Phoenix

43. Payback

The air in the Sea Squirrel’s computer section was thick with the metallic stench of overworked servers and the lingering tang of adrenaline. Jin, Arya, and Tina burst through the heavy hatch, their boots clattering against the reinforced steel flooring.

The transition from the violent, physical struggle on the decks to the silent, digital warfare of the server room was jarring.
​Tina collapsed into the ergonomic chair, her small frame looking almost swallowed by the surrounding wall of monitors. Her fingers, though trembling slightly, hovered over the keys like a pianist preparing for a final, frantic concerto.

​"The backdoor is gone," Tina whispered, her voice a mix of exhaustion and hollow triumph. "I’ve excised it. The anti-virus is clean. It’s ready to go now."

​"Good," Jin said, his voice a low, commanding rumble. He stood behind her, a hand resting briefly on the back of her chair—a grounded anchor in a world of shifting data. "Put it into the ship’s primary uplink now. Drive Elisa out of Venus. We need that supercomputer back to broadcast the cure."

​Tina glanced at the digital clock in the corner of her screen.

1:40 AM.

​"Seokjin Oppa, time is our enemy now," she said, her eyes wide with mounting dread. "Even with Venus, the propagation delay across the global backbone... we can't reach every node in twenty minutes. It’s not possible to distribute the anti-virus everywhere before the Uno-virus triggers the blackout."

​"Do as much as you can," Jin replied, his jaw set. "If we save even half the world’s infrastructure, I’ll count it as a win. We don’t need perfection; we need a fighting chance."

​Tina nodded, her fingers finally making contact with the keys. The rhythmic staccatos filled the room. She tunneled back into the heart of the Venus system, searching for the jagged, parasitic signature of Elisa’s takeover code. She found the source—a high-bandwidth link originating from a localized mobile hotspot.

​She was about to initiate a brute-force purge when she stopped. Her breath hitched. A new stream of data was hemorrhaging from her laptop, but it wasn't heading toward the global network. It was tunneling into a restricted military frequency.

​"Oh, God," Tina gasped, her face draining of color. "What is this witch doing?"

​"Tina?" Jin stepped closer, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the cascading lines of code. "What did she find?"

​"She’s not hacking a server this time," Tina whispered, her voice hoarse. "She’s seized the fire control system of a Royal Netherlands Navy missile frigate. She just authorized a launch. Jin... she’s targeting us."

​The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the hum of the cooling fans. Jin’s jaw tightened until the muscles stood out like cords. He wasn't just furious; he was disgusted.

​"She’s targeting a civilian research vessel," Jin muttered, the words tasting like ash. "She’s willing to sink an American ship and kill every innocent sailor on board just to stop us."

​He looked at Arya. "Where is their helicopter?"

​"Starboard side, hovering about two miles out," Arya replied instantly, her tactical training overriding the shock. "I saw their navigation lights when I was clearing the roof. They’re staying close enough to watch the fireworks."

​"Go to the bridge," Jin commanded. "Get their exact GPS coordinates from the radar. I want their altitude, bearing, and airspeed. Go!"

​Arya vanished into the corridor without a word. Jin turned back to Tina, who was staring at the screen in a state of catatonic shock.