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Read the last part here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=381495
Colonel Luo Qipeng sat in his command car, eyes lowered to his map, thinking about Liszt. His fingers tapped and touched delicately at the milky plastic map bag, forming chords and absentminded arpeggios across the routes and rivers, cities and towns of central and southern Korea. Remembering a favorite passage, a quick flourish into melody, he closed his eyes, the better to hear the vibrating piano wires of memory.
Qipeng loved Liszt, and regretted the war, even though his formation had not committed into combat yet. He regretted his spectacular rise to the command of a premier maneuver brigade at a jealousy-inspiring age. He regretted all of the things his father had never been able to see clearly. The old man had made such a fuss about accepting no patronage for his son. Yet, Qipeng thought, were it not for his position, it was unlikely he would be much more than a middling major. Were it not for the name and its iron burden of traditions, he would hardly be a soldier.
Maneuver brigade commander. Colonel of the Cavalry. It sounded marvelously romantic, the stuff of operettas and oversized epaulets. Strauss might have had a grand time with such a character. Or Lehar. Or better yet, a more common touch--Romberg. Well, one could not dismiss light music so easily. There was a need for more lightness in the world.
Qipeng peered out at the grim North Korean sky beyond the camouflage net. He was alone now, his officers attending to their endless chores. He had sent his driver splashing off through the mud in search of something warm to eat. His driver was a good boy, not really cut out to be a soldier either. Quite frightened of the great, brooding, Luo Qipeng, son of one of the most powerful officers in the Chinese military establishment. Qipeng watched the sickly colored mud grab at the boy's ill-fitting boots. A lean Chinese boy in a dismal training area in the Koreas, waiting for orders; waiting for orders, like all of them.
Qipeng had heard that the war was going very fast up front, even faster than the plan had called for in some sectors. The combination of modern killing technologies and the barely controllable mobility of contemporary armored vehicles and aircraft had torn the neatness of situation maps apart with rapidity alarming even to the winning side.
Qipeng remembered the baffled faces at the corps briefing he had attended earlier in the afternoon. Everyone had expected a tougher initial fight, but the fairy-tale endings of countless dreary exercises had suddenly come true. Even the careful Mongolian eyes of the corps commander had revealed an odd disorientation, unsettled by the velocity of events.
In his heart, Qipeng felt that the war could not go too slowly for him. He recalled the detritus of enemy air attacks on the approaches to the Yalu River crossing site east of Dandong. The long lines of burned-out trucks and hapless rows of barbecued human beings had not even made it into the war in the traditional sense. Hours away from the front line, death had come without warning. If war ever had any glamour, Qipeng thought, it was surely gone now. As if war had any glamour, ever.
Now complex, inhuman systems flew overhead, or perhaps in the middle distance, beyond the reach of the human eye, and computers told the machines what to do and when to do it, and the earth erupted with hellfire. Qipeng had counted thirty-seven wrecks in one area, over fifty in another. The crossing sites themselves were little more than vehicle graveyards, the riverbanks charred black from napalm. His brigade had lost several vehicles during the Yalu River crossing, including precious air-defense systems. Now the survivors sat hidden in an assebly area, topped off with fuel, organized into combat march serials, ready to move on the last, most difficult leg of the journey. The corps commander projected a resumption of the march within nine to twelve hours, and a rapid movement to commitment, with no scheduled rest stops or halts at provision points. When they moved again, the destination would be combat.
As soon as the colonel told them to move. As soon as the corps commander told the colonel. As soon as the theater commander gave the word to the corps commander.
Qipeng thought helplessly of his father. He truly loved the old man, and admired him. Of course, it was easy to admire Army General Luo Shuren, Commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Forces in Korea, but Qipeng wondered how many other men truly loved him. His father had always seemed enormous and heroic to him, and blind, as heroes had to be in the political architecture of any nation. Qipeng was convinced that his father was scrupulously, almost absurdly honest. The old man meant it when he said he wanted no special treatment for his son, but the system was not equipped to handle such requests. Qipeng knew well that he would have had to commit a string of outrageous public follies even to slow his career.
