Chapter 163
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 163
Chapter Title: Distant Bridge, Alameda (10)
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The hardest hurdle had now been cleared. But the grand finale of the escape drama was yet to come.
Winter had acquired the "Swimming" skill. Without it, he couldn't have swum six kilometers in this condition. Fortunately, he had plenty of points to invest in skills. The control personality evaluated all of the user's actions and interactions. The rewards for today's efforts exceeded expectations.
The problem was the protectee. The cold sea currents sapped a person's stamina and body heat at the same time. On top of that, there was the fear rising from the dizzying depths beneath their feet.
For the weakened Tan Guosheng, half of the inland waterway was far too long.
In the end, Winter hauled him onto a drifting boat. The bow was smashed, but the damage was minor enough that it wouldn't sink.
The boat drifted slowly eastward. The opposite direction from the one they'd swum against. If they stayed too long, they'd end up back at the point where they'd first jumped into the water. The abandoned pier was still burning.
"Too... cold..."
It was probably due to the tension releasing. Even in the darkness, the naval officer's face was strikingly pale. His teeth chattered: clack, clack. It oddly resembled the instincts of a variant.
"Wait here. I'll check inside."
Winter found the ladder leading below deck to the cabin. He aimed his pistol at the center of the shadows. The door to the engine room was locked, but with little need to worry about noise right now, it wasn't an obstacle. Bang! The lock shattered with one kick. Inside the door was silent darkness. No trapped variants or anything like that. Winter lowered his guard.
'Surely someone from the pier set it adrift...'
What had happened to the people who'd been on it?
"It's safe. Come down."
With that, Winter bit down on a pill. Crunch, crunch. The bitter taste and numbing sensation traveled down his throat. It was a hassle.
Below deck, there was a kitchen and a bedroom. In addition to the built-in electric heater, he found a portable gas burner. While lighting the flame, Tan Guosheng wrapped himself in a blanket and sat on the edge of the bed.
Winter's gaze, scanning the surroundings, stopped at the shattered engine room door. It was made of fine-grained hardwood.
Crack, crunch.
Winter, who had crushed it with sheer grip strength, tossed the sharp splinters into the sink. He lit the last piece with the burner, then shoved it under the sink. The sink was integrated with the hull, and the interior lining was metal, so the risk of fire was low. Still, caution was needed.
Smoke billowed. Too much for the single vent to handle. Naturally, the cabin grew hazy. Not enough to make breathing difficult, though.
How much time passed like that? The radio picked up faint static-filled transmission. Muffled Chinese.
[This is People's Liberation Army Navy Submarine Expedition 35. Any survivors of Navy Lieutenant Commander Tan Guosheng and the Alameda landing combat unit below, respond. Repeating. This is the People's Liberation Army...]
"My God, Mother sent a rescue team!"
The officer, overjoyed, took Winter's radio and responded, reciting the preset code phrase. There was almost no interference. The fire and gunfire must have drawn most of them away. The submarine had likely detected the change and attempted contact.
Communication went smoothly. The waterway was 400 meters wide here, so a low-power transmission was relatively safe. Listening to the exchange, Winter eased his suspicions. It didn't seem like a disguised rescue from some other Chinese faction, at least.
'The general's son is valuable enough to kidnap. Who knows where the operation intel leaked from.'
At the point where his son's whereabouts became unknown, Navy Lieutenant General Xie Lu wouldn't have just waited.
However, the fact that Xie Lu had submarine forces was new information.
Expedition 35. Not a nuclear sub, at any rate. The name told him that. Nuclear-powered ones were Long March-class; diesel ones were Expedition-class. Conventional diesel submarines couldn't be dismissed lightly. The CIA and U.S. Navy struggled with whale hunts because numerous surface ships and diesel subs protected Long March 9.
Red Skull operatives had once attacked a makeshift refinery to cut them off. It failed. The facility was attached to an oil tanker. It nearly set the entire bay ablaze. This was before Winter joined.
Wait. Winter furrowed his brow. An ominous feeling flashed through his mind. A vague realization hovered in indistinct shape.
"It's good, it's good! We can get out of here! Hahaha!"
The ecstatic shout disrupted his thoughts. Winter groped for the slipped insight. But once gone, the realization didn't return. Only a baseless premonition remained.
The two climbed up to the deck.
The approaching submarine revealed six masts breaking the surface. The tallest was the periscope mast. They'd spotted each other at about 30 meters apart. Even with the wind shifting, the thick fog was to blame.
