Battlefield Russia

Operation Fight Club

Sergeant First Class Conrad Price smiled a bit at the sight of so many of his men snoozing like babies. The hum of the engines on the C-17 had lulled most of the soldiers in the cargo bay asleep. Many of them had smartly taken the opportunity to grab some shut-eye before they had to get ready for the jump, but he couldn’t sleep.

Once again, the Rangers of 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, were being called upon to capture an airport in a hostile nation. This time, they were going to seize the Chennai International Airport ahead of a seaborne invasion. This airport, unlike the past ones they’d seized, was a large commercial airport. Current intelligence didn’t show there to be any military units present or even nearby, though that could change quickly once the enemy figured out where their little air armada was headed.

Flying advance for them were several airwings from the US Navy’s Task Force 92. They had spent the better part of three days hitting every Indian air base within a 400-kilometer radius of Chennai to make sure there would be no enemy fighters to greet them. Flying several hours behind them was a long gravy train of 747 planes, carrying a brigade from the 82nd Airborne. Even further back were more C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster cargo planes, which would be landing their ground equipment.

Ninety minutes out from the jump, Sergeant Price roused the men from their slumber so they could begin to get their equipment ready. They all went over last-minute tasks and objectives for what felt like the hundredth time. Thirty minutes from the jump, the Rangers psyched themselves up for what should be an easy jump. Their past few jumps had been on hostile airfields that had been heavily protected, but the airborne gods appeared to be throwing them a bone with this one, or so they hoped.

Sergeant First Class Conrad Price walked the row, making sure his platoon of soldiers was ready for the jump, checking their equipment and also making sure the squad leaders were ready. The responsibility of his new position still weighed heavily on him. When their company had been pulled from the front lines in Taiwan back to the airfield, one of their trucks had hit a landmine, killing their first sergeant and his platoon sergeant in one fell swoop. It had been a devastating loss, especially since they had just been ordered to the rear. A few days later, Staff Sergeant Price found himself in the company commander’s office being told he’d been promoted and would be taking over the platoon, along with a handful of new replacements fresh from training.

A week later, their unit was sent back to the front to do some deep reconnaissance for the Allies as they continued to hunt down the remaining PLA forces on the island. After spending another month in the field, they were pulled from the line and officially sent to Indonesia.

The memories were all jolted out of his mind as the jump master yelled out, “Five minutes! Get ready!”

Price walked up to his spot in the line, making sure he’d be one of the first to jump. He felt it was his job to make sure he was one of the first guys in the platoon to hit the ground and figure things out. The platoon leader would be the last to jump, making sure everyone got out the door, which suited their captain just fine. Not that he was a bad guy or anything, he just wasn’t one of those types of officers who charged out in front of his NCOs in combat.

The next thing Price heard was the jump master shouting, “Go, go, go!”

He quickly followed the two guys in front of him out the door. The first thing he saw when he exited the plane was the runway below them.

“Wow, they’re putting us right on the tarmac!” he thought. An extra adrenaline rush flooded his system, and his heart pounded wildly.

In minutes, his feet hit the ground. He tucked and rolled just like the previous jumps and came up ready for action. He quickly unsnapped his parachute and grabbed at his drop bag, pulling out his rifle and pack. With the basic essentials ready and no visible signs of danger, he wrapped up his chute and ran to a spot just off the tarmac, where he dropped it. Looking around, he saw a number of soldiers following his lead and heading toward him, rallying on him and dropping their parachutes there as well.

When he’d collected a dozen Rangers and still they hadn’t received any enemy fire, he signaled for them to follow him quickly across the taxiway to the parking ramp and the actual airport terminals.

“Thank God we’re doing this at night,” Price thought. He was sure the place would have been crawling with people in the morning. He and the other Rangers continued to run toward the terminal, which still had half a dozen aircraft parked there. A dozen or so civilian ground crewmen were doing their nightly work on the aircraft.

As they approached the terminal, Sergeant Price’s men swiftly took the airport workers into custody and secured the area. With one squad handling the prisoners, his other three squads made their way into the structure and started to clear the individual rooms and the terminal as a whole. Another platoon made its way around the outside of the terminal as they moved quickly to the airport entrances. Their goal was to lock down the entry points and ensure no one else tried to enter the facility.

Within an hour, the entire battalion had landed and secured not just the airport, but a several-block radius around it. Price’s platoon found themselves perched on a hilltop that overlooked the entire airport, the Trichy-Chennai Highway, and the southeast side of the city. It was a lot of ground to have to secure with just a single platoon. Once the 82nd Airborne started to arrive, two additional companies of soldiers would take over control of the area, and his platoon would act more like a quick reaction force or QRF for them.

