“They didn’t leave much standing, did they?” Vikram whispered.
“That’s a big negative!” Ravi agreed from his position further away.
“Cut the chatter! Let’s move in for a closer look. Spear-four and — five are on over-watch with the LMGs. Rest are on me! Let’s see if any of the RBG guys are still alive out there. Move!”
Captain Pathanya said over the team VHF intercom speaker before bringing up his INSAS rifle scope up. He surveyed the fires around the small village on the other side of the bridge. There was no activity inside the village other than the odd burning wooden roof structure collapsing within the walls.
Soon the rest of his ten-man team came cautiously out of the bushes near the road and headed towards the bridge with their weapons drawn and pointed towards the village. Pathanya was the first to run up to the edge of the road and remained low as he brought his rifle up again. Two seconds later the rest of the team was in nearby locations and had the road covered. Vikram had an IMFS set up to survey the hills on the other side.
Pathanya looked down the road to the south and saw the charred remains of a Bhutanese army truck, silently spewing smoke into the night sky. Further near the bridge, there were a few motionless bodies of civilians and men in Bhutanese army uniforms. The blood spatter near the bodies was hard to miss…
“Precision arty. The RBG boys took a beating out here. The Chinese left the bridge deliberately intact though,” Vikram observed.
“Why won’t they? It’s the fastest route into Thimpu from here!” Pathanya added. “When the time comes we need to get Warlord to find and destroy those enemy guns. For now let’s keep out eyes open. Move out!”
“Damn it, Feng! This is unacceptable!” Chen shouted.
Feng agreed. They had just gotten a detailed damage and loss assessment report from Hotien airbase. It was still littered with the wreckage of the burnt out Il-76s and a host of other gutted aircraft.
Then there was the matter of several hundred deaths of Chinese soldiers, including wounded ones being evacuated to the north. The cascading anger had just reached Kashgar. Beijing had chewed out General Jinping and the PLA commander for their supposed lapses. Jinping had in turn blasted Wencang and Chen for failing him. Feng supposed the same must have happened down on the PLA side as well. Needless to say, Feng was on the receiving end of Chen’s outburst…
“We cannot let these attacks go unchecked! You know how long the casualty list is from the attack? Hotien was and still is crucial to us as a major logistical node! Spread out your defences to cover these airbases more effectively! Move an S-300 system to protect against future attacks if you have to! I want this taken care of!” Chen barked.
“Sir, this is exactly what the Indians want us to do! They want us to spread our S-300s defences so they can selectively take them down one by one. We have to maintain focus on the Aksai Chin for now! This attack on Hotien was a feint!” Feng countered.
Chen would have none of it: “I have had it with you on this issue, Feng! I have given you a lot more leverage than perhaps I should have done! And you have nothing to show for it! Nothing! We are still struggling to take the initiative from the Indians after six days of combat! And now our major supply nodes are being bombed with impunity! Get my orders carried out or I will have someone else to do it for me. Is that clear?” Chen slammed the table with his fist.
Feng controlled his anger. Now was not the time to lose control. Anger was getting the better of Chen right now. What was worse, Feng could see the Indian plans working through Chen even if the latter couldn’t. If he could not calm Chen down and refocus him, it was going to end up unwinding the whole PLAAF on the Ladakh front.
“Steel-Rain, we have red armour five clicks east of our position! Heavy concentration and bearing down on us! Requesting priority fire-mission! Coordinates to follow! Over!”
Kongara said as he hunkered behind some large rocks, a rifle in hands. He was looking over the rocks with his binoculars at the advancing armada of Chinese tanks making yet another attempt to break through the 10TH Mechanized defences…
“Thunder-One, this is Steel-Rain! We read you five-by-five. Standby for fire-mission! One salvo heavy-concentration fire! Fragmentation! One round correction-marker at thirty seconds! Fire-effect three-second delay!”
“Roger! Thunder-One copies all! Standing by!”
Kongara gave back the speaker to his radioman before putting both his hands on the IMFS to zoom in using the device’s infrared view. He winced as the pain in his bandaged legs and arms disrupted his focus. He had somehow made his way to friendly lines after staggering over the frozen no-man’s land the previous afternoon. The medics were surprised he was still alive, let alone walking, after sustaining so many wounds. They had offered to ship him back to the brigade medical-center at the airstrip. But when he had heard that the Major commanding his vehicles out here had also been killed, he had forced himself to stay and lead the defenses until somebody could be sent forward to replace him. Without his vehicle and crew however, he was forced to lead the defenses outside in the cold with the rest of the 9TH Punjab soldiers.
The Chinese T-99 tanks were attempting to spread over a two kilometer front to the north of the 10TH Mechanized lines. It was their third attempt to do so in the last day. The evidence for the past attempts was littered across the battlefield, spewing smoke and fire into the early morning reddish sky above. And so were bodies of soldiers from both sides who had fought and bled for this rocky plateau.
For now the initiative was on the Chinese side. They had made repeated attempts to push the two Indian mechanized battalions out of their side of the LAC for over a day now. Each time they had been stopped in their efforts.
But it had proven costly for both sides.
10TH Mechanized had been reduced to a handful of fully operational BMP-IIs and NAMICA vehicles. The 9TH Punjab units were doing better. The Sikh soldiers on nearby hills were holding strong, but were depleted in their ATGM capabilities. And there were no signs of the situation improving just yet…
The air crackled with thunder of supersonic rocket projectiles diving overhead. Kongara looked away from his binoculars to see the sky just as the rockets smashed their way into the Chinese lines. Three fireballs rose above the wall of gravel and dust that spread outwards from the impact zone. Two ZBDs and one T-99 in the advancing Chinese line had been killed by that salvo.
“Good effect on target!” Kongara shouted into the radio as the ground shook under his feet. Overhead, the Nishant UAV had already passed the same information back to Steel-Rain, the Saser based Smerch MBRL battery via the ACCCS. A second salvo round request was cleared by the Divisional artillery brigade commander just as soon as he saw the results from that first one.
A few minutes later Kongara and his radiomen saw in awe as the Chinese line disappeared in a carpet of explosions, ripping most of the enemy armor force to shreds before the view was obscured by a rising dust cloud that outsized the nearby hills…
The other part of the Chinese force further to the east was still relatively intact and continued the advance. Kongara looked to his northeast to see two dozen T-99s and ZBDs on a one kilometer front dashing towards his lines.