Commander Miles Sheffield is a rising star in the US Navy, patronized by Admiral Eugene Justice, to the silent envy of many, including his XO and Chief on his first command mission aboard a nuclear submarine, the Lansing. This maiden voyage also turns out to be the ultimate challenge: a failed Korean nuclear missile causes a disastrous explosion which knocks his means of communications out of order, so he fears to be incommunicado in a nuclear war against an unknown enemy. Now his rivals believe