Chimera

Lieutenant-Colonel Gephel switched off his UHF radio and slowly put it on the ground, avoiding any sudden movements to alert the enemy. Then he pulled up his binoculars to observe the terrain in front of him. The distant manmade dust cloud was clearly visible now, behind the peaks around which the road took a bend. It was a good distance away, so that even via binoculars it was a small sight. But it was there, and it was coming this way. This one was a big target, and something for which Gephel’s team of five were cooperating with a sister team in the region. It was to be the most audacious attack so far and would take place right under the enemy’s nose. To complicate matters, this wasn’t exactly the ideal terrain for this kind of job. The luckier teams had their areas of operations assigned where there was cover and where they were happily playing merry hell for their opponents. But that was why Gephel had volunteered for commanding this team. The other teams had younger officers of the rank of Captain and below leading them in action. But the two teams here had the most difficult of tasks, and that was why the two senior officers of this unit were leading them forward.

Gephel was a lot younger than his peers. Even so, he was a lot older than his junior officers. But that was why he insisted on every man in his unit, young and old, to be as fit as humanly possible. As his men had come to realize, the limit of ‘Humanly Possible’ as interpreted by their CO was very much higher than what they would have imagined. The dropout rate for this unit during training was very high. This meant that by the time a soldier passed into this unit, he was already far ahead than his peers in other units. Many had questioned the need for such a regimen during the time when the unit was brought up to strength, but all those doubts had been thrown out by the unit soon after they had arrived here. It was all paying off, and Lieutenant-Colonel and Lieutenant alike, were keeping pace. They had to.

Their geographic location demanded the best of men even under normal circumstances, and it only got worse under combat conditions. The biggest enemy here was the weather, followed by the terrain. With the amount of killing potential within between two enemies, the real human enemy didn’t even come into the picture. But it did not make them any less dangerous, as the men of this unit had come to realize.

Five teams were currently operating in the Tibetan mountains. Almost all had walked here on long, arduous treks through snow-covered mountain passes. They had lost several men to the dangerous crevasses hidden to snow and avalanches. But once inside their area of operations, they were independent and had so far been free of casualties. Their only limitation was the requirement to frequently stock up on equipment and ammunition via specially arranged supply missions. And they frequently had to do these, because as Gephel had noted to his sister team’s commander, “Business was good!”

Tonight, the skies were clear and the air severely cold. There was snow around and it would be there for several more weeks, if the forecast was accurate. At night it became colder than an arctic winter. But that was why this unit had been raised in the first place. They were unique for the region, in training, composition and most importantly, motivations.

Motivation was the key… Gephel thought as he observed the approaching dust cloud.

Hell, why else would any of these men be here, doing what they are? Are we exploiting their motivations to our purpose? And if so, was that not my job as their commanding officer?

Gephel stowed his ever increasing self-doubts and lowered his helmet-mounted night-vision goggles. They switched on with slight humming noise and turned the moonlit dark terrain into a bright green horizon. During night-time operations, which was about the only time the teams moved around anyway, the low-light intensification goggles were working wonders, allowing them to see the ground in front of them before they stepped on it. But for long-range vision, the moonlight was sufficient. Besides, Gephel preferred as less a dependency on technology as possible. He saw them as one more possible weakness that could fail at any time. The mark-I human eyeball, however, rarely did…

The moon was partially out tonight, and it allowed both teams to see the dust cloud even in the night-time and from extreme distances. The dust cloud was much closer now, and the first signs of smaller dust clouds within the single larger one were becoming visible, allowing the two teams to identify the number of vehicles on the convoy. The noise of their engines could now be heard over the desert winds.