Already, a heavy weapons platoon was trudging up to join them with their equipment, bringing with them several mortars, antitank missiles, and several M2 .50 heavy machine guns. In a few hours, they’d turn that hilltop into a well-defended firebase, able to provide good support to the surrounding area and the airport.

The Stryker vehicle jostled a bit as the LCAC made its highspeed run toward the beach. First Lieutenant Slater figured they must be breaking some sort of rule or Navy policy, riding in their vehicles while packed on this hovercraft.

“If this thing takes a hit or starts to sink, we could all drown,” he thought. Looking up through the troop hatches, he could see the moon was still high in the night sky. “At least everyone should be asleep when we land.”

Seeing the nervous faces looking back at him, Slater knew he should say something. “It’s going to be OK, guys. This is just like Indonesia. No one knows we’re coming, and there won’t be anyone waiting for us on the beach. We’ll land, we’ll head to our targets and we’ll secure the area and await further orders.”

The soldiers seemed to be put a bit more at ease and they nodded their heads. So far, their company had been lucky — they hadn’t lost many soldiers in Indonesia and they’d been spared some of the heavier fighting in Asia thus far. The unit wasn’t chosen to head into Malaysia or take on any of the Chinese units, the ones who would undoubtedly fight back. They’d been saddled with the Australian and New Zealand Task Force, and up to this point, they hadn’t had to fight it out like the soldiers in Taiwan, Korea or Russia. For that, Lieutenant Slater thanked his lucky stars, but that could easily change now that they were the tip of the spear in India.

Within ten minutes of leaving the troop ship, their LCAC neared the beach. One of the Navy personnel announced, “We’re almost there.”

Then the hovercraft left the water and gently glided over the sandy beach as it made its way up to the edge of the road that separated the beach from the city. Once they’d reached the end of the shore, they dropped the front hatch, and the four Strykers and two JLTVs of his platoon sped off. With his platoon off the LCAC, the hovercraft spun up its engines again and darted back to the sea to pick up the next platoon and bring them forward as well.

Slater ordered his men, “Move forward into the city as quickly as possible.”

Standing up so he could see outside through the troop hatches, he got his first glimpse of the city they had just invaded.

“What a dump,” was the first thought that came to his mind. As they raced down the narrow road, he saw clusters of dilapidated shacks, stores, and run-down houses that lined the street and dotted the beach area. The next thing he noticed was the stench.

“Holy crap, Lieutenant. What the hell is that smell?” moaned Private Leiter, his heavy gunner.

The smell of feces and other unknown decay bathed their senses in its putrid odor, causing some of the soldiers to retch at first while others used a cloth to cover their noses.

“Get used to it, soldier,” remarked Slater. “It’s raw sewage. You see those steep cement cuts next to the side of each road?” he asked. The soldiers instantly looked down. “Those are the sewage pipes.”

Several soldiers shook their heads and went back to scanning their sectors. Once they got away from the initial beach zone, the scenery around them changed dramatically. They entered a much nicer area, and the horrid odor left immediately. The road was now lined by small and medium high-rise apartments and looked to be in much better condition.

Fifteen minutes went by as they made their way through the area and eventually found what they were looking for. Their objective was to find and secure the Adyar police station and a large maintenance depot directly across the street. The maintenance depot would become the company headquarters by the end of the day, giving them a secured compound from which to operate and secure their vehicles.

When they approached the police station, they saw a handful of police cars parked in front of the small building and a few police officers milling around out front. Lieutenant Slater hopped out of his vehicle with his translator quickly following him. He made his way cautiously toward the police officers. None of them had made a move for their weapons yet, and Slater held his hands open and out to his sides to show that he meant no harm, and that he had not come to fight if it could be avoided.

The police officers squirmed a bit and suddenly became quiet as they saw dozens of armed soldiers with their faces covered in dark face paint. After all, they were fully clad in body armor and carried more weapons and grenades than the men had ever seen before. The soldiers immediately fanned out in the street. Some soldiers made their way around to the back of the police building, while others positioned their vehicles to block the roads and take up defensive positions. As Slater got closer to them, they all settled their gaze on him.

“My name is Lieutenant Ian Slater,” he said slowly and calmly. “I’m with the American Army. We don’t wish to fight you or harm you. Who is in charge?” His translator followed him, speaking rapidly to the men in their language.

One of the police officers spoke to the translator, gesturing angrily toward Slater and his men. The translator then turned to him, saying, “They want to know, if you are not here to harm them or fight them, then why are you here? What do you want?”

