Kaelen gathered the bundle of thirty-six Saint-Iron array spikes under his left arm.
The four-foot spikes clinked together with a heavy, musical chime. Even unpowered, their deep-sea core-iron bodies were dense enough to crush ordinary stone.
Above the grotto, the water column vibrated with steady, grinding malice.
Elder Sterling leaned over the flagship’s brass speaking tube, listening to the hydrophone reports from the upper shelf.
“Six Star-Breaker barges have established perimeter anchors two miles above us,” Sterling called out, his voice sharp and disciplined. “Their winches are rattling. Chief Array-Master Solis is lowering heavy ordinance.”
Sera Thorne gripped her Storm-Pike, violet lightning dancing along the barbed spearhead. “How long before their anchors reach the canyon rim?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Sterling replied. “If those sixty-ton drill heads hit the ceiling, forty thousand tons of basalt will bury this grotto.”
Mina Vance stepped beside Kaelen, her small hands enveloped in a calm halo of Absolute Zero frost. “I can freeze the upper throat into a solid glacier, brother. It will buy us at least an hour.”
