Chimera

He sat up on the ground and looked around. He could see the Chinese in utter chaos all over the region. Smoke pillars were rising into the skies all over the horizon. He could not find where his own aircraft wreckage was. He had lost sight of it during his violent ejection and subsequent recovery back to terra-firma. He realized something else as well: he was all alone out here…

Sorry about this, JC. I couldn’t get us both out in one piece. And I know I promised it anyway.

Please forgive me!

“On your feet, Indian!” a voice behind him said.

Parekh jerked around to see a PLAAF Major in winter digital pattern uniform walking over to him. Several other PLA soldiers stood nearby, their QBZ-95 assault rifles pointed at him. The Major walked over as Parekh struggled on to his feet.

“Well, that didn’t take you too long,” Parekh quipped and smiled.

The Major did not return the favor.

“After what you have done, I should just shoot you now and say you tried to escape,” the Major said as he glanced at the burning fires around the region.

“Do it then. Why are you wasting my time?” Parekh replied, and was responded with a hit on the lower neck by a rifle butt from one of the soldiers behind him. He staggered to his knees under the impact and heard the air-force Major shout angry commands in mandarin to the guilty soldier.

So. They want me alive…

Parekh was handcuffed and escorted by the Major and his PLA entourage to the parked trucks half a kilometer away.

Parekh saw the roads filled with military vehicles supporting the ongoing ground offensive in Ladakh. They loaded him into a truck and the small convoy moved off. The Major sitting across him spoke some broken Hindi, which surprised Parekh greatly.

He had expected some English from the Chinese officer but he also got Hindi. The Chinese took great pains to understand their enemies. His only other observations were based on what he was seeing out the back of the truck. It was clear that he was being driven to the north and was under the direct control of the PLAAF, who were highly interested in what he knew about the Indian Jaguar operations and tactics…

BANGALORE

INDIA

DAY 3 + 0355 HRS

“Attention!”

Everybody in the room stood up and saluted as Air-marshal Subramanian walked in. He glanced over to the assembled group of pilots in their green flight-suits. Most of them were Squadron-Leaders or Wing-Commanders in rank. They were in a room whose walls were covered with maps and where the tables were covered with technical documents and papers.

Subramanian turned to the commanding officer for the pilots in the room. The latter was also in his flight-suit.

“Tell me you can do this,” he said.

That didn’t leave much choice for Wing-Commander Dutt. Luckily for him his answer matched his options:

“Yes, sir. We can do it.” Barely.

“Good. How soon can you deploy?” Subramanian continued.

“Well, we have six machines that first need to be airlifted to Leh. Then the equipment, supplies, weapons and manpower has to follow. At our end we are good to go. It’s a question of how fast we can airlift them up there,” Dutt replied. Subramanian shook his head on that one.

“I have one, and only one, Il-76 that I can spare for this airlift over the next two days. After that you and your men will have to squeeze in what supplies are coming into the region either through ground convoys or airlift. I don’t need to remind you of the kind of heavy attention Leh airbase has been receiving from the Chinese and their bloody missiles. Leh has been closed down twice now in as many days. It’s been opened again for now so we are flying in what we can before the Chinese realize it and try to shut it down. Your testing and evaluation period has been cut short. You said you have six machines in your command. Does that include or exclude the TD versions?”

“Includes, sir,” Dutt responded. The three senior HAL employees in the room looked at each other but didn’t say anything.

“You sure they are ready?” Subramanian asked dubiously after noticing the look on the civilian faces in the room.

“Sir, if you are asking whether we have tinkered out every issue on the aircraft then the answer is: no, we haven’t. But they will work within the parameters we have fixed. This is exactly why I am taking my flight evaluation pilots with me on this one. We are the only people who know at this point how to fly these things and how much we can push them. We are not about to sit here flying tests while the real war needs us out there! Get me and my unit to the frontlines and we will do the rest,” Dutt concluded.

He noticed that he had managed to convince his boss.