Chimera

When the Long-Sword cruise-missile had detonated over the town several hours ago, it almost felt as though there were two suns in the sky. The manmade one in the pair had a rapidly expanding radius that had absorbed a chunk of the city within it until the bright flash of light was accompanied by a wall of flame as it swept everything before it. The white snow above the city had flashed away instantly. Then thunderclap had reverberated through the region and a mushroom cloud of smoke and dust had arisen above the sky. It had been several hours since that event, and the mushroom cloud had lost its shape, but the dust still rose high in the sky above…

On the ground, fires were still blazing away within the town and were now spreading to the outskirts in a blazing firestorm, a result of closely structured wooden homes. The town’s firefighting capabilities were primitive even under peacetime conditions and right now there was no hope of combating this tidal wave of fire, gutting the town.

The center of the city was a smoldering crater of charred black husks over a kilometer wide but of asymmetric shape. The hilly terrain over which the city was built had protected some areas from the blast but had shunted the blast waves more strongly over others like a massive nozzle.

As the fires raged and threatened to burn down what remained of the town, the evacuation of surviving citizens was underway. Those who could be moved were being sent at least as far as Se-La and if transport and logistics allowed, all the way to Tezpur to avoid congesting the only lines of supply the army had in the region. The government couldn’t simply leave these civilians in the open against the harsh Himalayan winter.

Many had already left before the war had started, but the surprise start of the war had caught the local populace by surprise. And once the fighting had started, the army had put a stop to the exodus of civilians because it was choking the only logistical artery that existed to the Divisions fending off the PLA 13TH Group Army attack on Tawang.

But now they could hardly hold back the tide of panicked and shocked people trying to get their families out of the area before the Chinese missiles struck their town again. The army now had to task crucial personnel from its logistical units to help evacuate the people of Tawang.

In a way Beijing had achieved military goals in such a brutal attack against an unarmed civilian population. By forcing the Indians to deal with this massive exodus of civilians across hundreds of kilometers of mountainous terrain, they had relieved pressure from themselves along sectors of Bum-La. Here the Indian army had been preparing for a series of local counter-offensives now that the 13TH Group Army had been mauled after ten days of combat. This Indian counterattack now had to put on hold until the supply lines behind could be cleared.

Indian morale had taken a beating as well.

Several media reporters had based themselves in Tawang when the war had started, providing the same feel of war to each and every home in India as the Kargil war had done. But when the missile struck the town, it also took the lives of a good portion of these journalists.

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, most news channels instantly lost all contact with their field teams at Tawang. Many were knocked off the air the instant the warhead exploded above the city and had not been heard off since. Chaos and confusion followed soon afterwards as news channels attempted to explain what had happened. It added to the fear and fed it to turn it into something worse. The ripple effect of such an event spread quickly through the country and across the world. But what scared New-Delhi and the military commanders was the fact for several hours the Indian people were almost led to believe by the media that perhaps Tawang had been nuked by China.

MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE COMPOUND

BEIJING

DAY 10 + 1840 HRS

“And where is our fleet now?”

Chairman Peng asked the PLAN commander-in-chief, Admiral Huaqing. The Admiral was a bald man of five feet height and he was standing in the conference room of the Central Military Commission at the ministry in his service’s new digital combat-fatigues patterned similar to the US Navy. It was his personal symbol of connection with the Rear-Admiral commanding the Chinese naval fleet in the Indian Ocean. This sentiment was echoed by Generals Wencang and Chen, the PLAAF commanders in the room as well as the PLA commanders. By comparison, the party leaders in the room were in their standard coats and ties… as were the Generals from the 2ND Artillery Corps, including Colonel-General Liu. They were still in their dress uniform and ties.

As Huaqing walked over to the large wall map of the Indian Ocean region, Chen leaned back in his chair and considered the environment.