The Blackwood Protocol: When the Ocean Breaks

PART 1

Twelve years.

Twelve years of blood, sweat, salt, and missed birthdays. Twelve years of holding the line between order and chaos on the open sea. And it took exactly four minutes for Admiral Hargrove to erase it all.

The order didn’t come with a hearing. It didn’t come with a court-martial or a chance to defend myself. It came at sunrise, echoing across the flight deck of the USS Dauntless like a gavel striking a coffin.

“Commander Thalia Blackwood,” his voice boomed over the localized speakers, cold and absolute. “You are relieved of duty effective immediately. Marines, escort the Commander to the gangway.”

I stood rigid, my posture perfect. I had been awake for twenty hours, running tactical drills that Hargrove had just scrapped, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my shoulders slump. Not by a millimeter. The Pacific Ocean stretched endlessly before me, the dawn breaking in violent streaks of orange and purple, a beautiful backdrop for a professional execution.

The silence on the deck was heavier than the humid air. Hundreds of sailors—men and women I had trained, disciplined, and protected—stopped their work. A deck scrub paused mid-motion. A mechanic dropped a wrench, the metal clang ringing out like a gunshot in a library.

They knew. Everyone knew this wasn’t about discipline. This was a purge.

I could feel Hargrove’s eyes on me from the bridge, hidden behind those mirrored aviators he wore like a crown. He had taken command of the carrier group six months ago, and from the moment his boot hit the deck, I was a target. Not because I was incompetent—but because I remembered. I remembered the Persian Gulf. I remembered the orders he gave three years ago, and more importantly, the ones I disobeyed to save sixteen lives.

“Move out, Commander,” the Marine to my left said. His voice was low, apologetic. He was a kid named Miller. I’d signed off on his leave request last month so he could see his newborn. Now, he was gripping his rifle, forced to treat me like a hostile combatant.

“I know the way, Miller,” I said softly.

I turned on my heel, executing a sharp pivot. I began the long walk down the length of the flight deck. It felt like walking through a minefield.

As I passed the flight crew, the whispers started.

“What did she do?” “It’s the Gulf. They’re finally burying the truth.” “This is wrong. This is dead wrong.”

I kept my eyes forward, but my heart was hammering against my ribs. My hand twitched toward my left wrist, my thumb brushing the raised, crescent-shaped scar hidden beneath my cuff. It was a nervous tic I’d developed after that night in the Gulf—the night the USS Vigilant went dark, and I had to make a choice between my career and my conscience.

I had chosen my conscience. And for three years, I thought I had gotten away with it. I thought the “Phantom Corridor”—the illegal tactical maneuver I invented to extract those SEALs—was a secret buried deep in the classified logs.

Clearly, I was wrong.

Earlier that morning, a Seahawk helicopter had touched down. An unscheduled arrival. A man in a civilian suit with a military haircut had stepped out—Naval Intelligence. I saw him whispering to Hargrove on the bridge, the two of them looking down at me like vultures circling a dying animal. That was the moment I knew my time was up. They weren’t just coming for my rank; they were coming for the Leviathan protocols.

I reached the edge of the deck. The gangway descended to a small, rusty supply vessel bobbing in the carrier’s massive shadow. The Hawthorne. It wasn’t a transport ship; it was a garbage scow used for hauling waste and non-essential parts. A final insult.

But before I stepped onto the metal grate, a figure blocked my path.

Chief Petty Officer Kesler. Twenty years in the Navy, a man made of gristle and regulation books. He was the kind of Chief who would write you up for a loose thread on your uniform. By rights, he should have stepped aside.

Instead, he stepped forward.

“Chief,” the Marine warned. “Back away.”

Kesler ignored the weapon. He looked me dead in the eye, his face a map of weathered lines and suppressed rage. “Commander,” he said, his voice carrying over the wind. “Is there anything you need assistance with, Ma’am?”

My throat tightened. “Thank you, Chief. But no. You have your orders.”

Kesler didn’t move. He hesitated, glanced up at the bridge where Hargrove was undoubtedly watching, and then did the unthinkable. He snapped his heels together and threw a crisp, perfect salute.

