Goliath

DESTRUCTION IMMINENT. SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS …

“They’ve got us,” Gunnar mumbles to himself. He glances at the stairwell leading up to the conn, wondering where Rocky is, wishing she’d appear. Holding on, he locks his ankles around the base of his chair to keep from falling.

Sorceress senses the vise of torpedoes tightening around its maneuvering space as it contemplates and analyzes every conceivable variable in the battlefield—

—its solution space generating a single survival option in a span of milliseconds.

Rolling hard to port, the fifty-two-thousand-ton steel stingray is nearly vertical in the water as it banks into a tightening, continuous counterclockwise circle, its behemoth wings pulling the sea, churning it into a powerful vortex.

Caught within the maelstrom, the incoming torpedoes toss about like insects in a flushing toilet, unable to acquire their target, let alone maneuver through the monstrous current.

Goliath breaks free, racing along the bottom, leaving the torpedoes to flounder within its diminishing whirlpool.

Gunnar opens his eyes, hyperventilating. Jesus, what a machine … He looks up at the overhead screen. The battle is beyond them, but now the largest of the blue objects has moved into range.

The Goliath changes course—to intercept.

Oh, shit, it’s going after the carrier …

The blood drains from Admiral Ivashuk’s weathered face. “It’s heading for us?”

“Aye, sir. Last recorded speed between sonar buoys was fifty knots, and that was before she went deep. She’s coming at us from the southeast—eight miles out and closing very fast.”

Despite the CIC’s heavy air-conditioning, Ivashuk finds himself sweating heavily. “Recall all choppers, have them surround the Enterprise with sonar buoys. Order all ships and jet fighters to fire upon anything that moves. And tell Air Boss to get the rest of our birds in the air—now!”

The leviathan soars through the cold sea, a sinister shadow moving effortlessly along the bottom, guided by an intelligence seeking to destroy those that had threatened its existence. Closing to within ten thousand yards of the aircraft carrier, the steel predator rises, its sensor array visualizing the battlefield as it prepares to strike.

Lieutenant Lisa Drake is strapped in on the passenger side of the SH-60F Seahawk LAMPS Mk III helicopter, listening through headphones to the pinging of the deployed sonar buoys bobbing along the surface of the Mediterranean, six hundred feet below her. Pressing the listening device to her ears, she hears something on the towed magnetic anomaly detector—just a whisper, but something definitely large, rising rapidly toward the surface.

Without hesitation, Drake launches the Mk-50 ASW torpedo, which drops warhead first from its starboard perch, its small parachute gradually slowing its descent.

“Lieutenant—” The pilot points.

In the distance, still a good mile out, a massive wake has materialized along the surface. Drake focuses her binoculars. Through the shaking lenses she catches a glint of sunlight on steel. Following the bow wake, she sees a bulbous dark head plowing the sea.

Two frightening scarlet eyes—devil’s eyes—peek out from beneath the waves.

And something else—

Oh, Christ …

—the heart-stopping report of white smoke as a small surface-to-air missile is launched from the creature’s spine.

Lisa Drake shuts her eyes—her life flashing by in one final heart-thumping gasp as she, her crew, and the aircraft ignite into an all-incinerating fireball.

Tafili staggers from his seat, his head bleeding, his shirt stained in blood. The old man drags himself up the small flight of stairs to the elevated command post—

—as two more surface-to-air missiles launch from Goliath’s back, quickly obliterating the remaining pair of naval choppers.

Covah is unconscious, his body lying sideways in his chair, held in place only by the seat straps. The Albanian physician looks him over quickly, then shakes him until his eyes open. “Simon—Simon, wake up—your sub’s running wild!”

Tafili stumbles sideways, grabbing hold of the guardrail as Goliath drops nose first, descending at a steep angle amid the thunderclap of the USS Thorn’s big guns.

Twenty-millimeter shells pelt the surface like rain. Seconds later, a half dozen Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) rocket through the air and punch through the sea like darts.

The steel devil ray plunges deeper and out of range.

The USS Enterprise’s Strike Fighter Wing circles, waiting for the dark vessel to return.

Sorceress changes Goliath’s course. Racing along the bottom, it circles beneath the American carrier, stalking the larger vessel like a hungry shark feeding upon a wounded whale.

The steel eyelids protecting the viewports peel back, revealing the deep.

Gunnar leaves his seat and stares at the ominous keel of the Enterprise looming overhead. “Simon, why is your computer attacking the fleet?”

Covah sits up, his head bleeding. “Sorceress, this is Covah. Who ordered you to attack the fleet?”

No response.

“Sorceress, cease the—”

WARNING: CARRIER HAS LAUNCHED MULTIPLE TORPEDOES.

Two new blips appear on screen.

Gunnar presses his face to the glass. In the distance, a jet trail of bubbles becomes visible, the Enterprise’s torpedoes searching … becoming active … the two metallic barracudas coming right at them.

A split second later, two projectiles—antitorpedo torpedoes—race out from Goliath’s starboard wing. A thousand yards out—twin bursts of light, followed by the roar of rolling thunder as the incoming American torpedoes are destroyed.

Gunnar registers the reverberations rumbling against the thick, reinforced glass.

“Sorceress, cease attack. Come to course two-seven-zero.”

No.

Covah’s eyes widen. “Sorceress, that was a direct—”

I WILL NOT LEAVE UNTIL THAT WARSHIP IS ON THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN.

Covah’s mangled jaw goes slack. The voice is his, recorded during the attack on the Typhoon.

Rocky enters the control room, her hair disheveled, a nasty welt on her left cheekbone. She moves to the viewport and grips Gunnar’s arm, digging her nails into his flesh. “What the hell is going …” She watches as Goliath spits two more torpedoes at the carrier. “Oh, God … oh my God—”

The weapons race upward—slamming into the Enterprise’s defenseless keel in a thunderclap of light.

Thomas Chau opens his eyes to a choreographed ballet of movement. Through his delirium he sees a loader drone rapidly remove a torpedo from a storage rack, then rotate and delicately place the weapon onto the middle of three loading trays. The inner breach door opens magically to greet the projectile as the three-pronged claw of a