A much younger self… he rubbed his sleep-deprived eyes.
And so it was. Over the two weeks of conflict that had taken place from the mountains of Ladakh to the cities of Bhutan and the high seas off the Indonesian coasts, space based assets had proven critical. At the time, however, India had been caught flat-footed on the military reality of space in modern war. It lacked redundancy in space assets which meant that every loss was crippling to satellite coverage. India had also lacked offensive space weapons such as anti-satellite or ASAT weapons… and the Chinese had not.
Malhotra was on point when one of his precious birds had been taken out over northern Tibet by Chinese ASAT missiles later in the war. And it had almost cost them everything.
Following the war, Malhotra had enjoyed an extended stay in charge of his beloved space units. Longer than most people in such positions. But he had been the right man with the right operational credentials to expand Indian military presence in space. In the last three years, he had initiated numerous crash programs to enlarge the command to the level where it actually was a full command, operated jointly by all three services. Several launches and deployment of military satellites had been authorized by the government. RISAT-2A was one of the products of this expansion program. And of course, he had also been promoted to fit the required rank for anyone commanding this force.
But that war with China had been a “legitimate” war.
What the hell is this? Malhotra wondered as he watched the black-and-white picture on the main screen showing the mushroom cloud losing its shape as it broke over the Indian coast.
“What’s the prevalent wind conditions out there?” He asked one of the weather people sitting at their operations consoles.
“East by north,” was the quick reply.
“Fallout is heading inland,” Malhotra noted dryly.
“And some of it will make it to the northern parts of the city by mid-morning today,” Rear-Admiral Sinha added dryly. Sinha had been deputed here from the Strategic Forces Command, or STRATFORCOM, to improve synergy between the two commands. He was also now Malhotra’s deputy-commander. Nuclear fallout patterns and analysis was part of Sinha’s job specialization. Malhotra shook his head. He could not picture himself doing such a job with the objectivity it required.
“What’s the yield we are looking at here?” Malhotra asked Sinha, who focused his stare on the large screen and then glanced at the resolution data visible on the top-left of the video.
“A few kilotons,” he said with finality. Malhotra turned to his comms people and pointed to the screen with his arm:
“Get the folks at STRATFORCOM and give them our preliminary imagery analysis. Our boys in Delhi are going to want to get their hands on all of this as soon as they know we have it.” He then turned to see that Sinha had walked closer to the screen and was staring at some location of the screen. “What do I tell Delhi on what we think this is?”
The navy officer turned to face him: “Tell it like it is: nuclear terrorism by our friends in Pakistan.”
Pathanya walked into the officer’s mess building and saw a crowd of his fellow instructors standing by the wall mounted television in the ante room. Pathanya noticed the grim look on their faces and aborted his short walk to the library, to find out what the matter was. He found one of his fellow instructors, Captain Samik Kamidalla, standing with his arms folded near the television.
“Samik, what’s going on?”
Kamidalla turned to see Pathanya walk in and then faced the television again. “Not sure,” he replied with his fingers cupping his chin. “News coming in on all channels. Mumbai has been hit by a tsunami. No warning or anything. People in panic over there.”
Pathanya let out a deep breath as he exhaled in consideration. This was the first he was hearing about this.
Hell of a morning!
“Well, natural disasters aren’t anything new,” he replied with a hand on Kamidalla’s shoulder. “Stuff happens. Let’s find out if any of the boys who have relatives in Mumbai or nearby coastal areas need to take some immediate leave and see what we can do. I…”
“Oh god!”
Pathanya and Kamidalla both jerked towards the screen and saw a breaking news report that had just aired a video taken on the ground at Mumbai. The scene showed a brownish-white mushroom cloud dissipating into the morning blue skies north of Mumbai…
“Shit! This is no fucking natural disaster! We have been attacked!” one of the young Lieutenants in the room exclaimed. Pathanya pushed past the young officers to take a closer look at the television screen.
The room around him was already a hotbed of a dozen simultaneous conversations, ranging from panicked first reactions, to anger, sadness and shock based exclamations. Kamidalla let loose his own choice expletives under his breath, just loud enough for Pathanya to turn his head on. He muted the television and turned to Kamidalla:
“Forget the fucking vacations! Scramble everybody for war! Headquarters is probably still running around like a headless chicken but we need to get prepared by the time they are. Time to get ahead of this!”
Kamidalla nodded and then turned to the group of young officers behind him: “Quiet!” It was loud enough that his veins showed up on his forehead. “Pull yourselves together! You are officers, for god’s sake! Army officers! Act like it! This shit…” he pointed to the television screen showing the mushroom cloud, “is just the start. We will find out who did this and we will kill them. When the time comes, the army is going to look to us to slit the enemy’s throats. So put your personal stuff away, right now!”
The room was now completely silent. Pathanya switched off the television and turned to face the group.
“Gentlemen, let’s face the facts. This is, in all probability, a terrorist strike. If we were under a full-up attack, we wouldn’t be here in this mess hall five hours after the fact. The only reason we haven’t been briefed about this is because this has just happened. That said, expect the unexpected, gentlemen. We are the tip of the spear that will be shoved through the bodies of whoever did this insidious attack. So get yourselves in that mode. I want everybody ready with their equipment within the hour! Dismissed!”
As the young officers saluted and left the room soberly, and Kamidalla started to do the same, Pathanya grabbed the man by his shoulder, motioning him to stay behind. He waited till the last of the officers had left the room. He then looked his friend in the eye:
“Regardless of what we tell these boys, Samik, this situation is not going to stay in control. We can take a bet on who’s responsible for this attack but my money is on our Pakistani friends. You can’t just get nuclear weapons anywhere except in Pakistan. The government will figure this out sooner or later, and what happens after is anybody’s guess. God knows what they are thinking at this very moment!”
Kamidalla nodded in agreement. He then smiled wickedly: “Well, don’t know about you, sir, but this will be my first war! And damn it to hell if I am going to be sitting in Mizoram when the balloon goes up. I am going to go find the old man about this.”