There was a grand clanging of metal on metal being unlocked and then tightened water tight again. The General came down the ladder to the bridge of the Yangtze to speak with its sole occupant.

"I have no more homing beacons to give to you.", Zao offered. "However, it is not as though I have a received a signal from any of the three that I have gifted you with."

"Hello to you too, Zao.", the General replied.

She then opened her blue coat. Carefully and very slowly, considering the military officer of an enemy country she was facing, she reached past the pistols that were holstered into a pocket and retrieved three small radio transponders.

"You don't want to carry these back to China. I hope you can believe that I don't want to inflict these on the Commonwealth.", she asked.

"Yes.", the captain agreed. "The tools man have made for wars across the world are...quite difficult to pei zhi, er, deploy when one lives on the battlefield."

"I also want these three to speak to my character.", the woman told him. "Because I need your service."

Zao shook his head. "I am sorry. My service is not mine to offer. It belongs to my homeland."

"Which, and I hope you realize I am actually sorry to say, may not be there.", she countered. "And you do bear some responsibility for obeying the order to launch on the Commonwealth. Perhaps not to the soldiers who were facing you in this war, but to the civilians and children that were harmed indiscriminately along side those of us that have seen the battlefield."

"Are you saying that as a member of your military in the Great War, you would have disobeyed such an order?", Zao counter accused.

"I'm not pretending to be on a pedestal. I mean, that I'm not saying I'm any better or somehow more moral.", the General explained.

"I am saying that there are real people who are really suffering right on the shore your periscope sees. And that I would ask your service so that I can add to their lives."

Zao's mutated eyes narrowed. "And how could a commander of a weapon 'help' such people? Returning to war? Turning their homes into a battlefield again?"

"If it comes to that.", the General lamented. "Look, I'm not going to sell you on anything. I'm going to speak plainly.

"The Minutemen is an organization that has pledged to help everyone in the Commonwealth. Despite acting as a protector for nearly a hundred years, it was nearly destroyed. Sometimes by sea monsters. Sometimes by just people and the evil that lies in the hearts of men. I have built it back up. Now it protects nearly a score of settlements all across the Commonwealth and the roads that connect them.

"Well, connect some of them. And that's why I need you so much. Some of the only places civilians can live is on an island, or routes that are much closer to inland rivers and streams than roads. There are more abandoned boats floating stagnant in the waters of the Commonwealth than I can count. The Minutemen are willing to help. But there's not a sailor among them."

The ghoul nodded. "So you are not seeking a warrior? But a sifu...er, teacher?"

"Like I said, I'll speak plainly.", the General objected. "I'd like to commission you into the Minutemen. You'd have a command and that command will be of soldiers. They will be preparing to fight threats, large and small, not all monsters and sometimes people. But as it stands...how events are now. I can't resupply a farm that's been plundered by supermutants or evacuate a community that's set to be overrun by creatures like your crew by water if lives were at stake. And they certainly are.

"So, if you accept your commission, I'd post men to your submarine so that you could teach them the ways of the sea while they completed any repairs to the Yangtze that you deign needed. I'd cycle them out from duty on board here to the various boats we can recover, repair and hopefully arm. They'd be put into service wherever the waterways of the territory the Minutemen operate within allow."

There was a long silence. Then Zao nodded thoughtfully.

"For how much time would you require me to remain in your lands...your waters, rather than my own?", he asked.

The General shrugged. "For as long as possible. It's not like you age anymore, right? But at a minimum, until you can train an apprentice to replace you as an experienced naval commander. And that we're not in a position where the loss of your guidance would prove terminal to the Minutemen or the Commonwealth. I don't know how long that would be. A year? Eight?"

Zao nodded again. But he remained silent.

The general offered this wisdom. "I once heard that the only way to get to the future is together. Even if any part of the China still remains despite the Great War, what would you offer them? Two hands and a submarine adrift after traveling the world without any of the international guidance systems that our militaries once provided? Or one that had been repaired by helping hands, stocked with grain from willing farms and fresh water refined? And maybe, just maybe, that two hundred years later Americans and Chinese can have proved that they can work together instead of in detente."

"De ten te?", the captain asked.

"At each other's throats, pretending that we aren't going to draw knives until one of us is stupid enough to think we have the bigger blade."

"Shi.", the ghoul mused.

"If I accept, I have one curse to inflict you with."

The General raised an eyebrow so high it was visible over her WRAPAROUND GOGGLES. "And what's that?"

"You can only perform three mistakes. Upon the completion of which, I leave. No questions. No...bargaining.", he answered.

The General shook her head. "I'm not perfect. No where near."

"Ah.", Zao consoled. "But you already hold your three mistakes in your hand."

The ghoul pointed to the HOMING BEACONS the General had laid out.

"Those are your three mistakes. Upon their use, I leave. Keep them, and you will keep me. That is similar enough to our original arrangement.

"You are acting out of goodness. To protect the civilians who live here. Correct?"

The General weighed the use of tactical nuclear strikes against all the reasons she had stated.

"And outside of that, you will follow my orders?", she confirmed.

"Of course, my General.", Zao replied.

She offered her hand. "Then welcome aboard, Colonel."

"Ah, the first lesson.", Zao informed. "If I am to command more than one naval ship, then it is Admiral."