WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 138: Trial (3)
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Captain Fowler raised a hand.
“Even if we did establish an encirclement, were we not still in a deadlock because the remnants of the Chinese military kept us from tightening it any further? Why did the prey leave its own nest?”
Chadwick answered.
“Our side’s operation was not exposed. It seems they got swept up in a faction struggle... We still have not obtained precise information. A large-scale purge is underway over there. Our informants are keeping their heads down. Well, a few of them have probably become fish food already.”
“So at present we have nothing? We do not even know when or where the line was breached? Then how do we know the prey got out?”
“Easy. One question at a time, please. Well, I will answer in order. First, there is some information that needs to be confirmed. Apparently, the one who newly seized the destroyer Kunming, commonly known as 『Point Charlie 172』, is Rear Admiral Lei Yanlie. As you know, Charlie 172 is basically the command post of the Haiyingtang zone.”
Gyeoul turned a few pages of the materials. He did not have a 「Speed Reading」 skill, but he quickly found the relevant section. It was about the former Chinese military forces that had absorbed refugee groups and criminal organizations.
Charlie, C, was the initial for China. In other words, Point Charlie meant a Chinese stronghold. Haiyingtang was one of them, controlling the waters east of San Francisco International Airport.
「Three destroyers, five frigates, and numerous other vessels. Estimated armed personnel: over 30,000.」
Reading it, he saw that they were essentially a warlord force.
Their scale was enormous, but the document said the frontline action teams were armed with clubs, knives, and the like. Even so, numbers alone were threatening. The difference between an army and a gang lay in discipline even more than in weapons.
Chadwick went on to explain the background that was not in the documents.
“Lei Yanlie originally served in the General Political Department before moving into a post as a naval political commissar. He is closer to a pure Communist Party member than a soldier. So he had some friction with the mainstream commanders. Honestly, I expected this bastard to get pushed out before long, but things are taking a strange turn. If the report is true, then he must have launched a surprise revolt.”
“Changzheng 9 belongs to the opposing faction?”
“It is only a guess, but they probably had no time to think straight. There must have been a mutiny aboard. If Rear Admiral Lei had been in his right mind, he would have planted his own people inside Moby Dick. Nuclear weapons are the core of their bargaining power. Without Moby Dick, their leadership has a serious problem. They have to control it.”
The Intelligence Agency team leader kept replacing Changcheng 9 with Moby Dick. Gyeoul found it strange that nobody seemed bothered by it. It was not an unfitting metaphor. In the sense that it was hard prey to catch, there was a similarity between the whale in the novel and the Chinese nuclear submarine. But...
‘It never gets caught.’
Not only did it never get caught, it even attacked and sank the whaling ship that pursued it. There was only one survivor. Depending on how one looked at it, the metaphor could be taken as foreshadowing the deaths of most of the people here.
“We still do not know when or how it slipped out. The waters inside the bay are such a mess. But a Japanese submarine that stopped by here a little after midnight picked up Moby Dick’s acoustic signature. It was returning to Angel Island, so that means it encountered it outside the encirclement.”
An acoustic signature meant the noise characteristics of a specific vessel. It was like a ship’s fingerprint.
What a coincidence. Of all vessels, it had to be Jinryu. Captain Umehara was a decent man. Looking at the long-term future of this world, the more people like Umehara there were, the better.
Would he be all right? Gyeoul focused on the briefing.
“What were they doing instead of sinking it right there? If they had, this damned mission would already be over.”
The complaint came from somewhere other than the two people leading the exchange. It was a Lieutenant from Blue Skull Team. Gyeoul did not know them yet. The fatigue on their face was more pronounced than on anyone else’s.
Team Leader Chadwick answered.
“According to them, they lost it because of a malfunction.”
“A malfunction?”
“That boat, whether it is called Jinryu or whatever, defected before it was officially commissioned. It was still basically in trial operation, and it was supposed to enter service in the first half of this year. Even if its performance is good, it cannot help having plenty of minor breakdowns. Though I will admit, it is rather funny that an engine failure happened at that exact moment.”
“You do not sound like you believe them.”
“There are quite a few Japanese vessels over there.”
The inner bay was shallow. It was the sort of environment where the blast effect of a torpedo would inevitably reach the surface. An underwater explosion had a smaller range than one in the air, but within that range its destructive force was even greater. Especially upward.
“So they hesitated?”
“The possibility of their own civilians dying en masse, and the possibility of the torpedo missing. After weighing both, I am hoping they chose to be conscientious idiots.”
