David Golemon - Leviathan

She slowly stood as Alice awoke, hearing Garrison Lee cross a boundary. Even in sleep, she had to babysit the man.

"Look, all of you have to quit tiptoeing around me about Jack. I'm a soldier first, and sometimes we lose people. So don't fool yourselves thinking I'll fall to pieces every time someone mentions his name. Please, knock it the hell off."

The four people looked at her and said nothing.

"Brave little Sarah — sometimes I wish I were half as brave. But, who is fooling whom?"

Sarah turned and looked down at Colonel Farbeaux, who was on one elbow and looking up at her. He removed the damp cloth and held it at arm's length, looking at it.

"A courtesy to a fallen enemy?" he said as he let the cloth slip through his fingers to the rubberized deck.

"Sarah has always had an affinity for injured animals," Virginia said, to the shock of the others.

"Indeed, and I assure you, Ms. Pollock, this animal is appreciative of her humane efforts," Farbeaux said, his eyes locking briefly onto Virginia's.

"Thus far, Colonel, we are at a loss as to why you chose this particular moment to visit the Event Group. Was it just taking advantage of an opportunity, curiosity, or some darker intent?" Niles asked as he stood and handed Farbeaux a cup of lukewarm coffee.

"Ah, Director Compton, we finally meet in person." As he sipped the coffee, Farbeaux looked over and saw the old man with the eye patch. He immediately sat up, even though it hurt his head. "The legendary Senator Lee. I am truly in esteemed company," he said as he half-bowed.

"Always nice to be admired by one's enemy; it could someday work to my advantage," Lee said, nodding toward the colonel.

"As you know from our dealings in the past, Director Compton, opportunity has been linked to my name from time to time."

Silence met Farbeaux's answer as suddenly a soft whine filled the cabin. The pitch of the twin jet engines changed, and the angle of the craft went nose down. For the first time during the flight, the large assault leader made his way back toward them from the cockpit. He nodded at a few of the rougher looking men as he passed them. Then he was looking down at his six captives as the first rays of the sun came through the cabin windows.

"We are at our rendezvous point. If you will watch out of the left side of the aircraft, our pilot has graciously arranged a view none of you have ever witnessed before." The man slowly sat down in an unoccupied seat next to Farbeaux, who eyed him with disdain and stood on shaky legs, holding a strap. "Please, sit down, relax, I think you'll quite enjoy this. Let's call it a learning experience," the man said in his Irish-tinged accent.

The aircraft lost altitude much faster than any commercial plane could have. Because of the stubby wing design, the extreme tolerances experienced by the airframe held up during the steep dive to the sea below. Farbeaux had to sit down quickly, trying not to spill the coffee.

"Normally, the aircraft would hover over the water and then retract her wings and seal her intakes, thus allowing us to dive underneath the waves and meet our host. However, a demonstration of what your country — and others — is dealing with was deemed necessary." The man looked at the faces sitting opposite him as the craft came within six hundred feet of the wave tops below.

As they watched out of the left side, a piercing tone penetrated their inner ears. Niles and the others covered their heads with their hands.

"Apologies, but we mark our location with a signal that penetrates water efficiently. The burst you hear was a coded transmission that also included our altitude and location to within half an inch. We wouldn't want any accidents. Whales and dolphins also hear an embedded tone below that of human hearing, so this is a warning to them also to clear the area."

The tone ended abruptly and they all watched the surface of the water far below. The gulf was calm as dawn broke, allowing the sun to dapple the waters with gleaming speckles of light. Suddenly the waters seemed to turn a lighter shade of green about three hundred yards to the side of the aircraft. Niles chanced a look at the tall man, who was watching their reaction with a smile. When Compton turned back to the large window, he saw giant bubbles breaking the surface of the gulf. Several of them were at least a hundred feet in diameter and rose another fifty feet into the clear air before bursting apart in what looked like an explosion of vapor.

"Good God," Lee said as he watched in amazement.

They saw a shape rising from the depth of the clear sea. They would never know that this particular spot in the gulf was chosen specifically for its clarity. They watched as the bow of the great vessel rose through the depths, rounded and giant. The submarine broke the surface of the gulf of Mexico with an explosion of white water and sea spray, then kept rising as if it were fighting to free itself of an unwanted and hostile environment. It rose, seemingly never ending, and then rose even more. They saw the conning tower break the surface as it telescoped to its sky-reaching 125-foot height, and still the monster breached the air and sea with its length. It came from the sea like a mythical beast as it balanced in a perfect set-piece motion of a moment frozen in time.

"I cannot believe this!" Niles said, almost gasping for air as he watched.

The massive submarine finally reached a point where its forward bulk outweighed its stern and the giant ship started to fall toward the sea below. The gulf beneath its hull was crushed as the behemoth crashed into the water, sending forth a wave two hundred feet into the air. The mist from the top of the wave reached as far as the hovering aircraft.

Niles started measuring with his mind's eye. The vessel was well over a thousand feet in length, possibly more. He couldn't begin to calculate her displacement tonnage, but it had to outweigh any ship in the naval arsenals of the world. Larger than a Nimitz class carrier, the submarine was unlike any vessel any of them had ever laid eyes on. The hull had clean lines and was rounded even upon the upper deck. The conning tower was a giant structure that angled aerodynamically, and was made to align itself deep into the hull when submerged, obviously for speed purposes.

Niles could see two large, finlike, harsh triangles — powerful-looking bow-planes slicing the waters just under the surface — and then finally two towering, angled, hundred-foot-long, fifty-foot-high tail fins sprang from the sea like the dorsal fins of a monster shark. As they held their breath, the vessel's bow opened up and revealed a glass nose hidden under a retractable armor front, and they could see that the glass covered at the very least ten decks of the forward parts of the vessel. The giant submarine continued to run on the surface, sending out very little tail wake from her power plant at the stern. Seagulls, after the initial shock of her arrival, started flocking around the skyscraperlike conning tower, mistaking it for land because of its size.

"On behalf of my captain, I welcome you to Leviathan ."

Lee turned and looked at the man, who was watching them all with an intent gaze. He recalled a poem from the time of the Civil War, which he memorized in his college days and deemed appropriate now that the man had placed a name to the great vessel.

" 'Lo, as I am swallowed by the salt-laden waters, I am cursed to behold the shape and dark intent of my enemy, the very destroyer of men, thus as I am laid asunder, water invading my soul, there, under the waves, travels the monstrous grace of Leviathan , God of the Sea, and Master of the World.'"

As the four tilt-wing aircraft started forward, the lead craft banked hard and started settling for the deck of Leviathan . As it approached, two large doors, over seventy feet in length and just aft of the conning tower, parted and rose into the air, revealing a cavernous hangar deck. Niles watched as crewmen far below prepared to take on the four aircraft. The hovering VTOLs aligned perfectly with the fast-moving vessel and settled into her bowels. Compton took the opportunity to examine the open section of hull and counted five distinct layers of a material that to his untrained eye resembled titanium, or steel, but seemed porous. He was amazed when he realized he wasn't looking at metal at all — he was staring at what he thought must be a composite material similar to nylon.