“It’s been an honor, Commander.”

A ripple went through the deck. Behind him, an entire division of sailors—fifty of them—stopped what they were doing. As one, they turned. As one, they saluted.

It was silent mutiny.

I saw Hargrove on the bridge wing, his knuckles white as he gripped the railing. He couldn’t court-martial the whole crew. He knew it, and they knew it.

I returned the salute, holding it for a heartbeat longer than regulation allowed. “Carry on,” I whispered, though I doubt they heard me.

I turned and descended the gangway. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. If I looked back, I might have done something stupid, like storm the bridge. And right now, I needed to be smart. I needed to survive.

The captain of the Hawthorne was a man named Lazlo. He met me at the bottom of the ramp, looking like a man who had just been asked to transport a live bomb.

“Welcome aboard, Commander,” he said, his voice dropping to a hush. “I wish it were under different circumstances.”

“Cut the pleasantries, Captain,” I said, stepping onto the heaving deck of the small ship. “Where are we going?”

“Port Aurelia.”

My internal alarm bells, already ringing, began to scream. Port Aurelia wasn’t a standard processing center. It was a black site. It housed Naval Intelligence interrogation facilities. You went to Port Aurelia when the Navy wanted you to disappear, not when you were being discharged.

“That’s an interesting detour for an administrative separation,” I noted, keeping my face neutral.

Lazlo wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I just follow the charts, Commander. My orders are to deliver you to Intelligence custody within six hours.” He paused, looking over his shoulder. “I’ve served thirty years. I’ve seen good officers railroaded. Whatever is happening… I want you to know my crew runs this ship. Not Intelligence.”

“I appreciate that, Captain.”

As the Hawthorne pulled away, the massive steel wall of the USS Dauntless receded. I stood on the aft deck, watching the carrier that had been my home turn into a silhouette against the rising sun. I saw Hargrove on the bridge, watching me through binoculars until the distance turned him into a speck.

He thought he had won. He thought he was flushing a problem down the drain.

He had no idea what he had just woken up.

---

Once we were in open water, the reality of my situation set in. The Hawthorne was slow, barely making twelve knots. But we weren’t alone.

I scanned the horizon with the tactical eye that had made me the youngest Tactical Action Officer in the fleet. Flanking us at a half-mile distance were three patrol boats. Fast-attack craft. They were maintaining a containment formation. And above, the drone of a helicopter—the same Seahawk from earlier—matched our speed.

I wasn’t being transported. I was being escorted. I was a prisoner in everything but name.

I went to the small cabin they had assigned me. It was a steel box with a bunk and a porthole the size of a dinner plate. I dropped my duffel bag—my entire life packed into canvas—and immediately began to sweep the room.

It took me three minutes.

Under the rim of the metal desk, I found it. A passive RFID tracker. Amateur work. Or maybe arrogant work. They wanted me to find it. They wanted me to know I was on a leash.

I sat on the bunk, my mind racing. Why now? Why, after three years of silence, were they moving against me?

Then I remembered the rumors Lieutenant Zariah had whispered to me before I was marched off the bridge. Naval Intelligence is looking into the Vigilant incident. They requested the tactical logs.

But it wasn’t just about the past. It was about “Operation Starfall.”

Starfall was a weapons test. Classified. Illegal. It involved an electromagnetic pulse weapon designed to disable enemy fleets without firing a shot. The problem was, the radiation leakage violated three international treaties and turned the ocean floor into a microwave. I had seen the preliminary reports. I had filed objections. Hargrove had buried them.

If they were taking me to Port Aurelia, it meant Starfall was going live. And they couldn’t risk me testifying when the inevitable fallout occurred.

I needed to get a message out.

I waited until the ship’s clock hit midnight. The Hawthorne was quiet, the vibration of the engines a steady thrum through the floorboards.

A young Ensign named Finch had brought me dinner earlier. He had looked terrified, his eyes darting to the patrol boats outside. “Captain’s compliments,” he had whispered. “And… uh… the secure channel in the comms room is experiencing ‘technical difficulties’ for the next hour. The tech is on break.”

Captain Lazlo. You old fox.

