Chimera

He stood up and put his sidearm away when he saw the Colonel Toshum and his Bhutanese officers. Toshum snapped off a salute as Dhillon dusted off his uniform and returned the favour. Formalities asides, Toshum smiled:

“Welcome to hell, my friend!”

“Toshum, what the devil is going on over here? Your CP looks deserted from the skies,” Dhillon said.

“Sir, almost all of my men who haven’t fled under panic are fighting on the frontlines. We are trying to buy some time so we can get these civilians out. The Chinese have been bombarding us for some time now. I think they may even have UAVs above us. It’s very dangerous for you to be here right now, but I am glad you are here!” Toshum said.

Both men walked back to a few tables with maps on them lined up behind a parked truck. It was the Bhutanese command post. Dhillon’s staff officers were already getting to work in there while two of the Captains held on to their rifles, just in case.

“What do you need to hold, Toshum?” Dhillon asked.

“Everything you can spare!” the Bhutanese officer responded.

HAA DZONG

SOUTH-WESTERN BHUTAN

DAY 5 + 1840 HRS

The downwash from the Dhruv helicopter lifting off the grassy field on the golf course provided an unintended break in the discussion as all of Lieutenant-General Potgam’s officers grabbed their caps and held on to their papers. As soon as the wind reduced, Potgam turned back to see the grassy field.

“So you can chop down those trees over there to make room?”

“Yes sir. Once that happens, we can begin medium lift operations using Mi-17s. But I should warn you: this grassy field won’t last long under sustained operations,” The army-aviation Colonel reminded him.

“We don’t have a choice!” Potgam shot back, “Get it done now! Blow those trees down using explosives if you have to! All I want to know is how soon we start operations from here?”

“In a few hours. Most of the Mi-17 crews are night-ops capable. After that we can start bringing in the light artillery units.”

“Yeah well, this place…” Potgam gestured to the golf-course, “… won’t last long once Chinese satellites pick up what we are doing. Two or three missile strikes and we would all be out of action. Still, let’s get whatever we can while they are busy with the Chumbi valley whoop-ass we are handing their Divisions right now. What about air support?”

“Mig-27 strikes from Hashimara are all I have been assured of right now,” the Colonel said neutrally.

I need more time!

If we can’t have it for free, we have to go buy it…

OVER SOUTHERN TIBET

DAY 5 + 2030 HRS

As the night unfolded along the blazing frontline in Ladakh, eight Jaguars in two flights of four broke into Tibetan airspace again, this time doing so from the Himachal Pradesh border. The eight aircraft tore into the thin mountain air and continued east…

The Tuskers were on the job again and out to exact revenge for the loss of their commander and two other aircraft to the PLAAF defences two days ago.

They banked towards Rudok-Dzong. The terrain identification was the teardrop shaped lake pointing east. There the Jaguars would turn north.

The S-300 air-defences in northern Ladakh near the Qara-Tagh-La were playing hell with the air-force’s ability to provide battlefield interdiction in the Aksai Chin. But after five days of intensive combat between the PLAAF and PLA air-defences on one side and the IAF on the other, both sides had lost the stomach for costly slugfests. The Chinese had only a handful of S-300s left in Western Tibet now after the destruction of significant numbers of these batteries by combined Jaguar-ALCM operations two days ago.

This left several holes in their defences in the region and Air-Marshal Bhosale fully intended to use them to cripple the PLAAF even more.

Strategic initiative was the name of the game now…

The eight aircraft thundered over the lake near Rudok and then headed north from there. Soon thereafter the two flights broke into the flat plains of the massive Taklimakan Desert inside Tibet and left the Himalayan peaks behind them. All eight aircraft dived to ultra-low altitude above the desert.

This is what the Jaguars were built to do. The aircraft had enough endurance to haul heavy weapons load deep into enemy airspace at extremely low altitudes. They even had over-wing Matra-Magic air-to-air missiles to defend themselves. The flight of eight Jaguars now spread into a line abreast formation. All eight pilots knew that they would only get one pass at this.

HOTIEN AIRBASE

TAKLIMAKAN DESERT

TIBET

DAY 5 + 1940 HRS

The airbase was abuzz with activity.