This total independence had worked well for her, and for some time now she had lived as contentedly self-contained as a turtle. Recently, though, she had begun to wonder if she hadn’t been a little too efficient with how she had engineered her world. Generally she managed to brush the thought aside as just a symptom of looming middle age, but, sometimes, looking at Ken and his family, she found herself thinking that maybe having something permanent somewhere to come home to might not be all that bad.
“Captain,” the OOD called from the wheelhouse hatchway. “Retainers Zero One and Zero Two are inbound and on rendezvous approach.”
Vince Arkady and his wingwoman, Lieutenant (j.) Nancy Delany, were coming home to roost.
“Very good, Mr. Freeman,” Amanda called back over her shoulder. “Go to flight quarters and bring the helos aboard at your convenience.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
The vibrant growl of rotors filled the air and the Cunningham’s pair of SAH-66 Sea Comanches came into view astern. Fenestron-tailed and sleekly hunchbacked, the two small machines bore the slightly odd aerodynamics of stealth technology. A LAMPS variant of the U.S. Army’s latest generation of scout helicopters, their low detectability was intended to complement that of their mother ship. Tucked into a stylishly tight formation, they swept down the Duke’s starboard side a meager fifty feet above the wave crests. Maneuvering as if they were chained together, the two helos flared out and dumped speed, station keeping just off the snub wing of the bridge.
Looking across into Retainer Zero One’s forward cockpit, Amanda could see Arkady’s helmet turn toward her. Even through the tinted visor she could sense that damnable grade-school grin of his. She lifted a hand in greeting, and he gave an acknowledging nod. The noses of the two helos then dipped in unison and they gained speed, pulling ahead of the ship. As Amanda and Hiro watched, they popped up and into a flashy crossover break around the Cunningham’s bow, heading back to line up on the helipad.
Amanda took another draw at her tea and contentedly lounged back against the rail. On the other hand, there was still a lot to be said for being able to take everything that was important to you right along with you.
9
The fast attack squadron held to the center of the broad Huangpu River channel. Running on displacement with their hydrofoils retracted, their dark blue-gray paint rendered them all but invisible. The air around them was filled with the deep-toned rumble of idling diesels and the peculiar combination of miasmas unique to Shanghai: the wet sewer and seaweed stench rising up from the Yangtze estuary, the waxy, raw petroleum from the great Zhongxing refinery complex, and the dry, choking haze of an uncountable number of small charcoal fires.
To the west, the city itself was spectral, a place where the shadows had been granted free rule after the setting of the sun.
Upstream, in what had been the old Foreign Settlements along the Bunt, dilapidated 1930s-vintage skyscrapers were silhouetted against the sky, dark and jagged like some ruin of the Second World War frozen in time. For all of the city’s teeming millions, nowhere could more than a dozen lights be seen in a single sweep of the eye. There was no longer power to spare to illuminate the streets, and even such a simple thing as a lightbulb was now a precious commodity to be carefully husbanded.
Lieutenant Zhou Shan could recall when the night skyglow of Shanghai could be seen from forty miles off the coast.
That had been on his cadet cruise only a few short years ago.
Now he sometimes wondered if the night would ever be held at bay again.
The Five Nineteen boat was the trailer in the column, and Zhou’s helmsman steered by the pale plume of wake produced by the craft ahead. They possessed none of the night vision equipment available aboard some of the Fleet’s larger and more modern vessels, and even their elementary radar was useless in these confined waters.
The Five Nineteen was an old copy of an older design — the venerable Hushuan-class hydrofoil torpedo boat. No point defense beyond the manually operated twin 14mm machinegun mounts fore and aft. No guided weaponry at all except for the pair of massive 53VA antishipping torpedoes in their twin launching tubes. No extensive sensor suite. No countermeasures.
Probably no real chance of survival against a truly state-of-the-art enemy.
Zhou was not unduly concerned about the age of his small command. When one served in the People’s armed forces, one learned to make do with less than the latest and the best.
What was perturbing was not being able to maintain what he did have in the best condition possible. Beneath his fingers, he could feel where corrosion was eating into the paintless cockpit railing, and he could detect a faint, uneven slammer in the growl of the single engine they had on line.
Their apportionment of sea stores and spare parts, frugal under the best of conditions, had grown almost nonexistent over the past few months. What was worse, ever since the beginning of the war, the squadron had been sitting uselessly in its home base at Changshandau, slowly rusting away, while bandits and counterrevolutionaries tore the heart out of the People’s Republic.
When the squadron had been ordered south, Zhou had hoped that at long last they were being committed to battle — possibly even against the gangsters of the Kuommtang who had dared to return from their island kennels. Instead, they had been directed here to Shanghai, reasons unexplained.
Behind him the young officer heard tools clatter and bosun Hoong swear fervently in his thick North Coast accent. The bosun and two other of Five Nineteen’s deckhands were struggling with a frozen bolt at the foot of the hydrofoil’s stubby radar mast. That had also been unexplained — why they must be prepared to fold their radio and radar masts down parallel to the deck. Zhou was estimating that they must soon be coming to the second of the right handed bends in the river’s channel when he suddenly observed a shadowy form materializing out of the darkness, just off his course line. “Stop engines!” he snapped at his helmsman.
Over the transmission howl, he heard the voice of Captain Li hailing him. His squadron commander was holding the flag boat just off the central channel, one of his deckhands waving the other fast-attack craft past with a red lensed flash light.
“Is all well with you young Shan? No problems with the channel?”
“All well, Comrade Captain No difficulties.”
“Good. We are almost home. The squadron is being dispersed to separate moorages along the eastern side of the river. Stand on upstream until you clear the shipyards, then watch the left shore for a blinking signal light. Your signal will be short, long, short. Turn in toward it and follow the instructions of the guide. Are you ready to lower your masts?”
Zhou looked aft. “Just another few moments, Lieutenant,” Hoong gamted from deck level. “Yes, Comrade Captain We are prepared “
“Excellent Carry on, Shan.”
Zhou’s combination of frustration and curiosity drove him to call out once more.
“Comrade Captain, can you tell us what our mission will be here?”
“As it is everywhere, Comrade Lieutenant,” Li replied, a faint reproof in his tone, “to serve the will of the people.”