Smiling, Slater suddenly felt good about the situation. “This just might work,” he thought.

“Tell him I would like to know if we can sit down and talk together. Tell him I’ve brought his men some food and American cigarettes as a peace offering,” Slater announced. He turned and signaled for Private Leiter, his M240G machine gunner, to bring a small patrol pack to him. The police officers eyed Leiter nervously as the stocky giant of a soldier approached with his multihundred-round belts of ammo wrapped around his body armor and his giant machine gun. He also had some pretty hideous-looking face paint markings on that made him appear even more menacing, as did many of the men in Slater’s platoon. It was somewhat of an adolescent ritual, but Slater didn’t care as long as it pumped up the soldiers in his platoon.

Opening Leiter’s patrol pack up, Slater pulled out a carton of Marlboro Reds out and tossed it to the man who appeared to be in charge. Smiles quickly spread across the officers’ faces, and some of the initial tension relaxed.

The police officer jabbered on to the interpreter, who said, “The man says his name is Captain Aarav Anand. He thanks you for the cigarettes. He wants to know if you would like to come to his office and talk privately. He also is asking if you can have your soldiers lower their weapons while we talk. He assures us that no harm will come to us. They are police officers, not soldiers.”

Slater turned to his platoon sergeant. “Tell the guys to stay alert, but we don’t need to keep our guns pointed at them right now. Secure the area and get the depot locked down. I’m going to go inside and see if we can work out some sort of arrangement with the captain here.”

“Copy that, LT, just don’t let your guard down,” Sergeant First Class Starr replied. “We’re on their turf, and these guys might try to take you as a hostage.”

Slater grinned as he answered, “Come on, Starr, when have you ever known me to let my guard down?”

The sergeant chuckled and then began to bark out orders to the other soldiers to get moving. They had a job to do, and it was already 0350 hours. The sun would be up soon, and that meant the city would start to wake up and it would become a real mess around here.

“Private Leiter, you’re coming with me, along with Sergeant O’Neal. I want you guys as backup,” Slater announced. “Oh, and try to be nice. Maybe smoke a few cigarettes with these guys and pass out some of the food we brought with us, will you?” He motioned for the police captain to lead the way, and his interpreter faithfully tagged along.

Once in the small office, the captain signaled for them to sit. Slater took the chair as opposed to the couch. With all this gear on, he wasn’t sure he could get out of the couch quick enough, should he have to.

The captain opened the discussion. “One of my officers called and woke me up an hour ago. He said they saw landing ships heading to the beach, so I got dressed and came to the station immediately. Then, you guys show up. I want to know what’s going on and why you Americans are here.”

“Captain Anand, our president issued an ultimatum to your prime minister two weeks ago. India needed to withdraw from the Eastern Alliance and end the war, or India was going to face severe consequences. We are here to secure the city of Chennai and the port before we move inland to hunt down and destroy the remaining army units and force your prime minister to surrender,” Slater explained.

The police captain shook his head before responding. “You realize we have over a billion people living in India. If we wanted you gone, it wouldn’t take us long to drive you from our country. Putting that aside, what do you want with my police department? This was clearly the first place you came to.”

“As I said earlier, we don’t want to fight the people of India,” Slater answered. “Our disagreement is with your government. What we want is your help. We want your police officers to continue to do their jobs. Arrest criminals, man traffic corners, and go about your daily duties. We’re going to set up our headquarters across the street at the maintenance depot. I would like to coordinate the movement of other units through this part of the city with you.”

The captain snorted. “I suppose you Americans are making this same proposal to other police stations around the city as well?”

“Yes, and to your local and city officials. Again, our disagreement is not with the people of India, it’s with your government. Until your leaders end your alliance with the Chinese, we are going to stay here.”

The two of them stared at each other for a few tense minutes, not saying anything as they sized each other up. Captain Anand eyed the oversized Private Leiter standing in his door and his huge machine gun. He shook his head.

“Fine,” he replied. “My men will go about their normal duties, just like any other day. We’ll work with you to keep our part of the city calm and under control. I can’t control what happens in other parts of the city or what the government does.”

“None of us want to see any more bloodshed, Captain. We have an opportunity to make the best of a bad situation. I hope you understand that. This situation will hopefully be resolved in with your government in a few days now that we’ve arrived.”

Slater stood, then instructed his interpreter to tell the captain to bring his officers in so they could all be briefed on what had been agreed to and what they would be doing next. What happened in the next few hours could very well determine if their sector of Chennai would be peaceful or turn into a complete mess.

