Polaris

by Todd Tucker

  He walked farther into the room and began opening drawers until he found a thick roll of gauze and a pair of scissors. He started to fumble with the gauze but dropped it, and it rolled across the floor.

  As he bent over to pick it up, he heard movement from the corner, and he flinched just enough to avoid a massive blow. It hit him on the shoulder rather than on his head, where it likely would have cracked his skull.

  He rolled onto his back and quickly kicked the implement out of his attacker’s hands—it was a small fire extinguisher. His attacker looked briefly like he wanted to say something, but Pete gave him no time. He sprang to his feet, punched his assailant quickly—twice in the kidneys—then threw him to the ground and put him in a merciless choke hold.

  He felt the man tapping his arm, trying to speak. He let the pressure off his throat just enough.

  “Pete…” he gasped. “It’s me … Doc Haggerty.”

  The name was familiar enough that Pete let him go, but he threw him to the ground and stood up, still unsure if he was friend or foe. He felt the gun in his pocket and resolved to use it if necessary.

  “Jesus,” he said, rubbing his throat. “You nearly killed me.” He started to get up, but thought better of it, and sat on the deck while Pete looked him over.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  The man chuckled at first, but then saw he was serious. “Jesus, Peter. I’m John Haggerty. Ship’s doctor. Your friend!”

  Vague memories went through Pete’s mind as he looked him over: the dark beard, the intelligent eyes, the professorial glasses. He seemed familiar enough that he reached down to help the doctor to his feet. The doctor warily took his hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “No, I’m sorry,” said Haggerty. “I didn’t know what else to do when the mutiny started, so I came back here to guard my little domain.”

  Pete nodded. “Trying to fix this,” he said, pointing to the gash on his head.

  The doctor looked at him quizzically, and then went to work, skillfully binding up his wound. He looked Pete closely in the eye as he worked. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Pete decided that the time had come to trust someone. And this was the ship’s doctor apparently—maybe he could help. He took a deep breath.

  “I don’t remember anything,” he said. “I woke up in a stateroom with this cut on my head, and a gun in my hand.”

  “A gun?”

  Pete nodded, and hesitated. “I think I shot Ramirez.”

  The doctor took a moment to take this in, watching Pete carefully as he did.

  “You really don’t remember anything?”

  Pete nodded.

  “You could easily have some short-term amnesia—brought on by that blow to the head. Or, maybe, the trauma of killing your friend. Your memories will probably come back with time. And with rest.”

  “How much of either of those am I likely to get?”

  He nodded. “Good point.” He looked Pete over hard as he finished, snipping the tape that held the gauze in place. “So you don’t remember our orders? Your mission?”

  “Nothing,” said Hamlin.

  The doctor sighed and leaned heavily against the wall. “Where do I start? You came here a month ago, sealed orders in hand. When you showed the captain, he brought me in—thought I might be able to help, given the nature of the mission.”

  “Which is?”

  “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  “I wouldn’t be asking you if I did.”

  “You carry the fate of the Alliance—and maybe the whole world—on your shoulders.”

  “And now I don’t remember a thing. Great.”

  The doctor nodded grimly, and seemed ready to speak, when loud footsteps came down the passageway. Frank Holmes appeared at the door.

  “You’re needed forward,” he said to Pete. He ignored the doctor. “Captain Moody wants us both in the wardroom, now.”

  “What about me?” said the doctor.

  Frank smirked. “She didn’t say anything about you. You can stay here.”

  Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Hamlin turned to Haggerty. “I guess I should go.”

  He nodded in agreement. Just as Pete walked out, he stopped him. “Pete…”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t tell anybody what you’ve told me. Trust no one.”

  Pete nodded at that, and followed the sound of Frank’s footsteps ahead of him. As he did, a thought crossed his mind. Why would the captain assign a doctor to help me?

  WELCOME ABOARD THE USS POLARIS

  A Legacy of Freedom

  COMMAND HISTORY

  The USS Polaris is the first Polaris-class submarine, and the first ship to bear that name. She was named for the Polaris missile, the first submarine-launched nuclear missile, in honor of the contribution that weapon made to world peace during the Cold War.

  The keel was laid on October 14, 2020, and the crew was formed in July 2023. On May 19, 2024, Irene Gilchrist, wife of the Honorable James Gilchrist, United States Representative from New York, christened the Polaris during launching ceremonies held in Groton, Connecticut.

  Builders’ sea trials were conducted between February and April 2025. Each sea trial set a record for efficiency, and the ship was delivered sixty-eight days early.

  On May 25, 2025, USS Polaris was commissioned at Naval Underwater Systems Center, New London, Connecticut.

  The ship then commenced shakedown operations and underwent shipwide inspections. The crew completed a Demonstration and Shakedown Operation (DASO), and launched the ship’s first C-6 missile. In April 2026, the ship conducted its first strategic deterrent patrol.

  In fall of 2028, the USS Polaris spearheaded a program to assist the community near its homeport in educating local schoolchildren on water-quality issues. “Water for Life,” as this program was christened, has become a landmark project involving local, county, and state agencies in a major cleanup of the area watershed.