I slipped out of my cabin. The corridors were empty, illuminated by the red glow of emergency lights. I moved silently, my socks sliding on the linoleum. I reached the communications room. The door was unlocked.

Inside, the equipment hummed. The secure terminal sat in the corner, a green light blinking on the console. Technical difficulties.

I sat in the chair, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. I had one shot. If I triggered a standard distress call, the patrol boats would intercept it instantly. The Dauntless would know.

I needed a ghost frequency.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small data chip Lieutenant Commander Orion had pressed into my hand just before the Marines took me. Orion was my closest ally, the only other person who knew the full truth of the Leviathan protocols.

I slotted the chip into the drive.

The screen flickered. ACCESS DENIED.

I typed in a manual override. Not a standard Navy code. A code I had written myself, late at night, three years ago.

User: Phantom. Passkey: Kingfisher_Rising.

The screen paused. My heart slammed against my ribs. If this didn’t work, I was dead. If Hargrove had scrubbed the legacy systems, I was dead.

ACCESS GRANTED.

I didn’t exhale. I opened the deep-water transmission channel—a frequency usually reserved for oceanographic buoys, ignored by tactical scanners.

I typed nine words. Nine words that would mean nothing to Naval Intelligence, nothing to Hargrove, and nothing to the Pentagon. But to a specific group of people—men and women who officially didn’t exist—it would mean war.

LEVIATHAN COMPROMISED. POSEIDON PROTOCOL ACTIVE. AUTHENTICATION: ZULU 7 ALPHA.

I hit send.

The progress bar crawled across the screen. 20%… 50%… 80%…

The door behind me creaked.

I froze.

“Maintenance complete, Commander,” a voice said loudly.

I spun around. It was Ensign Finch. He was standing in the doorway, blocking the view from the hallway. He wasn’t looking at me; he was looking down the corridor, acting as a lookout. He gave me a barely perceptible nod.

“Thank you, Ensign,” I whispered.

I scrubbed the log, pulled the chip, and vanished back into the shadows.

Back in my cabin, I waited. ten minutes. Twenty. thirty.

Nothing happened. The ship kept moving. The patrol boats kept their distance. The helicopter kept circling. Had the signal gone out? Was anyone listening? The Leviathan operatives were deep-cover. They could be anywhere in the world. Or they could be dead.

Doubts began to gnaw at me. Maybe Hargrove was right. Maybe I was just a washed-up Commander clinging to a ghost story.

Then, the water changed.

It started as a vibration—different from the engine’s hum. It was deeper. A resonance that I felt in my teeth.

I stood up and went to the porthole.

The sea, which had been relatively calm, was beginning to churn. Whitecaps were forming out of nowhere. The Hawthorne pitched violently to port, sending my lamp crashing to the floor.

I grabbed my jacket and scrambled up to the rear deck. Captain Lazlo was already there, gripping the railing, his face pale.

“Commander!” he shouted over the rising wind. “What did you do?”

“I called for a ride,” I said, my voice steady, though my hands were shaking.

“From who?” Lazlo pointed. “Look!”

The patrol boats were scattering. They were breaking formation, their commanders clearly panicking. They banked hard, engines screaming as they tried to put distance between themselves and the Hawthorne.

The helicopter pilot was shouting something over the radio, pulling up hard, gaining altitude.

“Sonar contact!” someone screamed from the bridge. “Massive! It’s rising! Bearing 180, right underneath us!”

The ocean behind the Hawthorne didn’t just break; it exploded.

A mountain of water displaced upwards, turning into a cascading waterfall of foam and spray. And rising through it, black and slick as oil, came a shape that shouldn’t have been there.

It was immense. A hull designed for silent death. An Ohio-class nuclear submarine, but modified. No hull numbers. No flag. Just a sleek, predatory shadow blocking out the moon.

Water poured off its flanks in torrents as it breached, the sheer displacement rocking our supply ship like a toy boat in a bathtub. It towered over us, a steel leviathan claiming its territory.

Lazlo stared, his mouth open. “That… that’s not on the registry. That doesn’t exist.”

