Delhi — Late October 1947
The dream did not begin in 1947.
It began in glass.
A city of lights reflected off black water, towers rising like promises, streets alive with the arrogance of modern safety. In the dream, Ram ran through corridors that smelled of perfume and polished wood, and he hated the smell because it didn't belong in a place where death was moving calmly.
Then the sound came.
Not one explosion. A rhythm. Sharp cracks—too fast, too deliberate—like someone tearing the sky into strips. Screams followed, first scattered, then everywhere, multiplying as if fear had learned to breed.
He saw people fall with their hands still holding phones. He saw a child cling to a father's shirt and be dragged across a shining floor that turned wet and red. He saw men with guns moving like they had rehearsed angles, pauses, and lines of sight. He heard the cold logic behind it: terror as theatre, murder as a message designed to be watched.
Somewhere—always somewhere—there was a voice, calm and distant, speaking through a device he couldn't see. Directions. Affirmations. A human life reduced to instruction.
Ram reached for a weapon that wasn't there.
He reached for a telephone that didn't work.
He reached for a government that existed only after the slaughter.
And as the dream sharpened into its final cruelty, he saw a headline he could never forget because it wasn't a headline—it was a verdict:
ATTACK CONTINUES. CITY HELD HOSTAGE.
Ram woke like a man dragged out of water.
His lungs heaved. Sweat slicked his back. The Delhi night pressed against the shutters—humid, kerosene-lit, and heavy with monsoon mud. For a few seconds, he did not know which life he belonged to: the older one that had watched India become a stage for televised terror, or the younger one that still had time to prevent it.
He sat upright, blinking hard.
But sleep had not finished punishing him.
The dream returned in fragments—like broken mirror pieces thrown at his mind.
A railway platform at dawn, people packed shoulder to shoulder, tea vendors shouting, a boy balancing a steel tiffin. Then a sudden violence that did not look like war: a tearing sound, a shockwave, a panic stampede. A train screaming into chaos, metal groaning, glass raining down like cruel confetti. The smell—burnt wiring, scorched cloth, fear made physical. Bodies not as "enemy" and "ally," just bodies—shattered commuters, mothers searching for children, men crawling under benches, people who had only wanted to go home.
Another fragment: a crowded street on an ordinary day. Shops open, laughter, traffic noise, the stubborn normalcy of a city that refused to be frightened. Then a flash—too bright—followed by smoke. The world transformed into ringing ears and falling signs. A cloud of dust and paper. A shoe lying alone as if it had decided to quit its owner. A man walking in circles, one arm hanging wrong, still asking, What happened? like the question itself could restore limbs.
Then the Parliament.
Not a battlefield. Not trenches. Not an army meeting an army. An assault designed to break the idea of India's sovereignty by turning its very heart into a target. Sirens. Barricades. Confusion in the corridors of power. A nation holding its breath while leaders were forced into the oldest humiliation: reacting under threat.
And behind those fragments, always the same shadow—never clearly visible, always present:
Handlers. Camps. Training. Money trails. Safe houses. Denial. Plausible excuses. "Non-state actors." A phrase used like soap to wash blood off hands.
In the dream, Ram did not see a single villain's face. He saw a system: a machine that produced attackers and then produced denial, and then produced another attacker when denial succeeded.
The dream kept changing its costume, but not its intention.
It was always the same message:
India bleeds. The world urges restraint. India responds, too late.
Ram pressed his palms against his eyes until it hurt. Pain was easier than images.
He lowered his hands and stared into the dark.
The official seal in his pocket felt cold against his skin, as if the Republic itself was reminding him that morality without power was merely a prayer.
A knock, soft but urgent.
"Prime Minister Sahib?" Kishan's voice.
Ram swallowed. "Come."
Kishan entered with a small file and a face trained to hide alarm. "Sardar Patel is here. He says it's important."
Ram rose. The room swayed for a moment—sleep deprivation, memory, and the weight of decision converging into a single point behind his eyes.
He steadied himself.
"It always is," he said.
The Quiet Room
Patel was waiting in the inner office, arms folded, expression carved from fatigue and refusal. He looked like a man built to endure history's ugliest days without flinching.
