Chapter 12
Privacy was a valuable commodity aboard when Sally Townsend was there. She was only doing her job as a reporter, but I found new ways to hate her each day.
It didn’t help that I now had to consider my decisions with not only with how it would affect myself and my crew, but how the world would look at it. The constant scrutiny, even as viewers dropped, felt like no pressure I’d ever experienced.
We arrived in Taiwan, although without follow up orders. It looked like it was going to turn into another wait and watch situation.
I filmed a segment on diving. Mostly, it turned into a what-not-to-do. My methods and habits had evolved into the most efficient way. It was probably more dangerous than doing things by the book, but sometimes I was in situations where it would be more dangerous to me if I didn’t have unconventional ways. Sally got another report out of that, but she appeared dismayed that we were already scraping the bottom of the barrel. I remembered that maybe boring news would get her network to cancel the assignment.
Just when the possibility of actually getting the reports stopped early due to lack of news seemed imminent, we finally got something to do.
Political monitors working for the CIA seemed to have gotten the war with Korea figured out. I had previously never heard the term “political monitor” before. I assumed it was like a spy but boring.
One such person had been deployed to Dalian, and had apparently uncovered something big. It was by no means a center of Chinese politics, but it was close to the North Korean border and was a large shipping center. We knew that China was somehow involved in North Korea’s war effort, but the details were unclear. Other than the weapon we had personally witnessed being transported, there wasn’t much to go on.
We planned the operation with what data Hanley had given us. The monitor with the information would meet us and hand it off. The man was apparently in deep cover and had to move carefully.
It was decided that we would enter Dalian and go to a meeting from there, probably close to the docks. It was difficult to plan these things so far in advance, what with the whole covert aspect.
Sally got something fresh for once, even if it was only “We’re about to do something worth talking about, tune in next time to hear about it!” That seemed to keep her happy.
It took us a couple of days to get up to Dalian. That gave us lots of planning time. We decided to send Andy and Nika. Neither of them were famous, unlike some people. The two of them went over the information we had and talked among themselves about how things were going to work out.
Docking in Dalian made me nervous. Firstly, we had been arrested there once, last year. Secondly, there was no guarantee that an observant customs official wouldn’t see a similarity between our ship and one that may have been ordered to be on the lookout for. We’d modified it, but that wasn’t perfect. To maybe increase security a little, we temporarily changed the name of the ship to McCarthy, after another man who was strongly anti-Communist. Sally made a big deal of me hanging over the stern to do the painting myself. I guess it made me look good as a “hands on” captain.
Dalian hadn’t changed since we’d been there last. We tied up, Andy and Nika left, and we waited.
Andy had his cell phone with a Bluetooth earpiece so we could communicate with him continuously. There was some kind of small park in the city that he and Nika headed for. It shouldn’t be too hard for them to be identified by the monitor. Andy wore a backpack to carry the information in.
The rest of us waited. Sally Townsend had wanted to record the proceedings, but that idea was shot down quickly. Andy and Nika were in position a few minutes early. Andy had done some nerdy electrical things to the earpiece so it picked up all the nearby noise. It made for distracting sound, but it was more useful for our purposes. It sounded like they were in a crowded area, perhaps with some vehicle traffic. That would work for concealment if they kept their voices low.
They were approached by someone who spoke English and sounded like he had a bit of a Chinese accent. They exchanged code words to verify identities.
“You have something for us?” asked Nika.
“Yes I do.” There was a clicking noise that sounded like a briefcase opening. “This is a file that details much of China’s involvement with North Korea’s actions. I think you will find it very interesting.”
Andy had started to ask something when there was a burst of gunfire. The sounds coming over the phone got chaotic for the next several seconds between the screams of the crowd and Nika’s swearing in Russian.
“The monitor’s been shot,” Andy gasped.
“How is he?” I responded.
“Three holes in the chest.” Dead, he didn’t have to say.