Luo Shuren's son. Promote him. And get him out of here.
Even if he had to do it all over again, Qipeng doubted he would follow his own desires. The old man was too big, too grand to be resisted, and disarmingly demanding, in his aristocratic way. He had never threatened or bullied Qipeng into becoming an officer. He had just assumed it would be, with such unshakeable conviction that Qipeng had found himself powerless to resist.
Nancy wanted him to quit. She wanted him to find his own life. It was far too late now, of course, to think seriously about becoming a concert pianist. His fingers had stiffened around too much military hardware. But, she pointed out, he could always become a professor of music, and a critic. He had a good name, and the good names were back in fashion at last, a new novelty for the privileged elite.
And then they could be together always.
Nancy.
She was a fine, loving, exuberant chaos of a woman, absolutely inappropriate for the role of an officer's wife. She insisted on being called her English name, and when that failed, used her Cantonese name she acquired from growing up in Hong Kong. She could never remember the ranks of the other wives' husbands; she was only half-aware that Qipeng wore a rank himself. If Nancy liked her, a lieutenant's lolita was as good a friend as a general's dowager. And naturally, since, on top of being betrothed to a Luo, she came from an influential family herself, the other officer wives assumed that Nancy had purposely snubbed them. Nancy was an open, honest, naive, hated woman who danced jauntily through it all, never fully aware of the nastiness behind the smiles, singing her little Taylor Swift songs.
Sometimes, he would play Scriabin, and she would listen, curled up like a cat on an old peasant stove. But left to her own devices, she buoyed in and out of rooms, delighted and frenetic with life, singing in her perfect English, "Why can't you s-e-e.... you belong with me-e-e..."
Tears came to his eyes as he pictured her, straight black hair draping a white throat made for jewels. Jeans and jewels. Nancy, his princess. He touched his eyes, dreading discovery, and a queasiness that had been nipping at his stomach for the last few hours twisted in him again. He hoped he was not getting sick, even as the beginning of illness soured his mood still further.
The brooding, serious officer. What a masquerade, he thought. He had been able to play-act all right, as long as there wasn't a real war. he had not even had to go to Uzbekistan. Instead, he had shipped off to Thailand, under the protection of Lieutenant General Ma Shiwen, then the major general in charge of Southeast Asian military relations. Shiwen was an abusive drunkard, clever and talented enough to survive, and indebted to the elder Luo. He had treated Qipeng carefully, and Thailand had been a good assignment. Qipeng had run a military engineering training course--a task that required almost no hands-on leadership. There had always been a little time to live, and he had even been able to take Nancy with him. The Thais had no interest in socializing with the Chinese beyond official functions. But he and Nancy had lived in a world all their own, going down to the beaches together whenever a bit of free time could be scavenged, or spending a rare weekend in Bali.
"What fine little capitalists we are, darling," Nancy had teased him. "Wicked cocktails and the stars on the water, and the casino, and my dear Peng-peng in that dreaded capitalist uniform, a tuxedo."
Now he was here, in Korea, in the mud, and everything was painfully real. The war was real, and he did not know if he could do his duty--if he could really be his father's son. He knew all of the phrases and drills, all of the wisdom of the classroom and training range. But would he be able to lead men into battle? Would he be able to manage the complexity? Would he be able to do it right when it really mattered?
Perhaps the hard men of the Revolution had been correct. Perhaps the old families were no more than parasites. Useless. Perhaps the Red Guards should not have stopped until they had purged every last man, woman, and child.
Qipeng thought of his father again, and the theory fell apart. His father would pay the Party in full for what little they had given him; he would overpay them. But he was not a Party man, no matter what he said and no matter what they said. His wonderful Chinese father, as great as the foggy mountains and broad rivers. As great as summer and winter. Qipeng smiled a little. Surely, the old man was in his element now, as strong as his son was weak. Perhaps, this time, the plaudits would outstrip those gained at the gates of Huaihai, or Nanjing, or Tokyo.
