Chimera

The aircraft broke formation and increased speed as they thundered over Kashgar downtown at near-supersonic speeds. Kashgar is not a small town. It has a big urbanized area and as the Indian fighters streaked overhead, tens of thousands of Chinese citizens came running out of their houses to see what was happening. Many reached their roofs just in time to see the airport at Kashgar getting hit…

The first wave of Jaguars headed straight from the south and thundered over the terminal buildings and the tarmac, littered with equipment and ground personnel from the 17TH Air Regiment.

Personnel on the tarmac were scurrying about trying to clear the fueling vehicles and trucks being used to move weapons around. All of these were caught in the open when they saw the first four Jaguars streak over their heads completely unannounced.

When the first CBU-105s broke pattern overhead, it was far too late…

The entire main tarmac riddled with explosions as the sensor-fused weapons dove into each and every truck, fuel-bowser and exposed piece of equipment around the tarmac. The terminal building shattered under the shockwaves and collapsed under the force of the explosions in a massive dust cloud that rose hundreds of feet into the air, easily visible from all part of city.

The second force of Jaguars approached from the west and went over the runway in a west-east axis, dropping numerous anti-runway weapons that struck with precision, riddling the runway at multiple locations with deep craters. The first wave of Jaguars returned from the north and this time released their remaining load of CBU-105s over the buried fuel-farm south-east of the airfield, resulting in a devastating explosion that rose into the sky like a mushroom cloud of flame and black smoke.

The city of Kashgar filled with panic as the large burning mushroom cloud rose for the sky…

* * *

Feng looked above at the concrete roof of the bunker as the walls vibrated and small mounds of concrete dust fell clear from the newly constructed walls. He frowned. His fingers rolled into a fist and his knuckles became white with anger.

A thunder rushed through the command center and the lights flickered. He picked up the phone but noted that his lines were dead. He looked at Major Li who ran over and checked the lines to confirm it was indeed dead. As Li began shouting orders to some personnel nearby, Chen walked back in.

“What the devil is going on, Feng?” Chen shouted above the thunder.

“Indian Jaguars have just hit the airbase! We are sustaining heavy damage top side and have lost all comms here. Li is investigating,” Feng said dispassionately as yet another shockwave rolled through.

“How did they get through?! Where are the fighters from the 17TH Regiment?” Chen shouted above the noise. Feng grunted in response.

“They got engaged by a fleet of Indian Su-30s and are engaged over the Aksai Chin,” he said after a couple of seconds.

“And the 19TH Air Division Forces from Urumqi?” Chen asked.

“Heading into combat around Hotien,” Feng replied. “A KJ-200 from Korla is in the air now and attempting to establish airborne command and control, but it won’t be as good as the KJ-2000 battle management system was.”

“What about the other three KJ-2000s in the 26TH Division? Where are they deployed?” Chen continued.

“Two are being used in rotation to cover the Lhasa front and one more is present over Chongqing. We could pull the one over Chongqing and deploy it to Korla to replace the loss…” Feng suggested.

“I agree!” Chen nodded. “Replace it at Chongqing with one of the KJ-200s from the 76TH ACCR detachment at Lanzhou. Realistically speaking, we just lost Kashgar and the 17TH Air Regiment. We are now using our strategic reserves for the airborne radar aircraft, leaving nothing to cover the eastern coasts in case the Americans or the Japanese try something. Not good, Feng. Salvage what you can from this mess. I think it’s time Beijing found out about our situation out here.”

THIMPU

BHUTAN

DAY 8 + 2345 HRS

Colonel Misra opened the door leading to the terrace of the Dechencholing palace and was instantly met with a wall of freezing air and winds howling past.

The two paratroopers manning the observation-post turned back to see Misra walking up to them and then returned to observing using their tripod mounted optics. Misra could barely make out anything of Thimpu in the darkness until he strapped on his night-vision goggles and activated them. The slight hum noise on activation and Thimpu instantly appeared, awash in green.

He immediately saw the outlines of the two Mi-26s as they hovered near the northern outskirts, bringing in more of his men into the fight. As a large rumbling noise overtook the noise of the howling winds, the building walls vibrated. Misra walked over to the edge walls of the terrace and leaned over to see a platoon of BMP-IIs making their way through the narrow streets of Thimpu on their way to the north.