The Gotland Deception

Chapter Twenty-Three: Thunder Feather

The command center’s air conditioning fought a losing battle against forty bodies crammed into a space meant for twenty. Jodi Mack stood at the primary display, watching Hammer Shark torpedo feeds stream across the holographic projection. The converted destroyer tender Emory S. Land rolled gently in two-foot swells, her combat information center now serving as the nerve center for today’s exercise.

“Speed check. Sixty knots confirmed. Terminal phase lock-on in five seconds.”

The Hammer Shark’s nose dipped in a final surge, water cavitation bleeding from its flanks as it sprinted toward a decommissioned tank landing ship playing the role of a PLAN Type 075 amphib. The one-way weapon had traveled forty nautical miles to reach this point, guided by nothing but its onboard AI and preprogrammed mission parameters.

“Three… two… one… impact.”

The display flared white. When the feed cleared, the target ship listed heavily to port, a forty-foot hole torn just below her waterline. The Hammer Shark had detonated its five-hundred-pound warhead with surgical precision, right at the vulnerable joint between hull and machinery spaces.

“Target neutralized,” Chief Petty Officer Huang announced, trying to keep the excitement from his voice. “Time from launch to impact: thirty-seven minutes.”

“Not bad.” Mack circled the impact point on her tablet, transmitting the analysis to all stations. “But check your depth sensors. What do you see?”

Huang frowned, pulling up the data. His face fell. “It… it ran shallow the last thousand meters. Breach probability was eighteen percent.”

“Eighteen percent chance the PLA spots your torpedo wake and has time to deploy countermeasures.” Mack let that sink in. “In the strait, with that murky water and all the commercial traffic? Maybe you get away with it. But maybe you just wasted a cool eight million dollars and gave away your launch position.”

Commander Tang moved between the stations, observing his sailors’ work. “The AI should have maintained optimal depth.”

“Should have, but didn’t.” Mack pulled up the Hammer Shark’s decision tree, a cascading waterfall of calculations made in milliseconds. “See here? It prioritized speed over stealth in the terminal phase. Why?”

The room studied the data. Finally, a young ensign named Zhao raised her hand. “Tidal current. It detected a following current and tried to maximize velocity.”

“Exactly. The AI made a tactical decision based on incomplete data.” Mack highlighted the relevant code. “In programming, we call this an edge case. The Hammer Shark trained on thousands of simulations, but never this exact combination of current, depth, and target profile.”

She turned to face the room. “This is why we’re here. Not to teach you which buttons to push, but to understand how these things think. Because in five weeks, when Skinny Poo sends his invasion fleet, you won’t have time for debug cycles.”

Mick’s voice crackled over the intercom from the weather deck observation post. “Mack, we’ve got dolphins playing in the target area. Might want to delay the next shot.”

“Copy that.” She switched displays. “All right, people. While nature takes its course, let’s talk about the Hammer Shark’s real magic — cooperative hunting.”

The hologram shifted to show a simulated PLAN carrier group: one Type 003 carrier, two Type 055 destroyers, three Type 054A frigates, and a supply ship. Classic Chinese naval formation, bristling with defensive systems.

“Single Hammer Shark versus this?” Mack asked. “You’re throwing rocks at a fortress. But watch what happens with a coordinated attack.”

She initiated the simulation. Eight Hammer Shark units launched from different vectors — some from submarines, others from disguised merchant vessels, two even fired from a stealth corvette from fifty miles away. The torpedoes immediately began talking to each other through quantum-encrypted burst transmissions.

“Wow. They’re sharing data,” Tang observed. “Building a collective picture.”

“Uh huh. More than that.” Mack zoomed in on the lead torpedo. “They’re negotiating amongst themselves. Watch.”

The Hammer Shark swarm steadily began its approach toward the carrier group. The PLAN’s defensive systems activated the moment they detected the first torpedo — decoys, jammers, active sonar, even counter-torpedo torpedoes. The Hammer Sharks scattered, some chasing false targets, others going silent.

Then something beautiful happened.

The surviving Hammer Shark units regrouped, their AI collectively recognizing the deception. They redistributed targets based on damage probability, approach angles, and remaining fuel. Two torpedoes even went dark, loitering in place while their brothers drew defensive fire.

“Holy hell,” someone whispered.

The attack unfolded like a deadly ballet. Torpedoes feinted high, drawing defensive fire, while others slipped through the noise below. The carrier’s escorts found themselves turning to engage threats from every quadrant, their overlapping defense zones suddenly full of gaps.

When the simulation ended, the carrier listed dead in the water, both destroyers were sinking, and a frigate burned from stem to stern.

“Six Hammer Sharks expended,” Mack tallied. “Total cost: forty-eight million. Damage inflicted? One carrier group mission-killed. That’s a thirteen-billion-dollar trade in your favor.”

“True, but they’ll adapt,” Tang said quietly. “The PLA will develop countermeasures.”

“Of course. I’m sure they already are.” Mack pulled up some intelligence photos that US Naval Intelligence had cleared for her to share. They showed Chinese naval bases with new acoustic arrays, towed decoys designed specifically for high-speed torpedoes, even experimental directed-microwave weapons for underwater use. “Which is why we don’t rely on any single system.”