I gripped the railing, feeling the spray hit my face. It was cold, salty, and tasted like victory.

“No, Captain,” I said, watching the conning tower hatch spin open. “It doesn’t.”

On the side of the conning tower, painted in stark, unauthorized white against the black stealth coating, was a name.

USS LEVIATHAN.

A figure emerged from the hatch. Even from this distance, I recognized the silhouette. The posture. The utter lack of hesitation.

He raised a flare gun and fired a single green star into the night sky.

Green. Safe approach.

“Poseidon Protocol,” I whispered.

They hadn’t just heard me. They had been waiting.

PART 2: THE GHOST FLEET

The ocean was screaming.

The displacement from the USS Leviathan had turned the calm Pacific into a washing machine. The Hawthorne pitched violently, metal groaning against the strain. Captain Lazlo was shouting orders to his crew to stabilize the vessel, but I barely heard him. My eyes were locked on the black monolith rising from the deep.

The hatch on the submarine’s conning tower opened fully, and a team of operators poured out. They moved with a fluidity that I knew well—Special Warfare operators. SEALs. But they weren’t wearing standard-issue fatigues. They wore black tactical gear with no insignia, faces obscured by ballistic masks.

A Rapid Deployment Craft (RDC)—a high-speed inflatable boat—dropped from the side of the sub and hit the water with a slap that echoed like a gunshot. Its twin engines roared to life, cutting a white scar across the dark water as it raced toward us.

Behind the Hawthorne, the three Navy patrol boats were in disarray. Their radios were undoubtedly screaming with conflicting orders. Engage? Retreat? Identify? They were looking at a ghost, and military doctrine doesn’t cover ghosts.

The helicopter overhead banked aggressively, its searchlight sweeping over the submarine.

“Commander!” Lazlo grabbed my arm, steadying me as a wave crashed over the deck. “They’re boarding us! Do I repel?”

I looked at him. “If you try to repel them, Captain, they will dismantle this ship bolt by bolt without scratching the paint. Let them board. It’s an extraction.”

The RDC slammed against the Hawthorne’s hull. Grappling hooks flew over the rail. Three men vaulted onto the deck before the ropes even went taut.

The leader stood up, pulling off his mask.

My breath hitched.

Commander Arcturus Reese.

Three years ago, in the Persian Gulf, Reese had been the team leader on the beach. He was the man Hargrove had ordered me to abandon. He was the man whose voice had crackled over the radio, whispering “Tell my wife I love her” before I cut the comms and initiated the Phantom Corridor maneuver to get him out.

He looked older now. A jagged scar ran from his ear to his jawline—a souvenir from that night. But his eyes were the same: intense, intelligent, and fiercely loyal.

“Thalia,” he said. No rank. Just the name.

“Arcturus,” I replied, my voice thick with emotion I couldn’t suppress. “You’re late.”

A grim smile touched his lips. “Traffic was hell. We need to move. Now. Hargrove has panicked. He’s ordering the Dauntless to launch an airstrike.”

“On an American vessel?” Lazlo gasped.

“On an ‘unidentified hostile submersible hijacking a Navy transport,'” Reese corrected. “He’s spinning the narrative as we speak. He’d rather sink this ship and kill everyone on board than let the Blackwood Protocol go public.”

The reality of Hargrove’s desperation hit me like a physical blow. He wasn’t just covering up a weapons test; he was willing to murder his own sailors to protect his career.

“Go,” Lazlo said, pushing me toward the rail. “My crew are witnesses. I’ll radio the Coast Guard, create a civilian channel distress call. He can’t bomb us if the whole world is listening.”

“Lazlo, if you stay—”

“I’m a supply captain, Commander. Nobody cares about me. You’re the target. Get off my ship.”

I gripped Lazlo’s hand for a split second—a silent thank you for a life risked—and then I jumped.

I landed hard in the RDC. Reese was right behind me. “Punch it!” he yelled to the pilot.

As the small boat tore away from the Hawthorne, I looked back. The helicopter was swinging around, its side door open. A gunner was leaning out.

“They’re locking on!” Reese shouted. He tapped his headset. “Leviathan, suppressive countermeasures. Non-lethal. Dazzle them.”

