Leviathan: An Event Group Thriller

by David L. Golemon

  “Possibly the same water-release noise picked up in the Bering Strait. Leviathan may be moving out from under the shelf, Captain.”

  Jefferson thought a moment. His boat was as ready as it could be. All hands were at battle stations-torpedo, and Missouri was as quiet as they could make her.

  “Keep tracking her and calling out the position of the target,” he said, then hung up.

  “What are you thinking, Captain?” Izzeringhausen asked.

  The captain continued to study the chart. “We do nothing but sit and let that big bitch come to us.” He tapped the chart of the Ross Ice Shelf. “The shortest distance to the sea is the way they came in—to the north—and that’s exactly where we’ll be waiting, Izzy.”

  “Good plan.”

  “Hell, it’s the only plan. Send an ELF message to National Command Authority.”

  Izzeringhausen removed a pen from his coverall and waited for his captain to speak.

  “Inform the president: Missouri is preparing to engage Leviathan.”

  LEVIATHAN

  Everett and Virginia were frantically looking for the command bypass on the main auxiliary control panel. Alexandria was sitting in her chair in the control suite and trying to explain to Everett what he was looking for just as they both heard Leviathan sound her diving alarm. A few moments later, she felt her stomach leap as the giant ship slipped beneath the surface.

  “Leviathan is starting to make a run for the sea,” she said. The only good news thus far was that Tyler’s men hadn’t discovered them in the auxiliary control suite—yet.

  Everett let out a whoop when he finally found what he was looking for. He quickly threw a switch, and the holographic controls lit up, coming to life with a myriad of colors.

  For the first time in weeks, a true and meaningful smile crossed the red lips of Alexandria Heirthall.

  She now had access to her element—the brain of Leviathan.

  Heirthall smiled at Virginia as she once more took her place in the elevated command chair and turned on the holographic controls for her personal hologram. It failed to illuminate.

  “They have cut power to my command hologram, but I will still give Tyler and Alvera the ride of their lives,” she said as she reached into a compartment on the side of the command chair and removed a small case. “Captain, get to control and assist Colonel Collins. Kill Tyler and Alvera, and anyone else you can. Without Tyler and the yeoman, the rest won’t launch. I’ll do my best to keep Leviathan under the ice.”

  Everett started to turn when Alexandria stopped him, taking his arm. It seemed the captain had regained some of her strength and determination.

  “I will sink her … if I have to.”

  “Understood.”

  Everett left the control suite. If he had lingered, he would have beheld a new Heirthall.

  Alexandria Heirthall had chosen a side—her human side. Virginia smiled at her friend, then strapped herself into her seat.

  ICE PALACE

  “There have to be more weapons and good cover here someplace,” Niles said as the last of the children filed into the large ice building.

  Henri Farbeaux turned away from the large group and limped across the composite floor. For the moment he was just grateful for the warmth of the carved-out interior, but he knew their time was short. All the syms had come out of the water.

  “Here they come,” Sarah said, looking out of one of the shuttered wooden windows embedded in its ice frame.

  Farbeaux went to the first room in the great building of rooms. He opened the door and found a comfortable meeting area, complete with long mahogany table and Queen Anne chairs. He shook his head and closed the door. He went to the next and opened it. It was a supply room—no firearms, only ice spikes, spearlike devices. The rest were ropes, ladders, boots for ice walking, and other cold-weather gear. Lined along the far wall were self-inflating, Zodiac-style rubber boats—only these were of a size Farbeaux had never before seen. They could easily seat one hundred and fifty adults. He also knew that they would do them no good one mile down in the Ross Ice Shelf. Farbeaux grabbed ten of the long, spiked poles and left the room.

  “These are all we have,” he said, handing them out to Niles, Sarah, Alice, Robbins, and Lee. “They may stop them better than bullets. I will check the last room. When I return, the senator, Dr. Compton, Dr. Robbins, and I will stand our ground at the front of the building. Young Sarah, you and Mrs. Hamilton will take charge of the children. I do not expect mercy from these creatures—do you understand?”

  Everyone nodded. Henri turned and walked as quickly as his wound would allow to the back of the large building. He found the last door and saw a small staircase that went down into the ice. The composite material, resembling rubber, was scarce, unlike the rest of the building. He started down, hoping it might be an armory. When he reached the bottom, he stopped suddenly. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at.

  “My compliments, Captain Heirthall and Roderick Deveroux,” he whispered.

  At the lowest level of the building, in a special vaultlike room that was sealed against the harsh environment and lined in rubber for protection against the sea, was the Heirthall treasure—at least a thousand tons of gold, silver, and crates of jewels, a few of which were broken open and spilling their contents across the ice floor. Golden weapons; Saracen swords; golden shields from the time of Christ, and suits of armor from the Crusades. As he studied the room’s design, he knew it would possibly be an area capable of a last stand against the enemy lurking outside.

  Farbeaux shook his head at the discovery of the treasure—wondering what its true value would be, not only in terms of what it would bring on the open market, but in the prestige of owning some of the artifacts arrayed on the shelves. Henri looked upon the richest treasure in the history of the world and smiled.

  “Colonel, here they come!” Sarah shouted.

  “Ah, nothing is ever easy,” Farbeaux said, turning away from the find of a lifetime, and he made his way back up the carved staircase. “How many, little Sarah?”

  “Uh, all of them, I think.”

  When he looked through the open doorway on the main level, the first awful scream of a sym sounded. Niles Compton scored the first blow for the defense by jabbing the long, spearlike pole into the right eye of the first creature that came at them.

  “Yes, nothing is ever easy,” he repeated as he came forward, spike at the ready.

  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 Leviathan to slow, or at the very least announce to whomever was listening that Leviathan was 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’s depth 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 Missouri was there—somewhere.

  “Ginny, if I pass out or die on you, take the right plane control and pull back to its stops. Ram Leviathan into 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 fr
om the command bridge. Her brainchild was once again hers.

  Leviathan responded.

  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 Leviathan suddenly 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’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!”

  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—”

  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.

  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 Leviathan and 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.