Chimera

by Vivek Ahuja

  Pathanya’s smiled broadened. His team had been through hell but at least their spirits remained high.

  And that is good…

  “Roger that, Vik! Good luck,” Pathanya said as he unslung his rifle and moved out behind the last of his men.

  HAA-DZONG

  BHUTAN

  DAY 7 + 1100 HRS

  Lieutenant-General Potgam stood with his arms crossed inside the operations center for Joint-Force-Bhutan at the former IMTRAT headquarters building. He was staring intently at the paper map of Bhutan pinned on the wall of the room. His staff officers were scurrying about in all directions. Potgam was currently listening to his new operations officer: a Colonel who had been sent forward from eastern-army headquarters to take over from the Lieutenant-Colonel handling the job till now.

  Unfortunately that latter officer had met with an accident earlier in the morning before sunrise when he had been hit by one of the AXE utility vehicles outside the building. The driver of that vehicle had fallen asleep on the wheel as a result of exhaustion. But such unfortunate things happened, as Potgam and the others understood. Yet another casualty out here…

  “Colonel,” Potgam interjected on the verge of frustration, “my only concern at this point is to get the 11TH Para Battalion into Thimpu before the Chinese get there. Send the 9TH Para to Major-General Dhillon in eastern Bhutan. He can use all the reinforcements he can get. Eastern army is already sending a brigade from IV Corps to him to beef up their left flank. But he could still use the special-forces capability. And keep the incoming 12TH Para Battalion on security duties around Paru airport and west from there where Fernandez is deployed. Especially that battery.

  “I am particularly concerned about security to Fernandez’s unit. His is the only heavy precision arty we have south of Thimpu and the Chinese know it. If I was in their position I would be sending out my own special-forces teams to find and destroy that battery and remove any interference with my plans. We can’t let that happen. Tell the 12TH Para commander that I want that arty and that airport at Paru secured.”

  Potgam saw the Colonel nodding and making notes. He sighed and turned to the lone unit marker pinned on top of Thimpu on the map.

  Pathanya’s boys. It must be pretty lonely up there…

  Potgam turned back to the Colonel:

  “And what’s the E-T-A on the 11TH Para getting up to Thimpu? Pathanya’s boys have held out as much as we could possibly expect them to. They have been pushed all the way to Thimpu’s outskirts. We have to get some backup up there to them, damn it!”

  The Colonel walked up to the board and stood alongside Potgam and pointed a finger at Paru airport.

  “Sir, 11TH Para is arriving at Paru as we speak. I have requisitioned the last two surviving air-force Mi-26s to assist in the movement of deployed forces from the airport here,” the Colonel slid his finger across the map to the north and tapped where it said Thimpu, “to here at Thimpu. What we need from Captain Pathanya is for him to secure the Dechencholing palace helipads. He has already been informed of this task.”

  “Good. We really don’t have much time before the Chinese march on the capital,” Potgam said as he glanced at the red unit markers north of the single blue marker on Thimpu…

  “We really are out of time. See if you can push everybody to move faster than they are,” Potgam ordered.

  “Sir!”

  The Colonel saluted and ran out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. Potgam checked his watch. He then picked up his cap from the table and left the room. As he walked past the snow covered lawns outside glistening in the morning sunlight, he could hear the distant rumble of artillery from the Chumbi valley.

  If I was the Chinese brigade commander north of Thimpu, I would be assaulting the city right about now…

  Damn the Chinese attack on Paru! They have brought us to the verge of losing all of Bhutan north of this valley!

  But if they think they have won, they are out of their fucking minds.

  Warlord is not so easily defeated.

  NORTHERN OUTSKIRTS OF THIMPU

  BHUTAN

  DAY 7 + 1220 HRS

  “Time to wake up, Vik,” a distant yet familiar voice said.

  Already? What the hell. I just got to sleep. Five more minutes. Come on, I haven’t had proper sleep in two days. Just five more minutes?

  A distant crashing explosion rumbled through and Vikram’s eyes opened with a jerk, still red from the exhaustion of combat. The sudden brightness of the day caused him to squint even as his arms reached for his assault-rifle nearby. His sudden motion was caught by his two colleagues.

