Piranha: Firing Point

A display in the lower center of Chu’s console changed from a readout of tank levels to show computer animation of the submarine ahead. The depiction was strangely real, with waves that caused shimmering patterns on the sub’s upper deck. The aft X-tail of the animation blinked, flashing red appearing on the control surfaces. The view suddenly rotated so that the observer looked down on the ship as it began to turn right slowly, from a superimposed line labeled 180, another line five degrees clockwise labeled 185. The numerals 185 blinked for a second as the Second Captain’s voice again spoke in his earphone: “The ship is steady on course one eight five, sir. All control surfaces now at zero effective rudder.”

Chu wondered what his script read at this point.

Shrugging, he said, “Very good.”

“Seems to work. Admiral,” from Zhang.

Inside, Chu smiled. The plan was working. It was time to drive the ship deep, then steer westward to the East China Sea and get out of the sea-trials area. The Japanese surface fleet would be coming soon, looking for their missing submarines. Once he’d made some miles east, he would need to communicate with his satellite— to tell the PLA Admiralty the good news — and with the other unit commanders. Then he’d instruct the seaplanes to drop their explosives and cargo of wreckage into the sea. They were loaded with oil tanks, pieces of fabric, scraps of plastic piping, some electrical cables, about a ton of floating detritus each, all designed to buy time, to create the impression to the Japanese navy hierarchy that their subs had all sunk.

More important than that was to learn the ship, how to drive it, how to fight it, and how to make the Second Captain completely functional.

He was bone tired, and there were hours and hours of work to do. But then, so much had gone right They had done it, they had actually done it.

Chu felt like a proud father watching a son walk his first steps. His plan, his brainchild, was working.

STORM WARNING

Chapter 3 Wednesday October 27

DYNACORP NEW CONSTRUCTION (NEWCON) FACILITY

PEARL HARBOR NAVAL SHIPYARD

PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

Vice Admiral Michael Pacino lifted his eyes upward, past the flank of the submarine to the structure of the ship’s tail towering over his head. The top of the rudder rose over seven stories high relative to the floating drydock’s deck. The ship was huge and graceful from this angle, the clean lines of her hull and the sharp edges of her tail section making her seem to lunge forward to the sea, even suspended motionlessly on the dock’s blocks.

The new ship was beautiful, much of her Pacino’s own design. Yet somehow today that thought held no magic for the admiral.

Pacino stood over six feet tall, thin and gaunt in his lightweight khakis and black shipyard boots. His white hardhat was painted with the crossed anchors and eagle of a Navy officer, three stars of his rank posted above, the legend below reading commander unified submarine command. He wore the three silver stars of flag rank on his collars, with a gold dolphin submariner’s pin above his left pocket. He wore a white gold Annapolis ring on his left ring finger, a scratched and worn Rolex diving watch on his wrist. The skin of his arms and face looked tanned, but actually had been damaged from a frostbite injury during an Arctic mission that had gone wrong.

His face would have been handsome had he weighed ten or twenty more pounds. As it was, his cheekbones seemed overly pronounced, making his large green eyes seem startling, his lips too full, his nose too straight. His hair was white, contrasting with his black eyebrows and dark skin, and his otherwise young appearance. Adding to the effect were the deep lines around Pacino’s eyes, as if he had spent decades at sea — perhaps on the windblown deck of a square-rigged sailing vessel. When people met him for the first time, they invariably stared at him, trying to read the conflicting signals of his age. His tall, wiry frame, the shape of his face, and the tone of his voice were those of a vigorous man in his late thirties, while his hair and skin brought to mind a fisherman in his sixties.