Major General Alan Morrison stood near the terminal building as he observed the second RO-RO ship pull up to the dock to begin offloading its equipment. The first ship had docked half an hour ago, and already, 1st Armored Regiment had B Squadron offloaded and ready to go. The thirty-eight M1A1 Abrams battle tanks were even now moving to a marshaling point near the port entrance. Morrison’s hope was to get his entire brigade offloaded before sunup, so the unit could begin to get their part of the city secured before the area became a zoo. The Americans would then move in with their own RO-RO ships and get the rest of their divisions offloaded.

“Any word yet from our scout units? Have they made it to the Ripon building and secured it?”

“Yes, General,” replied a major who was coordinating the brigade’s operations. “Captain Foster’s unit just checked in. They’re securing the building as we speak. He said we probably won’t be able to make contact with most of the government officials until later in the morning.”

“Good,” said General Morrison. “I also want to know immediately when SAS makes contact with the mayor and the governor. They should be securing them both by now.”

“Sir, the mayor and governor have already been secured and are being driven to the Ripon building as we speak. They’ll be there waiting for you when you arrive,” replied the major.

An hour later, as the light of dawn began to push away the night, Major General Morrison found himself sitting across a table from the governor of the state, the mayor, the head of police and a couple of other senior members of the city government. None of them looked very pleased to be speaking with him.

“I demand to know what you are doing in our country!” shouted Governor Bakshi, who looked disheveled and out of sorts. The SAS men clearly had not given him much time to throw some clothes on before they’d carted him away in a vehicle to be at this meeting.

“Governor Bakshi, please calm yourself,” General Morrison said in his thick Australian accent. “Our quarrel is not with you or your city. However, until your prime minister renounces his unholy union with the Eastern Alliance and makes peace with the Allies, I’m afraid we are going to be turning Chennai into an Allied base camp of sorts.”

This announcement generated a lot of looks of concern from the politicians.

“You can’t simply occupy our city like this,” countered the mayor hotly.

“I can’t?” asked General Morrison, who was clearly enjoying himself. He waved his hands around and gestured out the windows. “I believe I already have. By the end of the day, I’ll have 12,000 soldiers in Chennai, and in three days I’ll have over 50,000… and more will continue to come. I’m not sure if you are aware, but the Allies recently defeated the Russians. Where do you think that large European army is headed?” he asked.

Wisely, the chief of police replied, “What do you want?”

A smile crept across Morrison’s face as he surveyed the men before him. “I’m going to offer you two options, although I hope you choose the first one. In option one, we would leave you in power to govern your city as you see fit. In time, as we secure the state, you’ll continue to administer it as you previously have. There would be no immediate changes. The police would continue to do their jobs, and life would go on as our army steadily makes its way to the countryside to do battle with your army. The second option is this — I will have you all removed and replaced with those that will comply with our requirements. You will be locked up as enemy prisoners of war until the war is concluded and prisoners are either released or swapped. I’ll give you all five minutes to discuss this amongst yourselves, but I advise you to take me up on option one. Being a former Commonwealth member, I do hope we can keep things civil, but the Americans are not as understanding as I am.”

He then stood up and left the room to let them deliberate for a moment and to check in on the rest of his units. The first six hours of this landing were critical. Either things were going to go smoothly, or there were going to get ugly quickly.

The sun was fully up and so was the city. Hundreds of people had come out to see who these odd-looking soldiers were that had suddenly taken over this hilltop position overlooking the airport. The main highway running next to the airport had been closed off and so had nearly every entrance to the highways in the city. Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, helicopters and fighter planes could be seen everywhere as the sleepy city woke up to suddenly find out it had been not only invaded by a foreign power, but seemingly been completely occupied without so much as a shot fired.

“Sergeant Price, what kind of plane is that?” one of his soldiers asked, pointing at a propeller-driven plane that was being offloaded. It looked like nearly a dozen of them were being pulled out of the cavernous bay of the giant cargo plane.

Lifting his pocket binoculars to his eyes to get a better look, Price smiled. “That, my friend, is our close air support. It’s one of the Air Force’s new Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverine turboprop ground-attack planes. It’s a freaking beast.”

The soldier grinned. “Good. We may need them if the Indians don’t surrender.”

“It’ll work out, Specialist. If not, that’s what we’re here for,” Sergeant Price replied good-naturedly.

His radio chirped. “Zombie Five, this is Zombie Six. How copy?”

Price depressed his talk button. “Zombie Six, this is Five. Go.”

“I need you to report to my location,” his captain explained.

