Drone Command

TWENTY-TWO

The Tiger II’s deck was a beehive of noisy energy, the clamor of ringing hammers, growling diesel engines, straining cables. Arc welders hissed, throwing sparks, as supervisors shouted orders, urging speed as pipes, fittings, and a thousand other crucial pieces came together to begin the process of drilling on the ocean floor several hundred feet below — a cakewalk for the experienced deep-water crew.

The commander of the Kunming hung up the bridge phone. His orders from Admiral Ji in the preparation of the mission were clear, and now he confirmed them again verbally. He’d known the admiral for more than twenty years and knew him to be an honorable man. The kind of man an officer would willingly follow into combat, into the very mouth of hell itself. But the commander also knew that the decision he was about to make would change the course of his life and, perhaps, the life of his nation if the enemy didn’t react the way they were supposed to. And if military history had taught him anything, it was that the enemy seldom obeys one’s wishes.

No matter. If the operation went sideways, the commander knew his life would be forfeit, but he comforted himself in the knowledge that Ji would take the blame first. That was why the commander believed Ji was the man best suited to lead China, not the moneygrubbing pigs in Beijing.

The commander pushed open the steel hatch and stepped out onto the flying bridge. Held the binoculars to his eyes. Saw the delta-winged Multimodal Volant surveillance drone high above, no doubt recording everything.

The commander stepped back into the bridge, took his command chair. Picked up his phone.

“Lieutenant Liu, do you still have the target on your scope?”

“Aye, sir!” The lieutenant was one deck below in the CIC, a darkened room of two dozen video monitors and computerized combat stations. The commander hated it. Thought it looked like a video-game parlor.

“Then… engage.”

Before the commander hung up the phone, a single TY-90 missile roared out of a rotating deck launcher, arcing into the sky like a bolt of lightning in reverse.

The first shot in the battle of Mao Island, he thought.

He doubted it would be the last.