# CHAPTER 19: ADMIRAL REED’S LAST SECRET
Daniel kept the pistol pointed toward the floor.
That did not make him harmless.
Grant aimed directly at his chest.
“Drop it.”
“If I intended to kill you, I would have allowed the station to collapse.”
“You may still.”
Daniel looked at the timer.
Fourteen minutes remained.
“The lower dock contains a submersible. It can carry six.”
There were seven of us.
Celeste.
Eleanor.
Hannah.
Grant.
Vivienne.
Daniel.
And my father’s body.
Six living people and one dead man.
“You knew the capacity before we came,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You planned for someone to be left behind.”
“I planned for Elias to be alive.”
My mother stepped between Daniel and Grant’s weapon.
“We are not leaving Elias here.”
“The station will collapse.”
“Then we take him.”
“The submersible cannot support the additional weight.”
“I spent eighteen years believing he was beneath a harbor terminal.”
Her voice broke.
“I will not leave him beneath another ocean.”
I placed one hand on her shoulder.
“We will find another way.”
The timer reached thirteen minutes.
Hannah studied the facility map.
“There is an emergency ballast chamber connected to the dock.”
Daniel nodded.
“It was damaged.”
“Can it be restored?”
“Possibly.”
“Then stop talking and help.”
We moved through the lower passage.
Daniel walked ahead with me.
Grant remained behind him.
“You contacted me because you needed Ward authorization,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You could have forced me.”
“My mother would have preferred that.”
“And you are different?”
“I am trying to be.”
“Trying is not the same as succeeding.”
“I know.”
The lower levels showed signs of recent fighting.
Bullet impacts marked the walls.
Blood trailed toward the submersible dock.
Daniel explained that Elias had spent years pretending to cooperate with the Circle. He altered Orion from inside, embedding restrictions no one else could locate.
Four days earlier, Sloan came to Station Argus to remove his cardiac implant.
Elias performed the transfer himself before she arrived.
He placed the device inside Eleanor during a secret visit to her home.
“That is impossible,” my mother said. “I would have recognized him.”
“He did not visit personally.”
“Then who?”
Daniel looked toward Admiral Reed’s unconscious image on the screen.
“Reed.”
Hannah stopped.
“My father implanted something in Eleanor without consent?”
“He believed Elias’s instructions were necessary.”
“Of course he did.”
The bitterness in her voice matched my own.
Reed had built an entire life around choosing what other people were allowed to know.
We reached the dock.
The submersible was narrow and military in design, built for covert transport.
The emergency ballast chamber stood beside it.
Its support frame had been damaged by an explosion.
Grant examined the controls.
“If we release the ballast manually, the station may remain stable long enough for a second trip.”
“No second trip,” Daniel said. “Once the chamber releases, the dock floods permanently.”
“Then we attach Elias’s body outside the submersible.”
My mother looked horrified.
“In a sealed recovery capsule,” Grant clarified. “The station has them.”
We found two emergency body-recovery containers.
One had been damaged.
The other remained functional.
While Grant and Hannah prepared it, I confronted Daniel.
“Why did Elias trust you?”
“He didn’t.”
“Then why allow you near him?”
“Because he believed I could still choose.”
“Could you?”
Daniel looked toward Vivienne and Grant.
“You should ask them how difficult it is to know whether a decision belongs to you or to the person who trained you.”
Grant heard him.
“Do not compare yourself to us.”
“Arthur raised you with wealth, fear, and approval. The Circle raised me with isolation, surgery, and tests. You were taught to protect an empire. I was taught to become one.”
Vivienne walked closer.
“Did Father know you were alive?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he never bring you home?”
“Because I frightened him.”
Arthur had feared very little.
The admission revealed more than Daniel intended.
“What can the implant do?” I asked.
“It contains Elias’s final biometric key. When connected to a Ward pulse pattern, it can access the Orion command architecture.”
“My mother has Ward blood.”
“Yes.”
“Then Sloan could activate it through her.”
“If she takes Eleanor alive.”
My mother heard him.
“And if she does not?”
Daniel said nothing.
I understood.
The implant could be removed after death.
“We are not surrendering anyone,” I said.
The station trembled again.
Ten minutes.
Hannah entered the submersible and activated the systems.
“Power is stable. Navigation is limited.”
“Limited how?”
