Leviathan

"Aye, Captain--twenty-three miles due south of the Ross Sea, heading straight for the ice shelf on a heading for White Island. Depth, over three and a half miles."

"We follow, Skipper?"

"Yes, we follow. Get in there as close as we can and hope the damn ice shelf stays intact."

Jefferson was referring to the massive shearing of thirty-three miles of ice that had recently torn free from the world's largest ice pack.

"Take us to five hundred feet and bring us up to twenty-two knots. Order the relief shift for sonar, and get the department supervisors up here. We need the best people at their stations."

"Aye, Captain. I estimate at our revised speed and depth we should arrive at the shelf in three hours."

"Ten miles out I want to slow to five knots, and we'll go to total silence from there--no unnecessary movement."

"Aye, Captain."

"Somewhere out there is the world's largest shark, and I don't want to get bitten again."

LEVIATHAN

Five decks below the control center were the crew's quarters. Just fewer than eighteen hundred off-duty men and women were enclosed in four different berthing areas. The officer's quarters were dispersed alongside the larger compartments according to specific division. The symbiant attack started at the larger crew quarters.

"Hey, what's that smell?" one of the bosun mates called out from his bunk. "Smells like someone is welding something."

Another man who was playing cards with several others looked around and thought the same thing. Then another became concerned.

Suddenly three flood valves opened to the sea, and freezing water started flowing through and into the compartment. Not one of the crew in the first compartment panicked, but several did run to one of the three hatches located in the compartment. They spun the wheel so they could get free and then isolate the flooding--but the wheel was frozen.

"What the hell!" someone called.

The water was at one foot and rising.

Outside the hatch, the three midshipmen rolled up the electrical line for the portable arc welder and then looked down upon their work, satisfied. The spot welds along the frame and on the turning wheel would make sure that every man and woman in the compartment would drown within an hour. The three had finished at the exact same moment as the other welding crews, who had just accomplished the same task on the remaining crew compartments and officers' quarters.

Leviathan'screw had been taken in less than five minutes from the time Yeoman Alvera ordered the attack to commence.

Lieutenant Kogersborg was just finishing his change-of-watch paperwork when the flooding alarm sounded. The constant electronic buzz filled the command center as the watch crew monitored their holographic stations.

"We have flooding on deck five, crews' quarters. All four compartments, and officers' cabins as well!" the damage control officer called out.

Kogersborg looked on in amazement, then reacted.

"That is ridiculous, we didn't hit anything--it has to be a computer malfunction."

"Diagnostics check out; that deck is flooding."

"Jesus," the young lieutenant said as he moved quickly from the navigation console to the damage-control station. He knew the flooding was real when Leviathanwent into automatic damage control, as ordered by her computers, counterflooding to keep the submarine trimmed as they rose toward the Ross Ice Shelf.

When he saw the hologram depicting the flooding in sixteen cabins and the four large crew compartments, he came close to panicking. The second thing he saw was the computer-generated numbers of personnel estimates for the occupied areas.

"Oh my God, ninety-eight percent of the crew is on that deck!"

"Why aren't they getting out?" one technician asked.

"The computers are not counterflooding, and the pumps have not started," the damage control officer said.

"Sound general quarters--call the captain and Commander Samuels to the conn. Manually start the pumps on deck five, now!"

"The situation is under control, Lieutenant," Tyler said from the circular stairwell leading down from the observation platform above control. The sergeant was armed, as were his men coming at the control center from the fore and aft compartments.

Kogersborg without hesitation knew his duty. He jumped for the general alarm. His hand was only inches away when Tyler deftly shot him three times in the back. The boy slowly hit the captain's pedestal and slid to the deck. The rest of the control room crew started to move to action when several more shots rang out; then the din of automatic fire filled the air. When silence came once more, thirty-five men and women of the control room watch were dead.

"Damn it!" Tyler hissed as he stepped down from the last rung of the staircase. "Call the trainees to the control center to take over the watch, and get these bodies out of here."

One of his men was leaning over two of the helmsmen.

"Sergeant, these two are still alive. Should we call the--"