Dispatches Read Online Free PDF Page B

speed to Mach two point three. Eight thousand meters!” said Xhua.
    Colonel Jin snapped his head in Xhua’s direction, but didn’t respond. He kept nodding in acquiescence to the generals undoubtedly screaming at him through his headset. Xhua watched the altitude climb. Nine thousand. Ten thousand. Nearly a thousand meters per second. What the hell is this? A chilling thought entered his mind. ICBM? Second Artillery Corps certainly wouldn’t disclose the location of their mobile launchers, so the area would appear empty to conventional PLA forces.
    It was the only thing that made sense to him. The Americans had responded to the invasion of Taiwan with nuclear weapons, and China was retaliating. He resisted the urge to get up from his seat. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do except wait.
    “Southern Air Defense Command confirms your data!” said Colonel Jin. “I have been assured there is nothing in the area.”
    “Retaliatory strike?” asked Xhua, silencing the command and control center.
    Jin stared at him with his mouth agape for a moment before shaking his head.
    “No. We would have an inbound warning by now,” said Jin, the confidence in his voice fading.
    “Twenty-one thousand meters, sir,” said Xhua, grimacing.
    What else could this be? A UFO?
    “Guangzhou Air Base has scrambled a flight of two J-10 fighters!” yelled one of the console operators.
    “I hope they brought space suits,” said Xhua. “Because the contact will be in low Earth orbit before they reach it.”
    The colonel cursed and spoke forcefully into his headset, never breaking the steely-eyed glare at Xhua. Message received. Quit speculating about nuclear weapons—do your job. He turned to the screen. Twenty-three thousand. The altitude continued to climb while Jin talked to the Southern Air Defense Command. Thirty-two thousand. It had to be an ICBM.
    At sixty-eight thousand meters, the track disappeared—followed immediately by the picture on his display. The cabin lights blinked and the plane shook violently, throwing Xhua against his seatbelt harness. The engines whined through the hull before settling into a stable pitch. The crew erupted in a cacophony of reports punctuated by cries of pain. He looked around and saw four members of the crew sprawled over the consoles and deck. They all appeared to be moving, which was a good sign. Panning toward the front of the cabin, he saw that Colonel Jin hadn’t been so lucky. Jin’s lifeless eyes stared at him from the rubber-matted deck, his head and neck jammed at an unsightly angle against the aircraft’s mid-cabin door.
    He flipped a switch to talk to the flight deck, but couldn’t get the pilots to answer. His display screen reappeared with a prompt that told him that the system was in the reboot phase. The southern air defense zone was temporarily blind. He unbuckled his seatbelt and made his way to the cockpit door, grabbing anything sturdy in case the aircraft hit another patch of turbulence. Glancing down at Colonel Jin, he realized it wouldn’t matter. He couldn’t hold himself steady if the aircraft shook again. He knocked on the door, which opened before he lowered his hand.
    A bloodied flight officer stood in the opening, his gray helmet cracked down the middle. He wiped the blood from his face and glanced at Colonel Jin’s legs, which protruded into the aisle.
    “Jin’s dead. What is the status of the aircraft?” said Xhua.
    The pilot pulled him into the spacious cockpit, taking Xhua by surprise.
    “One of the engines is down, but the aircraft is stable—for now. We’re running a diagnostics check on the main systems. What the hell happened?”
    “I don’t know. We were tracking a target headed straight up. It reached sixty-eight thousand meters and vanished right before the system shut down.”
    “Sixty-eight thousand? What was it, a missile?” asked the lead pilot.
    “We don’t know, sir,” said Xhua.
    “You don’t know?” replied the pilot. “I’m