The Last Ship
William Brinkley
 The story is told in a first-person point of view by the ship's commanding officer, whose full name is never revealed, although it is later revealed that his first name is Thomas. The Captain is writing this history several months after the war in order to describe the USS Nathan Jamess odyssey during in the wake of the conflict's aftermath. The Captain begins by describing his ship, the USS Nathan James (DDG-80), to the reader. The ship, named after an American naval hero from World War II, is a nuclear-powered guided missile destroyer, and is armed with nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles. He then discusses the ethics of command, both of a warship and of nuclear strike forces; life aboard a United States Navy ship in the Arctic Circle; and the nature of his vessel's mission. He then recounts how, without warning, he one day received orders to carry out a nuclear strike on the Soviet city of Orel and its nearby ICBM silos. He then explains that after carrying out the mission and reporting the fact to his superiors, a reply from the U.S. Navy became hopelessly garbled halfway through the message. With one exception later in the book, this was the last official communication from the United States Navy that the Nathan James ever received. The Captain then decides to head southward into the North Sea, and thence to England, in order to re-establish contact with friendly forces. Upon steaming up the Thames to London, the ship encounters dense clouds of radioactive smoke, through which can be seen the ruins of London. The Captain then reverses course and heads for the open sea in order to escape the radiation. In the following months, the ship's crew discovers that the radioactive cloud hovers around all land masses that the Nathan James approaches, rendering them uninhabitable. The ship soon encounters a Soviet Navy ballistic missile submarine, the Pushkin, off a destroyed Gibraltar, and by common agreement the two ships rapidly establish a truce; thereafter the two commanding officers agree to a joint operation. The Pushkin, fully fueled but low on food, will attempt to reach a secret Soviet supply base in the Arctic and retrieve supplies and nuclear fuel for the Nathan James, while the U.S. Navy destroyer, relatively well-stocked with food but low on nuclear fuel, will make her way to the Pacific Ocean in search of habitable land for the two crews. The ships then part ways. As the USS Nathan James steams through the Mediterranean Sea, it encounters lifeless derelicts, inhospitable lands, and ill, wounded survivors who have made their way to the coasts, though the ship lacks the resources to offer any aid to the stricken civilians. At one point, weeks after the war, the ship does receive a message from the United States National Command Authority ordering all recipients to reply. The USS Nathan James does so, but the mysterious message simply repeats again and again, leading the Captain to believe it is an automated transmission. Based on his knowledge of the Soviet Union's targeting of North America as well as what he has seen of Europe, he, along with most of the ship's officers, concludes that the United States has simply ceased to exist and that what remains of North America is uninhabitable. He thus resolves to proceed to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Suez. At this point however, the ship's Combat Systems Officer challenges the Captain's authority. Believing that parts of North America may be habitable, he demands that the ship return to the east coast so that they can see for themselves. He further charges that the Captain is no longer in lawful command, since the U.S. Navy and the United States, by whose authority he commands the USS Nathan James, themselves no longer exist. The Combat Systems Officer thus demands a vote on the correct course of action. The Captain, angered at this mutiny, allows a vote, believing that the Combat Systems Officer has little support, and he is shocked when nearly a third of the crew side with the Combat Systems Officer. In the end, this minority demands rafts and the Captain's gig in order to sail across thousands of miles of open ocean to the United States. With a mixture of sadness and outrage, the Captain agrees, and as the mutineers depart, the USS Nathan James steams through Suez. In the following weeks, the ship travels through the East Indies, during which she experiences nuclear winter, including sub-freezing temperatures, black snow at the equator and exposure to high levels of radiation. Afterwards, the USS Nathan James reaches the remote South Pacific and, with her fuel levels down to just a few thousand miles of steaming, discovers a small, uncontaminated island. The ship's crew then establishes a community on the island, and the captain and his officers begin to wrestle with the issue of how to go about the business of beginning families. Ultimately the female sailors establish an arrangement, to which the men accede, which consists of a type of polyandry together with a prohibition on monogamy. Ultimately, most of the male sailors mate with most of the female sailors, but no pregnancies occur. Due to this, the crew begins to worry that the radiation of the nuclear winter may have rendered everyone sterile. Some time later, the Pushkin, which had lost contact with the USS Nathan James months earlier, arrives, its crew on the verge of starvation, but bearing an abundance of nuclear fuel. Now, at last, the USS Nathan James is free to explore as much of the world its crew wishes, keeping the island as its home base, without needing to economize on fuel. But at the very moment when the Captain is preparing the ship for such a voyage, a new disaster strikes; a group of sailors led by the Captain's senior officer, abhorring the remaining nuclear missiles aboard the ship, launches them without his permission. But one of the missiles accidentally detonates while in flight, triggering a chain reaction among all of the missiles, destroying the USS Nathan James and contaminating the island. The Captain, his remaining crew, and the Soviet crew immediately embark aboard the Pushkin to escape, beginning a new search for another sanctuary, eventually reaching the United States research facility McMurdo Station, in Antarctica, which contains years' worth of food and supplies. By this time, the Pushkins ballistic missiles have been jettisoned, and the resulting space rebuilt into expanded crew quarters, recreational area, and a nursery. The introduction of the Soviet crew (who were much less affected by radioactive fallout due to the superior protection offered by the submarine) into the predesigned breeding program has resulted in at least three pregnancies by the novel's end. The Pushkin has the fuel to conduct long, thorough explorations of the world. Thus it is the Soviet submarine, and not the USS Nathan James that is the "Last Ship." The novel ends on a hopeful note, as the well-provisioned survivors now prepare to rediscover the world.