“All AMD assets, weapons free,” Major General Yen ordered. The Air Force commander had been quietly coordinating the air defense battle, but even his composure was cracking.
Patriots and Roadrunner-M interceptors rose to meet the threat. The engagement played out in compressed time — explosions blooming across the sky as the defensive systems found their marks.
“Thirty intercepted,” Hsu reported. “Six leakers. Impact in twenty seconds.”
They could only watch as the remaining CJ-10s found their targets. Two slammed into Weihai Camp, the army facility disappearing in twin fireballs. Four more hit Keelung — the naval logistics hub and 131st Fleet Command building taking direct hits.
“Ma’am, I’m tracking massive acoustic activity,” Chief Petty Officer Zeng Minghui said from his station. “PLA submarine surge. They’re pushing everything they have through the strait.”
Jodi’s hands moved with practiced efficiency, tasking her Seekers. Eight operational units against what looked like an entire submarine fleet. But the XLUUVs had one advantage — they were already in position, silent and waiting.
“Executing Wolfpack Seven,” she announced. “All Seekers going active. Time to earn our pay.”
The autonomous submarines revealed themselves simultaneously, their AI-driven targeting systems processing multiple contacts.
“Seeker-7 confirms two Song kills,” Jodi reported, watching the acoustic returns. “Seeker-9 has three more. These boats are sitting ducks.”
The
“Six
As several of Jodi’s Seeker-class XLUUVs slipped away, their torpedoes expended, she shifted control to another Seeker that had been loitering near Pengjia Islet. Few outside the upper echelons of naval intelligence understood the strategic importance of this tiny outpost, located just sixty-three kilometers northeast of Keelung City. The remote ROC Navy installation formed a critical node in the US — Japan — Taiwan undersea surveillance network, commonly referred to as a regional SOSUS grid. Arrays of seabed-mounted hydrophones and passive acoustic sensors monitored PLA submarine movements as they transited the Miyako Strait — a vital gateway into the Western Pacific and the contested waters surrounding the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa.
As Seeker-11 synced with her workstation, Jodi leaned forward, eyes narrowing on the display. The autonomous unit had been shadowing a pair of Type 054A
Her brow furrowed as she scanned the acoustic and thermal traces. The Seeker’s hydrophones had detected the rhythmic blade signatures of rotary-wing activity — probably Harbin Z-9s or Ka-28 Helix ASW helicopters — launched from the frigates’ flight decks. Jodi suspected an assault force may have been inserted to seize the island’s critical sensor infrastructure.
She pushed the thought aside. That fight would be someone else’s problem — hers was beneath the waves. Her mission was clean, cold, and lethal.
She queued the firing solution. With three Copperhead-500 AI-guided torpedoes loaded, she reserved one for contingencies and released the other two. The Type 054As were decent antisurface platforms with respectable air defense capabilities, but their antisubmarine warfare suites were notoriously underpowered — an exploitable weakness. Moments after launch, the torpedoes arced into intercept vectors, their onboard targeting AI adjusting course to exploit known vulnerabilities: the zones closest to the VLS magazine compartments.
The first detonation sent a geyser of flame and steel punching skyward. The second torpedo hit just aft of the bridge. Both frigates erupted within seconds, the blast patterns consistent with internal magazine detonations. Two more enemy warships reduced to burning wreckage.
