Fatal Terrain

Fatal Terrain is a 1997 techno-thriller novel written by Dale Brown. It is set a few weeks after the ending of Shadows of Steel. The title of the book is taken off one of Sun Tzu's passages in The Art of War: Where if one fights with intensity he will survive but if he does not fight with intensity he will perish, it is 'fatal terrain.' On fatal terrain, always engage in battle. Plot Taiwanese politicians vote to declare independence from China in early June 1997 and the US immediately recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign state. However, Beijing does not take the declaration lightly and plans offensive operations to reimpose the one-China policy, with the initial swing led by the PLAN's deployment of the aircraft carrier Mao Zedong. Meanwhile, the US government authorizes a covert deployment of two EB-52 Megafortresses to patrol over the Taiwan Strait and keep watch on the situation. Lt. General Bradley Elliott successfully reorganizes the survivors of the original Old Dog crew for the operation as part of a plan to pitch the Megafortress as new aircraft for the US Air Force. A stand-off between a Taiwanese Navy frigate and the Mao Zedong task force escalates as the Old Dog crew is forced to intervene. The battle opens an opportunity for the Chinese to wage an international public-relations campaign to paint the US and Taiwan as the aggressors. Chinese Admiral Sun Ji Guoming uses Sun Tzu's lessons on deception to give the campaign added leverage. His schemes include launching torpedoes against the Mao Zedong and frame the attack on the Taiwanese submarine Hai Hu shadowing it in Hong Kong harbor, disguising a ferry as a cruiser to provoke an attack by the Megafortress, and detonating a suitcase nuke on the USS Independence as it steams out of Japan for deployment to the Taiwan Strait. Sun uses the success of his deception operation to launch a massive air campaign against Taiwan, starting off with nuclear-tipped SAMs fired on Taiwanese F-16s attacking a naval base in Fujian province. The Chinese attacks on Taiwan - with nuclear weapons used on several of them - prompts the US to prepare its own strategic nuclear forces.