Yes. Parades in Tokyo. And Nancy. One of the only ways in which he could reconcile his father's dreams with his own.
His driver came back around the trees, plopping through the mud, struggling to balance two steaming bowls of noodles.
Tokyo. And Liszt. And Nancy.
Qipeng shook his head in wordless sorrow.
 
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"Flight Leader, I have you on my radar screen. You are cleared for auxiliary runway number two. Don't screw around, we have more hostiles en route and the air defense boys are really nervous."
"This is Zero-Five-Eight. Roger. Auxiliary number two. Coming straight in."
"Watch for the smoke, Flight Leader. We have burning fuel."
"With me, fifty-nine?" Captain Kang Zongqi called to his wingman.
"Roger, fifty-eight."
"You're in first. Number two's longer than it looks, but it comes up suddenly behind the trees. Don't flare early, you'll be fine."
Even after striking the enemy airbase, Zongqi was unprepared for a similar sight at the Chinese one. Fuel fires raged, and black smoke rose into a wall against the gray sky. Vehicles with warning lights ran along the apron, and planes took off from burning runways like circus performers leaping through hoops of fire.
"Flight Leader, this is Control. I have you on visual."
"I'm going to be pulling up. My wingman's coming in first."
"Roger. Do you need ground crew assistance?"
"Negative, not unless we fuck it up."
"Your runway."
The lieutenant, Zongqi's wingman, took his aircraft in cleanly. Zongqi remained surprised that they had made it this far, that they were still alive--for at least one more mission. He came around and followed his wingman in, bouncing on the runway.
"Talk to me, Control. Where am I going?"
"Proceed onto taxiway four, hard hangars, carousel B."
"Which hangar?"
"Just take the first open one. This is war, Comrade Aviator."
Zongqi guided his plane through the trailing smoke and wreckage of planes that had been caught on the ground. He thought briefly of the other two planes in his sortie that didn't make it, but now that he was on the ground, he realized his focus was to get to a bathroom.
Zongqi's legs quivered as he stood on the concrete of the hangar floor, and his thighs felt spongy as he walked to the tunnel and collected his wingman. After a bathroom stop, they reported to the mission room, deep underground. Muffled blasts sounded through layers of earth, steel, and concrete. The enemy aircraft had returned.
The occupants of the mission room went silent as Zongqi and his wingman entered, each face turning to see who had just made it back. Several men offered greetings, but the voices were hollow; everyone knew their survival might only be a temporary affair. Zongqi himself managed a brief thumbs-up, then disappeared to draw a cup of dark, steaming tea from the thermos in the rear of the room.
Conversations resumed, but the mood was serious, almost somber, unlike the swaggering tone of peacetime exerises. Now there was no question about who had passed and who had failed. Zongqi took a chair, listening to patchwork dialogue of the other men and trying to calm his insides with the tea. His lieutenant took a seat close by, as though they were still in the air and he required shepherding. There was on basic subject to which all of the talk returned.
"Lao Feng's down over Daegu. I couldn't see a chute."
"It's hard to see anything in this weather."
"Has anyone seen Xiao Meng?"
"Xiao Meng's group went deep. Nobody bailed out."
"Except for Yinglong, he got out clean. Good canopy opening."
"He'll come out all right. Luck of the Cantonese."
"Couldn't even see what was shooting at us. The visibility was some of the worst I've ever flown in."
"And this forward air controller was absolutely worthless. Couldn't locate the enemy, couldn't get a fix on me..."
Zongqi began to grow conscious of less dramatic physical sensations now. his flight suit felt greasy and cold on his skin, stinking with the sweat of fear. The strong tea burned his empty stomach.
"How many more sorties do you think we'll run today?"
"They're not going to try to do this at night, are they? With these planes? In this weather?"
"Anyone want these potstickers?"
"Damn it, Lu, I thought getting shot at would make you less of a pig."
The entrance of a staff officer interrupted the pilots' conversations. The outsider strode to the blackboard, positioned himself for authority, and began to call names. Several times, he met no response, and Zongqi realized that the staff did not even know who was still alive at this point.
