Chimera

“I understand our missile strikes were not nearly as effective as we had hoped?” Zhigao said sharply. His tone pointed the blame to Feng, who picked it up instantly. But he had to let it go.

“I agree, sir. We will not be able to hold off Indian air attacks against our ground forces if we do not knock out these airbases more permanently and push them south. Our cruise-missile attacks haven’t done the required amount of damage. The initial estimates were overly optimistic. The idea was that we would be able to inflict enough damage on their airbases to buy us time on the ground. It seems that it worked better in the eastern sectors. But out here the damage to these airbases has been nominal.”

General Zhigao dismissed the assessment.

“Perhaps. But we have the S-300s deployed all along the roads, do we not? They can handle the pesky Indian air attacks.”

Feng took a deep breath on that one as held back his thoughts.

Really? How would you explain the complete demolition of the airbase at Lhasa thirty minutes ago?

Are those pesky attacks too?

“What we need to do is draw out their heavy fighters into a decisive battle and end their hopes for air superiority. After that we can crush the attempts of their low level bombers to stop our land forces.” Zhigao said and then turned to the Lieutenant-Colonel in charge keeping track of unit deployments.

“What is our operational status?”

Feng handed over the satellite images to his intelligence chief just as the other staff-officer looked up the information Zhigao had ordered for.

“We have a regiment of Su-27s and another of J-8IIs from the 6TH Fighter Division ready for operations out of Kashgar, Urumqi and Korla airbases. The 36TH Bomber Regiment is also ready with its bomber, tanker and special mission H-6s from Lintong airbase. A composite regiment of J-10s is also available from the 44TH Fighter Division in case we require them. The 26TH Air Division has deployed a pair of KJ-2000s and a single KJ-200 at Korla for this sector as well. They will be our airborne command and control aircraft. With these we can initiate attacks in piecemeal fashion and take out the Indian airbases one by one,” the Lieutenant-Colonel concluded. Feng saw the same concern in that officer’s eyes as his own regarding Zhigao’s plans for frontal attacks. But neither man could say anything more. Not openly anyway.

Take the hint, Zhigao. Airbases are the key here, not the fighters themselves…

“No. We will concentrate on taking out their fighters first in a series of massive blows. They pose the biggest threat to us. We can use the bombers as bait to lure out the Indians into out backyards where we will kill them. Once the skies over Ladakh are clear, the bombers can finish their missions,” Zhigao said, sticking with his original plans.

Feng was horrified. And he imagined the same was true for the Lieutenant-Colonel too. Both men shared a glance as the latter walked back to the consoles inside the center, leaving Feng and Zhigao in the conference room.

Brilliant! If the Indians shoot down our fighters, we are likely going to hand them our bombers on a tray as well.

Feng thought of placing a call to Chen to supersede Zhigao’s foolhardy plans. But decided against it. If Zhigao came to know about Feng’s actions, there would be no end to the trouble Feng could find himself in.

There is always a possibility that it could in fact work!

Feng corrected himself and wondered if he was being defeatist again. But in doing so he did not consider that he might be overriding his instincts when they might in fact be correct. If the plan did work out, Feng did not fancy being branded a coward in its wake. In the end he had to give his consent.

And he did.

Not that it mattered, of course.

OVER LADAKH

DAY 1 + 1800 HRS

Squadron-Leader Khurana looked at the data in the head’s-up-display or HUD to see his aircraft’s current status.

Altitude was good.

Speed was good.

Attitude and azimuth was good.

Fuel was green.

The Fulcrum was cruising above the mountains with full weapons payload under the wings. Khurana looked left and right to see his finger-four formation of Mig-29s in perfect sync with his own. They were patrolling fifteen kilometers west of the Pangong-Tso just beyond the reach of the long-range S-300 batteries the Chinese had deployed in the Aksai Chin region over the last two months.

Khurana was making sure that his flight did not drift into the fuzzy detection range for those missile guidance radars. Like his own flight of four, all other Indian aircraft were staying away from the deadly S-300s…

And the sky was getting rather crowded from Khurana’s perspective.