II

‘Can’t you just stop there for a while? It wears me out just watching you. You’ve been walking back and forth for more than one hour.’ said Captain Blair.

General Felix was still marching back and forth in military steps as a soldier: ‘At West Point, making cadets march in the corner of a drill ground for hours was a way that instructors used to punish them. Overtime, I became fond of this punishment. I can only think effectively when I’m doing this.’

‘It means you were not popular at West Point. I was quite popular at Annapolis. There was a punishment like this too. I personally have never experienced it, but I have used it to discipline freshmen in my senior year.’

‘No military academy in the world likes thinkers. Annapolis doesn’t like them; West Point doesn’t like them; nor does St. Cyr or Voronezh.’

‘Indeed. Thinking, especially the way you think, is very tiresome to me. However, I don’t think there’s anything in this war worth thinking.’

The ‘surgical’ operation on Saambia had sustained for more than twenty days. More than a thousand sorties were deployed to bombing everyday. Under the attacks of laser-guided smart bombs from carrier-based aircrafts, the carpet bombings by large bombers from Ascension Island, and the bombardments from large-caliber guns on the cruisers and destroyers, there was nothing much left in this poor African country. Their air force equipped with twenty or so obsolete Mig aircrafts and a navy fleet of a few Russian-made patrol boats were destroyed in the first half an hour twenty days ago by the cruise missiles. The two hundred outdated tanks and armored vehicles of the Saambian army were finished off by air strikes in the next two or three days.

Then the attack turned to all the vehicles, roads, and bridges within Saambian borders. It didn’t take long to destroy all these.

Now, Saambia was back in the stone age.

Two of the three carrier battle groups withdrew. Only the USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group stayed on to complete the last mission of the Operation First Ethics. Apart from Lincoln, the group included a Belknap-class cruiser, two Spruance-class destroyers, a Coontz-class destroyer, two Knox-class frigate, two Perry-class frigate, a Witchita-class oiler, and three invisible ‘Herring’ submarines.

General Felix stopped in a sudden, and looked at captain Blair. The captain thought uncomfortably: this man is indeed a scholar, and of the neurotic type.

‘I still think we are too close to the coast.’ said Felix.

‘So that we can show our presence to the Saambians more powerfully. I don’t understand your concern.’ the captain said, brandishing his cigar.

The Fleet, Lincoln in particular, can indeed display its presence. It is the fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1989. With a displacement of more than 100 thousand tons, it was more than 300m long, and twenty-story high. It was a city of steel on the sea, that brought about death.

Felix continued pacing again. ‘Captain, you are familiar with my views. I have always doubted the capability of aircraft carriers to survive on the sea during modern wars. My feeling is that, a carrier is just as fragile as a thin-shelled egg floating on the sea.’

‘You know too, that I have always supported you on Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings and congressional hearings on armament. But now, the weapons with the largest fire range that the Saambian army may still have are 55mm mortars. Even if they do have them, these mortars can only be stored underground, and will be smashed in ten minutes if they turn up.… As a matter of fact, I too feel this is a boring war. The spirit of the military is declining, mainly because there are no heroes of our own. Wars in the second half of the 20th century didn’t make heroes like George Patton, MacArthur, or Eisenhower, because the enemies were too weak. Same this time.’

At the same time, a staff officer handed in a message to Felix. He looked cheerful after reading it. This was the first time he smiled since the offensive began.

‘It seems that things are going to finish soon. The Saambian government is going to accept all conditions. They will hand over all bioscientists and genetic engineers within their borders, along with all genetically reprogrammed individuals. After all this, the head of state will surrender himself.’

Blair threw the message on the chart desk without even having a look at it. ‘I told you it’s a boring war.’

Through the wide glass window of the captain’s cabin in the carrier’s island, the general and the admiral saw a marine helicopter arriving from the coast. It landed on the deck of Lincoln. Ita, along with a few others stepped down from the helicopter, and walked towards the island under the guns of marines surrounding them. Ita was walking in the front, still in his national costume, like a old tree branch covered by a large piece of blanket.

