Chimera (62 page)

“What about you, sir?” the radio-operator said. Bingde smiled.

“I belong on the bridge. I would rather meet my end here than in a labor camp somewhere. Now please leave!”

Fifteen minutes later the four remaining ships of the convoy were floating dead in the water with a dozen motor-lifeboats streaming away from them.

Bingde watched from the abandoned bridge as the small lifeboats moved away. He picked up his binoculars and walked out on the observation deck. He had tied a make-shift sling for his broken left arm in this time. He checked his watch and realized it was more than half-an-hour since his radio conversation with the Admiral. The Indian commander was giving him more time than he had promised. He held on to the railing as the first rays of sunlight illuminated the deck of the ship and the skies above became light blue.

A glorious day out on the high seas…

He just about saw the incoming missiles when they hit his ship near the stern, ripping the rails from his hands in a jerk and sent him flying into the air and into the waters below. By the time he came back up to the surface, trying to stay afloat with just one hand, he saw the hull of the
Yuankou
buckling and flexing after having taken high power hits from several Indian missiles. He saw large holes on the side of the ship from which black smoke was spewing out into the blue skies above. The cargo containers on the top deck broke loose under the strain and splashed into the waters. He had just enough time to look around the roiling waters to see the other three ships also on fire before one of the loose containers from the deck broke loose and fell right over him…

CHINESE STRATEGIC AIR CENTER

KASHGAR

CHINA

DAY 9 + 0800 HRS

The smoke was still rising into the cold morning sky. Feng coughed as some of it reached his lungs as he stepped out of the staff car. Once he cleared his bout of cough, he took the protective goggles Major Li handed him. He put it on and looked around to see the aftermath of the devastating strike that had taken place here.

From where he stood near the exit of his underground command center, he could see a tower of flames in the distance from what had been the buried fuel-farm for the airbase. He could see hundreds of PLA soldiers now at the base assisting the beleaguered PLAAF personnel and civilian fire-fighters as they attempted to make the airbase operational again.

That is going to take time!

One look at the devastation at the airbase had convinced Feng that Kashgar was now out of this war.

While the runway could be made operational in a few hours, it would take more time to replace all the personnel, equipment and vehicles destroyed by the sensor-fused weapons. Many of the unexploded bomb-lets dispersed by the fleeing Jaguars were severely hindering clean-up operations.

Feng could also see the crashed wreckage of three J-7s from the resident 17
TH
Air Regiment that had returned to the airbase after their fight with the Indian Su-30s over Hotien only to find the runway cratered and their airbase on fire. The pilots had no choice but to eject from their aircraft outside the base perimeter once they ran out of fuel.

The 17
TH
Air Regiment is gone!

Kashgar airbase is gone!

And a precious airborne aircraft as well as six J-11s are gone!

Feng fumed with rage at the devastation and saw Major Li removing his bags from the car and taking it to the parked Mi-17s that had flown in from Aksu-Wensu airbase to the northeast. That was the nearest airbase with an operational runway at this point.

From there they would board fixed wing aircraft to take them to Korla. The PLAAF operations center at Kashgar was now no longer considered safe and Chen had ordered its evacuation. Once there, they would be based alongside the operations staff of the 26
TH
Air Division and would have effective fighter cover from the 19
TH
Fighter Division forces based at several airbases nearby.

The problem was that Korla was over a thousand kilometers to the northeast. In effect, moving to Korla meant that entire south-western Chinese airspace was now effectively abandoned.

But not lost yet!

Feng reminded himself that the airspace was not being handed over to the Indians. And heavy fighters such as J-11s based at Urumqi and Korla could easily patrol the region with airborne radar coverage.

But challenging the skies was very different from owning them. They could now no longer intercept each and every Indian mission over that region of Chinese airspace. And
that
was bad news for the PLA forces in Ladakh…

“You ready?”

Feng turned around to see Chen walking over from his staff car. Feng sighed and released his anger. His fists became loose again and blood rushed to his knuckles. Chen nodded as he understood the emotion.

“Nothing to be done here, Feng,” he said and looked at the firefighters hosing down a blazing section of the terminal some distance away. “At least not by you and me. We are needed in Korla. Let’s go.”

He patted Feng on the back and then waved to the flight-crew of the Mi-17s to start pre-flight. Both men walked over to the nearest helicopter and walked on board through the open rear ramp. A few minutes later the first of three Mi-17s lifted off the helipad and nosed down towards the northeast, picking up airspeed as it left Kashgar behind…   

NORTH OF DOTANANG

NORTHERN BHUTAN

DAY 9 + 0900 HRS

The 11
TH
Para-SF Battalion and a BMP-II equipped mechanized-infantry platoon had fought their way to Dotanang and seized the village without much of a fight. There was a reason for that. The PLA Battalion there had simply melted away to the north just as Misra’s forces had reached the southern end of the village.

It had been a tactical withdrawal that had been conducted professionally by the Chinese. Now the Indians in Dotanang were fully expecting to be struck by a Chinese counter-attack on the village and were digging in…

The valley became abuzz with noise as a Nishant UAV flew over the valley north of Dotanang.  The sunlight glinted off the top armor of the BMP-IIs parked on the narrow muddy roads of the village and was easily spotted by the UAV operators as the electro-optical pod on board looked around for Chinese activity further north.

