Spark

A few weeks later, the port.

The Reagan aircraft carrier formation officially arrived at its destination, but unlike everyone's speculation, the aircraft carrier did not call at the port with great fanfare, but parked low-key in the waters outside the port.

All supplies were transported offshore by ships sent by the Vietnamese side, and the "personnel exchange" that had almost become a consensus was not implemented.

Indistinctly, everyone seemed to smell something different.

The U.S. side is not as firm as they showed at the beginning, and they are even keeping a distance on purpose.

This puzzled Ruan Yongliang, who was in charge of the reception, but he didn't have much right to speak, so he could only act humbly according to Thomas' wishes.

In the bridge command room of the USS Reagan, Gildy looked at the fleet parked not far away with emotion, and asked with some puzzlement:

"Actually, I still haven't figured it out. Since we have already achieved this step, why not just go one step further?"

"After all, we are already within their territorial waters. For most third parties, this is a complete endorsement."

"In this case, what difference does it make if you call at a port or not?"

Thomas smiled and replied:

"It's an arrangement over there at the turret—actually, it has nothing to do with the political signal you're thinking of, it's purely for confidentiality reasons."

"The management of the Vietnamese is too chaotic. You are not unaware of what happened in the shipyard two days ago."

"The control power of their military has dropped to an extremely terrifying and dangerous level, and they have even lost their most basic vocation as the most powerful violent institution."

"Under such circumstances, how dare we rely on it?"

"Maybe, there are some rats from China hidden in their team. Once they are allowed to jump on our deck, the problem will be serious."

"All right."

Gildy sighed helplessly, and after a moment of silence, continued to speak:

"So, our mission has officially started? What are you going to do after that?"

"The Vietnamese side hopes that we will put pressure on us to get back their detained crew members. We seem to have no way to refuse such a request."

"It will take a while longer to observe."

Thomas replied without thinking.

"Want to observe again? Do we have time?"

"The current situation is very unfavorable to the Vietnamese side. According to the latest intelligence, the first operation surface on the island has been cleaned up, and their operation machinery has also been transferred from the sea to the land."

"In the future, their efficiency will be greatly improved."

"If we don't step in as soon as possible, when they turn their 'anticipation' into reality, we will never find another opportunity."

Thomas hummed, but didn't answer.

In fact, he could fully understand Gilday's concerns.

The so-called "island building", to put it bluntly, is just a way to confirm sovereignty.

On this sea surface, there are countless large and small islands and reefs, some of which are only a few centimeters above the water.

Such a reef, no matter how vicious a country calls it, its sovereignty is actually vague.

To put it simply, whoever actually controls can take advantage of it.

However, once such reefs become "islands", especially through active reclamation, the situation is completely different.

The party that built the island can not only take the initiative in the military, but also gain a greater right to speak legally.

After all, you can use force to fight for a reef, and that will only be defined as a "dispute" or "conflict."

But what if you fight over an island by force?

That is "invasion" and "war".

This is why Annan will interfere with the island-building process at all costs, even risking his life.

They just want to delay the speed of "reefs turning into islands" until a certain party intervenes...

But

Are we really going to do this?

Thomas shook his head and replied:

“An opportunity is only an opportunity if it brings benefits.”

"The reason why we are here is really to be the world's policeman?"

"To put it bluntly, it's still for our own benefit."

"As for why you have to stand still, don't you understand?"

"No deal?"

Gilday frowned.

"It was negotiated, but things have changed and we want more."

"Why? I don't feel that the situation has changed. Isn't the situation on the sea always in our expectation?"

"No, the change is not at sea."

Thomas sighed and explained:

"We have received news that Huaxia is developing a weapon, perhaps some kind of medium-range ballistic missile, that can pose a major threat to our aircraft carrier."

"How can it be?!"

Gilday was shocked, almost subconsciously trying to deny it.

"Among their family of medium-range ballistic missiles, the only one that can pose a certain threat is the DF-15, but this thing has a limited range, and according to our intelligence, its accuracy and penetration capabilities are also insufficient."

"Even if the transformation is based on DF-15, it is impossible to achieve a breakthrough in the short term. Are we too sensitive?"

Hearing his words, Thomas fell silent.

After a long time, he opened his mouth and said:

"I also think it's too sensitive."

"However, you should think back to what happened in the past two years."

"From J-22 to J-20B, when did we not feel that we were too sensitive, but what was the final result?"

"Even, two days ago, they actually came up with drone swarm tactics. You know, this kind of tactics has been stuck in the report of the turret. We just imagined it, but never actually applied it."

"And they are at least five years, even ten years faster than us."

"In this case, no matter how sensitive it is, I don't think it's unreasonable."

"So, at least in the short term, let's do what our superiors tell us to do."

Gilday nodded heavily. He suddenly felt that the pressure on himself had inexplicably increased.

Even big enough to overwhelm him.

"Then we do nothing?"

"of course not."

Thomas looked at the sea in a daze, as if he wanted to find the shadow of the small island in the empty sea.

"We can't be too aggressive, but we have to do training."

"Notify your carrier-based air wing, starting today, conduct flight and security training."

"For the training subjects, we will tentatively set up low-altitude penetration."

"Target airspace."

Soon after.

Feng Ping was doing the work in his hand leisurely. Compared with a few days ago, he was in a much happier mood now.

Not only did they give those opponents a hard lesson, but they even captured all of their people!

To be honest, at first he was quite worried that these people would be disobedient, but after a few days, under the means of "combining kindness and force", they were all quickly brought under control.

Labor in exchange for remuneration is a matter of course, and no one can say a word wrong.

If you are not satisfied staying here, go home.

Who stopped you?

Boat? What ship?

