Four torpedoes streak toward the unsuspecting Japanese at forty knots. Through the periscope Commander Tightmann sees the tanker and a freighter erupt in flames. Two hits from one spread! Taking the Cutthroat deep to two hundred seventy feet to avoid the inevitable counter attack the submarine goes silent and waits until the coast is clear before surfacing.

The sonarman reports rumblings in the water, not from the surface, but from the ocean floor. Suddenly the boat is rocked by sock waves from an underwater eruption, rolling it over three times before coming upright, out of power and damaged.

Fighting to bring the boat back to life, the crew manage to surface to make repairs. Not wanting to break radio silence and alert the enemy of their position, no distress call is made, hoping to get underway and make it back on their own.

Failing to return to port, the Cutthroat is reported overdue in April 1945, the crew listed as casualties.

The first clue that things are amiss: it is nighttime when it should be midafternoon. The position of the stars and phase of the moon were not as they should be. Perplexed, the crew’s main priority is to make repairs, bury the dead, and get underway.

Unbeknownst to them, their sudden appearance attracts the attention of the Chinese conducting war games in the South China Sea to assert their claim to dominance in the region. They also draw the attention of an American carrier strike group challenging that claim.

At first light an odd looking aircraft approaches and hovers in place, two rocket planes streak overhead, and an unfamiliar looking warship approaches off the port bow. Does the sudden presence of a World War 2 era submarine spark World War 3 more than eighty years later in the strange new world of 2026?