by James Rosone
Lieutenant Martinez walked up to Sergeant First Class Price. “This place gives me the creeps,” he said. “It’s almost like something out of a zombie apocalypse or the Walking Dead TV series or something.”
Price smirked. “You have a wild imagination, LT. It just looks like a bombed-out air base to me. Did you call it in yet? What did Major Fowler say?”
“I called it in ten minutes ago,” Martinez replied. “He said congrats on the seizure and to hold on to it. He told me the rest of the company is stuck pulling security for that artillery firebase until they’re relieved by another Army unit. He did say he passed our situation on to battalion, and they’re going to see if a regular Army unit can relieve us. The Air Force is apparently eager to get this base operational; they want to move an engineering unit out here ASAP.
“In the meantime, I want everyone to try and get some sleep for now,” Martinez ordered. “Once sunup comes, I think this place is going to get a lot harder to defend. This is an enormous base, and we’re just a platoon.”
Price nodded, then went to work getting a guard rotation set up for the platoon.
*******
Adyar Police Station, Chennai
It was nearly two in the morning when Captain Wilkes got a call from the battalion commander, ordering him to have his company stop everything they were doing and head out to a new location seventy-something kilometers outside the city. Apparently, a platoon of Rangers had seized an opportunity to capture an enemy air base, and now the brass wanted it properly protected so the Air Force could get it up and running ASAP. The following hour was a rush of controlled chaos as he ordered his platoons to wrap up whatever they were doing and join his position near the Adyar police station.
Wilkes felt lucky that the entire movement was happening in the wee hours of the morning, when the citizens of Chennai would still be largely asleep. Unfortunately, so were most of the soldiers, who now had to be roused from their slumber and made ready to fight. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours into the invasion of India and they were already receiving their first fragmentary order or FRAGO, and it was to go reinforce a platoon of Rangers deep in enemy territory.
Spotting Lieutenant Slater, Captain Wilkes walked up to him in a hurry. “Are your troopers ready, Lieutenant?” he asked, looking at his watch. “I think we’re starting to fall behind schedule.”
Slater nodded. “My guys are ready to roll, Sir. We’re packed up. My only question is, since I’ve been able to establish a reasonably friendly relationship with the local police captain, do we know who’s going to take our place? I’d at least like to tell them who they’ll be working with.”
“I don’t have a lot of details. The battalion CG said something about a New Zealand unit moving in to take our place, but I have no idea what unit or who they are.” He paused for a second as he guided the two of them away from the soldiers nearby. “Look, I have no idea who’s running this mess right now or what’s going on. All I know is I was at battalion headquarters to pick up some supplies and the commanding general was pipin’ hot about something. One of the orderlies told me the brigade commander got a FRAGO order from the Ranger battalion that they were in some sort of trouble and had a platoon way out deep in enemy territory that stumbled onto an empty airfield and took the opportunity to seize it. Now the Australian general in charge of the ground operations here ordered it reinforced and turned into forward operation base. We’re the first unit to head out there, but from what I gathered at battalion, it looks like the rest of the unit will be joining us out there over the next couple of days, along with a few artillery units.”
Slater kind of slumped his shoulders at the news. Captain Wilkes understood; like many of the soldiers in their unit, he had hoped they’d be assigned to garrison duty in Chennai. That would have been a relatively safe duty assignment, and it would have meant they wouldn’t see a lot of combat unless things completely turned to crap with the locals, which seemed to be relatively low-risk given their current relationship with the local government.
Slater shook out his shoulders, then stood up straight and tall. “Well, look at it this way, Sir,” he said. “We’ve been selected to go save the Rangers. We’ll be able to brag about that to these guys forever once we get back to Fort Lewis.”
Wilkes laughed, and for a moment, the tension in the air was lifted. The captain had even more reason to avoid combat than Slater at the moment—his wife was expecting twin boys any day now. All he wanted to do was survive this war and get home to them. His poor wife was already trying to deal with their other two girls, ages two and three, and now twins. Thank God her parents had come to live with them while he was gone. He wasn’t sure how she would handle it all.
“Thanks for lightening the mood, Ian,” Wilkes responded. “I suppose I’m just distracted with the twins coming any day now. I know I need to keep my head in the game, but it’s so hard right now. I just wish I could be there with them, and frankly, there isn’t anyone I can really talk to about this.” He wiped a tear away, making sure none of the men could see them.
Ian just nodded. “It’ll be OK, Sir. You can always talk to me. I’m not going to judge you or think less of you. You helped me out a lot back in Washington when I was mentally heading in the wrong direction after I returned from Korea. For a while, I really thought I was going to go AWOL or shoot myself. You gave me a mission and a purpose, and that helped turn me around.”
The two talked for a couple more minutes, then headed back to their soldiers to get ready to meet whatever was waiting for them at this airfield the Rangers had captured.
*******
The sun crept up slowly at first, then before Wilkes knew it, the sun was up, and the darkness of the previous evening was all but gone. Alpha Company continued to race down what was largely a deserted highway toward the Arakkonam Naval Air Station. With the brighter light, Wilkes and the rest of his soldiers took in the opportunity to see the Indian countryside.
