402: Chapter 402 Thirty Drones Destroyed in One Strike

The global live broadcast screen was split into sixteen sections—multi-perspective replays of the entire missile flight process provided by the Myanmar Defense Forces.

Boost phase: The missile launched vertically from a launcher in Pursat Province, its exhaust plume drawing a curved arc across the night sky.

Separation phase: The rocket booster detached, and the hypersonic glide vehicle was released at the edge of the stratosphere at an altitude of 40,000 meters, reaching a speed of Mach 10.

Glide phase: The glide vehicle maneuvered laterally in an unpredictable S-shaped trajectory, with each course change exceeding three kilometers and G-forces exceeding thirty—meaning any anti-aircraft missile attempting to intercept it could not predict its next frame's position.

Terminal phase: The glide vehicle descended to an altitude of 3,000 meters, slowed to Mach 6, activated active radar homing, locked onto the target ship, and struck from almost directly above at a near-vertical angle, hitting the center of the target ship's cockpit roof.

Deviation: 0.7 meters.

The final thirty seconds of the live broadcast were the last frames captured by a GoPro camera recovered from the target ship—in the footage, the sea level suddenly tilted from the horizon, followed by violent shaking; the moment the Lens was shattered by the shockwave, a tiny speck of light could be seen approaching at the junction of the sea and sky in the distance.

That speck of light was the DF-17 glide vehicle.

When the video's view count on YouTube exceeded fifty million, a press officer for the US Pacific Fleet Command issued a vague statement: "We are monitoring the situation and reserve the right to take appropriate measures."

When a reporter pressed for what "appropriate measures" meant, the call was disconnected.

At the same moment, at the northern entrance of the Mozambique Channel, on the bridge of the flagship of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group.

The captain stood before a porthole, holding a tablet, on which a slow-motion replay of the DF-17 striking the target ship was playing.

His executive officer stood nearby, holding a cup of unsweetened coffee that had already gone cold.

"Target deviation is 0.7 meters," the executive officer said. "The single-shot interception probability of our Standard-3 interceptor—against targets with a Mach number over ten and terminal lateral maneuvers exceeding 3 Gs—is publicly stated to be less than twenty percent. This thing performed lateral maneuvers of 30 Gs, four times."

The captain did not answer. He placed the tablet on the chart table, walked to the porthole, and watched the F/A-18 fighter jets on the deck undergoing pre-flight checks.

Beneath their wings were mounted air-to-ground missiles and precision-guided bombs—these weapons were designed for ground targets, not for intercepting hypersonic glide vehicles.

He turned around and said to the communications officer: "Call the Fifth Fleet Command. Recommend that the carrier strike group for Operation Ocean Shield withdraw three hundred nautical miles from the northern entrance of the Mozambique Channel."

The Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw, Zhang Cheng's office.

Li Lanzhi placed the intercepted text of an encrypted letter received by Mozambican President Nyusi from Council of Elders in front of Zhang Cheng.

The text was the full content of an encrypted CIA email that had been automatically decrypted after being intercepted by the Vega electronic warfare system.

"Council of Elders promises: If the Mozambican government refuses to cooperate with Myanmar, it will receive a five-billion-dollar emergency loan from the World Bank and US Military protection.

The condition is that Mozambique must declare João Mutale an illegal immigrant within seventy-two hours and cooperate with the US side's 'Operation Savannah' to extradite him.

The letter is signed by—Barrett."

Zhang Cheng glanced at it and set the text down.

"Where is João now?"

"On his way to Maputo."

Zhang Cheng stood up and walked to the window. Outside, it was noon in Naypyidaw, and the federal flag in the Presidential Palace square hung limp under the tropical sun; there was no wind.

He was silent for a few seconds, then said: "Send a copy of this letter to João. Have him bring it to the negotiating table with General Makamo—and give it to him in person."

"As evidence?"

"No," Zhang Cheng turned around. "As an opening statement. Let Makamo do the math himself: a five-billion-dollar emergency loan from the World Bank, with an annual interest rate of at least 3.5% and a ten-year repayment period, plus US Military protection—that equals building a US Military base on Mozambican soil.

But if he hands over control of the terminal station to us, the investment for upgrading to the Dawn communication system will be free of charge, and the annual profit sharing from the natural gas project will be fifteen percent.

One option is paying to have foreign troops stationed in his country, and the other is having someone help him make money while also providing equipment.

He doesn't need to choose; he just needs to know that when Barrett wrote this letter, he had already been treated as a discarded pawn on the chessboard."

He picked up a pencil and drew a circle on the map of Mozambique on the table.

At 3:00 AM, Jial's main stronghold was still buzzing with the noise of diesel generators.

It was a rubber plantation administration office left behind by the Portuguese during the colonial period, later converted into a fortress by drug traffickers, and then reinforced by Jial with two tons of cement and four hundred steel bars into a command post.

The outer walls of the three-story building were coated in mottled camouflage paint, with three DShK heavy machine guns mounted on the roof, where the gunners dozed while clutching ammunition boxes.

On the perimeter of the stronghold, twelve sentries were scattered among the coconut groves and rubber trees.

Four of them were chewing khat—leaves that could make a person excited and sleepless, the juices staining their teeth yellow-green.

The other eight were playing cards, using empty shell casings as chips, the moonlight filtering through the gaps in the coconut palm leaves, casting a copper-yellow glow on the piles of casings.

They did not know that in the night sky four hundred meters above their heads, thirty JL-10 drones had already completed their attack formation.

João lay prone behind an abandoned rubber coagulation pond on the north side of the rubber plantation.

On the folding screen in front of him, thirty green triangles were blinking simultaneously—each drone had locked onto its target.

The temperature anomaly of the ammunition depot glowed like a stark white square in the infrared imaging, the human heat sources in the barracks were as dense as a beehive, and the contours of the diesel storage tanks were clearly outlined by the cooling sea breeze.

He pressed the button for the first wave of attacks.

Six drones dived simultaneously. Their payload was not missiles—but thermobaric fuel-air explosive warheads specially made by Dawn Military Industry, each weighing eight kilograms with a blast radius of fifty meters.

The six warheads pierced the tin roof of the ammunition depot simultaneously and detonated inside.

The sound of the explosion was not a "boom." It was a dull, heavy "thud," followed by three seconds of air being sucked in—the oxygen around the ammunition depot was instantly drained, the tin walls buckled inward, and the corrugated iron roof curled up like tin foil crushed by a giant hand.

Immediately after, the bullets and grenades inside the ammunition depot began to detonate in a chain reaction, the continuous explosions sounding like a string of giant firecrackers being lit, each pop sending a jet of orange flame spraying out from the holes in the tin.

Before the people rushing out of the barracks could even get their bearings, the incendiary bombs from the second batch of drones fell.

Napalm exploded at the entrance of the barracks, flames splashing like liquid, sticking to door frames, beds, and people.

Someone jumped out of a window, their whole body on fire, rolling on the sandy ground; the sand was scorched dark red by the high heat, but the flames did not go out.

Jial poked his head out of the third-floor window and saw his stronghold turn into hell in thirty seconds.