Chapter 9 - The secret Kane would rather sink than surrender
There were no actual charges, not in the cinematic sense.
Kane was not trying to blow the ship in half.
He was worse than that.
He was practical.
The Resolute’s maintenance architecture included emergency flooding and purge systems that, if triggered in the right sequence, could ruin compartments, destroy paper evidence, short electronics, and make the whole disaster look like a mechanical cascade caused by sabotage.
He wanted Deck Four erased.
He wanted the void destroyed.
He wanted everyone chasing a damaged ship instead of a criminal route.
Reed explained all of that while Ellis took command for the first time in front of witnesses.
She stepped onto the cargo deck, face still pale but voice clear.
“Sergeant Morgan, secure all nonessential weapons. Petty Officer Pike, lock external cargo release. Chief Alvarez, with me.”
Nobody looked at Kane now.
They looked at her.
Not because her authority was louder.
Because Kane had finally spent his.
I moved before Ellis could stop me.
“I’m going after Bennett.”
“You are not going alone,” Reed said.
“You can barely stand.”
“Then I’ll lean with conviction.”
Bennett would have appreciated that.
We took the starboard maintenance route downward while Alvarez and Ellis tried to isolate the purge valves from engineering. Every few feet, ship speakers crackled with partial updates from Ward.
Boarding team closing.
Weather rough.
Hold position.
Easy to say from outside the hull.
At the lower junction, we found Bennett’s dropped medical pouch and fresh scrape marks on the wall where Kane had forced her through.
Then we heard him.
Not screaming.
Talking.
Low. controlled. furious.
“…one compartment floods, one archive disappears, and by the time federal boots touch steel, all they have is a diver with a story.”
I slowed and signaled Reed silent.
Another voice answered over a sat-phone line, distorted but unmistakably bureaucratic.
“This should have been cleaned weeks ago.”
Rear Admiral Vale.
Kane was still speaking to him.
I felt something inside me harden past anger.
He was not acting like a desperate man abandoned by his patron.
He was acting like a man who still expected rescue.
Then Bennett’s voice came, strained but steady.
“You’re going to drown your own ship to save paperwork?”
Kane laughed softly.
“People survive worse under command all the time.”
Reed’s face went gray with contained rage.
I edged forward enough to see the compartment.
Kane had Bennett zip-tied to a pipe support. One hand worked the sat phone. The other hovered near the emergency flood control for the void system.
On a crate beside him sat the red plastic-wrapped binder and part of the evidence haul. He had stripped the worst pages already, ready to dump or soak them.
I whispered to Reed, “When I move, take the phone.”
“Why the phone?”
“Because I want Ward to hear Vale.”
He almost smiled.
Then I kicked the hatch fully open.
Kane spun.
Reed launched.
The sat phone flew.
Bennett dropped sideways with the pipe as her support clamp snapped loose.
And Kane slapped the flood control lever down before I reached him.
Deep below us, pumps thundered awake.
Not in the void.
Across Deck Four.
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He wasn’t just trying to sink evidence anymore.
He was trying to flood the entire lower cargo section—with half the crew still inside it.
