by Vivek Ahuja
The same view was being shared at the SFC operations center. There also, the view was being watched in silence by all those present. Iyer crossed his arms and let out a deep breath as they overheard the operators of the Heron talking to each other in fear-induced excitement as more and more Agni warheads dived into the DF-21C brigade locations.
Even now, missiles were launching from Assam and Uttar Pradesh as more Agni-IIs were taking to the air. The warheads were all conventional-unitary high-explosive. The PM had not allowed Iyer to use nuclear-weapons in a preemptive strike. Had these warheads been nuclear, Iyer could have eliminated these Brigades in northern Tibet with far few missiles and greater certainty of annihilation.
Luckily for him, the Chinese had not deployed their launchers in single-launcher batteries. They were grouped between four and five launchers per group and that meant that for sixty-five launchers, there were fifteen targets. But each target had its own set of dispersal and launch areas, and there was only one Heron in play here, watching only the southernmost battery and watching the region from far away. There was no way to know exactly which of the three or four pre-determined launch locations were being used by the other launchers in the region. So each had to be struck independently to ensure a high probability of destruction. Iyer had been forced to expend sixty Agni-Is and –IIs in the conventional strike role. A high number by any consideration. And he knew it.
The use of conventional warheads brought a host of other problems as well. The biggest was that they could not be certain whether all of the targets had been eliminated or not. All Indian missiles were striking their targets as predicted, but that didn’t mean their targets were destroyed…
“Oh shit! What the hell is that?” The Heron pilot shouted and Iyer looked away from the floor and his thoughts and back to the wall screen.
“Where?” The EO operator asked.
“Eleven-position!” The pilot exclaimed. “Bring your eyeball to my eleven, damn it!”
“Hold on! The pod has a fixed omega-rate! It doesn’t go faster!” The EO operator shouted, forgetting that they were over open comms with the SFC operations center. Iyer looked at Valhotra and shook his head. He knew what this was.
The wall screen view rotated and showed two long, thin pillars of white-gray smoke rising away from one of the distant smoke clouds. A white region of hot gas at the tip of the rising pillar…
Iyer opened his arms and turned to Valhotra:
“Send out the warning order! We have two DF-21s in the air with nuclear warheads!”
UPPER ATMOSPHERE OVER SOUTHERN TIBET
DAY 15 + 0630 HRS
There was no ordered process to any of this.
When the Indian ballistic-missiles had taken the DF-21C brigades by surprise, it had also eliminated any semblance of an organized strike from the Chinese against Indian military targets. There had been no time to re-task surviving launchers as others were being taken out in quick successions. As a result, there was no chance to re-task to a higher priority target when the launcher for that target had gone up in flames and thunder.
For the surviving launchers, it was time to use them or lose them. The two launchers than had launched their missiles had done so on their original tasking. These two warheads arced south and began diving into their targets. The warheads heated while detached shocks formed around their small blunted-ogive noses. They parted the white clouds in the lower atmosphere above the targets and flashed them away. Several seconds later they dived into their targets in Bhutan without any hope of intercept…
PARU VALLEY
BHUTAN
DAY 15 + 0632 HRS
As the sudden brilliant flash of light overhead paled the early morning sun to the east, Squadron-Leader Saxena jerked his head upwards and saw the expanding ball of light a thousand feet above the town to his west.
North of the town, Lieutenant-Colonel Fernandez also brought his arm in front of his face as ball expanded and then smashed into the town to his south. It was the last thing both men ever saw.
The one-hundred-fifty kiloton nuclear-warhead exploded over the town and the ball of flash and flame expanded radially over the town, instantly enveloping thousands of unfortunate citizens. It flashed over Paru airport like a brick wall of flame and debris that swept aside the two parked An-32s on the ground and smashed past the bombed-out remains of the terminal buildings as well as dozens of army trucks and other vehicles.