Colonel Harish Mehta stood beside him—straight-backed, spare in expression, the kind of soldier who understood that states were not saved by speeches but by decisions made before panic demanded them.
No Nehru.
No Cabinet.
No corridor debate.
Ram didn't sit. He didn't offer pleasantries. Patel didn't either.
Patel slid a page across the desk.
"Update from the north."
Ram read it. The language was controlled—no hysteria, no melodrama. That restraint made it more dangerous, not less.
FIELD INDICATORS (RESTRICTED):
Coordinated movement patterns continuing under "local" cover.
Reliance on deniability likely; public framing expected to be "spontaneous."
Escalation probable if momentum not disrupted early.
Patel's voice was low. "They think you won't escalate."
Mehta nodded once. "They expect restraint to become hesitation."
Ram felt the dream's images press against his ribs again. He felt the future's humiliation like a bruise that hadn't happened yet.
"They're betting on a habit," Ram said quietly.
Patel's eyes narrowed. "Whose habit?"
Ram looked at Patel and did not answer with a name at first.
He answered with a truth.
"India's," he said.
Mehta held still, listening.
Ram spoke slowly, each word placed as if it were a weight on a scale.
"In the life I remember," he said, "we always respond. We mourn first. We investigate second. We promise third. And we act when the world has already watched us bleed."
Patel's gaze tightened. "You're speaking in riddles again."
Ram's jaw clenched. He could not describe 26/11 in 1947 terms and expect to be believed. He could not say dates. He could not say names. But he could say consequences.
So he did.
"If Pakistan remains structured around deniable violence," Ram said, "this will not end in Kashmir. It will become doctrine. It will produce attacks that do not seek territory, but terror. It will hit trains. Markets. Seats of government. It will target civilians to force political decisions through fear."
Mehta's eyes sharpened. He didn't need the specifics to understand the shape: violence as policy by another name.
Patel leaned forward. "You are describing a disease."
"Yes," Ram said. "And I've watched the disease evolve. Every time we respond, it adapts. Every time we plead for peace, it takes our plea as proof of weakness."
Patel's voice was careful. "Peace is not weakness."
"No," Ram agreed. "But pacifism without deterrence becomes an invitation."
Mehta spoke cautiously. "Prime Minister… you are saying Pakistan will sponsor this."
Ram looked at him. "I am saying the state will tolerate and enable it," he replied. "Whether through choice, through control, or through denial—either way, the outcome is the same."
Patel's eyes narrowed, reading Ram's intensity. "And your solution?"
Ram met his gaze. "Finality."
The word hung like a blade.
Patel did not flinch, but he did not let it pass unchallenged.
"Finality," Patel repeated. "Say what you mean."
Ram's fingers tightened at the desk edge. "I mean we cannot let a hostile system survive long enough to professionalize terror against us," he said.
Mehta's voice remained steady. "You are speaking of decisive war."
"Yes," Ram said.
Patel's reply came instantly, like a clamp closing.
"Decisive does not mean inhuman."
Ram's mouth tightened. "If I wanted inhuman, I would let mobs do what mobs do," he said. "I want the opposite. I want a controlled state action that ends the cycle."
Patel held his gaze. "Controlled," Patel said. "Then we speak of discipline before we speak of victory."
Ram nodded once. "Discipline is the victory," he said. "Anything else becomes poison."
Mehta waited, then said, "If this is the direction, preparation must be tri-service."
Patel's eyes narrowed approvingly. "The Army isn't enough."
"It never is," Ram said.
He looked at Mehta. "We begin readiness across Army, Air Force, and Navy," Ram said. "Quietly. Professionally. No public posture."
Mehta's brows lifted a fraction—surprise, perhaps, at how early the Prime Minister was thinking in full-spectrum terms, but he masked it immediately.
"Yes, Prime Minister."
Patel added, low and sharp, "And secrecy. Not because secrecy is virtue. Because secrecy prevents us from showing our hand."
Ram's jaw tightened. "Nehru can't know yet," he said.
Patel's eyes narrowed. "You're excluding the man who will speak for the nation."
"I'm excluding the man who will signal our hesitation," Ram replied.
Mehta said nothing. Soldiers did not judge politics out loud. They simply waited to be used by it.
Patel did not look pleased, but he understood.