“Do you have the file?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s doing the shooting?”
“No idea. It looked like a drive by from a car. By some miracle we didn’t get hit. We’re covering behind a fountain right now.”
I knew that neither of them had taken weapons with them. “Do what you have to do. We’ll pull out as soon as you get here.” Shep and Jeff stood up and went to go warm up the engines. Hawker went down to the CIC.
“What happened?” asked Sally.
I shrugged. “Just one of those things.” I went down to the deck to get into position to cast off the lines.
Most of the sounds coming from the phone involved Andy breathing hard and cursing. I could probably enable some kind of GPS tracking on his phone, but didn’t think it was worth the effort. They would either be back to the boat shortly or not at all.
Andy called out that they were within sight of the ship. I lifted a pair of binoculars I had with me and saw them running down the line of docks towards our berth. I also saw a Chinese-made sedan closing on them quickly with several men inside. Perhaps it was the same car that had done the drive by.
When the Equestrian team had departed, we had gladly accepted their weapons. They had been entering a civilian port and couldn’t take them. Penny was up on top of the bridge with Apple Bloom’s .50 caliber Barrett.
It was a semi automatic rifle that fired bullets with enough power to be able to hit pretty much anything in view. With a 10x scope, that was quite a lot.
As I watched the car chasing down the running Andy and Nika, I heard Penny fire. The bullet poked right through the front fender of the car and went straight into the engine block, disabling the car. The men riding in it bailed out and fled, knowing that they wouldn’t be safe behind the thin sheet metal of the car doors.
I cast off the lines just as Andy and Nika arrived. They jumped across the gap and the ship turned away from the dock. I was a little angry that the ship’s new cover that had been created while in dry dock had already been blown, but there wasn’t much we could do about that.
We cleared the harbor and I took Andy and Nika inside to figure out what the information was about. It was a few pages of documents in a folder.
Just as promised, the reading was interesting. China and the United States had a delicate balance of power in the economic market. The U.S. had the money, and China had the cheap goods. Neither could exist without the other, but the balance could be altered a little.
A plan had been hatched that would subtly give China a financial edge. They had been investing heavily in Africa recently. It was still a continent largely untapped for natural resources. Through whatever convoluted means, they had decided on biological weapons to get rid of the people who already lived there. Strange new illnesses were not uncommon to Africa. The Chinese would then occupy the areas they were interested in under the guise of humanitarian help for the mysterious disease.
There needed to be a distraction to get things moving. Since North Korea needed little provocation to attack South Korea anyway, it didn’t take much subtle pushing to get the idiot leadership to go for an all-out war. Other NATO countries were not affected by the nuclear surprise attack, and it didn’t keep the United States down for long. The explosives had been taken to the detonation sites by minisubs.
Truthfully, South Korea might have been able to take the North all by themselves, despite the Communist “strength in numbers” idea. The war served a double purpose of halting the production of many South Korean goods to export to the United States, leaving China to produce them instead. They also might be able to benefit from participating in the reconstruction of the North.
Truthfully, it wasn’t a bad plan and I almost wished that I had the kind of resources to start a war for my own profit. I could definitely spot some holes in it, but it probably would have worked beautifully if it weren’t for a crew of misfits sailing a ship named R.A. Heinlein. Yeah, I could see why they were so mad at us.
It was all very incriminating information, and the CIA would want to know. Our orders were to transport the file to South Korea where a courier would take it back to the United States.
It might have been easier to scan the pages and send them electronically, but right now, running from Dalian, we needed to be radio silent. Even with that precaution, it was going to be a stressful trip.
There didn’t seem to be much pursuit for the first few hours following our hasty departure. That was fine with me. Still, we decided to keep on constant alert and be ready for action.
I did a walkthrough of the vessel. Everyone was where they were supposed to be. Somehow, we’d gotten Sally Townsend to go to her cabin. I found Andy talking to Todd about small electronics in the CIC.