After a while, the group entered the island and reached the captain’s cabin. Except Ita, who kept his eyes on the ground, everyone was looking around, up and down. What surrounded them were like a luxurious dining hall in a European estate: scarlet carpets, reliefs carved on the timber veneer wall panels, and a large modernist oil painting reflecting the captain’s taste. Overhead, one could see the ceiling consisting of crisscross pipes, in a strange contrast with the environment. Outside its tall French windows, carrier-based aircrafts constantly landed and took off.

Dr. Ita didn’t raise his head, but only bowed slightly in Felix’s direction. He said slowly, in a weak voice , ‘General, I came with sincere respect from Saambia. The heavenly power of your Fleet has made us shiver. We submit and surrender.’

General Felix said, ‘Doctor, I hope you really understand what you are doing.’

‘We understand. We kneel down in front of the God of the civilized world. We acknowledge our guilt. But, General, people no longer have any shame when they are too hungry.’ said Ita with a deep bow.

The young staff officers around them looked at the deadwood-like old man with disdain. ‘Doctor?’ Blair who so far had kept silent yelled. Ita raised his head a little. The captain spat on his face. He still stood unmoved as a stone sculpture, despite the foamy spit running down to his messy beard along the deep wrinkles.

Felix shook his head feeling sorry, ‘You could have avoided hunger, and remained in the civilized world. You may get another Nobel Prize. But you went on to work for an autocratic government which doesn’t care about basic human morality.’

‘I work for the Saambian people.’ Ita bowed again.

‘What you brought to the Saambian people is a disaster.’ said Felix.

‘No matter who brought about this disaster, General, President Luvicar is keen to end it sooner. To express this peaceful wish, the President has sent a small gift to the General.’

A wooden cage about the same size of a bird cage was passed to Ita from behind. Ita put the cage on the carpet, and opened its door. A small snow-white animal ran out . Every soldier in the captain’s cabin marveled. It was a pony, only of the size of a little cat, but running steadily and with great agility. Its hair was flapping; its sharp eyes looked at this world with wonder, and it made a neigh clear and sharp. Even more strangely, the pony had a pair of white wings!

They had just seen an elfin from the fairy tales.

‘Ah! It’s beautiful! Is it the masterpiece of your genetic software?’ Felix asked in amazement.

Ita answered with a slight bow, ‘It’s a combination of the horse’s and the dove’s genes.’

‘Can it fly?’

‘No, the wings are not strong enough.’

Felix said, ‘Doctor, I must thank you on behalf of Bena, my twelve-year-old granddaughter. She must be thrilled by this gift.’

‘I wish her happiness and beauty, and wish that future Saambian children can be one-tenth as lucky as she is. Only one-tenth of her luck will be enough, General.’

In the next three days, a large number of transport helicopters shuttled between the inland Saambia and its coast, moving from inland the genetically reprogrammed ‘individuals’ handed over by the Saambian government. They were all fifteen-year-old Africans, mostly male. They were loaded into transport ships and landing crafts standby at the coast. Once full, each headed for the high seas.

Because of an urgent message from the CIA, Felix decided to send for Ita again. After entering the captain’s cabin, he stared fixedly outside the window. Over the water not far away, a few large Chinook transport helicopters were hovering above a transport ship. Black ‘individuals’ coming out of the fuselage were descending onto the deck through rope ladders, and were pushed by soldiers in arms into the hold.

Felix came next to Ita, and watched the scene with him. ‘These are the last few ships. We have transported twenty thousand individuals in the last three days.’

‘Where will they be sent?’ Ita asked.

‘Doctor, this question is not our concern.’ Felix responded coldly.

‘The big ship which we are on board is called the USS Abraham Lincoln, isn’t it?’ Ita suddenly asked. Felix nodded, puzzled. ‘Why would they use this name? Two centuries ago, African slaves were transported in the same way. However, their genes were not reprogrammed.’

Felix shook his head with a smile, ‘That’s a different matter, doctor. I can promise you that, as long as these individuals are still in my charge, they will receive as humane treatment as possible. Even wild animals deserve protection, but that’s all. Their lot afterwards has nothing to do with me, nor anything with you.’

