Chapter 969
The roar of the helicopter rotors was still deafening in Skye Sterling’s ears — a phantom echo of the war zone they had barely escaped. Her mind replayed the assault on the Citadel in jagged, violent flashes: the salt spray mixing with the copper tang of blood as they breached the lower deck; Alistair taking point, his silhouette illuminated by muzzle flash; Parker suspended in that water-filled cell, the level rising to his chin.
She remembered the moment Liam blew the locking mechanism, the sheer force of the explosion throwing them back against the rusted bulkheads. She remembered dragging Parker’s sodden, shivering weight through the corridors as the rig began to groan and tilt, the Administrator’s self-destruct sequence turning the steel fortress into a sinking coffin. They had barely reached the extraction chopper before the helipad buckled. The Administrator’s black Osprey had vanished into the storm clouds like a thief.
Now, the silence of the private airfield felt unnatural. Salt air stung Skye’s face, a sharp reminder that she was still alive. Her lungs burned with every breath, the ache matching the throbbing in her temples. The private jet’s engines were still whining down, their pitch echoing the chaos left behind.
She watched as paramedics loaded Parker onto a stretcher. He looked small and fragile, his skin the color of old parchment against the bright orange of the emergency blanket. His eyes were closed, but his hand gripped the gurney railing with white-knuckled intensity. He was alive. That was the only math that mattered. He had taken a bullet meant for her during the extraction, buying them the seconds they needed to board the chopper.
Skye adjusted the collar of her trench coat — stained with sea spray and soot, torn at the hem, a garment that had seen war. She felt a hand on her lower back, a touch so familiar it made her knees weak for a fraction of a second before she locked her joints.
𝗜ո𝘵e𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝗋о𝗺𝖺nc𝘦 𝘰𝗇 𝘨а𝗅𝗻𝘰𝘃𝘦𝘭s.co𝗆
“We’re clear for now, but the chatter is spiking,” Liam Kensington said, his voice rough as gravel grinding against glass. He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes swept the perimeter of the airfield, his body coiled tight, still in combat mode. “The Administrator’s escape means retaliation is imminent. He’s wounded, dangerous, and he has resources we haven’t touched. We need to go dark until we assess the damage to their network.”
“I know,” Skye said. Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears, hollowed out by exhaustion. “But we can’t hide. If we go dark, we look guilty. The Administrator will spin the destruction of the rig as corporate terrorism. We have to get ahead of the story.”
A tactical officer approached, holding out a ruggedized tablet. “Ms. Sterling, incoming priority encrypted video call. It’s Harper. She says it’s code red.”
Skye took the tablet. Her heart sank. Harper wouldn’t breach emergency protocol unless the sky was falling.
“Ms. Sterling.” Harper’s face appeared on the screen, pixelated and pale. She was in the secure server room at Oracle, not her desk. “Thank God you’re safe. We’ve been tracking the extraction.”
“Breathe, Harper,” Skye said, though she couldn’t follow her own advice. “What is it? Did the Black File upload fail?”