Fenix (13 page)

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A
s the white flashes erupted to the south, the two pilots inside the cockpit of the
PAF
kilo-echo airborne-radar aircraft reflexively looked up. The small white flashes were magnified by several orders of magnitude in their low-light goggles. As they watched, the flashes broke into hundreds of smaller fragments of trailing comets. The intensity of their light dissipated away as these fragments went earthwards on projectile paths…

The commander of the aircraft immediately pushed the throttles on all four engines and brought the aircraft to a diving bank. He realized that they had just witnessed the decimation of their two F-16 close-escorts to the south and he wasn’t about to wait to find out why or how. All he knew was that it was his responsibility to protect one of the crown jewels of the Pakistani air-force from destruction. Whoever had destroyed their two escorts was surely after them. And he had to get this aircraft away as far north as possible.

              The destruction of the runway at Skardu had trapped eight of the twelve Block-52 F-16s on the ground. These were now at the mercy of the Indian strike jets. The other two on patrol over Skardu had met their fate at the hands of the swarm of Indian Fulcrums. And now the last two F-16s in occupied Kashmir had been literally swatted from the sky with a sickle of death by a massive force of sixteen Indian Flankers charging north into this airspace. As the wreckage of these last two friendly aircraft in the southern skies fell to the earth, the crew of the kilo-echo knew that there were now no more defenses between them and the Indian Flankers.

              The sudden abrupt motion of the aircraft caught the radar crew in the cabin by surprise and jerked them within their seats as the aircraft banked and lost altitude. Their radar picture immediately became gibberish. The crew shut down all systems to prevent further damage as the aircraft took drastic evasive maneuvers and egressed north into Chinese airspace. The flight crew knew that the Indians would not dare pursue the aircraft into Chinese territory for fear of triggering a massive Chinese military response…

“K
ilo-echo bird has stopped radiating.” The
EW
operator added over the comms. Verma took a deep breath and nodded. The Su-30 Flankers of scabbard flight had successfully cleared the airspace over Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir in a deadly swipe. Two more F-16s had been shot down for zero losses and now the sole Pakistani airborne radar aircraft was scampering north in all due haste. He couldn’t order its pursuit despite the pleas of the Flanker pilots. No, the kilo-echo was out of the fight. It wasn’t dead, but the net effect was the same. For now, he needed Scabbard flight to reorient itself and face the incoming threats from the west as Pakistan recovered from the initial element of surprise and began sending up waves of fighters to try and take back control of the skies.

              It would have been nice to take out some more airbases in mainland Pakistan. But
that
was an escalation that was off the cards for the Indian forces. New-Delhi wanted this done surgically and fast. But because they had given away the game before it could begin, Bhosale and Verma had been forced to take out the Pakistani air threat that had been deployed to deter the strikes. But the Pakistani military was not one to take a humiliation of this kind laying down. Now they were scrambling fighters across the board to take back control of lost airspace. Commanders such as Verma at the sharp end of the sword were left to wonder whether that thin red line between strikes against terrorist targets and all-out war with Pakistan had already been crossed when the first Brahmos missiles had disabled Skardu airbase…

              Any such distinction, of course, was purely for political reasoning only. As far as those in uniform were concerned, the balloon had gone up. If New-Delhi chose to cover its eyes and ears and allege otherwise, it was because of its own inability to see the adapting situation in front of them. Verma and Bhosale had known for the last week that things would unfold this way and had prepared for it. The prime-minister and his cabinet were probably being briefed at this very instant.

             
They will realize the truth soon enough…
Verma crossed his arms and saw the comms chatter between the Flanker flight leaders and his operators directing them towards two flights of obsolescent Pakistani Mirage-IIIs and another flight of JF-17 fighters scrambling out of Sargodha airbase in Pakistan.

              “Are there any other Pak birds over occupied Kashmir apart from the egressing kilo-echo bird?” Verma asked the operators in front of him. He got several negatives in response.

             
Good. Kashmir airspace is ours.

For now, anyway…
he corrected himself.

“This is mongol-two-actual to overlord: the window is pried open! I say again, the window is pried open. It won’t stay that way for too long. So make it count and give them hell!”

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T
he Dhruv helicopters flared for landing on the gravel. Jagat powered down the helicopter as he and his co-pilot looked outside for signs of life. The swirling dust obscured the view and the wartime blackout conditions didn’t help. It was several seconds before they could make out soldiers running to them across the landing ground. One of the officers wearing military a woodland camo uniform and a contrasting white winter smock ran over to the side of the cockpit, holding his cap with one hand. Jagat opened up the cockpit door.

“How long do you need?” Jagat asked. His crew-chief was already on the ground and helping the soldiers to refuel the helicopter.

“Ten minutes!” The lieutenant shouted his response over the sounds of the roaring trucks and other military vehicles heading down the highway further away. 

“Make it fast, son! The meter is running!” Jagat said and then lowered his comms mouthpiece as the lieutenant ran off to supervise the refueling.

