“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, learn!
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.
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.
“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-centraclass="underline" 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.