From the conning tower of the submarine, a beam of intense, strobe-like light erupted. It wasn’t a laser; it was a photonic disruptor. It hit the helicopter’s cockpit, blinding the sensors and the pilots with a wall of disorientation. The helicopter veered wildly to the right, aborting its run.

“Welcome to the future,” Reese muttered as we sped toward the open hatch of the submarine.

Boarding the Leviathan was like stepping into another world.

I had served on Ohio-class subs before. They were cramped, industrial, and smelled of recycled air and diesel. The Leviathan was different. The lighting was a cool, calming blue. The bulkheads were lined with acoustic dampening polymer. The Combat Information Center (CIC) looked more like the bridge of a spaceship than a submarine.

Standing at the tactical table was Captain Merrick. I knew him by reputation—a maverick who had ‘retired’ five years ago. Now I knew where he had really gone.

“Commander Blackwood,” Merrick said, not looking up from the holographic display hovering above the table. “You certainly know how to make an exit.”

“Captain,” I nodded, shaking the sea spray from my hair. “What is this place? The Poseidon Protocol was supposed to be a failsafe file, a legal contingency. Not… this.”

“It started as a file,” Reese said, leading me to the table. “But after the Gulf, the operators you saved—me, my team, the pilots—we realized something. The system works, until it doesn’t. When a bad actor gets to the top, like Hargrove, the chain of command becomes a noose. We needed a knife to cut it.”

“So we built one,” Merrick added. “The Leviathan operates under black-budget authorization. Section 8, Clause 9. ‘Autonomous Ethical Oversight.’ We don’t answer to the Admiralty. We answer to the Constitution.”

“And right now,” Reese tapped the screen, “The Constitution is about to take a hit.”

The display zoomed in on a set of coordinates three hundred miles north.

“Operation Starfall,” I whispered.

“Hargrove isn’t just testing a weapon,” Reese explained, pulling up the classified schematics I had tried to expose. “He’s testing a tectonic destabilizer. The weapon uses EMP waves to trigger underwater seismic events. He thinks it can create localized tsunamis to wipe out coastal defenses.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “That’s insane. The fallout—”

“Would be catastrophic,” Merrick finished. “He’s scheduled a live-fire test for 0800 hours tomorrow. Target area is the Mariana Trench. If he fires that thing into the trench, the seismic wave won’t just hit the target dummies. It could trigger a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. We’re talking about wiping out Guam, maybe parts of Hawaii.”

“He’s playing God,” I said, anger replacing my fear. “And he removed me because I was the only one who did the math on the seismic impact.”

“Exactly,” Reese said. “We have the data. We have the proof. But we can’t transmit it.”

“Why not?”

“Because Hargrove has initiated a localized comms blackout,” Merrick pointed to the red zones on the map. “The Dauntless is jamming all frequencies in a 500-mile radius. We can’t get the evidence to the Pentagon unless we break that jam.”

“And the jammer,” I realized, “is on the Dauntless.”

“Correct.” Merrick looked at me. “We can sink the Dauntless. We have the firepower. But that starts a civil war within the Navy. American sailors dying because of one corrupt Admiral.”

I looked at the display. The USS Dauntless. My ship. My crew. Five thousand souls on board, most of them good kids just following orders, completely unaware their Admiral was about to commit a war crime.

“We don’t sink her,” I said, my voice hardening. “We board her.”

Reese looked at me, a spark of madness in his eyes. “That’s suicide, Thalia. The Dauntless is on full alert. They’ll have Marines at every airlock.”

“They’re looking for a submarine attack,” I said, my mind racing through the tactical layouts I had memorized for twelve years. “They’re watching the water. They aren’t watching the sky.”

“We don’t have a plane,” Merrick noted.

“No,” I pointed to the Leviathan’s payload manifest on the screen. “But you have the Icarus stealth gliders. Single-man insertion drones.”

Reese grinned. “You want to HALO jump onto a moving aircraft carrier in the middle of a comms blackout?”

“I want to retake my ship,” I said. “And I want to look Hargrove in the eye when I take his stars.”

