Ball Lightning

The lieutenant said, “Our orders are to pilot the fishing boats to the designated region, and to accept your instructions only when enemy ships appear. Our superiors said this mission is extremely dangerous, and asked for volunteers. That’s highly unusual, you know.”

A junior lieutenant said, “I’m the navigator of a Luda-class destroyer. It would be more than a little pathetic if I sank on this leaky boat.”

“Even if this leaky boat is headed to attack a carrier battle group?” Kang Ming asked.

The junior lieutenant nodded. “That would be more heroic. Yeah, back in school, attacking a carrier was our biggest dream. The second was to be a ship captain. The third was to find a woman able to put up with us being at sea all the time.”

“We’ve been tasked with targeting a cruiser. If we succeed, the enemy carrier will be sunk in a matter of minutes.”

Four naval officers stared in astonishment. “Colonel, you’ve got to be kidding!”

Kang Ming said, “Why act so surprised? Have you lost the courage of your predecessors? Back when the country was founded, the navy once sunk a destroyer with wooden boats.”

“Sure, and we ought to do them one better and assault a mobile offshore platform with surfboards!” the lieutenant commander said.

A junior lieutenant said, “Even so, we’ve got to have weapons, right? All we’ve got aboard this vessel are a few handguns.”

Kang Ming asked, “What do you think that equipment on board was?”

“Those are weapons?” the lieutenant commander asked, looking at the other three officers.

The lieutenant said, “It looks like radio or radar. Isn’t that an antenna there on the deck?”

“That, I can tell you, is the weapon we’re going to use against the carrier group,” Kang Ming said.

The lieutenant commander laughed. “Comrade Colonel, you’re making it hard for us to be serious.”

A junior lieutenant pointed at the two superconducting batteries and quipped, “I’ve got it. Those are depth charges, and the two iron frames are launch rails.”

Kang Ming nodded. “I can’t tell you the weapon’s real name, so let’s just call them depth charges.” He showed the officers a red button on one of the batteries, and said, “This is the self-destruct button. If things get tight, the first thing we’ve got to do is press this, and then toss the thing into the ocean. Whatever happens, we can’t let it fall into enemy hands.”

“Don’t worry, our superiors have stressed that repeatedly. If there’s nothing else, then we should get to work. This old boat leaks oil all over.”

* * *

They reached the ambush point around noon and began a long wait, during which Kang Ming had little to do apart from scanning the ambush line and checking the state of each vessel’s thunderball gun. The boat he was on had a radio, which he used to contact headquarters just twice, once to report that all vessels were in place, and a second time to resolve a technical issue: he had reservations about the plan’s stipulation that all boats operate under a blackout after dark. He felt it was pointless, and would only serve to raise the enemy’s suspicion. Headquarters concurred, and instructed all vessels to run with normal lighting. No information was provided about the enemy’s movements.

Their anxiety and excitement quickly burned away in the blistering sun, and they no longer trained their binoculars constantly on the northern horizon. So as not to attract attention, the vessels occasionally moved back and forth in a small area, futilely tossing the nets out and bringing them back in again. The lieutenant was skilled at this, and managed to catch a few fish. Kang Ming learned that he hailed from a fishing village in Shandong.

More of their time was spent on the deck, playing cards or chatting about all sorts of topics with their backs to the sun. The only thing they didn’t mention was their mission, and the fate of the tiny ambush fleet.

By nightfall, the team had grown a little lax, after so long a wait. It had been over eight hours since their last contact with headquarters, and since then there had been nothing but static on the radio. Kang Ming had not slept well for several nights, and the monotonous rhythm of the ocean waves made him drowsy, but he fought to stay awake.

Someone nudged him gently. It was the lieutenant commander. “Look ahead to the left, but don’t be too obvious,” he said softly. A reddish moon had just risen over the horizon, rendering the ocean surface clear. In that direction, Kang Ming first saw a V-shaped wake, then, at its head, a thin black vertical rod with a spherical object at its tip. It reminded him of a photo he had seen somewhere of the Loch Ness Monster, its long neck extending from the murky water.

“Periscope,” the lieutenant commander whispered.

The thin rod moved quickly. As it cut through the water’s surface it whipped out an arc of spray that was audible as a light whoosh. Then it gradually slowed, and the spray lessened and vanished. The periscope, now directly ahead of their vessel around twenty meters away, was motionless.