David Golemon - Leviathan

"Down planes — down planes, engines to slow!" Alvera yelled as she wiped blood from her mouth.

"Planes are nonresponsive," the helmsman said loudly.

Tyler picked himself off the deck and then looked at the hologram with fear in his eyes.

"We are receiving conflicting impulses from the computer, we are being overridden!"

"Captain Heirthall!" Alvera said, looking directly at Tyler. "Engines all back. Helm control, make sure she cannot, I repeat, cannot gain rudder and ballast access! Sergeant Tyler, obviously the captain is not stranded at Ice Palace. May I suggest you start your search in auxiliary control?"

Tyler angrily turned away and went to communications.

Alvera turned and studied the hologram, for the first time becoming frightened herself.

"Sound the collision alarm," she shouted as Leviathan's engines went to full-reverse power. "Give me twenty thousand gallons of ballast in the forward tanks only!" The collision alarm started sounding throughout the boat. "Close all watertight doors, close the observation shields." Even as she gave the order, she knew it was too late.

Leviathan started to turn her bow down but was still rising at an incredible rate of speed. With her reactors screaming at more than 120 percent power, it wasn't enough to avoid the unavoidable.

The midshipmen braced themselves as the conning tower of Leviathan hit a large pressure ridge, tearing it free from the bottom of the shelf. The tower shook in its mountings, but held firm as the bow came up and struck another spikelike ridge, crushing the starboard observation shield and pushing it inward by three feet. The combination acrylic/nylon glass cracked and then gave way, creating a cascade of pressurized water that shot a hundred feet into the compartment.

"We have an outer and inner hull breach in the forward observation lounge!"

"Are we showing hatch integrity of the compartment in the green?"

"Yes, watertight doors are closed. We are two minutes from isolating plane control from the auxiliary suite."

Leviathan struck the bottom of the shelf again, throwing the control-room personnel from their seats.

"Tyler! The captain is trying to sink us!"

"Conn — sonar — we have her at fifty-six miles, bearing three-nine-seven degrees. She just hit the ice at over fifty knots!"

"Collins and his men, it has to be. Izzy, match bearings on Leviathan 's noise and fire tubes one through six, a full spread, maximum range!"

Alvera braced herself as the pummeling continued. Heirthall was ramming the uppermost deck and tower into the shelf, causing damage to the topmost sensors housed in the conning tower.

She happened to look into the flickering hologram in time to see six blips light up at fifty-plus miles. They were bearing right on Leviathan .

"We have torpedoes in the water — they have us locked at long range!"

Alvera wasn't concerned with the American-made Mark 48s, as they could easily lose them under the shelf at the extreme range at which they were launched.

"We have a bearing on Missouri 's location. Should we fire torpedoes?" the acting weapons officer asked.

"Yes, launch tubes one through ten. Blow the Americans out of the water," Tyler shouted as he tried in vain to get his men on the radio.

"Belay that order. We have to get to the launch point. Concentrate all efforts on regaining control and—"

Leviathan slammed into the ice again. This time it wasn't as devastatingly harsh as her engines, near to reactor scram, started pulling her back from the surface.

"We have regained all helm controls. The command suite has been isolated."

"About time," Tyler said as he slammed his phone down.

"Sergeant, I suggest you get the captain secured before she attempts something else."

Tyler started forward, grabbing the command security element as he hurried out.

"Ten degrees down bubble. Give me full dive on the planes; bring reactor power to fifty percent and go to thirty knots. Quiet the boat as much as possible and head to the launch point."

"We will have enemy torpedo contact in four minutes. They have to be advanced Mark forty-eights."

"Prepare to launch forward tube twelve electrically, tube twelve only. Set nuclear yield to one megaton — after launch, take Leviathan deep to two thousand feet."

"Yeoman, we still have flooding in the forward areas. The observation compartment is fully flooded; pumps are inoperative in that section."

"We'll have the power to pull out toward the surface; the reactors are cooling."

As they waited, Leviathan leveled off. The command crew felt the gentle release of air as one torpedo left the bow tube with a computerized order to detonate in the path of the incoming American weapons.

"Give me fifty degrees down bubble; engines to flank. Take us to two thousand feet!"

Leviathan laid her nuclear egg, and then dived for deep water where no man or machine could ever reach her.

The symbiants were crawling from the water onto the man-made ice shelf that ran around the circumference of Ice Palace. Sarah watched the first of the trench adults never hesitating as they came toward the building at incredible speed.

"The pressure down here must allow for their skeletal frames to withstand this oxygenated air!" Robbins called out from one of the front windows.

"We can talk over the fine points of sym science later, Doctor. Right now I believe they are quite capable of withstanding this level of our world," Farbeaux said just as the lead sym crashed into the window where he was standing.

Sarah reacted faster than Farbeaux, spearing the jellylike skin of the large, five-foot-long creature. At the same moment, Alice and Senator Lee opened up with the automatic weapons, shredding the small symbiant. The boat hook and bullets made the sym scream, a humanlike, awful wail of pain. The fluorescent blood went from red to a sickly purplish color as it fought to pull its body from the hook.

Henri raised the long, polelike spear and crushed the creature's eggshell thin, clear skull. The sym collapsed and its body fanned out as the invisible muscles seemed to dissolve into themselves.

As the creature stopped moving, the gathered children standing against the farthest wall watched in horror. One of their kind was being killed in front of them.

"I've got one coming through the wall," Lee said as he raised his weapon and fired.

The next sym was using stored saltwater to burn through the three-foot-thick wall of ice. The ice started to dissolve. The head of the sym came through, the mouth opened, and it hissed at Lee just as ten bullets slammed into its head. The sym recoiled but did not back out; its small blue eyes locked onto the senator and its body started to wriggle, trying to get through the ice that was refreezing around its trapped body.

Alice dropped her weapon, picked up one of the spikes, and speared the animal, but the sym easily dodged her meager assault and started pushing through, just as other adults began dissolving the walls around the small band of defenders.

"Children, move down the stairs!" Sarah yelled just as another sym crashed through the lone unbroken window.

The tail and small feet allowed the clear body the ability to slither along the floor like a snake — and it was lightning fast. Sarah thrust at it and missed, the sym dodging the tip of the boat hook easily. Then it struck, hitting Sarah in the chest as it drove her to the ground. The creature yelled something incoherent and raised its small, sharp claws to slash Sarah's face. At just that moment, a boat hook came through the clear wall of the sym's chest. Purple, red, pink, and clear fluid shot onto Sarah's heavy coat as she rolled out from under the creature and away from the sharp tip of the hook that had missed her head by inches.