The doors to the primary briefing room at Blackstar Strategic HQ didn't just open; they hissed with the sterile precision of high-end security. Inside, the atmosphere was a sharp contrast to the frozen chaos of the Southern Ocean. It was quiet, climate-controlled, and smelled of ozone and expensive espresso.
Standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Missouri landscape was Mr. Baskwood. At forty-two, he possessed an imposing, regal presence. He was a Black man whose features were framed by a cascade of long, silver-grey locs that fell neatly past his shoulders. His beard was groomed to a sharp, professional edge, but it was his eyes that commanded attention: his left was a deep, observant brown, while his right was a milky, sightless grey—blind, yet seemingly capable of looking right through a person's secrets. He wore a charcoal-grey suit that fit his athletic frame perfectly, looking more like a tech mogul than a man overseeing a global shadow war.
Xavier entered first, his face a mask of cold fury, but he was eclipsed a second later.
The heavy double doors were slammed open with such force they bounced off the magnetic catches. Raven, who had been silent and simmering since they left the Antarctic deck, charged into the room.
"You son of a bitch!"
Before anyone could intervene, Raven pivoted on his heel and launched a brutal right hook. The blow caught Baskwood square on the jaw. The older man stumbled back, his boots scuffing against the polished floor as he hit the edge of the mahogany conference table.
Baskwood didn't fall. He straightened slowly, one hand coming up to cradle his jaw, his sightless eye fixed on the space where his son stood.
"Raven, enough!" Vance shouted, lunging forward. He grabbed Raven by the shoulder, while Jessie—the team's lead scout—locked her arms around Raven's chest to haul him back.
Raven struggled against them, his face flushed with a mix of grief and adrenaline. "THIS was a setup! You put us at risk, Father, and you fucking knew! You knew that dragon was down there! You sent us in as bait to see what it would do!"
Baskwood slowly lowered his hand. A small trail of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, but his expression remained eerily calm—the calm of a man who had already calculated the cost of the punch long before it landed.
"You're emotional, Raven," Baskwood said, his voice smooth and resonant despite the swelling in his jaw. "That makes you a liability in the field. But it doesn't make you wrong."
Xavier stepped forward, his scarred eye twitching. "So it's true? We lost two ships and a sub for a 'stress test'?"
The tension in the room snapped like a high-tension cable. Xavier stepped into Baskwood's personal space, his boots clicking sharply on the marble floor. He was shorter than the director, but he carried the weight of the dead men from the Aegis on his shoulders, making him look twice as large.
"Emotional?" Xavier's voice was a low, dangerous vibration. "He's not being emotional, Baskwood. He's being human. Something you clearly traded in for that suit and a corner office in Chesterfield."
Baskwood straightened his tie, his milky-grey eye fixed forward, unblinking. "I traded sentiment for survival, Xavier. We are facing a biological anomaly that just rewrote the laws of thermodynamics. If I had told you there was a god-tier predator under the ice, you would have approached with caution. I needed to see its raw, uninhibited aggression."
"You used my crew as a litmus test!" Xavier roared, the scar on his eye turning a deep, angry purple. He slammed his tactical helmet onto the mahogany table, cracking the polished wood. "I watched forty good men turn into pink mist because you wanted to see a 'show.' You're a desk-jockey playing god with lives you aren't fit to lead."
Baskwood's calm finally cracked. He stepped forward, his face inches from Xavier's, his voice dropping to a hiss that cut through the room like a razor. "Don't you dare talk to me about fitness to lead. While you were playing soldier in the snow, I was securing the funding that keeps your 'Blackstar' toys running. You think the world stays safe because you're brave? It stays safe because men like me are willing to be monsters."
"You're not a monster," Xavier spat, his hand twitching toward the sidearm he'd forgotten to check at the door. "You're a coward hiding behind a spreadsheet. You knew that fireball would gut the Australian ship. You let it happen so you could collect the data from their sinking hulls."
"I collected the data that will save millions!" Baskwood shouted back, his composure finally shattering. He pointed a trembling finger toward the screens displaying the dragon's heat signature. "That thing is a localized extinction event! If it reaches a populated coast, your 'honor' won't stop it. Only my data will."
"Your data is soaked in the blood of your own son's teammates," Xavier whispered, his voice suddenly cold, which was far more terrifying than his shouting. "If you ever put us in a cage like that again, I won't just punch you. I'll make sure that blind eye of yours is the least of your worries."
Vance stood between them, his hand hovering near Raven's shoulder, watching the two titans of the agency tear each other apart. The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the heavy, ragged breathing of men who had just declared war on each other.