“Commander Gong, sound battle stations and pass the word to the rest of the squadron to be prepared to engage the Tuo Chiang corvettes,” Shen ordered. “I’m going to try and to speak with the captain of this vessel to see if we can defuse the situation before it turns kinetic on us.”
Shen then directed his comms officer to get him a channel on the international frequency he knew the civilian freight would be monitoring. Keying the radio, Shen announced, “MV Kalayaan Spirit, this is Chinese Navy warship Zunyi. You are entering the sovereign waters of the People’s Republic of China and have been selected for customs inspection under the Drug Enforcement Act of China 2033. You are hereby ordered to reduce speed and prepare to be boarded.”
His call was met with static for several long minutes. Then a voice in accented English responded: “Chinese warship Zunyi, this is Kalayaan Spirit. We are in international waters on lawful transit to Magong Harbor, Penghu. Your inspection authority is not recognized by international law. We are continuing on to our destination.”
Shen was disappointed in the response, but he had expected nothing less. The only countries acknowledging this new law were the countries already aligned with China and EDEP. The Western-aligned countries friendly with the US and NATO decried the law as a thinly veiled attempt at embargoing Taiwan. Shen noted his communications officer was already recording the interaction and documenting it for the inevitable inquiry and after-action report.
He was about to respond when Zhu, his operations officer, interjected. “Sir, you might want to see this. We are detecting new aerial contacts entering our battlespace. It looks like our air picture is about to get crowded.” Zhu brought up a digital overlay of the tactical airspace around them. He was right — the sky was filling fast.
As if the stealth corvettes shadowing their formation weren’t enough to deal with, a mix of friendly and potentially hostile aircraft were now converging toward weapons range.
Vectoring in from the mainland were six J-10 fighters, their IFF beacons transmitting clearly. But what drew Shen’s attention were the ghostly placeholders trailing behind them — it appeared they had the company of some stealth fighters flying dark, their radar cross-sections nearly invisible to the Zunyi’s AESA arrays.
Anticipating Shen’s question, Zhu explained, “Sir, those placeholders are for the four J-20s. The only reason we even know they are there is because they are transmitting short-burst encrypted telemetry on the SkyLink combat channel. Before you ask, it’s passive pickup only — no emissions. They’re flying in coordinated formation behind the J-10s as cover.”
Shen studied the flight path and spacing. Those J-20 pilots were smart — maintaining offset altitude and trailing distance, masked by the J-10s’ radar signature. But their digital handshakes confirmed their identity: friendlies, so his air-defense systems didn’t mistakenly label them hostile.
“Thank you, Zhu, for that explanation. Go ahead and assign them a discreet tracking label so we don’t have a blue-on-blue incident,” Shen ordered, then added, “And, Zhu — keep their identifiers suppressed on our shared displays. No need to advertise to anyone else that we’ve got stealth on station right now.”
“Yes, Captain,” Zhu confirmed as he relayed the orders to the sailors manning the AESA systems.
He leaned forward slightly, eyes fixed on the expanding battlespace. It was getting crowded — fast.
Sir, we’re detecting multiple tracks inbound from Magong and Chiayi Air Base,” Zhu said, a sharper edge in his voice now.
Shen stepped beside him, eyes narrowing at the tactical overlay. From the east, an ROC P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft was approaching low and slow, along the edge of their engagement window. Shen wasn’t overly concerned with the Orion itself. What did concern him were its escorts. The P-3 was being escorted by four of the ROC’s newer F-16 Vipers, flying in a loose formation to either side of the Orion with their AESA radar actively scanning for targets.
“Whoa, those aren’t reconnaissance drones,” Gong muttered beside him. “Those Vipers could be carrying a pair of Harpoons or, if we’re really unlucky, a pair of HF-2s.”
Shen didn’t respond immediately; his mind was racing with calculations. For the moment, the Vipers were staying just outside his engagement envelope, a hundred kilometers from his ship. It was a thin line, and those Vipers could rapidly close that distance. But the Harpoon-ER and the Taiwanese Hsiung Feng III both possessed a range greater than a hundred and fifty kilometers. They didn’t need to close in on his squadron to pose a threat to his ships.
Suddenly, appearing behind them, new radar tracks from the direction of Chiayi airbase blinked into view. It was another group of four more Vipers joining the party, spreading out in a wide arc.
“Captain! We’re showing new contacts from Magong airbase. They just launched more aircraft,” Zhu announced loudly, his voice sounding somewhere between excited and scared. “It looks like their indigenous fighters, those Ching-Kuo IDFs. They’re probably air defense interceptors.”
Shen clenched his jaw. The ROC’s air presence was solidifying into a multi-axis threat. This posturing was turning into something, an escalation that was rapidly moving beyond his ability to control.
“This isn’t good, sir,” Gong said quietly. “This is quickly turning into a powder keg waiting to blow.”
Before Shen could respond, a shrill alarm blared throughout the CIC. One by one, GPS signals marking their position and the ships around them began to flicker. The positional data they regularly received from the BeiDou-3 satellites overhead began to waver, then spiked. One second, it was showing them miles practically inside the Penghu Islands, then it was placing them adrift in the South Pacific.
“Captain, we’re being jammed!” the electronic warfare officer shouted in a panic. “I’m showing GPS degradation across all bands. Sat comms with headquarters just dropped — I can’t get a signal lock.”
“Calm down, Lieutenant!” Shen barked angrily. “We’ve trained for this. Revert to backup systems and get me a status report on what’s happening around us and with the rest of the squadron.”
The lieutenant seemed to regain himself when the screens inside the CIC flickered several times before shutting down. Commander Gong typed feverishly at his terminal when the monitors returned. “Captain, I think our systems are in the process of being hacked. I’m initiating a hard reboot of our systems now,” Gong relayed to him as the monitors turned off again.
The CIC erupted in a flurry of reports and cross voices as static flooded the comm channels that were still working. Seconds later, the monitors returned, and icons on the digital display appeared. Then they began disappearing or freezing once again.
Zhu looked up from his station. “Sir, we’ve lost contact with the squadron,” he exclaimed. “We’ve lost the aircraft feed. We’re being jammed across multiple broadband emitters. It’s saturating every channel. I can’t localize the source!”
“Sir, underwater contacts!” The sonar operator’s voice cracked. “Multiple… dozens… behavior pattern unknown!”