Chimera

A second later the ground vibrated as the first Brahmos Block-II cruise-missile streaked out of the canister on the first vehicle under the force of its solid-rocket-booster and raced vertically for the cloudy sky above. Several seconds later the booster exhausted itself and was ejected from the missile. Then the ramjet engine blasted into operation and propelled the missile even higher. With the booster ejection the missile lost all visible smoke trails just as the missile disappeared through the low gray cloud cover. But all of the Indian soldiers nearby heard a thunderclap announcing that the Indian missiles had gone supersonic…

LHASA AIRPORT

SOUTHERN TIBET

DAY 1 + 1600 HRS

Unlike Dirang, the skies were clear blue over southern Tibet. Over Lhasa, there were no clouds but the bright blue background was littered with pairs of thin white contrails forming large circles from the large number of Chinese military aircraft. The clarity of the cold mountain air showed new pairs of contrails approaching from the northeast…

The airspace over Lhasa was busy this afternoon. There were twelve J-11 fighters flying overhead on patrols while another six J-8IIs from the 33RD Fighter Division were on the ground being refueled. These were providing security to the small groups of Il-76 heavy transport aircraft that had been plying back and forth between Lhasa and other airbases to the northeast. On the ground, there were two Il-76s being hurriedly unloaded while another was approaching from Lanzhou. These aircraft were bringing in supplies and reinforcement troops for the PLA 13TH Group Army who’s Divisions were now in contact with the Indian IV Corps in Arunachal Pradesh.

There was no warning.

The six Brahmos missiles streaking across the cold morning skies over southern Tibet were detected by Chinese radar stations south of Lhasa just as they crossed the McMahon line. But with less than three minutes before impact, there was little that could be achieved with that small a warning window. Klaxons sounded all over Lhasa and everybody dumped what they were doing on the tarmac and began running for cover. Within thirty seconds the first Brahmos cruise-missile flashed over the peaks south of Lhasa and dived into the airport, the sun glinting over its sleek metallic body. The air-defense batteries around Lhasa managed to fire several missiles into the air against the Indian missiles, but the latter were just too fast to be intercepted at this late a stage in their flight.

The ground shook like an earthquake.

The two Chinese Il-76s on the ground didn’t stand a chance. The Indian DIPAC had been watching the Chinese activities at Lhasa for hours now. They knew that a certain section of the tarmac was always being occupied by the incoming Il-76s and they had promptly handed over that piece of intelligence information to the army and the air-force.

The first missile slammed into the ground between the two parked aircraft. Such was the accuracy of the Brahmos Block-II. As the wall of concrete and fire expanded outwards and enveloped the two aircraft in split seconds, both aircraft and the PLA’s precious supplies inside them were instantly shredded. The shockwave from the explosion rippled through the tarmac into all of the airport buildings and facilities…

Even as the shockwave from the first detonation expanded outwards, the second missile slammed into the main terminal building at the airport and decimated it with its large explosive warhead. The debris was still falling when two other Brahmos missiles slammed into sections of the main runway at almost equal intervals and cratered sections of it, dividing the runway into three one-third sections unusable to any but the lightest of aircraft. No aircraft could now use this runway for the time being. The fifth missile slammed into the parked J-8IIs on the other side of the tarmac and destroyed them. When that fireball rose into the sky like a mushroom cloud of smoke and dust several seconds later, it had left a large shallow crater where the parked J-8IIs had been.

The sixth and final missile slammed into the white radar dome of the long-range radar station manned by crews of the 42ND Radar Regiment south of Lhasa and destroyed the radar dome from the ground up. The station was mounted on flat terrain with long line-of-sights. When the fireball rose underneath the station and the dome shredded into a thousand fragments, it had a lot of audience from the PLA convoys driving down the roads nearby towards the Chumbi valley…

The strike neutralized all aerial resupply operations at Lhasa airport in fewer than two minutes. Moreover, long-range radar support for the southern skies now had a large hole carved inside. At Chengdu, an angered Chen was left with no choice but to divert all aircraft flying overhead to other airbases in the north and east.