Sixth Chapter: The Rampaging Sea Wolf

  Lu Chengwen put down his coffee cup and pulled out a data storage device from his pocket, tossing it to Hua Jianfeng.

  "The order given by the Chief of Staff requires decryption using your three passwords in sequence. It's clearly stated that from now on, you must obey my command."

  Hua Jianfeng looked at the special forces major opposite him with a mixture of trust and doubt, his intuition telling him that the other man was not lying.

  "The situation is very tense. If I'm not mistaken, there's another submarine nearby, and it's not ours. Captain, if I were you, I wouldn't be wasting precious time here."

  The dull thud from outside the boat helped Hua Jian decide.

  "Hua Jianfeng pulled down the internal communication tube hanging on the cabin wall: 'Deputy Captain, what's going on?'"

  "The Houston's launching an attack sonar wave, it's right behind us."

  "Don't worry, I'll be right there." After jamming the receiver back into its holder, Hua Jianfeng glared at Lu Chengwen and turned to open the cabin door.

  As soon as Lu Chengwen arrived at the command center of the submarine, he sensed the suffocating tension in the air. At this moment, only Hua Jianfeng remained calm and composed. Before long, the two special soldiers brought by Lu Chengwen also rushed over, casting inquiring glances at him.

  "Deputy captain, you keep an eye on those three, I'll give orders."

  "Commander's orders!" He patted the helmsman on the shoulder and stepped back to Lu Chengwen's side.

  "Top ten, bottom five, one-third power!"

  The submarine's bow rose slightly, heading towards the sea surface at an angle of about five degrees.

  "What's going on?" Lu Cheng was startled and asked Le Jia Cheng beside him.

  "Go up and take a look at the 'Houston'." Le Jia Cheng's expression was very tense, even his breathing was heavy.

  "Go up to the sea surface?" Lu Cheng heard even more tension.

  "Not just that, it's rising to periscope depth." Turning back to look at the special forces major, Le Jia Cheng said in a low voice, "This is an unwritten rule among submarines of various countries. A sonar ping indicates that the other party wants to communicate with us, which means rising to periscope depth and then communicating through light signals."

  "Does the other party know our identities?"

  "Maybe we knew, maybe we didn't." Le Jia Cheng let out a quiet sigh. "In order to meet you, we had no choice but to expose our tracks. Over the years, we've encountered the 'Houston' several times, and each time we managed to evade them. This time, I'm afraid we won't be as lucky as before."

  "Which means the Houston might not know who we are, and is trying to lure us up to identify ourselves? And if we do that, won't we be giving away our identity?"

  Le Jia shrugged his shoulders, which was tantamount to answering this question.

  Lu Cheng hesitated for a moment, then pushed open the door of Yue Jia Cheng and rushed to Hua Jian Feng's side. "Colonel, we can't go up."

  "Why?" Hua Jianfeng turned to look at Lu Chengwen.

  "Look at the command I gave you."

  Hua Jianfeng took out the information storage device that Lu Chengwen had given him from his pocket and quickly calculated.

  "Houston" has taken a favorable position and is slightly faster than "Squid", if "Squid" does not rise to periscope depth, it may escalate the confrontation. Thinking of the General Staff's deployment of this special operation, Hua Jianfeng can almost be certain that even if "Houston" will not use force, it will use ramming to force "Squid" to surface.

  "Major, just five minutes!" Lu Cheng's voice was extremely anxious.

  "Alright, I'll give you five minutes." Hua Jianfeng didn't think much more about it. He beckoned to Yue Jia Cheng and said, "You come and direct, call me when we reach the periscope depth."

  The two left the command center and came to the captain's cabin located behind the command center.

  The three sets of codes on the submarine were stored in a safe in the captain's cabin, to be precise, they were three military information storage cards that stored the codes. After booting up the special computer, Huajian first read the files from the information storage device given by Luchen into the computer, and then decrypted them one by one with the three sets of codes. It would take about five minutes to translate the encrypted command into a readable file.

  "Commander Lu, can you tell me the purpose of this operation?" As he spoke, Hua Jianfeng pulled out a cigarette. On this submarine, only he had the privilege of smoking in the cabin. However, most of the time, to maintain discipline on the submarine, Hua Jianfeng would not exercise this right.

  "I also knew I should tell you, it's just..."

  "I'm not interested in your actions, but I have to know why you want me and my over 100 crew members, as well as this tens of billions worth nuclear submarine, to take risks." Huajianfeng's tone was very serious, without any room for negotiation. "You also know that there is an American nuclear submarine outside, and our trail has been discovered. If my premonition is not wrong, I'm afraid things won't end so quickly. To complete this task, to return alive, you have to let me know how severe the situation is, and make preparations for the worst."

  "Worst-case scenario."

  "Worst-case scenario!?" Hua Jianfeng revealed a hint of surprise. This sentence means that, in order to complete the task, force can be used when necessary.