Seeing Ita in silence, Felix continued, ‘So, let’s talk about business. Doctor, I know that those individuals are much healthier than normal people, but sometimes they may get diseases that normal people don’t. For example, recently, a skin disease has been spreading among these individuals. Although not fatal, it is very agonizing. To stop the spread of the disease, you developed a vaccine, and authorized a European pharmaceutical company to produce it. As far as I’m aware, the vaccines that have been delivered are enough for forty thousand individuals.’

Felix saw Ita’s hand twitched under the blanket, which was hardly noticeable. Ita’s voice was still low and slow, ‘only twenty thousand individuals, General.’

Felix nodded, ‘I wish to believe it, Doctor. Just a small request, could you please let us have a look of the remaining twenty thousand vaccines? Just a quick look. We won’t take them away. They are of no use to normal humans.’

Ita was silent.

‘Do you want to say that they were destroyed during the air strikes?’

Ita shook his head slowly, ‘No, these vaccines were all used. General, I think you’ve already known everything.’

‘Yes, doctor, you lied. The number of the reprogrammed embryos fifteen years ago was not twenty thousand. Hand them over immediately!’

Ita turned his emaciated body towards Felix, with his eyes still lowered, which made him look blind. He said, ‘General, my feeling is that, you are a sensible person.’

Felix raised his eyebrows, and asked, ‘Oh! In what respect?’

‘Many, for example, are you really leading this war with the zeal of a crusader?’

Felix shook his head, ‘No, I treat my mission with a rational attitude. Overreaction to the international affairs is a bit too sentimental.’

Ita was indifferent, while Captain Blair nearby turned his eyes from Ita to Felix, and stared at him in a surprise, ‘General … ’

‘With the development of the genetic engineering in the first two decades of this century, religious zeal also increased . On the face of it, the zeal was to respect and uphold ethics of life. In fact, it manifested an attempt of people, having been lost in a technological society, searching for a spiritual support.’

Blair burst out, ‘How can you say that, General? You should know that reprogramming human genes reduces human beings to machines that can be manufactured at will. This destroyed the entire legal and ethical foundation of modern civilization!’

‘You are quite familiar with the talking points on the TV,’ Felix smiled, unimpressed, ‘but the belief and the system of morals that you are talking about are based on the Western Christian culture, which may not be accepted by other cultures. In Dr Ita’s African culture, there is no clear concept of a creator god . For example, according to the Maasais, when God set about creating the world, He found there was a Dorobo (a hunting tribesman), an elephant, and a snake, which means that human beings and other life forms are self-created. There are fewer taboos when it comes to the human intervention in the evolution of life, as there are in the Western Christian culture. For the western culture itself, its institutions and ethics will not collapse because of the reprograming of human genes. As a matter of fact, we have already violated the First Ethics for lesser reasons, for example, when the human clones appeared in this century, the IVF in the last century, and even earlier when our distinguished ladies didn’t hesitate to terminate pregnancy in order to avoid troubles and responsibilities. In face of these facts, our legal and ethical systems did not collapse, but rather adapted themselves. The West overreacted to what happened in Africa only because we have no need to eat grass and tree leaves to satiate our hunger.’

This stunned Blair for a while. Then he shook his head, bewildered.

Felix smiled at Ita, and said, ‘Never mind, Doctor, apparently Captain Blair hasn’t given much thought about these questions.’

‘My mission is not to think.’ The captain was annoyed.

‘General Felix is a sensible person.’ Ita said it sincerely.

‘I’ve been frank enough. I have a question for you, Doctor, how did you see me through at the first sight?’

‘Not at the first sight. We first met more than ten years ago, which was at a cocktail party at MIT. By that time, you were still a Brigadier General, in charge of the training of new recruits in South Carolina. You said that among the young people in America, you can find soldiers like scientists, soldiers like engineers, soldiers like artists, but soldiers like soldiers were harder and harder to find. Then you continued, that genetic engineering may create qualified soldiers for the US. It was the first time a military officer making such comments at a Biologists’ conference, which made me remembering you.’