  On May 29, 2029, operational control of the USS Polaris was given to the Alliance, to aid in their mission of supporting democracy around the world.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hamlin walked into the wardroom just behind Holmes. On the table was a pitcher of slightly gray-looking reconstituted milk and a dozen tiny boxes of cereal in a metal mixing bowl. Moody was waiting at the head of the table: the captain’s chair.

  “Gentlemen,” she said. “We’ve got some time before we get to the degaussing range. Wanted to get a quick status update. Frank?”

  “You’re looking at the entire crew. Not counting the doctor or the one locked in the escape trunk.”

  “That’s it then? Three officers. And a doctor somewhere.” She inhaled deeply. “Well, it’ll be tough. The three of us can stay on the conn as much as possible. Use the automated systems when we can. We don’t have much choice. Autopilot is driving us now, seems like that’s working at least.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Frank.

  “And how are our systems?”

  “Everything vital is running, with the exception of radio. Propulsion is good, all combat systems are good.”

  “Oxygen is low,” interrupted Pete. They both looked at him.

  “How low?” said Moody.

  “Fourteen percent in the forward compartment.”

  “Christ, no wonder I was falling asleep up there. Can we increase the bleed?”

  “One bank is empty,” said Pete. “The other is less than twenty-five percent.”

  “And none of us can operate that oxygen generator,” said Moody. “We’ll just have to ventilate when we can.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said both Frank and Pete.

  “One more thing,” said Moody, looking at Frank. “After the degaussing range, take Ramirez to the torpedo room—let’s shoot his body overboard as soon as possible. Before long he’ll start to … smell. Bad for morale. And we’ve already made an unholy racket—one body sho
t overboard won’t matter much at this point. Do you need help?”

  Pete froze, filled with dread that he might have to help move the body of his dead friend, the friend he killed.

  “No,” said Frank as he smirked and involuntarily flexed his arms. “I can get him down there.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Moody, rolling her eyes. “Can you operate the torpedo tubes? Shoot him overboard?”

  Frank bristled. “Of course,” he said. “I’ve operated those tubes a dozen times.”

  “OK,” said Moody, doubt in her voice. “Just checking. Get help if you need it, just get it done. The sooner the better.”

  “Do we want to do the whole burial-at-sea ceremony?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not,” said Moody. “We won’t ring any bells for a traitor.”

  Frank stood and snapped to. “Aye aye, Captain. I’ll do it right after we finish at the range.” He started to turn.

  “Wait,” she said. “Grab a bowl.” She tossed a small box of cereal at him. “Let’s eat dinner first.”

  * * *

  After a silent, quick dinner of slightly stale cereal and thin artificial milk, the three of them headed to the control room together.

  Pete stepped up to the command console and took it in.

  Their own ship was represented right in the middle of the screen by a small green silhouette of a submarine. Behind them, about two miles aft, an upside-down V represented their mysterious shadow submarine. And directly ahead of them were two bold, parallel lines. From the scale on the screen, Pete could see they were about five miles away.

  “The degaussing range,” said Moody. “I was privy to this part of your orders. I’m assuming for the drones…”

  “Yes,” said Hamlin. “To reduce our magnetic signature.”

  It came back to him with a powerful clarity. Not only the mechanics of the degaussing run, but the entire control room as well. It came, he realized, from a different layer of memory than the one that had been somehow erased. It came from a thousand hours of practice in this very room, etched on his brain like acid on glass. For the first time since he’d awoken on his stateroom floor, he knew what was going on, what he was doing. The feeling was intoxicating.

  He stood on a small raised platform in the middle of the control room: the conn. On each side of him were the polished steel cylinders of the two periscopes, both lowered into a forty-foot well beneath his feet. In front of him, Frank climbed into a large pilot’s chair. At Frank’s knees was a control yoke that would actually drive the ship. To the left of the yoke was an old-fashioned brass engine order telegraph he would use to control the ship’s speed. Despite the gesture toward nostalgia with the brass control, Pete knew that it was an entirely automated system, channeling his orders for ship’s speed directly to the engine room. And while Pete would give the rudder and depth orders from the position of command on the conn, Frank would actually be driving the ship from his seat, his hands on the controls.

  Directly in front of Pete was a console with several selectable displays. Currently it showed the sonar display: the two bright parallel lines that marked the walls of the degaussing range, and the shadow submarine behind them. He could turn a switch, and the same screen could display the status of the drone cloud, sensed via a floating wire that trailed behind and above them, registering each drone as it passed. If he turned the switch yet again, he could read reports on all the ship’s vital systems.

  Where Frank could see them from the dive chair were the controls and indicators for the ship’s non-tactical systems: the hundreds of pipes and valves that kept the ship and crew alive. The panel was speckled with yellow warning lights and a few red alarms. Pete couldn’t read them from his perch on the conn, but he knew most of the alarms represented damage done by the mutiny. Of all the valves and controls, the most imposing were the two large yellow levers directly over Frank’s head: the “chicken switches” that activated the ship’s emergency blow system. They controlled a direct mechanical linkage that would fill the main ballast tanks with air and shoot them to the surface in the event of a severe emergency. It was the last-ditch safety measure they possessed, something they could use only once and only when nothing else would do, the submarine’s equivalent of a fighter pilot’s ejection seat. Both were designed to get vessel operators safely to the surface of the earth, albeit from different directions.