“The guidance system only recognizes preloaded destinations.”
Daniel checked the route list.
There were three.
Station Argus.
Aegis Platform One.
And Valiant Crown.
I stared at the final name.
“The ship was destroyed.”
“Not all of it,” Daniel said.
The facility timer dropped below nine minutes.
We placed Elias’s body inside the recovery capsule.
My mother sealed it herself.
She pressed her forehead against the glass.
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?” I asked.
“For believing he left us.”
“He wanted you to believe it.”
“That does not make the years hurt less.”
No.
Truth did not always reduce pain.
Sometimes it only gave pain a name.
We attached the capsule to the submersible’s exterior frame.
Grant manually opened the ballast chamber.
Water roared through the damaged support pipes.
The station stabilized.
Temporarily.
We boarded.
The vessel had six seats.
Daniel took the pilot position.
Hannah sat beside him.
Grant and Vivienne secured themselves along the rear wall.
My mother sat beside me.
The hatch closed.
At four minutes, we launched.
Station Argus disappeared behind us.
The structure began folding into itself as water pressure crushed the upper levels.
My mother watched through the small window until the last light vanished.
The submersible’s navigation system locked onto Aegis Platform One.
“We need to return to the research vessel,” Hannah said.
“Sloan took it,” Daniel replied.
“She also has my father.”
“Then Platform One is where she will go.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Orion’s primary control chamber is there.”
Grant leaned forward.
“You have known the Circle’s headquarters all this time.”
“I knew one of them.”
“How many exist?”
“Nine.”
The nine stars.
Each member of the Circle controlled a facility, funding network, or government connection.
Arthur had not been a member.
He had been an instrument.
Miriam Sloan controlled Platform One.
Daniel had been raised to inherit her position.
“What happens when we reach it?” Vivienne asked.
“Sloan will attempt to remove the implant from Eleanor.”
“And we stop her,” I said.
Daniel shook his head.
“Platform One holds over one hundred armed personnel.”
“Then why take us there?”
“Because the submersible will not accept another route.”
“That sounds intentional.”
“It is.”
A warning sounded.
The recovery capsule had become unstable.
Grant checked the exterior camera.
One of its support brackets had cracked during launch.
Elias’s body was pulling against the frame.
“If it breaks free, we lose him,” he said.
My mother unfastened her restraint.
I grabbed her arm.
“You are not going outside.”
“We cannot leave him.”
“We won’t.”
The submersible had one emergency dive suit.
Daniel volunteered.
Grant refused to trust him.
“I’ll go,” I said.
My mother turned toward me.
“No.”
“I have exterior operations training.”
“You have already walked into enough fires for this family.”
“This isn’t Arthur’s decision anymore.”
I put on the suit.
Daniel helped connect the oxygen line.
His hands were steady.
“You may have less than five minutes,” he said.
“I only need two.”
“You always believe that.”
“What does that mean?”
He fastened the helmet seal.
“I watched the Valiant Crown footage.”
“Everyone did.”
“No. I watched the original.”
I stared at him through the visor.
“What was changed?”
“The official recording begins after the first explosion.”
“And the original?”
“Shows who started the fire.”
The hatch cycled.
Cold black water surrounded me.
I moved along the exterior frame toward the recovery capsule.
The ocean pressed against the suit.
The submersible lights illuminated my father’s face behind the capsule glass.
Even in death, he looked as though he had something left to tell me.
I secured the first bracket.
The second required manual alignment.
My oxygen warning flashed.
Three minutes.
Inside the capsule, something moved.
I froze.
My father’s hand shifted.
Not from water movement.
His fingers closed.
I pressed my helmet against the glass.
“Dad?”
His eyes opened.
Elias Ward was alive.
His lips moved.
I could not hear him through the sealed capsule.
He raised one finger and pointed behind me.
I turned.
A second submersible emerged from the darkness.
Its lights switched on.
The Aegis symbol appeared across its hull.
Magnetic clamps struck my suit and pulled me away from our vessel.
Hannah shouted through my radio.
Grant tried to release the emergency tether.
Daniel ordered him not to.
The unknown submersible opened an exterior capture chamber.
I was dragged toward it.
My mother screamed my name.
Before the chamber closed around me, I saw Elias lift his hand again.
He wrote one word against the fogged glass.
May you like
REED.
Then the darkness swallowed me.
