by Todd Tucker
Pete shrugged. “Not sure it matters. We’ll make sure there’s nothing left of value here. For either side.”
Finn turned a switch, and the little boat’s diesels roared to life. Pete could feel the power in the rumbling in his feet. Two plumes of black exhaust shot from the stacks as Finn gunned the engines slightly, and ably pulled the boat out to sea.
As they exited the pen, the bright sun almost blinded them.
“At this point in my career, I never thought I’d command a surface ship!” yelled Finn. Pete was hauling in the lines.
“Think about this,” said Pete as he worked. “You’re probably commanding the largest surface ship in this ocean.”
“I might make admiral after all,” said Finn.
He revved the engines slowly and pulled away to the leeward side of the island, the side that went hard against the control tower, right by the bluff where Carlson and her men had died. Finn cut the engines, and Pete made his way to the aft deck. The grenade launcher was waiting for him.
“Close enough?” shouted Finn from the bridge.
“Should be,” said Pete.
The deck undulated slightly in the calm water, something Pete hadn’t practiced for. He lifted the launcher to his shoulder, aimed it at the tower, and waited too long to shoot. The grenade went wide. It exploded impotently on the ground with a spray of gravel.
“Nice shot,” said Finn.
“That doesn’t help,” said Pete. He raised the grenade launcher again, and exhaled deeply.
He pulled the trigger again, and the grenade arced gracefully into the air. It went right through the middle of one of the broken windows; they could actually hear it land with a thump on the carpeted floor. There was a pause—then an explosion. Glass and smoke shot out of all four sides of the tower, followed by orange flames and black smoke as the diesel fuel ignited.
“Well done!” said the captain.
“Let’s do one more,” said Pete, breaking down the launcher and reloading it. “Make sure there’s nothing left in there.”
* * *
When they were done destroying the tower and all traces of what had happened inside, Finn gunned the engines and swung the bow toward open ocean. They surged forward and starting cutting through the waves instead of riding on top of them. Pete leaned against the aft railing as the boat accelerated. Behind them, Eris Island shrank into the distance. A dolphin jumped exuberantly in their wake. For the first time since he’d awoken on the Polaris with his memory erased, Pete smiled.
A FEW NOTES ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
One of the nice things about setting a book in the future is that any outlandish technology can be excused as artistic speculation. I’ve written two submarine novels set in (more or less) the present, and I can assure you that submariners, while a generous and enthusiastic group of readers, do hold me responsible for the smallest technical inaccuracies. So I welcomed the idea of writing a book set in the future, because it seemed to offer me unlimited ability to make technology do what I wanted it to do. That being said, I tried to ground this book’s technology in reality wherever possible. The age we live in offers many technological marvels, many of which require no embellishment by an author to make them soar.
For example: the Robobird. This anti-seagull weapon exists, a wing-flapping replica of a hawk (the company also makes an eagle) used to scare away seagulls and other offensive birds. There are several videos available on the company’s website, clearflightsolutions.com.
The big drones in the book required a little more embellishment than the Robobird, although we are clearly now living in the age of drone warfare, and advances in capabilities and tactics are hard to keep up with. The leap to make the drones purely autonomous, rather than directed by a “pilot” on the ground, doesn’t seem like it would require much of a technical leap, but rather one of doctrine. Many of us are squeamish about the killing done on our behalf by drones now; taking humans out of that decision is still some time away. But for some of the mere physical specifications of the drones, the actual dimensions of the thing, I borrowed from the ScanEagle, a drone made in a joint operation between Boeing and Insitu. The ScanEagle has been flying for the US military since 2005, and just like the imaginary drones in this book, it has a wingspan of 10 feet and a length of 5 feet. It weighs just about 40 pounds, and can carry a payload of up to 7.5 pounds. It can soar up to 19,500 feet at speeds up to 80 knots. So while my drones certainly are the product of my imagination, they aren’t too far off from a drone that has been flying over the world’s trouble spots for a decade. More details can be found at http://www.insitu.com/systems/scaneagle.
Degaussing, the process of reducing a submarine’s (or a surface ship’s) magnetic signature, is a very real thing. I have been through it myself while serving onboard the USS Alabama, a Trident submarine. The degaussing range I went through, however, was very much above the surface of the water. And the Soviets really did build a fleet of titanium submarines to avoid this problem.
Submarines really do manufacture their own oxygen, and their own water, from the sea that surrounds them. Ocean water is boiled and the vapor collected to desalinate it. And in the oxygen generators, high-voltage electricity is used to pry the H2O molecules apart, giving the crew its oxygen. When I reported to my submarine, these processes, along with nuclear power, seemed to me to be the most magical, the most Nemo-esque part of submarine engineering, and they still do. Which is probably why I find a way to work them into every book.
Escape trunks are very real. There are three of them on a Trident submarine, and Trident sailors spend a day or so learning how to operate them. They then spend the rest of their sea tours learning how to prevent accidents and fight casualties that might ever require such an escape. This training has a sense of urgency because no one expects the escape trunks to really work—the depths that modern submarines operate in are simply too great for this kind of egress. I once heard a chief say there was a secret procedure somewhere for using the escape trunk as a jail cell—submarines have no brig. I never saw the procedure myself, but if we had ever needed to lock someone up, this probably would have worked as well as anything.
There really is a surface-to-air missile designed for submarines to use against their nemesis, the helicopter. It is made by a German company, Diehl Defense, and was originally designed to work aboard the German Type 212 submarine. It doesn’t appear to actually be deployed aboard any operational submarines, but videos are available on the company’s website. The MOSS is real, too. The acronym stands for “Mobile Submarine Simulator.”
The Dyce Laboratory for Honeybee Studies at Cornell is very real, and looks much like I’ve described it here. And while it may sound like one of the most far-fetched things in the book, the “waggle dance” is also real, and is an amazing, wondrous method of communication between bees that scientists are still deciphering.
Eris Island is, alas, entirely imaginary.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks as always to my most dedicated editors: my parents, Ken and Laura Tucker.
Also thanks to Pete Wolverton, editor of my first novel, who remembered me and sent this project my way.
Finally, thank you to Brendan Deneen, a great editor and a great storyteller himself. This was the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book—let’s do it again soon.
ALSO BY TODD TUCKER
Zulu Five Oscar
Collapse Depth
Ghost Sub
Over and Under
Shooting a Mammoth
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TODD TUCKER attended the University of Notre Dame on a full scholarship, graduating with a degree in history in 1990. He then volunteered for the U.S. Navy’s demanding nuclear power program, eventually making six patrols on board a Trident submarine. In 1995, Tucker left the navy to return with his family to Indiana to pursue a career in writing. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Book One
Welcome Aboard the USS Polaris
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Welcome Aboard the USS Polaris
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Welcome Aboard the USS Polaris
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Welcome Aboard the USS Polaris
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Welcome Aboard the USS Polaris
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Book Two: Three Years Earlier
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
A Few Notes About Technology
Acknowledgments
Also by Todd Tucker
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
POLARIS. Copyright © 2016 by St. Martin’s Press, LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Based on a concept by Todd Tucker and Jay Piscopo.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by James Iawbelli
Cover photographs: submarine © Getty Images; graphic elements © Shutterstock
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-06978-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-7842-6 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466878426
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: June 2016