Leviathan

"Izzy, back us out of line, dead slow and silent as a field mouse, before we have an accident out here. Bring us to a far-right position of the battle line."

Alexandria Heirthall watched on the smaller holographic screen in front of her as the Missouristarted to back away from the battle line. The computer-enhanced image from nine miles away was crystal clear, and just as confusing.

"Captain, we have aspect change on the American boat," Samuels called from the control center.

Heirthall was wondering if the Virginia class boat had possibly heard something that dictated it move out of line. She studied the picture provided by the lasers that struck each boat in the line, and enhanced it into the shape of the actual submarines. The Russian and Chinese Akulas were keeping their stations--it was only Missourimoving away. Then she smiled as her blazing blue eyes caught the reason why. The Chinese boat to her left and the Russian to her right were drifting in the swift current of the opening to the Bering Strait. She struck her intercom.

"We'll keep the attack profile. Give me a weapons status report, Commander."

"Forward tubes one through twenty are loaded with standard Mark seventy conventional warheads, Captain. Vertical tubes are empty. We are ready to fire at your command. Captain, can you pick up the phone line please?" Samuels asked.

Heirthall didn't respond. She only watched the simulation before her as the first drops of sweat appeared on her forehead and her temples. The tone in Commander Samuels's voice told her the first officer was in disagreement with her actions. As she felt the first pain-relieving effects of the Demerol she had taken, her pupils started to expand. She shook her head, confused by the doubt about her actions that had started to creep into her thought process. She closed her eyes, then reached for the phone at the side of the large command chair.

"Yes, Commander?"

"Captain, may I recommend two courses of action? We can speed by the attacking force before they even know we are here, or we can simply use our stealth and drift by."

As if to counter the medication, a sudden pain shot from the base of her neck and deep into her brain. She winced and then slowly recovered.

She lowered her chin as she examined the submarines on the screen. She imagined them to be nothing more than steel and machinery. There were no men on their decks, only computers and weapons. She closed her eyes and shut out the imaginary beat of more than nine hundred hearts. There were no eyes that watched the waterfall displays of their sonar stations, and there weren't men and boys planning Leviathan'sdeath-- only machines.

"James, have the crew stand by for extreme maneuvering, and order damage-control parties standing by in all departments." Alexandria once more sat in her chair. "Keep feeding the torpedo tubes coordinates on the enemy vessels, but for now, we don't need them." The pain was fighting off the attack of the medication.

"Captain, this is not necessary. Leviathancan slip by without those subs knowing we were ever here! We can run rings around them, even outrun their torpedoes--"

"James, do I have to relieve you?"

"Aye, Captain. Attack stations--collision."

With that, the captain of Leviathanstarted the great ship forward and went to full ramming speed.

As the thermal-dynamic drive on Leviathanwent to flank speed, the music inside the captain's observation suite grew to a crescendo. Her eyes were wide and bright as she leaned forward in her chair, her knuckles once more growing white on the armrest controls. What she was doing was fundamentally wrong, and somewhere in her conscious mind, she was fully aware of it. This was not her--but then again, just under the surface of her wakeful mind, she knew it was.

As she focused on the first submarine in line, her doubts faded and her determination became solid.

Alexandria didn't know that because of the pain and medication working against one another, and her haste to attack, she had made one critical error.

USSMISSOURI(SSN-780)

"All stop, chief of the boat. Watch her drift, use the momentum, and let's get her bow angled for a hundred-meter drop in depth, and--"

"Conn--sonar. We have a disturbance eight miles to the north and--it's gone now, Captain, but it was there. It sounded like an electrostatic crackling."

Jefferson was about to respond to the sonar room when he thought of what his brief on this mission had said: "Any unusual oceanic disturbance could mean the unseen enemy is close aboard."

"Sonar, is there any reaction from our Russian or Chinese friends?"

"Nothing, Captain, they are still at station keeping."

"Izzy, bring us to general quarters. Spool up tubes one through four--standard war shot."

"Aye, chief of the boat, sound general quarters. Weapons--report on tubes one through four."