Текст книги "Leviathan"

Автор книги: David Lynn Golemon

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

LEVIATHAN

Captain Heirthall took the handgrips of the two toggles. Without rudder control, she could only use the bow and tower planes. She knew it might be enough to cause Leviathanto slow, or at the very least announce to whomever was listening that Leviathanwas coming their way. This last point she kept to herself.

Heirthall removed a large pair of holographic glasses from their case and put them on. They resembled the visor of a pilot's flight helmet. She needed to utilize these because of the power loss to visuals. She flexed her fingers as the visor came to life. Leviathan'sdepth was close to a mile and a half, or a quarter of a mile under the deepest pressure ridge of the Ross Ice Shelf. The great vessel was only sixty miles from breaching the open sea. In the lower-right corner of the visor, she patched in to sonar, and could clearly see open water in front of her. She knew that didn't mean anything. As a matter of fact, she was guessing that Missouriwas there–somewhere.

"Ginny, if I pass out or die on you, take the right plane control and pull back to its stops. Ram Leviathaninto the bottom of the ice and keep her there. Give Colonel Collins and Captain Everett time."

"Can ice sink this damn thing?"

"I don't think so, but we can tear her up enough to slow her down, possibly causing enough damage to make her stop the missile launch."

Alexandria took hold of the hand grips, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She pulled the right toggle control all the way back, at the same time pressing a small red button on the top, releasing control of the submarine from the command bridge. Her brainchild was once again hers.

Leviathanresponded.

Yeoman Alvera made her final calculation for launching the missiles. A straight, deadly red line ran straight toward the center of the surface of the Ross Sea.

"Acting chief?"

"Aye," said the sixteen-year-old girl standing between the helm seats.

"Make ready to adjust depth and course in three–" Alvera almost bit her tongue off as Leviathansuddenly went nose up and shot for the bottom of the shelf. The yeoman watched the navigation hologram as the symbol for the submarine was speeding at fifty knots toward a series of jagged pressure ridges.

"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'sengines 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.

Leviathanstarted 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 Leviathanhit 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."

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

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

USS MISSOURI (SSN-780)

"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!"

LEVIATHAN

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–"

Leviathanslammed 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 Leviathandeep 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, Leviathanleveled 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!"

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

ICE PALACE

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.

Sarah stood quickly. The smell of fish was covering her. Then she saw who had come to her aid. It was one of the children. A nine-year-old girl withdrew the dripping boat hook and then turned to assist Farbeaux as he encountered another adult.

Before Sarah could stop them, the entire group of children, half sym and half human, ran forward, grabbing anything they could use to attack their brethren coming through the walls, doors, and windows. Sarah quickly realized it was no use in trying to get the children out of harm's way, so she started organizing them the best she could.

It was a small army coming to their rescue–but more to the detriment of the defense, they were up against a determined enemy who believed their very existence was at stake.

The human element was about to be overrun.

LEVIATHAN

"All hands, detonation in five, four, three, two, one!"

The announcement went through the entire length of the ship. Even though they were expecting the hammer blow, it still caught everyone inside the giant submarine by surprise.

The nuclear-tipped torpedo detonated five hundred yards in front of the six American Mark 48s. The pressure wave struck them and tore the heavy weapons to pieces; then they disappeared into atom-sized particles. The shock wave went aft of Leviathanand to her bow. The downward wave of heated water struck her as she fought for depth, bending her at amidships and then passing, allowing her to spring back in a whiplash motion that almost broke her back.

Jack cleared the access tunnel and came out onto deck five. He immediately spied Ryan and Mendenhall with more than forty crewmen as they splashed their way toward the spiral staircase ascending to deck four. Just then the submarine became a horror ride of shaking and dipping.

Suddenly a man rolled down the staircase and landed with a thud on the deck. Carl Everett looked up at the stunned faces around him.

Everett grabbed Jack's leg and held on as the flooded companionway rocked, sending a torrent of water that went far over their heads.

"Come on, swabby, it's time to get control here before those assholes blow up a bunch of cities," Collins said, splashing toward Ryan and Will to organize the assault on Leviathan's operations center.

The giant pressure wave from the nuclear detonation–which was low in yield but multiplied a thousandfold because of the dense sea–ran toward the center of the Ross Ice Shelf. The heated water hit the underside of the shelf and actually lifted it by one and half feet. The fault line running the entire length of the world's largest sheet of thick ice separated completely. The giant walls of the crevice started crumbling, and the two halves moved–minutely at first, then picking up speed with the change in currents.

The Ross Ice Shelf started to come apart from the continent of Antarctica.

ICE PALACE

The syms realized something was wrong long before the human defenders. The attack stopped as suddenly as it started, and the syms started retreating from the walls.

"Bastards are quitting," Henri screamed in triumph, as blood poured from the open stitches at his hip. He was leaning on the boat hook for support just as the first tremor struck the area of the shelf where the ancient ice bubble had created Ice Palace.

Dr. Robbins and Niles Compton were the first to realize what must have happened. They turned and saw several of the slower-moving, older syms as large chunks of falling ice fell and crushed them. The ceiling was collapsing; they heard ice the size of small houses strike the second floor of the man-made shelter.

Suddenly everyone fell to the rubberized flooring as the shelf separated. The curious sensation of floating hit them all at the same moment–but it was Robbins who voiced it first.

