Munitions Empire

Once again, a Flying Fortress Bomber flying over the sea battlefield carried a designated observer who was relentlessly peering through binoculars, surveying the sea beneath.

The work of searching for the downed airmen wasn't easy at all. They didn't have advanced gadgets like GPS, so they could only rely on the coordinates reported by airmen on their return flight to approximately determine the search area.

The frustrating thing was when the two B-17 Flying Fortress Bombers carrying out the search mission returned to the given coordinates, they found the situation entirely different from what they had imagined.

All over the sea were floating debris, pieces from sunken warships, and sailors and bodies bobbing on the surface.

The sailors of Shireck, hoping to be rescued, would also wave to the planes of the Great Tang Kingdom flying overhead. With time, they had drifted apart, covering a vast area, severely impeding the search and rescue mission.

"There are too many people here! We simply can't determine the position of the pilots!" An annoyed lookout dropped his binoculars and complained loudly.

Unable to precisely pinpoint where the airmen went down, they dared not abandon these enemy-occupied waters. So they had no choice but to keep searching honestly, continuously disturbed by the clutter.

"Look for orange life jackets! They're all wearing orange life jackets!" the pilot reminded, "And there might be an inflated life raft! That's also orange! The targets should be obvious!"

"I don't see any large orange objects! Not even small ones. There are damn red, green, yellow, even white fragments everywhere! It's too distracting!" another pilot opened the radio and started to complain as well.

"Is there any way to make these damn Shireck castaways stop waving their hands? Dammit!" The bombardier, feeling his eyes were straining, put down his binoculars and began cursing.
Explore new worlds at My Virtual Library Empire

"Barracuda calling, should they continue to adjust their heading towards us?" the radio operator asked.

"Have them maintain their heading for now! We can't clear this area, so we can only keep looking! To hell with it!" the pilot-in-command was losing his temper. His comrades were soaking in the water, and he felt powerless, which made him anxious and irritable.

"We've got another group ahead, and even more beyond that... Are you sure there's none in this area?" The navigator's voice came through the radio to everyone's ears.

This question silenced everyone—they were uncertain. Who would dare to claim certainty in such a situation? Below them wasn't a clear sea surface, but a chaos of people and debris spread out. How could anyone be sure they hadn't missed something?

"Five more search squadrons have taken off, we've never searched for targets at sea before, we lack the experience... but now... we have it," the radio operator called out again.

Without turning his head, the co-pilot, looking at the sea on the other side, said, "I hope they're okay. I wouldn't want our own comrades to die because of our lack of experience."

"Yeah, I hope they're okay!" everyone echoed in agreement.

...

"How long have we been here?" The downed pilot-in-command, feeling like he could barely kick his legs anymore, looked at his damaged wristwatch while soaking in the water.

"I feel like it's been at least 5 hours," replied the radio operator, clutching the life jacket of the unconscious co-pilot, his voice tinged with nervousness.

"Forget it, we've only been here for 2 hours." After checking his own watch, the navigator provided the correct answer.

The bombardier was nearly driven mad by the tension. With no prior experience of being in the sea, he was tormented every moment.

For someone not very familiar with the ocean, the sea itself represented mystery. The awe towards darkness and silence was more terrifying than any horror movie.

Even sailors, even with a ship, even with a large ship, when faced with the vastness and depth of the ocean, would feel fear.

Those gigantic sea monsters of lore were the most direct expression of such fears.

For the airmen soaking in the water, men who could hardly swim, lurking in the abyss below were unimaginable terrors akin to Cthulhu.

In reality, it didn't even have to be that complex—a single hungry shark would be enough to plunge them into despair.

"Only 2 hours?" The pilot-in-command asked for the time again and again. He was scared and knew he should keep as calm as possible to boost the morale of his men. But it was just so hard.

Being a non-swimmer, he was terrified. So he kept asking about time, hoping for rescue.

Yet every repetition of the question only returned more anxious answers: time was passing even more slowly than he feared.

