Chapter 110

#Day 33 — 10:45

The screen flickered.

Carmona leaned forward in her chair, her eyes fixed on the grainy image. The lower deck of the Blue Oasis was a war zone—women pressing against a line of security guards, their faces twisted with rage, their hands reaching for the holding cells. The guards pushed back, but the crowd was too dense, too desperate.

The screen flickered again. For a fraction of a second, the image glitched—showing empty deck, fallen bodies, gas drifting through the vents—and then it snapped back to chaos.

Carmona smiled.

Michael's feed, she thought. He always did have a flair for the dramatic.

She watched as the women surged forward, overwhelmed the security line, and rushed toward the cells. Somewhere off-screen, a door burst open. Shouting. The sound of fists on metal.

She switched to the bridge camera.

Women were everywhere—holding Vivienne, holding Linh, holding Sophie. One of them stood at the helm, her hands on the controls, her face alight with triumph. The captain was on her knees, her hands bound, her face pale.

Perfect.

Carmona leaned back. "I've seen enough."

Her crew turned to her—a dozen faces, hard and eager. The navigation officer was already plotting the intercept course. The weapons master was checking the crawler containers. The helmsman waited for her order.

"Intercept the Blue Oasis," she said. "ETA?"

"Six hours, Captain. Maybe less if the seas stay rough."

Carmona nodded. "Status of the crawlers?"

The weapons master straightened. "All four containers are ready. The tenders are modified and secured. Everything is normal."

"And the Red Solstice defenses?"

"Twenty crew, fortified positions on all decks. We've welded additional plating over the windows and set up firing positions at every approach. She will not be infiltrated again."

Carmona's jaw tightened. She remembered Victoria Elise—the way she had moved through the Red Solstice like a ghost, killing her best guards, escaping into the night. She would not let that happen again.

"Post extra guards on the lower decks," she ordered. "And double the watch on the bridge. No one gets close without my authorization."

"Yes, Captain."

She looked at the monitor showing her speedboat—fueled, armed, ready. It had saved her life once, when Victoria had come for her. She hoped she would not need it again.

One of her crew spoke hesitantly. "Captain, the Commission's orders—they want the vector and the blind girl alive. Zhao and Chen. If we use the crawlers—"

Carmona's hand moved to her gun. She drew it, aimed it at the woman's face. The crew member went pale, her mouth snapping shut.

"I don't care what the old senile men on the Commission want," Carmona said, her voice cold. "I will have my revenge. Seeing them all dead is the goal. Nothing else matters."

She holstered the weapon. No one else spoke.

The navigation officer cleared his throat. "Captain, there is another vessel near the Blue Oasis. Small. Fishing boat."

Carmona waved a hand. "The Mother Mercy. Fishermen and farmers. Not a threat."

She paused. An idea formed.

"Lower one crawler tender. Intercept the fishing boat."

The weapons master frowned. "Is that wise? We have four containers—fifty crawlers each. Two hundred total. If we send one, we have one hundred and fifty for the Blue Oasis. Should be enough for a boat with compromised security."

"And if the crawlers fail? If they are not ready?"

The weapons master said nothing.

Carmona smiled. "We test them on the fishermen. If they work, we use the rest. If they do not—" She shrugged. "We lose nothing of value."

The crew exchanged glances, but no one argued.

One of the tenders was lowered into the water. Its engine roared to life, and it sped toward the horizon, toward the dark speck that was the Mother Mercy.

Carmona watched it go, then turned back to the main screen. The Red Solstice was moving now, cutting through the choppy seas, its course set for the Blue Oasis.

She thought of the Commission. Of Michael's mocking voice. Of the way he had used her, humiliated her, promised her a vector and then taken it away.

They think they can control me. They think I still care about their orders. But Zhao and Chen will die with the rest of them.

The navigation officer spoke. "Captain, we are passing the debris field. The one from the pirate attack."

Carmona glanced at the screen. Gray water. Wreckage. A white box, bobbing in the waves—some kind of shipping container, probably lost overboard during the fighting.

She dismissed it. "Continue course."

The Red Solstice moved past the box.

Behind it, the water stirred.

The box opened.

A drone rose from inside—vertical, silent, its rotors barely visible against the gray sky. It climbed higher and higher, until it was nothing but a speck, watching, waiting.

Carmona did not see it.

She was already planning her attack.

#Day 33 — 11:45

The lower deck smelled of death.

Vivienne had detected it on the main deck—a faint sourness beneath the salt and wind—but here, in the enclosed corridors, it was overwhelming. The putrid stench of freshly rotting corpses. The acrid, ammonia-tinged smell of bodies that had been moved but not yet fully decayed.

The deck was clean. There were no bodies in sight. The crew had scrubbed the floors, washed the walls, done everything they could to erase the evidence of what had happened here.

But the smell remained.

Vivienne did not search for the source. She did not want to know where Chen had moved the bodies, or why, or what they were being saved for.

She trusted the plan. She had to.

The submarine hatch was open. Women were filing inside—crew from every department, their faces pale, their hands full of bags and blankets. Some were helping others, guiding the sedated protesters onto stretchers, laying them in rows along the walls.