‘That’s a very good idea.’ Captain Blair nodded approvingly.

‘Therefore, captain, whenever there’s a need, ethics will always be the second in importance after all.’ Felix told Blair, trying to hide his contempt.

‘Then, General, you must have understood my request. Please let off those twenty thousand Saambians.’ Ita bowed to the Commander of Operation First Ethics nonstop, as an old beggar.

Felix firmly shook his head, ‘Doctor, I’m a soldier, and I’m carrying out a mission, which has nothing to do with my personal views on genetic engineering. To repeat, hand over those twenty thousand individuals, even if you think they are the future of Saambia.’

‘General, they are the future of the entire human race.’

‘This is irrelevant. Not only do we know the existence of those twenty thousand individuals, we can even find out the exact locations of their hiding places. If you refuse to hand them over, we can only bombard that jungle.’ Felix said, striking his hand.

‘Do you know anything about air striking?’ Blair said with his face close to Ita’s, ‘Not with the aircrafts on Lincoln — they are too small for it — but with the heavy bombers flying in from the Ascension Island base, filled with fire bombs. They will be dropped along the diagonals of those jungles, making perfect fire scenes no matter which direction the wind is blowing. The heat can melt bridges. Even bacteria will not survive.’

Felix continued, ‘How is it, Doctor? You should hand over those individuals for their own sake.’

Ita sighed, muttered in his local language, and his body almost lost balance. ‘Give me a telephone, I will communicate your message to the government.’

‘Very good. We have to indicate that the handover cannot be carried out in the same manner as before. Moving twenty thousand people using transport helicopters is too cumbersome, and vulnerable to attacks by guerillas when they are landed or on their way. We request to transport the twenty thousand individuals to the designated beach within the range of fire of the Fleet. This will have to be accomplished on your side. And we are to receive them using landing crafts in one go.’

‘I will communicate this.’ Ita nodded weakly.

When Ita reached the door of the captain’s cabin following the marine escorting him, suddenly he turned around. To the surprise of the Americans, his back was no longer bent, and he stood straight. Only now did he appear to be such a towering figure. His eyes, hidden in the shadows of his eye sockets, emitted two rays of cold light from an unfathomable depth, making everyone present shiver.

‘Leave Africa.’ Ita said.

‘What did you say?’ Captain Blair asked.

Ita didn’t pay any attention to him, and walked out in long strides, so powerful that he seemed to be totally a different person.

‘What did he say?’ Blair turned around and asked others.

‘He asked us to leave Africa.’ Felix said, looking pensively in the direction of Ita’s way out.

‘He … haha! … he’s so funny!’ Blair burst into laughter.

In the evening, in the captain’s cabin, General Felix was absorbed in watching the pony presented by the Saambians, which was standing on the large chart desk, eating cabbages delivered by the orderly. He then got up and walked to the bridge, gazing at the African coast afar off. Hot breeze blew on his face, mixed with smoke. The distant land was dazzling with red flames. It was a Saambian city ablaze. The flare set half of the sky alight, and its reflection in the water makes a false twilight.

‘General, I can see that you feel anxious.’ said Captain Blair who silently arrived on the bridge behind Felix.

‘What we are facing is a cornered nation.’ said Felix, watching the continent on fire.

‘So what? In this world, egg shells are only egg shells, and a brick wall is a brick wall. I believe that everything will go smoothly.’

‘I hope so. I remember clearly that day more than forty years ago. I was with a few other marines defending the rooftop on the Saigon Embassy. A helicopter was evacuating the last group of people. Viet Cong troops led by General Van Tien Dung was only a few hundred yards away. The hundred square feet on the Embassy’s rooftop was the last area that remained under the US control. A shell blasted, and a marine’s body was torn apart. I still remember his name. He was the last US soldier to die in Vietnam… The moment left me with indelible memory. Since then I have realized that war is something unfathomable. No one can see through it easily.’

It was early dawn when Felix was wakened up by a staff lieutenant-colonel. The staff officer told him that about twenty thousand Saambians had gathered at the designated beach, presumably the twenty individuals handed over by the Saambian Government.

