Chimera

“Another hour. Two if we are lucky!”

Dutt shared a look with his WSO and gestured everybody to the command trailer nearby.

Once inside, the men spent ten minutes discussing the operation. Soon after, Dutt ordered his crew-chief to remove all weapons on the external pylons of his helicopter. The resulting helicopter was much lighter. He would need every bit of power he could spare for the mission.

A few minutes later Dutt and his WSO walked out of the trailer and headed for their helicopter while Narayana ran back to his jeep to drive back to Sudarshan’s HQ.

Dutt saw his crew-chief waiting for him by the cockpit with the flight helmet in hand and two bottles of energy juice in the other for both Dutt and his WSO. Dutt smiled at the gesture and took the bottle and gulped down the contents. His WSO did the same. They handed the empty bottles back to the warrant-officer and clambered aboard.

Soon they were strapped into their cockpits and the engines began to spool up. The main rotor and tail rotor slowly began rotating while the WSO checked the chin-mounted cannon slaving, his only weapon for this mission. He swiveled it left and right from his helmet mounted optics.

As the crew-chief gave him thumbs up, Dutt pushed the throttle and collective to maximum and the helicopter leapt off the helipad.

They headed north, bypassing the other returning LCH on the way south. In the greenish hell-scape of the night-vision view, the snow on the ground reflected strongly while the rocks did not. This created a checkered coloration terrain that could easily remove depth perception. And that was extremely dangerous while flying in mountainous terrain with little engine power to spare…

But the LCH was designed to fly and fight in these conditions.

The disruptive digital camouflage adorned by Dutt’s helicopter denied a decent infrared return and gave the helicopter an element of operational stealth. Radar cross-section from its trim fuselage was very small and against the background clutter, almost impossible to cue on. Combined with terrain masking, the helicopter was a dangerous predator feeding on PLA armor and almost impossible to kill.

Tonight, these characteristics of the LCH would come into play. They were not going after ground targets. Their target was not below them but rather a thousand feet above. And they needed every element of survivability they can lay their hands on to make it back alive…

“Five minutes to A-O!” Dutt said to his WSO.

“Roger.”

Dutt looked to the left, right and above to see the cloudy night sky devoid of stars except for the moonlight breaking through the gaps in the cloud cover. He hoped he had the time to get the job done and get home before the weather closed in.

But bad weather wasn’t his only concern…

The cloud blanket above him was misleading. He knew that above that was the clear starry night sky where the war was being waged between the two air-forces.

Almost as if on cue, a Mig-29 streaked under the cloud cover as it dropped flares and then punched afterburner to climb back through the muck again, disappearing from view…

“Damn! I wonder what the hell is going on up there,” the WSO said as they saw the bright flashes of the dropped flares fade into the hillsides.

“Nothing good. Hang on,” Dutt said and then switched frequencies.

“Sickle-One to Eagle-Eye-One. What’s the word above DBO? Over.”

A hundred and fifty kilometers to the south, Verma on board the Phalcon was having yet another hectic night. The PLAAF was making another attempt to challenge the skies above Ladakh and southern Tibet. Tonight they were surging forward flight after flight of J-11s and had even resorted to surging flights of J-8IIs to overwhelm Indian defenders. These fighters were being further assisted by stand-off launches of short-range cruise-missiles from H-6s.

All in all, dozens of Mig-29s and Su-30s from three separate squadrons were in a stiff battle for survival tonight…

“The skies are neutral for now, Sickle-One.”

Dutt heard the delayed and cryptic response from Verma and suddenly did not feel very secure anymore…

“No kidding, Eagle-Eye-One!” Dutt replied. “I have our Mig-29s popping through the cloud cover dropping flares above my head here. I need to know if I should be worried about red-air interdicting this A-O! Over!”

Dutt could feel his heart-beat now pounding as they passed above lines of Arjun tanks and BMP-IIs below. Verma’s voice came back on the radio again:

“Roger that, Sickle-One! Will advise in case threat elevates. For now, DBO is clear for the mud-movers. Eagle-Eye-One out!”

The radio line chimed off.

“Well, that was encouraging!” the WSO noted. Dutt refocused:

“Nothing we can do. Let our fighter boys do their thing. We got our own troubles here. You ready?”

“Ready as can be, boss. Switching to FLIR. Let’s see if we can spot the elusive prey. On your mark!” the WSO replied from the rear seat.