  Lu Chengwen nodded with a hint of effort and then glanced at the computer screen.

  The decryption progress of the file has reached eighty percent and will likely take about one more minute.

  At this time, the cabin door was pushed open and Le Jia Cheng appeared outside the door. "Lao Hua, we have reached periscope depth, shall we raise the periscope?"

  After a slight hesitation, Hua Jianfeng said: "Not for the time being, keep a close eye on the 'Houston', I'll be right there."

  A combat order signed personally by the Chief of General Staff appeared on the computer screen.

  Hua Jianfeng hadn't even finished reading the order when he started wiping away the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead.

  "We must first determine whether the Houston has learned our identity."

  "You're right." Huajian Feng extinguished the cigarette butt, thinking rapidly. After a while, he said: "Based on my experience, it can be basically confirmed that the 'Houston' has not yet known our true identity, but it is very likely to have grasped our characteristic noise."

  "What does it mean?"

  "That is to say, even if we get rid of the 'Houston', as long as it returns to an American naval base, they can compare the collected characteristic noise with the relevant data in the US Navy database. Even if no completely matching noise data is found, unless we never leave port again, next time we encounter each other, our identity will be confirmed."

  "Can we confirm which country's submarine we are?"

  "Absolutely. The 'Octopus' has two sister ships, although each submarine's characteristic noise is different, but the characteristic noises of the same type of submarines have many similarities. As long as a certain degree of similarity is reached, it can be determined which country and even what model the newly appearing submarine belongs to."

  Lu Cheng heard a slight surprise and looked at the computer screen for a moment.

  Hua Jianfeng also looked at the computer screen, the order was clear, not only to send Lu Chengwen and others back home safely, but also to eliminate all traces that can be tracked, and cannot expose their identities.

  Fortunately, it has not yet reached an irretrievable situation.

  "Lao Hua, we have no other choice." Lu Cheng looked around and asked, "Do you have a map here?"

  "Map?"

  "Sea area map, nearby sea area map."

  "Is that a sea chart?" Hua Jianfeng immediately stood up, took out a folded sea chart from the bookshelf and spread it on the table.

  This world ocean map shows the general situation of the seafloor topography, such as the direction of some large-scale submarine mountain ranges, the distribution of trenches, the flow direction of ocean currents, and the deepest parts of major seas.

  "We are now here, about one hundred and fifty miles off the west coast of Africa."

  Lu Chengwen nodded, looked at the sea chart for a while, and then pointed to the southeast of the location marked by Hua Jianfeng. "Go here. The water depth here exceeds 5,000 meters, and with current technology, it's very difficult to salvage sunken ships in this area. Moreover, the huge pressure of 500 atmospheres is enough to destroy all electronic equipment on the submarine."

  "Sink the Houston!?" Hua Jianfeng was shocked. Although he had thought of this result a long time ago, when Lu Chengwen explicitly brought it up, he was still a bit stunned.

  "No matter what means are used, the 'Houston' must not be allowed to return to the US naval base." Lu Cheng raised his head, "Submarines have difficulty communicating with the outside world while underwater, and the US is also taking secret action. Even if a fight really breaks out, as long as no evidence is left behind, the US can't make a big deal out of it. Now, it's up to you whether you have the confidence and ability."

  "First, we need to lure the 'Houston' over and then take up firing positions." Huajianfeng rubbed his chin. "Let's do it this way, I have to get back to my post immediately, you stay here or follow me to the command center?"

  Lu Chengwen didn't say much and immediately stood up.

  Inside the command center, Le Jia Cheng and more than a dozen officers and soldiers were anxiously waiting for the captain.

  "What's the situation, where is the Houston?"

  "Bearing two hundred and fifty degrees, range twenty chains... " Lokke paused for a moment, "'Houston' sent out a directional high-frequency signal about two minutes ago, probably taking our silhouette."

  "It's not too late yet." Hua Jianfeng was not only unsurprised, but also regained his composure. "Now I'm in command, the whole boat is on combat alert, torpedo number three sets firing data. Down fifteen degrees at the bow, down fifteen degrees at the stern, hard to port, full power ahead. Sonar long, monitoring enemy ship situation."

  "Lao Hua, this is..." Judging from his appearance, Le Jia Cheng was quite frightened.

  "Give the order at once!"

  The red lights in each cabin of the entire boat flashed immediately, and in less than fifteen seconds, "Gun Octopus" entered combat state.

  Like a deep-sea monster, the "Octopus" with a displacement of several thousand tons dived down at high speed.

  "Captain, the Houston is right behind us."

  Zao Sheng nodded and Hua Jianfeng looked at Lu Chengwen who was standing by the cabin door.

  The battle has begun, and of the two submarines, one is destined to remain forever at the bottom of this desolate sea.