Chimera (51 page)

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 11
TH
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 what 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?”

“Maybe they are on a timetable for something.” Pathanya offered.

“Perhaps.”

“Or maybe,” Pathanya continued, “they know this is their only window for capturing Thimpu before our boys arrive and turn this place into a fortress. Look, I have enough things to worry about here. Let’s leave the speculation to warlord and his commanders. Stay sharp and keep your eyes peeled!”

As Pathanya chimed out, Vikram remained lost in thought.

He was pulled out of it when the first flashes of light appeared further north and the Chinese battalion lost its headquarters to murderous fire from Hotel-Six rockets. Twenty near-simultaneous flashes destroyed the Chinese ability to control the momentum to Thimpu. While they sorted it out, they gave Colonel Misra the time he desperately needed to deploy into the Bhutanese capital.   

ABOVE SOUTHERN TIBET

DAY 7 + 1345 HRS

The three flights of J-8IIs from the PLAAF 37
TH
Fighter Division lit afterburners and accelerated away from their H-6U tankers. As the sunlight glinted from their cockpits, the pilots of the nine J-8IIs could see the three Su-30MKKs from the 33
RD
Fighter Division flying a few thousand feet above their tankers on BARCAP duty…

The J-8II squadron-commander realized that these Flankers were not going to provide support to his pilots today. Not after their murderous losses in the last seven days. The remaining Chinese Su-27/30s in theater were now being pooled from various depleted squadrons and tasked with defensive missions.

What that meant for the less-prestigious mud-movers like the J-8II and J-7 units was not something the squadron-commander wanted to dwell on today. As they left the tankers and their precious escorts behind, the J-8IIs switched off afterburners, spread into a loose formation and headed south.

Once again the PLAAF had been tasked with hitting Paru airport. A J-10 unit had done this successfully the day before. And died doing it. Not one single pilot had returned from the eight aircraft sent. But the attack had been successful and Feng and Chen were pleased enough to try it again. This time they were throwing a J-8II squadron on the job. 

The PLA General leading the Highland Division on the ground in Bhutan was convinced that the airport at Paru must be shut down permanently in order to secure victory. As one of the only theaters where any chance of success now lay for the battered PLA, Beijing had allocated priority and Wencang had been asked to assist with his fighter-bombers.

Then there was also the issue of a Indian MBRL battery at Paru, which was laying waste to the Highland Division’s attempts to break into, and capture, Thimpu. Chinese satellites had located the battery north of Paru and three of the J-8IIs were tasked with the elimination of that target. Another three were armed purely for air-to-air combat.

The squadron-commander knew what he was leading his men into. That was why he was commanding this mission despite strict orders from his regiment’s political officer. Everybody knew what the chances of survival from this mission were.