Fenix (31 page)

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T
he phone rang on the bedside table several times before Wencang got to it. He shuffled across the quilts and switched on the lights before picking the it up.

              “Yes?” He cleared his throat and went for the glass of water nearby. “General Chen on the line for you, sir. He says it is extremely urgent.”

              “Put him through.” Wencang drank the water as the secure comms encryption made noises and connected to the operations center at the
CMC
. A few moments later Chen’s voice came online over the background noise of his operations center.

              “You need to get up here right now! I am sending a car!”

              “Pakistan?” Wencang said as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

              “Yes.” Chen replied.

              “What the hell are they up to now?” Wencang said as the doors to his bedroom opened and his orderlies walked in with his uniform and some medicines.

              “I would rather not say over the phone.” Chen replied. “How soon can you get here?”

              Wencang looked at his watch and then at the pressed uniform laid out on his bed: “I will be there in twenty minutes. Give me a summary.”

              “Very well. We just got a message from Hussein via the Pakistani military attaché here asking us to get our people out of Gwadar and other places in Pakistan. Whoever is left.”

              Wencang jerked wide awake at that. That message meant only one thing…

              “I will be there in fifteen minutes. Increase readiness for our combat forces! Warn the air-force and naval commands that a forced evacuation through the Indian blockade for our citizens
may
be required. I want plans and options by the time I get there.”

              “Yes sir. I have the command staff coming up with our options already. Twenty minutes?” Chen asked.

              “Is it doable, Chen?” Wencang asked.

              “In the midst of a shooting war on such short notice? I don’t think so.” Chen replied, his voice laced with anger. “This
warning
is not much and Hussein knows it. He just wants to cover his ass! That
son of a bitch
!”

              “Indeed,” Wencang added grimly. “They are certainly in a desperate situation, aren’t they? He knows that if he gave us enough warning, we would act on it and the Indians would see it exactly for what it was and prepare themselves.
This
way, there will be
no
warning whatsoever. The real question is whether we should play along and risk what military people we have in Pakistan or try and get them out.”

              “A difficult choice.” Chen added.

              “
Is
it, my friend?” Wencang continued. “Is it
really
a hard choice? If the net result of our inaction is the unleashing of full-scale nuclear war against our enemies, isn’t the lives of a few of our men worth it? This is what they signed up for, after all! We
all
signed up for this job. Considering the lives lost in the great war three years ago, what’s a few more?”   

              Chen remained silent on that. It was not
his
call. His concerns for his people, he kept in check.

              “Do what we can.” Wencang said finally. “Get the word out to our men to get as far away from potential targets without raising too much of an alarm. We don’t know far Hussein has spread his plans yet even
within
his own commanders. For our own forces, increase readiness but otherwise
do
nothing. We will see how this plays out and determine the best time for us to step in and finish the job.”

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────

A
TOW
missile slammed into the engine compartment of the Arjun tank and ripped it apart, tossing debris in all directions as the massive hulk of the vehicle caught fire and shuddered to a halt. Fifty meters behind, Kulkarni’s tank also came to a halt.

              “
Oh shit!
” Kulkarni let out the expletives as the chaotic comms chatter lit up all across the net.

              “Where did that come from?” His gunner screamed as flames leapt out of the burning tank’s hatches, turning it into a fiery coffin for the crew…

              Another thundering crash rippled through the tank from the rear and Kulkarni turned around to see another tank towards his rear emitting smoke and flames. Its crew leapt to safety out of open hatches. His brain caught up with the flow of events: “we are under
attack
from enemy helicopter gunships! Deploy smoke cover now, now, now!!”

              “Roger!” His gunner replied just as a tube of sparks and streaking tracers flew horizontally from his south as the Tunguska anti-air vehicles went into action. The initial gunfire from these vehicles was supposed to be a distraction for the Pakistani cobra helicopter pilots; to get them to evade and lose track of their missiles. As the tracers went their way, one of the Tunguska vehicles ripple fired three of its anti-air missiles from the turret-side tubes. The missiles arced across the early morning sky and accelerated west…

              Kulkarni didn’t get to see where they went, however, because his optics were instantly obscured by aerosol smoke clouds. His optics disabled temporarily, he pulled up the
ABAMS
screen and saw that three Arjun tanks were no longer registering their onboard handshake protocols.

              “Goddamn it!”.

His tanks were reversing through the smoke. He could hear the rumble of distant explosions…as well as nearer ones. With no vehicle-to-vehicle connection between rhino and trishul, there was not much he could do to see how the anti-air forces were doing. He pulled himself to his optics and saw the manmade fog clearing…

              “Breaker, breaker. Trishul-actual to rhino-actual: skies are clear. Out.”

              “Rhino-actual copies all.” Kulkarni added as his heart tried to punch out of his chest. And to his driver: “stop reverse. Bring us out of this smoke.”

              “Roger.”

              The vehicle stopped and then rumbled forward. Within a few seconds they were out of the dissipating aerosol smoke and rumbling past the viciously burning Arjun tank that had been in front of them. Kulkarni saw through his optics the burning remains of that tank crew as they had attempted to leave their burning vehicle.

              It could have so easily been us…
a voice in his head said. He noticed his hands shaking. The turret swiveled to the side.

              “Looks like we aren’t the
only
ones who took losses,” his gunner replied.

              Kulkarni swiveled his sights to see a burning Tunguska vehicle to the south. Some supply trucks drove past it. Another Tunguska had already taken over and was now keeping pace with rhino. The only solace for Kulkarni were the two smoke columns on the western horizon indicating downed enemy helicopters…

              “Be mindful of the enemy,” Kulkarni ordered. “
We
are the lead tank now.” He go a nod from his gunner.

