Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (dark books to read TXT) 📕

Ba Deng slammed his fist onto his desk, any semblance of calm and balance now gone. The Celestial Masters had never been required to deal with such incompetent fools. Or to face the inevitable second-guessing from the Party.

Set up a diversion. That was all those idiots were supposed to do. Now it appeared they and their crews had died while effectively starting a major shooting war. Maybe even the one the West and the traitors on Taiwan had expected China to launch since 1949. And, if things went badly—as they certainly would—then the blame would surely fall on him.

Yon Ba Deng looked around the room, again attempting to draw comfort and inspiration from the ancient artifacts he had carefully assembled over the years, artifacts from when China was truly the Middle Kingdom, the center of the world. Before the Century of Shame that had been brought about by the uncivilized Westerners and their exploitation. Surely there was something in the artifacts from which he could draw on the wisdom of the ancients. A bit of guidance to how he should work toward rectifying the wrongs of the last century and return China to her rightful place as the leader of the world.

And, of course, elevate him to his deserved position along with it.

But even the ancients’ eternal wisdom was failing him when applied to this immediate crisis. Another note appeared with an ominous ding on the computer screen: The Party Committee for Internal Security was calling an emergency session, almost certainly at the behest of that toady, Soo Be Xian. The only agenda item to discuss was the Dongsha fiasco.

Yon Ba Deng needed a strategy more than ever. And it would have to be bulletproof.

Ψ

The long and bumpy open-water voyage was mercifully almost over. Two days and nights being bounced around onboard the open LCM or doing little more than lying around topside on the three patrol boats had left most of the Tongan Marines irritable, tired, and battered. Many hung onto the railings, wrung dry by repeated bouts of seasickness. That was the primary reason the high limestone bluffs of Niue that loomed on the eastern horizon were a welcome sight when they popped up from the waves, a dark splotch against the gray-pink glow of the rising sun.

The tiny Tongan armada had actually arrived off the coral island in the middle of the night, but navigating the narrow opening through the reef that surrounded Niue was too hazardous to attempt in the moonless darkness. The Tongans, though anxious to get the operation underway, wisely decided to wait a few hours for the rising sun.

Finally, when the sun was a bare glimmer on the horizon, the elements of the Tongan Navy threaded through the hole in the crashing surf, into the calm turquoise waters awaiting them inside the sheltering reef. The closest thing that Niue had to a harbor was the capital village of Alofi. It had no piers and only one small beach that the LCM landing craft could use, the only logical access for an invasion force. Everywhere else, the waves lapped up against a cliff that rose several meters above the water’s surface.

The LCM boldly drove up onto the beach and dropped its bow door so that the troops could loudly rush ashore. They were greeted by a couple of curious fishermen heading out for the morning catch and a pair of energetic Japanese tourists completing their early run.

The first company of invading troops charged down the Coast Road and then onto Tapeu-Porritt Road, the crushed coral track that led to the airport. Meanwhile, the LCM made runs out and back, shuttling the rest of the troops from the patrol boats, anchored just offshore, back to the beach.

Niue had no defense force and only a couple of constables to keep the peace. By the time the last of the Tongan marines were on dry land, the airport and the telephone exchange next door, the only real links to the outside world, were officially in the hands of the invaders. Not a shot had been fired, except the accidental discharge of one constable’s Webley pistol when he was being relieved of it. The only injury in that incident had been to a cell phone charging station that happened to be in the line of fire.

Then, several squads of marines headed out to commandeer pickup trucks. Their purpose was more to sightsee and scrounge food and alcohol from the beachside cafes than to consolidate their victory.

Ψ

The sun had just plunged below the western horizon when the first blue-gray Chinese Shaanxi Y-9 turboprop transport aircraft touched down on Niue at Hanan International Airport, without benefit of assistance from the island’s air traffic controllers. Built in the early seventies to service a twice-weekly flight to Auckland, New Zealand, the tiny facility was not designed to handle the massive four-engine transports. Certainly not eight of them at once. The apron and short taxiway were quickly cluttered with parked aircraft. The last two to touch down were forced to find a resting spot on the runway itself.

Over four hundred Chinese Marines were disgorged from four of the big birds. Six ZBD-3 tracked airborne fighting vehicles and a pair of FB-6C anti-aircraft vehicles rumbled down the ramps from several of the aircraft as the Marines lugged their gear off the aircraft and toward a large open field alongside the terminal and behind the telephone exchange. The ZBD-3s left a thick fog of acrid, black diesel smoke as they traversed Tapue-Porret Road, in the direction of Alofi.

The Chinese Marines quickly and efficiently established a command center in the terminal building and a defense perimeter surrounding the airport, ignoring the questions and protestations of the few airport officials they encountered. All this was observed with much amusement by the Tongan Marines, who enjoyed their purloined cold beers while watching sleepily from their resting places under a nearby grove of palm trees.

The sun was little more than a suggestion on the eastern horizon when the now-empty