Chimera

They were sufficiently covered by the boulders ahead, but the turret and the Nag launch canisters were above the rocks and had a clear line of sight all the way to the east. From here the crew could see the three remaining BMPs under Colonel Sudarshan reversing towards them in a weaving pattern even as they fought off the hard charging Chinese ZBDs. It was a poignant sight to see the desperate battle being fought by the surviving BMP-II crews trying to stave off being overrun by a numerically superior enemy force.

Of course, that’s where we come in!

The platoon-commander thought as he brought up his comms mouthpiece and maneuvered the other three NAMICAs into position. His force of hour vehicles had been able to reload a new cache of ready-to-fire missiles after having successfully disengaged from the earlier battle.

He peered through his vehicle optics to see another BMP-II to his east taking serious number of cannon hits. Sparks were flying in all directions from that vehicle under the impacts before its engines died and it staggered to a halt.

The turret of the incapacitated vehicle flung open and two crew members staggered out, obviously hurt. No sooner had they stepped out that flames and smoke erupted from inside the turret hatch. They were jumping off the chassis and trying to make sense of the confused, smoke-filled battle situation around them when a Chinese ZBD gunner opened up with his vehicle’s cannon and a small cloud of red mist erupted around the two crew members as both men took hits from the heavy rounds. Their shattered and lifeless bodies fell into the snow.

The suddenness of the brutal attack caught the NAMICA crews off-guard. That surprise gave way to anger. The platoon-commander zoomed in on the guilty ZBD…

It was within range.

“Gunner! Tell me you have visual on that bastard!”

“I have visual! He’s mine!” the gunner replied.

“Take the fucking shot! Fire!”

As the vehicle shuddered, a Nag missile leapt from its canister and slashed across the skies, the platoon-commander switched frequencies:

“Fiery-One to Fiery Platoon! Engage! Engage! Take those bastards out!”

The vehicle shuddered again as a second missile punched out of the canister. By this time the first missile was already streaking at supersonic speeds towards the doomed ZBD. The Nag slammed into the weak top armor of the Chinese vehicle and the vehicle was completely shredded into a thousand pieces of shrapnel and debris under the impact.

There was no question of survivors.

Within seconds three other ZBDs suffered similar fates as the NAMICA platoon began ripping the remaining Chinese light-armor force to shreds…

EAST OF DAULAT-BEG-OLDI

DAY 2 + 1330 HRS

The Chinese armor force commander was acting as Adesara predicted. But predictions did him no good if there was nothing he could do to stop the oncoming threat.

Adesara lowered his binoculars and realized that the Chinese commander had done the smart thing and pushed his surviving armored vehicles from the initial assault wave to the north once he had brutally lost most of the vehicles in his southern edge of the advance. It also meant that more pressure could be applied against each of the three Battalions under Adesara individually.

This Chinese commander’s first instinct had been the correct one and more importantly he had paid heed to it.

That made him dangerous to Adesara.

On the Indian side Adesara had no more armored vehicles left with him. Even the 10TH Mechanized Battalion’s advance elements had been mauled. The last line of defense behind this one was around the airstrip. The only defensive line after that was all the way to the south near Saser.

But that last location meant that everything north of it would fall into Chinese hands. This included the Karakoram pass, DBO and all of the surrounding plains. It was not something that Adesara and his Brigade staff had enjoyed simulating in the months past. And yet those simulations were now becoming reality…

With a thundering crack a Milan anti-tank missile slammed into the left side panels of a Chinese T-99 and blew of the track and the steel wheels into the air, causing the tank to a stop as smoke began pouring out of the driver’s hatch. The return fire from a second T-99 exploded mere meters away from the two Indian soldiers manning the missile launcher. The explosion ripped through the ground and showered them both with a pile of gravel and rocks. But they staggered away from it with bleeding wounds and covered in dust.

Hurt, but alive.