Chapter 18 - THE SIEGE OF BATTERY ASHBURN
High-powered weapon lights cut through the dark fog of the entry stairwell as a squad of six heavily armed Prometheus assault contractors descended into the bunker complex.
Their commander—a towering, scar-faced operative wearing advanced modular body armor—stepped up to the open blast door, his suppressed rifle raised.
"Reeves!" the commander's voice boomed down the concrete tunnel, amplified by a tactical bullhorn. "You're trapped in a dead-end hole eighty feet under solid rock! Hand over Colonel Thornton’s drive and the girl, and we'll let you walk out of here alive!"
Inside the command bunker, Jack pulled two extra twelve-gauge shells from his chest rig, loading them into the shotgun's tubular magazine with smooth, practiced speed.
"That's Commander Vance," Jack whispered to Grace, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure, lethal hatred. "Former Delta operator. He’s the man who led the strike team that ambushed your father's convoy in Ramadi."
Grace’s blood ran cold. She looked toward the blast door, her grip tightening around her service pistol until her knuckles turned ghostly white.
"He killed my father?" Grace whispered, her voice trembling with a terrifying blend of rage and absolute purpose.
"He tried," Jack corrected her, stepping behind a heavy steel filing cabinet near the entrance alcove. "Now he's here to finish the job. Grace, you have three minutes to initiate that satellite uplink. I’ll hold the breach."
"Jack, there are six of them—"
"I’ve fought worse odds in tighter rooms, girl," Jack interrupted, offering a rare, faint shadow of a smile through his grey beard. "Your father told me to keep the peace. Sometimes... to keep the peace, you have to wage a little war."
Jack stepped out from behind the steel cabinet, leveling his shotgun directly at the narrow gap in the blast door.
"Vance!" Jack roared, his voice echoing off the granite walls like a thunderclap. "You came to the wrong battery!"
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Jack pulled the trigger.
The twelve-gauge shotgun detonated with a deafening roar, sending a spray of heavy lead buckshot tearing through the doorframe, striking the lead mercenary's tactical shield and driving the assault team back into the smoky stairwell.