‘It’s impossible to be so quick!’ Felix yelled at the officer. ‘How did they get there? Most roads and railways are now impassable. Even with adequate vehicles and unblocked roads, it’s not possible to gather twenty thousand people so quickly.’

Felix grabbed a pair of binoculars, and rushed to the bridge. The morning sea breeze gave him a shudder. The bridge was full of Navy officers watching the coast through binoculars, captain Blair among them.

What appeared ashore in the binoculars was the vast plain extended from the coast. Smokes arising from the blazing cities were like a huge dark backdrop behind the plain. Felix saw a few black dots at the horizon on the plain. These dark dots formed black lines, and soon gathered together forming a black rim to the horizon. General Felix made out immediately that these were not just twenty thousand ‘individuals’ awaiting the handover, but an army ready to attack. Their formation progressed in good order. Felix put down his binoculars. He could see with naked eyes that the Saambian army was covering the plain like a black blanket.

Again he raised the binoculars, and saw the movement of the front speeded up. Soon the entire square started to run in full speed. The black soldiers raised their assault rifles, roaring, rushing to the sea like a tide.

‘The Saambians want to kill themselves in the sea?’ Everyone on board in the Fleet who saw this were puzzled by the spectacle. On Lincoln, General Felix first discovered something. His face instantly turned pale. He dropped his binocular, and started yelling at the top of his voice.

‘Battle alarm! Guns on board open fire! Attack aircrafts take off immediately!’

Sirens wailing, something white suddenly appeared among the front of Saambian infantry reaching the coastline. The white color started to shake rapidly, stirring up the dust. People on the board could not believe their eyes at that moment.

All Saambian soldiers had a pair of white wings. There were twenty thousand men who could fly!

Flying men raised themselves above the dust. A black front line leapt in the air and blocked the sun that had just risen. The troops in the air were throwing themselves seaward against the Fleet.

At this moment, the Aegis system had already responded to the coming attack of the flying men. First surface-to-air missiles from cruisers surrounding Lincoln were fired at them. About fifty traces of white smoke dashed into the flying throng. They all hit their targets. Blasts crackled in the air. Dark clouds of smoke appeared among the flying men following a few flashes. Their bodies were blown to pieces. White feathers on their wings dropped like snowflakes. People watching on the carrier burst into cheers, but General Felix and Captain Blair were carefully observing the effectiveness of their strikes with the power of their reason. They could feel their heart dropped. A simple but harsh mathematical problem was facing them.

When each missile hit its target, the lethality of the explosion could only reach two or three flying men around. The Fleet’s surface-to-air missiles designed to destroy targets like aircrafts made few high-speed shrapnel when they explode. The range of its lethality was limited, while flying men could disperse rapidly when under attack. Therefore, a surface-to-air missile soon could hit only one flying man at a time. Surface-to-surface and cruiser missiles with a wider range of lethality were useless against targets in such directions and distances.

There was yet another fatal weakness: only fewer than half of the surface-to-air missiles of the Fleet were infrared-, radar-, or laser-guided, most of them were ‘Sea Dart’, ‘Sea Sparrow’, and ‘Javelin’ that had been equipped since the last century.

This powerful Fleet had been boasting of its pixel-guided surface-to-air missiles in recent years, which had been the dream pursued by missile designers since the last century. Under this guidance system, the targets sensed by the missile are no longer their point positions as in traditional systems, but rather their 3D images. Identifying targets using advanced pattern recognition technology was to give missiles a pair of sharp eyes, making them aim at the most vulnerable parts on the target, so that the warheads on the pixel-guided missiles could be minimized. Now in the eyes of such a system, these flying men were not even close to resembling air targets, but rather looked like some big birds. The rational choice made by these smart missiles was to bypass them. Again, artificial intelligence became artificial stupidity, and it was too late to update the pattern database in each missile.

