Chapter 5

“Sir? We are receiving some intel,” a junior officers says aloud.

“Good, patch it through,” Admiral Pellington orders.

The communications screen flashes on showing static for a brief moment before the intelligence officer appears. The woman dressed in a crisp Army uniform looks to be in her late twenties and Pellington finds her attractive. He brushes aside the thought of her being about the same age as his oldest daughter. He is just out of his third marriage and is ready to get back into the dating game. He makes a mental note to contact the woman when the conflict is over.

“Good afternoon, Admiral,” she says with a confident voice.

“You have something new for us?” he asks.

“Yes sir. In response to ground troops landing and working their way north, the Chinese are sending their fleet from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town to engage your fleet.”

“Am I going to receive any reinforcements?”

“I do not know, sir. All I have for you is the Intel report. Good luck, Admiral,” she says with a smile before reaching for something Pellington cannot see. Suddenly the screen goes black leaving him standing and looking at his own reflection in the screen.

“Sir? New orders just arrived,” an officer says as he approaches the admiral with a piece of paper in his hand. Pellington takes the paper without turning to look at the officer. He reads the piece of paper, frowning as he does so.

Admiral Pellington

USS Downley

Revised orders as follows:

Continue to engage opposing fleet and enemy fleet support. Ensure enemy fleet does not lend support against own troops. Follow previous orders unless in conflict with these said orders.

“God damn it,” he mutters. When he notices most of the crew on the bridge is staring at him awaiting command orders he brings his attention back. “Communications back up and running?” he asks.

“Not fully, sir,” the communication officer answers. “We only have a partial to a few of the ships.”

“That will be enough then. Send the orders to each ship captain we can talk to and have them in turn forward to the ships we cannot.”

“Yes sir”

“Set up a defensive ring. I want us protected until our repairs are sufficient enough to engage the enemy ourselves. Get our half our subs out in a two hundred foot circumference patrolling. The remainder I want protecting as many of our ships as possible.”

“But sir, we don’t have enough subs for that kind of protection,” the XO exclaims.

“Then I suppose we will need to gather together and protect each other’s asses,” he says glaring at his XO. “We have our orders and we will just have to find a way to fulfill them. And get me an update on our slippery saboteur.”

Bryan Chan slips out onto the upper deck deciding it may be easier to move around the ship above deck than below. So far his theory is proving correct. He needed to reach the engine room and hopefully cause enough damage to sink the ship. With the flagship lying at the bottom of the sea, the entire Chinese fleet would be disoriented long enough for the Americans to sweep in and neutralize the threat. That is the plan at least.

The search is expanding and beginning to get hard to move throughout the ship. Chan slowly creeps trying to keep his footing but the rocking of the ship and battle is making it hard to do so. He makes it around the bow of the ship to the other side and spots the door he has to go through. The only problem is the two guards standing on either side of the doorway. He slides out a pistol with a silencer and kneels down behind a barrel. Taking careful aim and ensuring no one else is in the immediate area, he takes two consecutive shots. Clink. Clink. Both men take a bullet to the head and instantly drop to the deck.

“Tíng!” a voice calls out. “Halt!”

Chan spins bringing his gun around on the soldier. As soon as the soldier sees Chan has a gun he fires. Chan is already in motion to avoid being hit, but he does not move fast enough. The bullet misses its intended target and instead hits him in the shoulder. Chan grunts away the pain from both the bullet and his now injured shoulder as he slams it into the deck. Pushing aside the pain, he already has his gun up firing three shots into the chest of the soldier. Blood splatters as each bullet hits its target. The impact is enough to send the man overboard. The sound of the crashing body into the water is covered by the sound of warfare. Chan quickly picks himself up and charges toward the door. Blood slowly seeps from his wound leaving small droplets on the deck as he runs. He leaves them behind unnoticed focusing instead on his original task.

Bridges quietly slides open the door to the communications room a couple inches, allowing just enough room to slip in a flexible camera. Pulling out his display, the image of the room appears as clear as if he was looking at it firsthand. Inside the medium sized room sits many consoles with flashing lights and switches and a single human being sitting in a chair.
The man’s back is turned to the door and he appears to be readily occupied with what he is doing. Bridges is content with the situation and quickly slips the camera back out. When he has replaced it in a pouch in his pants, he slides the door open forward allowing just enough room to enter. Closing the door he slips over into the shadows and waits.

