The tripwire snapped at 03:14:22.
The outer edge alarm was not a digital klaxon. It was a cluster of empty brass artillery casings strung along high-pulling wire across the northern drainage ditch, clattering wildly against an iron pipe as thirty yards of barbed wire collapsed into the black water.
Before the first casing hit the muck, Arthur Vance’s eyes were open.
On his chest, Vesper was already gone—a blur of silver vanishing through the open canvas hatch of the medical trailer without displacing the wool blanket. Outside on the deck, Grimm’s deep, bone-shaking combat bark tore through the stillness of the bog:
WOOF.
A single, authoritative command bark that sent the nomad sentries scrambling for their harpoons and brought the diesel generators of the Iron Ark roaring to life with a cloud of black exhaust.
Arthur rolled off his cot, his boots already laced, his hands snatching the Cryo-Pneumatic Transfixer from its wall mounts. He slammed a six-round rotary magazine of the newly blended Anti-Chimera Disruptor darts into the breech, hearing the satisfying sharp air hiss as the squeezing chamber sealed at three crushing deep-sea pressure.
He kicked open the rear door and vaulted onto the deck.
