Chimera

Klaxons were sounding off at the airbase there as the warning from the airborne KJ-2000 radar crew came down via the 26TH Air Division HQ at Korla. But there was no defense possible. As every Chinese soldier on the ground ran for cover, dumping whatever they carried with them at that moment of time, the three one-thousand kilogram conventional warheads streaked through the atmosphere above their heads. At the speeds involved, it might as well have been instantaneous for those on the ground below.

The first warhead exploded a few dozen meters above the camouflaged revetments being used by the crews of the 821 Brigade detachment including their three CJ-10 GLCM launchers, command, control and support vehicles.

The expanding ball of white flame flashed through the area, ravaging the ground and reflecting the shockwaves across the hard terrain in all directions radially. The thunderclap instantly deafened anyone within the Golmud valley and the expanding circle of destruction behind a wall of gravel and rocks swept through the outer perimeter of the airbase…

The second warhead slammed moments later into the concrete tarmac being used by the 76TH ACCR and the inverted cone of flame and concrete rose hundreds of feet into the air, expanding outward and sweeping across the parked Chinese AWACS and AEW aircraft.

The mushroom cloud of dust and smoke was now rising thousands of feet into the air when the last warhead, a bit delayed at launch, swept overhead and crushed its way into the runway midway along its length.

In one brutal and sudden sweep the Chinese 26TH Air Division and its organic 76TH ACCR had lost the bulk of its AWACS and AEW assets. By the time the thunder and echoes of the explosions rippled through the hills and dissipated away, the three mushroom clouds of dust had enveloped the airbase as they rose silently into the gray skies above.

OVER THE SIKKIM-TIBET BORDER

DAY 11 + 1240 HRS

The high frequency rumbling noise of the Heron’s twin propellers was drowned by the howling winds as the large unmanned aircraft flew past the snowcapped Chomo-Yummo peak and entered the Tibetan plateau, twenty-thousand feet below. The sunlight glistened off the dull-gray paint as it flew above the intermittent cloud cover below, deep inside Chinese controlled Tibet…

The Israeli made Heron is designed for very high-altitude and long-endurance missions. But it is not a combat aircraft. It has no weapons of its own. It does have powerful eyes and the patience to stay above, quietly, for long periods of time.

For the past eleven days, IAF Herons were being used for reconnaissance patrols above the battlefields in Ladakh, Chumbi-valley and Arunachal-Pradesh. But in all these cases they had flown over Indian airspace. But now that the PLAAF fighter and airborne radar threat as well as the S-300 based air-defenses in the Shigatse-Lhasa region had been terminated, the conditions had changed. The PLAAF would continue to challenge the skies over central and southern Tibet, but they would now not have the assets needed to find and eliminate the lone Herons flying over remote sectors and at high-altitudes. And that was good enough for the Heron operators within the IAF.

These birds were being moved north into Tibet now in support of SFC. Their job was to keep an eye on the short-range DF-11 and DF-15 launchers being moved into northern Tibet. This was by no means an easy tasking, given the heavy PLA air-defenses being allocated to these missile units of the 2ND Artillery Corps. And while the S-300 area-defense weapons in Tibet were no more, the Chinese still had a very respectable number of surface-to-air systems and associated ground radars deployed around these missile forces.

As a result, the Heron crews were flying their birds at the edge of their service-ceiling at thirty-five thousand feet and doing their darned best to remain invisible. From now on the IAF Herons would fly over Tibet until the Chinese missile threat was downgraded by the SFC.

NORTHWEST OF THE KEELING ISLANDS

THE INDIAN OCEAN REGION

DAY 11 + 1400 HRS

The leading Brahmos missile shattered into a thousand pieces of burning steel as an HQ-9 air-defense missile slammed into it meters above the sea. The burning debris splashed into the waters at supersonic speeds, causing a massive transient concave shaped cavity on the surface. It expanded for several dozen meters before the water poured back in and rose up into the air like a volcano.

But as the waters frothed below, two more Brahmos missiles streaked by, oblivious to what had just happened. The other two HQ-9 missiles fell behind and dived into the surface of the ocean.