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Prologue

FEBRUARY 6, 11:58 AM

538 KILOMETERS NORTH OF ARCTIC CIRCLE

FORTY FATHOMS UNDER THE POLAR ICE CAP

The USS Polar Sentinel was gliding through the dark ocean The sub’s twin bronze screws churned silently, propelling the Navy’s newest research sub bells of the proxith of the vessel

“Sweetofficer mumbled from his post, bent over a small video monitor

Captain Gregory Perry didn’t argue with Commander Bratt’s assessment He stood atop the control room’s periscope stand His eyes were fixed to the scope’s optical piece as he studied the ocean beyond the sub’s double hull of titaniuh it was midday, it was still winter in the Arctic It had been months since anyone had seen the sun Around them the waters remained dark The plane of ice overhead stretched black as far as he could see, interrupted only by occasional blue-green patches of thinner ice, filtering the scant e thickness of the polar ice cap was a mere ten feet, but that did not mean the roof of their world was unifores jutted like stalactites, sohty feet

But none of this compared to the inverted mountain of ice that dropped into the depths of the Arctic Ocean ahead of them, a veritable Everest of ice The sub slowly circled the peak

“This baby must extend down a mile,” Commander Bratt continued

“Actually one-point-four miles,” the chief of the watch reported froer traced the video h-frequency instrument was used to contour the ice

Perry continued to observe through the periscope, trusting his own eyes versus the videothe cliff face Black walls gloith hues of cobalt blue and aquah for the ice- sonar to protest their proximity

“Can someone cut those damn bells?” Perry muttered

“Aye, sir”

Silence settled throughout the vessel No one spoke The only sound was the enerator Like all subs, the sned to run silent The research vessel was half the size of its bigger brothers Jokingly referred to as Tadpole-class, the subineering, allowing for a smaller crehich in turn allowed for less space needed for living quarters Additionally, built as a pure research vessel, the submarine was emptied of all armaments to allow more room for scientific equip of the sub, no one was really fooled The Polar Sentinel was also the test platforeneration of attack submarine: smaller, faster, deadlier

Technically still on its shakedown cruise, the sub had been assigned to the Oa Drift Station, a semipermanent US research facility built atop the polar ice cap, a joint project between various govern the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration

The crew had spent the last week surfacing the sub through open leads between ice floes or up through thinly iced-over lakes, called polynyas Their task was to iical equipment atop the ice for the scientific base to o, they had come upon this inverted Everest of ice