If you hit a car in a traffic accident on the road, you have to impound the accident vehicle. You have caused such a large loss, so it’s okay for me to impound your boat, right?

After such a combination of punches, the opponent will be honest in an instant.

Immediately afterwards, the project team showed another wave of humanitarian care.

As long as they are actively working, the food is favorable, and even wages are paid strictly according to the working hours.

Although cash cannot be delivered directly, you can go to the embassy to collect the money with the note we issued.

Working here for a day is much better than being a sailor for a day.

At least, the meals of the project team are full of meat, not the pig feed like hogwash in your rotten army.

As a result, even within the captives, a wavering mood continued to grow.

Even one day, Feng Ping heard a captive learning Chinese carefully there.

It may not be possible for them to "obey God's power" so quickly, but at least some seeds have begun to germinate in their hearts

After winding the last bundle of cables, Feng Ping let out a sigh of relief, put down his work and walked to the side of the boat, intending to ask Feng Ru to have dinner together.

Feng Ru, on the other hand, tinkered with the drone assigned to him with great interest, and followed the staff next to him to screw the screws and adjust the remote control. It can be said that he couldn't put it down.

"Hey, boy, don't let others play it badly!"

Feng Ping said pretending to be serious.

Feng Ru turned around, smiled, and replied:

"Don't worry Dad, I'm careful."

"Gong Liu gave it to me. He said it doesn't matter if it's broken, it's all disposable anyway."

"The role of the first batch has been played out, and there will be more performance adjustments in the future."

"I heard that there will be non-lethal weapon pods in the next batch, so we don't need to hit them one by one to change lives."

Listening to the professional vocabulary in his son's mouth, Feng Ping felt relieved and wanted to laugh.

"Do you know what a weapon pod is? Look at you, you've been tinkering with it for the past few days, and you don't care about the things on the ship?"

"Don't worry, don't care, how can I not care about it? I'm in the middle of it, you're tired, help me out."

With that said, Feng Ru picked up the assembled drone, walked to the launch rail aside, locked the hook lock for launch, and said:

"In the past two days, we have researched a method to make this thing land. We will test it in a while, so why don't you follow along?"

"How did you land? Don't mess it up!"

Feng Ping was a little nervous for a moment.

He knows the value of a drone, and also knows that for the current situation, the so-called "value" is far from being measurable by money.

Therefore, he was really afraid that his son would destroy this hard-won equipment and cause trouble for everyone.

"Don't worry, it will never be a bad game-I'm not kidding, I'm helping everyone."

"Although these planes don't have landing gear, the overall structure is still very strong. We just let them wash into the water, pick them up and dry them quickly."

"Don't worry, my skills are good"

While speaking, Feng Ru had already pressed the launch button. After the fire flashed, the launcher was quickly pushed forward, and the drone was also ignited into the sky.

Other engineers also let go. In just a few seconds, more than a dozen turbojet-powered drones have already flown up to a height of 100 meters, and the one-meter-long body has also turned into a small black spot. .

The drones were flying up and down, and Feng Ping could hardly see their flying movements clearly, but his son still operated them with ease.

He couldn't help but feel a little proud.

Who said that he, the son of a rough and rough captain, can only continue to be a rough and rough?

Now, he can also play high technology, okay?

There was a smile on his face, and he was about to step forward to say a few words of praise, but at this moment, he suddenly heard an unusual roar coming from the sky not far away.

The roar was exactly the same as the drone's sound just now.

But the volume is definitely much louder!

He looked in the direction of the sound, and his pupils shrank instantly.

There is a plane coming!

At the same time, he realized belatedly that the surrounding warships had entered a state of emergency.

The muzzle was turned, the cover of the anti-aircraft missile was lifted, and the radar was constantly rotating, aiming at the direction the plane was coming from.

He suddenly realized that something big had happened.

Those Yankees are really coming!

"Quick, take it back!"

He yelled anxiously, and Feng Ru also realized that something was wrong, he frantically manipulated the remote control panel, trying to lower the height of the drone, but when he was staring at the drone he controlled, But he didn't notice that the three real planes happened to be on the descent route of the drone group.

The first lead plane passed by, and under the strong airflow, the drone instantly lost control and began to disintegrate.

Immediately afterwards, the two wingmen passed by one by one, and even made a provocative roll.

In their eyes, these poor little drones are like children's toys.

They don't even need to make a move, they can play with it in the palm of their hands.

Feng Ru's face was gloomy, he had lost control of the drone.

This drone is considered destroyed.

Sure enough, in the face of real strength, such a small method is really not enough.

Bullying and bullying monkeys is barely enough, but facing the Americans

Feng Ru sighed and watched the drone fall into the sea.

But in the next second, his eyes suddenly widened.

Because he saw that one of the three planes suddenly billowed black smoke.

"FUCK!!"

Gilday slammed the table hard, in disbelief at what had just happened.

Of the three planes sent out, without any attack, almost one of them didn't come back! ?

And the reason is actually a bird strike! ?

How can this be? !

Not to mention whether there are any birds on the sea like this, even if there are, how can you run into them by chance? !

You might as well go buy a lottery ticket!

He looked gloomyly at the three pilots who came to report, and for a moment, he hardly knew what to say.

He noticed the guilty look in the pilot's eyes, but at the same time he also knew that it was impossible to ask anything from their mouths for the time being.

The flight records showed that there was no abnormality, and the cause of the accident was indeed the ingestion of foreign matter by the engine.

But is that really a bird?

Gilday took a deep breath, suppressing the surging emotions in his heart.

He vaguely felt that this operation would not go well.

It's just the beginning, and we have encountered such a small probability event, what happens after that?

Or, in other words, is the low-probability event that I now think of really a "small probability"?

Perhaps, in a sense, this is actually a kind of.

inevitable?