The pitch-black hull surfaced silently. So cautiously that barely any bubbles rose. On the warship, nearly indistinguishable from the night, only the white wave-breaker emblem on the bow stood out. The conning tower, tower-like, resembled a cross from the front. Due to the pair of horizontal fins on the rudder.
The boat bumped against the submarine's bow. The distance control was exquisite.
The hatch didn't open immediately. Winter sensed Tan Guosheng's impatience out of the corner of his eye.
"Why aren't they coming out?"
Winter restrained him as he tried to cross. Just wait a bit.
Something moved inside the conning tower's glass windows. Eyes watching them, too. "Combat Sense" detected a low-level threat. More like heightened alertness than outright hostility.
'They might be infected.'
The opponents were soldiers whose country had fallen to the plague.
Moments later, two hatches opened. Sailors in blue-toned digital camouflage emerged from the conning tower and stern. Some aimed muzzles this way. The warning was mild. But Tan Guosheng stiffened with undignified anger. These insolent bastards... He muttered curses. Instead of soothing him, Winter stepped forward and leaped from deck to deck. Tan Guosheng followed with effort.
The captain, who came out to greet them personally, looked displeased at the two sole survivors.
"Lieutenant Commander Comrade, is this everyone? Where are the others?"
"All dead."
The atmosphere sank further at Tan Guosheng's reply.
"Is that true?"
The question carried multiple intents. Chief among them suspicion and reproach. The former asked if he'd abandoned his comrades to save himself; the latter rebuked the commander for returning alive while all his men died.
Tan Guosheng fell silent. Even if they were his mother's subordinates, the captain outranked him for now.
The taut silence broke with the captain's sigh.
"We've lost too many patriots today."
Then he ordered his men to frisk them. Check for bites. A standard procedure, but the intensity was the issue. Strip completely. It wasn't something to endure in a hallucinatory state. Tan Guosheng couldn't hide his humiliation. Winter stripped silently. The inspecting sailor recoiled at his combat boots. Clear bite marks, with several teeth still embedded.
"Don't take it personally, Comrade. As commander, I can't tolerate even the slightest chance of losing this boat. That's all. We're the last bulwark protecting the people. I hope you understand."
The captain's politeness toward a junior echoed Lieutenant General Xie Lu's shadow.
Winter, who mostly dealt with Chinese refugees, found "comrade" unfamiliar. Not because he hadn't heard it, but because the meaning differed. Among criminals, "comrade" often meant a slur for homosexuals.
After the body search, Winter and Tan Guosheng were escorted to a cabin.
The submarine reeked. Dizzying fecal stench. Brief ventilation didn't help. The crew smoking under the conning tower ladder contributed too.
"If you need anything, let us know. We'll be outside the door."
The two escorting sailors were also guards. Winter was an outsider, after all. Their feelings toward the officer weren't kind either. The hostility befitting a commander who left his men's ghosts on the battlefield. Something Tan Guosheng himself had worried about.
The door closed. The cramped cabin was purely for sleeping. It felt more confined than a Japanese I-400-class sub. Functional design, but no consideration for the human element. The beds—folding steel frames with blankets—silently attested to that. Crew were just parts comprising the submarine as a weapon.
Tan Guosheng tried to mask his embarrassment.
"Sorry about this. It's fine for me, but you shouldn't be treated like this. Not too uncomfortable, right?"
"No. At least this is much roomier than the top of a water tower, isn't it?"
The officer's question alluded to the cold reception, but Winter answered knowingly, with a faint smile.
'Joanna's evaluation wasn't great.'
Smiling with this face apparently looked quite menacing, so the FBI supervisor advised against grinning recklessly. It often backfired.
Still, the reaction was good. Tension drained from the officer's shoulders.
"Yeah... Got to think positive. Spacious. Really spacious."
Agreement in metaphor. Objectively cramped, but psychologically it felt vast. Tan Guosheng lay back on the bed. Indifferent to whether the blanket was damp.
"I have a question."
"What?"
"Couldn't you destroy the bridge with torpedoes?"
He already knew the answer, but asked to shift the mood. Maybe glean clues about Lieutenant General Xie Lu's faction from casual talk.
Tan Guosheng looked awkward. Sit up or not? He glanced at Winter.
"Uh... Don't misunderstand. It's not that torpedoes were more precious than people."
Seemed he'd misinterpreted the intent.
"Of course, no one could blame you for thinking that. Yeah, damn it. If we had plenty of torpedoes, we might have tried. No excuse for that."
