Phoenix Sub Zero

He struggled to his feet and walked back to the maneuvering room, reached to the reactor-control panel and snapped rotary switches lining up the system for a restart, then latched the rods with the rod drive-control lever, the central feature of the horizontal section of the console. The rods were soon latched and connected back to their drive motors. Time to start the monster up. Mcdonne rotated the pistol grip of the rod controller to the rods-out position and waited. It would take five minutes of rod pulling before there was enough reactivity in the core to warm the cooling water. Now what they needed was a healthy steam plant with working turbines, and Phoenix would be on her way … alexandria, virginia Admiral Richard Donchez walked the last block to his house, the snow freezing his eyebrows solid, ice caking on the towel around his neck. His breath made vapor clouds around his head in the snowy evening. He walked up to the entrance feeling more tired than usual. With the pace of his job he had worked out only twice in the week before, not so good for a man who had never missed a workout for a dozen years in spite of multiple national-security crises. The air inside the foyer seemed hot and thick. He stepped out of the snow-covered sweatsuit in the entrance, padded to the shower and let his muscles relax in the hot spray. When his skin was red and tingling he turned off the water and got out. He pulled on a fresh pair of chinos, white cotton shirt and a sweater and sank into a deep recliner set before an entertainment center. One click of the remote flashed the news on the screen, the campaign maps showing northwest Africa as the Coalition ground forces ran into stiff opposition. The newscasters asked where General Sihoud was, the Pentagon spokeswoman responding that he was in hiding somewhere in Africa. The phone rang. The secure line to the Pentagon.

He listened to the Flag Plot watch officer for ten seconds and hung up. By the time he had changed into his uniform his staff car pulled up.

In the back of the Lincoln Donchez considered using his satellite-secure voice radio-telephone but decided whatever the news was it was certainly bad and he would rather hear it from the watch officer. He turned on the car’s television and scanned the channels but there was still nothing new or breaking. Donchez paused for a moment during a special investigation into the sinking of the Augusta, watching as the media focused on the mistakes of the Portsmouth shipyard and the failed depth-indication system causing the ship to sink. Donchez hated cover stories, even though there was no way around them. Now the car crunched through the snow at the entrance to the Pentagon, snow falling faster than the ground crews could keep up with it, or they were still shorthanded from the people on Christmas vacation.

His aide Rummel was waiting at the entrance. This time Donchez had no patience for the stairs and they rode up the elevator, then strode down the E-Ring corridor to Flag Plot.

Once inside, the somberness of the faces told him the news was worse than he’d expected. He glared at his deputy for operations. Dee Watson, whose face looked even more jowly than usual, the heaviness of the situation in the lines of his sagging face. The commander of the Atlantic’s submarines, Admiral Steinman, stared from the video screen above them on the wall, the video link to Norfolk uncharacteristically sharp. On the neighboring screen was CINCNAVFORCEMED’s John Traeps’s sleepy face, the time now in the very early hours in Naples. Donchez said nothing. Watson finally spoke.

“Sir, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just gonna tell you.”

“I hate briefings that begin like this,” Donchez mumbled.

“Destiny broke out into the Atlantic and we think the Phoenix is down.”

Donchez tried to absorb both statements. Why would Destiny move into the Atlantic? Why would she want out so bad as to sink Phoenix — and had Phoenix actually sunk or was she just missing?

Watson broke back in. “Look at this slot buoy message transmission from Phoenix. After this we heard a loud transient.

Nothing since. Not much different from Augusta’s report …”

Donchez scanned the message Watson handed him.

… DETECTED SINGLE INCOMING NAGASAKI TORPEDO FROM THE EAST AT LONG RANGE … AM NOW ATTEMPTING TO OUTRUN UIF WEAPON … NEGATIVE, REPEAT NEGATIVE ACOUSTIC ADVANTAGE AGAINST DESTINY CLASS.

“Says here he wanted to fire some Mark 50s in passive circle mode at the Destiny,” Donchez said to the camera mounted above John Traeps’s monitor. “What happened?”