The blast wave from the collapsing hot-water chimney tore through the water column with the force of an underwater artillery shell.
Titus had stepped forward instantly. His dark rock shell took ninety percent of the moving blast. But a jagged shard of crystal-hardened copper ore, snapped off by the steam explosion, whipped through the edge of Echo’s spatial boundary field.
The shard didn’t pierce Echo’s skin—his water-flow mucus was too slippery for blunt trauma—but the sudden violent shear tore three delicate filaments on the axolotl’s left external gill frill.
A plume of buzzing white cyan blood puffed into the dark salt water.
Bloop...
The sound was small, muffled, and carried a clear note of distress. Echo’s long, pale body curled into a defensive spiral. His tail tucked beneath his belly as he drifted toward Arthur’s chest, seeking safety like an injured puppy.
“Cease fire! Form outer edge!” Arthur roared through the tactical comms.
Pip halted his dive mid-plunge, his golden wings flaring into an air-brake that boiled away the leftover centipede crabs with a sweeping arc of solar heat. Grimm instantly stepped in front of Arthur, his massive black glass frame anchoring the forward sector. Meanwhile, Vesper materialized at Arthur’s back, her razor-thin claws ready to shear anything that stepped within ten paces.
