The perception of a truth, shapes our reality, develops assumption and leads to conclusion, wrong or right, depends on how one perceive it. This book delves into how chaos is initiated with minute perturbation, a word, a weapon or a wish. It’s a presentation of anti-thesis of ideation of chaos and its far-reaching effects, leading you to wonder: did you also got affected by nonlinearly?
Chapter 1- The Oriental Storm
It was a silent sky, overlooking the chaos below. The waves, driven by the wailing winds, lost purpose and were colliding with each other senselessly. The moon was smothered by the clouds while still somehow illuminating the entire seascape. Rain was thundering down on the little fishing trawler named Samya. Biswa was guiding the trawler towards the nearest coast as the storm was getting harsher and stronger, but he was still far from the coast in Bay of Bengal. The rain drenched his face and the winds slapped him, trying to put sense in him and punishing him for venturing out in this weather. Biswa was trying to keep the trawler on course and praying loudly. Suddenly a yellowish-white flash appeared from the surface, accompanied by a thunderous sound. It was like sea had spat out a fireball. But it kept rising, changed its vertical direction, maneuvered randomly and then turned horizontal, aiming towards the coast. Biswa was flabbergasted by what had happened. He started praying to Lord Shiva, destroyer of the worlds, foreseeing something destructive about to happen. But before he could get hold of his bearings, the fireball vanished. All that was left was an unending barrage of waves hitting the trawler, and so Biswa started to pray to the God of Rain, Indra and sometimes Lord Shiva, as flashes of the event came before his eyes.
What Biswa didn’t know was that, below the surface, Chinese boomer, the nuclear submarine Xianglong 1 was cruising just a few meters below the surface. It has fired CJ-10X, a customised cruise missile with the capability to release payload over a fixed duration of time, of mostly particulate matter. It was stripped of any Chinese insignia or any other identification tags. It was cruising towards the coast of Vishakhapatnam, a strategic city of India, famous for its naval infrastructure and home to Indian naval vessels and submarines.
Alerts appeared everywhere in the Naval Command Centre. Multi-layered advanced anti-ballistic missile defence system aided with S-400 Triumph air defence system, was activated which was capable of tracking 36 targets all at once and firing 72 missiles towards incoming missiles, whether ballistic or cruise. The radar of the defence system caught the trajectory of the cruise missile and the targeting process was initiated. An N6DM missile was launched from one of the four launchers of the S-400 system. Command Centre was constantly watching the situation and if the interception didn’t work, they were certain that the cruise missile would hit the dock harbouring India’s latest nuclear submarine, the Aryavarta. But suddenly the cruise missile vanished from the screen of Command Centre. The officers first thought that it was intercepted but the interceptor missile didn’t even reach close to the cruise missile. It appeared that the cruise missile went down and fell into the Bay of Bengal. Naval Command had already sent two P-8I Poseidon submarine hunter aircrafts to find the origin of the cruise missile which was most probably a submarine. However, both of them came up empty as the submarine probably submerged to the deepest level. It may have sailed into international waters where submarines from different countries swarmed regularly.
The entire Naval Command was in disarray. No one knew what exactly had happened but everyone had a sigh of relief because the cruise missile was neutralised, anyhow. Command centre sent its advanced surveillance drone Global Hawk, purchased from the US, to spot the location of the pieces of the cruise missile. At 10,000 feet, the drone scanned the entire area and found the location. The live feed from the drone showed an intact cruise missile with its tip, capable of carrying a warhead, missing. The Indian Navy sent its nearest frigate INS Makrand to retrieve the debris. On arrival, a team of Marcos commandos with logistic training retrieved the cruise missile. The entire operation needed to be carried out in utmost secrecy, hence the choice of the elite navy commando unit.
On arrival of the cruise missile, or whatever was left of it, at Command Headquarters, it was immediately sent over to the Advanced Research Lab of the Naval Command Centre. The Lab was headed by Dr. Krishna Manglam. He was an ace scientist, spending decades as Director of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Bangalore. He was now in charge at the Research Lab, which was created to investigate and develop weapons for next generation warfare.
Dr. Manglam had huge doubts about the incident. He was seldomly wrong about weapons capability and warfare techniques. His works has been key reading for various National Security Advisors (NSAs). Dr. Manglam reached the mobile lab at Vishakhapatnam naval port where INS Makrand was docked. A make-shift white tent was erected where the missile was kept.
Dr. Manglam entered the tent. A team of MARCOS commandos was surrounding a large table where the missile was laid down. On seeing Dr. Manglam, Captain Vikram directed his men to give him way. Dr. Manglam stopped beside the missile’s top section, which was missing its tip.
“Did you find any trace of the tip or any warhead?” Dr. Manglam asked Captain Vikram without even looking at him while observing the missile.
“No Sir. We found nothing. Just the rest of the missile” Captain Vikram stated in firm fashion.
“Did you notice anything unusual?” Dr. Manglam asked as he ran his finger inside the missile, looking for something.
“Well, yes Sir. There was this greyish liquid nearby.” Captain Vikram handed over a pouch.
Dr. Manglam’s attention quickly turned towards Captain Vikram, then towards the pouch. He took it in his hands, opened the pouch and dipped his finger in it. He smelled it and even tasted it. Captain Vikram almost wanted to stop him from tasting it in case it was toxic. Dr. Manglam saw his temptation.
“Don’t worry. If it was poisonous, there would have been thousands of dead fish near where it was found” Dr. Manglam said with conviction and calmness but a little worry in his eyes.
“So, what is it? What really happened?” Captain Vikram finally asked Dr. Manglam for answers but he was struggling to come by any, even after seeing so many weirdly innovative weapons in his service.
“You may leave Captain. Thank you for delivering all of this.” Dr. Manglam excused Captain Vikram along with the MARCOS team.
Dr. Manglam rushed back to his lab. He suspected something and he needed to run some tests which would require time, time which he might not have, time which the city might not have.