“How did you get that headset to perform like that?” Todd was asking. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do,” said Andy.
“Heinlein would be proud,” I said. Anything interesting happening?”
“I think we may have picked up the stealth ship again,” said Andy. “You might go talk to Hawker about it. I’ve kept the radar at less than full power so they don’t get suspicious.”
Despite turning up the possible output power of the radar, we had yet to use the additional punch.
“Probably a good idea.” I left to check around the rest of the ship. Everything and everyone appeared to be in order. That was shattered, though, when I got an urgent call over the intercom to come to the CIC.
Nika was waiting when I got there. She looked alarmed. “The Chinese have contacted us directly. They want to talk to you.”
Frankly, I was a little surprised that this hadn’t happened before. Establishing radio contact was a lot easier than tracking us down. I picked up the microphone.
“Heinlein here.”
“Mr. Canvas, you’ve caused us a lot of trouble.” The voice was male, and spoke perfect English with a neutral tone.
“Just doing my job.”
“We cannot allow you to continue. We have tried direct attacks, but it seems that we must deal with you in a different manner.”
“What, we’re too tough to beat so you want to make a deal?”
“Something like that. Here is the deal: if you and your crew come quietly, we will not kill a city in South Korea.”
The simple language almost made the threat sound more menacing. “What do you mean?”
“We have a few ships west of your location. One of them is fitted with a tactical ballistic missile. It has a very special kind of warhead. I’m sure you know what I mean. If you do not approach this group and surrender yourselves, we will fire the missile at a city. Many thousands, perhaps millions, will die.”
“What kind of sick minds do you people have?” This was pushing things, even by the standards I’d come to expect from China.
“Mr. Canvas, we expect to you not to have a sick mind yourself and sacrifice your operation to save all those people.”
“What stops me from letting you launch and just shooting the missile down?”
“The same thing that stopped you in the South Atlantic: distance and speed. We are approximately ninety miles from your location. By the time you were close enough to guarantee a successful intercept, our ships would be surrounding you. You would surely die in the attempt.”
“Are you sure about that? We took on the whole North Korean navy and kicked ass.”
“Mr. Canvas, don’t confuse us with those backwards idiots. We have modern equipment and more of it. The simple truth of the matter is, if you do not comply, bad things will happen. If you try to fire a long range missile to take out the launch ship, we will see it coming on radar and fire our weapons long before it reaches the ship. If you try to contact the military for outside help, we will hear your transmissions and launch. If you do anything at all besides coming to us peacefully many people will die.”
My mind was racing trying to figure out a way to overcome this. We hadn’t been left with many options.
“Do you accept or not?”
“I think…yes.”
“Turn off all your electronic devices. If we detect any radio emissions at all, we will launch. We are located directly west of your position. Arrive within four hours.”
The voice said nothing after that. I put the microphone down and pressed the intercom button. “Come around and proceed directly west.”
Jones, who was on the bridge, said, “Why?”
“Crew meeting. I’ll explain.”
Gathered in the galley, I told the grim news. Everyone showed varying degrees of shock, expect for Sally.
“How can we best film this?” she asked.
“You don’t get it,” I said. “They’re trying to keep this secret. If you’re there, you’ll probably end up as dead as the rest of us.”
For perhaps the first time since we’d met, she believed something I said. “Oh my God. What do we do?”
“First, you’re going to get off the ship,” I said.
We packed all of Sally and Todd’s gear into a lifeboat. I helped them to get in.
“So you’re just going to meet them?” said Sally.
“We don’t have any choice. Much as it sounds like a movie, if we don’t go, a lot of people are going to die.”
“It’s…it’s so brave of you.”
“We all do what we have to do.”
I handed her a file of paper sealed inside a waterproof plastic bag.
“These are the files that the CIA needs to know about. As much as you might be curious, you can’t open them.” I indicated to her a tape seal that would show if it was broken. “These must return to the United States. Don’t make our last mission a waste.”
