Chimera

He did not have time to answer that one. He heard the distant rumble of whipping noises that seemed very familiar to him. Of course they did. They were made by Mi-17 helicopters. He looked around and saw his men running around, grabbing their weapons. His mind ran through the analysis.

Approaching Mi-17s! Friendly?

He looked to the west towards the silhouetted eastern slopes of the Chomolhari and realized that the whipping noises did not emanate from the west, where friendly forces were in the Chumbi valley.

And that meant only one thing…

He saw the first Indian Mi-17V5 helicopter appear as it cleared the ridgeline behind and above him to the east and flared for a landing a few hundred meters away. Followed by more.

He looked around for his personal sidearm and didn’t find it anywhere in the snow. He did see the body of his radioman lying in a pool of red blood soaking into the powdery white snow a few meters away. He dived towards the man and took his QBZ-95 assault-rifle, checking its ammo clip.

By this time the first gunfire noises were filling the air. He saw soldiers and surviving officers from his headquarters grabbing their rifles and ordering men to head east and create a line of defense against the attacking Indian paratroopers…

He tucked the rifle into his shoulder and checked the sights. They were operational. He then turned the body of his radioman over to see a horrid scene. The man’s chest was ripped open by rocket shrapnel and still smoldering from it. He winced and checked the soldier’s harness for ammunition clips. He found two.

That will have to do!

He forced himself to his feet just as the Indian Mi-17s began lifting off from the east and were climbing back up the slope. They were trying to get out of the line of fire as quickly as they could. And sure enough, they were taking fire as yellow flashes of tracers were flying into the air around them, some hitting the gray painted fuselages with distinct snags. He threw out an expletive, brought up his rifle to shoulder level, tugged it in and fired three-round bursts at the closest of the departing helicopters. He aimed for the cockpit and kept firing bursts until he saw the starboard cockpit glass of the helicopter shatter into pieces. His rifle chamber clacked metal on metal, telling him that he was out of rounds in that clip…

To his satisfaction he saw the helicopter veering west towards him. The sunlight shined across the shattered cockpit glass, now smattered red with blood from one of the crew members slumped in his seat. The PLA Major-General realized he must have hit the co-pilot and perhaps even the pilot. The helicopter leapt above his head a few seconds later amidst a roar of its blades and its shadow went over him.

He slapped a second clip into his rifle and dropped the first in the snow near his feet, keeping his eyes fixed on the Indian helicopter west of him now.

But he flinched from the flash of light as a surface-to-air missile streaked up from the valley below and slammed into the port engine of the Mi-17. The jarring explosion ripped the engine section apart and the main rotors immediately lost power. The front of the helicopter slammed into the snow covered rocks and fell down on the slope with a thud. It shook violently amongst the rocks and then flipped over. The Highland Division commander smiled as he saw the helicopter wreck rolling down the slope towards the village of Barshong below.

A small victory in all this mess!

Two of his soldiers ran up to him and knelt beside him, covering him with their rifles. He looked around and tried to make sense of the ground battle now taking place to his east between the survivors of his headquarters and the Indian paratroopers. But it was a lost battle and he realized it. His experienced ears picked up the course of the battle from the gunfire noises. He ordered his men to move out towards it.

They ran down the slope past the blazing tree trunks and smoldering black craters dug out of the snow by the rockets. He saw about two dozen or so scattered PLA soldiers from his unit fighting in twos and threes behind rocks near the destroyed headquarter bunkers. To the east he saw dozens of Indian paratroopers advancing tactically as they eliminated the still-dazed PLA opposition on the hilltop.

He was about to shout his first orders when one of the soldiers next to him shrieked and fell forward into the snow. The General saw a bullet hole ripped into his back as blood poured out. He turned around and saw what looked like ten men or so moving down the ridge from the west, silhouetted by the setting sun behind them. One of the men’s optics glinted in the light and the General realized they were taking fire from their rear.