Chapter Five.

“Never stop your enemy when they are busy making a mistake.”

-Variously ascribed.

Síkság province had forty different villages. Most of the Yeti who lived in those villages were friendly to Hegemonic forces and the Kazan Military Assistance Command, however there was a constant and steady offensive perpetrated against the Yeti who were living in the district. Red Fort Command in Mohenjo-daro had even sent out a rigid airship capable of loitering over a target area for three days at a time, with no result. As soon as it appeared over the horizon, terrorist activities in the region would drop. Even when it did a racetrack pattern at altitude of 12 Kilometers, the insurgency could still tell it was overhead. And every night new attacks happened as soon as it and its equipment were out of range.

Highway One leading east out of Camp Maratha was mined nightly, with a mixed bag of antipersonnel and anti vehicle made out of repurposed artillery rounds and diesel fuel mixed with ammonia nitrate. Military Intelligence, called "White Mice '' because of their small white mice emblem painted on their vehicles, had spent countless hours scratching their heads. they had interrogated local villagers, with no result. But whatever was happening or how it was happening had the locals scared stiff and they were terribly afraid of going out at night.

The best MI could get out of them was the phrase,"Démonok alulról" which translated as "Demons from below." Yeti was not an easily understood language and its nuances were still baffling to Hegemonic translators two years into the insurgency.

Tamari had a headache which was verging on the edge of a migraine. Two days they had been on round the clock radio watch overseeing tactical operation by 1st, 2nd and 3rd platoons. It was her job to coordinate air assets, artillery calls for fire and reinforcements and lastly resupply missions.-Which were usually carried out by VTOL. Another headache in of itself getting logistics and the propeller heads to coordinate with each other...

Tamari took her communication headset off, and scratched her head. It was draining. Being in charge while the rest of the company was on dispatched duty away from their headquarters, while also acting as the company executive officer was more akin to being an XO of a light battalion than a company. Four and half hours past the middle of the night when the moon goddess had gone to bed, nothing was moving, and even the incessant noise of local insects had died down to silence. Tamari excused herself and walked out of the Tactical Operations Center for a smoke. One of her few vices was smoking clove oil soaked tiny cigars she acquired a taste for at the Kshatriya Military Academy.

Looking up at the eternal stars in wheeling above her head, she could see the seven Krittika princesses heading for their couches after chasing their lady moon to her bed, and the thoughts of fighting a faceless foe bubbled up in her head,"Lord Mithra God of soldiers and warriors all, I am tired of this shit." She mentally bitched to herself, knowing someone out there had her troops in their sights and there was little or nothing she could do about it. “These fuzzy-faced bastards have us reacting to them and not the other way around. I am heartily sick of this crap! I want to be inside their decision loop for change."

She sighed as she watched the stars. It was the same night sky she grew up with, but it was weird and different at the same time. More importantly she was missing something and it scratched and itched at the base of her skull. There was an obvious clue which she was missing and she wasn't sure it was because she was tired or too close to the problem but still it itched...

Finishing her smoke and her self pitying session she headed back to her duty desk in the TOC walking past the 'diminutive' Technical Sgt Mahlo who was almost two meters tall and who everyone universally called 'Tinny'. "Ma'am. you left your slate on your desk. It's flashing. A message came in about five minutes ago." she smiled as she walked off to the canteen to get a cup of Chaa.

In the dim red battle lantern twilight the overnight crew used to keep their night vision intact, Tamari spotted a midnight black oblong slate with its message light blinking on her desk.

Picking it up, she typed in her password and opened her message icon:

"Attn: Lt T. Kapoor. Insurgent route found. Send reinforcements. Bring Hex-8 in large quantities. Radio transmissions aren’t secure at this time. Text only. Reinforcements to this position: GR823015. Lt M. Sagwle 3rd Platoon."

-End of text.

Tamari then sent a reply,

"Attn: Lt M Sagwle, received message. Coming to your location ETA 1:30 Bringing party favors. Kapoor out."

Grabbing her duty phone, Tamari quickly rang up Gunnery Sgt Chavram's quarters, and had her roust out of bed the relief force, informed her of messages received and sent, and then warmed up the armored vehicles of the relief force. She then sent out a warning order text to her company commander, who was out with 1st platoon "walking the ground" with a MI detachment trying to solve the secret routes.

Tamari texted,

"Attn: Captain P. Kandam. Possible insurgent route found. Suggest all platoon and MI elements your position go to full alert status. Am rolling in ten minutes R823015 with reinforcement squad. Lt. Kapoor out."

