Chimera

On that issue, Chen had taken swift and decisive rectifications. He had asked Wencang to authorize the release of the 32ND Fighter Division to his control to replace units from the 6TH Fighter Division and Wencang had made it happen. With that, Chen had ordered the commander of the 95TH Air Regiment and its gaggle of J-11B fighters to move to bases in Urumqi, Korla and Kashgar while the 6TH Fighter Division withdrew its decimated Flanker units to Lianyunang airbase in Jinan MRAF. He had also made Feng in charge of the air defense units in the Aksai Chin region. The 44TH Fighter Division had also been relegated back to the Lhasa region to fight alongside the 33RD Fighter Division now that it had lost its detachment of J-10s at Kashgar. Having units from various Divisions was a major coordination problem, as Feng had discovered during past operations. Had the ten J-10s from the 44TH Fighter Division joined the fight alongside the Su-27s from the 6TH Fighter Division, could the results have been better than they were?

There was no way to know.

But Chen and Wencang had been impressed with Feng’s idea of tagging along the H-6M cruise-missile carriers behind the Su-27s. It had delivered results. The missiles launched from those bombers had swept past the dogfighting fighters over Ladakh and struck Leh with full force, rendering it inoperative for at least two days. The state-run NCNA media had gotten fully behind that and used it to cover up the loss of Lhasa airbase that morning to the Indian Brahmos strikes.

An eye for an eye…

Feng looked at his wristwatch which he preferred over the large wall clocks in the operations center. Old habits.

He realized that within hours the 32ND Fighter Division would start reinforcing this sector and bring his Su-27/J-11 fleet to fully-ops status. Within a day the 32ND Fighter Division would be fully ready to take the fight to the Indians.

Under my command this time!

Until then, we have to hold them at bay, away from my S-300s…

A Major walked over to Feng and handed him the latest updates. The five pages in his hand spoke of unconnected incidents.

One report from a PLA Division commander near southern Ladakh spoke of an Indian Jaguar squadron having penetrated the skies and currently over Tibet somewhere.

Another spoke of Indian electronic-warfare aircraft probing the S-300 defensive lines. But the Jaguars had penetrated far to the south and had headed northeast, away from the Aksai Chin, while the EW aircraft was still over northern Ladakh.

The operations officer had classed these events as unconnected.

Feng wasn’t so sure. He paused and went over the reports again. The idea was to look at this from the Indian standpoint and find the connection. The obvious answer was that the incidents were connected. But with the limited information in his hands, the connection was hard to find. The obvious connection was not so obvious.

The Indians are up to something.

But what?

OVER SOUTH-WESTERN TIBET

DAY 2 + 2140 HRS

“Approaching waypoint five!” The weapon-systems-operator replied over the radio from the back seat. Group-Captain Parekh looked away from his HUD to see the moonlight reflect off the waters of the Pangong-tso inside southwestern Tibet. All sixteen deep-penetration-strike Jaguars of the Tuskers Squadron streaked at low altitudes above the lake.

Parekh looked back through his HUD as his hands guided the high-speed, low-flying jet that was the Jaguar.

“Blue-section peel on my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark!”

Four of the sixteen jaguars now flipped to their sides and pulled away, heading southeast. Verma looked through his helmet mounted NVGs to see the section of four aircraft streaking away as black specks against the greenish-white night sky.

“Firefly-One to Firefly-Blue. Give them hell! Out!”

OVER SOUTHEASTERN LADAKH

DAY 2 + 2142 HRS

The EW-Operator on board the ARC Gulfstream-III aircraft looked at his watch before bringing up his intercom mouthpiece:

“Okay, people. Time to go. Light up the skies!”

The crew of six experienced EW operators now went into a frenzy of activity as they flipped switches that brought active electronic-warfare systems online. The aircraft was now actively emitting jamming signals as the onboard crew attempted to black out the Chinese radars throughout the Aksai Chin…

OVER DEMCHOK IN SOUTHERN LADAKH

DAY 2 + 2144 HRS

The long convoy of Chinese trucks and several armored vehicles were rolling steadily on the road towards the battlefields further west. This sector, once bogged in desperate firefights between the PLA and the Tibetan rebels over the last year, had seen a vast influx of PLA units that had crushed the Tibetan resistance. Now these forces were angling to bring their firepower to bear on the Indian XV Corps units fighting them tooth and nail for Ladakh.