Jodi exhaled slowly. She found herself wishing absurdly that the Seeker had a camera feed she could save — something to mark the moment. Not for glory. For proof. For memory.
“Hot damn! Nice shooting, Jodi!” called out Chief Petty Officer Zeng Minghui from the adjacent console, his voice rising above the rumble of status updates.
“Don’t thank me yet, Chief,” she replied, her cheeks warming with a mixture of pride and dread. “Seeker-12 just flagged a new contact — Type 052D destroyer. It’s practically begging to become an artificial reef.”
A dry chuckle rose from Commander Qiu Shaozheng, seated a few consoles down. “If we weren’t living through the end of the world, ma’am, I’d say that’s the funniest damn thing I’ve heard all week.” His jaw unclenched slightly, the tight lines of tension softening at her remark.
She placed Seeker-11 back in autonomous loiter mode and jumped to Seeker-12 and resumed the next hunt. As the battle beneath the waters of Taiwan churned from robotic death, Jodi began to feel a surge of hope with each passing victory. The autonomous systems she’d mastered during her time in the Navy were proving their worth around Taiwan.
“General Yen!” Captain Hsu’s voice interrupted her thoughts, his voice raw and shaky. “Manta Two is reporting launch detections from the mainland — they’re ballistic missiles. Oh God. There’s lots of them.”
The main wall display shifted to show the stratospheric ISR feed aimed in the direction of mainland China. Launch plumes bloomed from multiple known launch locations across China’s eastern provinces like deadly flowers arcing into the sky.
“Someone confirm those launch sites and what kind of missiles those are,” General Yen ordered forcefully, though the color from his face had already drained, along with Jodi’s hopes.
“Stand by. Confirmation coming in now — Base 96166 near Guangzhou. We have twelve DF-16 missile tracks,” responded Hsu, his voice growing more strained with each report. “Base 96111 at Puning. Sixteen launches confirmed, DF-17 hypersonics.” Hsu paused for a second as more data continued to come in. “Here comes another volley, this one coming from Base 96421 at Yong’an. Looks like twenty DF-21Ds. We have launches coming from Base 96417 at Huidong — appears to be a total of eight DF-26s.”
Admiral Han stepped forward, his face granite. “Total count. What are we looking at?”
Captain Hsu didn’t look up from his screen. “Still compiling, sir. It’s heavy — but not saturation-level.”
“It’s confirmed. Two hundred thirty inbound tracks,” Hsu said, voice flat. “Mixed load — ballistic and cruise. DF-16s, — 17s, — 21s, — 26s, plus CJ-10s. Time to impact: eleven minutes for the hypersonics, fourteen for the rest.”
The JOC fell silent. Fingers hovered over keyboards. Radios hissed.
“No signs of mobile launchers redeploying,” Hsu continued. “No bomber launches. No MRLs on the move. Could be a single-phase strike.”
Han’s eyes shifted to the main monitor. “Any tracks on Okinawa? Guam? Are the Americans or Japanese being hit?”
“Negative, Admiral,” Hsu said quickly. “No second-theater expansion. No launches toward US or JSDF assets.”
A ripple of restrained relief moved through the room.
“Targets?” Han asked, eyes still locked on the growing constellation of missile arcs.
“They’re coming in now,” said Major Ke Jianhao, scanning the filtered trajectory data. His voice sharpened with each word.
“Zuoying Naval Base. Adjacent Tsoying Shipyard. Leshan Long-Range Radar. Dongsha Island Garrison. Anping Naval Base, Tainan. The Army Command HQ, Taoyuan. Army Special Forces Command — Longcheng Barracks complex.”
He hesitated — one more line of data was populating.
“And the Longtan Combined Maintenance Depot. That’s under Third Regional Support Command. Also in Taoyuan.”
Everyone in the room exhaled, like they’d been punched in the gut.
“Damn it,” Han muttered, jaw clenched. “They’re gutting our second strike.”
As the seconds stretched for what felt like minutes, the missile tracks continued to advance toward them. Each of the glowing red tracks was hundreds or even thousands of pounds of explosive power racing toward them.
“OK, we have trained and prepared for this moment,” General Yen began. “We all knew this day might come, and now it has. This is no longer a drill. This is real. I want all missile batteries active, Patriots and Sky Bow IIIs, even the new Roadrunners-Ms. All ballistic and cruise missile defenses are weapons free to engage targets at will, maximum rate of fire. Do what we can to protect the targets in Taipei — Ministry of National Defense Headquarters, and the Hengshan Military Command Center. Kaohsiung and the Zuoying Naval Base, and the Army Command HQ, Taoyuan, are the priority targets we should focus our efforts on defending,” General Yen ordered.
Yen received a nod of approval from Admiral Han as he took charge of the missile defense situation, reminding everyone they had a job to do.