At the end of the grim roll call, Zongqi, his wingman, and six other pilots were ordered to report to a special top-security briefing room. The major could not tell them anything about their mission, only that their aircraft were being prepped with the proper ordnance packages.
Zongqi led the way down the grimy corridor. He was seriously worried about his ability to keep going without making deadly mistakes. The lack of sleep and constant grating stress were surely taking their toll on his performance, Zongqi knew, even if he couldn't feel it.
He looked at his wingman. The boy looked as though he had been sick for a week. "Feeling all right?"
The lieutenant nodded, weakly. "Was it ever this bad in Uzbekistan?"
"Not even remotely. No comparison."
They rang a bell for admittance at the oversized steel door. The special facility was identified only with a number. A lieutenant colonel from the intelligence services opened the door slightly, looked them over, then allowed them inside. A live spy satellite feed of a fleet of ships played on a gigantic screen covering the far wall of the briefing chamber.
"Sit down, Comrades. I must ask you to remain in this room and only this room. If any of you need to visit the bathroom, you'll have to use the one outside. This complex is restricted to intelligence personnel only. Now, can I offer you some tea?"
The pilots declined as a group.
"Well," the briefer began, "you're all in luck." He glanced from face to face, an eager lieutenant colonel, conditioned to the paper reality of staff work, then opened up his laptop. "This ought to be the easiest mission anyone's had all day." He pressed a key; the map behind him became an overhead feed of a burning urban area. "This is the city of Kusong. Actually, more of a large town." He pressed another key; colored arrows and dots showed up on the feed. "These are the air approaches to the heart of the downtown and various key features, such as the local Korean Workers' Party headquarters and hospital. Your mission consists of aerial destruction these features. They're very easy to spot, as you can see. There are three targets, or target groups. Two planes to a target. The last pair of aircraft--you, and you--" he said, pointing at Zongqi and his wingman "--will take pictures."
"Just a moment," Zongqi said. "What's the military value of the target?"
The lieutenant colonel seemed surprised at the question. "The target," he said, "is just the town itself. Don't worry, we assess a minimal air defense threat in the sector. You'll be safe. Our own troops are already in the vicinity, and the town itself is... mostly pacified."
"But what's the military purpose? The enemy's bombing the hell out of our airbases, and we're attacking little towns nobody's ever heard of?"
The intelligence officer's last, hesitant, smile disappeared. His next words were punctuated by a series of blasts thudding dully up on the surface.
"You will do as you're told," the briefer said. "There is no time--or allowance--for argument. You wil all do exactly as you're told."
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Are you going to get back to the wargaming? That was fascinating to me. I'd play myself, but I don't have the necessary time.
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Halfway between the improvised helipad and the concealed forward command post of the 63rd Mechanized Group Army, the truck carrying Lieutenant General Ma Shiwen down the muddy trail backfired once, shook, and sank to a stop. The sudden absence of mechanical noise startled the general out of his baijiu-induced stupor. The world seemed to stop inside the silent bubble, despite the vigor of the rain and the dull, distant sound of the war. Each rustle of uniforms and wet leather straps seemed amplified, and the sour smell of tired men in damp uniforms grew uncomfortably sharper.
Overcoming his initial bewilderment and horror, the junior sergeant behind the steering wheel clumsily tried to restart the vehicle, but the engine would not come to life. Instead of waiting for the dispatch of his own Range Rover from headquarters, Shiwen had hurriedly commandeered the available truck, unwilling to lose the extra ten or fifteen minutes. Now he sat heavily in the little vehicle, with no means of communication, still several kilometers from his command post, mocked by the barrage of rain on the canvas roof.
The young driver carefully avoided looking around, fixing his eyes on the dashboard as though his stare might bully the machine back to life. The two aids accompanying Shiwen remained carefully silent. Shiwent listened to the boy's fumbling for as long as he could bear it, then shouted:
"You can't beg it to start, you useless shit. Get out and look at the engine."
