in the waters ahead.

  Daiyu stared at her toes, trying to picture a chunk of a foreign planetoid buried in Earth’s upper mantle. According to Choi, it was the source for the spreading chaos and eruptions. She remained unconvinced—though the volcanic eruptions across the region were eroding her doubts.

  As with her own ambitions, she knew what Aigua hoped would be discovered at the trench. He was convinced that the sinking of the Changzheng 24 had somehow triggered this cascade of events. If they could learn how it happened—how it tied to petrified bodies, crystals from a lunar rock sample, and a strange ELF pulse—it might offer a clue to a great weapon, a way to control the very foundations of the planet. If successful, it would return China to its rightful dominance of the world, to create a new shining dynasty that would last until the sun went cold.

  Though she didn’t fully accept Aigua’s theory, she dared not dismiss it.

  If there is even the slimmest chance of it being true . . .

  Movement on the sonar screen drew her eye. The broken sections of the underwater station had fallen farther apart. The saucer-like fragments also appeared to be slowly rising upward. But what drew her attention was its smallest section. That tiny splinter remained deep and had drifted away.

  She squinted at it, both suspicious and curious.

  As she stared, the sonar screen pixelated into obscurity. After a few seconds, it slowly reformed. Only now the image blurred in and out of focus.

  “We’re getting stronger interference,” the sonar operator reported. “Maybe due to the electromagnetic effects from the volcanic eruptions we’re passing. The transmission should clear up again after we gain some distance.”

  “Do what you can,” she said.

  She straightened and stared ahead, already putting the fate of the research station out of her mind. She trusted Snow Leopard Team could handle matters back there. Besides, she had left extra insurance in the waters around the huge rig. Before departing, she had dispatched four UUVs into the sea. The unmanned underwater vehicles operated autonomously. They were capable of recognizing, following, and attacking any anomalous cavitations in the water. If detected, they turned into self-guided torpedoes.

  She pictured the tiny fragment of the station drifting off. If it strayed too far, it would be blown up. Knowing this, she dismissed any misgivings and concentrated on what lay ahead. She pictured the giant research yacht—the Titan X.

  She smiled at the dark seas.

  One more target to destroy, one more step toward glory.

  21

  January 24, 3:48 A.M. NZDT

  Pacific Ocean, six hundred miles NE of Auckland

  Seated at the rear of the Cormorant, Adam leaned forward between Datuk and Monk. Cold sweat pebbled his brow—and not just from the tension. The humidity inside the submersible had increased steadily as they ascended.

  “How’s it looking?” he asked.

  Datuk pointed to his array of sensor data. “I’m not detecting any more radiation. It has dropped steadily after we rose through the salt-dense brine layer. It’s been holding at zero for the past twenty minutes. We should be safe from here.”