Within two hours of leaving Chennai, they arrived in the city of Arakkonam with little to no fanfare. While they hadn’t run into any enemy resistance up to this point, Captain Wilkes noticed they were getting the stink eye from the locals once they realized the soldiers were Americans.
It took them a few minutes of driving around to actually locate the airport, and eventually the front gate, but once they did, they rolled right up to a couple of Special Forces-outfitted JLTVs and a squad of Rangers who eagerly greeted them.
An officer was there to meet them, and he quickly directed them to where he wanted the company to marshal so he could speak to them all at once. Ten minutes after their arrival, they all milled around outside their vehicles, waiting for whoever was in charge of this little operation to come over and tell them what the plan was. Finally, someone walked up to Captain Wilkes to introduce himself.
“I’m First Lieutenant Martinez. I’m the platoon leader of the Rangers who seized this airfield.” Martinez extended his hand to Captain Wilkes.
After they shook hands and finished introductions, Martinez got right down to business. “First, I want to thank you guys for getting here on such short notice,” he said. “I’m sure you saw on the way into the base that we’re not exactly looked upon very nicely by the locals here. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that we bombed the base into a stub before we got here. What I need from your soldiers, Captain Wilkes, is for them to establish a defensive perimeter around the base. We have to make sure this place is as secured as we can make it until additional soldiers and the engineers arrive to help us fortify it.”
Captain Wilkes nodded.
Martinez continued, “Once your unit has the perimeter secured, my platoon needs to expand our footprint of the area and see if there are any enemy units in the area. We have a few surveillance drones up, but they have a limited range. Intelligence says there’s an Indian army base roughly 120 kilometers from here. My unit needs to get eyes on it and see if we have any enemy units headed our direction.”
He paused briefly. “How soon do you believe your guys can get this place secured so my platoon can get moving?” he asked.
Thinking for a moment, Wilkes made the decision that he’d rather have these Rangers out scouting for possible enemy units than showing his men around the base. They’d figure it out soon enough. “Lieutenant, why don’t you guys go ahead and go? We’ll sort things out on the base,” Wilkes suggested. “We’ve got the rest of our battalion arriving throughout the rest of the day, so we’ll be fine. If you find any enemy units heading in our direction, please contact us. I’m going to assign my Fourth Platoon, headed by Lieutenant Slater here, to be your QRF if you need it. He’s seen a ton of action in Korea and his platoon is hard-core—they’ll be able to help you if you need it.”
Slater extended his hand, and the two talked for a minute before the Rangers headed out. With the business of handing the airfield over complete, the men of Alpha Company went to work exploring their new home.
*******
Bengaluru, India
Once it became clear the Global Defense Force was going to attack India, the Prime Minister ordered Lieutenant General Nirmal Chander’s XXI Corps to the south of India, so they could be rapidly deployed to deal with a potential Allied invasion force.
While many in the government didn’t believe the GDF would actually invade India, General Chander was not going to take any chances. He moved his Corps headquarters to Bengaluru, which essentially placed most of his forces in the center of the country, where he could easily direct them to meet the enemy.
With a large percentage of the active Indian Army committed to the Russian front, the only other available forces to defend the country were along the Pakistan-Indian border, leaving only his Corps to defend much of the interior of India. Fortunately, his force had been heavily augmented by the activation of the Reserves and the raising of a citizen militia force. With most of the reserves having been assigned to his command, he had 350,000 reservists and roughly 200,000 citizen militiamen in addition to his regular Army force of 67,000 career soldiers. His biggest challenge was moving his forces to fight the enemy and making sure they were properly equipped, fed and housed.
A young major who was helping to run Chander’s operation center ran up to the general and signaled for his attention. “General Chander, reports are coming in that the Americans seized the Arakkonam Naval Air Station. Our intelligence says it’s a very small unit that has taken over the air base, but they expect more Americans to show up soon. What do you want me to tell the scouts to do?” he asked.
General Chander held back his emotions so as not to give away his feelings in front of the young officer. “The Allies captured that base a lot faster than I thought they would,” he thought. Though he was cool on the exterior, he was panicking a bit inside.
“This is to be expected,” Chander said nonchalantly. “The Allies will look to expand their forces inland now that they’ve secured a port. We need to move our forces quickly though to deal with them.”
Chander turned to face the Commander of the 36th Infantry Division, Brigadier General Singh Ghuman. “General, you need to get your division on the move. Order your militia and reserves to attack the Americans at the naval air station. I’m going to have the rest of the Corps move around you to attack the enemy formations in Chennai before they’re able to get themselves organized outside the city. Timing is going to be critical—rush your forces forward, even if it means sacrificing many of your militiamen. They need to tie the Americans down while we get the rest of our army in position. Is that understood?”
“Yes, General. We’ll overwhelm them with our sheer numbers,” General Ghuman responded with a wicked grin on his face.