“Copy that. I’m on my way,” Price responded. He bade the group farewell as they continued to watch the Air Force offload additional helicopters, vehicles and other equipment they would need.

Trudging through the camp that the Airborne troopers had quickly begun to set up, he made his way over to what appeared to be a headquarters area. Spotting Major Fowler and Lieutenant Martinez, he walked over.

“What’s going on, Sir?” Price asked.

Major Fowler replied, “We’ve got a new mission and some wheels. Major General Morrison — you know, the Australian general — he’s given us a mission. We’re going to head to a small village by the name of Voyalanallur a couple of kilometers outside the city here. Once we get there, we’ll need to identify a suitable location for an artillery regiment to set up shop, establish a firebase, and create a base of operations for reconnaissance.”

Sergeant Price looked at the map they’d handed him and traced his finger across it from their current position to where the little village was located. It was an ideal position to set up an artillery base; any guns set up there could provide support to any location in the city and twenty plus kilometers beyond it, which would certainly be helpful if they ran into any serious trouble.

“OK, sounds good. When do we leave?” asked Price.

“As soon as our vehicles arrive from the airfield. That said, the rest of the company is going to do this mission,” explained Fowler. “I’m personally tasking you, your platoon and Lieutenant Martinez here with gathering intelligence on an Indian air base.”

Price and Martinez exchanged a surprised look.

Fowler continued, “Arakkonam Air Base is roughly 75 kilometers from our current location. I need you guys to figure out what sort of military presence is still there and what condition the runways are in. I was told the Navy didn’t crater the runways, just hit the aircraft hangars, etcetera. If the runways look to be in good condition and the base doesn’t appear to be heavily occupied by the enemy, then the battalion may assault it and expand our military footprint deeper into the country.”

They talked for a bit longer, making sure they had a fallback plan in case they ran into trouble.

Fowler concluded, “I was told by our Air LNO that within an hour, the first several Wolverines will be ready to provide close air support should we need it, and we’ll also have some Apaches on standby as well.”

With the meeting officially finished, Lieutenant Martinez and Price walked back to their platoon area to let the guys know about the new mission.

“LT, when are they going to give you your captain bars? I heard you made O-3 last week,” Price said lightheartedly to Martinez.

Martinez shook his head. “No idea. I think I pissed the major off and he’s holding my bars on me until he feels I’m good and ready for them. I don’t really care. I checked my LES statement and I’m getting paid O-3 pay. That’s all that matters.”

Sergeant Price grunted. “Lucky you,” he shot back. “I checked before we left, and they hadn’t bumped me up from E-6 to E-7 yet.”

When they approached the platoon area, the men crowded them, looking for info.

“Have we got a mission yet, or are we still on babysitting duty for the airborne?” one of the specialists asked snarkily. He obviously was not happy about being stuck on QRF duty.

Smiling, Martinez responded, “We have a mission, a real mission. We’re going to scout out an enemy airfield and see if it’s operational. If it is, then the battalion is going to capture it.”

A few whistles and hoots could be heard from the men.

“Calm down, girls,” said Sergeant Price with a laugh. “I need everyone to make sure your rucks are ready. I want three days’ worth of food and a triple combat load of ammo. We have no idea what we’re driving into, and we’re a long way from help. Understand?”

The guys nodded and went to work getting their supplies organized while they waited for their vehicles to show up. Twenty minutes later, eight SOF-outfitted JLTVs rolled up to their position, fully armed and ready to go. Unlike the conventional Army JLTVs, the SOF ones had machine guns mounted on special swivels on the sides of the two front doors, an M2 .50 or Mk19 grenade gun mounted on the turret, and a M240G mounted in a rear position in the bed of the truck. These small vehicles packed a whole lot of firepower and made for great scout vehicles.

Once their rides had arrived, the platoon started loading up their rucks and double-checking the weapons, ammo, water, and fuel. The few 82^nd Airborne soldiers nearby just looked on, seemingly jealous of the exciting mission that they were missing out on and the sweet ride they were traveling on to get there.

The Rangers, for their part, made it look like this was just an everyday vehicle to them. Once the platoon had their equipment fitted out, Lieutenant Martinez called them all over to gather around him and began an impromptu mission brief. Since he didn’t have a lot of information, or really even maps to show them, he used the GPS map built into the vehicles. For the most part, they’d stay on the highway since it would give them the fastest route to get there. Once they were roughly ten kilometers out, the platoon would break into squads and envelop the base from multiple positions, approaching as close as they dared to get a peek at what was waiting for them.

As the day turned to evening, the Rangers had taken cover in various locations around the air base and the surrounding city.

