Piranha

“If we can trust it,” said Da

“Yes. Well, Captain, you’ve seen the tests yourself.” The device used pattern recognition to check shapes in the screen against a library of weapons and “suspicious polygons.” It was excellent against the obvious—like tanks and artillery pieces—but tended to be overly suspicious about things like bulges in pants and pockets. On IR mode, however, it could tell the difference between a toy gun and the real thing, which was potentially valuable in certain situations.

“Let’s go test the targeting screen,” said A

“Silenced MP-5,” he said admiringly, taking it from her hands.

“Hardly,” said A

Da

“No, there’s no co

As Da

“Please, I have work to do,” said A

As Da

Or could it? For the gun in Da

And continued to do so. Though it appeared no larger than the standard box, somehow the magazine contained twenty bullets.

“Heh,” said A

“You might try aiming this time,” added A

“I hit the target square on, bull’s-eye.”

“You should have put all the bullets through the same hole.”

“You want to try?”

He’d been set up. She took the gun with a smile and pressed the button on the wall to send the paper target back another fifty feet. Without bothering to take his visor, she blew a rather narrow and perfectly round hole through the “100” at the center of the head area.

“It’s the bullets. Primarily,” she said. “Though I must say our German friends were quite ingenious with the improvements they suggested to the gun. We’re still working on them, of course. But we should have enough to outfit your entire team in a month.”

“That long?”

“My best advice, Captain, is not to let them try the weapon until then. That boy Powder especially; he’ll never give it up. Want to take another crack at the target? Best two out of three. You can use your visor if you want.”

Aboard the trawler Gui , South China Sea

August 22, 1997, 0600 local (August 21, 1997, 100 Dreamland)

KNOW WHITE, BE BLACK

Chen Lo Fa

Know white, be black. Be the empire’s model.

There was no more perfect statement of his mission, nor his desire in life.

Chen focused his binoculars on the closest shadow, a mere speck even at highest magnification. It was a destroyer, an escort for the largest ship in the squadron just over the horizon, the aircraft carrier Shangi-Ti. Named for an ancient creator god, the carrier was considerably smaller than the Mao, the pride of the Chinese Mainland Navy. But though half Mao’s size, Shangi-Ti and her sister ship, T’ien, were nonetheless potent crafts, similar in many ways to the British Invincible class. Displacing about twenty thousand tons, Shangi-Ti and T’ien held four Dauphin multirole helicopters and a dozen Chinese versions of the Sukhoi Su-33.

The Su-33’s were launched with the help of a special catapult system on a ramped deck, then recovered with the help or arrestor gear. It was an awkward system in some respects, still in need of refinement; even with the ramp, the heavy Sukhois dipped low over the bow on takeoff, and botched landings were particularly unforgiving. The maritime versions of the planes were fairly short-ranged, and the Dauphins’ ASW gear somewhat old. But the crews were well trained and dedicated.

And unlike the Mao, which had originally been built by Russia, the two pocket carriers were an all-Chinese design—not counting, of course, certain useful items of technology that had originated abroad and found their way surrepitiously to Asia.

Know white, be black.

Fa