They Kept Coming
Banavaram Reserve Forest
It was nearly morning as First Lieutenant Martinez sat with Sergeant First Class Price, poring over the images being fed to them by their reconnaissance drone. They were nervously monitoring the movement of an enemy force heading toward them. The number of enemy soldiers and vehicles showing up was scary.
For the past twelve hours, Martinez had been watching the enemy build up around the city of Ranipet. On three separate occasions, he had tried to call in for an airstrike, only to be told the available air assets were busy dealing with an Indian armor unit further to the north. Desperate for some fire support to break up this enemy buildup, he tried to get some friendly artillery units to do the job. Unfortunately, the battery of 105mm artillery guns were still being towed to the airfield they had captured thirty-six hours earlier. While the capture of the airfield was a huge tactical boon, it had also placed them very deep behind enemy lines, well beyond the initial fire support bases the Allies had set up outside of Chennai.
“I wish we had armed drones. At least we could feel like we’re doing something,” said the sergeant operating their little surveillance drone. They watched several busses drop off another large batch of soldiers at the edge of the city.
Patting the guy on the shoulder, Sergeant Price responded, “The gun bunnies will be set up soon enough. It doesn’t look like these guys are getting ready to move anytime soon.”
“I can’t believe how many enemy soldiers are amassing like this. If we had proper air assets available to us right now, these guys would be toast,” mused Lieutenant Martinez.
The rest of the company had finally made it to the base twelve hours ago. They’d been working with the regular Army units getting the base perimeter expanded beyond the airfield to include enough flat ground for two batteries of artillery. An engineering unit had also arrived and was quickly working to get fortified bunkers, gun positions and trenches built, while an Air Force Red Horse unit was getting the airfield operational.
Lieutenant Martinez’s radio came to life. “Zombie Four-Six, this is Zombie Six. What’s the status of that enemy unit you guys have been watching?” asked their company CO, Major Fowler.
“Zombie Six, this is Zombie Four-Six,” Martinez answered. “We have eyes on at least two battalions’ worth of irregular militia forming around the city of Ranipet, roughly nine kilometers from our position. The militia appear to be outfitted with a series of pickup trucks and older-model army trucks as transports. Break.”
“Several kilometers beyond the city appears to be one battalion’s worth of mechanized infantry and one armor unit, count twenty-eight T-72 Ajeya main battle tanks, and thirty-two BMP-2s. No artillery support spotted. How copy?” asked Martinez after he’d read off their report.
“Good copy, Zombie Four-Six. We need to buy more time for the base defenses to be built and for the artillery units to arrive. I’m sending Third Platoon to reinforce your position. They’re going to bring our mortar tubes and two hundred mortar rounds with them. If those forces move before we give you the order to fall back to the base, then I need you to try your best to bog them down and keep them busy to buy more time. How copy?”
Martinez and Price looked each other over, both obviously aware this was nuts.
Regardless, Lieutenant Martinez acknowledged the order and then got off the radio.
“Well…it looks like we’re waiting on Third Platoon to arrive,” Martinez said, using a tone that was half laughing, half ready to cry. “I guess we’d better work on getting our position as prepared as possible for an incoming enemy attack.”
The Rangers of Fourth Platoon went to work, feverishly getting their positions ready as best they could to repel an enemy advance. They set their heavy machine guns up to provide interlocking fields of fire and prepared a couple of positions ready where they would place the company’s five 81mm mortar tubes once they arrived.
Martinez and Price continued to talk on the side about the situation at hand, and eventually agreed that if any of those tanks or BMPs attacked their position, orders or not, they would fall back to the base. They didn’t have any weapons that could stand up to a tank. At least on the base, they had those Strykers that packed TOWs, and some were equipped with 105mm and 20mm antit
ank weapons.
Morning turned to early afternoon, and then Third Platoon arrived with 48 extra Rangers and their mortar tubes. The added soldiers began to dig a series of three-man foxholes at the perimeter of the forest preserve and set up their three additional machine guns. Then the Rangers continued to wait for news that their artillery support had finally arrived so they could start to put a world of hurt on the forces building up before them.
“Zombie Four-Six, Zombie Six. How copy?” called their commander.
Lieutenant Martinez called back, “Zombie Six. Zombie Four-Six. Good copy. Send.”
“I’ve just received word the air base is officially operational. Five AT-6 Wolverines are now en route to the base, along with a cargo plane bringing munitions and fuel for them. We’ll have tactical air support available within a few hours. Break.
“The battery of 105mm Howitzers we’ve been waiting on will be ready to start fire missions within thirty mikes. A second battery of 155mm Howitzers will be operational in ninety mikes. Start prioritizing targets for the gun bunnies. Break.
“The base commander wants to keep you guys in your current location to spot for the artillery and ground-attack planes until closer to evening. Then we’ll look to pull you guys back closer to the base. How copy?” confirmed Major Fowler.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Martinez was glad they weren’t going to have to spend any more time in this position than they had to. “That’s a good copy on all. We’ll prioritize the enemy armor first, then work our way down to the troop concentrations. Is it possible to get any HIMARS support from Chennai?” asked Martinez.
