Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

to get outside the shipping channel. There it settled on the bottom and promptly deployed a buoy antenna that floated up, stopping just below the surface. The antenna popped above the water just long enough—mere seconds—to exchange digital packets of data, reporting in before dropping back down.

Commander Allison received the deployment report as it was relayed by a satellite in geosynchronous orbit back down to his sub.

“Looks like our job here is done. Nav, plot us a course out of here so we can call home and brag to the boss.”

5

Phuc Ngyuan and his family had been netting a living from these same waters for hundreds of years. Ten generations of ancestors had called the Vietnamese village of Tam Thanh on Long Hai Island home. The South China Sea’s bounty had fed and housed them in reasonable and comparative comfort and security for most of that time, even paying for the steel fishing boat Phuc used to earn his income. Even though the vessel was now old and rusty, the Mau do Rong had reliably transported Phuc out to the same fishing grounds that his family had harvested for centuries, usually accompanied by the few other Tam Thanh families who earned their livelihood the same way.

It was too grand a description to call the boats venturing out of Tam Thanh’s tiny, protected harbor a fleet. The dozen or so ragtag vessels huddled together for mutual support as they plied the fishing grounds more than two hundred miles out in the South China Sea. Phuc and his fellow fishermen knew little of international law or sovereignty claims and cared even less. They only knew that their fathers had instructed them on how to avoid the hidden reefs and interpret threatening weather as they filled their nets. And they had taught them to pray at the village shrine for a safe return home.

However, the last three times they had ventured to their traditional grounds, the Chinese fishing fleet had arrived ahead of them. Hundreds of boats filling the sea from horizon to horizon, pulling in nets filled with catch. Then, when Phuc and his fellows had started to lay their own nets, the big, white Chinese Coast Guard ships had rushed in and roughly brushed them aside. They had not caught enough fish to cover the cost of their fuel.

As he finished some much-needed net mending, Phuc Ngyuan considered the possibility that the Chinese would be out there again on this trip and wondered what to do if they again chased him and the others away from where they earned their livelihood. He was so deep in his worries that he hardly noticed the approaching small skiff until it pulled up alongside the Mau do Rong. Phuc was far too poor to pay to tie up his boat at the pier. It was anchored in a recess afforded by the piled-stone breakwater. Anyone had to want to see him specifically in order to venture out to this anchorage.

Phuc immediately recognized the Vietnam Coast Guard lieutenant who leapt from the boat over to the Mau do Rong, leaving his own boat’s engine idling. Lieutenant Bo Tranh commanded the small, local Coast Guard facility on Long Hai. He rarely ventured out of his air-conditioned office in Long Hai City on the other side of the island, but all the fishermen knew him well. He occasionally felt the need to show his authority by enforcing arcane rules or harassing boat owners for no other reason than that he could.

“Ngyuan,” Bo Tranh said, with no greeting. “I have come to inform you that the fishing fleet sails at sunset. You will have your little boat fueled and ready. We will escort you to your destination and we do not have time to wait for stragglers.”

Tranh did not wait for a reply or challenge. He leapt back aboard his own craft and motored toward the next fishing boat.

Phuc sat there, net in his lap, with a quizzical look on his face. Was the Coast Guard suddenly taking an interest in the plight of the island’s fishermen? And if so, why?

Then he shrugged, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, then took a deep draw and went ahead mending his net. He could not afford to lose a single fish.

Ψ

Phuc counted two dozen boats in the group as they motored out past the breakwater. The sun had just disappeared, dropping behind the island, as two Vietnam Coast Guard patrol boats made slow circles around them, herding the fishermen into a loosely formed gaggle before making certain they steamed to the east. The patrol boats were Cold War-era Soviet torpedo boats gifted to the Vietnamese, primarily because it was cheaper than scuttling them. The torpedoes and other weapons had first been stripped off them. The only offensive punch that remained was a twenty-three-millimeter machine cannon on the bow of each vessel.

Dawn found the ragtag group riding the swell on the western edge of their traditional fishing grounds. Phuc strapped the ship’s wheel in position and went to the stern, starting the backbreaking effort of deploying his nets. He was still curious about why the patrol boats had felt the need to accompany them out here, but now his mind turned to more practical thoughts. Maybe, if the catch was good this trip, if the Chinese had not already caught every single fish in the South China Sea, then he might be able to buy that used hydraulic winch on sale back along the pier in Tam Thanh. What would it be like to allow the machine to do the heavy lifting while he enjoyed a smoke and looked on? But for now, he would still be required to do it the old, manual way. Like his father. And a long line of fathers before him.

Then he could see on the distant horizon that the Chinese fishing fleet was still there, filling the sea. Phuc could only imagine the devastation this vast armada was causing to any