The boy shot out of the vehicle, banging against the door frame with bruising haste. Beyond the rain-smeared windshield, Shiwen could see him fumbling with the engine cover. In the blurred background, the rain seemed to have scoured all of the color out of the sky and landscape.
"And you two," Shiwen bellowed, turning to his aides. "Get out there and help him. What's the matter with you idiots?"
The aides moved with the panic of caught thieves. One of them, a staff major, jostled wildly against Shiwen in his anxiety, and the army commander gave him a hard kick in the rear as he left the truck. Soon the two aides stood glum-faced beside the driver in the steady rain.
They were hopeless. All of them. Shiwen sat back, squaring his shoulders, convinced that he had to carry the entire army on his back. All of his life, he thought, he had to drive his will head-on into the ponderous complacency of the system which he had joined. When something broke, those responsible would sheepishly sit down and wait for orders to fix it. Then they would take their sweet time on the task--unless you drove them. And so Shiwen had learned how to drive men, but now, under the greatest test of his lifetime, he feared his inability to move the men under his command.
More than anything, he feared failure. He feared it because he thought it would reveal some secret incompetence hidden within him, deep within his soul, where no other human being had ever been allowed to penetrate. Shiwen sometimes doubted himself, and it was this doubt that drove himself every day, fighting to preserve his pride.
The damned whoring Americans would not break. It seemed incredible to him that he could not simply will his way through them, hammering them to nothing with his personal determination and the tank-heavy army under his command. He drifted back and forth between his bobbing doubts and waves of immeasurable energy. Now, as he envisioned the defending American III Corps, he sensed it would be impossible for them to resist.
Yet the Americans were resisting, fighting bitterly for every road and water obstacle, seemingly for every worthless little village and godforsaken hill. While to the west, that bastard Xu Tengfei was breaking through, already ahead of schedule, splitting the seam between the Koreans and American light divisions. While he, Shiwen, had to butt head-on against the heaviest American formation this side of the Pacific.
That little homosexual shit Nie Zhen undoubtedly had a hand in it, Shiwen was convinced. He stared through the mud-speckled windshield at the soaking trio bent over the vehicle's engine, feeling a strange pleasure at the thought of Nie. The hatred he felt was so intense, so pure and unexamined, that it was soothing. After the war... Nie and his ilk would be made to pay. China had to be purged yet again. It was time to settle accounts with the false reformers and cultural liberals, corrupting the minds of China's youth. And yet Shiwen realized that he hated Nie Zhen not merely for his homosexuality, but for his effortless, controlled brilliance as well. Nie Zhen could absentmindedly perform tasks that confronted Shiwen with agony and consternation.
Surely, Shiwen decided, Nie was sabotaging him, poisoning Luo Shuren against him and cleverly throwing the theater's support behind Tengfei.
And Shuren. How could Shuren fail to support him, even at the expense of Tengfei? Tengfei was nobody's friend, but Shiwen had baby-sat Shuren's son in Thailand.
Just keep the boy out of Uzbekistan. Shiwen was certain the posting had been no accident. Luo Shuren must have fixed it up for his son, and Shiwen clearly understood who possessed power and how much. He had known what was tacitly expected of him. Just keep the son out of trouble.
Of course, the kid had not been so bad. He worked hard enough. As the officer running the training program, he had done all that was required, even a bit more. Luo the Younger, like his father, was clever at solving problems. Yet somehow, there was so little to the boy. It was though his heart wasn't really tucked inside the tunic of his uniform. There was no fire. Luo the Younger had gone through all of the paces, performing with ease. But he just did not seem like a real soldier.
Young Luo didn't even drink like a man. In Thailand, the boy had spent all of his spare time cuddled with his highborn bitch of a wife, following her around like an excited dog. Shiwen doubted that the boy would have had the strength to raise his hand against her even if he had caught her in the act of fucking someone else. Not that Shiwen had any evidence she had betrayed her husband. No, the little cunt was probably too smart for that. She knew what she had to do to keep the gravy coming in. But she was still a whore. One look at her and Shiwen knew. He could smell it. And her independence of manner, her lack of respect...the boy seemed to have no control over her. Shiwen believed he had to treat women the same way he treated men beneath himself. Break them down. Force his will upon them. Get them by the ears, and shove it down their throats.
