24^th February, 2035, 3:30 AM, Rajpath, New Delhi

Prime Minister Vishwanath Bahadur Desai sat in the war room, his face concealing the tension that swirled inside his mind, manifesting in trickles in the form of slight creases on his brow. He had been woken up and escorted to the PMO by his SPG security detail late in the middle of the night, due to what was described as an “emergency”. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to an Indian Prime Minister, every time something like this happened you could be 100% sure that India’s neighbours were up to some very nasty ‘mischief making’, the mischief part almost always being painful for the receiving and sometimes, the providing end as well.

The Prime Minister wasn’t the only one in the war room, together with him were the big shots and heads of all the branches of the defence organizations of the country including the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Aadesh Bhandari. Some had arrived earlier than the PM, monitoring the situation as it developed, while others had just arrived. All of them showed an unpleasant expression on their face, to say the least. All had a variety of emotions showing on their face, stress originating from the situation at hand and due to lack of sleep being common for everyone.

The Prime Minister ran his gaze around the room, gauging everyone’s reaction. He too, wasn’t exempted from sleep deprivation; over the last few days he and everyone in the government and the party headquarters had been busy clearing up the mess created by him reinstating Article 377 and the matter of their ‘funny’ neighbours to the North and Northwest of the country. The former had resulted in backlash from Western media as well as from the elite upper class who parrot and ape white people just to look down on average Indians and calling them low class; it resulted in his government getting labelled ‘fascist’, ’nazi’, ‘homophobic’ and a shitton of words he doesn’t know about or wants to know about. The ‘funny neighbours’ on the other hand, had been causing way too much trouble lately, especially since the last decade. Pakistani aircraft violating Indian airspace was still manageable, Chinese doing the same thing wasn’t. PM Desai hadn’t forgotten the incident from 6 years ago, where one day a concerning amount of Chinese J15s and J20 ‘Mighty Dragons’ were detected heading towards the Indian border, causing an international incident later then referred to as the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 21^st Century. Those moments were tense for everyone involved, for one wrong step meant the start of World War 3, which all of a sudden was no longer the subject of fiction or memes anymore. Everyone from the generals in the war rooms to the pilots in the Chinese as well as Indian aircrafts sent to intercept the Chinese aircrafts, was on edge. The pilots were somehow in a worse position; they knew very well their actions would decide the fate of the world literally. Everyone had everyone locked on their radar, everyone was nervously watching their RWR, waiting for the moment someone fumbles the bag and all hell breaks loose.

Fortunately, the Chinese aircraft broke contact and turned away after getting within visual range of the numerically larger force of Indian aircraft approaching them; finally giving everyone room to relax. The following days were marked by political and diplomatic chaos, the Chinese shifting the blame to a variety of things and refusing to take responsibility for the event. Eventually things quietened down, and went back to normal.

Or so it seemed. In reality the incident was an eye opener for the entire world. The first thing it revealed was that the J20 was not a joke, the ‘Mighty Dragon’ at the very least, lived up to its name to some extent, enough to worry everyone not on the side of China. It was a capable aircraft, and many people openly admitted that had the confrontation escalated into a full-blown fight, the Indian side wouldn’t have won. The other thing it did, along with the events that happened later on, was to expose the unpreparedness of the Indian Armed Forces in dealing with a conflict like this. And now that the threat of a Chinese invasion was suddenly real, everyone in the upper parts of the government and military panicked a little; every plan drawn previously to improve the forces that had been shelved, was immediately put up for implementation: Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) were hastily implemented, research and development of critical technologies was rushed forward, providing the funding for accelerating the process as fast as they could without compromising anything, implementing the FINSAS program, which like most other programs involving military hardware,  invited tons of criticism and mockery for no reason, and the fake allegations of ghotalas (scams) from the opposition have become the norm since the dawn of 2020.

Of course, the government shrugged off the allegations, for this time, the situation was far more urgent. Pulling up Indian Force to a level where they would prove to be a formidable threat to the combined Chinese and Pakistani forces was more important, besides it wasn’t the job of the PM to deal with the political chaos; there were other people in the party suited for that. 

