He was seasoned enough to know to give the linked aircraft ample room to perform the tricky operation. The Chinese had only recently perfected air-to-air refueling, so the pilots wouldn’t have much experience. No sense causing an accident with his jet wash. Watanabe came around so he was behind the tandem planes. That way when the J-10 Vigorous Dragon detached from the flying gas station, he’d be on his six. The last Chinese fighter Kenji had done this to hadn’t been able to shake him until he’d finally given up and broke for home base. The veteran pilot felt confident that this new Chinese wannabe ace wouldn’t fare much better.

The swept wing H-6 suddenly dove as it hit clear air turbulence. The J-10 pilot should have backed off and broken connection with the tanker, but instead he tried to stay with the bigger plane and overcompensated. To Watanabe’s horror, the two planes came together and then came apart in a mushrooming fireball that blossomed like a second sun. He threw his own aircraft down and to the left to avoid the devastation and still felt bits of shrapnel pepper the F-16’s airframe. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the awful sight. The wreckage of two destroyed planes finally emerged from the bottom of the explosion like discarded husks. No piece was much bigger than a sheet of plywood, and all of it was charred black.

There would be no parachutes.

Watanabe radioed in his report, hoping, praying that he hadn’t been witness to the trigger event that would send his beloved Nippon to war.

Despite protestations of innocence from the highest level, including an invitation to inspect Kenji Watanabe’s fighter jet to prove it hadn’t shot down the two Chinese aircraft, Beijing couldn’t be mollified. They insisted that this had been a deliberate act and demanded the Japanese withdraw all aircraft and ships from the Diaoyu Islands and cede their sovereignty at once.

China made preparations to send most of her fleet to sea, including troopships carrying over a thousand commandos to occupy the islands by force.

Diplomatic channels hummed with attempts to defuse the situation, but neither side was going to back down. Japan ramped up its own military presence on the islands by commandeering a hydrofoil fast ferry and rushing in troops. The American President had no choice but to order the USS John C. Stennis to the disputed territory. He also lit a fire under the Secretary of Defense’s tail to see that the crippled George Washington was back in service ASAP no matter what the lawyers said.

Inside the week, unless America’s calming presence could prevent it, the third Sino-Japanese war was about to erupt.

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