Mac’s voice was a whisper. “Jonas… how many more are down there?”
“You hearing this, Mac?” Jonas asked, his voice flat over the comms.
But it wasn’t for the crew of the Neptune’s Grave . Mac’s voice was a whisper
The titanium claw extended into the murk, fingers grasping a chunk of basalt. As it lifted, a cloud of super-fine sediment billowed up—and something moved within it.
The trench had a new sound.
“Give me the manipulator arm,” Jonas ordered. “I want a rock sample.”
Its hide wasn't grey or white. It was a mottled, metallic black, veined with faint, bioluminescent purple lines that pulsed like a heartbeat. Its eyes were not the dead, black marbles of a shark. They were intelligent. Calculating. And scarred—not from combat, but from surgery. Neat, healed incisions ran along its snout and flank. The titanium claw extended into the murk, fingers
It was a message from the deep, to the surface.
Jonas watched the last flicker of the female’s bioluminescence vanish into the black. “Give me the manipulator arm,” Jonas ordered