  “Easy there, Vik!” Sarvanan said. “No danger! That was off to the west in the Chumbi.”

  Sarvanan lowered his binoculars and slid under the protection of the open, meter-high walls on the roof. Vikram looked around and realized after several seconds where he was and what he was doing. He sighed and then lay back on the bare floor again, staring at the clear blue morning sky above. He heard the crunch of the fresh snow under his rifle as he put it down. It reminded him of his childhood in Himachal Pradesh from a few years before. But as much as he was tempted to play in it, he couldn’t.

  Not now at any rate.

  The three men had been careful not to leave patterns in the snow on the roof, knowing fully well that it could be noticed from a Chinese UAV overhead. Their only protection from the cold was their uniforms, which was designed to be thermally insulating. Along with the gloves, helmet and other equipment around their bodies, it was not unbearable. Even out here in the Himalayas. All Vikram had to do to wake himself up despite his tiredness was to remove one glove from one hand. The biting chill hit him like a hammer and removed all the grogginess from his head.

  “What’s it looking like out there?” He asked Sarvanan as he put his glove back on and sat up straight.

  “Same as before,” Sarvanan said.

  Vikram hummed and looked at his wrist watch.

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “About an hour,” Sarvanan replied as he opened a small sealed ready-to-eat meal packet. The packet could be chemically heated and he was doing that as he spoke to Vikram.

  “Tarun has the optics all set up and pointed north. The IMFS is up and so is the laser designator. I have the comms set up and the majority of our stuff is stashed in the apartment below. The building entrances are booby-trapped except for our escape route. As for the Chinese, Tarun and I spotted a small recon party two kilometers north checking out the roads. They retreated quickly enough after doing their job. Nothing unexpected, so I let you grab a few more minutes of sleep,” Sarvanan concluded.

  Vikram did not like that one single bit. He got up with a jerk and went for his binoculars in his backpack next to where he was and turned to Sarvanan:

  “You did what? Why the hell didn’t you wake me up during all this?”

  Sarvanan was not intimidated by the young lieutenant’s sudden anger.

  “You have to trust me on this, Vikram. I have been through enough to know that a tired C-O make mistakes in combat. We need you rested and composed. Besides, nothing unexpected happened; else I would have woken you up. Here, have some hot food. Keep it under cover in case the Chinese have some thermal optics on us from above.”

  Vikram scanned the northern approaches to Thimpu from above the meter-high wall and spotted nothing. After several seconds he lowered himself and took the food packet from Sarvanan. He reminded himself that the latter man was older to him and more experienced in combat. Vikram on the other hand was fresh out of training. So while he was the ranking-officer present, Sarvanan tended to look at him as a wet-nosed cadet still in training…

  Hell, the Captain probably thinks so too. Why else was he so pleased when I chose Sarvanan and Tarun to be my team out here?

  Probably thought I had picked the right babysitters.

  Nah. Experience is something I could use and these two have it. So bite the pain, buddy boy. And learn, learn, lear
n!

  He nodded approvingly at the food once he had a bite. It gave him the energy and clearness to think. Plus a bit of Indian food always tasted good.

  Even here.

  “Movement to the north! Our buddies are back!” Tarun said from his corner as he continued to stare through the tripod mounted IMFS. Vikram and Sarvanan dropped the food packets, picked up their binoculars and moved on their knees to get to the corner where Tarun was.

  The view was clear. Snow camouflaged PLA soldiers from the elite Highland Division in their hundreds running across the open terrain towards the outskirts. Their black painted rifles were contrasting with their uniforms and left little doubt.

  “The bastards are just running across. They know we have no defenses out here!” Vikram noted sourly.

  His job was to observe and report, but it still pained him to see the enemy’s confidence. He turned to Sarvanan:

  “Get me the Captain on the comms right now!”

  “Yes sir!”

  As Sarvanan dashed across the roof on his knees, avoiding standing up for fear of being seen, Vikram turned back to the view of his optics.

