Sea Strike

30

The time of secrecy was over. The squadron had been rallied out of their places of concealment and now was moored in the sun. What was left of it.

Lieutenant Zhou Shan leaned against the finger pier railing and considered his new command. The Five Sixteen, what had been the first officer’s boat, was his now. Again, what was left of it. The hydrofoil’s upper works had been scored and torn by a massive shrapnel burst, and a work crew from the shipyard labored to scrub the bloodstains from the weather decks.

Bosun Hoong was busy as well, simultaneously endeavoring to both coordinate the repair job and to organize the handful of green seamen who would constitute the Five Sixteen boat’s new crew. Given the volume and intensity of his language, neither was proving to be an easy task.

The problems that Zhou was confronting would not be easily resolved either. Captain Li and the political officer had perished when the flag boat had been destroyed by a wild shot from the Silkworm battery. The squadron first officer and his exec were dead as well, dying at least at the hands of the enemy.

Zhou still thought of himself as a junior officer, and yet, now, he was the new squadron commander. Fleet Headquarters here in Shanghai seemed to have neither the authorization, interest, or resources to provide a replacement. Nor, with the submarine force away and clear, did they seem to have any orders for the squadron.

They were on their own, an unusual state of affairs for any PLA military unit. Zhou knew what must be done. He must rally the squadron again. He must get them through the trauma of the losses they had taken and he must prepare them for battle again. Most of all, he must find them a worth mission.

Unbidden, an image filled his mind. An image of the towering bladelike bow of a ghost ship looming out of the haze.