Eagle Station

All six aircraft were covered in a special radar-absorbent coating that sucked up most of the electromagnetic energy from radar waves and shunted it off as heat. No windows or cockpit canopies broke their smooth lines. On radar, the entire group would have shown up as nothing more than a small flock of seagulls.

These were Sky Masters — designed MQ-77 Ghost Wolf combat drones, unmanned aircraft flown entirely by remote control or under the guidance of their own sophisticated onboard computers. They were a larger and more expensive evolutionary variant of an earlier Sky Masters model — the MQ-55 Coyote — which had proved itself many times over in combat service with the Iron Wolf Squadron against the Russians. Significantly harder to detect, faster, more maneuverable, and with a larger weapons payload than their predecessors, the MQ-77 Ghost Wolves were designed to fly and fight on their own, or in tandem with manned modern jet fighters like the F/A-18 Hornet, F-22 Raptor, and F-35 Lightning II.

Just four minutes after receiving their attack orders from Peter Vasey, the first Ghost Wolf drones screamed in low toward the tiny island. Aboard each batwing-shaped aircraft, bay doors whined open. Dozens of small, tear-shaped bombs rippled out and fell toward the earth along precisely calculated arcs.

One by one these tiny, twenty-five-pound bombs detonated within a few yards of every PLA Navy radar, missile launcher, barracks, headquarters building, and hardened aircraft shelter on the island. But rather than exploding in a fiery cloud of lethal fragments, each device went off in a large and relatively harmless puff of white smoke. Instead of wartime munitions, each Ghost Wolf had just dropped a full load of BDU-33 practice bombs.

Engines howling, the six combat drones banked away and flew back out to sea — vanishing as quickly as they had come.

Watching through their long-range cameras from twelve miles out, Brad grinned appreciatively at the sight of dozens of smoke clouds rising above Woody Island’s tree-lined shores. “Man, I bet there are a ton of guys over there who just pissed their pants.”

Nadia nodded more seriously. “And, I imagine, there are a great many more red faces, both on the island and elsewhere in the PRC.”

To the Chinese military garrison and its masters in Beijing, the message conveyed by those drifting puffs of white smoke was unmistakable: if this had been a real air strike, the island’s defenses would have been obliterated by a single, unstoppable attack. And when it mattered most, every one of the advanced weapons and sensors the People’s Republic had spent so much time and money developing had proved absolutely useless.

With the Stars and Stripes streaming proudly from their radar masts, USS McCampbell and USS Mustin paraded slowly past Woody Island.

Five

Command Center, Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing

That Same Time

For a long, painful moment, a shocked and dangerous silence pervaded the underground command center. No one had expected the two U.S. Navy destroyers — which were not even the most advanced of their type — to so easily swat away China’s “accidental” ballistic missile attack. No one had foreseen the sudden intervention by the enemy’s hypersonic-capable spaceplane as it struck like a lightning bolt sizzling down out of a clear, cloudless sky. Nor had anyone anticipated the overwhelming counterstroke launched against the island’s defenses by a previously undetected group of stealth attack aircraft. At every turn, the Americans had defeated them with contemptuous ease.

As the silence lengthened, none of the assembled PLA officers and high-ranking Party officials dared look at their nation’s new president. Li Jun’s loss of face was staggering, especially since this catastrophe had occurred under the cold gaze of his invited foreign guest, Marshal of the Russian Federation Mikhail Ivanovich Leonov.

At last, Li made a single, curt gesture. “Get out. All of you. Now.”

His subordinates obeyed, quickly and quietly filing out of the room. But as Leonov started to push his own chair back from the table, China’s president held up a hand. “A moment, if you please, Comrade Marshal.”

With a polite nod, the Russian sat back down.

When they were alone, Li sighed and took off his wire-frame glasses. Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose hard, and then put his glasses back on. Wearily, he looked at Leonov. “I suppose I should have listened to your earlier warnings about the effectiveness of these new American weapons — their spaceplanes, manned combat robots, remote-piloted attack drones, and all the rest.”

Leonov shrugged. “In your place, I would have done the same, Comrade President. Secondhand reports are never particularly persuasive. Seeing these war machines in action, however, is…” He let his voice trail off suggestively.

“Remarkably unnerving,” Li agreed sourly.