Alex had memorized the Chinese boat’s schematics, every room, armament, and crew capability. He had several immediate targets to destroy — the Kunming had anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine missiles, deck-top mounted guns, as well as two 30mm close-in weapon systems (CIWS) that would be ferocious against an exposed submarine hull. The upside for him was that the missile launchers were single system, which meant the firing mechanism could shoot multiple missile varieties, but it was the same battery — knock it out, and you take them all out. The other guns would need individual attention.
Alex stayed low and moved fast. He was a dark blur speeding along the deck to his first target. The rear half of the destroyer was primarily multi-function phased array radar — numerous sensors and sonar. Basically, it was the eyes and ears of the ship, which was now blinded and deafened by the white-noise net that he’d attached to the Kunming’s hull. Their problem would not become apparent until the comm. team sent or expected to receive a communication.
Alex darted forward again. It was the front third of the ship where most of the dragon’s fangs were embedded, and that section was directly under the raised bridge; it would be impossible to avoid being seen. He needed to rely on speed and accuracy, and then be gone within seconds.
Alex flattened himself on the external shielding, and paused to suck in a deep breath. He blinked hard to dislodge ice crystals that had formed on his lashes. His short dark hair was frozen solid against his scalp. His body’s regeneration capabilities had to continually work to repair a body under attack from the freezing cold and its determination to turn his limbs, and face, to solid ice. He laid his head back against the cold steel and counted down.
Three, two, one, zero… Alex exploded forward, his hands going to the pack on his front, and drawing forth several discs that looked like hockey pucks. His first destination was the two 30mm CIWS cannons. To each, he fixed a plasma disc, and pressed down on their timers. He then sped away to the smaller deck-mounted weapons. Once again, he attached several of the pucks, flicking on their pulses, and darting away.
By now, shouts had come from the upper deck, and the sound of running boots on steel. They would find him with their gun sights soon, and he had just one last job — the huge single system multiple missile launcher. No matter what came, this weapon needed to be taken out. Alex ran hard, a puck in each hand, his focus on the central launching barrel, when the bullet caught him in the shoulder, spinning him to the deck.
The bullet was a small caliber high velocity slug — probably fired from a QBZ-95 assault rifle. Alex was glad that whoever had fired it didn’t have it on full automatic, as the Chinese gas powered weapon had an 80-round drum, and could spit them all in under a minute.
Alex rolled and came up fast. More bullets pinged off steel around him, and he rolled and ran hard now, swerving and running to complete his mission, and also running for his life. Within ten feet of the missile launcher he leapt, and threw the discs hard — one went in, the other stuck to the outside, near the base — had to be good enough, he thought, as there would be no second attempt.
Time to go. He turned, accelerating. More bullets whizzed past — angry lead bees looking to inflict their fatal sting. When Alex was six feet from the railing, he dived, spearing down the forty feet of the raised hull towards the dark water of the Antarctic.
It was like a cold fist on his face and head, but he swam down deep, feeling the grind of the bullet in his shoulder, and aware of the air bubble tunnels the bullets made as they chased him down.
He had about a thousand feet to cover to make it to the USS Texas for an underwater entry. The Chinese would have high velocity sniper rifles deployed on the deck now, so surfacing was out of the question. The wound in his shoulder was a dull throb, but the puncture in his suit allowed more of the sub-zero seawater to enter, thankfully numbing the wound, but also freezing his limbs, and making his movements slower and more cumbersome.
The gunfire had ceased, or perhaps his hearing had shut down as he swam. He concentrated on counting his strokes, knowing each one took him six feet closer to his goal, but burned just a little more energy from his limbs, and a little more oxygen from his lungs.
How many strokes have I made? A hundred? More? CO2 was building up now, entering his blood stream and his brain, and making him drowsy. Flashes of light began to go off in his head, as the oxygen in his lungs was depleted. He was so tired, and all that remained was a calm voice in his head, Aimee’s maybe, he wondered, that told him to relax, to sleep. To simply stop and take that first big, deep breath of pure, warm oxygen. He hadn’t even realized he had stopped swimming. Then came the soft voice, sniggering at him. You lose, it whispered.
As his vision clouded, something loomed huge in the dark water before him. There came a sudden tightness as something circled his wrist, and then wrapped around his waist. He stopped caring, and his body simply hung limply in the thing’s grip as it came at his face, pushing something into his mouth.
For Alex, everything went black.
Onboard the Kunming, confusion, chaos, and shouted orders rolled across the deck and out over the freezing water. Diver detection systems were brought online, and these used sonar and acoustic location to track small movements in the water. Snipers waited, rock steady, for the intruder to surface or for the system to pinpoint his position. Below deck, engineers were running system checks, trying to ascertain if the intruder had disabled any of their infrastructure.
The loud and blaring klaxon horn was finally shut down, but the entire crew was deployed to searching the ship. Seaman Qui Long was the first to find one of the discs, stuck limpet-like, to the top of the 30mm cannon. He tried to dislodge it. It wouldn’t budge. He called over his shoulder for assistance, and then drew forth a knife from his belt and tried to wedge it under the object, without success. It was like it had become welded to the steel of the ship.
He called again for help and more sailors rushed to him, as he continued to struggle with the hockey puck sized pellet. He grunted in his efforts. “Stuck tight. Maybe an explosive.” His lips turned down in scorn. “Small. Unlikely to damage the armor plating.” He gripped it harder and tugged again.
As if in response to his derision, a small red light started to glow on its surface. Unbeknown to the sailors, the plasma-mine had initiated a tiny nuclear fusion. Inside its tiny casing, the miniature reactor collided particles and gamma rays with molten salts to generate trapped energy as pure heat — in two seconds it went from the sub-zero surface temperature of the steel plating to two thousand degrees Kelvin. Qui Long’s hands were vaporized to the elbow and he fell back screaming with the skin on his entire body red and peeling, as the now glowing disc sank into the gun, turning the surrounding steel to gray liquid as it went.
The same thing was occurring to all the guns, each of them having their barrels or firing mechanisms melted beyond use. The Kunming had just been taken out of the game.
Water bubbled around Alex as it rapidly drained away. The tightness around his waist was still there as he moved into full consciousness, and he jerked back, immediately banging hard into the side of the submarine’s seal tube.