Titus broke the surface of the Pacific Ocean like an ancient continent rising from the dawn.
The sixteen-meter living bathysphere crested the rolling blue swells, throwing massive curtains of white, foaming spray into the clean morning air. Seawater cascaded in shimmering waterfalls from Titus’s newly recrystallized diamond-dark rock armor scales, catching the first golden rays of the rising sun and flashing with the brilliant fire of polished black glass.
Inside the command module, the sky vents hissed open, flooding the cabin with the crisp, salt-scented breeze of the open Pacific.
Arthur Vance opened the dorsal access hatch. He stepped out onto the heavy watching overhead frame mounted to Titus’s upper back shell. Beside him, Toby Mallow leaned against the railing, squinting and raising a hand to shield his eyes against the blinding, beautiful morning light after three weeks in the lightless hadal depths.
Around them, stretching across the azure horizon for ten miles in every direction, lay the full naval might of the Vanguard Federation and the Coalition Pacific Fleet.
Over forty warships—heavy dreadnoughts, guided-missile cruisers, fleet destroyers, and two huge supercarriers—were arrayed in two majestic, nested circles. In the center of the formation, the hospital barge Solace-04 rested comfortably on the surface swells, her medical launch skiffs bobbing in the water as recovering divers lined the outside narrow high walkways.
