Chapter 71 - The Ghost of the Sterling Blood
The radar screen strobed an angry, pulsing red, painting the glass cockpit in a sickening wash of crimson. Three razor-thin silhouettes dropped out of the heavy cumulonimbus bank above, their stealth profiles slicing through the freezing Arctic gale like predatory birds.
"Hold on," Naomi commanded, her pulse steadying to an icy baseline despite the warning alarms blaring in her ears.
Ethan leaned over the center console, staring in disbelief at the frequency analyzer vibrating with Vanessa’s audio signal. "She was in the hospital wing after Philadelphia. The crash—my father’s men reported her dead on arrival."
"Rich families don't bury corpses, Ethan. They bury decoys," Naomi said coldly. Her knuckles whitened against the locked yoke. The electronic steering actuators were humming violently, fighting against the remote signal feeding in through the satellite uplink.
"Enjoying the view from thirty thousand feet, Naomi?" Vanessa’s voice purred through the primary transponder, crystal clear and devoid of any crackle. "You treated me like a petulant child in that ballroom. You broke my pride with a single hand while three hundred fools watched. But you never bothered to ask whose money financed Generation Nine. You thought Julian was the mastermind? Julian is just a bureaucrat with an ego and a private military. The Sterlings hold the patents."
"She’s overriding the primary flight computer through the manufacturer's back door," Ethan yelled over the shriek of the twin turbines. "The airframe is an old Sterling Aerospace prototype!"
"Then we cut the power," Naomi replied flatly.
She reached beneath the panel, finding the primary fuse junction with muscle memory forged through years of covert extraction training. Her thumb snapped the heavy breaker switch down. The displays died instantly, plunging the cockpit into near-total darkness save for the storm’s lightning flashes reflecting off the windshield.
The mechanical override engaged with a bone-jarring metallic thud. The manual cables groaned as Naomi threw her full weight against the titanium yoke, rolling the massive transport hard to starboard.
A streak of white-hot phosphorus flashed past the right wingtip—a proximity missile fired from one of the interceptors above, missing them by less than twenty yards. The concussive shockwave slammed into the fuselage, sending Ethan sprawling against the bulkhead.
"She’s not trying to capture us," Ethan gasped, wiping blood from his split lip. "She wants us erased."
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"She wants the Master Key," Naomi countered, leveling the transport out as the cold sea roared thousands of feet below through the snow squall. "And she made a mistake by coming into my sky."
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