  “How far out are they?” he asked Tarun.

  “My take is about five kilometers, sir!”

  “That gives us about an hour before they are on top of us here. Keep an eye on them. Let’s see if command has gotten its ass out of its head for once and can lend some support,” Vikram said as he lowered his binoculars and saw that Sarvanan had the speaker-set for the radio.

  “Spear-One on the comms, sir!” he said as Vikram took it.

  “What’s the news, Vik?” Pathanya’s voice came through over some background static. Vikram strained to make out the words.

  “Not good, sir. The commies are approaching as expected. I am looking at a battalion in depth. They also have some special-forces teams conducting recon for them on the ground. But they haven’t reached the city yet. We figure we have about an hour, tops. Do you have any support at all for us out here?”

  “Roger that,” Pathanya replied. His voice was much clearer now. “The usual suspects are available. Hotel-Six is on standby and warlord-central has R-P-Vs overhead. They are probably watching the Chinese advance as well. They will direct fire. I have open comms with them. We are to observe both the Chinese and our own comms and report anything they miss. Do you copy?”

  “Spear-Two copies all,” Vikram said and waved Sarvanan to get on the wall with the IMFS. He gestured with his fingers pointed above to indicate that friendly UAVs were overhead. He felt better knowing that, and he knew the other two men did as well…

  “One more thing, Vik,” Pathanya continued. “I am at the royal palace with the rest of Spear. We are clearing the helipads here for imminent reinforcements from Paru. Strike what you can, and then fall back to the Palace. If necessary, we will hold them off here. Clear?”

  “Crystal,” Vikram answered.

  “Good. Spear-One out,” the line squawked off.

  PARU AIRFIELD

  EAST OF PARU

  BHUTAN

  DAY 7 + 1230 HRS

  Colonel Misra stepped off the cargo ramp of the An-32 as the deafening roar of its propellers filled the air. He was met by Squadron-Leader Saxena on the tarmac behind the parked aircraft. Paratroopers who had flown in alongside Misra stepped off the ramp as well and moved towards their battalion rally-point on the open grassy fields covered with slight snow to the north of the runway.

  That area was now being used as temporary helipads and Misra could see two army-aviation Dhruv helicopters parked on the grass. Saxena was wearing the standard disruptive pattern camo uniform of the air-force Garuds along with the boonie-hat. Misra on the other hand was kitted out in the standard Para winter-warfare uniform and had his face painted with white and brown slashes, similar to the rest of his men. He glanced at the young man and smiled as he returned the salute.

  “Looks like the air-force isn’t getting left behind with its special forces as far as Bhutan goes!” Misra noted. The rivalry between the various branches of the special-forces was well known. Saxena smiled cruelly.

  “Well somebody had to clear the airport for the army to land, sir!”

  “I will let that slide for now because of this whole thing about a Chinese Division rampaging through Bhutan,” Misra noted and his smile disappeared as he looked at the devastation to the base.

  “The PLAAF really did a number on this airport, didn’t they?”

  “That they did, sir,” Saxena responded and recalled the attack he had barely escaped from…

  “You boys did a hell of a job out here. We will not forget it,” Misra added, noticing the recent wounds on the younger man’s face.

  “I appreciate the sentiment, sir.” Saxena said and then faced the Colonel. “When you get to Thimpu, please kill them all on behalf of my team members who died here.”

  Misra nodded and both men walked away from the now empty An-32. As they walked, the airmen cleared the way for bringing in wounded soldiers to be evacuated and began to load them on board. The two officers walked over to a parked jeep and drove off to a half damaged admin office inside the terminal to coordinate the arrival of the 11TH Para-SF Battalion into Bhutan.

  NORTHERN OUTSKIRTS OF THIMPU

  BHUTAN

  DAY 7 + 1250 HRS

  “R-P-V clearing A-O. Stand by.”

  The radio squawked as a disembodied voice from the UAV flight-control center at the golf-course at Haa-Dzong reported to all on the net.

  “Roger. Visual spectrum view backing out,” another voice said.

