Choosers of the slain

On a frigid fall morning in 2006, a sudden attack against a British scientific outpost in Antarctica heralds the beginning of an invasion of the seventh continent. Resurgent after the Falklands war, Argentina has launched an armed takeover of the Antarctic Peninsula, in an attempt to seize the last untapped pool of natural resources on the planet. The global community can only look on helplessly in the face of a continuing Argentine military buildup and a looming polar winter. One hope remains, a lone U.S. Navy vessel docked in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. The guided missile destroyer Cunningham is at the cutting edge of naval technology, the world's first oceangoing stealth warship. Her 580-foot hull is invisible to hostile radar, while her own sophisticated Aegis sensor arrays grant her mastery of a 250-sea-mile radius. On board she carries a bristling complement of sophisticated weaponry: two SAH-66 Sea Comanche helicopters with nose-mounted APG-65 radar, Boeing Brave 2000 reconnaissance drones piloted by virtual reality helmet, and a full spectrum of the Navy's deadliest precision-guided munitions. She is sleek, swift, secretive - and untested. Likewise untested is her commanding officer, Amanda Lee Garrett, U.S.N. Brilliant, bold, and tenacious, she leads her crew into the storm-wracked waters of Drake Passage. Together, they confront not only the massed might of the Argentine air force and navy, but the deadly, ice-clad majesty of the Antarctic itself. At stake, the destiny of the earth's last frontier.