I nodded to the pair of them and started the winch to lower the life boat over the side. When the boat hit the water, Todd started the motor and they took off towards Korea.
The paperwork I’d given her was fake. I had no confidence that she would refrain from having a look, and besides, if the Chinese caught them I wouldn’t want them to get their hands on the files. Earlier, I’d had Andy scan and send the real files electronically.
I went back inside. “All right, we’ve got four hours. How are we going to do this?”
We all agreed to go down fighting. The number one priority was to take out the Chinese weapons. After that, we would do whatever we could. Who knows, we might get lucky and actually survive.
Ultimately, though, we all discarded our bravado and faced the most likely possibility. The missile might get fired anyway, and we were all surely going to be dead one way or another. The falling night would provide darkness to help us, but that wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
“If we’re going to go out with a bang, I said quietly, “we might as well make it as big as possible.”
Everyone looked at me, and I knew that they understood what I was thinking.
“They said if we fired a missile, they’d see it coming,” said Shep.
“I’m thinking something else. My company doesn’t build cruise missiles, but I’ve seen enough of them to know how the warhead fits in. I doubt if the computer inside cares whether it’s a conventional explosive or nuclear. I think we could rig it to detonate by remote, so we could wait until just the right moment.”
Jeff stood up. “Time’s wasting.”
We used the forward crane to help slide the missile out of the ABL far enough to dismount the warhead. It was probably the most delicate work I’d ever done. Even if the warhead wasn’t a danger until it was armed, most nukes carry a smaller explosive powerful enough to destroy the weapon so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. The crane set the nuke down of the deck of the number three hold and we got to work.
The wiring and associated circuitry was complicated and took a while to pick through. Everyone helped with the project. By the time we got it figured out and began to construct a detonator, two hours had passed.
We were getting close to getting everything wrapped up when Hawker called excitedly over the deck PA.
“We’ve just received underwater telephone contact from a U.S. submarine. The reporters ran into a Navy ship and passed the news along.”
Everyone cheered. I would have cheered along with them, except I was soldering wires on a freaking nuclear warhead. It was very, very delicate work even for fingers.
Suddenly, things were looking optimistic. I had an idea in mind, and I left the rest of the work to others as I went to talk about it with the Commanding Officer of the submarine. It was USS Ohio, a sister ship of Michigan and outfitted in the same way.
“We’re going to run our ship into the group of Chinese and blow it up, taking out their weapons in the process.”
“You want to start from the beginning?” he said. “I wasn’t briefed on this.”
“Just follow us and be ready to pick people out of the water.” I explained further just enough so that my plan would work.
We were shortly joined by two Chinese frigates. Each had their guns pointed at us. They formed up on either side of Heinlein and escorted us. They weren’t expecting company and were not looking for submarines. Ohio followed stealthily along behind.
Another ship approached. It was angular and painted with an unusual camouflage pattern. I recognized the shape from some satellite photos the Navy Reconnaissance Office had taken. This was the infamous stealth ship. It didn’t come very close, mostly just to show us that it was there, before heading off to the north to patrol.
In the distance, another ship came into view. It had a small tactical ballistic missile elevated and ready to go on deck. It was now time to put the plan into action.
We’d all grabbed an emergency air supply. I took one last look around the bridge and then pushed the throttles to the stops. We had previously removed all the safety devices from the power train, so the turbines and the electric motors were free to spin as fast as they wanted. I ran down to join the others.
In the night, we sprinted across the aft deck, keeping to cover as much as possible. Upon reaching the aft rail, none of us hesitated before jumping it and falling into the roiling propeller wash.
The aerated wake was a little softer to fall into than regular water, but also made me sink deeper than normal. That was fine. I slowly came back to topside, the detonator for the nuke in my hand. We’d wrapped it in plastic to waterproof it but still allow the signal to carry.
