November 23, 2027 – Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), near the Spratly Islands

The tension was palpable. The stakes were global.

In the tight confines of Flag Plot, Rear Adm. Bauer studied the latest satellite feeds and SIGINT. “Kill Switch,” she said grimly, tapping the screen, “was our ace in the hole.”

It wasn’t a metaphor. “Kill Switch” was real—a classified DARPA-developed cyber payload the size of a microwave, hidden on a rocky islet just off the Chinese coast. Once activated, it could fry enemy communications, blind targeting systems, and cripple the electronics of thousands of vehicles simultaneously.

It was the final card to stop an imminent Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. But now, with 750,000 troops massed on the mainland and amphibious staging underway, Kill Switch was silent, its batteries dead.

With diplomacy stalled and time running out, options narrowed to near-zero. Helicopter insertion was deemed a suicide mission: Too slow, too vulnerable, too far.  A stealth drone couldn’t carry the weight.

Capt. Marlow........

© The National Interest