North of the town, it wiped out the forest and ate up the convoy of resupply trucks that were moving to Fernandez’s unit. A second later it swept past the Pinaka launchers, rolling them into the wall of debris and flame along with all of Paratroopers from the 12TH Battalion posted there…
BARSHONG
NORTHERN BHUTAN
DAY 15 + 0632 HRS
Pathanya, Vikram and the other members of Spear team dived for cover. They were six kilometers west of the village occupied by the 11TH Para Battalion, when they saw the flash of light over the ridges to their east.
The snow on all peaks around Barshong instantly flashed away under the intense heat and revealed the brown rocky layers underneath. Vikram saw the pressure wave rapidly approaching them as it engulfed the valley and the village and he covered his head with his hands behind the boulders a few seconds before the shockwave swept past them…
NORTH OF BAGHDOGRA AIRBASE
INDIA
DAY 15 + 0635 HRS
There was one unique strategic aspect to the nuclear chaos.
When Chakri had been told that the Heron UAVs had provided them with the most crucial piece of real-time intelligence of this war, he had also recognized that it had given them an advantage not shared by Beijing.
They knew that China intended to use nuclear weapons before they actually used them. And so while the launchers in Tibet were being readied for launch, perhaps the Chinese high command was as well?
Chakri had ordered Iyer to confirm via Malhotra and his RISAT-1 satellite what the status was at a particular location west of Beijing. Following that, he had given Iyer the one special order aside from the preemptive strike against the DF-21C launchers. That order now went into play just as the explosions ripped the Bhutanese mountains apart.
The citizens of Baghdogra were once again witnesses to yet another Indian ballistic-missile launch as a massive Agni-III ICBM lifted off from its canister north of the town and climbed into the early morning sky with a loud, thundering rumble. It climbed slowly, gathering speed as it accelerated into the low hanging clouds, its hot exhaust parting them like god’s hand…
WEST OF BEIJING
CHINA
DAY 15 + 0655 HRS
The surprise was total. But then again, it was meant to.
The RISAT-1 satellite had confirmed to Malhotra and Iyer that members of the CMC were still arriving at the helipads near the underground complex used as their national command center. The satellite had shown Mi-17s parked on the ground and other Z-8s and Z-9s arriving from Beijing.
The window was short, but usable.
The massive two-thousand kilogram high-explosive unitary warhead of the Agni-III dived past the stunned ground-radar crews around Beijing and exploded directly above the helipads. It caught several of the helicopters on the ground and others in the air as spherical pressure wave smashed them aside along with the parked vehicles. A massive shockwave expanded on the ground in a circle and flattened all of the trees in the forests near the helipads while a smoke filled mushroom cloud rose into the air…
THIMPU
DAY 15 + 0830 HRS
//BRITISH JOURNALIST//BBC //IAN SHARP //PHONE INTERCEPT //THIMPU // BEGIN TRANSCRIPT//
“…something has happened! … No, we saw two flashes! … I haven’t seen anything like it in my life. One was definitely over Paru. The other was to the north somewhere! We have heard from the Indian soldiers here that all communication with Paru has been lost. … Thimpu? Utter confusion here. No idea if I will be able to call you chaps back or not. In any… Hel
lo? Can you hear me? Ah, okay. Yes, two definite nuclear detonations over Bhutan. That’s all I can confirm for now! I … Yes, the King is still here last time we checked. God knows what’s happening now. Look, I have to go. Will try and call later. Tell my…”
//HOST SIGNAL LOST//RECONSTRUCTION TERMINATED
//END TRANSCRIPT
WEST OF BEIJING
CHINA
DAY 15 + 0900 HRS
The view went from black to blurry as Colonel Dianrong regained consciousness. He instantly coughed and found himself lying on his side. The cables and harness attached inside the helicopter were dangling down from above while dust swept through the open sides of the cabin with the wind.
He tried to push himself away from his seat but realized he was still strapped to it. He also had an immense headache and felt blood dripping over his eyelids. A check with his hand showed he was bleeding from some gash above his eyes. His hands were covered in dust and he saw broken branches and leaves strewn inside the cabin.