"Panditji's pacifism is sincere," Patel said. "And sincerity can still be dangerous."
Ram's eyes hardened. "Sincerity cannot stop a bullet," he said. "It only makes us apologize while being shot."
Patel's expression tightened—warning and agreement in the same line of his mouth.
"Then we prepare," Patel said, "and we prepare with boundaries."
Ram nodded. "Write those boundaries into every order," he said. "If a man mistakes this for revenge, he becomes the enemy."
Mehta's voice was controlled. "Understood."
Patel's eyes narrowed. "And if you lose your humanity?"
Ram felt the dream again—train platforms, smoke, Parliament corridors, the helplessness of reaction.
He spoke quietly.
"If my humanity demands I let India bleed again and again just so I can feel clean," Ram said, "then that humanity is vanity."
Patel stepped closer, voice low enough to feel like a hand gripping Ram's collar.
"Hardness builds a state," Patel said. "Inhumanity burns one. Do you understand the difference?"
Ram met his gaze. "That's why you're here," he said. "To keep me from lying to myself."
Patel nodded once. "Good."
The Readiness Plan
Mehta pulled a thin folder from his bag and placed it on the desk. It wasn't a battle plan. It was a readiness outline—what a young country could do quietly without announcing intentions.
Patel glanced at it and nodded to Ram. "Let's hear it."
Mehta spoke like a man laying rails, not like a man waving flags.
"Readiness has three pillars," Mehta said. "Army movement discipline, Air Force preparedness, and naval posture."
Ram's eyes stayed on him. "Speak at the level of policy," Ram said. "Not tactics."
Mehta nodded. "Yes, Prime Minister."
He opened the folder and read.
READINESS POSTURE (RESTRICTED):
Army:
Quiet reinforcement to key northern sectors under routine framing.
Supply reliability improved without public convoys.
Medical and evacuation readiness positioned discreetly.
Strict discipline orders issued with enforcement authority.
Air Force:
Maintenance cycles shortened; aircraft readiness improved quietly.
Crew alert rosters tightened without public movement.
Coordination channels established for rapid response if escalation occurs.
Navy:
Fleet readiness elevated under routine exercises.
Coastal watch strengthened; maritime posture aligned with overall contingency readiness.
Logistics checks and communications discipline emphasized.
Secrecy Protocol:
Information restricted to essential command chain; no political briefings until initiation.
Internal messaging controlled; no corridor chatter; no paper trails beyond secure custody.
Discipline Protocol:
Civilian protection prioritized.
No retaliatory violence. No humiliation.
Breaches prosecuted, not excused.
Mehta closed the folder.
Patel exhaled once. "Good. This is statecraft," he said. "Not theatre."
Ram nodded. "We do not drumbeat," he said. "We do not posture."
Mehta's eyes remained steady. "We make sure that when the decision is taken, it is not taken from a place of panic."
Patel's gaze sharpened. "And we make sure the decision does not rot us from inside."
Ram looked at Patel. "You will oversee enforcement," he said.
Patel nodded. "I will do what is necessary," he replied, and in his tone was the warning that he would also do what was necessary against Ram if Ram crossed the line.
Mehta hesitated. "Prime Minister… if Nehru is blindsided, he will resist publicly."
Ram's mouth tightened. "He will resist because he cannot fathom why acting early is moral," Ram said. "He will think morality is waiting."
Patel's voice was blunt. "Morality is also preventing slaughter."
Ram nodded once. "Exactly."
Movement Without Noise
That night, India moved without announcing it had moved.
Not like a drum.
Like a lock turning.
Major Arjun Singh was woken before dawn by a runner whose tone made sleep feel childish. His orders were dry, professional, and relentless about restraint.
Readiness. Movement. Reinforcement. Discipline. No spectacle.
He watched supplies loaded in darkness, the kind of loading that avoided crowds. He watched engineers check roads and bridges and rail timings with the seriousness of men who knew battles were often lost to hunger and mud before bullets arrived.
He watched field medical stations assembled quietly—not as a celebration of war, but as an admission that even "prevention" bleeds.
In another part of the country, men in blue began quiet work too. Airfields did not erupt into show. They tightened into focus. Aircraft were inspected with hands that didn't tremble. Rosters adjusted. Readiness improved without a headline.
