The Joint Operations Center, manned by officers and senior NCOs from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and now TSG, moved with practiced efficiency. Monitors populated quickly with real-time data from Manta One, their Zephyr S pseudosatellite, maintaining its silent watch from its perch at seventy thousand feet over southern Taiwan. The infrared feed painted the Taiwan Strait in ghostly whites and grays, each heat signature tagged and tracked by the AI-assisted targeting system. It identified eleven PLA Navy vessels, denoting them as angry red diamonds, arranged in a loose crescent around a single blue square — the
More data concerning the situation continued to flow into the JOC from a P-3 Orion, which had just completed its third pass of the area since coming on station two hours ago. Seconds later, a live video appeared on a monitor; the feed had been piped in from one of their Teng Yun UAVs, circling above Magong Naval Base.
“Get a confirmation of that PLA surface composition. I want to know what we’re dealing with,” Yen directed, focusing his operators’ attention.
The naval liaison officer, Commander Qiu Shaozheng, stared intently at his monitor before speaking. “I’ve got it. We’re looking at one Type 055 destroyer, designated
“Unbelievable. They really think they can just violate our territorial waters like this.” Yen’s voice carried the shock of the moment and the weight of the reality that this was really happening. A total of twenty-three foreign military vessels had entered their territorial waters in pursuit of a single merchant ship.
“What’s the air picture looking like?”
Major Ke Jianhao, the Air Defense Coordinator, spoke up from his station. “We are tracking six J-10s inbound from the northwest, bearing three-two-zero. Currently ninety miles out, on intercept vector for our P-3 and our fighters on combat air patrol over Penghu,” he calmly replied before his brow furrowed. “Um, we’re also getting intermittent returns from the Patriot’s phased array tracking radar at Penghu Airport. It’s probably a stealth contact — maybe J-20s, but they’re ghosts for right now. We can’t get a confirmation yet.”
The J-20s were China’s fifth-generation stealth fighter, a counter to the American F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning IIs. Until they engaged another fighter, dropping their stealth profiles to fire their missiles, they were phantoms.
Another burst transmission on the emergency frequency aired over the radio. “Chinese Navy vessel. This is
A new voice cut in, speaking accented but clear English. “Motor Vessel
Jodi Mack looked up from her station, clearly shocked by the brazenness of the command. In the days leading to this event, Admiral Han had personally requested to have a TSG liaison embedded in the JOC. Her expertise in the autonomous systems with which TSG had augmented the Navy and Marines had made her the go-to advisor.
Jodi seemed to shake off the surprise of the situation. Her fingers danced across her workstation as she correlated data feeds from the numerous sensors surrounding Penghu. “General, we have vessels in the area,” she called out. “They are already responding.”
She cast her screen to one of the monitors on the wall. “Sir, Shark One at Magong confirms we have the frigate
“Time to intercept?”
Commander Qiu checked his plot. “Eight minutes for
The math wasn’t on their side. The PLA boarding teams could be on that merchant in five minutes and at least one of the fishing trawlers was already practically on top of them.
“Sir!” Master Sergeant Lin Meiqing half-stood at her console. “We’re detecting an electromagnetic spike from the PLA formation. They are going active with their fire-control radars.”
