Aaditya realized he was being given the first shot, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Could he take another life? Literally, with a thought of his, another being would cease to exist. Could he live with that?
Kartik must have sensed his dilemma.
'Aadi, they're no more than a couple of hundred kilometres from their target. The radioactive fallout of this attack alone may kill thousands, not to mention what may happen if Israel retaliates in kind against Iran. Let me go in if you want.'
Aaditya didn't respond but guided his vimana into a dive aimed at intercepting the Asuras. He was still a hundred kilometres away when a red circle appeared around the dot representing his vimana on his display. The Asuras were tracking him. There was now no backing down.
He picked the lead Asura vimana on his display, and focused his mind on sending two astras to destroy it. No sooner had he thought it, than two balls of blue light emerged from under his vimana and streaked away towards the Asuras. The second Asura pilot, now seeing that they had been ambushed, aborted his attack run and turned towards Aaditya.
The astras, represented by glowing blue dots on his display homed in on their target. The Asura pilot seemed to be maneuvering desperately, but in vain. The blue dots kept closing in towards the red dot on Aaditya's display till they merged, and all three disappeared from the display.
'That's a kill.'
Kartik's voice was exultant. The second Asura was now less than thirty kilometres away and had fired two of his own missiles at Aaditya. He responded without conscious thought, his instincts honed by the hours of flying with Kartik. No sooner had he seen the missiles on his display, than two astras of his own streaked out to intercept them, vaporizing them before they even got close to his vimana. Still clutching on to his lucky charm like an imaginary joystick, Aaditya took his vimana through a tight turn to the left. Now he was heading straight at the Asura, the two vimanas closing in at each other rapidly. The Asura pilot fired one more missile, and Aaditya immediately fired two astras to intercept the missile and also two more at the Asura craft. He watched the four blue bolts streak out into the sky ahead of him, and a fireball glowed briefly before disappearing, signaling the successful interception of the Asura missile. Both remaining astras tracked into the Asura craft. He was so lost in watching the display that Kartik's frantic call jolted him.
'Watch out!! Straight ahead!'
Aaditya looked up to see the Asura vimana was now just a couple of kilometres away, its dark saucer shape plainly visible to the naked eye, and as Aaditya watched, both astras slammed into it. The Asura vimana exploded into countless fragments in a flash of red, and began collapsing upon itself. Aaditya swerved his vimana hard to right, missing the collapsing fragments of the Asura craft by a whisker. When he looked back, there was no trace of the Asura vimana left.
Suddenly, explosions buffeted his vimana on both his left and right.
'What's that?'
'Situational awareness, my friend.'
Kartik had said nothing to the effect, but Aaditya knew how badly he had screwed up. He had been so engrossed in the air battle with the vimanas that he had forgotten all about who else might be watching. His display told him that he was now barely five thousand feet above the ground, and must have been visible to Israeli ground forces, who were peppering him with anti-aircraft fire. His display also showed two green dots closing in on him- Israeli F-15 fighters who, were no doubt being guided by ground forces to intercept a strange aircraft flying overhead.
He looked around and did not see Kartik's vimana, though his display showed that Kartik was just to his right. Lesson learnt, Aaditya willed himself to be invisible. Immediately his display went blank. He watched in fascination as the Israeli fighters passed within a few hundred feet of him, puzzled at the sudden disappearance of the intruding craft. When the fighters had left the area, Aaditya and Kartik charted a course back to base.
When Aaditya got out of his cockpit, he saw a veritable reception committee waiting for him. Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Indra were all there, as was Tanya, who ran up to him and hugged him as soon as his feet hit the ground.
The next few minutes passed in a blur of congratulations and smiles, but when Aaditya was back in his room, he finally got time to reflect on what he had done. He had killed two beings-Asuras or not, they were living things whose lives he had snuffed out in an instant. Tanya must have sensed what was on his mind, and she came into the room, sitting down behind Aaditya.
'You know what they say about being careful what you wish for.'
Aaditya turned towards her and held her hands. 'As a kid, I had once asked my dad how he dealt with it, especially after the bombing runs he had done over Kargil during the '99 war with Pakistan. He told me what drove him was not just protecting his country but the men who flew with him and counted on him. He said that he wished nobody ever fought wars, but since men do wage war, he wanted to ensure all his boys made it back home.'
'I thought you wanted to fight to avenge your father.'
Aaditya had told her nothing about Kalki's message, so he just nodded.
That evening a small celebration had been held in Aaditya's honour in the club, and he found himself bombarded with congratulations. He met Durga after some time, and she explained that she had been away on a mission in Africa. Narada slapped him on the back, while a visibly drunk Shiva kept referring to Aaditya as 'my new brave warrior'. Of all the Devas, only Brahma seemed to sense that there was something else on Aaditya's mind. The elder Deva sat down next to him, a glass of Soma in his hand, as Aaditya watched Shiva and Kartik on the dance floor.
'Aadi, this is what you wanted, isn't it?'
Looking into the Deva's eyes, Aaditya realized it would be better to stick as close to the truth as possible.
'Brahma, killing others does bother me, but I've also been reading up on Kalki. Is he really the villain I was told he is?'
Brahma averted his eyes, as if not wanting Aaditya to see his reaction.
'Aadi, to a father a son can never be a villain, but sometimes even the most loving father must realize that his son has gone too far down the path of evil to be redeemed. In a perverse way, he is man's creator, not the benevolent god of your religions, but given human predilection for violence, perhaps that is not entirely surprising, is it?'
Brahma left Aaditya alone. After some time Indra came up and sat wordlessly next to Aaditya. He said to nobody in particular, 'The first one you kill is the toughest. After that, it's much easier.'
Aaditya asked the Deva general the other question that was on his mind.
'Indra, if we know that Kalki keeps creating mischief like this, why don't you just warn human governments and make contact with them? Sure, your technology is far ahead of ours, but if the major powers knew what was going on, and sided with you, Kalki would really have no plan.'
Shiva had come down to join them, and he passed a shot glass to Aaditya.
'Now drink a man's drink before I answer. Here's some Tequila.'
Aaditya usually never had anything stronger than beer, other than the night when he had gone and plastered his bike on the fender of a bus, but he did not want Shiva to stop talking. He felt the tequila burn its way down his throat as Shiva downed a shot himself.
'Aadi, do you think we haven't tried? Your bloody governments are just so greedy and power-hungry, sometimes I wonder if we should just leave them to Kalki's tender mercies.'
Indra raised a restraining hand, but Shiva was either too agitated, or too drunk to notice. 'In 1947, we established contact with the US government and set up a meeting.'
Despite feeling a bit tipsy, Aaditya sat up straight at the startling revelation. 'What happened?'
'The bastards ambushed us, hungry for our technology and weapons. Brahma had wanted for us to go in person. I was more cautious, having seen how humans have been over the ages, and sent a stripped down, captured Asura vimana with a Gana at the controls. The Americans shot it down, and what they got spurred on a lot of their advances since then in the areas of stealth and electronics. That was at a place called Roswell. Since then, we have decided to be more cautious.'
Aaditya digested what he had heard. He had heard and read about the infamous Roswell incident, where an UFO had supposedly crashed in the US, and since then, had been the subject of much conspiracy theories and