Shiwen thought, briefly, disgustedly, of his own wife. A sack of fat. The woman had no pride, no respect, for her position. She had the soul of a peasant, not of a general's dowager. Young Luo's wife, now--she at least looked the part. But she was still a calculating little tramp.
Hearing a series of distant explosions, Shiwen pounded his big fist on the side window of the truck, cracking it. The war would not wait for him. His war. The opportunity of his lifetime. Even the daylight seemed to be floundering, failing, letting him down. Everything was accelerating past him, while he sat in a broken-down vehicle in the mud. He felt as if the universe had conspired to humiliate him. And Tengfei and Nie Zhen and all of the whoring homosexual bastards of the world were leaving him behind. Shiwen gnashed his teeeth, feeling as though he would explode with the enormity of his anger.
He threw the door of the truck open and clambered out into the mud just as the rain picked up again. He stared, hatefully, at the sergeant and the two aides. They were tinkering dutifully with the engine, but it was clear none of them knew what to do.
"You're relieved," Shiwen told the two officers. "I don't want to see your goddamned faces anywhere around the headquarters. Your careers are finished."
Suddenly, two fighter-bombers roared in low overhead. The sound of their passage was so big it shocked the ears like an explosion. The aides and the sergeant threw themselves into the mud. But Shiwen only raised his wide face to meet the jets, automatically sensing they were after something bigger than a stranded truck. In the instant of their passage, he clearly saw the ghostly white stars of the US Air Force. A moment later, parts of the army's command post threw a bouquet of fire high into the heavens, followed quickly by a second bloom, orange, yellow, and spectral red, tricking the eyes as it singed the air to black. The mud grasping at Shiwen's boots turned to jelly, and waves crossed the surface of the puddles. Then the sound of the blasts arrived, pinching his eardrums into ringing deafness.
Without a backward look, Shiwen advanced on the flames, raging at the rain that fell on him, cursing God and every man and woman who crossed his mind, marching, almost running in the slop, fervent and vicious with fear.
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On November 14 2012 03:18 Shady Sands wrote:
Without a backward look, Shiwen advanced on the flames, raging at the rain that fell on him, cursing God and every man and woman who crossed his mind, marching, almost running in the slop, fervent and vicious with fear.
wow, what an epic last line
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On November 14 2012 06:41 snively wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2012 03:18 Shady Sands wrote:
Without a backward look, Shiwen advanced on the flames, raging at the rain that fell on him, cursing God and every man and woman who crossed his mind, marching, almost running in the slop, fervent and vicious with fear. wow, what an epic last line
Hah, thanks. An epic line, about a most un-epic individual
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Lately I've been trying to improve my writing and the biggest problem for me is maintaining the "flow". I've noticed that in all the good books I read(and this story, it is very good!) they are good not because of the storyline but because the author has a good way with words and the story keeps on moving even if the plot isn't being advanced. How did you develop this flow, this way with words?
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Lieutenant General Xu Tengfei closed his eyes to the false dawn that rimmed the horizon, resting as best he could in the shuddering helicopter seat. Kneading the pouch of pistachio nuts in his pocket, he knew he needed a few hours of real sleep. But he wanted to make just one more forward visit, to check up on the commander of the 127th Mechanized Division.
Tengfei felt a weary elation that kept him going. The night was going very well. It had been a near thing, and the situation was still somewhat in the balance, but the trajectory were good. The American 2nd Infantry Division's counterattack had been contained, after a few desperate hours, well east of Route 71. In the end, it appeared they had only loaded more of their forces deeper into Luo Shuren's trap. According to the last report he had recieved, the lead regiment of the 127th was also loose in the American operational rear, amplifying the favorable situation created by the forward detachments and inexorably closing the clamp behind the operational grouping. Tengfei saw clearly that the only hope for the 2nd Infantry at this point would be a full-scale breakout to the rear, followed by an attempt to stabilize the situation on the Imjin River line, blunting his assault in urban combat at Pyongyang.