"The shelf has broken away!"

"Look!" Alice said, hanging on to Senator Lee for dear life.

The bright sun was showing through the massive crack above them. It penetrated the darkness like a magical laser beam, obviously caused by the ice particles in the air. The Ross Sea heaved and crashed in toward the ancient cave, and then smashed into the carved-out buildings of Ice Palace.

A loud and deafening explosion sounded as the Ross Ice Shelf separated from the continent.

USS MISSOURI (SSN-780)

The nuclear shock wave struck the Missouriin a bow-down attitude, flipping her over onto her back and sending her crewmen wheeling and grabbing for anything they could hold on to. The lights went dead, and red emergency lighting took their place. Alarms started sounding throughout the boat as seals broke loose. Her outer torpedo doors, still in the open position after firing her spread of torpedoes, could not absorb the pressure that was slammed back into her. One inner door in the forward weapons room bent, curled, and then opened to the sea. Missouritook on ten tons of water in her forward torpedo room.

"Blow ballast, blow everything! All back full, full rise on the planes!"

"We're going to lose her, skipper!"

"Do we still have fish in the tubes?"

"Aye, but we are flooding in all the forward spaces."

"Weapons release, now!"

As the reactor on Missouriwent to full power, the crew could hear her one screw bite the water, but they all knew it might be too late–they were getting too heavy, too fast. Still, they listened to the new girl fire off her last punch.

Jefferson knew he was about to lose his command as the new Virginia class submarine slowly started heading for the bottom of the Ross Sea.

LEVIATHAN

"All sections report damage," came Alvera's voice over the loudspeaker. "All hands, USS Missouriis on her way to the bottom. Commence preparations for weapons launch in five minutes."

"Damn efficient little bitch, isn't she?" Everett said to Jack as they headed down the main companionway.

They met Ryan coming around the corner from the armory, where he had been sent two minutes before.

"Report, Mr. Ryan," Jack said.

"Too well guarded; we would have been shot to hell before we got within twenty feet. There are at least twenty of Tyler's men there. But we did manage to get ten of these," he said, holding up one of the strange automatic weapons. "All we can figure is that they were left by the cutting crew when they went to work on the hatches."

"Well, they will have to do," Collins said.

Everett handed out the automatic rifles to the oldest of the crewmen.

"What is it, Jack, a full-out frontal assault?" asked an angry Everett as he thought about those boys on the Missouri.

"Right now it looks like we have little choice. Hit them from both ends of the control companionway, and hope we don't run into Sergeant Wonderful before we get there."

Everett suddenly swung the rifle up, and all fifty-six men and women and the three children turned as one as one of the floor hatches popped up. A slim hand came out holding a thick coil of insulated wire, then Virginia popped her head through and tossed the wire onto the deck. She reached back down into the hatch, brought out a large rolled schematic, and laid it beside the wiring. Then she leaned back into the hatch, struggling with something else.

"Don't just stand there–help me. She's damn heavy!"

Several Leviathancrew ran forward, relieved Virginia of Alexandria's weight, and pulled her the rest of the way up through the hatch.

"It was a close-run thing, Colonel," Virginia said, out of breath. "Tyler and his men broke through only moments after Alex lost control of her command suite. I swear I never saw so much firepower concentrated in one small area. I'll never know how your guys can deal with crap like that–I thought we had had it."

"Her condition?" Jack asked, leaning over the captain.

"Exhausted, hemorrhaging, and her systems may be starting to shut down." Virginia held her hand on Heirthall's still features. "She did real good, Colonel."

"Try and bring her around. We have two helmsmen here. We were lucky there, but we lost the entire complement of chiefs in their staterooms. We need her awake."

"You're going to try and take the command bridge?" Virginia asked, looking from face to face.

Mendenhall and Ryan answered by slamming home magazines into their weapons.

"No other choice."

"Look, Jack, Tyler has both ends of that sealed passageway covered. You'll be fighting in a blind alley, and he has reinforcements he can call up; you don't."

"We will have to–"

"Jack, Alex had a plan. She made me strip this wiring from auxiliary control before we evacuated. I just don't know what it was."

Collins looked at the coiled wire. He tilted his head in thought.

"Shock ... electric shock–under control center."

Virginia knelt and listened, but Alexandria had blanked out once more.

Jack heard the captain, and then he knew what her makeshift plan consisted of.

"Virginia, I need you to pull off that engineering stuff you're so fond of bragging about," Jack said as he reached down and took the wiring. He then explained that she had to return to the crawlspace.

Everett, Mendenhall, and Ryan watched as Jack detailed his plan to Virginia. They all raised their brows when they heard it, but they knew it would be their only chance without losing a lot of the people. Virginia nodded and accepted the task.

"Leave the captain here with her people. They aren't trained to take on people like Tyler, plus the captain may need them if this damn thing works. Doctor, you have to rig this thing in five minutes."

Tyler waited with fifty of his men at the forward access companionway into the control center. He was angry, as he knew he had lost a chance after finally breaking through into the auxiliary control suite, only to find that Heirthall had vanished. They had emptied weapons into the crawlspace beneath the deck, but he now knew that that woman had nine lives. He surmised that attacking the control center was the only logical move for the captain. Thus far, he had to give Heirthall and that damnable Collins credit–they had thwarted him at every juncture in trying to subdue them. However, he now knew their only choice was to come through him and his men.