Vivienne stepped inside and sealed the hatch behind her.

The air was different here—cool, recycled, free of the stench above. She let out a breath she had not known she was holding.

Women pressed against the walls, holding onto pipes and railings, preparing for rough departure. The sedated lay in neat rows, their Dawn Meters glowing green, their breathing slow and steady.

Iqbal was kneeling beside a stretcher in the corner.

Sophie lay on it, her face pale, her shoulder wrapped in bandages, an IV drip taped to her arm. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow but steady.

Vivienne crossed to her, knelt beside Iqbal. "How is she?"

Iqbal looked up. "Stable. The wound was deep, but it missed the major vessels. She lost a lot of blood, but she's young. She'll make it."

Young. Sophie Laurent, who had seemed so old, so untouchable, lying pale and fragile on a stretcher.

Vivienne touched her mother's hand. It was cold.

"Thank you," she said.

Iqbal nodded and moved to check on another patient.

Vivienne looked around the submarine. The last time she had been here, women were screaming, their Dawn Meters blinking orange, their bodies pressed together in panic and pain. Now the meters were green, the atmosphere calm, the women quiet.

But somehow, it felt less easy.

She walked past the stasis pods.

There were three of them, mounted against the curved wall, their glass surfaces frosted with condensation. OASIS. VICTORIA. SOLSTICE.

She stopped.

The first pod—OASIS—held her sister. Valentine. The face that was her face, the body that was her body, frozen in suspension, waiting for a waking that would never come.

The second pod—VICTORIA—held Victoria's sister. Veronica. The woman Victoria had spent a decade trying to save.

And the third pod—

SOLSTICE.

Carmona's twin floated inside, her dark hair drifting in the gel, her face serene, her eyes closed. She had the same sharp features, the same cruel beauty. But her face was peaceful in a way Carmona's had never been.

Vivienne stared at her.

She is my sister too, she thought. All of them. We are all half-sisters. Abraham's daughters. Bred for the same purpose, scattered across the ocean, sent to fight and die for his vision.

She did not know the woman's name. Carmona had never spoken of her. Perhaps she had never known her. Perhaps she had been taken as a child, raised in isolation, trained to be hard and cold and cruel.

What would she have been, Vivienne wondered, if she had been raised differently? If someone had held her, loved her, told her she was worth more than her purpose?

She turned away from the pod. There was no time for questions. There was only the storm, and the battle, and the sister she had to fight.

She walked to the forward control room.

Linh was there, a bandage on her head, her eyes on the instruments. Aida was beside her, her hand on the back of a chair, her face composed. Mei-Lin stood near the wall, her arms crossed, her gaze on Chen.

And Chen—

Chen sat in the center of the room, the headgear on her skull, its thin wires crisscrossing her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, her breathing slow and even. A screen beside her showed lines of code, streaming upward, endless and complex.

Another screen showed the ouroboros logo—the serpent eating its own tail, crowned, the symbol of the Blue Oasis.

Zhao stood behind Chen, his hand on her shoulder, his eyes on the code.

He looked up when Vivienne entered. His face was tired, but he smiled.

She crossed to him, took his hand. "How is she?"

"Working," he said. "She's been at it for hours."

The ouroboros flickered.

Vivienne stared at the screen. The logo flickered again—once, twice—and the code beside it slowed, then stopped.

Then the lights went out.

The submarine went dark. Women gasped, whispered, held tighter to whatever they could grab. Vivienne felt Zhao's hand tighten on hers, felt Aida's presence beside her, heard Mei-Lin's soft breath in the dark.

One of the screens flickered to life.

Vivienne saw a logo she had never seen before—a woman with a snake's body, her torso curving in a circle, her long hair flowing like water. Her eyes were closed, her hands crossed over her breasts, her expression calm, serene, almost maternal. There was something feminine about it, soothing, nothing like the aggressive, biting serpent of the ouroboros.

The logo pulsed once, twice, and then steadied.

The lights came back on. The submarine hummed with power, its systems online, its engines ready.

Vivienne looked at Zhao. He was staring at the logo, his face pale.

"NUWA," he said.

Chen opened her eyes. They were red, exhausted, but she was smiling.

"I had to rush her awakening," she said. "She is not yet fully conscious. But she is enough."

The screen beside the logo flickered, and Vivienne saw the ship's systems—navigation, power, communications—all of them opening, all of them accepting a new master.

"AURA is gone," Chen said. "NUWA controls the ship now. And the submarine."

Vivienne stared at the woman with the snake's body, at the calm face, the closed eyes, the hands crossed over her breast.

She is awake, she thought. Chen's daughter. The one she built to save us.

She looked at Chen, who was swaying with exhaustion, held upright by Zhao's hand on her shoulder.

"Can she do it?" Vivienne asked. "Can she stop Carmona?"

Chen's smile widened.

"She already has."

Outside, somewhere in the gray water, the drone hovered, waiting for its moment.

The submarine hummed, and the ship sailed on, and the storm drew closer.

Vivienne held Zhao's hand, and she waited.