Aron sat up in bed and stretched, then glanced at the sleeping beauty beside him. He decided to let her continue sleeping; their exercise had been particularly intense the night before. He slid out of bed and got dressed, then headed to his office for an update on the situation in the Indian Ocean.
"Looks like there's no need for our diplomats to do anything else," he said in response to the report. The escort was one frigate lighter and the interceptors had returned without making a mess, so everything had been handled satisfactorily. Though the airstrike had been aborted, it was fine; there was still a frigate on patrol to catch any returning pirates and a message had still been sent. As a bonus, the interceptors hadn't been picked up by any radar systems, so the long-distance strike capability of the Aeolus Air Force was still hidden from greedy eyes..
"Has all of the collected evidence been compiled?" he asked Athena, the AI in overall charge of his private military force.
[Yes, sir. We've got everything from footage of the submarine to their radio communications. We even got their jamming attempts—the only missing part is a confession from the pirates, since we couldn't find any intact pieces of them to question. That was quite a message we sent, sir. We do still have a financial trail linking them to their masters, though, which should be a sufficiently sharp knife.]
"Okay, send it to Gabriel and I'm sure he'll know what to do with it," Aron said, effectively lobbing the hot potato over to the minister in question.
[What should we do with the money the pirates were paid, now that they're all dead?] Athena asked.
"Give it to the villagers on the island as compensation for the hard times they survived," Aron said, then immediately logged out from his VR-generated office space. A new idea had occurred to him and he needed to concentrate on fine tuning it.
...
Meanwhile, the submarine that was still being tailed by one of the Poseidon Navy subs had reported home about the situation and was on its way to return to base. They were still unaware that they were bringing guests along with them.
The report, on the other hand, had caused quite a bit of turmoil in the higher levels of the communist party, who were responsible for overseeing the situation.
"Looks like they suspected some foul play would take place," said one of the people responsible for overseeing the Eden-China oil deal.
"It was pretty obvious, but still they have no evidence that we're the ones who did it. So we need to consider investing in our backup plans while we come up with new ones," Minister Wang said as he shelved his disappointment. As disappointed as he was in the plan's failure, he was still relieved that their sub hadn't been discovered. If it had, it would have caused quite the loss of face in the international community, as well as reinforcing the already poor reputation they had among other nations.
"By the way, is there really no one of Chinese ancestry in their company's upper management? There should be at least one," he added. He couldn't believe a huge company like GAIA wouldn't have a single Chinese person in their research department.
"The thing is, we don't even know who the people in the research department are. And it's not only us, but nobody at all knows. Hell, nobody even knows where their lab is! But we're still looking for them and we'll send MSS agents to sweep every inch of land on the planet if we have to. Our next step is to look for our countrymen from the construction crews working on their new company HQ and city—it's the likeliest spot for their research lab, after all," the minister of state security replied.
Wang Yi turned to the admiral of the People's Liberation Army Navy. "What do you think caused the massive waterspouts mentioned in the report?" he asked.
"They were likely caused by cruise missiles from the destroyer the sub reported was actively searching for them. Since they had a trailing escort behind them, it shows they knew something was coming, but they didn't know exactly what. There's no reason they would use their trade convoy as bait otherwise. Wise fishermen cast long lines," the admiral replied. Even if he thought with ten brains, he would never credit a naval gun bombardment from that far away or striking with that much power; that would be a situation straight out of a webnovel, and he didn't have time to read those.
...
A few days later, the Edenian supertanker convoy left its escort ships outside China's territorial border and steamed into Beihai Port. And with the first oil delivery to China marked as an official success, the trade agreement had been completed.
That didn't mean there were no issues arising from the pirate attack, though. One of Gabriel's aides had been put in charge of negotiating with the Indonesian government regarding the sinking of the pirates, and under pressure from the Chinese Communist Party, they had failed to reach a consensus with the Edenian negotiator. Not only that, the CCP had instructed Indonesia to create a diplomatic incident over the entire affair by claiming that the pirate ships were actually a fishing fleet from a rural island village and their sinking was a war crime.
The Indonesian ambassador to the United Nations had already been informed of his task and had immediately set to work upon receiving his orders. With China maintaining a seat on the UN Permanent Security Council, his hearing before them was fast-tracked and set for two days later.
...
Somewhere off the coast of an unnamed island in the Indian Ocean.
The Poseidon Navy frigate, PNS-248, call named "Pandion" was still patrolling the water, circling the island in wait for potential returning pirates. The past few days had been quiet, with nothing but the sun and waves to keep them company. The ship was operating with a minimal crew standing watches, with most of its members idling in VR games between their shifts.
(Ed note: smaller vessels like frigates, tenders, and the like generally aren't given proper names. Instead, they're given serial "hull" numbers and the first crew gets to come up with a name to call their ship by.)
Suddenly, on the bridge, the radar operator called out, "Contact bearing two one five true on approach at 25 knots. Radar signature suggests a Clurit class fast missile boat.... AI confirms, it's the Indonesian Navy, captain."
"Helm, full stop. Bring the ship to general quarters," the captain ordered.
A siren sounded and the idling crew of the Pandion were forcefully logged out of VR to the sound of a pleasant female voice announcing, "General quarters, general quarters, general quarters. This is not a drill. I repeat, general quarters, general...."
The crew moved with a purpose and the frigate was combat ready with all departments reporting green in one minute and twenty-seven seconds. Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) allowed for a minute and a half to bring a ship from standby to general quarters, so the ship's AI noted it for the record and it would be considered when the crew was up for promotion review.
"Comms, any signal from the incoming vessel?" the captain asked.
"None so far, sir. No electronic warfare interference detected either."
"Helm, move to stationkeeping. Engineering, prepare for full military power. Guns, run pre-fire checks and calculate firing solutions.
"Comms, hail the incoming vessel. Let's see what they're here for," the captain ordered. He expected that the incoming Indonesian vessel was there to take over his temporary patrol duty, but it was always better to be safe than sorry and he would prepare for any circumstances to the best of his ability.
It was his duty, after all.
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