She then forwarded Lt Sagwle's message to her Captain. Finally she put the entire TOC and all of its associated staff on alert, as she briefly outlined what was transpiring.

Ringing up Sgt Sita Chambial, Tamari told her to get her gear and go to the revetments where "Can of Peaches" her AFV sat and meet her at the TOC. "Move it Sita! We have a hot mission." Tamari all but yelled into the communication line.

Three of the remaining armored fighting vehicles of the company reserve, with three mine clearing trucks, two 4x6 heavy supply vehicles and a reinforced platoon of 'White Mice' with KMA support company rolled out of Maratha Base in 40 segs after the initial call came in. Lt. Kapoor was furious at the delay. The main reason was the rather large big nosed, loud mouth hulking warrant officer in charge of the MI detachment...

"Listen Lieutenant, I don't care how much of a hurry you are in. My White Mice have been working our collective asses off for the past six and half months trying to nail down where these bastards are coming from. You will allow me and my people to come along. Or I will simply follow your trail. Got that!" The very tall and irate Senior Warrant Officer Badra "The Elephant" Hebbar all but yelled down to an equally furious Tamari Kapoor.

"Badra" is an apt name for this romping stomping elephant. It is a wonder she ever got anything from anyone other than by screaming and slapping them around.” Tamari complained in her head as she made up her mind, as to whether or not the MI could go under her protection. Tamari was mad because every second on the ground meant her troops weren't getting their support.

"Listen Warrant Officer Hebbar. I have only so many eyes I can put on a swivel. Your mice are known for escalating things in your favor and not necessarily that of a given situation. I am NOT a Mech Infantry command. Do you understand I have exactly three armored fighting vehicles equipped with a 60mm. You start something, you might very well be on your own for a while until I or my troops can get to you. Understand?"

A grudging grunt was her reply.

"I said, do you understand?"

Like watching risen bread having its yeast bubble burst, the Warrant Officer realized she had to give some respect to the young officer standing in front of her. With a resigned voice she said, "Yes ma'am. I understand."

Tamari decided to throw a bone of reconciliation towards the hulking warrant officer, "Good. Because I think I might need your encryption systems and your mobile telemetry feeds. I am going to ask Gidh Drone Command to put up multiple "vultures" in the region. I don't know my people will be able to handle them and an evolving tactical situation.

“Yes ma'am. Hell, we can do that. We do that sort of stuff all the time.”

“OK get 'em in their trucks. We are late in rolling out.” Tamari said as she then turned on her heels and climbed up into her vehicle.

The Sun was quartering in the eastern sky. An ugly mixture of cumulus and cirrus clouds reflected striated streaks of orange, pink and blood red. The ever quiet Bahai, Lt Kapoor's driver, spoke over the crew comm channel, “Farmer's see a morning like this, they know to lift up their stuff off the floor, it's gonna rain before the day is out.”

Which of course revived teasing remarks between Sita her gunner, and Bahia as to the former's life growing up in an agricultural district so boring even the buffalo would rather commit suicide than continue to live there. It was an old comedy routine between gunner and driver.

With the Sun coming up in her face, Tamari could see the Emmer wheat waving in green ripples with the breeze which always accompanies Ravi the Sun God in his daily climb into heaven. A last evening Chuffing could be heard even over the roar of her vehicles engines, announcing there was a male Lion who was not happy with an army column advancing through his hunting territory.

“Chuff away you old fraud. I am a Kapoor! I know who does the real hunting in your pride.”

A full hour late in getting to the village of 'Falu, zöld, fű or The place of green grass.' Tamari could see Junior Lieutenant Sagwle waiting on her at the village well called a Kua't, where also the Lt.'s AFV was parked and ropes snaking down the side of the well had been tied off to the vehicle's tow hooks. The MI troops deployed around the village with their Warrant Officer Hebbar, meeting up with Tamari as she walked up to a now visibly anxious junior officer.

“Report Lt.” Tamari said abruptly.

“Yes, ma'am. Yesterday was a mixed bag of sweat and determination. We came upon a future ambush site off the main road over to the east of her in one of the side trails leading off to the barley and rye fields. It ran along a grove of tamarind and that damn stuff we call Haathi Grass, where you would need a bull elephant to push your way through. Something looked weird about the place and we set loose our hounds. (The battalion keeps an entire kennel full of highly intelligent Desi or Pariah hounds which had been trained to sniff out explosives. The dogs were so smart, they had learned to ride the mass transit systems in the Hegemony. Some said they were too intelligent. But they were loved and adored by their engineering partners.) They found first a series of six of those damned wooden box mines Atlanteans like to use, with a simple pressure initiator of a wooden stick with two wire leads straddling a battery. It was in turn parallel wired to six mines designed to look like rocks. Which is what made us think something was weird. They didn't look right. Three of the mines were booby trapped with a buried G-4X hand grenade. We spent most of the day and afternoon digging them out."

