Leviathan

"You won't. I don't need to make threats against your people, that's the stuff of television. We are under orders to act accordingly. So if you will follow us"--he pulled up his sleeve and looked at his wristwatch--"we will depart."

Sarah was riding the elevator down to the personal quarter's area on level eight when the elevator lurched, and then continued on to her selected floor. She didn't like it when there was anything out of the ordinary about the elevators. She knew they rode in a tube and were raised and lowered on a cushion of air.

Finally, the indicator said she had arrived on level eight and the doors slowly slid open. Then the power failed. The elevator again lurched. Sarah wondered why Europa didn't compensate for the loss of pumped air; she decided not to take a chance and dove from the car just as it hissed and then was sent crashing down into the complex. Sarah rolled over her sling, crying out as she hurt her damaged shoulder. That was when she hit someone standing in the hallway. The dark figure looked down, quite surprised when he saw a woman at his feet. He maneuvered his weapon just as it crossed Sarah's mind as to what kind of screwed-up security drill Carl was running, but she was in too much pain to think, only react. Then she saw the weapon in the man's hands point down toward her prone body.

Taken with the default of the elevator, she realized instantly that this was no security drill. She pivoted on her hip and kicked out with her right leg, hitting the man right at both ankles. His legs were knocked out from under him and his weapon discharged, creating bright flashes in the darkened hallway. The bullets thumped into the plastic wall as the man struck the carpeting. Sarah, still on her back, quickly raised her left foot and brought it down into the man's face, her heel striking precisely where she had aimed it: the nose. The man grunted in pain, then lay still.

She heard a shuffling coming down the hallway and knew immediately the downed man hadn't been alone. Sarah was blind and on her back. She quickly felt around for the man's fallen weapon and finally hit upon it as ten silenced rounds thumped into the wall and carpeting around her, with one actually striking the cast on her arm, breaking it apart in large chunks.

"Bastard!" she mumbled as she quickly raised the strange weapon. She prayed it wasn't on safebecause in the dark she would never find the selector switch on a weapon she knew nothing about. She squeezed the trigger. The weapon erupted with fire and a loud clacking noise as the silencer did its job. Bullets struck the wall, floor, and ceiling, and then in the flare of the muzzle, she saw bullets stitch a crooked pattern on a man no more than six feet from her, with a bullet finally striking him in an unprotected spot just above his body armor.

Sarah was shaking badly as she tore the night-vision scope from the face of the man under her. That was when she noticed his companion's bullets had struck him several times in the side. She quickly held the scope to her eyes and looked around frantically. She tried desperately to control her breathing, thinking that anyone in a hundred-foot radius could hear her terror.

"What kind of screwed-up homecoming is this?" she whispered to herself, hoping her sour humor would allow her to inject more bravery into a terrifying situation.

Sarah picked herself up and then quickly felt her arm. She realized she hadn't hurt it any more than it had been; it was sore, but at least she could move it. She hefted the heavy weapon and made for the stairwell beside her, knowing she had to get to either level seven or at the very least the computer center where she knew Pete Golding and his techs were always working.

For the first time in over a month, Sarah wasn't thinking about the loss of Jack Collins.

Senator Garrison Lee was in his element. He sat with his longtime live-in companion in the cafeteria and went through each file that he himself had okayed in the years leading up to deprioritizing the items in the vaults on levels seventy-three and seventy-four.

"That's it, Garrison, we've covered all six hundred and seventy-two vaults. What do you think?"

"I think I want some of that coffee, old girl, if you would be so kind."

Alice shook her head and stood, tired herself. She decided she would have tea just to offset the mood that the caffeine would put the senator in.

Garrison looked at one file he had placed on the left side of the table, separating it from the others.

"Why that one?" Alice asked. She placed the cup of coffee on the table and sipped her own tea just as the lights in the cafeteria failed. The bright emergency lights came on, and Lee continued.

"Because, woman," Lee said, also looking around him at the emergency lighting, "it's the only vault that would make any sense. I'm surprised you didn't pull this file immediately after learning the facts of the attacks at sea. I think you're slowing down some."