As such, the face of the Indian forces changed over the years. All the exotic gear that previously only SF units such as MARCOS and PARASF had , was now in the hands of everyone. The average Indian sipahi,  now had proper rigs, armour, helmets with NVG mounts and NVGs themselves. His INSAS 1C now always had either a BEL holographic sight or a TONBO thermal/IR sight, which at the very least made the average Indian infantry squad give the feeling that yes, India’s defence budget wasn’t just for show.

The same had happened to every other branch of the Indian Military: the vehicle fleet of all the branches of all types expanded, the Navy getting a new carrier, INS Vishal, besides several dozens of programs regarding destroyers and frigates. The Air Force got Tejas Mk2s, AMCA ‘Shwet’, along more Rafales delivered, the Army received its first batch of ‘Zorawars’, ‘Abhay’ IFVs, Arjun MK3 FMBTs, and a dozen other things PM Desai had not bothered to remember, considering they were all written down somewhere anyways and had no urgent issues to address.

All of that didn’t matter however, for these things were important. Every time an alarm was raised in PMO and every sleep deprived and peace deprived soul summoned to the war room, the only thing that prevented everyone from completely breaking down was the belief that these technologies they had invested would be worth every rupee and every migraine-inducing hour of tolerating political drama, spent on them.

One such moment was right in front of him, as he was briefed on the situation by the CDS  Bhandari. Merely half an hour ago, all communication services of all types with entities outside India were cut off, including encrypted and secure lines that were supposed to be classified and incapable of being decrypted or tapped by outside sources. Embassies of foreign countries located in New Delhi phoned in, complaining about the communication blackout, asking for reasons as to why they couldn’t contact their home countries. ISRO too had lost contact with all the satellites currently in orbit, as well as the Indian Space Station “Dhruvyaan” in orbit, left in the dark as to the well-being of the 9 Indians astronauts in space aboard the space station recently put in orbit using the indigenous RLV. However, it didn’t just end there.

“Intel received from border outposts along the Chinese, Pakistani and even the Bangladeshi border indicates something very disturbing”  Bhandari spoke, sitting alongside the PM with his elbows resting on the numerous files on the table and his fingers interlinked, the tension clearly visible on his face, a face that told a story of a man who had seen a lot of this world. As another employee prepared the big screen in the room,  Bhandari continued.

“Outposts along the Chinese, Pakistani and the Bangladeshi border observed and recorded something, which I believe everyone present here must see.”  Bhandari spoke as the employee turned on the display and a video began playing on the screen.

“The footage here was recorded by a jawan on the border near the LAC. Similar footage had also been recorded in the previously mentioned places as well. Seen here is a never-before-seen phenomenon that appears visually as a very tall and large wall of slightly bluish-white light, spanning all across the border and extending all the way up towards the sky up to an undeterminable height.”

Everyone looked tensely at the screen as the CDS described the video footage. In the video they could see the perspective of a jawan frantically calling and alerting others while running through the haze of large tents, warehouses and the base’s white buildings while holding the camera. The entire scenery was illuminated by the light coming from the aforementioned “Wall of light”, which covered the entire background of the video and completely eclipsed  the clear night sky. Sometimes silhouettes of aircraft could be seen in the air in front of the wall, circling the air monitoring the situation from the air.

“This phenomenon seen here, has never been witnessed in recorded history, either through man-made means or otherwise. As such, we are also completely in dark as to the cause of such a phenomenon or its effects. The biggest concern however, is the meaning of this.”

 Bhandari paused for a brief moment, the tension in the room stepping up significantly with his pause.

“All of these were observed on the Pakistani, Chinese and Bangladeshi border, with the exception being the Nepalese and the Bhutanese borders. If this…thing, is a result of a man-made process, possibly a weapon, then we have a very big problem in our hands. The Chinese may have managed to develop an unknown weapon of an unknown type which completely slipped under our radar and may possess the potential to completely disrupt the status quo in the entire world. It is also possible that Bangladesh is also a part of this scheme along with Pakistan and China, considering their relationship with the Chinese recently.”

 Bhandari paused, running his gaze around the room, resting his gaze at the PM. PM Desai still maintained the frown on his face, keenly listening to the CDS, his expression unchanged. Satisfied that he got the meaning behind his words despite the lack of change in his expression,  Bhandari continued.

