WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 163: A Bridge Too Far (11)

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The hardest part was behind them now. But the escape had not yet reached its end.

Gyeoul acquired 「Su-yeong」. Without it, he could not have swum six kilometers in this condition. Fortunately, he had more than enough to invest in skills. The control personality evaluated every action and interaction by its user. The rewards for this one day had been higher than expected.

The problem was the person he had to escort. The cold seawater current stole a person’s strength and body heat at once. Add to that the fear rising from the dizzying depth beneath their feet.

For the weakened Tan Guosheng, half the inland waterway was far too long.

In the end, Gyeoul pulled him up onto a drifting boat. The bow was broken, but the damage was minor enough that it did not look likely to sink.

The boat was slowly drifting east, the opposite direction from the one they had fought against all this time. If they stayed too long, they might end up back where they had first jumped into the water. The abandoned pier was still burning.

“Too... cold....”

His tension must have drained away. Even in the dark, the naval officer was visibly pale. Click, click, click. His teeth knocked together. The sound strangely resembled a mutant’s instinctive chattering.

“Please wait here. I’ll check inside.”

Gyeoul found the ladder leading below deck. He aimed his pistol at the center of the shadow. The door to the engine room was locked, but now that he did not have to worry much about noise, it was no obstacle. Bang! The latch shattered with one kick. Beyond the door lay still darkness. There were no trapped mutants or anything of the sort. Gyeoul lowered his guard.

‘Someone must have cut it loose from the pier...’

What had happened to the people who had been aboard?

“It’s safe. Please come down.”

After saying that, Gyeoul bit down on a pill. Crunch, crunch. Bitterness and a numbing sensation ran all the way down his throat. Troublesome work.

Below deck, there was a kitchen and a bedroom. Besides built-in electric heaters, he found a portable gas burner. While he lit the flame, Tan Guosheng wrapped himself in a blanket and sat on the edge of the bed.

Gyeoul’s gaze swept the area, then stopped on the broken engine room door. It was solid wood with a fine grain.

Crack, cra-crack.

Gyeoul shattered it with grip strength alone and threw the sharp pieces into the sink. He held the last piece to the burner and set it alight. Once it caught, he shoved it under the sink. The sink was part of the hull, and the interior material was metal, so the risk of fire was low. He still needed to be careful, though.

Smoke thickened. There was too much of it to escape through the single hatch. Naturally, the inside of the boat grew acrid. Not enough to make breathing difficult, but still.

Who knew how much time passed like that? The radio picked up a weak transmission. Muddied Chinese.

[This is People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine Yuanzheng 35. If any survivors of the Alameda Landing Combat Group under Naval Lieutenant Colonel Tan Guosheng remain, respond. Repeating. This is the People’s Liberation Army....]

“My God, Mother sent a rescue team!”

The officer rejoiced and took Gyeoul’s radio. He responded and gave the set countersign. There was almost no jamming. The fire and gunshots seemed to have drawn many of them away. The submarine must have detected the change and attempted a transmission.

Communication went smoothly. The waterway was 400 meters wide, so a radio with its output adjusted was relatively safe. As he listened to the exchange, Gyeoul lowered his suspicion. At the very least, it did not seem to be a false rescue sent by another faction of the Chinese military.

‘The general’s son would be worth kidnapping. And there’s no telling where the operational intelligence might have leaked.’

From the moment her son’s whereabouts became unclear, Lieutenant General Xieru had not simply sat and waited.

But the fact that Xieru had submarine forces was new information.

Yuanzheng 35. For one thing, it was not a nuclear submarine. The name gave that away. If it was nuclear-powered, it would be Changcheng. If it was diesel, it was Yuanzheng. Still, a conventional submarine that burned oil could not be taken lightly. The CIA and the U.S. Navy were struggling with their whale hunt because numerous surface ships and conventional submarines were protecting Changcheng 9.

To cut that off, Red Skull personnel had once attacked a makeshift oil refinery. It had failed. The facility had been attached to a tanker. One wrong move, and the whole bay could have gone up in flames. That had happened before Gyeoul joined them.

Wait. Gyeoul frowned. Something ominous brushed across his mind. An indistinct realization circled in his head as a vague shape.

“It’s done, done! We can get out of here! Hahaha!”

The cry of joy interrupted his thoughts. Gyeoul tried to trace the inspiration he had missed. But once the realization had slipped away, it did not return. Only a baseless premonition remained.

The two went up to the deck.

All they could see of the approaching submarine were six rods protruding above the water. The highest among them was the periscope mast. By the time they spotted each other, the distance between them was only about thirty meters. The wind direction had changed, but the fog was still thick.

A pitch-black hull surfaced quietly, carefully enough that no froth formed. On the warship, hard to distinguish from the night, only the white markings on the bow stood out. The bridge rising like a tower looked like a cross from the front, because of the steering planes that resembled a pair of horizontal wings.

The boat came up against the submarine’s bow. The spacing was perfect.

