Chimera

Akash missiles leaped into the sky in barrages as the system was capable of engaging several targets at once. And they did. The skies around Tezpur, Chabua and Jorhat were lit up by orange-yellow exhausts streaking into the air with their characteristic swishing noises visible to the entire Indian population in the region. Missile launchers fired off the live rounds one after another until the launcher rails were empty. Of the seventy odd missiles racing in, thirty one were knocked out of the sky in massive fireballs and thunderclaps throughout the region. But with that short and brutal engagement complete, the crews of the Akash missile batteries watched helplessly as the remaining missiles flew into their targets…

Airbases at Chabua, Jorhat and Tezpur received the brunt of the damage despite the efforts of the local ADGES. There were just too many missiles in the sky to take care of. The massive explosions shook the region. Contact with all three airbases was immediately lost. The road junctions north of Tezpur received a direct hit from a Chinese missile as well.

Further to the west, Hashimara airbase received multiple hits with major craters on the runway. When the smoke cleared and the shockwaves died away, raging fires had gripped the ATC building. Most of the buildings at the airbase were also shredded…

In the central sector the losses were less severe. With barely twenty-five missiles targeted at the entire sector of the border stretching from Sikkim to Himachal Pradesh, damage reports were sporadic and few. Most of the missiles fell prey to the critically placed SAMs in the region. But a few of the forward airbases received a few hits. At Bareilly airbase the main runway was severely cratered while at Agra the main ATC building was decimated to the ground, also destroying a good portion of the tarmac nearby. The destruction of the ATC would cause hindrance to the handling of large traffic at the airbase in the days to come.

In New-Delhi the damage was again minimal. With a combination of a single long-range S-300 battery north of the city and two Akash Batteries for the city alone, the defensive fire to the few incoming Chinese missiles was disproportionality high. Only one of the Chinese missiles made it into the skies above the city where it slammed into the Air HQ building in a shattering explosion and fire visible throughout the city. The building had been evacuated before the attack, but the first visible sign of the war to the mainstream Indian public was that of the furiously burning HQ building of the air-force. It was not an auspicious start to the war for the Indians…

The last of the hits to be suffered was in Ladakh. Just like other sectors of the border, the attacks here were again mainly centered on a few of the critical airbases at Leh, Daulat-beg-oldi or DBO, Chushul and Thoise. But with large presence of Indian interceptors in the skies above, only a handful of missiles broke through the defenses. Leh was the only airbase to suffer damage to its tarmac areas and buildings under these leaked missiles…

Back in the skies above southern Uttar-Pradesh and on board the IAF Boeing-737 airborne command and control aircraft, Chakri read through the single page message he had received from General Yadav before removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

The realization finally sank in: India had been attacked.

He was no fool. Even as the people around him frantically tried to determine the scale of the losses, he knew exactly what had happened and understood that a long and bitter struggle now beckoned…

HILLS NORTH OF WALONG

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

DAY 1 + 0300 HRS

“Foxtrot-One, this is — Two, do you read? Over”

The signals officer waited for a reply but got static instead.

“Foxtrot-One, this is — Two, do you read? Does anybody read? Over”

And yet again there was nothing but static. The Captain looked back at Major Krishnan standing behind him.

“Still no reception, sir”

“Keep trying!”

Krishnan said before moving outside the improvised bunker carved out of the hillside. Everybody had been issued with warm protective gear to brave against the cold, but the chilling winds still made their way to the very bones. Krishnan lit up his cigarette and watched the smoke get blown into the fleeting snow whipped up by the winds. He contemplated his next move…

The last hour had been pure chaos. Both Brigades in the Walong region under the 2ND Mountain Division had lost contact with Divisional HQ. Additionally, Krishnan had lost contact with Colonel Malik and his HQ and had not been able to regain contact so far. They had received scattered eyewitness reports from various Jawans sitting in their observation posts to the north about low flying cruise-missiles flying overhead minutes before they had heard the distant rumbling thunder to the south and lost contact. Krishnan and his men feared the worst, but they could have hardly seen the whole picture…