“The intel we have regarding this phenomenon is limited, only that it most likely doesn’t have a solid mass since it doesn’t appear on radar, and that viewing it through a thermal or IR optical instrument, either a thermal sight on a rifle or the thermal sight on an armoured fighting vehicle, can potentially blind the viewer.”

The majority of the people present in the room gulped, sending silent prayers to the jawans who suffered while making this discovery.

“There’s no point in loitering around anymore, we have no option but to prepare for decisive action against the Chinese. This is without a doubt a surprise Chinese invasion against India, so we better respond in kind!” Up spoke the Defence Minister, Kulkarni, a hot-headed bald man with a rather strong personality, highly regarded in nationalist social media circles for his rather heated speeches regarding India’s ‘enemies’.

“IAF airbases near the border are sortieing and getting up in the air to intercept any Chinese aircraft detected, but the lack of information and the unavailability of satellite recon, and communication problems plaguing the entire country are making things difficult. Launching a full scale offensive in this kind of situation….isn’t advisable, to say the least.” The Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Chief Marshal Natrajan spoke calmly in response to Kulkarni heated statement, sitting right beside the CDS  Bhandari.

“Why not? We have no other option! The only way to explain what is happening right now is that the Chinese invaded us! They did a massive cyber-attack, crippled our communication systems and then launched a full-scale offensive against us!?” Kulkarni yelled, beginning to lose control over his rage.

“In the case of the cyber-attack thing,”  Bhandari replied. “we already cleared this up before, but we checked and ran diagnostics on every computer and electronics system immediately. There are no signs of sabotage, they are running perfectly fine. Also, the cyber-attack theory doesn’t explain why any sort of radio communication outside the Indian mainland is cut off, even if done using radios and models not used by us officially and therefore, not supposed to be affected by the said cyber atta-”

“And what if the hackers made it so they couldn’t diagnose the issue? Computers are machines after all, they can be decoded and exploited if one is skilled enough. Don’t underestimate the Chinese!” Kulkarni yelled, losing more of his composure as the conversation went on.

“Kulkarni.”

 PM Desai spoke up for the first time since the conversation started. His deep, commanding, stern, yet calm voice had the desired effect on Kulkarni, immediately making him recover some of his cool and sitting back down on his seat. The PM was known among the officials at PMO as a man of few words and avoided speaking most of the time unless needed.

“Continue.”

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Majumdar continued, “As it stands right now, we don’t know what that unidentified thing really is, nor do we know its intended purpose. As such, I advise we standby and prepare to meet a Chinese invasion force should it come. I also strongly advise against authorizing any counter offensive that involves our boys coming in contact with that thing.”

“It would also be better to deploy the police and impose Section 144 wherever necessary in order to maintain law and order. The soldiers have been ordered to not forward the footage or any evidence of this event as it may create panic, but we never know. Better be cautious.”

“….What are our options?” PM Desai spoke after a few moments of contemplation.

The CDS looked at the other Chiefs of staff, and after a few moments, exhaled deeply and spoke.

“With all due respect sir, we have no other option but to wait and watch, regardless of whether we like it or not. The only thing we can hope for is to pray that our boys can properly hold out long enough for us to figure out what is happening and prepare a proper counter.”

Everyone gulped audibly. Waiting and watching while the country was under attack with a weapon that had never been seen before with no method of countering it was definitely not a nice situation to be in. Yet they knew very well they had no other option.

“…….”

PM Desai closed his eyes, more creases appearing on his forehead. Silence.

After what seemed like an eternity to others, he opened his eyes and spoke.

“…Mobilise everyone. Continue monitoring for the next few hours.”

PM Desai’s voice had a clear tint of determination, resolute that had decided to not back down no matter what weapons their enemies develop or what tactics they use, a firm message to everyone in the room that the fight was not over, it was just beginning.

“….Make preparations for the official declaration of war between the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China. Tomorrow morning would be…important.”

PM Desai felt deep down very clearly, that with the dawn of daylight, would come the dawn of an era that would forever change the country, a desperate fight between two, now unequally matched powers, in ways that no one could have imagined.

What the PM didn’t know however, was that daylight would bring with it the start of a new era in an entirely different way, one that would change the lives of millions of people, both Indians and not Indians.

One that would mark the rise of the ‘Golden Tiger’ from his slumber.