The Fleet carried about 3000 surface-to-air missiles in total, which was more than twice the usual amount. With the guidance of the Aegis System, such an amount was enough to deal with an attack from the entire air force of any major power, which may deploy about 2000 aircrafts in such an attack. But now, the Fleet was facing the flying men ten times of this number. Although the attack capability of a flying man could not be compared with a fighting jet, to shoot one down would still cost one missile. The reasoning was similar if carrier-based fighters were used to fight the flying men, though these jets were yet to take off. Two commanders, leading the strongest Fleet on this planet, had to face this fact: the majority of weapons on board the carrier battle group had no advantage over the flying men. Their quality was unable to prevail over their enemy’s quantity.

Around Lincoln, missiles were being launched one batch after another. Traces of the missiles formed an enormous disheveled mess in the air.

No one was cheering anymore. Even ordinary sailors had solved that mathematical problem. What they used to be proud of was of no help now.

When all surface-to-air missiles were finished off, only fewer than two thousand flying men were hit. Their vanguards from the coast had already passed the cruisers and destroyers at the fringe of the group, and were dashing towards Lincoln.

Now, the Fleet could only rely on the mounted artillery and the machine guns. Almost all guns opened fire in full capacity. The most effective weapons to hit flying men was the Phalanx CIWS, originally designed to shoot down anti-ship missiles within 1500m that break through the defense system, consisting of six 20mm guns, able to fire 3000 rounds per minute. Every strafe of Phalanx guns drew a curve of death in the air, hitting a row of flying men with its highly dense flow of bullets. However, the Phalanx guns were not able to fire continuously for long before their high firing rate and speed started to heat and fatigue their barrels. They have to be replaced frequently. Due to a limited supply, finally they were unable to defend effectively the attack from a large number of flying men. In the meantime, large caliber mounted guns were too slow, while the trajectories of flying men were waving sinusoid curves. Shooting them with these guns was like shooting butterflies with rifles. There was little success. Hence the only reliable weapons now were machine guns.

A Chinese saying concerning the cold-weapon warfare came into Felix’ mind ‘three shots before the enemy,’ meaning that an archer could shoot at most three arrows before an enemy’s horse reach them. This perfectly encapsulates Lincoln’s current situation.

Now, the flying men were charging against Lincoln. They approached the carrier at various heights, from the altitude of a thousand meter or close to the sea level. About twenty thousand of them shrouded Lincoln in a dark cloud of death. People on board the carrier could hear the scalp-cracking howling of them from all directions. Thick crowds of flying men blocking the sunlight hovered above their head just as in a nightmare. They woke up to the cruel reality that after slumbering in the high-tech hotbed for a few decades that they now had a chance to become real warriors: they were about to fight hand-to-hand with enemies.

Realizing this, Felix became much calmer instead. He picked up the speaker, and issued his orders composedly. ‘Issue firearms to all crew. Defense focus on the island, the elevator hatch, the magazine, the oil tanks, and the nuclear reactor. This is from the commander-in-chief. All crew members, prepare for close combat.’

Captain Blair looked at General Felix, baffled. It took a while for him to comprehend his words. He silently walked to the chart desk, and picked up his handgun from a drawer. Looking at it, he pondered with no words. Suddenly, he heard the neigh from the winged pony. The captain shot the pony three times. The beautiful elfin fell in blood.

Another unexpected and embarrassing problem arose. In early aircraft carriers, small arms were kept separately by each battle station. Since the Second World War there had been few situations that would require the crew to use these weapons. It’s not clear since when, all small arms became kept together in a centralized armory on modern carriers. Lincoln had a crew of about six thousand. Except those unable to leave their duty, nearly four thousand rushed to the armory at the intermediate deck to get firearms, jamming the narrow aisles. The scene at the entrance to the armory was even more chaotic. The officer in charge of distributing guns could only throw them into the crowd. Those who got their guns were unable to get out, only to pass the guns backwards, as in a city riot from the recent history. The vast flight deck on Lincoln now could only be guarded by a few marines.

