423: Chapter 423 The Hammer Falls: Conquering Singapore with Zero Casualties

Zhang Cheng looked up at the clock on the holographic situation map: 05:58.

"Electronic countermeasures—begin."

Old K typed a string of authorization codes on the keyboard and pressed Enter.

Deep in the Andaman Sea, inside the electronic warfare cabin of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "Dawn," a waveform jumped onto the main screen of the "Vega-3" electronic warfare system—the full-spectrum suppression program had started.

First wave: High-power microwave directional irradiation of the Singapore Changi Naval Base, Paya Lebar Airbase, Jurong West Communications Hub, and the Sentosa Satellite Ground Station.

The frequency covered the C-band to the Ku-band, with a power density reaching 300 watts per square meter—non-destructive, but sufficient to burn out all military radar receiver modules that were not powered down.

Second wave: Distributed denial-of-service attacks overlaid with adaptive frequency-hopping interference, locking onto the civilian base stations of Singapore's three major telecommunications companies and Starlink signal terminals, compressing their external data links to the level of the 2G era.

Third wave: "Vega-3" launched a Swarm of 6 miniature suicide drones into the airspace over Singapore's main island, carrying specialized communications relay jamming pods to block all unidentified encrypted signals.

06:01, inside the radar control room of the Singapore Changi Naval Base, a line of red text jumped onto the screen of radar operator Sergeant Muhammad Ali: "System failure—transmitter overheat protection initiated."

He pressed the restart button; the screen went black for three seconds, and when it lit up again, only static remained.

He thought it was a fluctuation in the base's backup generator sets and looked out the window—the mast-top radar antennas of the six "Formidable"-class frigates at the pier were still rotating, but the rotation speed was clearly slowing down, as if the gears were jammed by some invisible resistance.

06:03, Paya Lebar Airbase control tower.

A sharp shriek came from the VHF walkie-talkie of the duty controller, Second Lieutenant Lin, and then all frequency bands were simultaneously covered—it wasn't noise, it was a recording.

The recording played in standard English: "Singapore Armed Forces, please be advised—you are currently undergoing full-spectrum electronic suppression by the Federation of Myanmar Defense Forces. No fire has been opened, no casualties inflicted. Please maintain restraint and comply with the Geneva Convention."

Second Lieutenant Lin grabbed the encrypted phone to dial the Ministry of Defense, but there was only a busy signal in the receiver—it wasn't a busy line; the underlying communication protocols had been physically severed.

06:07, mobile phone signals across Singapore were interrupted.

All base stations for StarHub, M1, and Singtel simultaneously displayed "No Service."

The barcode scanners at Starbucks checkout counters went black; the Changi Airport control tower switched to backup radio walkie-talkies; residents in the Sengkang HDB estate opened their phones to find only one signal bar remaining—what they were connected to was not a base station, but the emergency broadcast channel of "Vega-3."

The broadcast played the same message on a loop: "Singaporean citizens, please remain in your homes. This is a non-military operation and will not harm civilians. Do not panic."

The panic had already begun.

The emergency broadcast system of the Singapore Civil Defence Force played evacuation instructions at Suntec City, Woodlands MRT Station, and in front of the City Hall, but three minutes later, even this broadcast frequency band was covered.

Singapore Minister of Defense Ng Eng Hen rushed from his home to the Ministry of Defense by car, only to find that his mobile phone had no signal on the way.

He ordered his driver to turn around and head to the Presidential Palace, but when the car reached Tanglin Road, it was stuck at a traffic light intersection—the traffic lights were all dead, vehicles from all four directions were jammed together, and the sound of honking rose one after another.

He pushed open the car door and rushed into the rain to run on his own, only realizing halfway there that it wasn't raining—it was the automatic sprinkler system of a water tower that had been accidentally triggered by electronic interference.

06:15, Naypyidaw.

Zhang Cheng stood before the holographic situation map, watching as the communication signal icons across Singapore turned red one after another—connection lost.

