Thanks to A, LadyHaddock, TheDeathlyRider2287, OechsnerC, CajunBear73, Atomicsub927, and everyone else for their reviews, input, and commentary.

=O=

Chapter 33: Tit-for-Tat

Situation Room

Portland National Capital Region, Joint Government of the Pacific

The Situation Room buzzed as reports from Berk poured in.

The Indian use of nuclear freefall bombs had been a near-total surprise. The Air Force had known about the Indian bombers, and had found the force dispersed at airbases around the country to avoid airstrikes, but since the Soviets had not flown any of their more modern bombers into India, it had always been assumed that the Indian Air Force did not possess nuclear weapons, and that ADC would be fully capable of shooting down the obsolete bombers in the event that they tried to penetrate Pacifican airspace.

Plus, everyone reasoned, if the Indians had a semi-survivable dispersed nuclear bomber force, they would surely have announced it on All India Radio for deterrent effect.

Apparently, the Indians and Soviets thought about these sorts of things differently.

"Sir, an updated damage assessment is in. It's… not as bad in some ways, and worse in others." The attaché flipped open a notebook. "Berk was hit by three tactical nuclear weapons of about five kilotons each. Two of the airbase's runways are completely intact, and over half of the aircraft appear repairable – light blast damage, mostly. Unfortunately, virtually all aircraft caught outside hardened shelters will require extensive decontamination and maintenance to clear them for flight operations – it'll take upwards of a week to get many of them back in the air. In operational terms, we've lost upwards of a hundred aircraft – including two whole wings of B-52s and a wing of tankers – a major blow to our airpower in the region."

The President swallowed. A week. The industrialized world could be a smoking, radiating ruin in a week.

"Casualties?" The Secretary asked.

"Light, considering the firepower employed. Base commander estimates two thousand dead and wounded." The attaché shrugged. "We're still not sure how big the Indian attack was, since we believe several aircraft shot down over the Himalayas last night were part of the offensive, but three survived to weapons release over Berk."

The Secretary nodded. "Now we decide how best to retaliate, Mr. President. Given the restraint the Indians have demonstrated in their retaliation, I believe a measured response is called for."

The Advisor shook her head. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"Let's hear what the military men have to say." The President said.

The attaché propped a fresh stack of sheets onto his easel. "As we discussed previously, we have three options. Option One is to take the hit and continue the war conventionally – that is, with no further nuclear weapons use. We were winning the conventional war, and the loss of tactical aircraft from Berk, while painful, will not materially affect our chances of victory. This was probably intentional on the part of the Soviets, to discourage us from further nuclear weapons use."

"Option Two involves a simple retaliation in kind against a selected Indian airbase. Our recommendation is Option Two, which will service the needs of retaliation while, by demonstrating restraint, provide a path to continue the war conventionally, as per Option One."

The Advisor scoffed. "It won't do jack shit to the Indian nuclear force."

"Which is the point, ma'am." The attaché flipped to the next slide. "Option Three is a massive disarming strike against Indian fighter and bomber bases, as well as Indian naval installations believed to house nuclear weapons. India has over a hundred dispersal airbases for its remaining light bombers. These will be attacked with a mix of low and medium yield weapons in surgical nuclear strikes. Runways in densely populated areas will be hit with subkiloton weapons or avoided entirely, whereas rural airfields will be hit with medium-sized weapons up to 70 kilotons – large weapons will be avoided to minimize fallout. Low-yield standoff weapons will be used to destroy nuclear air defenses. Due to restrictions on large defense suppression weapons, aircrew losses will be heavy."

The President gawked.

The attaché caught the President's expression. "We believe this strike will cause minimal civilian casualties – within one order of magnitude of the collateral damage inflicted by our destruction of the Indian strategic missile force. We will be very careful. This is what we call a 'constrained disarming attack', where we accept higher aircrew losses and limited destruction of enemy forces to spare civilians and avoid escalating the conflict further."

So up to ten times more civilian casualties.