Hoping? It was an odd word to use, but not a slip of the tongue. The Intelligence Agency field chief bared stained teeth in a smile that clearly hid something else.
“I have already contacted Angel Island. A detailed inspection is underway. If this was deception aimed at us, they will pay the price. Since the whale already got away, I hope we can at least salvage a lesson from it. It should make a fine warning to the collaborators we have left.”
“Mm.”
A low, small groan. It was Joanna.
Among the rest of the room, about half seemed to agree with Chadwick, while the other half showed nothing at all.
If the engine failure story was false, how much must Captain Umehara have agonized over it? Gyeoul tried to imagine it.
The knowledge he needed seeped out of his accumulated cycles. Once, one version of Gyeoul had met his end aboard a submarine that had become humanity’s final bastion. A giant coffin of steel where people hanged themselves one by one in despair. Its end had been self-scuttling. After recalling it, the boy erased the emotion and kept only the experience.
A torpedo was a weapon that chased sound. Sometimes it emitted sound itself and traced the echo back to its target.
But it was heavily affected by its environment. In shallow water, sound was liable to scatter in wild reflections. The uneven floor inside the bay. The floating city made of ships. Even at that late hour, the everyday noise of that ruined city would probably drown out a submarine.
‘I have heard it before. A submarine moving at low speed is quieter than a vacuum cleaner.’
The river water flowing into the bay was another problem. Fresh water and seawater formed separate layers and did not mix easily. Sound waves could distort along that boundary.
So the chances of a torpedo missing were high. A torpedo that lost its target automatically sought another one. If it hit, it would be a tragedy. If it missed, it would be an even greater catastrophe. To improve the odds of success, they would have had to fire several.
Or die together.
If it was wire-guided, one shot would be enough. But then they could not hide after firing. They would remain exposed to the very end.
It would amount to dying together in order to minimize civilian casualties.
What kind of choices were these? He could vividly picture the captain rubbing his stomach with a frown.
“Setting that aside, which direction did the target head? Do we need to relocate our base?”
It was the natural question. Chadwick switched the screen again. A map appeared, showing Changcheng 9’s projected route. The area indicated was not far from the operations headquarters.
“As you can see, there is no need to pack up and move. Its last confirmed course was southeast, so... there are not many factions it can seek shelter with. They are not very far from the area of operations we have secured so far... Even if it joins the farthest force, Point Charlie 989, that still is not enough reason to abandon this place.”
Gyeoul looked up Charlie 989 in the documents. Changbai Shan. A 25,000-ton transport ship. It was the base of another Chinese warlord group.
“Even a whale has to come up for air. There is no way supplies extorted from starving refugees are enough, and they fled in a hurry on top of that. So then, ladies and gentlemen, let us get the harpoons ready for when it surfaces.”
A nuclear submarine could endure for years without refueling. Even so, the reason it still had to surface often was food. Given the conditions of the floating city, no amount of plunder would be enough.
At the same time, it might also have been the means by which the warlord leader kept the submarine under control. That was only Gyeoul’s guess.
The briefing continued for quite some time. But the more specific it became, the less of it Gyeoul could meaningfully understand at the moment. There were too many documents, and there was a limit to how much he could look up while listening.
Joanna seemed to be faring better. Naturally. She must have familiarized herself with some of it beforehand.
In any case, they would not be thrown into the field immediately.
After the briefing ended, Captain Fowler called Gyeoul over.
“From here on, you will be assigned to my team. And as I said already, my team and I only believe what we see with our own eyes. Rank alone will not earn you recognition. If you do not want even the people below you looking down on you, prove your ability.”
Gyeoul tilted his head.
“How can I prove it? There must be plenty that only shows in actual combat.”
“We start with the basics. Shooting, mock combat, things like that. The rest we can learn over time.”
The captain then said to the FBI agent,
“The supervisor can sit this one out. I said what I said earlier, but anything short of real skill will not be enough. Do not take it badly. There is a minimum standard required for breathing together with the team. I do apologize for being rude at first.”
Joanna replied calmly.
“I am not so sure. I would like to see what my own skill looks like too.”
“...If you insist.”
“Let us go.” The captain led the way himself. Team Leader Chadwick waved a hand at them. He looked positively playful.
The place they moved to was an automated firing range set up inside the ship. It differed from the facility at Fort Roberts in several ways. The distance to the target never exceeded 21 feet (6 meters 40 centimeters). Instead, the targets were more complex in shape, designed to move on their own, and there was a timer installed on this side.
