Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Mission Report.

Russian Federation submarine K599 Sevastopol.

Operation: Podkova.

Day 74.

The active learning defense system we are testing

continues to operate flawlessly.

One might even say miraculously.

We are navigating under the Arctic ice cap

by dead reckoning and five days from home.

After 25,000 nautical miles,

the Sevastopol has deliberately approached every navy in the world

and remained completely undetected.

The Podkova’s stealth capability has exceeded all expectations.

We are at this moment the state of the art of war.

The most fearsome killing machine ever devised by man.

- -

And we are impossible to find.

Captain, we have a submerged contact, designated Semyon-83,

exhibiting tonals of a U.S. Virginia-class submarine.

Bearing one-three-zero, drawing forward.

Chief of the Watch, man battle stations silently.

-Wait for orders. -Officer of the Deck, ship status?

Ship’s depth, five-zero meters.

Bottom, seven-two meters.

Clearance to the ice canopy, two-one meters.

-Distance to deep water? - Two kilometers.

Aleutian Precipice in six minutes.

Ranging maneuver. Helm, left 15 degrees rudder.

Steady course, one-zero-zero.

-Come up easy on a standard bell. -Captain has the conn.

Helm, aye! Coming to course one-zero-zero.

Steady on course.

-One-zero-zero. -Weapons Officer, range?

Firing solution is tracking at a distance of one-five thousand meters.

Sir, that doesn’t make sense. Tonals this loud and clear?

He must be closer than that.

Captain, firing solution just did a step change to 10,000 meters.

Nothing moves that fast.

All solutions are matching. The range is true.

Helm, right full rudder to course two-seven-zero.

Course two-seven-zero, aye.

We’ll just walk away and head for deep water.

Contact bearing one-six-zero. Bearing rate zero?

He’s there, turning with us again.

He can see us.

Impossible. We’re invisible.

Weapons, run diagnostics on sonar and fire control.

Something isn’t right.

Sir, he’s flooding his torpedo tubes!

Torpedo room, conn.

-Load all torpedo tubes. -Aye, sir.

- -

- Check clear! - Forward clear!

- Forward clear! -Aft clear!

- Ram torpedo! -Ramming!

Torpedo tubes loaded.

He’s opened outer doors!

Weapons, flood tubes one through four and open outer doors.

-Enter firing solution into tube two. -Aye, Captain.

Making tube two ready in all respects.

Captain, he’s provoking us.

He wants an excuse to blow us out of the water.

Enemy torpedo in the water, bearing two-zero-zero.

-One thousand meters and accelerating. -Helm, left full rudder,

-all ahead flank cavitate. -My rudder is left full.

Answering all ahead flank cavitate.

-Launch countermeasures. -Launching countermeasures.

-Fire tube two. -Firing tube two.

Our torpedo is away. Running hot.

Enemy torpedo still homing, range 800 meters.

He’s blown through our countermeasures.

-Helm, right full rudder. -Right full.

-Aye, sir! - Six hundred meters.

Diving Officer, stand by to emergency blow all main ballast tanks.

-Four hundred meters. - Chief of the Watch,

-stand by the collision alarm. - Two hundred meters.

This is the captain. All hands brace for impact.

Enemy torpedo impact in five, four, three, two…

one. Impact!

-What just happened? -It’s-- It's gone.

- It missed us? -No.

It vanished like it was never there.

-Sonar, where is the enemy vessel? -

Bearing three-three-zero, 4,000 meters off our starboard bow.

Our torpedo is running true.

Impact with enemy submarine in three, two, one.

-Where was the impact? -Captain, enemy submarine has vanished.

-It’s gone, sir. - I don’t understand.

He was never there.

-We’ve been chasing a phantom. -It was right there.

The instruments don’t lie.

They lied to us today.

Weapons, shut down our torpedo.

Aye, Captain. Shutting down torpedo.

- Secure from battle stations.

This is why we have sea trials.

There’s a bug in the system.

A ghost in the machine.

- It’s time to go home. -Captain!

Our own torpedo is not responding.

It’s coming right at us!

Our torpedo’s homing,

-range 400 meters! -Oh, my God.

Wire command. Shut down our weapon!

Our torpedo’s still closing, range 200 meters!

Blow all main ballast tanks! Sound the collision alar--

Food delivery.

Hello?

Designator.

Easy.

Easy.

Designator.

India-Zulu-two-five-four.

Bravo-Echo-one-one.

No, not yet.

You need to ask me the security question first.

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Uh… what is the oath?

We live and die in the shadows…

for those we hold close…

and for those we never meet.

You can put it on the table.

Hey.

Welcome to the IMF.

You made the right choice.

Sir.

Good evening, Mr. Hunt.

It’s been a long time.

Our lives are the sum of our choices,

and we cannot escape the past.

Thirty years ago, you were offered the choice.

Join the IMF or spend your life in prison.

Because of your unique natural talents, your government forgave you.

But we will never forget.

Just as you will never forget the death

that brought you to us all those years ago.

This is to remind you of your oath and allegiance to us.

The stakes of this mission are higher than ever.

Your habitual rogue behavior will not be tolerated.

Should you choose to accept, it is imperative that you listen.

Your government is searching for a key.

Its purpose, its vital importance to us

is none of your concern.

What should concern you

is the involvement of your friend, Ilsa Faust.

She killed a courier in Istanbul.

And we believe he was carrying one half of the key we’re searching for.

Why she has chosen to interfere in this affair is a mystery,

as are her whereabouts.

What is certain is that your government has put a price on her head,

and these bounty hunters are out to collect it.

They never bring a fugitive back alive, and rarely in one piece.

We believe they’re headed for the Arabian Desert’s Empty Quarter

in search of your friend.

Find the bounty hunters, and you may just find her.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is to acquire the key and deliver it to us.

What happens to Ilsa after that is up to you.

As always, if any members of your team are caught or killed,

the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.

This message will self-destruct in five seconds.

Good luck, Ethan.

- -

-Come on. -

Ethan.

- -

Yah, yah!

So what are we dealing with?

This entity has multiple personalities,

at times behaving like a computer virus,

then a tapeworm, then a botnet.

Distorting any and all digital information with which it comes in contact.

Once infected, nothing recorded, stored, or transmitted digitally

can be trusted as fact.

At the outset, it concentrated primarily on news and social media

which was of little concern to us

-as it often suited our purposes. - Until six months ago,

when the entity breached Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate.

And assimilated their top secret active-learning AI

before vanishing into the cloud.

Subsequent attacks increased ten-thousandfold overnight,

spreading exponentially.

Indicating that the Entity has since become…