The command center shook again as another cruise missile found something topside. Emergency lighting flickered. Smoke thickened despite the ventilation system’s efforts.
“Damage report,” Admiral Lo demanded, wiping blood from his eyes.
“We’ve lost the main radar array, two Patriot launchers, and the northern pier complex,” his aide reported. “Casualties are… significant.”
Mick looked at his display. Three Seekers were still operating, out of six. Three Zealots limped home. Against that, they’d sunk one destroyer, three corvettes, two diesel submarines, and a nuclear boat, plus several militia vessels.
He locked eyes with Commander Tang. Both understood the grim calculus. They’d bloodied the PLA’s nose, proven their autonomous systems could kill. But the base was burning, the ROC surface fleet was decimated, and this was only the beginning.
“Sir,” the communications officer called out, voice cracking. “Flash traffic from Fortress. The mainland has launched ballistic missiles. Impact time… eight minutes.”
Admiral Lo closed his eyes for just a moment. When he opened them, they burned with resolve.
“Sound general quarters. All remaining assets to maximum readiness.” He looked at Mick and Tang. “Gentlemen, we’ve just started World War Three. Let’s make sure we’re still here to finish it.”
The tactical display painted a grim picture as damage reports flooded in from across northern Taiwan. Jodi Mack’s fingers flew across her console, correlating data from surviving assets. Red damage indicators spread like blood across the digital map — Penghu burning, the northern naval bases under bombardment, aircraft falling from the sky in uneven exchanges.
“Magong Control, this is Fortress. Report your status.” Major General Yen’s voice carried forced calm as he attempted contact for the fourth time.
Static answered. Then a burst of interference took hold of the line before a haggard voice broke through. “Fortress, this is… this is Commander Tang, Magong Control. Admiral Lo is KIA. We’ve lost primary C3 capability. Multiple cruise missile impacts. Base is operational but degraded. Shark One — Matsin — is wounded but functional.”
Jodi’s stomach clenched. Mick had survived, but barely. The entire TSG control element at Magong had taken a beating.
“Aquarium.” Yen appeared at her shoulder. “Can you take control of the Shark assets?”
She was already pulling up the authentication protocols. “Give me thirty seconds to establish uplink.” Her fingers danced across the interface, rerouting command authority through backup satellite channels. One by one, the surviving Seeker XLUUVs checked in. “I’ve got eight operational units from the original eighteen. Six are damaged but mobile. Four, no response — presumed destroyed.”
Admiral Han Ji-cheng moved behind her, studying the underwater battlespace. “Lieutenant Mack, you now have full undersea warfare authority. Whatever those things can do — do it.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” The old Navy acknowledgment came automatically. She’d been out for three years, but muscle memory died hard.
“Air picture update!” Major Ke Jianhao’s voice cut through the controlled chaos. “Six IDFs from Tainan intercepting PLA fighters over Penghu. Four F-16s joining from Chiayi.”
The aerial engagement unfolded with brutal asymmetry. The newly arrived J-20s, invisible until they chose to engage, struck like phantoms.
“Multiple missile launches detected,” Ke reported, voice hollow. “IDFs are defensive — no lock on the J-20s. They can’t see them to shoot back.”
One by one, the indigenous fighters vanished from the display — fourth-generation aircraft helpless against fifth-generation stealth. The F-16s fared no better, their radars finding only empty sky until the moment PL-15 missiles appeared on their threat receivers.
“All aircraft down.” Ke’s words fell like hammer blows. “No kills on the J-20s. They’re already extending, probably Winchester on missiles.”
“Northern sector reporting!” Commander Qiu Shaozheng called out from his navy liaison station. “Multiple surface engagements. Chi Yang is gone — magazine detonation. Kee Lung took three YJ-83s, breaking up. Missile boats Hai Ou, Hai Ying, and Hai Peng all confirmed sunk.”
The numbers were staggering. In less than ninety minutes, the ROC Navy had lost a third of its surface combatants.
“Vampire, vampire!” Captain Hsu Lichung’s warning snapped everyone’s attention to the main display. “Thirty-six cruise missiles inbound — northern vector. Targets appear to be Keelung Naval Base and Weihai Camp.”
“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. Song-class diesel boats, built for coastal ambush, found themselves the hunted rather than the hunters. The older boats, some dating back to the 1990s, had no answer for the Copperhead-500s’ advanced guidance.
“Seeker-7 confirms two Song kills,” Jodi reported, watching the acoustic returns. “Seeker-9 has three more. These boats are sitting ducks.”
The Yuan-class submarines, more modern with air-independent propulsion, tried to fight back. But the Seekers had been designed specifically to counter diesel-electric boats — their AI trained on thousands of hours of acoustic signatures.
“Six Yuans down,” Jodi reported, her voice steady — professional satisfaction tempered by the sobering scale of destruction. “Seekers-13 and 14 have expended all Copperheads. I’m routing them to an alternate rearm and refit site near the northern coast — possibly Port Shen’ao or, if needed, they’ll swing south around Taiwan to a secure harbor on the East Coast,” she added. Her autonomous undersea hunters had just sunk more enemy tonnage in a single engagement than any force had achieved since the Second World War.
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.