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consciousness! I can’t—I’m the only one who can save us now! Everyone else seems to be drugged or helpless!
    The control room was pitch-black now, but George could still hear the flooding alarm and smell the smoke. Sweat was running down the sides of his face and dripping off his nose and chin.
    Then he opened his eyes and saw the curtains next to his bed, dimly lit by the light from his alarm clock. Dazed and confused, he raised his head from his soaking wet pillow. The smell of aromatic chicory coffee emanated from his automatic coffee maker in the kitchen. Groggily he reached over and slapped off the wailing alarm. Mixed feelings of relief and frustration flooded over him.
    0430 hours.
    Thus begins another useless day. A nightmare. What an appropriate start.
    It had been five years since the terrorist attack on Washington DC. Although George had not been in Washington during the attack, many of his friends at the Pentagon and in nearby suburbs died from either the blast or radiation poisoning. He had wanted to do something, anything , to retaliate, but was in no position to do so. These hopeless disaster dreams had become a recurring theme. George attempted to make light of them, calling them his “daily double.”
    “I live a life of frustration and disaster while I’m awake, and then I do it again in my sleep!”
    George was divorced and lived alone outside Norfolk in suburban Hampton, Virginia. Years before, fresh out of submarine school and fresh into a new marriage, he had bought a house in Hampton and started planning a family. Navy life is tough on marriages, though, and his young wife had decided rather quickly that this life of separation and stress was not the life for her. They mutually agreed on a divorce, and she subsequently moved back to her family in Connecticut. All she wanted was out—and most of George’s life savings. Fortunately, that wasn’t much at the time. George kept the house, though, and during the time periods he was stationed outside the Tidewater Area, he rented it out to other naval officers. This arrangement had worked well over the years, and the house had appreciated considerably in value.
    George turned on the shower. As he waited for the water to get hot, he studied the bleary-eyed face in the mirror, which, much to his chagrin, was rapidly becoming middle aged. His Scottish-Irish ancestry had given him reddish blond hair and skin with a susceptibility to sun damage. He had always been freckled, and with his short-cropped military haircut, the freckles were even more pronounced.
    He thought back to the day on the GenCon oil rig when they tested the SQID drive and then heard about the attack on Washington DC.
    I was practically a kid then. Look at me now. I have lots of things I can blame on that day: a couple hundred freckles thanks to the sun; and thanks to DC, a dozen or so wrinkles and a neverending supply of nightmares!
    The last five years had not been kind.
    George currently served as the operations (ops) officer on the staff of the Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic Fleet, commonly referred to as COMSUBLANT. Headquartered at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, the admiral and his SUBLANT staff were continually monitoring world events and the locations of all U.S. boomers and attack submarines in the Atlantic Operating Region (AOR). George played a key role in preparing and presenting morning and afternoon briefings to the admiral, the first of which was scheduled for 0800 hours each day.
    George turned on a small TV next to the bathroom sink while he showered and dressed. His usual news station was broadcasting events for the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the Washington attack. He changed the channel to find something else, but every station was carrying the same stories. Arrgh! There was no escaping it—today, even more than usual, he would have to relive the horror.
    Following the DC attack, the news media never relented. They seemed to feel it was