“It’s the bullets. Primarily,” she said. “Though I must say our German friends were quite ingenious with the improvements they suggested to the gun. We’re still working on them, of course. But we should have enough to outfit your entire team in a month.”
“That long?”
“My best advice, Captain, is not to let them try the weapon until then. That boy Powder especially; he’ll never give it up. Want to take another crack at the target? Best two out of three. You can use your visor if you want.”
KNOW WHITE, BE BLACK
Chen Lo Fann held the ideograms in his head as he scanned the horizon. The thick brush strokes and their stark ideas contrasted with the haze of the horizon, the fickle world flowing in its chaos. The words from the twenty-fifth chapter of the Tao Te Ching draped themselves across his consciousness, the old master’s voice as real in his thoughts as the shadows of the ships in the distance.
Know white, be black. Be the empire’s model.
There was no more perfect statement of his mission, nor his desire in life.
Chen focused his binoculars on the closest shadow, a mere speck even at highest magnification. It was a destroyer, an escort for the largest ship in the squadron just over the horizon, the aircraft carrier Shangi-Ti. Named for an ancient creator god, the carrier was considerably smaller than the Mao, the pride of the Chinese Mainland Navy. But though half Mao’s size, Shangi-Ti and her sister ship, T’ien, were nonetheless potent crafts, similar in many ways to the British Invincible class. Displacing about twenty thousand tons, Shangi-Ti and T’ien held four Dauphin multirole helicopters and a dozen Chinese versions of the Sukhoi Su-33.
The Su-33’s were launched with the help of a special catapult system on a ramped deck, then recovered with the help or arrestor gear. It was an awkward system in some respects, still in need of refinement; even with the ramp, the heavy Sukhois dipped low over the bow on takeoff, and botched landings were particularly unforgiving. The maritime versions of the planes were fairly short-ranged, and the Dauphins’ ASW gear somewhat old. But the crews were well trained and dedicated.
And unlike the Mao, which had originally been built by Russia, the two pocket carriers were an all-Chinese design — not counting, of course, certain useful items of technology that had originated abroad and found their way surrepitiously to Asia.
Know white, be black.
Fann’s thought and gaze turned southward, in roughly the direction of the Spratly Islands. Another task force was making its way northward there, this one also centered around an aircraft carrier — the Indian Vikrant. Just out of dry dock where she had received new avionics and a ramped deck, the ship was roughly the same size as the Shangi-Ti, though its basic layout harked back to World War II. Originally built by the English and refurbished several times, she boasted eighteen Harrier II jump jets, along with four or five helicopters and one rather limited radar plane.
Ostensibly, both forces were sailing into the South China Sea to protect ships bound for their home ports. The reality was more complicated — and less so. On their present courses, it would take only a few days for them to meet.
Everything Chen did aimed at that moment of intersection.
He himself commanded five ships. The naked eye, all were noncombatants, weak and vulnerable sisters that had no business near the caldron of battle. Four were similar to the small freighter on whose bridge he stood. They looked innocent, but their simple superstructures and wide hulls were crammed with spying gear, and their sophisticated communications devices kept them in constant touch though they were spread across several thousand square miles of ocean.
The fifth vessel, still far to the north, was unlike them in many ways. To the naked eye from one hundred yards, it looked only like a decrepit oil tanker. But it held Chen’s greatest tool — robot planes the scientists called Dragons. They would not be available for several days. Even then, it was doubtful what the aircraft could accomplish; they were still experimental.
They would extend his eyesight, which was enough. His more conventional tools were sufficient to his larger purpose.
Know white, be black. Be a model for the empire.
Chen satisfied, put down his glasses and went to have his morning tea.
Jeffrey “Zen” Stockard had faced considerable danger and hardship during his Air Force career; he had gunned down MiGs, nailed enemy antiaircraft sites, and lost the use of his legs in a horrific accident while testing robot fighters. He’d dealt with enemies ranging from poorly trained Libyan pilots to highly polished government bureaucrats, vanquishing all. His confinement to a wheelchair had not prevented him from deftly directing one of the most important programs at Dreamland. If any man might truly earn the title “courageous,” it was Zen Stockard. If he was not fearless — no man in full possession of his wits is completely devoid of some silver of fear — he was so much a master of fear as to be without peer in military service.
There was one thing, however, that turned his resolute will into quivering mass of jelly:
The whine of a dentist’s drill.
Zen took a last, sharp breath as the dentist closed in, aiming at a molar deep in his mouth. The way had been prepared with a heavy dose of Novocain, and in truth Zen couldn’t feel much of anything as the drill bit touched the tooth.
But he could hear its nerve-wracking, cell-tingling howl, a shriek of devastation so violent it reverberated in the suddenly hollow ventricles of his heart. Pain, incredible pain, pulsed through every vein, every artery, every capillary, coursing through his body like hot electricity. The world went black.
And then, thankfully, the storm broke. Pain and fear retreated. The viper had stopped his hiss.
Only to gather strength for a curdling scream five octaves higher as it tore through the vulnerable enamel and weakened dentin of the defenseless back tooth.
“Got to get it all,” growled the dentist, as if Zen had somehow hidden part of the cavity to spite him.
The worst thing was, the sadist enjoyed it all. When he finally stopped, he smiled and held the drill triumphantly in one hand, waving it like a victory flag.
“See — that wasn’t bad at all, right?”
“Awgrhfkhllmk,” said Zen. It was the most coherent sound he could manage with his mouth full of dentist tools.
:Geez, you’d think I was an Air Force dentist.” Dr. Gideon — Ken to friends and victims alike — poked fun at the Air Force whenever possible. His discharge papers from the Navy were prominently displayed in the hallway.
Sure they discharge him. He was a dentist.
“Awgrh,” said Zen.
“Maybe I’ll break for coffee,” teased Gideon.
“Awgrh-agrh.” Zen tried to make the mumble sound threatening, but there was only so much you could do with a sucked clawing at your gum. Gideon picked up another tool and shot cold air into the hole he had just created.
The pain nearly knocked Zen unconscious.
“you know, Jeff, I really have to compliment you. You’ve become a much better patient over the past year. Must be your wife’s influence.”
“Awrgr-kerl-wushump.”