PART 3: THE CAPTAIN’S DUTY

The drop was silent.

The Icarus glider was essentially a carbon-fiber wing with a handle. I released from the drone carrier at 20,000 feet, free-falling through the cloud layer before snapping the wings open. Reese was on my right, flanked by two of his best operators.

Below us, the Dauntless was a grey slab cutting through the ocean. I could see the Combat Air Patrol—two F-18s circling the perimeter. They were looking outward, hunting for the submarine. They never looked up. The radar cross-section of our gliders was smaller than a seagull.

“Target the stern,” I whispered into the localized comms. “Blind spot behind the tower.”

We swooped down, the wind roaring in my ears. The deck rushed up to meet us. At fifty feet, I flared the wings, stalling the glider, and cut the harness.

I hit the non-skid deck with a roll, absorbing the impact. Reese landed beside me, instantly bringing his suppressed carbine up.

We were on the fantail, hidden behind a row of parked jets.

“Move,” I signaled.

We moved like ghosts through the maze of aircraft. The crew was on high alert, but their focus was external. We slipped through a maintenance hatch, dropping into the humid, metallic belly of the ship.

This was my territory. I knew every vent, every shortcut.

“CIC is on lockdown,” Reese whispered, checking his wrist computer. “Marines at the doors.”

“We’re not going to CIC,” I said, turning down a narrow passageway. “We’re going to Broadcasting.”

“The MC station?”

“Hargrove controls the ship because he controls the narrative. I need to talk to my crew.”

We encountered a patrol near the mess hall. Two Masters-at-Arms. They froze when they saw us—black-clad operators dripping with seawater. Before they could raise their weapons, I stepped into the light, pulling down my cowl.

“Stand down, Petty Officer Evans,” I commanded.

Evans blinked, lowering his rifle instinctively. “Commander Blackwood? But… the Admiral said you were a traitor. He said you defected to a hostile power.”

“Does this look like a defection, Evans?” I asked, gesturing to the American flag patch on Reese’s shoulder. “The Admiral is lying. He’s about to launch an illegal weapon that will kill thousands. I need to get to the mic. Are you with me?”

Evans looked at his partner. Then he looked back at me. He stepped aside. “Clear left, Commander.”

The loyalty of the crew. It wasn’t given to the rank; it was given to the person.

We reached the Media Control center. Reese breached the door, securing the two technicians inside within seconds. I sat at the console and flipped the switches.

“Override the jammer locally,” Reese said, plugging a drive into the system. “I can give you five minutes before Hargrove cuts the hard line.”

“Five minutes is all I need.”

I took a breath. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled picture of the Leviathan’s sonar data—the proof of the earthquake risk.

I keyed the mic. 1MC. All hands.

“This is Commander Thalia Blackwood.”

My voice boomed through every speaker on the ship—from the bridge to the engine room, from the flight deck to the brig.

“I know what you were told. You were told I was removed for security concerns. You were told we are hunting a hostile submarine. That is a lie.”

On the bridge, five decks up, I could imagine Hargrove’s face turning purple. He would be screaming to cut the line.

“Admiral Hargrove is preparing to launch Operation Starfall,” I continued, speaking fast and clear. “It is an illegal tectonic weapon. If he fires at 0800, he will trigger a seismic event that will devastate civilian populations. The submarine Leviathan is not hostile. It is a US Naval asset operating under ethical oversight protocols. They are here to stop a war crime.”

The ship seemed to vibrate with the tension.

“I am asking you to do the hardest thing a sailor can do,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “I am asking you to disobey an unlawful order. Stand down. Do not launch that weapon.”

The door behind us exploded inward.

Marines rushed in. Reese tackled the lead man, disarming him in a blur of motion, but there were too many. I was thrown to the ground, a boot pressed against my neck.

“That’s enough!” Hargrove’s voice.

He strode into the small room, his face a mask of cold fury. He was flanked by his personal security detail.

“Get her up,” he snarled.

They hauled me to my feet. Reese was held at gunpoint against the wall.

“You really think,” Hargrove stepped close, inches from my face, “that a little speech is going to stop me? The launch sequence is automated, Commander. It’s locked in. And you just convicted yourself of treason.”