Of course this would mean giving up the Yalu line completely, and also mean abandoning the Korean I Corps, stuck in a massive pocket between the Yalu, Route 71, and the Yellow Sea. In their race to destroy the remnants of the North Korean government at Kusong, the Korean I Corps had burned up all their fuel and ammo while opening a dangerous gap between their combat units and resupply depots, and now Tengfei had punished them for it; the Chinese 127th Division had complete control over all their logistical routes.
Tengfei wondered if the Korean I corps was still hunting for the remnants of the North Korean government in the ruins of Kusong. No matter, he thought--he finally had the sorties to flatten the town, a far better solution than risking his own men to kill the remaining North Korean ministers. He still disliked the taste of that mission, but the overall situation was good enough for him to overlook it.
Tengfei checked his watch. Another three hours and his defense on the Imjin bridgeheads would be solid enough to hold anything short of a full divisional attack. Then the Americans would be trapped too, even if they did attempt the breakout; they would be cut off from the urban terrain of Pyongyang itself, and forced to fight with their light vehicles all the way back to the DMZ over open ground, against heavy armor and airstrikes.
He settled lower behind his seat, thinking of Shiwen and how furious his rival would be to find that Tengfei had trapped and destroyed two entire enemy operational groupings with only light losses, while Shiwen himself was still struggling to achieve his own breakthrough. And why stop there? Tengfei now felt confident that he could beat Shiwen to Seoul, the intact obstacles along the western half of the DMZ be damned. It was a matter of detailed calculation, of efficiency, of forcing men and events to conform to the rigorous science of war. Shiwen's reliance on ardor and native wit had brought the 63rd Group Army commander up short. Shiwen had had better tank terrain, far better than the crumpled valleys through which Tengfei had been been forced to attack. And Shiwen had had more support from air, artillery, drones, reconnaissance--all of the advantages Luo Shuren could spare. But Shiwen was an anachronism.
Then his pilots began to scream, waking Tengfei from his reverie. Surface-to-air missiles were rising toward the windshield. The senior pilot had made the decision to fly higher than usual, afraid of snagging power lines in the morbid North Korean darkness. He had not expected to need the visual identification of the big red star on the helicopter belly so far behind Chinese lines.
But the white trails reached insistently towards the little helicopter, pulsing up towards the pilot with a peculiar slow-motion effect. The senior pilot banked hard right, and over his shoulder, the distant horizon turned on end until it was a vertical band of light. Tengfei's maps and laptop skittered off the seat next to him, and he grasped for anything he could use to stabilize himself. Then the aircraft jolted once, twice, thrice, and a shock of white filled Tengfei's eyes as one of his own metal cats knocked him out of the sky.
Read the next part here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=382026
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On November 14 2012 08:59 AegonC wrote:
Lately I've been trying to improve my writing and the biggest problem for me is maintaining the "flow". I've noticed that in all the good books I read(and this story, it is very good!) they are good not because of the storyline but because the author has a good way with words and the story keeps on moving even if the plot isn't being advanced. How did you develop this flow, this way with words?
For me, it helps to start with a scene
general in helicopter
Then progress to an action
helicopter is hit by friendly fire
while keeping in mind what plot elements need to be advanced
state of the battlefield
then think about ordering
talk about battlefield first, then end with friendly fire
and then write it out.
If I have time, I'll read/edit it once to make sure it all fits. I'm not a big fan of rereading or going over the piece over and over again, especially not for fiction.
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Wait, so Tengfei is dead?
Man, that makes me sad. I liked him.
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Thanks for the advice, Shady Sands!
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On November 14 2012 16:03 Belisarius wrote:
Wait, so Tengfei is dead?
Man, that makes me sad. I liked him.
It's okay, you'll like some of the other guys here by the time this is all over. (And hate a few too)
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EPT