Lt Sagwle paused for a moment to catch her breath before continuing, "On the way back to the village Premikka our lead dog, started going crazy about a hundred and fifty meters from the village in a straight line from where we found the ambush site. We took her seriously and within a short couple of minutes we found a secondary site, where there was a flat wide area where the local farmers used to thresh wheat and barley. It is just wide enough, if we had been ambushed, in all likelihood I would have had my wounded evacuated from this location by VTOLS. Perfect landing spot. We found eight antipersonnel directional mines with overlapping fields of fire. We traced the leads to what appeared to be a rabbit hole. I personally pulled on the leads and with about a meter and half of wire in my hands out popped the wooden and plastic initiator. It was a good day.”

By this time Warrant Officer Hebbar was visibly fuming, “Lt Sagwle is there a point to this little bucolic story of a platoon out doing its job in the middle of the wheat fields of Kazan?”

Tamari Kapoor sent a withering glance at the hulking warrant. “Yes please Lt. I have the MI folks, the entire company, VTOLS and Ajar Artillery Command on standby. Oh! And the old lady, our company commander en route to this location. Get to the point.”

Gulping Lt Sagwle continued. “Was trying to. Ma'am. That initiator in the rabbit hole is important. Remember it. We were hot and we were tired. Been a long stressful day, as in four days ago we had cleared this place. I had my girls lager up around the center of the village at the Kua't. I set watches and we ate dinner. Platoon Sgt Paravati informed me we were getting low on water. I told her to refill our jugs in the morning. Except for those of us on security and radio watch, I had the rest of the platoon rack out for the night.”

Seeing the ever increasing peeved looks on the officers standing before her, “Ma'am we are almost there. Sometime shortly after the middle of the night Corporal Vendakkatoru decided to make Chaa. She took a water can with her and went to Kua't. She threw her bucket in and with the help of Pvt Masur tried to bring it back to the surface. It didn't budge. Pvt Masur went to get another private to help pull it up, when she heard a strangled yell. She turned around and Corporal Vendakkatoru was gone! Pvt Masur turned on her combat torch and shined it down the well. Nothing. May the goddess of creation keep her safe. She came and quietly woke up myself and my platoon Sgt Paravati.

Pausing once more to take a drink of water from her canteen, Lt Sagwle could see the impatience warring in her Company's Executive Officer's face. "We organized a rescue, thinking she might have been caught in the water and swept downstream. Tech Sgt Dabral and a couple of my troops abseiled down the Kua't and found the water wasn't much more than twenty millimeters deep. But there was blood splashed on the walls and her boot was just inside of the tunnel leading east which is upstream.”

Pausing for a moment Lt Sagwle said with a voice tinged with fear, “Ma'am, Warrant, there is an entire world of tunnels down there. The robot found what I thought was a rabbit hole, where the initiator for the ambush had been hanging in the tunnel. There was even a platform for someone to stand underneath it. This system is massive! We sent our ordnance disposal drones downstream and upstream, with no further sign of the corporal. But we did find something unusual ma'am. We found half of the villagers' kids in a cell. Which by the way is booby trapped six way from your naming day, and just in front of it a communication bunker with some pretty damn sophisticated gear.”

“Holy Shiva this is huge!” Warrant Officer Hebbar all but shouted.

Lt. Sagwle just nodded her head with a sickly grin on her face.

“Outstanding work Lt!” Tamari Kapoor said as she reached out and patted her on the back of her battle armour. “Did you rescue the kids in the cell yet?”

“No ma'am. We have not. I wanted to get some reinforcements here before I opened up a can of Nagas and my girls weren't prepared to deal with it.”

“Good call. Let's see what my MI folks can come up with shall we?”

“I have just about every type of insertion drone, tread, anthropomorphic, you name it loaded up in my trucks.” Warrant Hebbar said looking at Lt Tamari Kapoor.

“Sounds good Warrant. I think we need to plan on their being a reaction from our friends the Ourtai and what sounds like our Atlantean guests. I want to make sure we don't in fact set off something which is going to end up biting us in the ass. I also think we need to talk to the village elders, now, we have discovered their dark secret. And I think ladies, the war has just come to a turning point." Lt Tamari Kapoor said, as she rapidly began texting out updates and orders on her combat slate.