Chapter 126 - The Leviathan’s Graveyard
The air in the maintenance chamber exploded into a storm of tungsten needles and ricocheting lead. Julian fired three controlled pairs from his service weapon, catching one of the synthetics in its shoulder actuator, spinning it backward just as it leveled its weapon at Naomi’s cover.
"Good shot!" Naomi yelled over the deafening clatter of metal.
She didn't waste a second. Leaping onto the top of the industrial coolant pump, she vaulted through the air, dropping onto the shoulders of the second synthetic like an avenging wraith. Her legs locked around its neck in a brutal scissor grip, her entire weight twisting with practiced lethality.
Even against a machine, physics remained absolute. The sheer kinetic torque of her momentum snapped the hydraulic cervical column with a violent crunch. As they tumbled into the rising water together, Naomi drove her tactical combat knife straight down through the machine’s optic socket, twisting the blade until the internal processing core burned out with a loud hiss of boiling water.
The third prototype lunged, its metallic fist closing around Naomi’s throat with the crushing force of an industrial vice.
Her vision flashed white. Her ribs screamed in agony as the machine lifted her clear out of the water with a single arm. Its secondary hand drew back, its silver fingers shifting into a razor-sharp piercing blade designed to skewer human organs.
"Subject... Nine..." the machine’s synthetic vocalizer buzzed, crackling through the mist. "Execution... protocol... active..."
*BANG.*
Julian stepped out from the cover of the broken pod, his pistol empty, holding an industrial heavy wrench he had pulled from the tool rack. With a roar of pure adrenaline, he smashed the heavy iron tool directly into the machine's primary optical array.
The prototype stumbled back, its grip on Naomi’s throat loosening for a fraction of a second.
That fraction was all Naomi had ever needed in her entire life.
Dropping to her feet, she grabbed the machine’s wrist, pivoted on her heels, and executed a classic Directorate shoulder throw, slamming the three-hundred-pound synthetic onto the sharp corner of an iron catwalk railing. The spine cracked. Naomi retrieved her carbine from the water and emptied the entire magazine into its exposed chest chassis until the core battery went dead.
The final prototype calculated the survival odds, turned on its heel, and sprinted toward the station's control bridge.
"It’s going to seal the escape docks!" Julian shouted, coughing as the water level reached his knees.
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"Not while I'm breathing," Naomi growled, breaking into a dead sprint through the rising flood.
***