The hatch did not open right away. Gyeoul sensed Tan Guosheng’s impatience beside him.

“Why aren’t they coming out?”

Gyeoul stopped him from crossing over. Wait just a little longer.

Something moved behind the bridge windows. A gaze was watching them too. 「Combat Sense」 detected a low Threat Level. Rather than hostility, it felt closer to high-strung vigilance.

‘Because we might be infected.’

They were soldiers who had lost their country to a plague.

A moment later, two hatches opened. Soldiers in blue-toned digital camouflage climbed out from the bridge and the stern. Some aimed their guns this way. The color of the line-of-fire warning was faint. Even so, Tan Guosheng stiffened with cornered anger. These turtle bastards dare.... A muttered curse. Instead of calming him down, Gyeoul moved one step ahead. He jumped from deck to deck. Tan Guosheng followed with difficulty.

The captain, who had come to meet them in person, looked displeased that there were only two survivors.

“Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, is this everyone? Where did the others go?”

“They all died.”

At Tan Guosheng’s answer, the mood sank further.

“Is that true?”

There were several intentions behind the question. Suspicion and reproach were the strongest. The former asked whether he had abandoned his comrades to save himself. The latter accused him of losing all his subordinates while only the commander returned alive.

Tan Guosheng shut his mouth. Even if this was one of his mother’s subordinates, the captain still outranked him.

The silence stretched taut until the captain’s sigh broke it.

“We lost far too many patriots today.”

Then he ordered his subordinates to search them. Check for bite marks. It was a natural procedure, but the intensity was the problem. Take off all your clothes. It was not something anyone would be pleased to undergo in full view of others. Tan Guosheng could not hide his humiliation. Gyeoul silently undressed. The soldier checking him panicked when he saw his combat boots, because of the clear teeth marks and the several teeth still stuck in them.

“Do not be too offended, comrade. As commander, I cannot tolerate even the slightest possibility of losing this submarine. That is all. We are the last bastion protecting the people, after all. I hope you understand.”

The captain’s courtesy toward a subordinate came from Lieutenant General Xieru’s shadow.

Gyeoul, who had mostly dealt with Chinese refugees, found the term comrade unfamiliar. Not because he had never heard it, but because the meaning was different. When criminals said comrade, it was often a slur for a homosexual.

After the body search, Gyeoul and Tan Guosheng were guided to a cabin.

The submarine’s interior was steeped in a foul smell. A dizzying stench of feces. A brief airing had not helped. The cigarettes the crewmen smoked in a cluster below the bridge ladder were part of it too.

“Please tell us if you need anything. We’ll be outside the door.”

The two soldiers guiding them were also guards. In any case, Gyeoul was an outsider. Their feelings toward the officer were not kind either. It was the kind of hostility a commander might receive after leaving subordinates as ghosts on the battlefield. Something Tan Guosheng himself had worried about.

The door shut. The cramped cabin was, quite literally, a space meant only for sleeping. Compared to the Japanese submarine Jinryu, it felt packed tight. The design was functional, but showed no consideration for people. The beds, nothing more than blankets spread over folding steel frames, said as much in silence. A crew member was no more than a component of the weapon called a submarine.

Tan Guosheng tried to hide his embarrassment.

“I’m sorry. It’s one thing for me, but you shouldn’t be treated like this. Are you very uncomfortable?”

“No. At least this is much wider than the top of a water tower, isn’t it?”

The officer had asked about the cold treatment, but Gyeoul knowingly answered something else, forming a faint smile.

‘Joanna didn’t rate it very highly, though.’

When he smiled with this face, it apparently looked rather grim, so the FBI supervisor had advised him not to smile carelessly in public. She had said it was bound to backfire.

Still, the reaction was decent. The tension left the officer’s shoulders.

“Yes.... I should think positively. It’s wide. Very wide.”

It was metaphorical agreement. In reality, it was absurdly narrow, but emotionally, it could only feel wide. Tan Guosheng lay down on the bed. He did not seem to care whether the blanket got wet.

“There’s something I’d like to ask.”

“What is it?”

“Couldn’t the bridge have been destroyed with torpedoes?”

He already knew the answer, but he asked to change the mood. He might also gain some clues about the state of Lieutenant General Xieru’s faction from casual remarks.

Tan Guosheng looked awkward. Should he sit up, or not? He glanced at Gyeoul.

“Uh... don’t misunderstand. It wasn’t that torpedoes were more precious than people.”

It seemed he had misread the intent.

“Of course, it wouldn’t be strange if you thought that. Yes, damn it. If we’d had enough torpedoes, maybe we would have tried. I have no excuse for that part.”

“I apologize if I offended you. That was not what I meant by the question.”

“It would be fine even if you did. You don’t need to choose your words around me. Mm... that’s what I hope, anyway.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

“Nothing to thank me for. Anyway, to explain... it’s a little complicated. I’m not very good with words.... You served in the army, correct? Where should I start?”

