Kill the Dragon

By Endru Atros

Kill the Dragon is a book based on events that may occur in the near future.

Jiaolong - a secret laboratory built on the bottom of the China Sea had tested a "Panda" device. It could compensate for Earth's gravity and reach a speeds close to the speed of light. Whoever had such a device could dictate the conditions to every country in the world.

The Chinese secret service was tasked with killing scientists who had stolen the "Panda", the most guarded invention by means of which Chinese authorities wanted to dominate the world. Their escape from China across the Green Border is a scenario that the Chinese security services did not anticipate. They send secret agents after the fugitives with orders to kill and destroy the stolen invention.

  "At all costs, even at the cost of starting a war with the US," was the order from their High Command, when they learned that the CIA was seeking to seize the fugitives with their invention and would like to grant them asylum.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Royal Hawaiian Press
• Release date: Mar 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393126171

Book preview

Jiaolong,

This is the name of the mythical Chinese dragon who lived in the seas and rivers.

Chapter I

Laboratory

Tie Chu Mo Zhen - Tie means - iron, Chu - rod, Mo - to rub, Zhen - a needle. The Chinese saying Tie Chu Mo Zhen means, rubbing an iron rod to turn it into a needle. The message of this proverb is that in the world, there is no difficulty that cannot be overcome, you only have to work persistently, and then even an iron rod can be turned into a needle.

No. 1 of the head of the largest secret laboratory in China was here called the First. For the sake of his and his family's safety, his real name has never been revealed. And he himself hid his real name so far in his head that he sometimes wondered if anyone would ever say it.

That day changed everything, not only in the country he lived in, which he hated and loved at the same time, but also in the world he didn't know and sought to know it.

Outside of the Corporation, he used a new identity and a new name Chu Lang assigned to him by the security service.

Eight years ago, the Corporation, in which he worked, established Jiaolong - a secret base on the bottom of the South China Sea, at one of the numerous islands there. The laboratory that was built there consisted of two nuclear submarines connected by a lock. One submarine served as a welfare facility was called 尾 龙 - Dragon's Tail, and guaranteed their safety. The second was called 头 龙 - Dragon's Head, and was used as a computer center and laboratory, where he carried out his research on exotic, negative mass matter - not to be confused with antimatter, which has a positive mass.

Nine years ago, two AA-class nuclear-powered submarines were decommissioned by the Chinese People's Army and placed at his disposal. How important this project must have been if it was decided to take such a step.

In China's territorial waters, an extremely daring undertaking was carried out. Deprived of armaments and everything related to it, the two submarines settled on the seabed in the immediate zone of the islands, at the greatest possible for them depth of five hundred and fifty meters. The first and main problem they had to face was air.

The classic way of supplying the ship with breathing air for the people there was out of the question. The ship was allowed to surface once every two years, and only to carry out necessary repairs.

The problem was solved as simply as possible. Air was forced into a separate part of the ship with special hoses, and from there it was distributed throughout the base. A system of special filters caught the carbon dioxide exhaled by people and released it to the outside. The ships had a large supply of compressed air bottles in case of any failure.

After the removal of torpedo and rocket launchers and other military equipment from the ship, were obtained a sufficient number of rooms that could be adapted to the needs of the research. The permanent crew of one hundred and eighty-five men was reduced to fifty-one, enough to keep the ship in good working order.

Above them was spread a protective coat in the shape of a fishing net made of a mixture of lead and several chemicals having ability to absorb any kind of wave that might have detected them from other underwater or surface enemy vessels.

The spy satellites of the United States and Russia were their biggest problem. Hiding the work of atomic reactors or huge beams of electromagnetic waves that were produced here for the purposes of their experiments with exotic matter was a real challenge.

Only when their own ships and satellites were unable to detect anything, they started the construction of a link between the ships, and sank the laboratory cylinder which was connected to the other submarine with a special system of locks. Then the two ships were tied together with a communication sleeve. Only then was the high command informed about construction of the Jiaolong being completed.

A research station was built from scratch on a nearby islet, and a large tuna fishing vessel moored in its only small port. Especially for the ship's needs was built a small tuna processing plant.

