This Is a Fighter Jet, Not a Computer

"Lieutenant Colonel Xing, begin the operation!"

One of the enemy's fighter jets had crashed. It was too big an incident for Li Zhi not to report, so he broke radio silence and reported the situation back.

The command center in Yuzhou had been monitoring him all along. When Lei Hu heard his report, he knew the time was ripe!

While the two sides were "playing," a fighter jet had been lost. Nothing could be bigger than that.

It was easy to imagine that Peacock would pay close attention to the incident and also dispatch most of its air power to the area.

"Three-Yellow Chicken, be careful. Reinforcements will arrive in ten minutes!"

"Understood!"

To avoid arousing Peacock's suspicions and causing it to strengthen its defensive deployment, there were no friendly air forces around Li Zhi.

Now that this had happened, Peacock's air forces would surely begin converging here, while its ground deployments would surely suffer from a lack of attention.

Everyone would be focused on what was happening here, making it the perfect opportunity for Dragon Country's ground forces to act.

At this point, there was no need to worry about arousing Peacock's suspicions. After all, anyone could see that this was an unexpected incident.

Li Zhi could actually have returned by now. His mission was complete, and he had undoubtedly become a thorn in Peacock's side.

But to buy more time, Li Zhi chose not to return. He did not even let himself disappear from the enemy's radar.

Li Zhi was like a beacon now, drawing fighter jets from both sides toward him.

His teammate had ejected, but Xiaerdi did not dare go forward to avenge him. Even with two against one, someone on his side had been taken out inexplicably.

Now that he was alone, he had even less courage to face Li Zhi by himself.

No matter how Li Zhi provoked him, he acted as if he had seen nothing and ignored him completely.

Even when Li Zhi repeated his old trick, using his fire-control radar to illuminate Xiaerdi again and again, Xiaerdi merely dodged as best he could. When he could not dodge, he simply gave up trying.

"Beeeeeeep-"

The warning tone became a continuous sound, confirming that Li Zhi had locked onto him. Now, all Li Zhi had to do was press the button at his hand, and Xiaerdi and his fighter jet would turn into a ball of flame.

Although Xiaerdi was certain that the Dragon Country fighter opposite him would not dare shoot him down outright, his heart still clenched.

Xiaerdi had both hands on the ejection handle, his eyes fixed on Li Zhi's fighter. The moment he saw the flames of a missile launch, he would eject.

Waiting for his opponent to pass judgment was undoubtedly an ordeal. Xiaerdi's head and hands were covered in sweat.

He did not dare wipe the sweat from his hands, afraid he would miss the best moment to eject.

In the end, Li Zhi did not press the button. Dragon Country had not declared war on Peacock, and this mission was about causing trouble, not launching an all-out attack.

Of course, the main reason was that both fighter jets were under observation by both sides, making it hard to shift responsibility afterward.

If they had been in a radar blind spot at extremely low altitude, there would have been nothing for anyone to use against them, and the two sides could only have argued back and forth.

Li Zhi abandoned the attack, and the warning sound in Xiaerdi's cockpit stopped at the same time. Xiaerdi was relieved to have escaped with his life.

The people at the Muhante command center, who had been monitoring Xiaerdi's situation in real time, also breathed a little easier.

Sunak was just about to curse Xiaerdi for being spineless when something unexpected happened.

After realizing that Li Zhi had abandoned the attack, Xiaerdi tried to maneuver his fighter farther away from that jinx. But no matter what he did, the plane did not respond at all.

He had encountered the same situation as that unlucky fellow before him, Sangji Ayi!

Being locked onto by Li Zhi's fire-control radar for so long had caused the Peacock fighter's flight-control system to determine that the fighter had been shot down, locking it down.

With the fighter locked down by the system, Xiaerdi naturally could not operate any of its controls.

However, all the fighter's instruments and gauges were still working normally, including the engine. They simply could no longer be adjusted manually.

"Damn it, Muhante, I can't control the fighter!"

The curse had barely reached Sunak's lips when Xiaerdi's panicked voice rang out, leaving Sunak no choice but to ask what was wrong.

"What happened?"

Sunak had a sense of déjà vu. Something like this seemed to have happened not long ago.

"I don't know. The control stick and rudder aren't responding, and all the instrument-panel buttons have stopped working too!"

Over the radio, Xiaerdi's voice grew more and more panicked, and the sounds of him repeatedly operating the fighter's controls could be heard clearly.

"Have you tried restarting it?"

Sunak was merely a commander parachuted in to pad his résumé. He knew little more about flying than an ordinary person.

"Do you think this is a computer? It's a fighter jet!"

There was a joke in the computer world that ninety-nine percent of problems could be solved by restarting!

In a sense, a fighter jet's control system was also a specialized computer, which was why Sunak made the suggestion.

But he had overlooked the actual situation!

Restarting the entire fighter jet in midair-leaving aside whether the idea was even feasible, Xiaerdi was in no position to do it, even if it could solve the current problem.

The fighter was not flying very high, and restarting it would first require shutting down the engine.

That alone could kill Xiaerdi. Once the engine was shut down, the fighter, which weighed several tons, would instantly drop like a massive lump of iron.

What Xiaerdi did not know, however, was that he had no need to worry about that problem, because he could not even shut down the engine!

"Is the fighter climbing or descending right now?"

Xiaerdi's retort left Sunak speechless, so a controller beside him hurriedly asked about Xiaerdi's situation.

"It's flying level right now. Hurry and think of something, or I'll have to eject!"

If there had not been any immediate danger, Xiaerdi would never have wasted so much time talking to the tower. He would have ejected already.

"Then you..."

"My current flight path is headed toward Dragon Country. I'll enter Dragon Country's territory in an estimated ten minutes!"

Xiaerdi interrupted the controller's question and made his meaning perfectly clear.

If they could not come up with a solution within ten minutes, he would have to eject. He had no desire to go to Dragon Country and continue being teammates with his former teammate, who was currently a "guest" there.

Peacock had no idea what to do. It did not even know why this had happened.

With no other choice, it urgently contacted Eagle to ask why this was happening and how to fix it.

Eagle Country naturally knew why, but how could it possibly explain it to Peacock?

At the same time, it had no way to solve the problem remotely, so it could only give vague answers and brush off Peacock's inquiries.