“That fool in charge of that sector will answer for this! I will have him shot! Have him arrested and replaced with someone more competent from your own staff. We cannot afford these kinds of attacks on our logistical arteries, Feng!” Chen said as he glanced through the report.
But Feng was putting a different picture together in his head…
“Sir, there’s another issue here. We don’t know how many of the Jaguars were involved in the attack,” Feng said. Chen looked up from the paper in his hands.
“And how is that possible?”
“Confusion and chaos during the attack. Plus it’s nighttime. The soldiers on the ground running for their lives did not sit around gathering an accurate estimate. One eyewitness says four, another says six and other says a dozen. We are left to take our pick!” Feng said as he pulled the map on the table to his corner just as Chen walked over to his side.
“
“
“A diversionary attack!” Chen noted.
“The Indians are going after our S-300 defenses!” Feng said and urgently walked over to the nearby phone and pressed the speaker.
“This is Senior-Colonel Feng! Scramble all fighters immediately and get all those already in the air to the Aksai Chin! Tell them to look out for low-altitude Indian strike aircraft approaching the sector from the southeast. And sound the alarm on all ground defenses! We are under attack!”
Parekh looked through the HUD as they crossed another ridgeline and dived down to low altitudes beyond it. His eleven other pilots did the same. The Jaguar was somewhat sluggish at the controls given the heavy load of weapons and the low density air at such altitudes. The return trip would be much smoother, Parekh admitted to himself.
“Firefly-One, this is Eagle-Eye-One. Proceed to primary. Out!”
He smiled as he processed the meaning behind that piece of news: his four pilots had struck the convoy and made it back safely. He switched radio frequencies:
“Firefly-One to all Firefly elements. Proceed to primary. Look sharp boys! Here we go!”
He pushed the throttle-control all the way forward until it clicked into reheat. As their leader accelerated ahead into the night sky, the other Tuskers pilots punched in their own afterburners and followed him in.
The sixteen Su-30s were now in a line abreast formation parallel to the orientation of the Aksai Chin S-300 defensive belt. They were going to try something a second time now. The last such attempt the day before had given mixed results. This one would prove more decisive.
Hopefully.
On cue from Verma on board the Phalcon, the Su-30 pilots punched off the Brahmos missile they carried on their centerline pylons. The missiles fell off cleanly into the cold night sky. Three tons of steel and explosive now accelerated as the ramjet engines thundered to life. The missile accelerated beyond the launch aircraft, losing altitude until it was barely above the ridges near the Galwan River in central Ladakh and then kept heading east beyond. All sixteen missiles entered Chinese airspace streaking towards the deployed Big-Bird radars…
The Indian Su-30 pilots executed a pitch-out maneuver and raced back to the west. The Phalcon operations crew noted on their screens the clean release of all sixteen missiles that had now gone supersonic…
The ground shook as the first 48N6E2 missile punched out of its vertical launch canister and raced into the night sky atop a pillar of smoke and flame, quickly arcing west. PLA soldiers on the ground strained their necks to see the fast moving missile as it disappeared within the stars above. That first launch was followed by another from a second battery further north. Then the first battery emptied another canister followed by second launch from the second battery.
And then a third missile raced for the sky.
The Chinese S-300 battery commanders were ripple-launching their long-range air-defense missiles…
They were prepared for what was coming. A game of numbers. Sixteen Indian missiles were streaking in at three times the speed of sound. Four of the seven S-300 batteries in the Aksai Chin were engaging these incoming targets. In under a minute the missile canisters became empty and the launch smoke dissipated away into the cold winds of the Aksai Chin.
Now both sides waited and watched as the radar intercepts merged.