The flight-crew followed the snow-covered dirt path along the small river that went north into the valley. The drone had advanced a good half-dozen kilometers north of the village when flashes of light suddenly erupted all around and lines of tracers flew by. The valley below suddenly erupted with rapid
thud-thud-thud
noises as the airspace around the drone lit up with shrapnel.

The drone operators at Haa-Dzong to the south initiated evasive maneuvers and the drone banked to the side, turning south while climbing. To no avail. The sky around it was awash with red-hot shrapnel and tracer fire. Several of these ripped through the wings and perforated the boxy fuselage. The drone broke up under the impacts and disappeared in a small fireball on its way down into valley…

“
Oops!
There go our eyes in the sky!” Vikram noted from his position, two kilometers north of where the drone went down. The tracer fire stopped as the wreckage slammed into the trees a few kilometers north of the village and a column of black smoke rose into the blue sky above. The valley went quiet once again.

“So
now
we know the Chinese have some decent anti-air capability north of here,” Ravi said as he tucked his Tavor rifle tighter into his chest.

He heard a grunted agreement over the comms.

“Yeah, no shit!” Pathanya said finally as he lowered his binoculars. “We could have used
that
information five minutes ago!”

He keyed his comms: “Vik, get the IMFS out and see if you can spot the guns that fired on our bird. Their tracer rounds gave us a pretty clear idea where they are on the road. Let’s confirm it.”    

“Roger. Deploying IMFS,” Vikram said and pulled back from the boulders he was using as cover on the ledge overlooking the valley below. He put his rifle on the rocks and motioned to Sarvanan to cover him. He then pulled down his backpack and removed the IMFS.  

“Okay reds, let’s see what you have down there,” Vikram said to himself as he crawled on his stomach over the boulders and set up the IMFS. Visually there was not much to see. The trees on the hillsides pretty much denied any direct sighting. He switched to infrared and depressed the button for white-hot so that all high temperature sources were shaded down from white in order of decreasing radiated temperature.

The background valley including the trees and the rocks instantly became black with shades of dark gray. The 4x4 wheeled anti-air vehicles now being used by the Highland Division against Indian aircraft and drones lit up as white with light gray colors. The pure white coloration showed the engines of the vehicles and the hot barrels of the 35mm guns on the back of the chassis that had ripped the Nishant UAV to shreds.

Vikram whistled and then keyed the comms:

“Boss, the reds have brought in some vehicles. I count two light-armor four-by-fours with multi-barrel anti-aircraft guns. I also see several other light-utility vehicles and what looks like a single six-by-six wheeled armored vehicle with a strange turret on top. Can’t make out the model but it is not a tank turret.
Possible
anti-air vehicle as well.”

Pathanya looked over to Ravi with a raised eyebrow on hearing this.

“Looks like our friends have been busy,” Ravi noted to Pathanya.

“Well,” Pathanya said as he pulled out his SATCOM radio speaker from his backpack, “
we
did the same back in Thimpu over the last day and a half. Didn’t expect them to sit around twiddling their thumbs, did you?”

“God knows what
else
they brought in,” Ravi said and moved out to check on the rest of the men.

Pathanya took the speaker and pushed it through his woolen cap under the boonie hat and pressed it his ears:

“Warlord-central, this is Spear-One. Over”

“Spear-One, we
just
lost an aerial drone near your location. Can you confirm?”

“Roger. Spear has eyeballs on the crash site,” Pathanya said, turning around to glance at the rising smoke down the valley. “We also confirm presence of what appears to be an enemy SHORAD battery deployed two clicks north of us. Over”

There was silence for several seconds on the other line. 

“Spear-One, can you engage and eliminate enemy anti-air threat at this time?”

“Negative, Warlord,” Pathanya said with a surprised note. “We are two clicks away and do not have recon on enemy defenses. Suggest we move closer.”

There was some confusion on the other side until he heard Potgam’s voice ordering the others and then taking the speaker from whoever was speaking before. 

“Spear-One, this is warlord. The Paras will launch their offensive on schedule regardless of R-P-V cover. I will not deploy any
more
R-P-Vs to the valley until that anti-air battery is
dead!
Hotel-Six is currently supporting Dotanang operations and is
not
available. You are authorized to advance and eliminate the commie anti-air battery immediately. Get it done, son. Warlord out!”

Potgam’s voice was like a breath of fresh air for Pathanya and his men. The General may have been sending them all into combat and possibly to their deaths but he was unhesitant about it when required. It gave his men the jolt of electricity they needed that they were doing something worth doing…

Pathanya stowed the long-range comms and keyed his team:

“Vik, get us a good fix on the red anti-air vehicles. The rest of you, form up on me and let’s figure out how we are going to do this.”

AKSU-WENSU AIRBASE

WESTERN CHINA

DAY 9 + 0930 HRS

It was bitterly cold when the three Mi-17s flared above the tarmac and touched down in front of the hangers on the southern side of the airfield.

As the Mi-17 engine turbines spooled down, Feng and Chen stepped out of the helicopter and saw the drifting snow falling all around. The PLAAF base commander was there to meet them and a detachment of honor guard soldiers snapped to attention. Feng looked around and saw the doors of the hanger revealing the clear lines of two J-11s inside, protected from the bad weather.

Chen walked over to the base commander who shook his hands and handed Chen a paper with a message from Wencang at the Junwei-Kongjun. Feng saw Chen shake his head.

“What is it?” Feng said as he took the note from Chen.

“Marching orders,” Chen replied. “Looks like General Jinping has been relieved of his command on account of poor health and you and I are to report to Beijing immediately as well.”