Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 | Page 270
Birth of the Battleships
The Independent Schools Foundation Academy, Schrantz, James - 11
Boom! Boom! Boom! The sound of hammers against steel echo through the shipyard. Skree! Skree!
Skree! The sound of drills and saws pierce the air. Everywhere, people bark orders back and forth whilst the
workers keep on working.
It is the year 2023, and the Chinese government has ordered the construction of a massive fleet of
battleships. These battleships would operate under the command of Admiral Zheng He and would be
supposedly indestructible. This project would require many resources to complete, and only the best
workers were to participate in the construction of these massive beasts.
You are one of them. You are forced to work twelve-hour shifts, hammering and drilling and
pounding away at thick plates of steel with large machines. As you await the end of your shift, you try not to
think about the family that you left behind.
You and your friends are sitting in a circle, snacking on gross, soggy sandwiches as you tell jokes
and share stories. Riiiing! Riiiing! Riiiing! That was the alarm sounding for the end of lunch. You stuff the
rest of the sandwich in your mouth and continue to work.
Today, it’s your turn to operate the shipyard’s massive industrial crane. It is the easiest task, so
everybody takes turns doing it. The job is pretty simple; you climb up the tall ladder to the top of the crane
and spend the rest of the day lifting supplies back and forth between the beastly CAT-5s’ and the shipyard’s
construction area.
In between loads, you peer out of the dusty old crane window and stare at the battleship. It’s been
twenty years since you first started working on it, and it was almost complete. The only downside was that
the construction of this fleet was top secret; you have lived the past twenty years as a dead man. Nobody
outside of the operation knew you were alive, and you always wonder about how much the outside world
has changed since 2003. Apparently, there was this new thing called ‘Youtube’ that everybody was crazy
about. “Oi! Whaddya’ think you’re doing!” an angry officer shouts through a megaphone, “Get to work!”
you shake your head and pull your mind back into reality.
When your shift is over, you climb down the ladder and began walking toward the checkout
counter. For work like this, security measures are required to make sure that you none of the workers can
escape. You are about to check out when all of a sudden, Boom! You whip around just in time to see a
cloud of smoke rise from the hull of the ship.
You dash over to the scene. Three officers are already investigating. All around, workers are calling
back and forth in protest. The officers just ignore them. As more officers come in to set up a cordon, you
see a trail dust leading deeper into the ship. You freeze. A single thought passes through your mind before
you dart through the crowd and into the hull of the ship.
You are suddenly engulfed in an eerie silence. The shouts of the angry workers fade behind you.
You look around. Nothing. You listen for the slightest sound. Chip! Chip! Chip! A subtle scraping sound
echoes from the otherside of a door. You slowly creep towards it, and bust the door open. A strange figure
looks up in surprise and drops the match that he was trying to light. You charge forward and tackle him
before he can react. “Gotcha!” you shout as you knock him down.
He came prepared. From his pocket, he whips out a bloodstained butterfly knife and points it at
your neck. Unfortunately for him, you have been prepared for the last twenty years. You pull out a knife of
your own.
The battle is on. Both of you jump back and forth, swinging you knives around in a vicious dance
of flesh and steel. He lunges forward, you step to the side and nic him in the leg. Thud! He falls to the floor,
struggling to get up. Just then he swings around and when his knife is less than an inch away from your
neck, it is knocked out of the way by an officer. He had followed you into the ship and saved your life just
in time.
You were thanked for your service and in return, the officer explained to you what had happened.
“The spy was attempting to take down the entire ship before escaping in a private helicopter that we later
found on the roof of the construction complex,” the officer reports. You were given a promotion and were
offered a job that you just couldn’t resist; to become a general onboard the fleet’s mothership, operating side
by side with Admiral Zheng He.
The fleet that was already constructed, that is. Apparently, the ship that you were working on was
slightly delayed … by eight years ! “Eight years of my life wasted on some useless hunk of steel,” you think to
yourself. Well, thinking about it ain’t gonna’ get those eight years back anytime soon. You are helicoptered
on to the mothership where you will serve the next few years of your life ‘for the greater good of all
humanity.’ At least that’s what they tell you.