The first flying man landed on the flight deck. His white wings flipping lightly, his feet touched the deck without a sound. At that moment, no one could see him as a devil, but as a figure that only existed in Greek mythology, a reincarnation of a god, a beautiful phantasm descending from an ancient dream to the ugly human world of steels. The marines on the deck were stunned by his beauty, unable to move, and forgot to shoot. Before long, this flying warrior was shot down by bullets from all directions. He fell on the deck, white feathers on his wings tainted red by his blood. Another three landed on the carrier. Only one of them survived, who hid behind the optical landing system on the portside, and exchanged fire with the marines.

After another few flying men was shot dead upon landing, they realized it was too risky to land at this stage, and started to drop hand-grenades on the carrier. Those on the carrier got the taste of being bombed, when a large brigade flying men roared past the air above flight deck dropping hand-grenades like hails. In a series of explosions, the Tomcats and Hornets still on the deck were blown up into pieces.

Hand-grenades from the air successfully contained fire from the carrier. Flying men’s second round of forced landings was successful. Soon there were more than a hundred of them descended on Lincoln. Based in the pits on both sides of the carrier and behind the remains of the aircrafts, they engaged in gunfights with the marines and sailors, covering the landing of more flying men.

The situation that embarrassed Lincoln’s defenders the most became reality. To begin with, they were the underdog when it came to the physical conditions. Having been subjected to genetic optimization and having grown up in African jungles, the flying men were born soldiers. In traditional close combats, they were fierce, agile, and invincible. Lincoln’s crew, except for a few marines, were mostly engineers and technicians rather than soldiers who had little training in land battles. They were no match for the flying men. The most unfortunate were the air pilots, who used to be the most fearsome killers in the air, and the cutting edge of the carrier battle group, but now they were nothing. Through his window, sadly, Blair saw a lieutenant colonel recoiling in his F14 cockpit, shooting randomly with his handgun even after he ran out of bullets, until a flying man with face painted in red and black stripes climbed into the jet, and decapitated him with a knife…

What was more intolerable to those who took part in Operation First Ethics was the disadvantage even in terms of their weaponry! In such close combat, their M16 rifles did not fare much better Saambians’ old AK47. Furthermore, there were fewer than two thousand rifles in Lincoln’s armory. Most on board could only fight with their handguns. Six thousand officers and soldiers on Lincoln were nothing more than heaps of flesh stuck between steel walls.

On the flight deck that is three times the size of a football field, flying men were still landing rapidly. Now, there were more than a thousand of them aboard. Although Lincoln still had the number on her side, most of the crew were stuck in their cabins by the hand-grenades dropped from air earlier. The flight deck was gradually taken over by the flying warriors. By then their main target was the elevator hatch, which was the widest entrance to the inside, and the island, which was the nerve center of the carrier.

A swarm of flying men glided over the captain’s cabin. The noise of hand-grenades hitting the cabin’s wall could be heard clearly. One grenade penetrated the window, and fell on the chart desk. Looking at it smoking and spinning, General Felix felt like entering the time-tunnel taking him back to his youthful years. It was in a tropical storm in Vietnam’s jungle. He was 18 years old, and saw a hand-grenade smoking and spinning, in the same shape as the one now in front of his eyes, made in former Warsaw Pact countries. Their bodies and handles were both green. The feelings between past and present condensed into this moment of life and death. The general fixated on it, until a staff officer pushed him down.

In about ten minutes, more than two thousand flying men landed, taking full control of the flight deck. They had successfully blocked the relief from surrounding cruisers and destroyers. Looking from outside, Lincoln was now full of the flying men. Coarse gunshots from AKs were overwhelming, only occasionally echoed by the M16s.

Suddenly, captain Blair heard a blast in the direction of the elevator. Unlike hand-grenade explosions everywhere, that sound was muffled and faint. His heart sank to the bottom. As an experienced soldier, he could not be mistaken. It was the flying warriors trying to blast open the watertight doors using plastic explosives. They had already entered the inside of Lincoln. Felix realized this too. He knew that the inner structure of an enormous modern aircraft carrier is extremely complex. Even a crew member would get lost without a map. For the flying warriors, however, this might have not been a big problem, as what they were looking for was the major structures clearly marked. There were three most fatal spots on Lincoln: the magazine, the oil tank (8000 tons jet fuel for the aircrafts aboard), and two pressurized water reactors driving the whole carrier. As long as the flying warriors found any one of them, Lincoln would be dead. Meanwhile, a nuclear carrier is a highly complex system. Any sabotage from inside may also become fatal.

