Ball Lightning

“But it’s just—” a naval officer started to say, before a gesture from the operations director cut him off.

“Don’t say it. It really looks like a plan! They’ve evidently put some thought into it.”

The missile unit commander that Lin Yun had attacked laughed. “It really is a premodern plan.”

“Not even premodern,” the submarine commander said. “Have you heard of anyone using fishing boats to attack warships in Jutland or Tsushima?”

“If we had Maple Leaf back then, we would have,” Lin Yun said.

“It just doesn’t seem like naval warfare. It’s more like piracy. If it gets out, won’t we look ridiculous?” asked a navy captain.

“So what? If we can give shore-based firepower a chance to strike, then we can be thieves, not just pirates,” one of the battle plan’s drafters, a shore-based defense system commander, said.

The operations commander said, “The flaws of the fishing boats are, one, they have no defensive weapons, and two, they are slow. But in the face of the total attack power of the enemy fleet, the difference between fishing boats and torpedoes on those two points can be ignored.”

No one spoke. The meeting attendees thought over this plan carefully, several naval officers occasionally exchanging views in low voices.

“For the time being, it looks basically workable. However…,” a naval officer said.

Again there was silence, silence for the “however,” since everyone knew what it implied: if the attack failed, or if it succeeded but the land-based missiles did not arrive in time, then those small fishing boats would have no chance of escaping from the powerful fleet.

But as soldiers in wartime, they knew that there was no need of further discussion of that “however.”

After a brief, whispered exchange with the shore defense systems commander, the operations director said in a loud voice, “Very well. Teams for each branch should draw up detailed battle plans based on this framework at once.”

* * *

The next day, Dawnlight, fully equipped, took three military transport planes to a small airfield in the Fujian theater. Ding Yi and Lin Yun disembarked first. On the runways to either side of them, fighters and bombers were landing in succession, while on a runway a little farther away, a large number of transport planes were landing, depositing a stream of tanks and soldiers in fatigues. More planes were circling, their engines thundering as they waited to land. On a road in the distance, an iron river of military vehicles sped through the dust, with no end in sight.

“Deployment against a land invasion has begun,” Lin Yun said darkly.

“Ball lightning will make it unnecessary,” Ding Yi said to console her. At the time, he believed it too.

* * *

At this point, Ding Yi said, “After I said that, Lin Yun looked at me for a few seconds, with the face of a woman looking for comfort. I had the wonderful feeling that, for the first time, I was not just a thinker, but a strong, powerful man.”

“Do you really believe that you’re stronger emotionally than she is?” I asked.

“She has her weaknesses, too. She can even be fragile. After Zhufeng sank and Jiang Xingchen died, that fragility became increasingly apparent.”

* * *

Lin Yun pointed out a grassy area not far off that was closely guarded. Heavily armed soldiers stood watch over tall stacks of goods, all of them in dark green metal containers half the size of a standard freight container. A large number of military trucks were constantly loading them and carrying them off.

“It’s all C-805 missiles. Probably in preparation for this operation,” she said softly. Ding Yi knew she was referring to the “Chinese Exocet” anti-ship missile, the most powerful weapon in China’s shore-based defense system, but he was shocked by the sheer quantity.

The first set of thunderball guns arrived, and were immediately shipped to the harbor and installed on the requisitioned fishing boats that were waiting there. The boats were small, the largest having a displacement of no more than one hundred tons. Each thunderball gun’s superconducting batteries were placed in the cabin, but the launchers were too long and had to be placed on deck, covered with a tarp or fishnet. Naval sailors and engineers took the place of fishermen, more than one hundred in all to pilot the fifty fishing boats.

Leaving the harbor, Lin Yun and Ding Yi headed toward the Coastal Defense Command Center, where Xu Wencheng and Kang Ming had assembled Dawnlight. In the war room, a navy colonel was describing the enemy on a large screen.