As his vision cleared, he saw the smashed cockpit glass up front and the two dead pilots, still strapped in their seats with blood splattered over the instruments and the glass. As his sense of smell started returning, he thought he smelled cordite. He coughed some more as he heard the distant yelling of orders…
The sounds kept becoming louder and louder until he heard boots trampling through the broken tree branches and frantic orders yelled by a young voice. PLA soldiers ran over and started checking inside the cabin. Two of them saw Dianrong alive as the fuselage of the Z-9 rested on its side. They banged on the side-door glass, slid it open and clambered inside before beginning to open Dianrong’s seat harness.
“Sir, we will get you out of here. Don’t worry.” the young PLA Lieutenant said. Dianrong coughed heavily but nodded as the soldiers lifted him and handed his body to other soldiers outside the cabin. They pushed Dianrong out and two of the soldiers helped him walk away from the small ditch inside the flattened forest a few hundred meters from the helipads.
Dianrong saw the dozen Z-9 and Mi-17 helicopters flying overhead now, their whipping noises parting the still lingering cloud of dust that was giving the morning sun a dull-red haze. The air was filled with noises as hundreds of soldiers were running about trying to check for survivors from other helicopters as well.
The two soldiers brought him close to an opening in the forest where he saw a camouflage-painted Z-9 helicopter parked on the grass. He also saw a PLA Major there, organizing the search-and-rescue effort. The Major saw Dianrong being brought to the helicopter and saluted.
“Where’s General Liu?” Dianrong managed to speak as soldiers lowered him on the grass while PLA doctors began checking his wounds. The Major was too busy giving orders and didn’t hear him over the noise.
“Where is he?” Dianrong said again and grabbed the Major by his arm to make him look.
“Who, sir?” the Major asked.
“General Liu.”
The Major was silent for several seconds and then shook his head. The medical officer began cleaning his forehead wound with cotton-padding as Dianrong grasped the news. He turned to the Major again.
“And comrade chairman?” he asked worriedly.
“We haven’t found the comrade chairman’s helicopter yet,” the Major said soberly. “We are looking now. It took us this long just to find you and General Liu out here! Some of the C-M-C members are alive, but in critical condition. We have taken them to the hospital inside the center.”
“How did they know? What happened?” Dianrong said to himself.
“Sir?” the Major asked as he bent down to the Colonel. Dianrong just shook his head as soldiers brought out bodies of the two pilots and General Liu from the crashed Z-9. Liu’s body was riddled with wounds from the crash and his uniform coat made dark by the blood. The Major sighed as they laid his body on the grass near the parked helicopter and then turned to Dianrong sitting now on the floor of the helicopter’s cabin.
“You were extremely lucky to have made it alive, Colonel.”
Dianrong grunted and then nodded. “This is the kind of luck we can all do without, Major. Keep looking for the chairman. And get me back to the center right away. I need to help figure out who is in charge of this country’s military before the Indians hit us with nuclear warheads!”
“What?” the Major said in utter surprise. He hadn’t been told yet about the planned DF-21 strikes when the Indian pre-emptive strike had happened. But Dianrong had put together the pieces to understand that if the Indians had struck here, they must have struck the launch sites as well. There was no way to know for sure if any of the DF-21 missiles had made their way to the targets until he got back at the center. Dianrong realized the Major was still waiting for an answer so he turned to face the surprised look on the young officer’s face.
“Haven’t you heard, Major? This war went nuclear an hour ago.”
JUNWEI KONGJUN
BEIJING
DAY 15 + 0930 HRS
The chaos within the government and military headquarters in Beijing was high. One of the problems with having such a highly focused decision-making body for a nation was that when it was suddenly taken out of the equation, the rest of the structure had no clear area where to go. To make matters worse, the military knew what had just happened to the missile brigades in northern Tibet.