"If I've offended you, I apologize. That wasn't my intent."
"Even if it was, it'd be fine. No need to mince words with me. Hm... Wishful thinking on my part."
"Thank you."
"No need to thank me. Anyway, to explain... It's a bit complicated. I'm not great with words... You served in the army, right? Where to start."
Realizing no resentment from Winter, the officer straightened his back, lay down, and sighed. He wiggled his crossed ankles, organizing his thoughts for a moment. Soon, he spoke.
"To cut to the chase, the eastern inland waterway is too shallow and narrow."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. For torpedoes to run, you need at least 10 meters depth. And greater width. The stretch between Alameda and Oakland looks wide, but the seabed isn't. Depth drops below 3 meters in the middle. Barely any margin. The Americans probably don't know this sea better than we do."
Likely. With half a hundred submarines infesting San Francisco Bay's interior. Plenty of data lost when the city fell.
"Plus, freshwater mixes in midway. The torpedo sonar... you know, the sound detector for targets and terrain... doesn't work right. Buoyancy changes underwater are severe, and there are lots of sunken ships. So if we used torpedoes, we'd waste at least a few. A loss we can't afford now. No more supplies coming."
And to take out a pier, you'd need two hits per bridge. Protected by breakwaters. Consumption would double. A detail omitted from the brief explanation.
"Understood. Looks like people will have to go next time too."
"...Yeah. If there's a next time."
The officer's repeated sighs grew heavier.
Winter suggested he sleep.
"Your color isn't good. How about closing your eyes for a bit?"
"Perfect timing, I'm sleepy. Air's stuffy. You rest too. It'll take time to return. Underwater is way more complicated than on the surface."
Tan Guosheng hinted at obstacles beyond terrain. The inland waterway entrance was a boundary between rival factions.
His breathing soon evened out. Shortly after, he began snoring softly.
Winter inspected the closed door. Solid alloy, no porthole, no peering eyes through a crack. Now he scanned the room. No separate surveillance like CCTV.
Safe enough? Winter slipped a finger inside his cheek. A thin thread caught on his fingertip. Tied to a molar, the other end went down his throat. Pulling it with a finger joint, a foreign sensation was drawn up from below his esophagus.
The object was an enteric capsule. He wiped it on the blanket and twisted it open. Inside was a USB stick.
The one who'd given it was CIA San Francisco Operations Base "Pequod" security officer Shannon Kowalski. The following was their conversation before deployment.
"Same specs as Chinese military rations. Can't tell from the outside, right?"
Winter had asked.
"What's inside?"
"Videos essential for men. Mostly from 2-3 years ago. FBI handpicked them, so quality's high. Tailored by access region—Chinese preferences best-of, they said?"
She added a wink to her charming smile. Then said:
"Actually, of course, latest Trojan horse. Impossible to detect. Tested on Chinese ships that surrendered in Hawaii. Though, facing vaccines over a year outdated, it'd be weirder if it didn't infect."
"Not sure if I'll get a chance to use it."
"Best is plugging it straight into any combat information center console, but no need if you can't. Leave it somewhere inconspicuous. A spot where they'll eventually find it, but not notice right away. Supply-cut military won't neglect even one USB."
The agent's request was reasonable.
Winter swallowed the empty capsule again and slid his fingers along the bed frame. Thin dust layer. Cleaned occasionally, it seemed.
Search complete: the back of the overhead shelf looked good. Mindful of sounds outside, Winter pushed in the USB. It went in deeper than expected. Might never be found if unlucky.
'Is this mission done...?'
All possible tasks complete. No issue returning. As long as the submarine wasn't attacked.
Winter lay on the bed too. Nerves relaxing. Time to recover.
============================ Author's Afterword ============================
#Q&A
Q. Maker-nim: @ Winter's feat of luring and breaking through variants with the right strategy—it's saved on headcam, right? Won't air on news due to disguise, but higher-ups who can view it will have even higher expectations... Keep it up, U.S. military!
A. Secret op, headcam would be weird, no? Current Winter isn't wearing one. Haha.
Q. Bluecrystal-nim: @ Paper book next month lol. Hardcovers are my greed, and no signed copies would be disappointing lol.
A. As I said before, signing for bookstores is tough. Thinking of them gathering dust a year later and getting warehoused... tears... ㅠㅠ
Q. BlitZkrieG-nim: @ Author-nim I love you
A. I love you too, but overcoming species barriers seems tough...