Chimera

Gephel and Ngawang did not like that one single bit. Ansari did not expect them to do so either. Ngawang was about to say something but Gephel held him with a glare before looking at Ansari:

“With all due respect, I think we can do some good out there. And you know that. So where is this coming from?” Gephel asked.

“You know I can’t discuss that. The bottom line is that this thing has a potential of turning into something very nasty. And the last thing we need is to be seen as connected with the Tibetan rebellion. When we defeat the Chinese, we will let you all loose into Tibet to wrench it back from Beijing. But for now, you are to stay and serve as regular line officers that you are,” Ansari said blandly. He didn’t really believe in what he was saying any more than the people he was saying it to.

“That’s typical bullshit from New-Delhi!” Ngawang blurted out. Gephel shot him a stare that instantly shut him up.

“Apologies, sir. I don’t know what came over me,” Ngawang added half-heartedly. Ansari nodded in understanding.

“We will defeat the Chinese, Major. And you will get a chance to fight for your country’s freedom. You have my word on it. For now however, stand your men down!”

SASER

SOUTH OF DAULAT BEG OLDI

DAY 3 + 1430 HRS

The single Smerch battery in the valley had been engaged in the counter-battery role for three days. More than a dozen Chinese field artillery batteries east of the border were by now nothing more than smoldering wreckage. And as a result the Chinese artillery fire on Brigadier Adesara’s force at DBO had substantially reduced.

But for all that, the constant fire-on-the-move tactics that had prevented the Indian Smerch unit from being wiped out by Chinese MBRL counter-battery fire had also exhausted its crews and nearly emptied its stock of ammunition at Saser. The launchers were covered with soot after having been used for so long without cleaning up. The tires of the vehicles were covered in muddy slush caused by melting snow and the gravel dust.

But after days of desperate combat against numerically superior enemy forces, it was a pleasure for the commander and crews of his battery to see a column of friendly armored vehicles moving past their positions in a long convoy to the north…

The outcome of the battles in Ladakh was far from clear at the moment. Frontlines were changing by the hour and chaos was in the air.

North of Saser was the DBO sector. In the DBO, the 5TH Infantry Brigade under Adesara had barely escaped being overrun the day before. South of the Chip-Chap River, southeast of DBO, forward deployed elements of the 10TH Mechanized Battalion under Colonel Sudarshan had been badly mauled trying to hold back the heavy armored push by Chinese forces. The battle had between the unit’s BMPs and the Chinese ZBDs had been bloody and desperate, both sides having taken severe casualties.

The Indian commanders knew the danger that had opened up. They were providing all the air-support needed to attack and hold Chinese armor, but it was something that had already begun inflicting losses on the Jaguar squadrons.

As the soldiers at Saser watched and cheered, dozens of BMP-IIs and NAMICA vehicles, ARVs, trucks and AXEs rolled through the dust cloud being raised by their tracks and wheels. But as the main force of the 10TH Mechanized Battalion finally began entering the plains of DBO, the battle for Ladakh hung by a thin thread…

OVER NORTHEAST ASSAM

INDIA

DAY 3 + 1620 HRS

“We have inbounds! Twelve inbounds approaching on vector three-one-seven at angels thirty, speed… nine-one-seven!”

The radar console operator pushed one of the buttons near the screen and his computer went into a diagnostics mode by checking radar and flight profiles with existing databases. It spat out the results on screen a moment later and the operator read it off screen to his Mission Controller:

“Type jolly-sevens!”

The mission-controller pondered that piece of information for the moment. The J-7s coming down from the said vector made them out to be the elements of the 130TH Air Regiment of the 44TH Fighter Division. The 44TH Fighter Division had been the first PLAAF unit to become involved in the battle for the skies of the Indian northeast two days ago. That struggle was still continuing…

But the J-7 series aircraft were Mig-21 knockoffs and hardly top of the line in terms of technology. The other Regiment in the Division was the 131ST, and it was better armed with J-10 variant strike-fighters. But they had already lost ten of these during the battle in Ladakh two days ago and had also lost several flights of aircraft in subsequent battles.

The other Division of the PLAAF in the region was the 33RD Fighter Division. This division was armed with a regiment of high performance Su-27s and J-11s. They also had a regiment of J-7s with them.