Operation White Out

     After Mac McDowell recovers from serious injuries he received in Operation Arctic Sting, he is assigned as Executive Officer on USS Teuthis. ComSubLant tasks Teuthis and Mac with a new mission: Lay SOSUS arrays in the southern Atlantic and off Thurston Island, Western Antarctica—Operation White Out. While laying the Atlantic SOSUS array with the Orca Borysko’s help, Teuthis tangles with hostile Argentine subs. Later, after laying the second SOSUS array off Thurston Island and bringing the cable ashore, Mac and his team place the SOSUS data transmitter on a nearby mountain peak, aided by a helicopter from Palmer Station, but the chopper is shot down by a missile fired from a Chinese Han-class sub. Teuthis discovers a Taiwanese underwater oil operation near Thurston Island. A Taiwanese AIP (Air Independent Propulsion) sub, the ROC Hǎi Bào, that was working the wellhead, exchanges fire with and disables the  Chinese sub on the seafloor, suffering damage herself. Teuthis assists Hǎi Bào, and they rescue survivors from the stricken Chinese sub. ComSubPac directs Teuthis to escort Hǎi Bào and an underwater tanker to Taiwan under the cover of the largest military marine exercise since World War II—PacEx89. Despite the protection provided by three U.S. fast attack subs and two surface combatants, during the transit, another Chinese Han-class sub and a previously unknown North Korean AIP sub attack Teuthis.

     Will Mac and Teuthis complete their mission, or will they finally meet their watery graves on the Pacific Ocean abyssal plain?