Next to the port in which it was stationed, there was a large military unit fenced with a tight wall as well as with a whole system of nets, fences, and ditches used to protect the facilities. The entire Command Center was quite deep underground in the old, converted caves. It was these caves that were the reason of choosing this place. One of them had a direct connection to the sea so that their bathyscaphes stationed in the cave could move unnoticed from and to their nearby research vessel as well as their underwater base.

In order to confuse a potential enemy, a mobile unit of missile forces, which was equipped with several medium-range ballistic missiles, was placed and barracked in this area.

No, they were not at war in the classic sense of the word. But they fought a technological war, and the success of their plans may change geopolitical forces in this part of the world, if not all over the world.

Not numerous local residents rarely walked in this direction, deterred by shooting without prior warning when one of them was near the fence. But that was a few years back, now no one was going there anymore.

Work was underway at the submarine base, and on both ships a state of high alert was announced, and a yellow alarm triggered. This meant that tests with exotic matter started in the laboratory, and the accompanying safety standards must have been strictly adhered to. In particular, they concerned the use of both locks and the communication sleeve. Only scientists and technicians with a red pass were allowed to use them at that time.

No. 3 - Sun Chang, the first deputy head of the Secret Laboratory, was just inserting a gravity ball into a special device containing a strong magnetic field under a pressure of five hundred and fifty atmospheres. All this was powered by the engine of their submarine, integrated with the nuclear reactor.

One day you have to try, calculations alone are not enough. I have permission from the First, he commented on the activities he was just doing. He licked his lips with excitement, but his hands didn't tremble. Years of practice did their job.

It was their next attempt, the fruit of 18 years of their team's work and the seventh year of work in this most guarded place in China.

Especially for these tests, was constructed a robot remotely controlled by a computer.

Operating with small levers as for virtual computer games, he raised the robotic arm and gently inserted a yellow-red ball the size of a tennis ball into a round hole several microns larger than its surface. The assisting No. 4 activated the orange alarm and everywhere buzzers sounded and emergency lights came on.

The rest of the workers had five minutes to go to the rescue lock specially constructed for them. It was a cylindrical oblong structure designed to protect their lives, if something went wrong in the laboratory.

Continuous tone alarm signal got intermittent. It was a sign that they were about to turn on the electromagnetic field. The last of the employees slammed the bolts of the hermetic doors behind himself, and pressed the green button.

Now it was enough to wait, all the rest would be done by the timer activated by pressing the green button in the emergency lock. First there was a hum, then louder and louder sounds changed their tone becoming a high-pitched whistle. The lights dimmed, and the lock got obscured. All focused, they looked at the large monitors where the cameras installed in the laboratory transmitted the image.

PANDA was the name of the First's most secret invention that the world knew nothing about. A circular device, the radius of which was five meters and the height of which allowed two people to be placed, rested on rails in a steel pipe. Inside PANDA was their gravity ball made of a meteorite found several hundred years ago.

The wheel began to vibrate first, then the vibrations became continuous and PANDA moved along special guides placed in a closed-circuit tube with a total length of forty-four kilometers.

The wheel began to move in this closed circle. One lap, the second, the third, faster and faster, as the magnetic thrust grew, its speed increased. Today's task was to find the parameters for the transition from pre-gravity to negative gravity state.

They could make a device weighing two tons light as a feather and give it the right speed, but they couldn't yet completely free it from gravity.

Over the past year, they have focused on building a third accelerator, physically much smaller than its predecessors, but more powerful. They didn't yet know the effects that the transition of PANDA into a state of total gravity-negative drive could bring. Theoretically, it could travel at the speed of light.

Theory is theory, and practice does its own thing, No. 3 used to say.

Everything was ready for this most important test.

Shall I turn it on? The operating technician asked.

Get started! The First gave a permit.

No.3 entered the data into the computer and pressed Enter. The whole ship shook slightly. All the alarm buzzers wailed, the lock red emergency lights came on, and all the monitors showing the lab went out.

What's happening?! The First shouted and rushed to the Third's position.

I don't know, we lost communication with the laboratory, said irritably the Third, running his fingers over the keyboard as if he had been playing the piano.

What about the rest?

