To Serve and Protect

Captain America is responding to a Hydra attack at a US Naval base. After taking out a group of the terrorists he finds himself faced with a hostage situation. Told to get rid of his shield, Cap tosses it high in the air. While the Hydra operative brags about how how Hydra stole the USS McKenzie, a nuclear capable submarine. That’s when Cap’s shield comes crashing down and knocks the Hydra agent out. When an admiral arrives on the scene he informs Captain America that Hydra also stole the Babel Virus, a piece of code captured from the Russians that is capable of scrambling all naval navigational computers.

Luckily, the McKenzie is in a satellite uplink dead zone between satellite uplinks, giving them a 22 minute window to destroy the McKenzie, which will sacrifice everyone on board. Climbing aboard a naval helicopter, Cap tells the admiral to give him 21 minutes to try and save the crew.

Out at sea, the Hydra operatives — who infiltrated the crew — have ambushed the rest of the McKenzie crew and taken them hostage. That’s when they hear a knocking noise coming from one of the torpedo tubes. It turns out to be Captain America who launches his surprise attack. He is joined by the other members of the crew. With bombers already on their way, Cap races to the control room and force out the other Hydra operatives. They regain control of the ship and have it dive deep enough in that it cannot uplink with communications satellites but not too deep that the crew cannot abandon ship. As the rest of the crew evacuates, Cap enlists Lieutenant Rebecca Houston, the ship’s systems chief to help him set the sub to self-destruct.

Fighting through what is left of the Hydra forces, Captain America and Rebecca end up in the torpedo hold where they arms one of them to blow up in the next 30 seconds. Putting on breathing masks, Cap leads Rebecca into one of the torpedo tubes. Using his shield to protect them from the explosion, Captain America intends to have the force of the torpedo explosion to push them up to the surface. The gambit pays off, but Cap is separated from his shield. Watching his trademark weapon sinking to the ocean floor, Steve tries to swim down and get it. However, the water pressure is so strong that the visors of their diving masks begin to crack. Realizing that he can’t go after his shield without putting Rebecca in harm, Cap makes the difficult decision to abandon his shield and swim to the surface.[1]

Pulled aboard a life raft, one of the soldiers notices Cap isn’t carrying his shield and asks where it went. All Steve can say is that it’s gone….

Recurring Characters

Captain America, Hydra (Supreme Hydra)

Continuity Notes

1. Captain America’s shield will remain lost until it is recovered by Jim Rhodes in Captain America (vol. 3) #13. However, it won’t end up back in Cap’s possession until issue #22.