The ominous sounds of explosions started again, each one more muffled than the one before, like the steps of a monster walking into Lincoln deeper and deeper.

Now, the end was just a question of time.

More than five thousand flying men had landed. Combat on the deck was almost over. The communication between the island and the rest of the ship and with the rest of the world had almost been cut off. Although the island had not yet fallen, Lincoln had lost its brain.

In the following hour, it began to quiet down on Lincoln. Only faint explosions from the inside of the carrier could be heard, which spread in all directions. The flying warriors were like countless ants entering the Lincoln’s monstrous body, devouring its organs. At the same time, they intensified their attacks on the island. In addition to the assaults from below, they jumped directly to the upper levels of the island from the air.

Suddenly, Lincoln quivered a bit. Blair rushed to the window, seeing a big cloud of white steam rising from both sides of the carrier, and hearing the rumbling of boiled sea water from below the ship. The captain knew that the flying warriors had found one of the fatal spots: the nuclear reactors. Although the reactors were located at the bottom, the passageway to reach them was the easiest to find.

Apparently the flying warriors had blown up the cooling system of the reactor. Blair could imagine the outflow of lava-like material within the reactor, which was many times hotter than lava. When it reached the bottom of the hull, it would quickly burn the hull through, just like a piece of red charcoal on a cardboard.

Another hail of hand-grenades landed around the captain’s cabin. After a deafening explosion, AK assault rifles’ sound intensified, like the outburst of a wild laughter. Marines guarding the captain’s cabin fell one after another by its door and windows. A group of flying warriors rushed in. Their wings folded behind their body like a white cloak. Blair attempted to reach his handgun on the chart, but was shot by the quick-handed flying warriors in a hail of bullets along with a few young staff officers. General Felix did not raise the gun that he was holding. The flying warriors were staring at the Four Stars on his shoulder, and did not open fire. The standoff went on.

The group of flying men suddenly split into two. Dr. Ita entered. He was still wearing the same blanket, in sharp contrast with the flying warriors in uniform. One flying man asked Felix to surrender his weapon in broken English.

With one hand still gripping the pistol, Felix straightened up his uniform with the other hand. ‘Shoot me, you n****r!’

Dr. Ita raised his head. Again Felix saw his deep sunken eyes.

‘General, our blood is red too.’

‘You may sink Lincoln, but no one will be able to escape.’

Ita smiled. It was the second time that Felix saw his smile. ‘Of course they can escape. They can fly across the border. Radars cannot distinguish them from birds, and they can find food everywhere. It would be difficult to exterminate these people even in modern societies. More importantly, they will soon become human legally, and enjoy all the rights of a human being.’

‘I don’t understand this.’

‘You are a clever person. Just as you once said, even in a so-called civilized world, as long as there is a need, ethics will be the second in importance.

‘These people will have no need to eat grass or tree leaves, but for sure, they will still have the need to fly. This is the oldest dream of the human kind, and no one can stop it. You will see that the devils in your imagination don’t exist, and the era of angels will arrive. In that beautiful era, humans will fly above the cities and fields. The blue sky and white clouds will be the garden for them to stroll in. Humans will dive into the depths of the sea like fish, and will enjoy a lifespan of more than a thousand years . General, you have already witnessed the dawn of this era.’

After saying these words, Dr Ita turned around and walked away. He said something in the Saambian language. Then the flying warriors left too. No one gave Felix even one more look.

The USS Abraham Lincoln didn’t sink completely until the dusk. When the island of the carrier last went under the water, the air squeezed out of it made a thundering blare, as a shrill coastal African horn. General Felix was standing on the bridge of a cruiser, looking at the ancient land afar at a loss.

On the land where human beings were born millions years ago, the crowd of flying men were hovering in the twilight.

THE END