"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.
USS MISSOURI (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."
"Take Missourito six hundred feet and take us out of the line. All-ahead flank; get us down, Izzy," Jefferson said as he held on to the navigation stanchion.
"Captain, at flank speed they'll hear us all the way to Pearl," Sonar called out over the com.
"That's what I want--let everyone know something isn't right."
Outside the hull, Missouriallowed her scimitar propeller to bite at the cold sea surrounding her, creating a water cone that echoed loudly into the earphones of every submarine in the battle line. The more experienced sub commanders on the Russian side knew immediately that the American did what he did for a reason. Three of the Russian Akulas broke line and started for deep water.
"Sonar, I need something--anything--off our bow reported. I don't care if it's two whales screwing the hell out of each other!"
"Aye."
Leviathanwas at seventy knots and closing fast. The captain had jammed her throttles too far, too fast, and created a burp in her propulsion system, a hole in the water as her jets created a cave, which was read on the Missouri'ssonar. On the hologram in front of Heirthall, the submarines rushed at them so fast that she had to reach out and take the viewer off the magnification setting.
"Now," she whispered. Her eyes closed halfway as the music blared on. She threw the control sticks for both of the massive rudders to the right and forward, automatically taking on ballast and changing the angles of the dive planes at the bow and the conning tower. The deadly plane protector, made of laser-hardened titanium, sliced the water like deadly, knifelike wings.
Leviathanheeled to the right, almost losing the captain from her command chair. Leviathanwent into such a tight turn that most modern submarines would have sheared off their planes in the fantastic stresses brought upon the hull. Soon the first line of Chinese Akulas came into view. They were in a position that was almost too perfect to believe--they had not moved one inch. They were bow-to-bow and just hovering, sitting there like three blind mice. Alexandria closed her eyes all the way and listened to the rush of water outside the glass. The music continued booming into her ears as the great submarine heeled in the opposite direction, straightening her attack angle.
Leviathanwas now at one hundred knots as she straightened for her run.
"All hands, imminent collision--I repeat, imminent collision," Samuels called over the com system, far below in the control center.
Alexandria finally opened her eyes. The massive headache was easing as the adrenalin shot through her body. Just then the dark gray silhouettes of the submarines took on a ghostly shape before her. She clenched her jaw muscles and did what had become a ritual with her: She prayed to her family for the strength she needed to do what needed to be done.
As the slicing plane protector came within feet of the first Chinese boat, her mind suddenly became clear-- Samuels was right, I could have gone deep and avoided this confrontation. Her reaction to this revelation made her very nearly throw her control sticks in the opposite direction, just as the sharklike bow plane of Leviathanstruck the sonar dome of the first sub in line.
Leviathanslammed into the sonar dome of the Chinese boat, shattering it like an eggshell and sending more than thirty-five men in their forward spaces to a gruesome death. Then, as Leviathanbarely slowed, she hit the second sub in line; it was just a glancing blow but enough to crack her hull, sending her sliding into the depths with her power plant screaming in reverse.