Red Dragon in Space

The Carrier Task Force commander was keeping one eye on the developing situation in the Taiwanese Strait the other on the main mission objective of providing telemetry information on the latest Chinese space launch. It was part of the low orbit satellite programme that was threatening to undercut the Western commercial monopoly of space. Washington was certainly peeved at missing the boat and thinking this was beyond the Chinese capability.

The vast array of spook ships looked ungainly to his military mind. "Looks like this one is in trouble" a civilian interjected into the running conversation, "Its telemetry is way off for a successful deployment, too vertical, the Chinese have really 'boobed' on this one." Chuckles broke out. "They'll have to abort it or risk it coming down on one of their major cities."

"How soon will you know?" asked the Commander. Nothing. "I said how soon will you know? Aren't you listening to me?" His voice had grown sterner. God how he hated civilians. The civilian started talking out loud, to no one in particular. "That telemetry is controlled, it's not bad or errant. You know I think it's being guided. But why? It's as if it's tactical, no that's impossible." Sirens wailed as a massive EM pulse and jamming attack had commenced. Bedlam abated within minutes as the sophisticated  ECW equipment automatically found known countermeasures to neutralise the attack.

"What was that tickle for they couldn't hurt us?" asked a bemused commander. "Time" replied the civilian, "We've stopped everything but a surface signal, probably from that Han that's been stalking us, it's not attacking us it's broadcasting our position." The commander was drawing his own conclusions, as the sky above the task force started glowing a fiery red, his last comment was "Oh my Hades!"

The defensive weapon systems did not even have time to engage.