  “Eyes opened and we are recording.”

  “Roger.”

  Vikram had keyed the net into his helmet mounted headset while he continued to observe through his binoculars. He was listening on the conversation between the UAV pilot and operators, warlord-central operations staff and Hotel-Six battery operations staff as everybody got into place.

  The battalion of PLA soldiers was now less than two kilometers away. Sarvanan and Tarun had now discarded their tripod mounted optics and exchanged them with their rifles scopes. Tarun adjusted the optics on his Dragunov sniper rifle.

  “Hotel-Six to warlord-central: I hope your birds are clear. We are lighting up the sky in fifteen seconds.” Fernandez said curtly and chimed off. Vikram tightened the grip around the binoculars and counted away the seconds.

  Four…Three…Two…

  “Incoming!” Sarvanan said as his head jerked up at the incoming howls of landing rockets.

  The ground just beyond the outskirts shook as inverted cones of gravel and rocks flew dozens of feet into the air around the leading mass of Chinese soldiers moving tactically forward. The shockwaves took a few seconds to reach Vikram and the others at their post. The concrete floor under their feet rumbled and the snow on the roof shook itself loose. Two dozen large 214mm rockets had pummeled into the ground around the Chinese soldiers, leaving nothing more than a dust cloud in the valley…

  Vikram’s radio burst to life:

  “Kaboom! Good impact, Hotel-Six! Wasted those suckers!”

  An excited voice spoke up from warlord-central. None of the men in Spear had any such energy left. They also got to see up close and personal the nasty effects of these strikes and it was not pretty. Maybe it looked cleaner on the Searcher-II optics. No explosions to hear, no pressure waves rippling through the body and no screaming cries of help from wounded Chinese soldiers to be heard.

  It did seem fun when you removed these elements…

  Vikram knew that Pathanya was also listening in. But neither man had anything to add right then. The radio conversation continued regardless:

  “Yeah, roger that! What’s the assessment on the barrage? I can’t see anything through that dust cloud we raised!”

  “Switch back to thermal?”

  “Uh…negative on thermal. Too much I-R scatter. Stick to visual and hold off on second barrage until we have a clear target. Let the boots on the ground out there confirm w
hat we are seeing up here.”

  That was Vikram’s cue.

  He tried hard to make out anything through the haze, but it was not possible. However, one thing was confirmed: the leading Chinese infantry company had been massacred out of the clear blue sky…

  “This is Spear-Two. Fire-mission successful and good effect on target. Impossible to verify specifics but the leading wave of soldiers took heavy losses. Over,” Vikram said finally.

  He fully expected to hear: “Yeah, no shit, genius!”

  “Roger, Spear-Two. Warlord-central copies all. Hotel-Six, what’s the E-T-A on the second fire mission?” the voice from Haa-Dzong said.

  Guess General Potgam must be standing around…

  “Two minutes! Send targets!”

  “Roger. Second target is the battalion headquarters half-click north of grid baker-quebec-on…”

  Vikram lowered his headset and looked around, seeing Sarvanan and Tarun quietly manning their posts. To the north the haze began to clear.

  This is proving too easy. What are we missing?

  He changed frequencies and pulled up intra-team comms to Pathanya.

  “Spear-One, this is -Two. Do you copy?” he spoke quietly.

  “Go,” Pathanya’s voice came through.

  “Boss, this is proving too easy. Why are they not advancing under artillery cover? They are not even suppressing Hotel-Six,” Vikram said.

  “Is that a problem, Vik? You make it sound like it’s a bad thing!”

  “Negative, boss. I am just saying that the Chinese will not take this kind of mauling lightly. Thing is, I can’t figure out what they can do. For sure they are bringing in heavy mortars to support their assault on Thimpu, but that’s point artillery. Where are their long-range guns? Their rocket systems?”

  “Maybe we took all of them out. I know we took out three of their direct support gun batteries yesterday, so maybe they haven’t had time to replace them yet,” Pathanya speculated.

  “Then why make this kind of suicidal advance now? Why not wait it out until they can provide suppressive arty?”