"We also have an Option Three Plus which uses high-yield groundbursts and maximal medium-and-high-yield defense suppression to minimize aircrew losses and maximize target destruction. Between nuclear SAMs and the strike on Berk, bomber losses have been relatively heavy; if we expect to escalate to SIOP, we will feel the losses."

The President furrowed his brow. "To be honest, Richard, the Indian retaliation seems remarkably proportionate. We dropped a hundred kilotons of nuclear firepower, they dropped fifteen. Casualties are a little higher on their side. They've lost most of their strategic deterrent; we've lost a hundred tactical aircraft. If they don't use nuclear weapons again, I'm inclined to let this one slide myself. Option One all the way."

The Secretary was incredulous. "Out of the question."

"We're winning the ground war. What do we gain by escalating?" The President shrugged.

The Advisor groaned. The Secretary walked over to the easel. "Sir… our strategic posture aims to deter our enemies from military action by the threat of escalating to overwhelming nuclear force. While we might have been willing to let slide Indian use of nuclear SAMs, we simply cannot do the same for this tactical nuclear strike. A failure to retaliate destroys the credibility of our threat to escalate, which underpins our nuclear doctrine of escalation dominance.

"Doctrine was written for war, not war for doctrine." The President was incredulous. "Richard, you've been spending way too much time with Janet. This isn't Harvard. This is war! They'll launch nukes against our troops on the ground or against the Navy, and what will we do then?"

"We have the advantage in tactical nuclear warfare. The Indians don't have anything like our nuclear rocket launchers. The Army will hold the disputed territories, nukes or no." The Secretary opined.

"Escalate further, of course! Nuke the Indian Army on the East Pak border, and threaten their army on the West Pak border unless they back down. SASCOM has the relevant target lists." The Advisor deadpanned. "A clear message must be sent to Moscow."

The President glared at his National Security Advisor. "I'm not going to risk the lives of tens of thousands of Pacificans – no, millions of Pacificans – to prove your cockamamie think-tank theories right! That's how everyone screwed up in World War I!"

During WWI, mobilization schedules and railway timetables, wedded to excessively rigid war plans and alliance commitments, had led diplomatic efforts by the nose. Those war plans, if stopped halfway, would have utterly ruined the military postures of the belligerents. The momentum of mobilization had thus overwhelmed all efforts to stop the war, leading to a general conflagration that killed millions, lasted four years, and destroyed the European order.

Rigidity had killed millions once before. The President was adamant that rigidity would not kill millions once again.

"Sir, failing to retaliate will set a terrible precedent for future conflicts with the Soviets. We need to be firm, and establish deterrence by adequate retaliation." The Secretary began to pace.

"I will not waste lives to prove a principle, or set an example for future generations. That's… utterly insane!" The President's jaw dropped.

"Oh, can it, Richard! It's nothing so abstract!" The Advisor yelled at the Secretary. "The message we've been sending our allies and our enemies for the last ten years is simple. You attack us with anything, and we blow you up with nuclear weapons – and we'll do it, because we can win a nuclear war. Don't even try to fight back, because if you do, we end you."

She picked up a half-empty cup of coffee. "Now the Reds have dropped a nuclear weapon on Pacifican soil, and we aren't blowing them up with nuclear weapons. What are our allies supposed to think now? That we'll turn turtle the minute a single nuclear bomb lands in the Pacific?" She took a sip of coffee. "We've got enough problems convincing them we'll trade Shanghai for Paris as it is. Fail to retaliate, and Paris, Rome, and Bonn will seek accommodations with Moscow."

She put down her cup. "Fail to retaliate, and Western Europe goes Red."

The President shook his head. "Bullshit. Western Europe is worth far more than India. And this great nation is worth more still."

He stood. "My decision is final. We will reopen negotiations with the Indians and Soviets, and we will offer to publically guarantee the Indian nuclear weapons program. We will offer economic and technical sweeteners, and we will offer to publically remove long-range missiles from Turkey. It's just not worth it."

