The Chinese government, of course, denied that it had done anything wrong at all during the skirmish near Quemoy, and Admiral Yi had sworn to hundreds of reporters and government officials that he did not launch any attacks against the outlaw rebel Nationalists except to defend his ship and others in his group — the Nationalists and the Americans were to blame. The Taiwanese frigates had attacked the peaceful Chinese group of ships in international waters without warning. It was the rebel frigates and the American B-52 bomber that had launched the nuclear missiles, after unsuccessfully attacking the Chinese ships with conventional weapons. One missile had been destroyed by Chinese antiaircraft fire; the other missile, fired by the American stealth bomber toward the Chinese port city of Xiamen, near Quemoy Island, had detonated early. In the interest of peace, President Jiang Zemin had announced, China would move the peaceful group of ships back south to Hong Kong.
The sudden, swift, ignominious withdrawal from the Quemoy Island attack plan really hurt Yi’s pride. He felt as if his entire crew, his entire battle group, felt he had betrayed and abandoned them. True, the American stealth bomber had taken a swift, heavy toll on the battle group, but the attack plan itself was still alive, and chances for success had been good. But no more.
Now the carrier Mao Zedong, China’s greatest warship, was little more than a pony for children to ride — and the rebels on the island of Formosa were thumbing their noses and baring their asses toward mainland China. The thought really upset Yi and his fellow commanders. The world believed the Republic of China was the bright and promising young star, and that the People’s Republic of China was the cruel governess seeking to stunt the younger nation’s growth and aspirations. Everyone believed unification would eventually happen, but the world now mandated that it be subject to Taiwan’s timetable, not the People’s Republic of China’s. China would have to disavow communism and somehow “catch up” to Taiwan’s fast-growing capitalist economy before unification could become a reality.
This could not, would never, be tolerated. Lee Teng-hui and his bastard government on Taiwan had to come back into the Communist fold. It was ludicrous, ridiculous, to ask over a billion Chinese Communists to change their form of government over the desires of twenty-one million money-grubbing Taiwanese capitalist rebels. They would be surrendering their way of life simply because of money, and no true friend of the workers of the world would ever tolerate that.
The captain’s walkie-talkie beeped, and he raised it to his lips. “Speak.”
“Message from headquarters,” the watch officer on the bridge reported.
“Read it.”
“Message reads, ‘Starb right.’ End of message.”
“Very well,” Yi said. “Out.”
The walkie-talkie beeped again: “Target one has moved within specified range, sir,” the combat action officer reported, referring of course to the Taiwanese submarine trying to sneak in close to the Mao Zedong.
“Very well,” the captain replied. “Continue to monitor.” He picked up the binoculars on the leather strap slung around his neck and scanned the horizon to the south. He saw nothing but a few large fishing vessels far out on the horizon, their net booms extended, hauling huge nets out of the South China Sea. He often wondered about the hard but peaceful lives those men experienced, and wondered if destiny would ever allow him the luxury of choosing such a life for himself and his family. Yi loved the sea and had always wanted to be near it, part of it, but it seemed as if his desires and dreams had never been a factor in what sort of life he led.
If Yi had continued to watch, he would have seen the crew of the two fishing boats use their fishing net tackle to hoist four huge steel canisters off their decks and into the sea; seconds later, both boats were departing the area in considerable haste. The four canisters they had tossed overboard were American-made surplus Mk 60 CAPTORs (enCAPsulated TORpedoes), which were Mk 46 acoustic-homing torpedoes enclosed in a launch tube. The Mk 60s were remotely activated ten minutes after being dropped overboard. The torpedoes’ sonars locked onto the largest vessel in its sensor field — the carrier Mao Zedong, less than ten miles away — and then automatically launched themselves at the target.
The captain saw the need to force the Taiwanese Nationalists to submit to rightful Chinese government rule; he understood the need first to break down this cult of protectionism that had formed around Taiwan since they had claimed independence, that Taiwan was in the right and should be permitted to ignore and contradict Chinese authority simply because it was smaller or richer or more Western-like. But he would never understand all of it, all the politics and ideologies involved, all the various dynamics in the government and in the military that seemed to threaten to tear apart the very fabric of Chinese life.
The tours had just started. Today was “Our Children, Our Future Day” on the carrier Mao. The decks were crawling with hundreds of children of important Chinese Communist Party officials, foreign businessmen and politicians, and special invited guests. The kids could sit inside a Sukhoi-33 fighter that had been set up on one of the one-hundred-meter launch points, crawl around the anti-submarine helicopters, pretend they were launching off the deck or shooting antiaircraft missiles and guns, play with signal lights, and generally invade almost every square centimeter of the huge vessel. A large group of children had walked up the steep twelve-degree ski-jump incline and were peering nervously over the edge as a crewman explained how fighters launched from the carrier. A few brave boys even stepped right up to the rounded lip of the ski jump and looked down over sixty meters to the sea below.
The image made Yi smile. He was proud of those brave children, he thought — he didn’t know them, did not know their families, but he was proud of how brave they were. Too bad…
Yi’s walkie-talkie beeped several times — the ship-wide alerting system. “All hands, all hands, this is the bridge, stand by for emergency action stations. Captain to the bridge.”
The captain keyed the mike on the walkie-talkie: “Captain here. Report.”
“High-speed screws detected by passive sonar, sir,” the officer of the deck responded excitedly. “Torpedoes in the water, bearing one-niner- five, range four thousand two hundred meters and closing. Additional torpedoes detected at bearing three-zero-zero.”
The captain closed his eyes. It had begun. Although not as he would have envisioned the Battle For Chinese Reunification to commence, it had finally happened. “Sound general quarters,” he ordered. The ship-wide mechanical alarm bells began ringing immediately. “Clear the flight deck, launch the ASW helicopters, prepare to retaliate against the rebel submarine. Haul anchor and prepare to get under way. Warn the rest of the fleet that we will be maneuvering for ASW air combat operations and ready all submarine countermeasures. Send a flash satellite emergency message to Eastern and South China Sea Fleet headquarters and advise them that the Mao carrier group is under attack by Taiwanese submarine forces.”