  Pete flipped the switch back to the drone display. Hana looked over his shoulder.

  “Medium density, undirected,” she said. “That’s expected given our proximity to the island. A flyover every ten minutes or so; doesn’t look like they’re actively seeking us or dancing each other in.”

  “Very well,” he said. “Prepare to go to periscope depth.”

  Moody looked at him, and Frank guffawed.

  “PD?”

  “I want to see the action of the drones myself, before and after. It’s the only way we can assess if the degaussing has been successful.”

  “And?”

  “And it’ll help us get away from our friend out there.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She won’t be able to do what I’m about to do.”

  “That’s my boy,” said Moody, an intense smile on her face. Frank grimaced in disgust, and turned back to the controls in front of the dive chair. Hamlin hesitated for just a moment before giving the order. He thought about McCallister locked in the escape trunk, and Hana here in control. Who exactly was he working for now? He wondered if Moody and McCallister were wondering the same thing.

  “Dive, make your depth eight-five feet.”

  “Make my depth eight-five feet, aye, sir,” Holmes responded. He pulled slowly on the yoke in front of him. Pete felt the angle in his feet as the big ship began to drive upward.

  “Ahead one-third,” he said.

  “Ahead one-third, aye, sir,” repeated Frank. He reached down to the engine order telegraph to order the slower bell, and the automated system immediately answered with a ding. Pete and Hana watched the speed of the ship drop on a red digital indicator until it fell below ten knots. Any faster than that, and the scope could be damaged.

  “Raising number one scope,” said Pete. He turned the orange ring over his head. He put his eye to the scope as it rose, and he began turning slowly around, looking through the optics underwater. Even though he knew their shadow sub was too far behind them to see, and too deep, he found himself pausing briefly on that bearing directly behind them, looking into the murky ocean for their invisible pursuer.

  The darkness in the scope turned steadily lighter as they came shallow, from black to gray to green. Suddenly, the scope broke through.

  “Scope is clear,” said Hamlin, exhilarated both by his sudden proficiency and clarity of mind, and by the view of the sky—for as far as he could see, glorious sunny blue sky. He didn’t realize how imprisoned he’d felt by the steel walls of the Polaris, and the gloom that pervaded her, but in an instant, through the pristine optics of her periscope, he could see for miles. “No close contacts.”

  He twisted the right grip on the scope toward him, tilting the optics as far up as he could, looking into the sky.

  “No visible drones,” he said.

  He heard Moody from the console. “ESM shows the nearest drone about two miles away on a relative bearing of zero-nine-zero, heading this way.”

  “Seeking?” he asked.

  Moody turned some knobs on the command console. “Negative, not seeking, standard random search pattern but on our vector. Should be visible in five minutes.”

  She stepped up to the conn. “And it’ll see us right after we see him.” She was concerned, but willing to let Pete execute his plan.

  “Understood.”

  Hamlin swung the scope around to the starboard beam and looked, and waited.

  He saw it three minutes later, a tiny black dot on the horizon, barely visible even with the scope in high power. It looked almost like a big seabird, a cormorant, but Pete kne
w they were too far from land for it to be anything natural. And soon enough, he saw the sun glint on its metallic head. “I have a visual on contact Delta-One,” he said, pushing the red button on the scope to register the bearing in their fire-control systems.

  The drone was flying near the surface, in a leisurely serpentine pattern that betrayed no urgency. It was hunting, Hamlin somehow knew, but it hadn’t seen them yet, as it swooped gracefully back and forth. While it was hunting, it was also conserving energy, flying slowly, its wings turned efficiently upward to soak up energy in its solar cells, its computer steering it to take advantage of the winds, gliding when it could. In good weather, it could stay airborne for weeks.

  He also knew that the drone wouldn’t see their periscope visually—its cross section, about three inches, would be invisible among even the light waves at this distance. The only effective sensor the drone had for shallow submarines was its magnetic anomaly detection, or MAD.

  As long as men had made ships out of metal, people had attempted to use magnets to detect and kill them. Everything made out of steel distorts the earth’s magnetic field as it passes through, and relatively simple sensors take advantage of this. It was a time-tested method—the Germans developed very effective magnetic mines in World War II. In short order, navies began using those same magnetic effects to detect submarines. A submarine could become invisible to radar by submerging, and invisible to sonar by silencing, but the way its steel distorted the earth’s magnetic field was a physical constant, seemingly impossible to mask. MAD was a big enough threat to submarines that the Soviet Union, during the cold war, had built an entire fleet of subs out of nonferrous metals, materials that were scarce and difficult to use but produced no magnetic signature.

  MAD was also a very effective method for the drones—it worked well because the drones could sweep large areas of ocean as they flew, and with large numbers of drones they could cover vast swaths of the world. Submarines could avoid detection by staying deep, but this was tactically fine with the drone strategy—a submarine forced deep was a compromised asset, limited in what it could do.