              He wondered how weak his voice sounded. He had to grip the handles for his sights tighter to prevent them from shaking. Why? This wasn’t his first time in combat. Hell, it wasn’t even his first
war!
So what
was
this? War weariness? Whatever it was, he concluded, he couldn’t let it take control of his body. Not right now. His men looked to him for stability in the midst of all this madness and chaos. He could not let them down. He could not let
himself
down.

              “Rhino-actual, this is rhino-bravo-actual,” the radio came alive. “We are encountering increasing numbers of civilians evacuating from the town towards the highway. Indications exist that the highway may be clogged with civilian traffic. Suggest you proceed accordingly, over.”

              Kulkarni nodded. “Agreed, rhino-bravo. Stay the fuck away from the civilians and shoot to kill anyone, and I mean
anyone
, who comes close to your tanks. We will do the same. Out.” The link chimed off.

              “You heard what I said?” He asked his gunner.

              “I did, sir. Shoot first, shoot to kill. Ask questions later.”

              “Good.” Kulkarni then switched to the driver: “we should have sight of the highway soon enough. There will be civilian traffic. Proceed with caution and watch for mines.”

              “Roger.”

              Kulkarni then went back to his optics. The sky was just slightly pink and red to the east now. Yet another day of the war was starting in earnest. The western skies were still greyish-black. Night optics were of no use under such “twilight” conditions: just enough light to ruin night optics and not enough light to see anything with the naked eye. Wonderful conditions for a…

              The streak of tracers from a cluster of houses nearby flew over his turret. Several of them slammed into the turret with metallic clangs. Kulkarni opened unit-wide comms as his gunner swiveled the turret to bring the main gun to bear on those houses: “rhino-actual is taking fire from the cluster of houses on the south-west edge of town. Trace back the fire for target position! Follow my tracers if required. Engage and
destroy!
”

              The turret shook violently as the main gun recoiled and the spent sabot round fell back to the turret floor. The round slammed into the walls of the cement building from where the enemy fire was emanating. The sabot round is designed for tank combat. Against a cement and sand structure, it just passed through without much damage. It did leave a gaping hole in the wall on the second floor. The loader now put in an high-explosive round more suited for urban combat and it caused the entire second floor to erupt in a cloud of smoke and cement dust.

              “Target building is
destroyed!
” The gunner exclaimed.

              “Good kill!” Kulkarni replied.

              “Why are the Pakistanis engaging us with light guns?” The driver asked. “What did they expect to happen?”

              “These are the amateur jihadists.” Kulkarni replied. He had made a similar observation. “Or a rear-echelon unit caught unawares by our advance. Expect more asymmetric warfare from the enemy from now on. They will try and fight us the way the Taliban did in Afghanistan. Mines and suicide attacks coupled with regular army forces like those helicopters we encountered earlier!”

              The sound of tank fire to their rear ended the conversation. The gunner began searching for new targets. Kulkarni rotated his optics to their rear and saw friendly tanks firing main gun rounds against enemy infantry within the civilian buildings inside Rahim Yar khan…

              “Rhino-bravo is engaged in combat,” Kulkarni added for the benefit of his crew, who couldn’t see what he was seeing. As he watched, over a dozen Arjun tanks engaged a cluster of buildings inside the town. An entire line of buildings disappeared in balls of fire, smoke and dust. A few of the buildings collapsed. Enemy mortar fire erupted around the slowly moving Arjun tanks, but these could not possibly do any damage except perhaps to the tank treads. The tanks of rhino-bravo were moving east to west along the road and were flanking Kulkarni’s tanks. They moved sideways with their turrets swiveled at ninety degrees to engage targets. The tanks were following up main gun rounds with the rattle of co-ax machinegun fire, ignoring the mortar explosions.

The mortar fire worried Kulkarni, though. Time to call in  a favor from Sudarshan: “rhino-actual to steel-central. We are encountering indirect mortar fire from within Rahim Yar Khan. Requesting counter-battery support. Over.”

“We see it and are working on it. Steel-central out.”

For Kulkarni, this battle was like a roadside show. He could do little other than to watch as it played out and trust the training and caliber of his men to ensure they came out on top. He almost missed a heartbeat when an enemy tank round slashed from between some buildings and just barely missed the front of an Arjun tank rolling sideways to the threat. The latter Arjun crew got into action and brought their front armor to face towards the yet unseen threat. A Pakistani T-80 tank rumbled between the narrow buildings to the north. Both it and the Arjun tank fired at each other simultaneously and the two tank rounds hit their targets. On the Arjun side, the enemy round hit square bang into the center of the Kanchan composite armor plating on the turret and the Arjun literally shuddered backwards behind a cloud of sparks. The T-80 received a round straight into its reactive armor panels and the latter exploded, jerking it aside.

              The T-80 was clearly disabled. Its crew scampered out of the turret as smoke began appearing out of the engine. The Arjun tank on the other side of the road, however, shrugged off the hit and despite a nasty scar on its turret armor panels, rumbled back on the road. It fired a second shell and this one passed straight
through
the detonated reactive panels on the T-80 and demolished the tank in a fountain of sparks and smoke…

              There were other T-80s hiding in the town. And rhino-bravo tanks all maneuvered to bring their frontal armor to bear on the besieged town. This was no longer a minor skirmish. It was now a major battle.

Kulkarni knew that there was
no way
he was sending his tanks
inside
Rahim Yar Khan to engage the enemy in a cat and mouse game. No, the enemy had to be hunted in a way where he could not respond. Kulkarni thought about talking to Sudarshan but noticed that the latter had already come to the same conclusion when the first air-force
AH-64
Apache gunship helicopters flew over his tanks…