The Advisor threw her hands into the air. "Seriously, Enlai? One little nuke and we fall to pieces? How the hell are we supposed to negotiate from a position of weakness? How the hell are we supposed to make the enemy fear massive and overwhelming retaliation? I thought we were in this together!"

The President nodded. "Consider the dragon. The dragon can grow or shrink, extend or retract." He folded his arms. "The dragon is flexible, and knows to withdraw when the situation demands it. This… Soviet probe was a face-saving gesture on their part. A nuclear olive branch. Their… response was well below the level of violence we employed. They've stared into the abyss just as we have. To answer their clarity with escalation to mass murder would be… unreasonable."

He stared down his subordinates. "And… Dr. Soong, you are my National Security Advisor. You work for me. You too, Richard." He sighed. "So do your jobs. Get the damned Soviets and Indians together and hammer out a goddamn deal without blowing us all up!"

"Sir… consider this. What if our negotiations fail?" The Advisor asked.

The President smiled. "Consider it yourself. You know as well as I that we can't find all the tactical nuclear artillery rockets that menace our forward troops. At least half of them will fly whether or not we knock out every runway in India tonight. The only difference is the possibility of the Indians flying their antiquated bombers out to menace our cities – a threat I was once assured was extremely limited."

The attaché spoke. "India's Canberra fleet was about 200 aircraft at the start of hostilities. We hit several major dispersal bases during Operation Avalanche. We do not believe the Indians to still be capable of an attack substantially larger than the one on Berk. The total hazard remains substantial, but… with additional forces, we could probably intercept most of them before the light bombers can finish their one-way trips to major cities. We might lose a city or two at most, and casualties will depend on what weapons the Canberras have been modified for."

"See?" The President shrugged. "The risk is acceptable. If we don't negotiate, we wipe out the Indian strategic force and our forward troops get nuked. If negotiations fail, we wipe out the Indian strategic force and they nuke our forward troops. But if negotiations succeed, everyone goes home. We have nothing to lose. We negotiate."

The Secretary was already working the phones.

Across the glittering city of Portland, phones began to ring at the Soviet Embassy, the Bureau of Foreign affairs, and the Indian Representative's room at the British Embassy.

The President, exhausted, gave himself the luxury of a brief nap. Knowing how the damned diplomats had worked over the past two weeks, it would be at least an hour before negotiations could be arranged. It was going to be a long night.

Two offices down the hall, the Advisor entered her office, and locked the door.

She reached for her phone, and put in a call to the number General Bludvist had given her.

This was not going to work. The Administration still didn't know what it was willing to concede, and if the intelligence outlook was to be believed, the pinprick Soviet retaliation had in no way mollified Indian calls for vengeance. If General Bludvist's reports were accurate, the situation in India was still spiraling out of control, and the best way to control it was with medium and high-yield nuclear weapons – anything less was fraught with risk.

In the event that negotiations broke down – which was almost a certainty at this point, regardless of the President's optimism on the matter – Drago needed to be ready to clear the entire Indian nuclear force – tactical and strategic – from the subcontinent. She'd make sure the President saw things her way, when it came to that point. And with Drago's force locked into that posture, there was no way the President could afford to choose a less effective option.

The Advisor took a sip of coffee as the line connected.

=O=

The Soviet Major drove to a stop in front of the dispersal site. Scenes from hell greeted him for the fifth time in five hours.

Where once had stood orderly revetments filled with Scud missiles and bunkers full of rocket fuel, a massive inferno blazed, sending palls of smoke into the night sky. Ignited by nuclear fire, and fed first by lakes of burning rocket fuel and then by the forest beyond, the massive fire seemed to have reached its limits for now.

