Chimera (61 page)

He immediately saw the outlines of the two Mi-26s as they hovered near the northern outskirts, bringing in more of his men into the fight. As a large rumbling noise overtook the noise of the howling winds, the building walls vibrated. Misra walked over to the edge walls of the terrace and leaned over to see a platoon of BMP-IIs making their way through the narrow streets of Thimpu on their way to the north.

As the vehicles made their way along the road, their auto-cannon turrets kept sweeping left and right for targets. General Potgam had pulled all the strings he could with General Suman to get these light armor forces airlifted to Paru and then driven up from there to Thimpu. Now they were here, along with the rest of his paratroopers. Spear team had also been inserted.

Misra smiled as he walked back inside to rejoin his staff at the makeshift command center on the ground floor.

day 9

THE MERCHANT SHIP
AAA-FU YUANKOU

FIVE HUNDRED KILOMETERS SOUTHEAST OF THE MALDIVES

INDIAN OCEAN

DAY 9 + 0520 HRS

Captain Bingde walked onto the bridge just as the first streaks of dark blue skies started to replace the dark night sky from the east. He saw the bridge crew at their posts looking tired and near the end of their shifts. He walked out to the ledge after picking up his binoculars from the dashboard nearby. The cold morning air refreshed him as did the noise of swashing waters moving around the hull of his ship…

The
Yuankou
was the not the only ship sailing to home waters off mainland China. They were part of a convoy of five merchant ships and one medium oil tanker taking a circuitous route around India in order to avoid the naval combat zones. They were avoiding the entire Malacca Strait and planning to go around the Indonesian coastline and through the South China Sea.

All in all, there was no reason to be worried.

These were merchant ships and therefore civilian in nature. Besides, two PLAN warships, the
Changzhou
and the
Yulin
, were escorting the convoy back to home waters. Both of these warships were Type 054 Frigates and part of the Chinese anti-piracy fleet near the Somalia coastline until the start of the war. Now they had been tasked as escorts for the vulnerable merchant shipping convoys.

Bingde noted the
Yulin
off his port side to the northeast, operating in total darkness and wartime conditions.
That
did not make him very comfortable. They had another thousand kilometers of sailing to the southeast before they would be effectively out of the range of Indian naval forces. Over the last day they had been intermittently shadowed by long-range patrol aircraft, so Bingde knew that the Indian navy knew their location but had left it alone. He hoped that would continue.

As he watched, the
Yulin
superstructure became backlit with a flash of light and then a small smoke cloud as a missile rose into the air from its forward decks. The swishing noise and the rising plume of smoke trailing the missile exhaust caught the bridge crews of the merchant ships off guard and they all rushed to the ledge to see…

Then another missile fired and reached for the sky.

Bingde realized that the missiles fired were anti-air missiles. He ran to the door of the bridge and pulled it open:

“We are under
attack!
All personnel report to their stations! Prepare for damage control!”

The crew was still stunned by the abruptness of it all, and while they fumbled around trying to find their bearings, Bingde went back out on the ledge to see what the two navy Frigates were doing. He leaned over the railings to see the
Changzhou
turning course and gaining speed while the
Yulin
was continuing to ripple-fire its supply of HQ-9 anti-air missiles…

He spotted a speck of movement on the horizon to the northeast and brought up his binoculars to see. But the specks turned out to much faster than his actions. They quickly turned out to be long tubes flying several meters above the dark waters of the ocean. The
Yulin
opened fire on them with its close-in-weapon-systems: seven barreled cannons. The yellow-white tracers silhouetted the
Yulin
and lines of tracers flew out towards the incoming missiles.

Bingde had a moment to utter a curse just as one of the nearest incoming missiles exploded under hits from tracers but
still
the debris completely peppered the port side of the
Yulin
. He saw pieces of debris from the
Yulin
fly hundreds of feet into the air and the ship listed a little to the starboard before balancing.

That is when the second and third missiles went straight in…

The bone-jarring explosions ripped the ship superstructure apart. The starboard side of the
Yulin
was shredded into a thousand fragments of metal and these flew towards the
Yuankou
. Bingde instantly dived back through the door of the bridge and fell on his stomach as large pieces of metal shrapnel smashed through the glass and instantly killed several of his bridge crew. The ship rocked back and forth as the shockwave of the explosion rippled through the waters from the
Yulin
and hit the hull.

Then a large chunk of the superstructure of the
Yulin
fell on top of the cargo containers aboard the
Yuankou
, splitting the harnesses and dropping two of them into waters to the starboard, ripping a large gash on the side of the ship…

When Bingde finally got up, sirens were sounding across his ship as well as the others. He noticed blood splattered across the walls of the bridge and the bodies of his bridge crew lying around, several of them writhing in pain from injuries.