Most of the CMC members were dead. The survivors were in critical condition made worse by their old age. For all intents and purposes they were incapacitated and would probably die despite the efforts of military doctors. The Chinese military had lost a lot of their four-star general rank officers within the CMC and that was causing trouble at the moment…
The problem for Colonel-General Wencang was that there were a lot of other Colonel-Generals in the other services who were trying to do what he was doing right now: get an idea of who’s in charge. The only difference between him and the other officers, however, was that he had been elevated to CMC member when General Jinping had been dismissed as PLAAF commander more than a week ago. The PLA commander, General Yongju, and his deputy were both missing in the aftermath of the missile strike at the NCC. Admiral Huaqing had been executed on orders from Peng for his actions in the Indian Ocean and his successor had not yet been named. That had left the naval forces in a limbo as well. So it wasn’t a surprise to Wencang when he got a call from the National Command Center.
“Wencang here,” he said as he picked up the phone.
“Sir, this is Colonel Dianrong.”
“Colonel, what is going on out there?” Wencang said urgently.
“Generals Yongju and Liu are confirmed dead, sir. So are most of the party officials. The PLA deputy-commander has been killed as well. We still haven’t found the chairman’s helicopter but I have organized a massive search effort. We will find him soon. The vice-chairman is alive but in critical condition at the hospital here!”
Wencang ran his hands over his head in frustration as he listened.
“So why are you calling me, Colonel? Don’t you have your bosses in Qinghe to report to?” He said pointedly. He knew how the deputy-commander for the 2ND Artillery Corps would respond when he was told that Liu was dead and so were the bulk of his DF-21 launchers…
“Sir, you are still the commander-designate of the air-force and still officially on the committee. That puts you above the other deputy-commanders, including the 2ND Artillery Corps,” Dianrong replied plainly.
“Does it now?” Wencang said as he realized the full importance of what that meant.
“Yes sir!” Dianrong continued. “And time is very critical. The Indians are bound to retaliate now that the detonations have taken place in Bhutan!”
“Colonel, the Indians are not the only ones we should be worried about,” Wencang replied bluntly. “Do you understand the full importance of what has happened? We have struck Bhutan with nuclear weapons! How do you think the world will respond to this when the news reaches out?”
There
was silence on the other side so Wencang let out a long breath and continued: “Your former commander and the party have opened the flood gates, Colonel. We will be lucky if China survives as a nation, let alone the war in Tibet. Anyway, I want you to inform all other service branches that I am in charge from now till the end of hostilities. I want no more talk about who’s in charge and all military decisions are to be passed through my office. Understand?”
“Yes sir. May I prepare your evacuation from Beijing to the N-C-C?” Dianrong asked calmly.
“No. I am staying here.” Wencang ordered. “The last thing that needs to happen now is for our citizens to see their senior Generals running into underground bunkers. I will stay in Beijing. For now anyway. But keep the center up and running in case we do need it. Anything else?”
“No sir.”
“Good. Get everything set up at your end. I am going to get Lieutenant-General Chen and some others up here to Beijing to help me navigate this country out of the mess we have created!”
BANGALORE
INDIA
DAY 15 + 1130 HRS
The Indian RISAT-1 satellite passed over the Tibetan plateau on yet another pass. The brown-white terrain below was being mapped by its synthetic-aperture-radar as it went over Bhutan along the northeast-southwest orbital path.
It saw the pair of nuclear detonation smoke clouds dissipating away in the direction of the winds over Bhutan. Paru valley was covered with smoke and it was moving southwest from there. The explosion over Barshong was doing something similar and had spread the smoke within the valley but away from the Chomolhari peak and the Chumbi valley thanks to local easterly winds.
The satellite also picked up dozens of large smoke clouds west of Golmud that had almost dissipated away, allowing for effective battle-damage-assessment of the Chinese missile brigades. The imagery was processed and investigated at the Aerospace Command by the attached DIPAC officers.