All right, he heard the voice of the technician responsible for the security system. They report from the Dragon's Head that there has been an explosion in the laboratory cylinder, added the operating technician.

They are fine, he added, looking at the monitors showing their first submarine serving as crew quarters.

There was silence in the airlock.

Transmit the image from external cameras to our monitors, he demanded from the operational technicians based on the second ship.

Immediately, he demanded with a raised voice, turning his head towards the camera placed under the ceiling and knowing that they could see him. After a while, the laboratory cylinder appeared on the monitors. Powerfully floodlit, it looked pitiful.

You could see the torn plating, the upwardly bent pieces of the structure and a large breach in the upper section of the cylinder. The lab looked as if someone had punched a hole from the inside with a huge fist.

The First understood what happened.

We're going back to base, he ordered.

Full evacuation, he added, and, having opened the bolts, he entered the Dragon's Head - their submarine which housed all the scientific and technical facilities as well as the laboratory management center.

The First, having waved his hand to the others, which was probably supposed to mean go ahead, entered the cryptographers' room. It was a small place from the bottom to the top built up with various wardrobes, servers and who knows with what else. But he didn't care much - they told him to use this and no other communication, so he did.

Connect me to the headquarters, he ordered.

He sat down at his red computer and entered the password, then sent a message to the Corporate Headquarters. Minimum of what he had to, maximum of what he wanted.

The experiment is successful. The object left the base. The cylinder in the laboratory is destroyed. Evacuate the personnel. Normal mode.

The First thought about that what happened now. They didn't have a second cylinder for PANDA there, so they could finally leave this underwater world and return to their base on land. He already knew that the fruit of his many years of work was functioning, and the theory turned into practice passed muster - maybe not as planned, but still.

He had waited eighteen years for this moment. He stood calmly, looking at the terrified cryptographers who already knew about the explosion and the destroyed Laboratory cylinder, but didn't know that such a price for success was nothing compared to the losses resulting from it.

Nobody knew that the First was ready to take his revenge. Eight years of waiting for this success, which was also to be a revenge. Now, he could proceed with the planned for years revenge for the death of his parents. He felt pain again, not physical, but spiritual. The events of the past came to his mind every time he thought about his parents, and it happened to him in times of danger or great stress. And conducting spiritual meditations for years, hadn't helped him to overcome this feeling. They had been body exercises designed to soften, hide deeply in consciousness and cover with a black shroud his terrible childhood memories. He always wondered if the driving force behind his actions were those painful images stuck in his head, and if they were the reason for his success, and the pursuit of revenge was just an excuse.

No, it's not possible, he immediately rebuked himself in his mind. After all, without it, he would have given up long time ago. He would have stopped fighting for his identity, for himself. Admittedly, he was a little boy when his parents were killed, his name was taken, he was driven from the house and separated from his brother, but he didn't forget and he knew that he would never forget those days. No matter how many years had passed since these events and how many would pass, he would still lead the child's desire for revenge to the end, he kept his spirits up. Eighteen years of a double life that he was forced to live voluntarily, must have eventually ended with the freedom of him and of the whole family.

The zero hour has come, he thought as he walked down the corridor to the conference room. He was extremely calm and his look was sliding over people who, not knowing what awaited him, avoided looking him in the eyes.

He walked calmly and confidently through the narrow corridor to the lock connecting the ship with the Laboratory, grabbed the handle and tugged it. The bolts clicked and the door swung open.

Lu Chang and the First went inside the ship, heading to the computer center of headquarters communication.

Get everyone in the chamber in half an hour. The computer-developed simulation of what happened has to be a ready, he turned to the Third.

You know what happened, answered the Third, and looked slightly surprised at the First.

"I do, but they don't, and they will want everything to be on a silver platter.

A group of the most important scientists from the laboratory as well as computer technicians already gathered in the room.

They sat quietly talking about the effects and causes of the explosion. Four scientists working near the laboratory were killed in the bathyscaphe. The shock wave created by PANDA was so enormous that the body of the bathyscaphe couldn't withstand and became unsealed.

The First went in, turned his head and looked around the chamber. The chamber is a bit of an exaggeration if you compare it to what they had in the Corporation. Here on the submarine it was the largest room, larger