‘So they place great importance on reaction speed in confined spaces and at short range.’
Depending on how events unfolded, there was a chance they would end up fighting inside Changcheng 9. Even if they wound up fighting the warlords instead, combat capability inside ships would be important.
Captain Fowler said to Gyeoul,
“The combat environment here in San Francisco Bay resembles urban warfare. Obstacles are everywhere, and the enemy can appear from any direction. On top of that, it is hard to distinguish enemy from civilian. That makes sharp observation and rapid response essential. A difference of 0.1 seconds can decide whether you live or die.”
That was why Snap Fire under a variety of conditions was both a fundamental and an essential requirement. The key point was simple. No matter how overwhelmingly excellent someone might be in every other respect, if they could not pass this test, they could not be sent into the field.
For Gyeoul, those were favorable conditions. It was a chance to measure his improved combat capability.
The captain gestured.
“Then let us begin. Skyler. From here on, you will handle instruction.”
Then he stepped back and folded his arms.
The man called Skyler held the same rank as Gyeoul, Lieutenant. But Gyeoul could not tell where he stood in the chain of command. To begin with, Force Recon, Captain Fowler’s unit, was the sort of outfit where a captain served as platoon leader. The strike team here seemed to have been reorganized to fit the mission profile. He would need time to review the structure.
Acting as a temporary instructor, Skyler explained the first test to Gyeoul and Joanna.
“The supervisor can probably tell just by looking, but Lieutenant Han has probably never had much chance to train like this.”
Not necessarily.
“The first stage is the rear-fire test. In simple terms, you turn and shoot. We will start with fixed targets, then move on to letter targets and moving targets.”
When he pressed the remote, the timer sounded. Beep.
“When you hear that sound, you turn immediately and shoot the target. If it takes more than one second, you fail. If you do not hit a vital area, you fail. Just so you have a reference point, nobody on our team takes more than 0.8 seconds on a fixed target. In other words, no matter how much some bastard tries to catch you from behind, if he cannot fire within 0.8 seconds, he is the one who dies.”
It was pride with a bit of exaggeration mixed in. The enemy would not politely announce their presence, after all. Even so, it was true that when both sides fought under equal conditions in a confined environment, reaction speed mattered most.
‘Thinking of it in the simplest possible way, someone who fires in 0.5 seconds could take on two people who take 1 second.’
Gyeoul was reminded of old Western duels.
============================ Author’s Note ============================
#Moving
The author is moving today.
Yes, today. If I go to sleep now, I will have to wake up in two hours.
...sob...
The next release may be a little late. I ask for the understanding of my wicked readers.
#Q&A
Q. WolhauiImyeon-nim: @By the way, hearing the line about having a bullet stuck in your head for three weeks made me wonder.... How fully is the pain system implemented here?
A. It depends on personal settings. Gyeoul is only using the option that prevents death by shock. Pain is also one of the conditions for feeling reality.
Q. Raunellis-nim: @Come to think of it, this is something I have wondered every time I read zombie stories! Author, why do insects and animals never show up in zombie stories!? Is it because humanity would be overwhelmingly disadvantaged!?
A. Well... I suppose that is part of it? Zombie mosquitoes would be pretty hardcore.
Q. ToothbrushWithRice-nim: @Good grief... Was I the only one who noticed it was Justin Bieber! You wicked author... to think you would cast mind control on Joara readers brimming with childlike innocence... This is how dangerous Tunguska is, everyone.
A. If you hit recommend, you will not fall under mind control. The same goes for reading The Wind and Star Cluster.
Q. FakeSmirk-nim: Typo report: that expression needed a spelling correction.
A. Thank you. I fixed it.
Q. PettingIbeunPero-nim: @To help the author recover their childlike innocence, I am throwing in a month’s worth of coupons! Save them up and buy chicken. Chicken-amen, RIP.
A. Yes, I welcomed the Chicken God with a grateful heart. Hahaha.
Q. LewdDemonF-nim: @So is Gyeoul, whose life keeps getting more tangled, going to go on a one-man rampage in a submarine like in MW3? It always feels like he has a passive bonus that increases the chance of negotiations collapsing by 50% whenever he deals with someone stronger than himself.
A. Well, when you put it that way, it makes the author sound like a very bad old one... That is not true. I am a good old one. I trust all my readers know that.
Footnotes:
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