Perhaps realizing that Gyeoul showed no resentment, the officer stretched out flat and sighed. He spent a moment organizing his thoughts, swinging his crossed feet. Before long, he opened his mouth.

“To start with the conclusion, the east side of the inland waterway is too shallow and narrow.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. For a torpedo to run, the depth has to be at least 10 meters. The width has to be more than that. The area between Alameda and Oakland looks fairly wide, but the seabed terrain isn’t like that. From the middle, the depth drops below 3 meters. It’s effectively dead space. The U.S. military probably doesn’t know this sea in more detail than we do.”

That was probably true. Half a hundred submarines were swarming inside San Francisco Bay. Much of the data must have been lost when the city fell too.

“On top of that, freshwater mixes in around the middle. The torpedo’s shengna... I mean, the sonar that detects targets and terrain doesn’t work properly. The buoyancy changes underwater are severe too, and there are many sunken ships. So if we used torpedoes, we would have to be ready to waste at least several shots for nothing. That’s a loss we can hardly bear right now. There will be no more resupply.”

And to destroy a bridge pier, two hits were needed per bridge. The piers were protected by breakwaters. The expenditure would double. It was a circumstance not included in the simplified explanation.

“I understand. Next time, people will have to go again.”

“...Yes. I suppose so. Though I’m not sure there will be a next time.”

The officer’s repeated sigh was heavier than before.

Gyeoul advised him to sleep.

“You don’t look well. How about closing your eyes for a bit?”

“I was just getting sleepy. The air is warm. You should rest too. It will take quite some time to return. Underwater is much more complicated than above water.”

Tan Guosheng was hinting at obstacles beyond the terrain. The entrance to the inland waterway was the border between different factions.

His breathing soon steadied. Before long, he began snoring quietly.

Gyeoul examined the closed door. It was entirely alloy, with no glass window, and there were no eyes glaring through a slightly open gap. Now he checked the room. There did not seem to be any separate surveillance measures. Nothing like a closed-circuit camera.

Would it be all right? Gyeoul put a finger inside his teeth. A thin thread caught on his fingertip. It was tied to his molar, and the other end went down into the back of his throat. When he hooked it around his finger joint and pulled, a foreign sensation was dragged up from below his esophagus.

The source of that sensation was a corrosion-resistant capsule. After wiping it on the blanket, he twisted it open. A USB stick was inside.

The person who had given this to him was Agent Shannon Kowalski, security officer of CIA San Francisco Operations Headquarters, 「Pequod」. The following was their conversation before the mission.

“It has the same specifications as Chinese military supplies. You won’t be able to tell the difference from the outside.”

Gyeoul asked.

“What’s inside?”

“Videos essential to men. Mostly ones produced around two or three years ago. The FBI carefully selected them, so the quality should be high. They sorted them by access region and picked the top choices for Chinese tastes, apparently?”

She added a wink to her attractive smile. Then she said this.

“In reality, of course, it’s a state-of-the-art Trojan horse. They’ll absolutely never detect it. We tested it against Chinese military vessels that surrendered in Hawaii. Well, it’s up against antivirus software that hasn’t been updated in more than a year, so it would actually be stranger if it were caught.”

“I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to use this.”

“The best thing would be to plug it directly into the console in the combat information center of any ship, but you don’t have to go that far. Watch for a chance and leave it somewhere suitable. Somewhere they may not notice right away, but where you think they’ll eventually find it. They’re an army cut off from supply, so they won’t treat even one USB stick carelessly.”

The agent’s request was reasonable.

After swallowing the empty capsule again, Gyeoul slid a finger over the bed frame. The layer of dust was thin. It seemed they cleaned, if not often.

After searching, the inside of the ceiling shelf seemed best. While paying attention to movement outside the door, Gyeoul pushed the USB in. It went deeper than expected. If he was unlucky, it might never be found.

‘Is this the end of this mission...?’

He had done everything he could. There should be no issue returning. As long as the submarine was not attacked.

Gyeoul lay down on the bed too. His nerves loosened. It was time to let his body recover.

============================ Author’s Note ============================

#Q&A

Q. Jejak-nim: @ Gyeoul’s performance, where he lured the mutants with a proper strategy and broke through, must have been saved on a headcam, right? Since he is under cover, it won’t be broadcast on the news, but the high-ups who can check the footage might end up with higher standards... Stay strong, U.S. military!

A. Wouldn’t a headcam be a little strange on a secret operation? Current Gyeoul isn’t wearing that kind of thing. Haha.

Q. BlueCrystal-nim: @A physical book next month, haha. I guess a hardcover is just me being greedy, but I think I’ll be sad if there are no signed copies either, haha.

A. I have said this before, but putting signed books in bookstores is impossible. If I think about the possibility that they’ll still be there a year later and get collected back into the warehouse, tears come...

Q. BlitZkrieG-nim: @Author-nim, I love you.

A. I love you too, but I think overcoming the species barrier would be difficult...

Footnotes:

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