to provide graduates who are dedicated to a career of naval service and have potential for future development in mind and character to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government."
Captain Tom Stokes hit the mute button on the remote control and the TV went silent. The video was a recruiting pitch from the Naval Academy. On the screen, a panoramic view of the Naval Academy at Annapolis was displayed. Seeing the granite buildings, Stokes felt the familiar ache in the pit of his stomach. Part ingrained fear, part pride, part amazement even after all these years.
Stokes had been assigned as an instructor to the Academy up until six months ago when he’d received his new orders bringing him to this small room, the Captain’s quarters on board the Navy’s most modern submarine, the USS Connecticut . It wasn’t because of that recent assignment, though, that had caused him to pull the video out of his desk, but rather the report that lay open on his desk—the findings of a board that had been commissioned to examined the loss of the USS Seawolf , the Connecticut’s sister ship, and the first Seawolf class submarine commissioned.
The Seawolf class was the Navy’s most expensive and deadly submarine, the end result of over a billion dollars in research and development before the keel of the first boat was laid down. As an attack submarine, a Seawolf class ship had one primary mission: kill other submarines.
The Seawolf had indeed destroyed another submarine, but been destroyed in the process. It had been lost in the Bermuda Triangle gate stopping the captured USS Wyoming from launching the remainder of its missiles. The Wyoming’s first MIRV missile had destroyed Iceland and the Seawolf had barely stopped a second launching, which would have split the meeting of the tectonic plates in the center of the Atlantic and devastated America’s eastern seaboard and Europe’s western coast.
It appeared from the report, that the captain of the Seawolf had accomplished this mission in a most drastic way—by detonating one of his sub’s own nuclear weapons while it was less than three miles from the Wyoming , destroying both subs in the process.
The report noted that it had been a rather extreme command decision by the Seawolf’s captain, Joe McCallum, but surmised it had been his only choice given the lack of time and the strange effects of the gates on electro-magnetic systems, which had most likely negated using most of the Seawolf’s weapons in their normal mode against the Wyoming .
Costing over two billion dollars to build, a Seawolf attack submarine incorporated every advance in underwater warfare ever developed. It had Mark-48 torpedoes, along with Tomahawk cruise missiles. And it packed that punch in a surprisingly small size, bucking the recent trend of making submarines larger. At 353 feet long, the Seawolf was not much longer than the first US Navy sub given that name during World War II. However, its forty-foot beam was almost twice the diameter of those earlier vessels.
The rear two-thirds of the submarine were taken up with the nuclear power plant, engine room and environmental control systems. Stokes’ cabin and the rest of the living and working areas were in the forward third. Stokes commanded thirteen other officers and one hundred and twenty enlisted men.
At the present moment, the Connecticut was five miles due east of the Devil’s Sea gate, so the report on the Seawolf encounter near the Bermuda Triangle gate held great interest for Stokes. More importantly, on a personal note, though, was the fact that the commander of the Seawolf , Captain McCallum, had been a classmate of Stokes at the Academy. His eyes went back up to the view of the Academy. The camera was panning by the chapel and he could visualize McCallum’s wedding, two days after they had graduated twenty-one years ago. Stokes had been best man and McCallum had returned the favor on the next day.
Over the
Captain Tom Stokes hit the mute button on the remote control and the TV went silent. The video was a recruiting pitch from the Naval Academy. On the screen, a panoramic view of the Naval Academy at Annapolis was displayed. Seeing the granite buildings, Stokes felt the familiar ache in the pit of his stomach. Part ingrained fear, part pride, part amazement even after all these years.
Stokes had been assigned as an instructor to the Academy up until six months ago when he’d received his new orders bringing him to this small room, the Captain’s quarters on board the Navy’s most modern submarine, the USS Connecticut . It wasn’t because of that recent assignment, though, that had caused him to pull the video out of his desk, but rather the report that lay open on his desk—the findings of a board that had been commissioned to examined the loss of the USS Seawolf , the Connecticut’s sister ship, and the first Seawolf class submarine commissioned.
The Seawolf class was the Navy’s most expensive and deadly submarine, the end result of over a billion dollars in research and development before the keel of the first boat was laid down. As an attack submarine, a Seawolf class ship had one primary mission: kill other submarines.
The Seawolf had indeed destroyed another submarine, but been destroyed in the process. It had been lost in the Bermuda Triangle gate stopping the captured USS Wyoming from launching the remainder of its missiles. The Wyoming’s first MIRV missile had destroyed Iceland and the Seawolf had barely stopped a second launching, which would have split the meeting of the tectonic plates in the center of the Atlantic and devastated America’s eastern seaboard and Europe’s western coast.
It appeared from the report, that the captain of the Seawolf had accomplished this mission in a most drastic way—by detonating one of his sub’s own nuclear weapons while it was less than three miles from the Wyoming , destroying both subs in the process.
The report noted that it had been a rather extreme command decision by the Seawolf’s captain, Joe McCallum, but surmised it had been his only choice given the lack of time and the strange effects of the gates on electro-magnetic systems, which had most likely negated using most of the Seawolf’s weapons in their normal mode against the Wyoming .
Costing over two billion dollars to build, a Seawolf attack submarine incorporated every advance in underwater warfare ever developed. It had Mark-48 torpedoes, along with Tomahawk cruise missiles. And it packed that punch in a surprisingly small size, bucking the recent trend of making submarines larger. At 353 feet long, the Seawolf was not much longer than the first US Navy sub given that name during World War II. However, its forty-foot beam was almost twice the diameter of those earlier vessels.
The rear two-thirds of the submarine were taken up with the nuclear power plant, engine room and environmental control systems. Stokes’ cabin and the rest of the living and working areas were in the forward third. Stokes commanded thirteen other officers and one hundred and twenty enlisted men.
At the present moment, the Connecticut was five miles due east of the Devil’s Sea gate, so the report on the Seawolf encounter near the Bermuda Triangle gate held great interest for Stokes. More importantly, on a personal note, though, was the fact that the commander of the Seawolf , Captain McCallum, had been a classmate of Stokes at the Academy. His eyes went back up to the view of the Academy. The camera was panning by the chapel and he could visualize McCallum’s wedding, two days after they had graduated twenty-one years ago. Stokes had been best man and McCallum had returned the favor on the next day.
Over the
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