Three hundred wealthy guests watched a maid stop Vanessa’s attack with one hand, never realizing the woman in the gray uniform had once been trained to dismantle dangerous threats. / Chapter 38 / 130

Chapter 38 - Descent into the Abyss

With a deafening mechanical hiss, the rear cargo ramp dropped open, and the freezing, hundred-mile-per-hour winds of the North Sea roared into the cabin.

Below them, surrounded by black, churning waves and violent ocean squalls, the colossal steel superstructure of Platform Echo-Seven stood like a demonic fortress anchored in the abyss. Heavy industrial floodlights swept across the steel landing pads, illuminating dozens of armed Iron Guard contractors patrolling the gantries.

"Naomi, I can't do this!" Ethan yelled against the gale, clutching the harness straps against his chest.

Naomi walked to him, grabbed the central buckle of his rig, and looked directly into his eyes. "You want Clara alive, Ethan? Then you jump. Now!"

She didn't give him time to hesitate. She hooked his static line to the cabin rail and shoved him cleanly out into the freezing void. Ethan’s scream was instantly swallowed by the roar of the wind as his silhouette plunged through the clouds.

Without a second of hesitation, Naomi stepped to the edge of the ramp, leaped out into the darkness, and free-fell.

The freezing gale lashed against her faceplate as she plummeted toward the raging ocean at terminal velocity. Far below, the defense grid on Platform Echo-Seven came alive. Automated anti-aircraft turrets pivoted toward the sky, tracing the aircraft, completely blind to the two human bodies dropping silently through the storm clouds beneath their radar cross-section.

At five hundred feet above the sea, Naomi pulled her ripcord.

The black ram-air parachute deployed with a violent snap, arresting her descent. With expert skill, she maneuvered the toggles, steering herself not toward the heavily fortified helipad, but beneath the oil platform's lower support pillars—into the shadowed maze of rust, pipes, and industrial catwalks.

Ethan was dangling fifty feet away, his chute tangled dangerously against a secondary steel truss hanging ten feet above the crashing waves.

Naomi cut her risers three feet above a lower service gantry, landing in a tight, soundless roll. She dropped her harness, drew her suppressed sidearm, and moved like a specter across the wet grating.

A lone guard leaned over the railing, searching the water with a halogen spotlight. Naomi closed the distance in three silent strides, grabbed his collar, and snapped his neck before his spotlight could sweep across Ethan’s dangling form. She caught the guard's radio before it hit the metal floor, cutting the microphone.

She leaned over the rail, drew her combat knife, and reached down to slice the caught parachute cords holding Ethan. Ethan plunged into the freezing surf with a splash, and Naomi immediately hauled him up onto the catwalk by his collar.

Ethan collapsed onto the rusted deck, coughing up seawater, his lips blue with cold. "Did... did they see us?"