“It looks like the base is empty,” Lieutenant Martinez said. Sergeant Price saw Martinez shoot him a look, asking for confirmation.

Sergeant Price pulled out his binos and surveyed the scene anew. “The runways look clear. The parking ramps and taxiways, however… well, they’ve seen better days.” Burnt-out wrecks of several aircraft and helicopters dotted the area, along with the charred-out remains of the buildings on the base. “I think whatever enemy units were at this base have long since abandoned it. I’ll bet our platoon could seize this base right now.” Price lowered his binoculars. Night was almost upon them, and soon they’d have to switch over to their night vision goggles.

Depressing the talk button on his radio, Martinez radioed in what they were seeing. Sergeant Price smiled when he heard the lieutenant suggest that they attempt to take the base at nightfall. Some chatter took place between Martinez and Fowler for a few minutes while their options were discussed.

After a few minutes, Martinez walked back to the vehicle and singled out Sergeant Price. “You really think we can seize that base after dark?” he asked.

“The other squads have all checked in and they haven’t reported any movement,” Price answered. “We’ve watched the base now for several hours. Whoever was there has probably long since left after the Navy paid them a visit. I think going in after dark using the NVGs is the best approach.”

Martinez thought about that for a moment and nodded. “OK. I’ll let Major Fowler know we’re going to do it after dark. He offered to get us some gunship support in case we need it. Do you think we should request it or just keep it on standby?”

Price didn’t think they would need it at all, but having it on standby, ready to help them should they need it, couldn’t hurt anything. “Let’s keep them ready to assist in case we run into trouble, but I think we’ve got this, Sir,” he answered.

An hour after dark, Sergeant First Class Price and half a dozen Rangers slowly crept along the outer edge of the base perimeter where it came closer to an access road. Once they found the point where the two ran next to each other, Price reached for his Gerber and began to cut the wire while the other men in the squad took up a defensive perimeter around him. In a matter of minutes, he’d cut the five strands of barbed wire that made up the external security and pulled the wires back to the nearest pole, creating a twelve-foot gap in the fence.

He depressed his radio talk button. “Zombie Six, this is Zombie Five. Entrance is open. Heading in now,” he announced.

Price’s thirteen-man team broke out into three four-man teams as they headed to their respective sections of the air base. Using their NVGs to see through the night, they quickly made their way past the outer perimeter of the base to the main facilities, stopping every so often to listen for sounds of movement.

Thirty-minutes after entering the base, Price’s team found themselves sitting in a thicket of trees just opposite a road that led to the main headquarters building of the air base, or at least what was left of it. Pulling a thermal scope out of his ruck, Price turned it on and looked at the structures across the street for any signs of life.

He spent roughly ten minutes examining the entire area before he made the call that it appeared to be abandoned. Price ordered his team to move across the street so they could begin to search the structure.

Running past the base sign, he read, Welcome to Arakkonam Naval Air Station. Home to the longest runway in Asia. In minutes, his team was in the ground floor of the building, moving from blown-out room to room and finding nothing. They went to explore the second floor, but both stairwells had been destroyed, leaving them no viable way to access the upper floors.

Once this first building had been searched and cleared, they moved to the next set of buildings, and so did the other teams. It took them nearly an hour to clear through the building, but the only notable thing they found was the burnt-out wrecks of half a dozen Indian Navy Tu-142s, one newer Poseidon P-8I, and half a dozen helicopters. They also found a lot of dead and charred bodies in the various buildings and maintenance hangars.

Seeing no obvious signs of danger, he radioed in for the rest of the platoon to bring the vehicles on in. Twenty-minutes later, they consolidated their vehicles in the tree line, near the bombed-out headquarters building. With the rest of the platoon present, they finished doing a more thorough sweep of the buildings and the rest of the perimeter, ensuring Price’s initial team hadn’t missed something.

Lieutenant Martinez walked up to Sergeant First Class Price. “This place gives me the creeps,” he said. “It’s almost like something out of a zombie apocalypse or the Walking Dead TV series or something.”

Price smirked. “You have a wild imagination, LT. It just looks like a bombed-out air base to me. Did you call it in yet? What did Major Fowler say?”

“I called it in ten minutes ago,” Martinez replied. “He said congrats on the seizure and to hold on to it. He told me the rest of the company is stuck pulling security for that artillery firebase until they’re relieved by another Army unit. He did say he passed our situation on to battalion, and they’re going to see if a regular Army unit can relieve us. The Air Force is apparently eager to get this base operational; they want to move an engineering unit out here ASAP.

