Chapter 162: Chapter 107: The Second Application
The air battle over the critical sea area, influenced by Little Gu, the son of the captain of the Helong ship from Taiwan, through his live broadcast on the social networking site Live or Die, quickly became known to the entire world as the video spread rapidly as netizens shared it everywhere.
The Chinese people were unaware of the drone’s true identity and even thought The United States of America had declared war on Japan. Consequently, the internet was filled with schadenfreude as well as condemnation of the Japanese patrol ships for their brutal treatment of our crew, attempting to sink our ships and then conspire to steal wealth and murder.
Taiwan kept a nervous silence. Their greatest backers against the mainland were The United States of America and Japan, and now that these two heavyweights were clashing, they dared not offend either party, opting for silence instead. Speaking out could potentially offend someone, so they preferred to say nothing to show their impartiality.
The United States of America and Japan were embroiled in a squabble and had no energy left to deal with Taiwan. Should the mainland attack now, what could they do? Flee and become refugees? Not knowing the crux of the situation, Taiwan’s authorities were unusually obedient during this time, playing the ostrich and not daring to broach topics that could irritate the mainland, fearful of attracting attention.
Japan was in an uproar, yet they dared not blame the US side. They could only protest against their own national officials, believing that it was the communication breakdown between these officials and the US side that led to the unprovoked attack on their airplanes and patrol ships by US forces. Their resentment surged as the Red Dragon Submarine and its crew, previously captured by China, had not yet been returned, and now they’ve lost two F-15J Fighters and three patrol ships, fueling their anger with old grievances. They lashed out at their domestic officials with severe condemnation.
If it weren’t for the slight recovery in popularity when the Japanese Prime Minister shook hands with the new President of The United States of America a few days ago, the Japanese Prime Minister might have faced another impeachment motion from the opposition party. Fortunately, the Japanese people were unaware of the extent of their losses at the hands of the unmanned aerial vehicle in terms of personnel, weapons, and equipment; otherwise, even if the Japanese Prime Minister had physically attacked the new President of The United States of America on the spot, he wouldn’t have been able to regain his people’s trust.
Also under attack from the Japanese public were the Taiwan authorities. They blamed Taiwan as the primary culprit, arguing that if it weren’t for Taiwan’s fishing boats’ invasion into their Senkaku Islands, they wouldn’t have had a military conflict with their close ally, The United States of America. This accusation deeply saddened those in Taiwan who were sympathetic to Japan, who had always regarded the Japanese as their kin, wishing to become Japanese themselves; yet now they wondered, why did their kin seek trouble with them whenever things went wrong?
The United States of America, meanwhile, found itself in a quandary, a bitter reality it couldn’t voice. They had conducted a thorough investigation and confirmed that none of their latest model F-15 Fighter Jets had been on a mission in the area of the incident. Further analysis of satellite images revealed that the F-15 lacked any distinctive livery, suggesting it wasn’t American. Although the F-15 Fighter Jet was sold worldwide by American arms dealers, with many nations’ air forces equipped with such planes, only The United States of America had the latest model. Therefore, suspicions arose that this latest model F-15 must belong to the US Forces themselves.
That raised the question: if the US Forces weren’t operating an F-15 in the disturbed sea area, and the F-15 spotted in the Diaoyu Islands waters wasn’t theirs, who manufactured it and to which power did it belong?
At that time, a Seawolf-class Attack Nuclear Submarine from The United States of America happened to be on an undercover mission in the Diaoyu Islands waters. They detected the anomaly with the F-15 and even launched a missile sneak attack on it. Although the missiles missed the F-15, the submarine collected a substantial amount of data about it.
That data indicated that the F-15’s escape speed reached Mach 3, far exceeding the performance of the American prototype. They also found that this latest model F-15 Fighter Jet was about 20% larger in every dimension than their prototypes.
It was the discovery of this data, significantly different from the American prototype, that reminded US Forces of previous events in Africa and Japan involving the “Predator Drone” enhancement. In those incidents, mysterious drones masquerading as US fighter jets had appeared without any markings, demonstrating combat power that far exceeded the original models. However, that drone had vanished after the previous battle, leaving no trace for them to study it further.
Now that US Forces had encountered another unmarked, enhanced version of the F-15 Fighter, they had a hunch that this F-15 could be significant trouble, bringing them an “unusual surprise.” Due to the stark difference in appearance between Predator Drones and the F-15, the US intelligence department had not yet linked the two for analysis.
Nevertheless, eager to obtain the latest information and locate this F-15, US Forces had no choice but to swallow their pride and contact the Japanese intelligence department. They had to restart intelligence and communication efforts to search for clues to the enhanced F-15 Fighter Jet.
Yan Fei was unaware that his Level 4 Drone Avatar’s daylit strike would cause such a commotion, but he relished the thrill of playing the initiator’s ‘God’s eye view’ as he watched the involved parties engage in a fierce war of words. Previously powerless, he could only witness these international issues as a bystander, at best expressing verbal condemnation, which was ultimately futile. Now, with the ability to influence world affairs and affect diplomatic shifts in several countries and regions with just one strike, he felt a surge of pride, as if with the Drone in his hand, he held the world in his palm.