Real-time statistics jumped onto the screen: Singapore telecom fixed-line node online rate—3%; StarHub mobile communication base station online rate—0%; military encrypted satellite links—all severed; U.S. 7th Fleet C4I data link relayed via Singapore—disconnected.

Zhang Cheng pressed the start button for the second step: "Falling Hammer—deploy."

On the Andaman Sea, the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship "White Elephant" lit up with a dense array of green lights.

The rotors of 12 rotorcraft began to spin, and 6 hovercraft landing craft slid from the dock cabin into the sea.

First wave—600 Marines and 120 "Shadow Blade" special forces soldiers all took off within 5 minutes, heading 117 degrees south-southeast, target: Singapore.

In the same airspace above, 24 J-10B "soaring dragon" stealth fighters provided escort at an altitude of 12,000 meters.

Their radar cross-section was smaller than a seagull, and the residual anti-air surveillance radar screens at Singapore's Paya Lebar Airbase only swept over a few blurry echoes—the duty officer judged them to be "a flock of migratory birds."

06:27, the first rotorcraft arrived over Seletar Airbase.

The cabin door opened, and "Shadow Blade" operatives landed via fast-roping; their optical camouflage uniforms automatically switched to the gray of the airport's concrete runway.

The sentry inside the control tower did not notice anything unusual—until the first "Shadow Blade" operative walked in from the tower stairwell, pressed a silenced pistol against the back of the duty officer's chair, and said: "You have lost command authority. Hand over the radio frequency. Do as told, and you will live."

The officer raised his hands.

His walkie-talkie was still shrieking with electronic interference—the other side didn't need his frequency at all.

At the same moment, at Changi Naval Base.

Three special operations soldiers who had infiltrated using "underwater rebreathers" surfaced from underwater at the base's east pier, locking their silenced rifles onto the pier sentries.

At Berth 3, the officer of the watch on the "Formidable"-class frigate "Steadfast" walked out of the bridge, wanting to see why satellite communications were interrupted—the first thing he saw was 12 "Shadow Blade" tactical shields rising at the end of the pier jetty, and the second was 50 Marines simultaneously deploying into an assault formation from their hovercraft landing craft.

He instinctively reached for the sidearm at his waist, then saw 12 automatic rifle muzzles all pointing at his bridge.

He let go of the gun and placed his sidearm on the bridge railing.

Not a single bullet was fired during the entire process.

06:41, Paya Lebar Airbase.

Two F-15 SG fighters attempted an emergency takeoff, but as they taxied onto the runway, they discovered a row of grayish-white figures standing in the middle of the runway—it was the optical camouflage of the "Shadow Blade" operatives' combat uniforms against the concrete runway.

The lead pilot, Captain Jason Tan, received the last clear-text message from the control tower: "Runway is blocked. Shut down engines. Do not fire."

He shut down the engines, powered down the airborne weapons system, and climbed out of the cockpit.

His co-pilot later testified at a military tribunal: "We were not surrendering—we were being held at gunpoint by a group of invisible muzzles while unable to take off."

06:52, Woodlands Checkpoint.

Four Leopard 2SG main battle tanks of the 3rd Division of the Singapore Army blocked the checkpoint entrance, their gun barrels pointing toward the Johor Strait.

Their gun barrels were still turning—but their fire control systems had all crashed.

The directional microwaves emitted by "Vega-3" had burned out all unshielded electronic modules inside the tank turrets: rangefinders—black screen; thermal imaging—static; gun control linkage—disconnected.

The four tank commanders opened their hatches to look out and discovered 12 Myanmar "Swarm" suicide drones hovering above the checkpoint, each one locked onto the engine exhaust vent of a tank.

Commander Colonel Lin hesitated for more than three minutes inside the military police checkpoint—this was enough time for a "Shadow Blade" squad to break into the entrance of the underground command post from the drainage pipes on the flank of the Woodlands Viaduct.

Finally, in the fifth minute after tactical communications were completely cut off, he ordered all soldiers to dismount from the tanks and lay down their weapons.