Chimera

Unless the coverage of this network of air-defenses was reduced permanently, the IAF Jaguar strike aircraft Squadrons could not dare penetrate the Aksai Chin region to take out the PLA targets nor could other fighters go north and take the fight to the PLAAF. This tickle of the Chinese air-defenses had confirmed for the WAC operations staff that they were now facing a highly integrated air-ground defense system. And unless it was taken out, the Chinese possessed the initiative in the skies over Ladakh.

KASHGAR AIRBASE

SINKIANG AUTONOMOUS REGION

CHINA

DAY 1 + 1830 HRS

Feng smiled as he went over the data from the Indian attempts to break through his air-defenses. It had not been surgically clean: he had taken losses. Two battery radars had been lost, but they had been replaced with the redundant ones nearby. If the Indians kept up the pressure, he would run out of these precious radar systems and then the gaps that had been created would stay opened.

In the meantime however, the system was buying time for his side.

By forcing the Indians to stay south and over their own airspace, the initiative was handed to Zhigao and his pilots. Feng still considered Zhigao’s plan to be ill-advised at best. But seeing the results in his hands he could not help but wonder if the plan just might work out…

OVER THE TAKLIMAKAN DESERT

SOUTHWESTERN CHINA

DAY 1 + 1840 HRS

The last of the Su-27s dropped below the altitude of the patrolling H-6U tankers and accelerated south just as the sun dipped below the horizon to the west, casting a pink-red glow to the skies around. The thirty Su-27s from the 16TH Air Regiment of Zhigao’s 6TH Fighter Division were stacked in groups of ten each.

All thirty aircraft were well north of the border with India and even further from the prying radars of the Phalcon. All thirty fighter radars were on standby mode at the moment. Zhigao had committed his entire Su-27 force for this mission to the level that Feng had to divert incoming reinforcements from the northeast to take over the vital job of protecting the two KJ-2000s over the Taklimakan desert.

Fifty kilometers behind the Su-27 force now heading south, three H-6M cruise-missile carriers and a single HD-6 electronic warfare aircraft from the 36TH Bomber Division released four long-range cruise-missiles each. That had been the only aspect of the mission on which Zhigao had agreed with Feng. While Zhigao was thoroughly intent on engaging the Indian fighters over Ladakh head on, Feng had convinced him to use the upcoming battle as a distraction to push through his cruise-missiles to their targets unhindered. The Indian pilots had proven particularly adept in the past day in intercepting the high flying, low speed cruise-missiles being launched by the 36TH Bomber Division in this sector. To the point that Feng had scrapped all future missions until more effective tactics could be employed. But Zhigao’s plans had presented him the opportunity he needed.

And he intended to make full use of it.

OVER LADAKH

DAY 1 + 1900 HRS

Khurana looked through his HUD to see the two green horizontal rectangles being projected above the peaks to the west against a reddish twilight sky. The two Pakistani F-16s in front of him were now seventy-five kilometers west of the Siachen glacier and well within range of his R-77 missiles. But by the same token he was well within the range of the latter’s AMRAAMs. Further west, two more F-16s had been detected entering the skies from Skardu airbase. Given the extremely volatile wartime situation, the Pakistani Air Force was playing with fire.

But unlike the Chinese, the PAF’s abilities to challenge the skies over Kashmir and Ladakh were limited at best.

Khurana was merely tracking the F-16s because somebody had to. His real focus was on listening to the radio chatter coming in from the four Su-30s that had just tickled the Chinese S-300 defensive belt around the Aksai Chin with their Brahmos ALCMs. He knew the lethality of the S-300 from the IAF’s evaluation of the few systems in its service. But for all that fifty percent of the launched Brahmos missiles had made it to their targets and flattened two long-range radars. And despite the Chinese having covered up that hole with other redundant systems, he knew it must have hurt them. Radars like the ones they lost don’t exactly come cheap or quickly enough.

The next effort in operation Phoenix was not so much a tickle as it would be a punch.

Provided the situation remained the same.

Sure.

The likelihood of that happening was about as much as the Chinese packing up their S-300s and leaving the region.

And sure enough, his radio squawked again: “Eagle-Eye-One to all Claw elements, we have confirmed inbounds from the northeast. Thirty plus bandits and possibly twelve cruise-missiles at angels-thirty, two-hundred out. Eagle-Eye-One has the ball. Out.”