And along the coast, the sea carried its own silence. Ships did not "mobilize" in the language of newspapers. They simply became more awake—more ready, more aligned, more disciplined. A posture that could be explained as routine to anyone who wasn't looking for the truth.
Arjun's men whispered.
"Sir… are we going to war?"
Arjun cut the question with a stare.
"You are going to obey," he said.
"But the rumors—"
"You will not be a rumor," Arjun snapped. "Rumors kill faster than bullets because they make men stupid."
A sergeant muttered, half to himself, "Finally we show them."
Arjun's voice hardened. "We show them nothing," he said. "We do our job."
"Our job is prevention," he added, and the words felt strange in his mouth because prevention was a political word. Soldiers liked simpler ones.
But he understood what Delhi was trying to do: move like a state, not like a wound.
As the convoy moved, villagers watched from doorways, eyes filled with the new, permanent question: Will it happen again?
A boy lifted his hand to wave.
His mother pulled it down.
Arjun felt the small cruelty of that gesture—a child's trust stolen by history—and swallowed it.
The Prime Minister's Private War
Back in Delhi, Ram stood alone for a moment and stared out at the sleeping city.
Delhi was learning to breathe again. Not heal—breathe. Rehabilitation was not recovery. It was the work of standing up while still bleeding.
His future memories returned in sharper succession now that he had named them aloud, even without dates.
He saw the train again—people crushed by panic and debris. He saw urban blasts that turned ordinary streets into smoke and sirens. He saw the Parliament assault—an attack not on a building, but on the idea that the state could protect itself. He saw the slow pattern that came afterward: investigations, condemnations, debates, the world urging restraint, India promising to improve—always one step behind the next strike.
He understood, with a clarity that felt like sickness, what that pattern had done to the nation's soul.
It had trained India to accept humiliation as normal.
He turned away from the window and found Patel watching him.
Patel's voice was low. "You're carrying something," he said.
Ram did not deny it. "A future," he replied. "One where we bleed in installments."
Patel's eyes narrowed. "And you think Nehru's pacifism caused it."
Ram's jaw tightened. "Not caused," he said. "Enabled."
Patel's expression tightened. "Explain."
Ram spoke like a man confessing a sin that hadn't happened yet.
"Pacifism becomes policy," Ram said, "and policy becomes reflex. We start believing that restraint itself is victory. That if we look moral enough, violence will be ashamed."
Patel's voice cut in, sharp. "Violence doesn't feel shame."
"No," Ram agreed. "It feels opportunity."
Patel stared at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "You're right about the enemy," he said. "But remember something: if you become the enemy, you will still lose."
Ram's jaw clenched. "That's why discipline is the only victory," he said again, more to himself than to Patel.
Patel stepped closer. "And that's why you must not worship finality," Patel warned. "Finality is intoxicating."
Ram met his gaze. "Then keep me anchored," he repeated.
Patel nodded once. "I will."
The Glimpse Forward
A sealed note arrived in the evening from Colonel Mehta—short, controlled, boring in its professionalism. Boring was good. Boring meant control.
READINESS PHASE INITIATED — TRI-SERVICE COORDINATION (RESTRICTED).MOVEMENT UNDERWAY WITH DISCIPLINE.NO PUBLIC SIGNALING.AWAITING TRIGGER CONFIRMATION FROM NORTH.
Ram read it and felt the trap tightening—not only around Pakistan's assumption that India would not escalate, but around the part of himself that still wanted to remain clean.
Because preemption always demanded a price.
Sometimes the price was blood.
Sometimes it was reputation.
Sometimes it was the slow erosion of the self—the part of a man that wanted to be loved for being gentle in a world that rewarded the ruthless.
Ram placed the note down and reached for the seal in his pocket again, feeling its cold edge.
He had once died because he trusted a friend and underestimated an enemy.
This time, he would not underestimate.
Even if Nehru called it betrayal.
Even if the world called it aggression.
Even if Ram, in the end, could no longer tell whether the ghosts were memories of tomorrow—or simply the shape of what he had become to prevent them.
Outside, Delhi breathed.
Far away, readiness deepened in silence—on roads, in airfields, and on the sea.
And across the border, men still believed India did not want escalation.
They were about to learn the difference between pacifism and prevention.