“It’s not treason to stop a monster,” I spat.

“It’s treason to fail,” he whispered. He turned to the Marines. “Take them to the brig. Execute the launch.”

He turned to leave.

“Admiral!”

The voice came from the doorway. It wasn’t a Marine. It was Lieutenant Commander Orion, the ship’s Tactical Action Officer. And behind him stood Chief Kesler. And behind Kesler… was the crew.

Dozens of them. Mechanics, cooks, pilots, engineers. They filled the corridor, a wall of blue uniforms.

“Get out of my way,” Hargrove barked.

Orion didn’t move. He held a tablet in his hand. “Sir, I’ve just reviewed the data Commander Blackwood transmitted during her broadcast. The seismic projections.”

“That data is classified!”

“That data says we’re about to kill a hundred thousand people,” Orion said, his voice shaking but loud. “I cannot authorize the firing solution.”

“I am your Admiral! I am giving you a direct order!” Hargrove screamed, his composure shattering.

Orion looked at me. Then he looked at Hargrove. He slowly unholstered his sidearm. Not to fire, but to place it on the deck.

“I relieve myself of duty, sir,” Orion said.

“Me too,” Kesler said, dropping his hat.

“And me,” said a young Ensign.

One by one, the crew began to step back, refusing to move, refusing to work. The silence was deafening. It was the sound of a tyrant losing his power, not through violence, but through the collective will of good people.

Hargrove looked around, wild-eyed. He lunged for the comms panel, trying to initiate the launch himself.

“Secure the Admiral!”

The order came from the Marines—Hargrove’s own security detail. The Sergeant who had been holding me released his grip. He stepped forward and grabbed Hargrove’s arm.

“Get your hands off me!” Hargrove shrieked.

“Sir, under Article 99 of the UCMJ, you are acting in a manner detrimental to the safety of this vessel and the United States,” the Sergeant said calmly. “You are relieved.”

I rubbed my neck where the boot had been. Reese was already up, checking his weapon.

The Dauntless was silent. The launch clock on the wall ticked down to zero… and nothing happened. The firing solution had been scrubbed.

Two days later.

The sun was setting over Honolulu. The Dauntless was docked at Pearl Harbor. The story was everywhere—the “Mutiny of Conscience,” the press called it. Hargrove was in the brig, awaiting a court-martial that would be studied for decades.

I stood on the pier, dressed in my dress whites. My rank insignia was back on my collar.

A black limousine pulled up. The Secretary of the Navy stepped out.

He walked up to me, flanked by two aides. He looked tired.

“Commander Blackwood,” he said.

“Mr. Secretary.”

“You created quite a mess, Thalia. You broke a dozen regulations, hijacked a classified submarine, and incited a mutiny on a carrier.”

“I upheld my oath, sir,” I said simply. “To the Constitution. Not to the Admiral.”

He studied me for a long moment. Then, he sighed. “Hargrove is done. Starfall is scrapped. But we have a problem. The Leviathan.”

“What about it?”

“It doesn’t exist,” the Secretary said. “And it can’t exist. Not officially. But we can’t scrap it either. We need… oversight.”

He handed me a folder.

“We are creating a new division. ‘Asymmetric Threat Assessment.’ It’s a desk job, technically. But it comes with a secondary command.”

I opened the folder. Inside was a picture of the Leviathan, and a new set of orders.

Commanding Officer: Captain Thalia Blackwood.

“You want me to run the ghost fleet,” I said, looking up.

“I want you to be the conscience of the Navy, Captain,” he corrected. “You proved that protocols don’t save lives. People do. We need someone out there who knows when to follow the rules… and when to break them.”

I looked at the ship, then at the open ocean. I thought of Reese, of Kesler, of the sixteen men in the Gulf, and the thousands we had just saved.

I closed the folder.

“When do I start?”

“High tide,” the Secretary smiled.

I turned back to the water. The Dauntless was safe. The crew was safe. But out there, in the deep black, the Leviathan was waiting. And for the first time in twelve years, I didn’t feel like I was fighting the current.

I was the current.