"Is your watch broken too? I think you should take a good look at it," the radio operator also felt that they had been adrift for more than 5 hours.

This feeling that time was dragging on endlessly was unbearable. He would rather have crashed into a mountain on land; at least it would have been quick.

"I knew that damn inflation bottle was no good! Nothing those bastards make ever works!" A few people who were becoming extremely agitated had already discussed the unreliable life raft for the fifth time.

"It's been 2 hours, shouldn't the plane have flown over by now? Why hasn't it come yet?" The navigator looked up at the sky, completely ignoring the others' doubts about his watch.

His watch was still ticking, while the captain's watch face was now full of water. Look at your own watch if you're so capable, why ask him?

"Damn it, I think I just saw a shark!" In the throes of unending fear, the bombardier didn't know if he was hallucinating.

"Don't talk nonsense... where is it?" The captain's muscles tensed up as he frantically swung his head back and forth, scanning the silent sea.

"I don't know... I'm not sure, I thought I saw something round and bobbing, then it disappeared," said the bombardier, his voice trembling.

If a shark really came, it would probably be the end for them. Their only hope now was that the orange life vests they wore could scare the sharks away...

"Could it be dolphins, or... whales?" The mechanic and the navigator quickly tried to steer the conversation in a more positive direction.

The captain's face turned even paler as he searched for the fins of nearby sharks while trying to reassure himself, "Right, right! It could be, it could be a whale, or maybe dolphins!"

"I don't know!" the bombardier continued to defend himself: "I'm not even sure if I really saw anything."

"Then don't scare people! I can hardly breathe! Bastard!" The mechanic, who was holding the unconscious copilot, raised his voice sharply. He knew all too well that the blood from the copilot's leg wound had already spread in the water.

They all lived on Dragon Island, and had almost all heard old sailors tell of how sharks are drawn to the scent of blood.

Those sailors who often made their living on the sea would even kill some fish to attract sharks, for the purpose of catching these fierce sea creatures.

"Wait! I think, I think I heard something!" The captain suddenly signaled everyone to be quiet, and they all felt the hair on the back of their necks stand up.

As they were filled with suspicion, something cut through the water not far away, leaving waves spreading on either side.

Minutes later, the whole sea seemed to churn, the disturbance so great that the airmen floating on the surface could not fail to notice.

The object was less than a hundred meters away, and as they stared dumbfounded, a periscope broke through the water, disrupting the surrounding sea, revealing a massive steel hull.

Seawater cascaded off the hull, with water droplets continuously falling from the welded ladder. At the front of the hull, a long deck breached the surface, making a deafening sound as it disturbed the waters.

The sight before him was unbelievable to the captain, who had lived a long life and had never heard of a ship that could submerge in water and then emerge on its own.

It wasn't just him; the navigator, the mechanic, the bombardier beside him had never seen, nor even heard of, such a thing in their lifetimes.

Yet everything in front of them forced them to believe that there really was a ship in the world that could surface from underwater on its own!

"Shit!" The captain couldn't help but curse as he looked at the smooth vessel in the distance, complete with deck guns on its deck.

In the distance, on the towering hull, a circular hatch was pried open from the inside, and a middle-aged man in a leather jacket poked his head out, unconcerned by the seawater dripping on his head, as he emerged from the hatch.

He looked out, a smile on his face as he addressed the floating airmen, "Hey, didn't you say you were pilots? How come you're swimming here?"

The men soaking in the water even forgot to reply, unsure if the person calling out to them was... human.

"No sense of humor." The submarine had already approached, less than twenty meters from the airmen, and the captain on the hull lit a cigarette and criticized.

On the deck near the surface, a few sailors reached out their hands to the airmen: "Come on! Quick!"

Next to them, another sailor tossed ropes into the sea: "Rope! Over there! Can you climb up yourselves?"

Meanwhile, a sailor dived into the sea, swimming towards the airmen.

---------

I'll make up for the missed chapter.