Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

Angels in Flight

Major Theodore Cruse’s flight of F41 Archangels had relocated to the Groom Lake Region (commonly referred to as Area 51) two days ago, after a reporter from the Boston Globe wrote a piece that mentioned that the F41s were flying out of Minot, North Dakota. Their team had changed Air Force bases a couple of times to try and keep the Russian and Chinese intelligence guessing at their location. America did not have many F41s, so the few they did have needed to be protected at all costs.

Colonel Leed walked into the flight operations room and found Major Cruse talking with one of the intelligence operations officers. He approached him quickly and signaled to get his attention before he interjected, “Major Cruse, we just received an emergency message via the UHF system, scrambling your flight to head towards Hawaii to assist the JDF fleet that is currently engaging the PLAN. Apparently, the Chinese got the jump on them and they are in trouble. The message also said we lost four of our underwater drone subs, so we have lost all real-time information and intelligence of what is going on right now.” The colonel was visibly sweating as he spoke.

The other officers near Cruse who had overheard the conversation were dumbfounded by the announcement. The Air Force had worked up an ironclad plan to support the JDF fleet’s amphibious assault of the Hawaiian Islands. Now it appeared that fleet was in shambles.

Major Cruse digested the announcement and then turned around to alert the rest of his officers and get them to their aircraft. It took them twenty minutes to get their flight suits on and get the F41s ready airborne. Once in the air, they immediately began heading towards Hawaii at maximum pace. Even at top speed, it was still going to take the flight of six F41s close to two hours before they would be on station and able to assess the situation.

Major Cruse immediately began to try and get in touch with the JDF fleet via the UHF system until their digital links could be re-established. After several attempts, they were finally able to let them know they were about two hours away from their position and would be on station shortly to assist them. After about five minutes, the JDF responded back, asking if Major Cruse could share their flight information and tracking signal so they could monitor their progress and share information with them as it came available. Not knowing that the JDF had just turned on the Americans, Major Cruse agreed and established a real-time tracking link of their location to help better coordinate the fleet defenses.

Thus far, Admiral Tomohisa Kawano’s fleet had pulled off the greatest surprise attack in history. The PLA hackers had been able to use their access to the American Defense Communication System to take it down and massively disrupt communications on the West Coast of America. The PLAN had launched a massive missile attack against the ten American ships that were heading towards the JDF fleet to assist them. The U.S. Task Force consisted of four guided missile frigates, three destroyers and one guided missile cruiser — a formidable group, but no match for the PLAN fleet on their own. All but one of the ships was sunk in the attack; however, one of the guided missile cruisers managed to escape, taking only minor damage, and headed at full speed back towards San Diego.

Kawano’s fleet had briefly detected a small American navy surveillance drone, probably from a submarine operating in the area. However, before they could identify the location, the drone had gone offline. While they were still trying to figure out what was going on, one of Admiral Kawano’s intelligence officers walked over to him. “Sir, we just received a transmission from a flight of American F41 fighters. They say they are on the way to assist us.”

Admiral Kawano was briefly startled by the news. He knew it was going to be nearly impossible for their missiles to hit them. In a flash of brilliance, it occurred to him that if he could get the F41s to share their flight data, then his battleships could engage them with their railguns and anti-aircraft missiles. He could also send word to the Americans that he was sending his F35s into the air to help coordinate their efforts against the PLAN. Once the Americans arrived, they could attack the F41s with full force. He issued the orders right away.