Mike Maden - Drone Command

But UCAVs had other advantages over manned aircraft. Like other manned systems, a significant amount of weight and technology was devoted to pilot safety and survival. Humans were incredibly fragile, particularly in combat environments. Humans required sleep, food, waste elimination, and even oxygen at high altitudes. Human pilots could also panic, become distracted or fatigued, or suffer wounds in flight operations, causing them to hesitate or falter while making crucial combat decisions. Decision delays of just fractions of a second could cost the pilot his life — or worse, the air battle or even the war — as fragile, imperfect humans in heavier aircraft competed with emotionless, faultless UCAVs flying far beyond human endurance at faster speeds, traveling longer distances, making sharper turns, executing coordinated swarming maneuvers, and firing larger numbers of missiles at their human counterparts.

A light flashed on the weatherproof phone-console panel attached to the rail. Deng picked it up. Listened. Handed the phone to Ji. “For you, Admiral.”

Ji thanked him and took the call. Ji nodded, smiled. “Excellent.” He listened further. His face darkened. “Yes, just as we discussed. You have it on my authority.” He hung up the phone.

Deng narrowed his eyes, a question. Problem?

Ji shook his head imperceptibly and offered a small reassuring smile. No. Everything was proceeding exactly according to plan.

The Tiger II ’s deck was a beehive of noisy energy, the clamor of ringing hammers, growling diesel engines, straining cables. Arc welders hissed, throwing sparks, as supervisors shouted orders, urging speed as pipes, fittings, and a thousand other crucial pieces came together to begin the process of drilling on the ocean floor several hundred feet below — a cakewalk for the experienced deep-water crew.

The commander of the Kunming hung up the bridge phone. His orders from Admiral Ji in the preparation of the mission were clear, and now he confirmed them again verbally. He’d known the admiral for more than twenty years and knew him to be an honorable man. The kind of man an officer would willingly follow into combat, into the very mouth of hell itself. But the commander also knew that the decision he was about to make would change the course of his life and, perhaps, the life of his nation if the enemy didn’t react the way they were supposed to. And if military history had taught him anything, it was that the enemy seldom obeys one’s wishes.

No matter. If the operation went sideways, the commander knew his life would be forfeit, but he comforted himself in the knowledge that Ji would take the blame first. That was why the commander believed Ji was the man best suited to lead China, not the moneygrubbing pigs in Beijing.

The commander pushed open the steel hatch and stepped out onto the flying bridge. Held the binoculars to his eyes. Saw the delta-winged Multimodal Volant surveillance drone high above, no doubt recording everything.

The commander stepped back into the bridge, took his command chair. Picked up his phone.

“Lieutenant Liu, do you still have the target on your scope?”

“Aye, sir!” The lieutenant was one deck below in the CIC, a darkened room of two dozen video monitors and computerized combat stations. The commander hated it. Thought it looked like a video-game parlor.

“Then… engage.”

Before the commander hung up the phone, a single TY-90 missile roared out of a rotating deck launcher, arcing into the sky like a bolt of lightning in reverse.

The first shot in the battle of Mao Island , he thought.

He doubted it would be the last.

You may have lost your privacy, but at least you’re in the Chairman’s Suite now,” Pearce said. He stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, staring at the bright lights of Tokyo’s bustling business district. He sipped a hot green tea.

“Comped, too. One of the perks of fame. That poor hotel manager was embarrassed that he didn’t recognize me when I checked in.” Myers sat on a large sectional, also enjoying hot tea. The suite was tastefully modern. Very Mad Men , Japanese-style. Glass, stone, wood.

“He’s probably just as concerned about your security. You’ve got the whole floor to yourself — including guards stationed at both ends of the hall.”

“And you,” Myers added.

“I’m not on his payroll.”

“You should be.”

“He couldn’t afford me.”

Pearce fell into the cushions opposite Myers. “You sure you’re okay?”

She smiled, nodded. Her tired eyes said otherwise. “Part of the job description.”

“I must’ve missed that part about you possibly dying.”

“It’s what we agreed to,” Myers insisted. But she was touched at his obvious concern.

“Not exactly. But you pulled it off perfectly.”

“Thank you. I don’t remember much after we went into the library.”

She took another sip of tea. The bionic pancreas was functioning as expected. Not only in her body, but in the worldwide press attention they’d hoped to receive. Now everybody on the planet knew that a bionic pancreas wasn’t nearly as high-tech as it sounded. Clearly, the former American president could never again walk through an airport security scanner without setting off the alarm bells.

She wore on her body two Tandem t: slim insulin pumps connected to separate infusion sets, a Dexcom CGM monitor, an embedded glucose sensor and transmitter that monitored her bloodstream, and an iPhone streaming the data every five minutes, running a patented algorithm that drove dosing decisions. Nearly three hundred times a day, the iPhone broadcast Bluetooth dosing commands to the pumps according to the insulin levels in her bloodstream.

Hardware, software, smartphone, sensors. Myers was loaded for bear. But at least the bionic pancreas had completely automated the monitoring and dosing functions that every other type 1 diabetic had been forced to figure out manually for decades. No more stinging finger pricks for blood samples, no more nasty needles chasing veins. Best of all, no more mistakes or miscalculations that could result in under- or overdosing — the kind of thing that could land a diabetic in the hospital battling a coma or worse.

But both of them knew that in Myers’s case, the overdose wasn’t an accident. After consulting with her endocrinologist, she fasted for twenty-four hours, ate very few carbohydrates before or during Ito’s dinner, injected twice as much “fast” insulin as was normally prescribed, and waited for the inevitable results.

In typical Margaret Myers overachiever fashion, she nearly overdid it. The goal was to pass out. When the ambulance arrived, she was on the edge of a diabetic coma.

Myers reached for her iPhone, didn’t feel it. A momentary panic. She glanced over at the wireless charging pad. Saw it there. Relaxed again.

“When did you learn you were diabetic?” Pearce asked. “Type 1, right?”

“They call mine type 1.5. It falls somewhere between type 1 and type 2. LADA is the official term.”

“Latent autoimmune diabetes of adults,” Pearce said.

“If you already knew the answer, why’d you ask?” Myers said. She was secretly pleased that he’d taken the trouble to do the research, but she played it cool. “That’s what lawyers do when they cross-examine witnesses.”