Piranha: Firing Point

Gama paused, aware that he was at a severe disadvantage, despite the fact that defending a piece of territory was easier than attacking it. He thought back to his days as a midshipman, his cross-training with the Self-Defense Force, dashing through a forest with a helmet, dark green facial camouflage, an R-35 automatic rifle in his hand. The whole drill had seemed like a childish game of playing soldier. So it felt now, except his stomach was churning with anxiety — anxiety that he would lose his command, the ship he’d been entrusted, the trillion-yen miracle machine for which he held absolute responsibility.

That, and fear he was about to get killed.

Gama fought to clear his mind, to flush away such negative thoughts. No matter what, he would conduct himself as a commanding officer, the ship’s captain.

His next order was made with a deep voice, hard as steel, without a single tremor. “First, stand by the hatch to the steam module. Navigator, take the doorway of stateroom three. Ops Officer, you take the doorway to the messroom. I’ll help Sugimota. When these men come in, all of you shoot low. They’ll come in crawling, expecting you to aim high. Everyone clear?”

The others were suddenly reassured. Off they ran to their tasks, unaware of the struggle Gama was fighting inside.

Lieutenant Commander Umigiri, the young navigator, looked at him with narrowed eyes, any fear he was feeling masked. Gama frowned at him, surprised that the youth could exhibit such self-control. “Sir, what if these are our men, sent on an exercise by Admiral Tanaka to test us?”

“Impossible,” Gama spat, continuing aft with Sugimota.

“I’d have been briefed on it. No more discussion.

Everyone, take your safeties to the off position. Here they—”

Chu was about to shove the hatch open when a speaker overhead suddenly blasted out a female Japanese voice.

“The reactor is self-sustaining.” “What did she say?” Chu asked Lo, but in the next moment he already knew. The eerie quiet of the ship was replaced by a booming roar, coming from the overhead.

Chu realized the air conditioning was coming back on.

“The reactor is back on-line,” Lo said, glancing over.

“Hold it, men,” Chu said quietly. Defenders might already be coming, so it would be best to enter the space prepared. “Weapons at ready. Insert on my mark… three, two—”

Chu was amazed to discover that he fully expected to die. Never before, not even when he had ejected from the exploding wreck of his Yak over Go Hai Bay, had he ever thought he was anywhere near death. But now he could feel it, just on the other side of this hatch.

Beyond was not some uncaring darkness but an animated spirit, ready to take him. It was as if a voice had trumpeted into his skull: Chu Hua-Feng is a dead man.

With that thought he became filled with violent fury, anger at himself, at this fouled-up mission, at the killers of his father, at the Japanese, and at life itself. The anger was like a fireball that burned him from the inside. He sneered viciously, baring his teeth.

A furious scream erupted from his lips the instant before he smashed the hatch open with an explosive thrust.

He surged into the compartment, his weapon lowered, the silenced rounds bursting from his pistol.

Just before the hatch, Fumio Sugimota lifted his R-35 rifle, his index finger just barely brushing the trigger.

The rifle’s safety was off, the clip loaded, a round in the chamber.

Suddenly the hatch exploded outward at him with a speed he never thought possible for such a heavy device.

With iron force it smashed him in the forearm and spun him around. Even before he could register the snap of his bone breaking, the hatch smacked into the wall of the passageway, then rebounded from the bulkhead rubber stop and cracked into his face, shattering his nose.

He had the briefest impression of figures standing inside the open hatchway. One of them let loose a rasping, phlegm-laced war whoop. Just before the hatch swung back in his face, he tried to raise the weapon to fire it.

He did not hear the thump of the AK-80 firing in automatic mode, the supersonic crack of four 9-mm heavy-grain rounds.

He didn’t feel the bullets as they pierced his chest, his upper arm, upper back, lower back. It seemed as if he were pushed, hard, back into the hatch, and then he had the strangest sensation of floating, his body suddenly boneless and unable to support his weight. He was falling in slow motion toward the deck, and as he fell he looked at the intricate pattern set into the carpet, repeating dull-colored interlacing vines and leaves. He’d never really noticed before, but it suddenly seemed fascinating as he plunged toward it. The pattern expanded rapidly and vibrated as he bounced once on the deck, then stopped moving.