Leviathan

Henri raised the long, polelike spear and crushed the creature's eggshell thin, clear skull. The sym collapsed and its body fanned out as the invisible muscles seemed to dissolve into themselves.

As the creature stopped moving, the gathered children standing against the farthest wall watched in horror. One of their kind was being killed in front of them.

"I've got one coming through the wall," Lee said as he raised his weapon and fired.

The next sym was using stored saltwater to burn through the three-foot-thick wall of ice. The ice started to dissolve. The head of the sym came through, the mouth opened, and it hissed at Lee just as ten bullets slammed into its head. The sym recoiled but did not back out; its small blue eyes locked onto the senator and its body started to wriggle, trying to get through the ice that was refreezing around its trapped body.

Alice dropped her weapon, picked up one of the spikes, and speared the animal, but the sym easily dodged her meager assault and started pushing through, just as other adults began dissolving the walls around the small band of defenders.

"Children, move down the stairs!" Sarah yelled just as another sym crashed through the lone unbroken window.

The tail and small feet allowed the clear body the ability to slither along the floor like a snake--and it was lightning fast. Sarah thrust at it and missed, the sym dodging the tip of the boat hook easily. Then it struck, hitting Sarah in the chest as it drove her to the ground. The creature yelled something incoherent and raised its small, sharp claws to slash Sarah's face. At just that moment, a boat hook came through the clear wall of the sym's chest. Purple, red, pink, and clear fluid shot onto Sarah's heavy coat as she rolled out from under the creature and away from the sharp tip of the hook that had missed her head by inches.

Sarah stood quickly. The smell of fish was covering her. Then she saw who had come to her aid. It was one of the children. A nine-year-old girl withdrew the dripping boat hook and then turned to assist Farbeaux as he encountered another adult.

Before Sarah could stop them, the entire group of children, half sym and half human, ran forward, grabbing anything they could use to attack their brethren coming through the walls, doors, and windows. Sarah quickly realized it was no use in trying to get the children out of harm's way, so she started organizing them the best she could.

It was a small army coming to their rescue--but more to the detriment of the defense, they were up against a determined enemy who believed their very existence was at stake.

The human element was about to be overrun.

LEVIATHAN

"All hands, detonation in five, four, three, two, one!"

The announcement went through the entire length of the ship. Even though they were expecting the hammer blow, it still caught everyone inside the giant submarine by surprise.

The nuclear-tipped torpedo detonated five hundred yards in front of the six American Mark 48s. The pressure wave struck them and tore the heavy weapons to pieces; then they disappeared into atom-sized particles. The shock wave went aft of Leviathanand to her bow. The downward wave of heated water struck her as she fought for depth, bending her at amidships and then passing, allowing her to spring back in a whiplash motion that almost broke her back.

Jack cleared the access tunnel and came out onto deck five. He immediately spied Ryan and Mendenhall with more than forty crewmen as they splashed their way toward the spiral staircase ascending to deck four. Just then the submarine became a horror ride of shaking and dipping.

Suddenly a man rolled down the staircase and landed with a thud on the deck. Carl Everett looked up at the stunned faces around him.

Everett grabbed Jack's leg and held on as the flooded companionway rocked, sending a torrent of water that went far over their heads.

"Come on, swabby, it's time to get control here before those assholes blow up a bunch of cities," Collins said, splashing toward Ryan and Will to organize the assault on Leviathan's operations center.

The giant pressure wave from the nuclear detonation--which was low in yield but multiplied a thousandfold because of the dense sea--ran toward the center of the Ross Ice Shelf. The heated water hit the underside of the shelf and actually lifted it by one and half feet. The fault line running the entire length of the world's largest sheet of thick ice separated completely. The giant walls of the crevice started crumbling, and the two halves moved--minutely at first, then picking up speed with the change in currents.

The Ross Ice Shelf started to come apart from the continent of Antarctica.

ICE PALACE

The syms realized something was wrong long before the human defenders. The attack stopped as suddenly as it started, and the syms started retreating from the walls.