Special Directive
1393 Words
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The moment the base—call sign “the Coop”—issued the order, Lin Mo’s heart skipped a beat.
“Special Directive.”
The phrase was both familiar and alien. During training at the base, they had been told that once or twice a year, highly classified flight missions would be issued—missions with real combat significance and extreme secrecy. The last time something like this happened was when Gold Coin had been shot down. Lin Mo had never imagined such an order would suddenly land on him. By all logic, his seniority shouldn’t have qualified him for this kind of task.
But a soldier’s duty is obedience.
No matter the order, a soldier executes.
That was true in the Slan Empire of another world, and it was equally true here in modern China.
“Roger. Executing immediately.”
Lin Mo flashed a hand signal toward the cockpit of aircraft No. 9: You’re clear. Break away.
Inside No. 9, Chen Haiqing had evidently received notification from the tower that Lin Mo had been assigned a separate task. He turned his head, gave Lin Mo a thumbs-up—clear and simple.
Good luck.
Lin Mo pulled the control stick back and left. The airbrakes snapped open, engine power dropped sharply, and the J-10 seemed to be shoved backward by the oncoming wind as it peeled cleanly away from the two-ship formation. The aircraft traced a smooth arc to the rear and left, then disappeared in another direction.
Damn… highway takeoff and landing?
Lin Mo muttered to himself. That secrecy rating is off the charts.
This was definitely not a sightseeing mission.
He had no right to refuse. An army is trained for a thousand days for moments like this—now it was time to see what he could do.
“Temporary authentication code: K85AW5.”
Lin Mo adjusted his radio settings and initiated verification. A temporary encrypted channel, layered with rolling encryption and a time-based code—triple redundancy. Short of stealing the entire encryption system, cracking it was impossible.
Static crackled briefly.
The comm light switched from red to green.
Link established.
“Mobile Forward Station calling Gold Coin.”
The voice in Lin Mo’s headset was hoarse, accompanied by unmistakable wind noise.
“Gold Coin, receiving.”
“Coordinates: east longitude XX degrees, north latitude XX degrees. A ten-kilometer stretch of the G315 Highway will be cleared in both directions within thirty minutes. Traffic will resume in forty-five.”
The man sounded as if he were reading directly from a document.
“Loadout: two hundred rounds linked, two rocket pods, and two LT-2 laser-guided bombs. We don’t have dedicated armorers, but I’ll assign personnel to assist you with loading.”
No professional loaders?
Lin Mo’s mouth twisted slightly.
What was this, express delivery? Rockets, bombs, cannon rounds—this much firepower could flatten a small village. What exactly were they planning to hit?
Guided by satellite navigation, the J-10 flew above the highway cutting through the endless desert. Unlike highways in coastal population centers that stayed busy even at night, the G315—from Xining to Kashgar—was easy to isolate. Half a day could pass without a single vehicle.
Eight police cars and a set of barriers sealed off the ten-kilometer stretch with almost casual efficiency.
Then came the roar.
Lin Mo’s J-10 arrived precisely on schedule.
The selected section was ideal—four lanes, dead straight, ten full kilometers long. It matched the specifications of an emergency wartime runway. Even a large passenger aircraft could land here, let alone a fighter.
There were no runway lights, not even a streetlamp. But people along the roadside waved signal lights. Others shone flashlights downward, creating scattered pools of light at intervals—barely enough to illuminate the pavement.
It was difficult. Extremely so.
The only reliable visual reference was the reflective road paint. Lin Mo switched on the landing lights beneath the gear and widened his eyes. He tried to invoke Light Mirror several times—each attempt failed. In this world, with magic elements nearly nonexistent, gathering light-attribute energy at night was painfully difficult.
Asphalt was a poor substitute for a runway. Its flexible base could cause vibration, even bouncing on touchdown. The J-10 carried an emergency braking parachute capable of stopping within a hundred meters—but Lin Mo chose not to deploy it.
Boom—!
With a thunderous howl and violent turbulence, the J-10 slammed down onto the northern end of the G315. The shockwave sent the people lighting the road tumbling, dust exploding into the air. Light beams scattered wildly—some even flashed directly into the cockpit.
Fortunately, Lin Mo was fully committed to landing. He locked onto the controls, airbrakes fully extended. After three hundred meters, the aircraft rolled to a smooth stop—perfectly centered on the highway.
Another flawless landing.
A truck raced up from behind and stopped on the hard shoulder five or six meters away. Seven or eight soldiers jumped out, carrying and hauling standard J-10 ordnance. As soon as Lin Mo shut down, he popped the canopy and began directing the loading.
Mounted beneath the intake, the twin-barrel 23-mm cannon had an effective range of one thousand meters. Dogfighting performance was mediocre, but against ground targets, its power was anything but trivial. The two six-tube rocket pods were loaded with orange-tipped rockets, and the two LT-2 laser-guided bombs were secured beneath the wings.
With more hands, work went fast. In less than twenty minutes, everything was loaded—well ahead of schedule.
The truck even carried a crude refueling system, topping off the J-10’s tanks.
Under the harsh glow of LED flashlights, Lin Mo finally received his full mission briefing.
A surprise strike on a suspected terrorist camp near the China–Kazakhstan border.
A special operations unit was already moving in on the ground. To guarantee total elimination, they had requested Air Force support. Through a chain of command twists, the task landed on the Coop’s base. By coincidence, Lin Mo and Chen Haiqing were already airborne nearby, and the mission required extreme secrecy to avoid triggering an international incident.
The military had treated the matter with utmost caution.
Lin Mo was selected—conveniently—to take a small detour and soften the target.
“So this is the Sino-Kazakh border…”
He stared at an A3-sized color satellite image. The terrorist camp was crystal clear—exceptional resolution. Estimated manpower and weapons were marked in colored annotations.
People said World War II ended decades ago and China was at peace. Yet beneath that calm surface, countless shadow wars continued unseen. Most civilians had no idea that gunfire and bloodshed still existed to protect that peace.
“They’ve got QW-2M MANPADS?” Lin Mo frowned hard. “And mortars? Are you sure this isn’t an actual military unit? This should be handled by attack aircraft.”
Fighter jets were built for air combat. Strafing small bands of insurgents was one thing—but nearly two hundred well-armed fighters? That was attack-aircraft territory. Then again, China’s Q-5—derived from the J-6—had been obsolete for decades without replacement. From another angle, it said something about how dominant China’s ground forces were, even without air support.
“The real objective is classified. You’ll know later,” said the hoarse-voiced man, the same one from the encrypted channel. Lin Mo still hadn’t seen his face; it remained hidden in the darkness beyond the flashlight beam.
“Your role is harassment and fire suppression. Ground forces will finish the job. Their only real air defense is the QW-2M. Stay sharp and you’ll be fine.”
With live ordnance loaded and fuel tanks full, Lin Mo synchronized timing with the man, climbed back into the cockpit, and rolled forward.
After four hundred meters of acceleration, the J-10 roared into the night sky.
Almost simultaneously, the G315 Highway reopened. The trucks carrying soldiers and ammunition merged back into traffic, indistinguishable from civilian vehicles. Drivers passing through never realized a fighter jet had landed here moments before.
As if nothing had happened.
Attack Time: 0300 hours.
Attack Coordinates: East XX°, North XX°.
Method: Full firepower strike.
- Writer
