0350 Hours
PLA HQ
Beijing

“ What the hell do you mean by that ?” Chinese General Chan with 3 stars on his shoulders shouted in to the phone. “That base is one of our biggest in the region. How could something like that happen without us knowing ?”

His subordinate, a Brigadier under his direct command was on the other line. “I don’t know sir. We just received a SOS from the base informing that some unidentified people had overrun their defences and killed or imprisoned all of the defenders. Even the Base Commander is missing.”

“ I don’t care about who or how many are missing or dead, I just want to know who did this and punish him.” General Chan hissed with barely suppressed rage.

Brigadier waited for a few seconds as he contemplated his reply. News of numerous major setbacks, one after the other were playing havoc with their carefully planned strategy. What had started out as a win-win game had turned in to a nightmare turning worse with each passing moment. “All that I can say at this stage is that whoever did this was very well equipped and trained. Whole mission reeks of top class special operations team and a big one at that. The base with 300 people was overrun within a hour with no causalities on their side. We should be really careful with this.”

This statement gave a pause to the furious rants of General Chan. Although the attackers had overrun the whole base but still had not assumed full control. They had come in like a surprise typhoon, destroyed everything in their path and then vanished. There were almost a dozen Chinese bases in the region, all of them much smaller and much easier targets. The fact that the attackers had chosen to attack that particular base while ignoring all the low hanging fruit was most worrying aspect of the situation. No only they had good intelligence regarding layout and defences of the base, it’s flawless execution also meant that they had prepared for it in advance. Not many countries had such kind of resources and skill at their disposal. Chan nervously chewed on his mustache as he considered all the points. “Are there any American or Russian assets in our seas ? Anybody or anything suspicious enough ?”

Relieved of the tension that had been gnawing on him during the pregnant pause , Brigadier replied immediately, “ No sir.”

Chan snorted derisively, “You should say that you haven’t been able to detect anything yet. Somebody just destroyed our base in our own backyard and we had no clue hours after it happened. Something is really screwed up.”

Poor Brigadier had no idea how to answer that, “We are trying our best to catch the miscreants. “

“These are no ordinary miscreants Brigadier. You probably don’t have any idea what you are dealing with. “ Shaking his head in mild irritation he asked, “ Tell me something that you know. How are you searching for the attackers and our missing men ?”

“We’ve pressed all of our remaining ships and aerial reconnaissance vehicles from Beihai and adjoining bases. But I believe we’ll need more than that. If I may have your permission, can we call for reinforcements from Hangzhou ? ”

“Are you really that stupid Comrade Haw ? Do you really think that we can move our assets from that area with Japanese and Americans breathing down our necks ? Those ships and planes stay where they are.”

Brigadier objected weakly, “ But sir, it’ll take us weeks to cover all that area with what we have it here.”

General Chang realised that the Brigadier was telling the truth Pausing again for a while, he took some deep breaths and asked“What’s the location of our 3rd fleet ?”

“ They’ll pass Malaysia in few hours.”

“Call them back and order them to help with hunting down the hostiles in Spartlys.”

Brigadier was startled. Searching frantically for polite enough words he mumbled, “ Sir ? But what about our plan regarding Indians ?” What will Admiral say to that ?”

Chan snapped back, “ You need not worry about them, Colonel. I’ll talk with Admiral and even the President myself. We need to consolidate our resources not spread them thin. They are nearest and most capable with search and defending our remaining bases. I want them to form a impenetrable wall around west of Spartlys. “

“Yes sir.” Brigadier replied and then spoke with nervous voice again, “ “Sir. There is one more news that you need to know.”

“What is that Comrade ?”

“Vietnam has announced test launch of a ballistic missile tomorrow.”

General Chang almost jumped to the roof, “ Vietnamese have announced what ?”

Brigadier thought that he was beginning to enjoy the sound of panic in his senior officer’s voice, “ They have announced that they’ll test launch a short range ballistic missile tomorrow.”

“What the hell they think they are doing ? Testing a missile at this time when so much sh1t is flying around! When and how did they develop that missile ? It’s impossible.”

Brigadier Haw agreed. “We’d have known if they were actually developing it themselves. This sudden announcement is very suspicious.”

Chan asked “Have Americans or anybody else issued a statement yet ?”

“ No sir. It’s too soon for that. We’ll hear something in a few hours, hopefully.”
Chang took in a deep breath and exhaled, “Let others take care of this missile business Comrade Haw. You need to concentrate on my orders. One more thing, news of this attack should not be leaked out anywhere “

Brigadier thought of letting hot shot General know what he actually thought of feasibility of the order, but wisely decided to keep quiet about that. He took his leave with a small reply, “ I understand sir. “

0350 Hours
Phalcon AWACS
Skies Over Laddakh

The AWACS had been in air almost continuously for a week now allowing for maintenance and refueling breaks. That particular patrol had been under progress for three and a half hours. A lot of things were going on Chinese side but till now they had shown no inclination of launching a full scale attack. That particular fact was needling Mission Controller more than anything else. Although, most of the Chinese bases had been put on highest alert after Indian attack on Chinese bases in PoK, Chinese so far had not started moblising their Air Force and Army assets near the border. The closest thing that could’ve caused a shooting incident was when a couple of J10s under control of a Chinese AWACS flying 100 Km inside Chinese territory had come within 2 KM of border. They could’ve been on an intelligence gathering mission to test and needle the Indian defences. They hadn’t been completely unsuccessful in this. Commander of the local Akash battery had no choice but to switch on his radar and track the incoming bandits. The J10s had immediately turned on their tails and went back after powerful Rajendra radar started to track them both. No other plane had come in as close after that. Chinese AWACS was still there flying in an oval pattern, it’s emissions clearly visible in the powerful tracking radar of Indian Phalcon which in turn would’ve been similarly visible to Chinese. Only thing that was different from peacetime were round the clock CAP missions on respective bases, offensive deployment of assets still hadn’t happened .

MC glanced nervously at the blips denoting the 11 Chinese fighter aircraft flying in a pre-set pattern around their respective bases. 240 Km to his North-east he could detect tell tale emissions of powerful S-300 radar. It’s signal going on and off as some big mountain formed an impenetrable wall as the Phalcon traveled or as Chinese switched it on and off.