Chimera

“Yes sir.” The line clicked off.

“You might want to know,” Chakri replied as he too got up from his seat and joined the PM, “that the second Chinese Division up in the Chumbi valley surrendered to us an hour ago. General Suman has accepted their terms for surrender. The valley is ours.”

“Chakri,” the PM said as he looked up to the roof at the sound of incoming helicopters, “do you honestly think any of that matter now in the slightest? Bhutan has been nuked and thousands of our soldiers are dead. We have retaliated and killed thousands of theirs and destroyed two relevant airbases. The fallout from Bhutan is already drifting southwest. We will be forced to evacuate dozens of villages in Bhutan as well as Assam and maybe even Sikkim.

“And in retaliating the way we have done, you all have made me do something I wish I would never have to do. This conventional victory of yours has been sullied by this huge nuclear mess. Nobody in this country is going to remember what we had almost achieved. But what they will remember is the nuclear fallout and the explosions. I just hope that whoever is in command in Beijing at the moment will have a bit of sanity left. For our sake as well as theirs!”

NEW CHINA NEWS AGENCY

DAY 15 + 1420 HRS

“Rumors speculating of changes in the upper echelons of the Central Military Commission and the Politburo were strongly denied by the committee representative, Lieutenant-General Chen. He explained that given the serious nature of the war, the committee had moved to its wartime locations as per protocol and will remain there until the blatant Indian nuclear aggression against the Chinese people and the peace loving people of the Kingdom of Bhutan is not silenced. General Chen notified the media that General Liu and President Peng was not available for answering questions at the time.

“General Chen also denounced Indian use of nuclear weapons and explained that the explosions in Bhutan were Indian nuclear warheads detonated by retreating Indian forces as our courageous soldiers advanced to rid the decades old Indian hegemony over the Bhutanese people. General Chen confirmed that thousands of Bhutanese civilians and hundreds of PLA soldiers from the elite high-altitude mountain troops were killed in these explosions. In spite of such losses, the People’s Army stands ready to offer help to the Bhutanese people in this time of distress.

“Earlier this morning, the Indians also attempted to disarm our missile forces by preemptively attacking locations in northern Tibet. This blatant aggression will not go unanswered! The people of China have a right to live in peace without fear of nuclear aggression and the Indian usage of nuclear weapons will not go unpunished. With Russia and the United States of America once again vetoing China’s demands in the UN Security Council yesterday for immediate sanctions against India, China must control the threat on its southern borders on its own. China has demanded an unconditional Indian termination of hostilities or India will find itself soaked in an ocean of blood of its own citizens!”

JUNWEI-KONGJUN

BEIJING

DAY 15 + 1410 HRS

“Those bastards!” Wencang threw the phone speaker back to the wall mounted phone, causing everybody in the operations center to jerk their heads behind at the large bang noise behind them. Wencang had a menacing look on his face as he watched them staring at him in silence.

“That bad?” Chen asked.

“They just nuked Korla! Korla! And Uxxaktal!” Wencang shouted at Chen, releasing his rage on his old comrade.

“26TH Air Division,” Chen replied calmly as he evaluated their losses.

“And the 19TH Division,” Feng added as he walked into the room with some papers in his hand.

Wencang balled his fingers into fists, turned back to the wall phone and leaned down to grab the hanging speaker. He stood up after taking it and called up Dianrong at the NCC: “Get me 813TH Brigade commander on the line right now!”

Chen and Feng turned away from the papers in Feng’s hand as they heard Wencang talking.

“What are you doing?” Chen asked. Wencang ignored the question, his knuckles white from rage.

“General, what is your launch readiness?” he asked on the speaker.

“Wencang!” Chen shouted but dared not approach closer.

“Good,” Wencang continued on the phone. “Prepare strike package ‘Typhoon’ on my orders. Keep the activity hidden as much as you can. I want launch readiness within the hour. Report back to me when you are ready!”

As he slammed the phone back into its place, Wencang turned around to see Chen and Feng standing there in stunned silence.

“What on earth did you do?” Chen said more as a statement than a question. He knew exactly what nuclear strike package ‘Typhoon’ was.