“In the meantime, I want everyone to try and get some sleep for now,” Martinez ordered. “Once sunup comes, I think this place is going to get a lot harder to defend. This is an enormous base, and we’re just a platoon.”

Price nodded, then went to work getting a guard rotation set up for the platoon.

It was nearly two in the morning when Captain Wilkes got a call from the battalion commander, ordering him to have his company stop everything they were doing and head out to a new location seventy-something kilometers outside the city. Apparently, a platoon of Rangers had seized an opportunity to capture an enemy air base, and now the brass wanted it properly protected so the Air Force could get it up and running ASAP. The following hour was a rush of controlled chaos as he ordered his platoons to wrap up whatever they were doing and join his position near the Adyar police station.

Wilkes felt lucky that the entire movement was happening in the wee hours of the morning, when the citizens of Chennai would still be largely asleep. Unfortunately, so were most of the soldiers, who now had to be roused from their slumber and made ready to fight. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours into the invasion of India and they were already receiving their first fragmentary order or FRAGO, and it was to go reinforce a platoon of Rangers deep in enemy territory.

Spotting Lieutenant Slater, Captain Wilkes walked up to him in a hurry. “Are your troopers ready, Lieutenant?” he asked, looking at his watch. “I think we’re starting to fall behind schedule.”

Slater nodded. “My guys are ready to roll, Sir. We’re packed up. My only question is, since I’ve been able to establish a reasonably friendly relationship with the local police captain, do we know who’s going to take our place? I’d at least like to tell them who they’ll be working with.”

“I don’t have a lot of details. The battalion CG said something about a New Zealand unit moving in to take our place, but I have no idea what unit or who they are.” He paused for a second as he guided the two of them away from the soldiers nearby. “Look, I have no idea who’s running this mess right now or what’s going on. All I know is I was at battalion headquarters to pick up some supplies and the commanding general was pipin’ hot about something. One of the orderlies told me the brigade commander got a FRAGO order from the Ranger battalion that they were in some sort of trouble and had a platoon way out deep in enemy territory that stumbled onto an empty airfield and took the opportunity to seize it. Now the Australian general in charge of the ground operations here ordered it reinforced and turned into forward operation base. We’re the first unit to head out there, but from what I gathered at battalion, it looks like the rest of the unit will be joining us out there over the next couple of days, along with a few artillery units.”

Slater kind of slumped his shoulders at the news. Captain Wilkes understood; like many of the soldiers in their unit, he had hoped they’d be assigned to garrison duty in Chennai. That would have been a relatively safe duty assignment, and it would have meant they wouldn’t see a lot of combat unless things completely turned to crap with the locals, which seemed to be relatively low-risk given their current relationship with the local government.

Slater shook out his shoulders, then stood up straight and tall. “Well, look at it this way, Sir,” he said. “We’ve been selected to go save the Rangers. We’ll be able to brag about that to these guys forever once we get back to Fort Lewis.”

Wilkes laughed, and for a moment, the tension in the air was lifted. The captain had even more reason to avoid combat than Slater at the moment — his wife was expecting twin boys any day now. All he wanted to do was survive this war and get home to them. His poor wife was already trying to deal with their other two girls, ages two and three, and now twins. Thank God her parents had come to live with them while he was gone. He wasn’t sure how she would handle it all.

“Thanks for lightening the mood, Ian,” Wilkes responded. “I suppose I’m just distracted with the twins coming any day now. I know I need to keep my head in the game, but it’s so hard right now. I just wish I could be there with them, and frankly, there isn’t anyone I can really talk to about this.” He wiped a tear away, making sure none of the men could see them.

Ian just nodded. “It’ll be OK, Sir. You can always talk to me. I’m not going to judge you or think less of you. You helped me out a lot back in Washington when I was mentally heading in the wrong direction after I returned from Korea. For a while, I really thought I was going to go AWOL or shoot myself. You gave me a mission and a purpose, and that helped turn me around.”

The two talked for a couple more minutes, then headed back to their soldiers to get ready to meet whatever was waiting for them at this airfield the Rangers had captured.

The sun crept up slowly at first, then before Wilkes knew it, the sun was up, and the darkness of the previous evening was all but gone. Alpha Company continued to race down what was largely a deserted highway toward the Arakkonam Naval Air Station. With the brighter light, Wilkes and the rest of his soldiers took in the opportunity to see the Indian countryside.

Within two hours of leaving Chennai, they arrived in the city of Arakkonam with little to no fanfare. While they hadn’t run into any enemy resistance up to this point, Captain Wilkes noticed they were getting the stink eye from the locals once they realized the soldiers were Americans.

