USS MISSOURI (SSN-780)

The nuclear shock wave struck the Missouri in a bow-down attitude, flipping her over onto her back and sending her crewmen wheeling and grabbing for anything they could hold on to. The lights went dead, and red emergency lighting took their place. Alarms started sounding throughout the boat as seals broke loose. Her outer torpedo doors, still in the open position after firing her spread of torpedoes, could not absorb the pressure that was slammed back into her. One inner door in the forward weapons room bent, curled, and then opened to the sea. Missouri took on ten tons of water in her forward torpedo room.

“Blow ballast, blow everything! All back full, full rise on the planes!”

“We’re going to lose her, skipper!”

“Do we still have fish in the tubes?”

“Aye, but we are flooding in all the forward spaces.”

“Weapons release, now!”

As the reactor on Missouri went to full power, the crew could hear her one screw bite the water, but they all knew it might be too late—they were getting too heavy, too fast. Still, they listened to the new girl fire off her last punch.

Jefferson knew he was about to lose his command as the new Virginia class submarine slowly started heading for the bottom of the Ross Sea.