He passed an aid station – a fancy name for a tarp and a gang of ash-covered soldiers in nuclear warfare gear. In the firelight, badly burned missileers, technicians, and security troops lay in agony, their flesh angry charred patches of white and red, alternatively screaming for their mothers or laying in silence. More men had fallen to flying tree branches, glass and other debris. But the Pacificans had used a low-yield weapon – and that meant radiation casualties. Dozens of men lay gasping as they vomited their guts out, and pools of diarrhea collected at the edge of one tarp, where blind, badly burned men, variously comatose or delirious with radiation poisoning, awaited their inevitable fates. Even through his gas mask, the stench was awful.

He could hardly tell the Soviets and Indians apart anymore. In suffering and death, all men had at last become equal.

He jotted down the status of site six in his notebook, fumbling through his rubberized gloves. Of the tactical nuclear weapons, he had so far found nine Scuds and over a dozen FROGs. The smaller tactical weapons had been much harder for the Pacificans to find and destroy. But even a few of the larger missiles had escaped destruction. Eight SS-4 reloads – the sole remaining elements of his command, hidden in a repair depot in the shadow of a cliff in a secluded valley – had miraculously survived. None of the huge SS-5 missiles had survived.

The Pacifican strike had been very good, but it had not been perfect. Missiles in depots and even a few pads had been missed. They had used too little firepower.

He closed his notebook. He was in charge of the whole detachment now. The Major took a moment to mourn his superior and good friend – the Colonel was missing and presumed dead, his headquarters a smoking, radiating ruin. He looked around for the local battery commander, but he was nowhere to be found.

So many of his friends and comrades had perished. Gone forever.

He shook himself awake. This was no time for grief. This was time for action!

The Major took note of a fluttering tentpole. "Orderly! Why have you established an aid station downwind of the attack site?!" He glanced around the aid station in shock. Dust, radioactive dust from the explosion was everywhere. "The wind is blowing the fallout this way! It is getting into wounds! Have you no sense, man?!"

It wasn't much fallout, but to these men… it was a death sentence.

His skin itched. Was it the fallout? Or was it just the suit?

He decided it did not matter. If he had been exposed to radiation strong enough to burn, he was probably dead already. Either way, he had to do his job.

It was then that he noticed the Indian Army men in gas masks milling about the aid station, their old capitalist-made Norinco battle rifles at the ready. There were wounded among them, and bore the regimental colors of units sent to fight the Pacificans in the mountains. A truck came in with more bedraggled Indian troops, their faces ashen, angry with defeat. Retreating units from the Indian offensive? Had the Pacificans used the nuclear attack to cover a counteroffensive? Were attack helicopters already on their way?

An Indian officer – the very same Indian Officer from the meeting – seemed to be organizing the men. A crowd of Indian technicians had gathered near the edge of the clearing, sending bitter glances his way. Alarm bells went off in his head.

The Major blew his whistle. "Men, form up!" A dozen Soviet troops, including his driver, managed to form a rough line.

"What is your business here?" He prodded.

"You stand by idly while we your loyal allies fight and die in battle, while the soil of our great Republic is poisoned by imperialist nuclear weaponry! If you will not release your weapons to defend your allies, what is your business in the Republic of India?" The Indian officer had tears in his eyes.

"The Soviet Union has already released weapons for an adequate retaliation on your behalf!"

"One airfield destroyed! Hardly an adequate response to this!" The Indian officer gesticulated to the burning forest. "More warheads must fall on the imperialists!"

"The final decision to use nuclear weaponry rests with the Soviet Union!"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because the Indians began to move forward menacingly. The Major froze. The notebook. The locations of the weapons must not fall into Indian hands with such ease! He stepped back towards the flames even as his men raised their Kalashnikovs at their nominal allies, hoping to burn it with his lighter. "Don't let them through!"

His men – even after all that had happened – still trusted him. They opened fire, and automatic weapons clattered in the night.

Clutching the notebook, the Major threw himself onto the dirt, and hoped that his wife would be able to handle things after his departure. She'd be fine. He believed in her.

Something slammed into the back of his head, and the Major's world went dark.

All across India, effective control of the Soviet nuclear umbrella changed hands.

=O=