“What happened to teams two and seven?” the man at the console asks into a microphone.

“We lost contact with team seven shortly before the explosion took place and the power went out. And we just lost contact with team seven,” an answer comes back over the microphone.

“Damn it!” the man says, slamming his fist onto the table he sits in front of. ‘Any confirmation on kills from the special forces team members?”

The question intrigues Bridges. Deep Six were certain no one knew they were going to be here and if their communications signal actually got picked up, it would be so scrambled the enemy would think they were listening to aliens talk. So Bridges decides to continue lying in wait before making his move.

“There’s nothing, and we lost track of them through their signal.”

“Where is your team located now?” the man continues his questioning.

“We’re at the spot where them two found the female, but the entire team is slain,” the man on the other end responds with an almost disgusted tone in his voice.

Good job Matthews. Bridges is now certain it is his team, but does he dare to break silence? He isn’t quite sure if this guy is tracking the signal or if it is someone else. Deciding it is better to not break radio silence, he remains quiet.

“Keep monitoring for their signal and search the entire area. I’ll get the guard doubled around any entry point.”

“Understood.”

Bridges now has the information he wanted to know. It is now time to act and prevent making it harder for him and his team to make an escape. He stands up and begins moving toward the man. “Incompetent fools,” the man mutters to himself. Bridges pauses long enough to look around the room and make sure they are the only two there. When the coast is clear he reaches his arms around the man’s neck and with a quick twist, the audible crunch of bones snapping can be heard ending his life.

He lets the man’s body slide to the floor and takes his place at the desk. Using the computer to the right of where he sits, he begins typing out a message. When he is done, he pulls out a thumb drive and slips it into the computer. A few mouse clicks later a signal is sent and a few seconds after that, the drive fizzles and the computer quietly shuts down. He looks at his watch noting the time and gets up to leave the room. He cracks the door and uses his flexible camera once more to verify that there is no one in the hall. When the coast is clear, he steps out. He has just stepped fully into the hallway when the doorway opens and that is when things take a downward spiral.

The engine room is bustling with workers. The workers are split between those working and ensuring the engines are running and those fixing bulkheads from leaks caused from the earlier explosion. Danny Ross enters the room and takes the entire scene all in. His next task is to cause the engines to stop working beyond repair and ultimately cause the ship to sink. If he can sabotage the engines enough he may be able to accomplish those goals. The only problem laying in his way is the room full sailors. For Danny Ross, however, the task won’t provide much of a challenge. Pulling out two pistols, the saboteur steadily begins firing. Bullets rip through the room taking down the first six crewmen before any of them realize what is happening.

Some crewmen try to scramble for cover while others attempt to fight back. Ross slowly walks through the engine room killing each man as casually as if he was walking through the park without a care in the world. Thirty seconds later every person in the room, except for Ross, is lying on the floor bleeding out from various wounds. He stops in the center of the room and simply releases his grip on the guns and lets them fall, clattering to the floor. It is now time to cripple the ship and bring the American fleet to their knees.

An explosion rocks the battleship throwing the entire bridge crew from their seats. Lights cut off momentarily before red emergency lighting replaces them. Klaxon alarms follow immediately afterward. “What the hell is going on?” Pellington yells over the alarms. “Get those damn things turned off!”

“Working on that, sir!” a reply comes from a crewman. In the next moment the alarms are cut off, leaving the bridge still bathed in red light and eerily silent. “Engines not responding,” a crewman announces breaking the silence.

“Assessment reports,” Pellington demands.

“Nothing, sir,” the same crewman reports. “We are not getting any responses from the engine room.”

“Get someone down there,” Pellington orders. “I want damage and assessment reports. Who’s closest to us?”

“The Rainier and Pascagoula, sir.”

“Get on the horn with both. I want them to perform as our guard until we get the engines back up. Have the Rainier send a couple squads to aid with hunting down this saboteur.”

“Understood, sir.”

“What is the status of your sabotage?” the voice comes over Ross’ headset.