He brought his hands up to his face and saw the cuts and bruises from his fall. But otherwise he was in one piece. He was still shaking from the impact but managed to grab the railing and pull himself on to his feet. That was when he realized his arm was broken from the dive he had made. The pain was somewhat numbed from the fear pumping in his arteries.

He straggled back out on the observation area and saw to his horror the ocean waters on fire. Pieces of debris from the
Yulin
were all around him. He never did see what happened to the
Yulin
…

But the
Yulin
was already gone.

The Frigate
Changzhou
was also on fire, although the missile that had hit it had done so near the stern helicopter hanger. That hanger was no more. A large column of smoke was now rising from it with intermittent licks of flame within. And Bingde noticed that the ship was moving slower now, probably because of damage to the engines…

He walked back to the bridge to see that members of his crew had rushed in and were evacuating the wounded from the bridge. Others had taken over the ship’s controls. He walked over to the ship’s intercom and picked up the phone with his good hand to ask for the damage report.

But before he could hear an answer, a bridge officer shouted another warning. He let the phone hanging and ran back outside to see the
Changzhou
a kilometer to the north firing more surface-to-air missiles from its bow launchers. The plumes lifted vertically and then arced back to the northeast…

“More missiles inbound! Brace for impact!” Bingde shouted and took cover behind the metal walls of the bridge. He kept his head above to observe and saw three more long tubes moving at supersonic speeds for the disabled
Changzhou
.

There was no hope for her.

But only one of the missiles was targeted at her. It slammed into the port side of the ship near the bridge superstructure, destroying the bridge and left the ship listing to the starboard into the sea. The fires reached the missile warheads on board and the bow of the ship exploded, creating a massive hole as water swept in, sinking the ship with it.

The two remaining missiles flew past the sinking
Changzhou
. One flew past its sinking bow and the other past its stern. The missiles each hit a container ship in the convoy and balls of fire rising into the sky before turning into pillars of smoke, but the ships were still floating…

Bingde was still dazed from what had just happened before his eyes. He noticed his hands shaking uncontrollably. 

“
Captain!
Incoming radio message from the
Indians!
”

He stood up and took a deep breath. He shook his head to wipe the fear and told himself that his crew would need him. He walked over to the radio operator: “Let’s hear it.”

The operator opened the channel for the bridge crew:

“To all Chinese merchant and naval vessels in the vicinity: this is Vice-Admiral Surakshan, commander of the Indian fleet. You are now inside my kill zone. If you value your life and the life of your crew, you
will
listen to what I have to say. Try to escape and you will meet the same fate as your escorts. Surrender your ships
now
and you
will
live. Send out your intentions by changing course to the north at best speed. It gives me no pleasure to take civilian lives, but I will
hardly
hesitate if I have to. Do
not
challenge me on this. You have seen just seen a
taste
of the power I wield in the Indian Ocean. You have ten minutes to comply.”

Bingde looked around at the shattered bridge of his ship and saw that the bridge-crew was looking at him in silence, waiting for orders…

He could not surrender his ship. There was a war on right now, but there would be an after-the-war as well. If he and his crew surrendered this ship to the Indians, they would pay the price for it when they got back home. They would be tried for treason and then severely punished.

But ignoring the Indian threat meant that they would face oblivion just like the crews of the
Changzhou
and the
Yulin
. They had no defenses on board other than small arms, and the Indians weren’t looking to forcibly board these ships so those weapons did not matter. He picked up the phone and asked for the comms officer to patch him through to the other Captains of the three remaining ships…

A few minutes of discussion later he sent out his radio message back on the same channel as Surakshan and spoke in English:

“Indian navy commander, this is Captain Bingde of the Chinese merchant shipping vessel
Aaa-Fu Yuankou
. We are carrying civilian supplies to China and are unarmed. We
must
be allowed to pass unhindered. We will
not
surrender these ships!” 

“Very well, Captain,” Surakshan replied. “I will give you and your crew exactly thirty minutes to abandon ship and get to a safe distance. After that I will hit your ships with missiles. This is your
only
warning!”

“Unfortunately I cannot do that, sir,” Bingde said calmly. “I repeat
again
: I am an unarmed merchant ship and in international waters. I will not submit my ship and my crew to your
blatant
hostility!”            

“Captain,” Surakshan replied dispassionately, “all I can say to you is that your ten minutes started thirty seconds ago.”

The channel clicked off.

Bingde looked around and saw the fear on the faces of his bridge crew. He could not order the abandoning of this ship. But he also could not sacrifice his crew in good conscience. The Indians were going beyond the rules now on the high seas and there wasn’t much his own navy could do about it. He realized that his options were very limited. He picked up the speaker for the ship’s intercom:

“All hands, this is your Captain speaking. I order you all to abandon ship right now. I say again: abandon ship! Get as far away from the ship as you can. Go!”

He put the speaker down and looked at the bridge crew: “You all need to leave as well! Go!
Now!
”