Chimera

OVER THE TAKLIMAKAN DESERT

TIBET

DAY 8 + 2205 HRS

For the first time in this war for the crew of the 26TH Air Division kj-2000 AWACS, orders came down to shut down the radar and to egress from its patrol area on emergency.

The sixteen Desert-Tigers Su-30s had gone supersonic just over the Aksai Chin and were now charging at this Chinese aircraft and its crew. In response, Feng had just ordered all available Chinese fighters in the area to respond and protect their precious airborne-radar aircraft at all costs. Time was of the essence when one considers that the Indian fighters were travelling one kilometer every two seconds towards their target! And they only needed to get into the successful engagement envelope for their long-range air-to-air missiles…

The pilots of the Chinese AWACS heard the orders from the operations center at Kashgar and immediately realized the severity of the situation. The pilot, a PLAAF Lieutenant-Colonel, immediately muttered a curse and began disabling the autopilot as his right hand reached the throttle controls of the four turbojet engines and pushed them to maximum settings.

The aircraft reverberated under the sudden strain of the thrust and the engine noise spooled up dramatically. At the same time the mission crew in the back were switching off their comms and fastening their seatbelts. They were hearing the urgent communications from the cockpit over the radio as the pilots brought the lumbering aircraft into a turn and banked to the side to bring them on a northerly escape vector back to Korla airbase, about six-hundred kilometers to the northeast.

As the aircraft banked away, the six J-11s escorts left the aircraft and went full afterburner to meet the Indian threat head-on and buy time for their precious AWACS to escape. The six fighters went active on their radars just around the same time the Indian aircraft did.

The latter were also out of their airborne-radar coverage areas: the No. 50 Squadron Phalcon pilots had no intention of going behind the Su-30s in order to extend the radar cover. It was far too dangerous for the rewards it merited.

No. The Su-30 drivers were on their own from now on.

At Kashgar, Feng understood exactly what the Indians were after and he had no intention of giving it over to them without a fight. He picked up the phone and immediately ordered the scramble of all available J-7s of the 17TH Air Regiment at Kashgar and also ordered Major Li to get the 19TH Division to scramble all available J-11 detachments that had already arrived at Urumqi airbase north of Korla. He also ordered the release of operational control on those fighters from 19TH Division HQ over to his command at Kashgar.

These J-11s, although too far north to join the immediate fight, would move south and bring the retreating AWACS bird under their protection and escort it back to the landing pattern at Korla. He also ordered the ingress of more H-6 tankers from Wulumuqi airbase north of Urumqi to refuel the inevitable fuel-hungry fighters over the Taklimakan desert…

* * *

Klaxons sounded off at all concerned Chinese airbases.

The first to respond was the 17TH Air Regiment pilots already in the cockpits of their J-7s on the tarmac at Kashgar. They were airborne in under a minute as the rest of the Regiment pilots and ground-crews ran in all directions to get the rest of the aircraft in the air…

* * *

Back in the skies above Hotien, the commander for the No. 220 Squadron ordered his two groups to spread out east and west of the incoming J-11s. He had every intention of forcing the Chinese flight-leader to either engage one of the two sweeping groups of Indian Su-30s or engage both after splitting his already outnumbered force even more.

Either way, six Su-27 knockoffs against sixteen Indian Su-30MKIs was by no means a fair fight. And the Indian commander didn’t really have to try any fancy tactics. But he knew that every PLAAF airbase in western China would be scrambling every single fighter they had to prevent the Indians from taking down their AWACS. And so he had to deal with his primary objectives quickly…

After a tense few moments the response from the J-11 pilots became visible and the six J-11s split into two groups of three and engaged.

A few seconds later the RWRs on both sides screeched to indicate the release of air-to-air weapons. The J-11s were launching PJ-12 missiles and the Indians had let loose a barrage of R-77s, two per aircraft.

There was no hope for the six Chinese pilots faced with thirty-two missiles headed towards them from sixteen launch platforms.

There was no place to run and nothing to hide behind over the flat desert below.

All six J-11 pilots flipped their Flankers to the side and punched out load after load of chaff and even flares in desperation. Their low-light optics spotted smoke trails from the barrage of R-77s crisscrossing the horizon in front of them like a spider web…