The two escorts apparently hadn’t seen us jump over the stern and were apparently confused as to why the ship was speeding up. Maybe that had been a mistake and had alerted them that something was wrong. Too late to worry about it now.
For the next couple of minutes, I watched the ship draw closer. It was only a matter of time until the Chinese grew suspicious enough to act. Just a little closer…
I saw a tiny flash of flame through the night. I assumed it was the rocket of the missile, so I pressed the button on the remote and dived.
The flash was bright enough and close enough that I saw it clearly through my closed eyelids and the water. I tried not to think about the fallout as I swam deeper.
A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me further downwards. I felt a steel hull under my fingers and I was led into an airlock.
After the water was drained out, the airlock was opened from the inside. Not only was I cold and soaking wet, I was responsible for a nearby nuclear detonation. I was the center of attention, basically.
The rest of the crew had been brought aboard by the SEAL divers. Still wet, I went to see the Commanding Officer.
“How much do you know about the situation?” I asked him.
“I was just told to give you any assistance I can.”
I nodded. “All right. Are there any contacts out there?”
The CO conferred with the sonar crew. “Well after that explosion, it’s hard to hear anything. There is one contact off to the north that is still making headway. We think it’s a small stealth ship.”
“Sink it.”
“Come again?”
“You heard me. After a nuke, nobody’s going to notice a torpedo.”
Grumbling, the man gave orders to have the stealth ship sunk. When the torpedo was away, he turned to me. “Anything else?”
“Give us a ride home, I suppose.”
All of us decided to lay low when we got back to shore. The media was not made privy to the details of the final battle. Sally Townsend believed us dead and had broken the news to the world, albeit a version edited by the CIA. That was too bad because as far as epitaphs go, “Sacrificed himself for the sake of people he never met in a nuclear blast of his own creation,” was a pretty good one.
Nika and I decided to vacation in the U.S. northwest. It rained all the time, and the cabin was tiny, but it was a remarkably good place to unwind and not think about sailing for a while. Still, I found myself missing it after not too long.
I stood at the window one night looking at the thunderstorm outside and thinking. There were a few scraps of paper on the kitchen table where I had been drawing new designs. The rain outside seemed to have meaning, whether literally washing things clear of nuclear fallout or metaphorically washing away the past to leave a bright future.
Either way, I had to get back to drawing up plans. I had a new ship to build.
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Dafaq....
TNaB, you silly writting ninja you.
Aw yeah.
Will read ASAP.
Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?
Pony Korea is brest Korea.
Is this set in the human universe or the universe equestria is in?
2079074
Brest Korea?
asianloveslave.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/sexyasian.jpg
I think you mean breast Korea. Silly you.
2079704 your second link squicks me out.
cute series, are we to assume Sail is retired for now?
2080119 I don't have any more plans, which is not to say I couldn't write a prequel.
Well done sir. I would not mind the series ending here.
As sad as I am to see this series come to a close, it was one hell of an exciting story. Bravo TNaB
2079456
It in TNaB's Battleships are Magic universe, where a series of portals have been opened between Earth and Equestria (pretty much supplanting commercial air travel entirely by this point in the story, as you can take a portal from one point on Earth to Equestria, and then back to another point on Earth).
Sail Canvas is a US-born pegasus, and as of the previous story in the Sail Canvas series, he's got an amulet that can turn him into a human (or turn a human into a pony).
2124052 I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.
MOAR!
I've noticed that in each series, Sail loses a ship. Did you do that on purpose?
2969974 A bit.
Nukes, The ultimate sucker-punch.
2080119
You gave me an opening. I took it.
5623374 Except you fail to notice there's no links, only an image, which means the comment was edited.
Also no, I'm happily on the fence. Limiting yourself to one gender seems so silly.
5623423
I didn't really mean anything about the comment. I just saw an opportunity for a joke and I took it. I did guess that he might have edited his comment but the setup for the joke was still there. I'm sorry if you were offended.
5623787 Not at all! Just being silly.