fire warning
light for the port outer engine glowed an urgent crimson.
That engines misfires were clearly audible to all the
crew, the loud reports sounding like random spaced gunshots, and it was
coughing like a sixty a day nicotine slave.
There first appeared black, oily smoke, a precursor to
the flickering tongues of flame which seconds later escaped from joints between inspection panels in the engine housing of a clearly
damaged Allison turbo prop.
The pilots and flight engineer engaged the engines
fire extinguisher, dumping a flame retardant compound onto the engine, shutting
off the fuel supply and following the engine feathering procedure.
It was standard fuel management to patrol with one
engine feathered anyway so the aircraft was not in danger of falling from the
sky with the other three engines operating normally.
Just a single pass for damage assessment took place
but no more flares were required as the burning fuel provided ample
illumination.
With footage of the destruction for analysis Albatross
Three reported both submarines sunk with no trace of survivors and turned west
for Tierra del Fuego, trailing smoke as it headed home.
30.86 miles due north of Cayenne, South America
After
three days awaiting the arrival of the Tuan, to rejoin with Dai and
the Bao, the Juliett class missile submarine Dai sent
a millisecond’s worth of burst transmission to Fleet and then her captain
retired to his tiny cabin to give the impression of confidence and calm.
Captain Aiguo Li was the second senior officer of the
small flotilla, commissioned a month and a day behind his long-term friend Chen
Xinhua who commanded the Tuan, but it now seemed likely that some mishap, some
accident, or incident was preventing Tuan from taking part in this operation .
He sat upon his bunk and raised his feet to rest up on
the small folding writing table that acted as his ‘office’, before leaning back
against the bulkhead, contemplating on the difficulties of fulfilling their
mission with only two thirds of the necessary resources.
His musing was disturbed by a sharp rap on his door.
Lounging with his feet up was no way for an officer to
be seen and he straightened up before barking a stern.
“Come!”
It was the Shui
Bing , the ordinary sailor assigned as
his steward, announcing a visitor.
“With respect Captain, Major Huaiqing awaits you.”
The ‘Major’ was actually a captain but a ship or
submarine can have but one captain and for that reason Captain Huaiqing was
given a ‘promotion’ for appearances sake and addressed as Major.
No salutes were exchanged below decks as the vessel was
far too cramped for such martial niceties and Captain Li merely nodded an
assent for the soldier to be admitted.
Their supercargo slept in tiered hammocks in the
forward torpedo room where they managed to keep out of the way of his sailors
going about their duties but those men represented eighteen pairs of lung and
eighteen more stomachs than the boat had been built for.
A workable number in ideal situations, as the
cooks just had an extra few mouths to feed, one hundred instead of eighty two.
However, the air scrubbers had to work harder and that was just running close
to the surface with the snorkel extended to run the diesels and keep the
batteries fully charged.
Going deep and running on batteries and internal air
supply was another matter entirely.
The week before, they had been pinged by an unknown
maritime patrol aircraft when they were off Natal, Brazil, where it was a bit
far off for the French Navy Atlantique IIs out of Cayenne. But it hardly
mattered who they were, it had been the first brush with the enemy.
They had been snorkeling as
they ran just under the surface with the ECM mast extended of course.
Now there are two dangers in that situation, the first
time under fire, and only one is the enemy aircraft. The other is a panicked
dive with the diesels still engaged because a torpedo may miss but a
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