It took them a few minutes of driving around to actually locate the airport, and eventually the front gate, but once they did, they rolled right up to a couple of Special Forces-outfitted JLTVs and a squad of Rangers who eagerly greeted them.

An officer was there to meet them, and he quickly directed them to where he wanted the company to marshal so he could speak to them all at once. Ten minutes after their arrival, they all milled around outside their vehicles, waiting for whoever was in charge of this little operation to come over and tell them what the plan was. Finally, someone walked up to Captain Wilkes to introduce himself.

“I’m First Lieutenant Martinez. I’m the platoon leader of the Rangers who seized this airfield.” Martinez extended his hand to Captain Wilkes.

After they shook hands and finished introductions, Martinez got right down to business. “First, I want to thank you guys for getting here on such short notice,” he said. “I’m sure you saw on the way into the base that we’re not exactly looked upon very nicely by the locals here. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that we bombed the base into a stub before we got here. What I need from your soldiers, Captain Wilkes, is for them to establish a defensive perimeter around the base. We have to make sure this place is as secured as we can make it until additional soldiers and the engineers arrive to help us fortify it.”

Captain Wilkes nodded.

Martinez continued, “Once your unit has the perimeter secured, my platoon needs to expand our footprint of the area and see if there are any enemy units in the area. We have a few surveillance drones up, but they have a limited range. Intelligence says there’s an Indian army base roughly 120 kilometers from here. My unit needs to get eyes on it and see if we have any enemy units headed our direction.” He paused briefly. “How soon do you believe your guys can get this place secured so my platoon can get moving?” he asked.

Thinking for a moment, Wilkes made the decision that he’d rather have these Rangers out scouting for possible enemy units than showing his men around the base. They’d figure it out soon enough. “Lieutenant, why don’t you guys go ahead and go? We’ll sort things out on the base,” Wilkes suggested. “We’ve got the rest of our battalion arriving throughout the rest of the day, so we’ll be fine. If you find any enemy units heading in our direction, please contact us. I’m going to assign my Fourth Platoon, headed by Lieutenant Slater here, to be your QRF if you need it. He’s seen a ton of action in Korea and his platoon is hard-core — they’ll be able to help you if you need it.”

Slater extended his hand, and the two talked for a minute before the Rangers headed out. With the business of handing the airfield over complete, the men of Alpha Company went to work exploring their new home.

Once it became clear the Global Defense Force was going to attack India, the Prime Minister ordered Lieutenant General Nirmal Chander’s XXI Corps to the south of India, so they could be rapidly deployed to deal with a potential Allied invasion force.

While many in the government didn’t believe the GDF would actually invade India, General Chander was not going to take any chances. He moved his Corps headquarters to Bengaluru, which essentially placed most of his forces in the center of the country, where he could easily direct them to meet the enemy.

With a large percentage of the active Indian Army committed to the Russian front, the only other available forces to defend the country were along the Pakistan-Indian border, leaving only his Corps to defend much of the interior of India. Fortunately, his force had been heavily augmented by the activation of the Reserves and the raising of a citizen militia force. With most of the reserves having been assigned to his command, he had 350,000 reservists and roughly 200,000 citizen militiamen in addition to his regular Army force of 67,000 career soldiers. His biggest challenge was moving his forces to fight the enemy and making sure they were properly equipped, fed and housed.

A young major who was helping to run Chander’s operation center ran up to the general and signaled for his attention. “General Chander, reports are coming in that the Americans seized the Arakkonam Naval Air Station. Our intelligence says it’s a very small unit that has taken over the air base, but they expect more Americans to show up soon. What do you want me to tell the scouts to do?” he asked.

General Chander held back his emotions so as not to give away his feelings in front of the young officer. “The Allies captured that base a lot faster than I thought they would,” he thought. Though he was cool on the exterior, he was panicking a bit inside.

“This is to be expected,” Chander said nonchalantly. “The Allies will look to expand their forces inland now that they’ve secured a port. We need to move our forces quickly though to deal with them.”

Chander turned to face the Commander of the 36th Infantry Division, Brigadier General Singh Ghuman. “General, you need to get your division on the move. Order your militia and reserves to attack the Americans at the naval air station. I’m going to have the rest of the Corps move around you to attack the enemy formations in Chennai before they’re able to get themselves organized outside the city. Timing is going to be critical — rush your forces forward, even if it means sacrificing many of your militiamen. They need to tie the Americans down while we get the rest of our army in position. Is that understood?”

“Yes, General. We’ll overwhelm them with our sheer numbers,” General Ghuman responded with a wicked grin on his face.