Mick’s voice returned over the speakers. “Dolphins have cleared the test range. We are cleared to resume the exercise.”

“Outstanding. Petty Officer Wang, your team’s up.” Mack reset the range display. “This time, you’re programming a Hammer Shark for harbor infiltration. Target is a destroyer tied up at pier. Defenses include anti-torpedo nets, patrol boats, and active sonar. Show me how you thread that needle.”

Wang’s team huddled over their tablets, fingers flying across the interface. The Hammer Shark’s programming screen looked like abstract art — decision trees branching into probability clouds, behavioral parameters expressed in mathematical notation.

“Sir,” Wang said after ten minutes, “we’re ready.”

“Launch when ready.”

The Hammer Shark slipped into the water with barely a splash, its pump-jet propulsion nearly silent. On the display, it immediately dove deep, hugging the bottom contours.

“Conservative approach,” Mack noted. “Trading speed for stealth.”

The torpedo crept forward at eight knots, less than a quarter of its maximum speed. Every few minutes it would stop entirely, passive sensors drinking in the acoustic environment. When a patrol boat passed overhead, the Hammer Shark actually buried itself in the bottom sediment, playing dead until the threat passed.

“Jesus,” Mick’s voice came over comms. “That’s not a torpedo, that’s a sea snake.”

Three hours later — compressed to twenty minutes in simulation time — the Hammer Shark reached the harbor mouth. Antitorpedo nets blocked the obvious approaches, but Wang’s programming had anticipated this. The weapon located a gap where tidal flow had shifted the net anchors, just wide enough for its sleek body.

“Threading the needle,” Ensign Zhao breathed.

Inside the harbor, new challenges arose. Commercial traffic, police boats, active sonar pinging from shore installations. The Hammer Shark wove between obstacles like a living thing, its AI making thousands of microadjustments.

Then it found the destroyer.

“Target acquired,” Wang announced. “Initiating terminal run.”

The Hammer Shark had two options: impact the hull directly or swim beneath and detonate under the keel. Wang’s programming chose option three — neither.

The torpedo surfaced just long enough for its optical sensor to verify target identity, then dove again. It swam beneath the destroyer, past it, then turned back toward the pier. When it detonated, the explosion destroyed not just the ship but a significant section of the dock infrastructure.

“Mission kill plus infrastructure denial,” Mack said approvingly. “The destroyer’s not just sunk — it’s destroyed the pier. Well done.”

But Wang wasn’t celebrating. He stared at the aftermath display, calculating casualties from the dock explosion. “Collateral damage. Those were civilian dock workers in the simulation.”

“Yes, they were.” Mack’s voice softened. “This is the reality of autonomous weapons. Your programming, your ethics, your choices — they all matter. The Hammer Shark will do exactly what you tell it, so you better be damn sure what you’re telling it is right.”

The room fell quiet. Outside, the real ocean sparkled under the tropical sun, peaceful and deceptive.

“Let’s talk rules of engagement,” Mack continued. “The Hammer Shark can discriminate between military and civilian targets, but only if properly programmed. It can abort attacks if conditions change, but only if you build in those safeguards. Every line of code you write is a moral decision.”

Tang stepped forward. “In a shooting war, those distinctions become difficult.”

“I agree. They do.” Mack nodded. “Which is why we train. Which is why you’re here. Because when Skinny Poo sends his fleet, you’ll need to stop them without becoming the monsters they paint you as.”

She pulled up footage from the Russia-Ukraine conflict — autonomous sea drones striking bridges, ports, naval vessels. “This is your future. Precise, lethal, but bounded by law and conscience. The Hammer Shark gives you reach. Lattice gives you coordination. But judgment? That stays human.”

Mick entered the command center, shaking water from his cover. “Hate to interrupt the philosophy seminar, but weather’s building. We’ve got maybe two more runs before we need to secure.”

“Copy that.” Mack turned back to her students. “Final exercise of the day. Commander Tang, I want you to program a Hammer Shark for the ultimate test — discrimination drill. Mixed military-civilian harbor, degraded visibility, jamming environment. Show me you can still put warheads on foreheads without killing innocents.”

Tang moved to the programming station, his team forming around him. As they worked, Mack pulled Mick aside.

“They’re getting it,” she said quietly. “The technical stuff, the tactics. But I wonder if we’re preparing them for the real cost.”

Mick gazed through the porthole at the target ship, still burning from the morning’s exercise. “Nobody’s ever ready for that. But when the alternative is watching your country disappear?” He shrugged. “You do what you gotta do.”

“Yeah.” Mack watched Tang’s team work, young faces intent on their screens. “Let’s just hope we’re teaching them to win, not just die more efficiently.”

“Amen to that.” Mick checked his watch. “Speaking of which, you heard the latest? PLA’s moving another carrier group toward the exercise area.”

“The Fujian?”

“And escorts. Big metal middle finger to anyone watching.”

Mack felt the weight of the timeline pressing down. Less than three weeks until April fifteenth — three weeks to turn these sailors into robot wranglers capable of stopping an armada.

“Then we better make every minute count,” she said.

On the display, Tang’s Hammer Shark entered the water, beginning its discrimination run. Time to see if human judgment could be encoded into silicon and steel. Time to see if David’s sling was smart enough to find Goliath’s eye.