Before Everett could continue, there were noises coming from the hatchway, then a sudden shower of sparks.

"I guess our time's up," Everett said.

"Okay, get the captain behind a table. Ryan, Mendenhall, get us a barricade set up, a thick one."

Everyone started moving, tipping tables and piling chairs.

"One pistol, Jack. All we're going to do is maybe hurt someone and make them mad at us," Everett said as he tossed Trevor to the floor and dumped part of the conference table in front of him.

Before anyone could react, a locked access door above the observation glass sprang open. All they saw was a man drop into the compartment and dive for cover.

The attack on the observation deck had begun, and it came from a surprising front.

Tyler was watching his security team cut through the same hatchway they had sealed an hour earlier when he was approached from behind by Alvera and three of the sym midshipmen. She watched the progress on the hatch without comment for a moment. Her startling blue eyes did not waver from the bright torch. "The crew and officers were successfully taken in their quarters?" she asked Tyler without turning to face him.

"Yes." Tyler turned to her, annoyed. "Shouldn't you go back to your station on the bridge?"

Alvera stopped watching the men cutting through the hatchway. She turned briefly to the midshipmen accompanying her. Then she turned and looked more closely at Tyler, and actually took a menacing step toward him. He tried not to show his fear of the young woman, but failed, as his eyes could not hold her intensity.

"Explain to me again, since you have seized control of the most powerful vessel in the history of your world, how you can be trusted? A man willing to kill millions of his own species is also a man capable of betraying the partners who assisted him in achieving that great power. Why should we trust you?"

"Because the only ally you'll have after the death of Captain Heirthall is me and the members of my security team. I need you, and you need me. Your kind will live, and I will have Leviathan. You'll have control of the sea, and I'll have control of the one thing that guarantees it for you."

Alvera looked more closely into Tyler's face. Her blue eyes intensified as she gazed, trying to uncover the lie that she suspected was just under the surface of his features.

Tyler swallowed, but held his ground.

"You acted too quickly. The captain still has the launch codes in her head. Without those codes, we can't act against the naval powers of the world. Thus far your judgment is not quite adequate to wield the power of Leviathan, Sergeant."

"Obviously I had to act sooner than planned because Heirthall was being entertained by the men and women she brought aboard, despite your implanted sym. She was in far more control than you ever believed, Yeoman. Act is what I did, to cover for your errors in judgment." He swallowed. "Now, I have a question for you," he said, forcing himself to continue. "Are you prepared to do what you have to do? Can you kill more than eighteen hundred loyal members of Leviathan's crew--men and women you have worked with for years? More importantly, can you do what you have to do in regard to the children? They are just as loyal to the captain as her crew."

Alvera turned her back on Tyler and paced to the elevator where the midshipmen were holding the doors for her. Before she entered, Alvera turned with a small grin. "The bulk of the crew will be dead within the hour. As for the children, they are part of the gulf colony, and mean absolutely nothing to me and the others."

"Then I ask you the same question: How can you be trusted if you can kill off an entire colony of syms, especially when there are so few of your kind to begin with?"

"Simple, Sergeant," she said, stepping into the elevator. "They are young. They would fight to save the captain. They have none of the aggressiveness of the older sym colonies. They don't yet realize we are on the short end of a losing war. We must live--not because we are allowed to, but because we have the rightto." She looked with distaste at Tyler. "We hate humankind--we despise them. Somehow, some way, we mustsecure the seas, even if we have to strike at every man, woman, and child on the planet."

Alvera stopped the doors from closing.

"I am sending you some specialhelp to ensure you take this compartment. Be sure not to get in their way. If I were you, I would let ... ushandle them.... The people inside that observation lounge are exceptional at what they do, and as long as the captain draws breath, she's dangerous." She smiled as if she had just heard the punch line to a private joke. "Be careful, Sergeant; we would hate to lose you now."

The closing elevator doors finally blocked Alvera's hate-filled eyes.

Tyler turned back to the cutting. He then turned back to the now-closed doors of the elevator.

"The only way you can do that, you little bitch, is to have Leviathando it for you." He thought, then smiled. "The only thing you mustdo is join the young syms in the fate you have planned for them."

Beneath Tyler's forced bravado, just where he could ignore it for moments at a time, was the fact that he was terrified of Alvera and her midshipmen. They were capable of anything, even eliminating him and his men from their equation.

Jack and Everett were the first to move toward the darkened threat that fell from the access hatch. Collins had the small handgun and Everett the steak knife. Ryan and Mendenhall took up station on the far side and awaited Jack's orders. They knew their job; they would be the distraction while Collins and Everett advanced on the enemy.

At the front hatchway, the cutting continued.

Collins rose above one of the upturned tables, took aim at the approximate position where the threat had landed, and waited.

"Hold your fire!" a frightened voice shouted.

Everett looked at Jack and shook his head. "That you, Doc?" he called out.

"Stand up!" Carl shouted.

As they watched, first hands and then the arms rose above one of the tables.

"Don't shoot me," Robbins said as he stood with arms raised.

Niles, the closest to Gene Robbins, quickly went over and searched him. Then the director spied a bag at Robbins's feet.

"It's not much. I took them from the captain's cabin."

"We have four nine-millimeter handguns here," Niles counted, "and four extra clips of ammunition."

Everett and Collins advanced on their new ally.

"Noble of you, Doc," Everett said as he took the bag from Robbins, who couldn't hold Everett's gaze and so just looked at the floor.

"Can we get out the same way you came in?" Collins asked.

"We'll have to find a way up from the deck above. I nearly broke both of my ankles falling from that height," Robbins said, looking from Jack to the director. "Niles, I--"

Compton turned away and faced Samuels. "Can we get up there?"

"Yes, follow me."

As Jack motioned for Carl, Mendenhall, and Ryan to follow, he tossed Farbeaux and Senator Lee each one of the handguns and two clips of ammunition.

"Blast anything that comes through that door," he said as he followed the others up the stairs.

"And what are you going to do?" Farbeaux asked, making sure there was a round chambered in the handgun.