The Central Aquifer Vault was filled with the ear-splitting, total roar of tearing load-bearing steel, exploding spark transformers, and rushing underground water.
Mining Rig Omega was dying.
Deprived of its three main dark rock foundation pillars and shattered by Titus’s earth-shaking blast waves, the four-hundred-meter extraction platform groaned under the huge weight of its own flooded machinery. Massive five-hundred-ton overhead frame cranes snapped from their heavy pivot mounts. He plunged into the churn with thunderous splashes that threw up towering walls of toxic spray. The dual four-meter heavy dark metal drill towers—snapped at their bedplates—toppled sideways into the lake, their spinning shafts cutting through high-voltage spark channels in blinding cascades of blue and orange spark fire.
The dark, ancient waters of the underground water bed rushed into the lower machinery decks, extinguishing diesel turbines in billowing clouds of white steam and scorching ozone.
Aboard the Iron Ark’s bridge, Toby Mallow fought the controls. That kept the heavy mobile carrier set squarely across the main drainage canal that led out of the vault toward Sector 9.
“Arthur! The platform’s central moon pool is collapsing!” Toby shouted, pointing through the forward viewports. “The Aegis-Baron has detached its conning tower! It’s an emergency escape pod!”
