thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
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Reading
11 d, 4 h
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The frigid Alpine air burns my lungs as I step onto the private platform in Zurich. Beside me, the Leviathan idles—a sleek, matte-black bullet of a train stretching a quarter-mile down the track. It is an armored fortress operating under the guise of a high-speed luxury casino, ferrying illicit wealth across international borders with absolute diplomatic immunity. "Passports," the heavily armed guard barks in Russian. He is ex-Spetsnaz, judging by the disciplined slope of his shoulders and the…-
22.5 K • Completed
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Six red laser sights converge on the center of Cassian’s chest. The mechanized voice of the Spetsnaz commander echoes down the narrow, smoke-filled corridor, a demand for immediate surrender. I do not process fear. My Te-dominant cognition strips the scenario down to pure variables: distance, structural integrity, and digital leverage. The mercenaries are twenty feet away, stacked in a standard tactical formation behind the blown bulkhead. They have superior firepower, ballistic armor, and the element…
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22.5 K • Completed
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The barrel of my custom SIG Sauer is aimed perfectly at the center of Cassian Vale’s chest, hovering exactly two inches from his heart. The red laser sight of my weapon paints a damning, glowing dot on the stark white of his unbuttoned dress shirt. We are sealed inside the sub-zero biometric vault of the Leviathan. Outside the heavy titanium blast doors, a Spetsnaz strike team is currently regrouping. I can hear the high-pitched, mechanical whine of a thermal lance spinning up. They are going to cut…
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22.5 K • Completed
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The sound of the Helios exploding was not a bang; it was a low-frequency displacement of the entire Arctic atmosphere. I held the remote detonator in my hand, my thumb white-knuckled against the trigger, as the ghost ship—the floating tomb, the kinetic weapon, the definitive evidence of our fathers’ darkest sins—tore itself apart fifty yards off our port bow. The fireball was blinding, a mushrooming orange sun that scorched the swirling snow and sent a concussive blast of superheated air slamming…-
21.4 K • Completed
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MAEVE The hull of the Vanguard did not just cut through the Arctic ice; it obliterated it. I could feel the violent, rhythmic shudder of the nuclear-powered icebreaker radiating up through the reinforced steel floor of the owner’s stateroom, vibrating straight into the marrow of my bones. But the shuddering of the ship was nothing compared to the shockwave of Nikolai Arden pressing me back against the frost-rimmed panoramic window. "Are you backing down, Stroud?" His voice was a low, abrasive…
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21.4 K • Completed
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NIKOLAI The Vanguard slammed into another submerged ridge of ancient ice, the violent reverberation shaking the crystal tumblers on the stateroom’s bar, but Maeve Stroud did not even blink. I watched the exact moment she absorbed the reality of the screen in her hands. Four point two billion dollars of syndicated corporate debt, quietly bought up through a labyrinth of shell companies over the last eight months, now consolidated entirely under Arden Holdings. I held the leash to her entire fleet. A…
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21.4 K • Completed
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The primary communications array of the Vanguard hummed with the immense power required to punch a secure, encrypted satellite signal through the dense atmospheric interference of the Arctic circle. I stood at the head of the holographic map table, my posture rigid, my executive parka discarded for a sharply tailored blazer. On the massive panoramic screens spanning the front of the bridge, the digital faces of the International Maritime Tribunal flickered into existence. Five judges, three sovereign…
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21.4 K • Completed
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I did not turn the ship. I slammed the manual override thrust lever to maximum, driving fifty thousand tons of nuclear-powered steel straight into the forty-foot wall of multi-year blue ice. The impact was apocalyptic. The Vanguard shrieked, the deafening sound of shearing metal and crushing ice echoing through the reactor bunker. The sheer kinetic force threw me violently forward. Nikolai caught me, his massive arms wrapping around my waist, bracing us both against the steel console as the entire ship…
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21.4 K • Completed
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NIKOLAI The ascent from the interstitial hull was a silent, grueling climb. The biting cold of the Ice Hotel clung to our clothes, but the silence between us was heavier than the freezing atmosphere. The ghost of the Helios—a black-site prison ship funded by my family and supplied by hers—was now a documented reality, sitting on an analog hard drive in the bowels of the ship. We had narrowly survived a drone attack orchestrated by the very board I commanded. My family was trying to erase the…
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21.4 K • Completed
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MAEVE The heavy steel door of the chart room unsealed with a sharp, pneumatic hiss, releasing us back into the frigid, vibrating corridor of the Vanguard. The transition from the suffocating, adrenaline-fueled heat of our improvised maritime marriage back to the stark reality of the ship was brutal. I adjusted the collar of my blouse, my skin still humming from the absolute violence of his touch, but the analytical engine in my brain was already spinning up to maximum capacity. The poison pill had been…
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21.4 K • Completed
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