Chapter 24 - The Ruptured Stem
I moved across the slippery deck, the magnetic clamps on the boots of the *Exo-Vanguard* engaging and releasing with steady mechanical clicks. The current swept hard across the basalt shelf, threatening to drag me off the hull into the abyss below.
I reached the recessed salvage hatch located six feet forward of the submarine's torpedo loading trunk. Using the suit’s hydraulic claw, I gripped the T-handle of the access panel and pulled.
The panel swung open, revealing a nest of high-pressure brass and bronze fittings. But as my searchlight swept across the central manifold, my blood ran cold.
The high-pressure blow valve was stamped with the serial number: **APX-7749-V**.
Apex Industries. My father’s stamp.
The cast-steel valve body was fractured. A clean, hairline fracture ran right through the threaded neck where the emergency nitrogen hose from the surface needed to mate. If I attached the high-pressure line and turned on the three-thousand-PSI feed, the valve neck would shatter, venting all the emergency air into the ocean and triggering a sudden shockwave that could knock the submarine off the ledge.
"Admiral," I said, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw muscles trembled. "The blow manifold is fractured. Arthur’s cast steel cracked under the initial hydrostatic impact when she grounded."
A heavy silence fell over the comms loop from the *Healy*’s bridge.
"Morgan," Vance’s voice returned, low and lethal. "Is there an alternate bypass?"
"There’s an internal manual valve inside the free-flood torpedo shutter bay," I said, shining my light toward the rounded curve of the bow where the torpedo tubes opened like dead eyes into the black water. "If I can get into the shutter housing, I can turn the mechanical override directly on the main ballast tank pipe."
"Negative, Morgan!" Mendez barked over the line. "The torpedo shutter bay is an unpressurized space packed with hydraulic doors and guide rails! If the boat shifts while you’re inside that cavity, the hull will flex. You’ll be pinned like an insect!"
"If I don't go in, the boat slips off the shelf in ten minutes!" I shouted back. "They just lost another vent bubble from the stern! She’s tipping!"
As if on cue, a terrifying groan echoed through the water. The basalt beneath the submarine’s keel cracked with the sound of a rifle shot. The *Viper* tilted another half-degree toward the abyss. Silt billowed up in a gray cloud, blinding my sensors.
I didn't wait for Vance’s permission. I engaged the hip thrusters, hovering over the bow, and dropped directly into the dark recess of the starboard torpedo tube outer door.
The space was a claustrophobic nightmare of titanium frames, hydraulic rams, and tangled sensor cables. Silt swirled in the beam of my lights. The water here was undisturbed, cold as liquid glass.
I located the emergency manual ballast valve mounted to the pressure hull bulkhead. It was a massive, twelve-spoke bronze wheel, covered in green anti-fouling paint.
I clamped my left manipulator claw onto the outer rim of the wheel. "Thrusters forward twenty percent!" I grunted, using the suit’s hydraulic power to force the wheel to turn.
*Creeeeak.*
The valve groaned. Rust and marine growth tore free in clouds of brown dust. The wheel turned a quarter turn. Half a turn.
Inside my suit, the strain gauge alarm began to beep shrilly. The mechanical arm of the *Exo-Vanguard* was pulling two thousand foot-pounds of torque.
"Come on..." I snarled, sweat pouring into my eyes, stinging the fresh scar tissue along my brow. "Come on, Arthur, you bastard, turn!"
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With a metallic screech that resonated through my bones, the valve stem broke free, spinning open. Inside the forward ballast tanks, the flood ports snapped closed with a muffled boom.
"Valve open!" I yelled over the comms. "Blow the nitrogen! NOW!"
