The design reminded the President of a giant manta ray he’d seen while fishing off Baja California.

“What on earth is this thing?” he asked. “I wasn’t aware we were building anything other than the Virginia class boats.”

“Sir, this is the Sea Arrow,” the admiral said. “It’s a prototype platform developed under a secret R & D program to test highly advanced technologies.”

Cerny turned on the admiral. “Why wasn’t the President informed of this program? I’d like to know how it was funded.”

The admiral stared at the aide with the warmth of a starving pit bull. “The Sea Arrow was built with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Office of Naval Research funding. The President is presently being informed of its existence.”

The President ignored them and strode along the vessel, peering at the odd appendages along the hull. He studied a concentric circle of small tubes that sprouted off the bow, then made his way aft, noting the sub had no propellers. He gave Winters a questioning look.

“All right, Admiral, you have my curiosity. Tell me about the Sea Arrow.”

“Mr. President, I’ll pass that task to Joe Eberson, who heads up the project. You met Joe earlier. He’s DARPA’s director of Sea Platforms Technology.”

A bearded man with studious eyes worked his way to the front of the group. He spoke in a measured tone with the hint of a Tennessee accent.

“Sir, the Sea Arrow was, or is, being built as a multigenerational leap in undersea technology. We’re bypassing the traditional development process by integrating a range of cutting-edge technologies and advanced theories directly into the construction. We started with a planned number of technical features that were purely at the conceptual stage. Through the crash efforts of numerous independent engineering teams around the country, I’m happy to report we are very close to fielding the most advanced attack submarine in history.”

The President nodded. “So tell me about all these odd appendages. She looks like some flying creature from the Jurassic age.”

“Let’s start at the stern. You’ll notice she has no propeller.” Eberson pointed at the rounded pods. “That’s what these two external cases are for. The Sea Arrow will be powered by a shaftless propulsion system. The North Dakota, as you saw, uses a nuclear reactor to power a traditional steam turbine, which in turn drives a shaft-mounted screw. On the Sea Arrow, we’ve gone to an external drive system, which will be powered directly from the reactor. Each of these two flared pods will contain a permanent high-intensity magnetic motor that drives a pump jet propulsion system.” Eberson smiled. “Aside from drastically reducing noise, the design frees up a tremendous amount of interior space, which has allowed us to shrink the vessel’s overall size.”

“What are these permanent magnet motors?”