Leviathan

As she stood, she stumbled down the platform, caught herself, and then slowly walked to the large round viewing port. She tried in vain to smile, now realizing it had to have been Virginia and the people from the Event Group who had given their position away. She nodded her head as Leviathanstarted a run for her life. As Leviathanmaneuvered and "House of the Rising Sun" went into its dramatic climax, she slammed against the glass. Alexandria slid down into a heap; she closed her eyes and her body slumped. As she slid into unconsciousness, she thought she felt movement inside her head. Before going completely out, she wondered if she truly was insane.

Leviathanwent deep. One of the Mark 48 torpedoes had locked onto the sound of the fast-moving sub. The water became disturbed with every turn of her giant bow planes and aft rudders, until the Mark 48 snapped its thin guidewire and the giant sub banked hard to starboard. The torpedo was seeing and targeting the now-roughened edges of the bow-plane titanium shields that had been warped during the ramming.

The first and second torpedo lost contact as the great submarine dived beneath the thermal layer. They went for the bubbling and frothing canisters that were ejected from the stern of Leviathan

. However, unbeknownst to the men and women onboard the giant submarine, the last two American weapons had driven underneath a large section of one of the destroyed Chinese Akulas as it sank fast to the bottom. The first Mark 48 turned downward to the deck of Leviathan, slamming into her vertical launch tubes just aft of the conning tower. The second hit a glancing blow off her port side, then went straight down after its rebound and exploded just below the engineering compartment at the aft portion of Leviathan. The great submarine was rocked, first downward and then up, actually bending almost five degrees at her midsection.

The crew was thrown around in their seats. Water leaks sprang up in a thousand places. Her thermal-dynamic drive went offline, sending out a screeching alarm throughout the ship. The four nuclear power plants scrammed and shut down.

As her life's work shuddered around her, Alexandria's eyes fluttered open. She tried lifting herself off the carpeted deck. She failed, then tried again, finally gaining her feet. She slowly wiped blood from her lip and knew she had blood coming from her ears. She staggered to her chair and hit the intercom.

"Report, Mr. Samuels."

"We're still getting information, Captain. Power plants are offline and we have already switched to battery power. We have preliminary reports of casualties in engineering and three out of the six weapons rooms. We have a hull breach in engineering--no report as to the extent of damage. The hull has sustained damage from the strike and from our own ramming to the point we must be heard by enemy sonar. We cannot repair the bow planes or the damage to the vertical tube hatches until we can dry dock."

"Very well--get Leviathanmoving out past the Strait, then take us deep; three thousand feet will do. For now, plot us a course for Saboo. We'll use the deep thermal cline to hide our noise."

"Aye, Captain--Saboo."

Alexandria steadied herself, then decided it was time to go and see how Compton and the others were, and congratulate them on a surprise move that she would have never guessed them capable of. As she wiped the blood that streamed from her left ear off the side of her face, she knew deep down she was grateful for her, and Leviathan's, first-ever failure.

USSMISSOURI(SSN-780)

Captain Jefferson was in sonar listening on a set of headphones. He shook his head.

"I'm not sure, Captain, until I run the tapes back, but I think we hit her. The detonations were too far away for our fish to have struck any debris from the Akulas. After that we picked up a high-speed whine heading due south out of the Straights. We may not have caused that boat to sink, but we caused some kind of damage to her hull. We hurt her," the supervisor in sonar said. "The Mark forty-eights had to have picked up on some previous damage to her hull after the guidewires broke. That and the damage we caused are what we heard."

Jefferson removed his headphones, looked at First Officer Izzeringhausen, then back at the three sonar technicians. "Once the sonar recording is examined, can you find her again?"

"Unless they can dry dock whatever that thing is, yes, Captain, we can find her."

"Look, Izzy, there's been nothing for the past twenty minutes. Get to the surface and sweep for survivors. I want to get out of this valley of death as soon as we can go with a clear conscience. When we are up top, we need to call home and report this mess. And hopefully they'll send us some help."