bioinnovel Chapter 227 Cat and Mouse!
Chapter 227 Cat and Mouse!
Maritime Self-Defense Force Command Center.
The telephone in the duty room rang incessantly.
Deputy Chief of Staff Takehiko Ito stood in front of the large screen, his face even more grim than the weather outside.
On the large screen, the locations of the three sunken warships were marked with red X's.
The Soryu's icon is slowly retreating from its combat position.
Marked "Sound system malfunction".
"Why did the sonar array on the Azure Dragon suddenly go offline?"
"Report, Captain Canglong judges... it may have been cut off by external force."
"External force?" Ito Takehiko's voice turned cold. "You mean, that thing cut off the Azure Dragon's voice?"
"……yes."
Takehiko Ito remained silent for three seconds.
He walked to the table, picked up the phone, and went directly to the hotline of the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Supreme Command.
"I need to send reinforcements."
"How many more should be deployed?"
He glanced at the empty sea on the screen.
"Two anti-submarine squadrons, plus a 'Great Whale' class submarine."
"...This authority needs to be reported to the Minister of Defense—"
"I know," Ito Takehiko interrupted him. "Go report it. Report it now."
He put down the phone and walked back to the screen.
There was nothing in the target sea area.
But he had a gut feeling.
That thing is still there.
Right there in the sea.
Waiting for them.
……
Underwater, several new points of light appeared on Zhang Yan's holographic screen.
[New target detected entering search area:]
[DD-120 Taiwhale-class submarine x1, current depth 150 meters, distance approximately 65 kilometers.]
Four SH-60K anti-submarine helicopters are deploying dipping sonar over the target sea area.
[Two P-1 anti-submarine patrol aircraft are currently in service, with two more to be added, for a total of four in the air.]
The intensity has increased.
Zhang Yan adjusted the diving depth to 800 meters.
The P-1's hoisting sonar typically operates at a depth not exceeding 600 meters.
The maximum operational depth of the Taigoro-class nuclear-powered submarine is approximately 500 to 600 meters.
Eight hundred meters is a transparent ceiling for them.
Zhang Yan leisurely circled around below the ceiling, adjusting his course.
On the holographic screen, four SH-60Ks are casting nets on the sea surface—
Their array of sonars, deployed from the ceiling, now covers an area of two hundred kilometers across the sea.
A dense spider web.
Each sonar buoy is emitting regular detection pulses.
However, all the pulses attenuated completely at a depth of 800 meters, failing to reach Zhang Yan's location.
Zhang Yan moved slowly and silently beneath the net.
And so, right under their noses.
He took out the satellite phone and sent a message to Nie Qingcheng.
"It's a lot of fun in the sea."
The replies came almost instantly.
"What?! What are you doing?!"
"Someone's coming to cause trouble."
"……who?"
"The Land of Cherry Blossoms"
Five seconds passed on the other end.
Be careful.
Then two seconds passed.
"If even a single hair on your head is injured, I will withdraw all of Qingcheng International's supply chain from Japan and shut down an entire street of electronics factories."
Zhang Yan stared at the line of text on the screen for a few seconds.
The corners of her mouth curved into a smile.
He put his phone back in his pocket and looked at the holographic screen again.
The whale-class ships are continuously approaching, and their current depth has begun to decrease, clearly indicating that they are attempting to break through the conventional lower limit of 500 meters.
Zhang Yan waited for a while, watching the giant whale dive down to 650 meters.
Barely. For a submarine of this class to reach this depth, it's a feat of incredible difficulty.
150 meters to go.
Zhang Yan manipulated the mechanical shark to quietly circle around from the depths to the back of the giant whale.
This time he did not cut the cable.
He made the mechanical shark emit an acoustic pulse with an extremely narrow frequency band—the frequency was precisely aligned with the sonar system receiving band of the whale, but the energy was only one percent of the normal attack sound wave.
This is enough to cause the whale's device to generate a brief "false contact" signal.
Distance—two kilometers directly ahead.
The control room of the giant whale immediately erupted into chaos.
"Contact! Two kilometers ahead, bearing 015!"
"Target confirmed!"
"Confirmed! Depth 710 meters, speed—"
"Full speed ahead!"
The whale immediately turned its bow and pounced.
Zhang Yan watched it rush off, then leisurely turned the mechanical shark around and walked in the opposite direction.
Once the whale had chased after them for three kilometers and the sonar signal disappeared, the shouts from the control room could probably penetrate six hundred meters of seawater.
Zhang Yan did not hear the curses.
But he could roughly guess.
He calmly steered the mechanical shark into the shadow of an underwater mountain range.
The terrain of this mountain range is more detailed than any map on any of their devices—the system's 30,000 years of Mo family geological data is still an order of magnitude more advanced than human measurement technology today.
He walked along the ridge, blending the mechanical shark with the terrain echoes.
Silently traversing that invisible spiderweb.
……
Sakura Country Command Center.
Takehiko Ito has been standing in front of the screen for over an hour.
The coffee went cold in two cups, so I didn't drink it.
The Great Whale has lost its third "target contact".
Every time, it was the same pattern—a contact signal appeared, the whale gave chase at full speed, and the signal disappeared three kilometers later.
There was no residue.
There was no acoustic wake.
There was nothing there.
The staff officer walked over, his voice extremely low.
"Sir, Captain Great Whale requests permission... Should we continue the pursuit?"
Takehiko Ito stared at the screen without moving.
Where are they now?
"...Current location: approximately 17 kilometers east-northeast of the initial contact point."
Takehiko Ito's gaze darkened.
He stared at the blue area on the screen for a long time.
"Tell the whale," he said calmly, "to return to port."
"Sir—"
"All formations, return to base."
The staff officer was taken aback.
"But the goal—"
"There's no target." Takehiko Ito turned and walked to a chair in the corner, sitting down for the first time. "From the very beginning, we haven't seen any target."
The staff officer remained silent.
They all knew.
That thing can choose to leave at any time.
But it didn't leave immediately.
It followed behind, cutting cables, sending false signals, and making the entire anti-submarine fleet run around in circles.
This is not running away.
This is just playing around.
Takehiko Ito leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Having served as a Maritime Self-Defense Force officer for thirty years, for the first time, facing the sea, he felt a profound and visceral sense of powerlessness.