Everything was different this mission. USS Alabama was deploying to a different area for a different mission with different weapons that not only she but any ballistic missile submarine in history had. One thing was not different this time, though: There was opposition to her and her mission. And that opposition had some new wrinkles to throw into the fabric of submarine warfare as it was currently understood. If they had their way those new wrinkles would fold around the American submarine closely enough to keep her not just from completing her mission but from coming home again.