Chapter 133 - The Iron Sluice
The roar of hydraulic motors shook the water surrounding the submarine. Across the mouth of the Chicago River, between the granite spurs of Navy Pier and the old municipal lighthouse, a barrier that had slept under silt and ice for four decades began to rise. Thick steel slabs, reinforced with tungsten armor and driven by pneumatic pistons powered directly by Moretti Tower's geothermal substation, broke the surface of the freezing lake.
A mile offshore, the lead corvette of Julian Sterling’s fleet fired its first salvo.
The night sky split open. A streak of dazzling white propellant cut through the low-hanging winter clouds, shrieking as it banked downward toward the glittering heart of downtown Chicago. It was a tactical cruise missile, programmed to obliterate the lower executive floors of Moretti Tower.
"Impact in four seconds!" Marco yelled, bracing against the submarine's bulkhead.
Emma held her breath. Through the periscope viewscreen, she saw the missile plunge toward the shoreline. But before it could cross the outer harbor basin, the rising steel wall intercepted the trajectory. The missile slammed violently into the upper lip of the automated blast barrier.
A catastrophic fireball bloomed over the water, lighting the frozen skyline with blinding amber fire. Shockwaves rippled across the ice, shattering the frozen surface into millions of crystalline shards. The concussion rattled the submarine’s steel plates, raining flakes of rusted paint down onto the bridge.
"The wall took the blast," Emma gasped, her hands gripping the console edge until her knuckles went white. "The harbor is sealed off from direct surface-level missiles."
"He won’t stop with a direct trajectory," Vincent warned, his gaze locked onto the tactical plot. "Julian knows our defense grid now. He’ll switch to high-angle ballistic mortars or attempt an amphibious insertion past the lighthouse before the Chicago Police maritime units can deploy."
The radio crackled back to life. Julian's laughter drifted over the speaker, brittle and devoid of sanity.
*"Impressive, Vincent! Truly, the old man left you quite a toy box. But that wall only protects the river mouth. What about the municipal water intake cribs? What about the subterranean filtration tunnels that run straight under the Loop? If I can’t punch through your door, I’ll poison the ground beneath your feet."*
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Vincent picked up the radio handset. His voice was steady, chilling in its utter absence of panic. "Julian. If you fire a single canister toward the intake cribs, you won’t just be fighting the Moretti name. You’ll be declaring war on the entire state of Illinois. There will be nowhere on this continent where your money can buy you a grave."
*"I don't need a continent, Vincent,"* Julian answered coldly. *"I only need Chicago to fall tonight. Boarding parties away. Let’s see how your little waitress handles close-quarters steel."*
