The Challenger is the weapon of the future, a ceramic-hulled nuclear attack submarine whose electronic eyes and ears are the most advanced ever created. It is commanded by acting captain Jeffrey Fuller, a former SEAL turned submariner whose aggressiveness has made him a rising star — and sometimes scares the hell out of his crew. Fuller’s mission is to rescue the Virginia-class fast attack sub Texas, now lying on the bottom of the Atlantic just off the Azores. But the enemy — a newly resurrected and fanatically militaristic Germany — knows where the Texas is, too, and knows the Challenger is coming. It is Challenger the Germans want, dispatching their own high-tech supersub, the Deutschland, to destroy her.