              “Panther-two, -three: do you guys see our escorts anywhere? I do not see them from where I am parked.” Jagat looked to see his co-pilot who shrugged his shoulders.

              “Uh…that’s a big negative, panther-actual,” one of the other two pilots reported. “I got nothing over here. Just some parked vehicles and trailers.”

              “Panther-three here: I got negative
V-I-D
on leopard birds, parked or otherwise.”

              “
Shit!
” Jagat switched comms to get in touch with command. Pathanya moved up behind the co-pilot as he listened in on the chatter.

              “What’s the problem?” He asked in a whisper as Jagat began spewing expletives on the comms while the ops people at Ansari’s HQ tried to find out what was going on.

              “Leopard flight was supposed to rendezvous with us here.” The co-pilot replied. “But we have no comms with them and don’t see them around. Somebody fucked things up at command or leopard got stuck in bad weather en-route and had to put down somewhere.”

              “Shit!” Pathanya blurted out. The co-pilot grunted.

              “Yeah. Join the cursing club.”

              A sudden burst of rotor noise caught all of them by surprise and Pathanya jerked as four thin, sleek helicopters flew overhead at high speed. Jagat and his co-pilot stretched forward to see the new visitors here as they banked to the south, one kilometer to the west…

              “Scratch that request, viper-actual,” Jagat said matter-of-factly, “I think leopard just showed up!” He flicked the comms off and then changed
VHF
frequencies to match leopard comms: “If you gentlemen are done goofing around, I would like to get this job over with!”

              Pathanya saw the four helicopters now returning back to the
FARP
at much lower speeds and spreading out in a finger-four formation as they flared for landing. Only when they touched down did he see that these were four
LCH
gunships. All four choppers carried a two-man crew consisting of a weapons-system-operator, or
WSO
, and a pilot. He also saw the protruding cannons underneath the chin of the helicopters as well as rocket pods and quad pylons for a total of eight Nag anti-tank missiles per bird. This was serious firepower on hand…

              “If only we had these in Bhutan when we needed them,” Pathanya blurted out and then stopped himself. The co-pilot heard him but chose not to say anything.

              The radio squawked: “apologies for the delay, panther! Give us a few minutes to fuel up and we will be good to go.”

              “Roger,” Jagat checked his wristwatch. “Make it snappy, if you would.” They were getting behind schedule already. Jagat looked out the cockpit glass and swore. Pathanya glanced at the co-pilot and then moved back into the cabin to check on his team.

              “What’s going on up there?” One of his men asked as settled down next to his backpack and pulled out the maps and images for a final mental dry run. Pathanya looked at the soldier as he removed his small flashlight. “Usual errors in getting the right people at the right place at the right time under combat conditions. Don’t worry about it though. It’s under control.”

              Pathanya turned his eyes to the maps spread out on his lap. One of the pictures he pulled out was a copy of the file picture
RAW
had of Muzammil and his chief operatives in the
LET
. Each of his team members had a copy of the picture to allow them to positively
ID
the man amongst all of his bearded cohorts. Pathanya looked at the picture of the man with long, flowing beard and reminded himself that this was the man responsible for the strike on Mumbai. And since then he had been stretching his vocal cords spewing religious hatred and promising renewed jihad against Indian forces in Kashmir and elsewhere. Pathanya heard metallic clanks suggesting that their refueling was complete and that the ground crews were preparing the helicopter for dust-off. Looking at the vast military operation currently in play to punish these militant outfits, it was now anybody’s guess as to what it meant to capture this
one
man when so much else was going on. Would the capture of this perpetrator even matter anymore as the two nations slugged it out? Was
that
what this man and the Pakistani Generals had wanted?

              There was only one way to find out.

              Pathanya tucked the picture inside his chest pocket as he heard the turbines of the helicopter spooling up. He heard Jagat talking to his pilots up front:

              “Panther-actual to leopard. You have the lead, we have the tail. Take us to the
A-O
. Over.”

              “Wilco, panther. Leopard-two, -three, -four. You know the drill. Protect panther from all threats, ground and air. Use deadly force as required. Advise corrections to waypoints as necessary. All right, gentlemen, here we go!”

              Pathanya saw through the front cockpit glass as the four gunships leapt off the snowy-gravel and over climbed out of view. Jagat turned back to face Pathanya and his men: “Hold on gentlemen. Here we go!”

              A few seconds later the helicopter lifted off the ground in rapid acceleration that left Pathanya holding tight. He saw two of the
LCH
gunships move up front from above and take up escort position as the seven helicopters dusted off the
FARP
. The flashes of artillery fire were now directly visible to the north from the cockpit glass. Pathanya grabbed his rifle and backpack and lofted it behind his back as his men did the same. He heard the last of the radio messages and recognized Ansari’s voice straight away:

              “Viper-actual here. Confirmed target package within
A-O
and have eyes on you via cougar-two! Good hunting out there!”

T
he three Pinaka launcher trucks swerved off the road, one behind the other, on to the patch of even terrain nearby. Once off the road, the two vehicles in the back of the convoy drove off on either side of the lead vehicle so that they were all in abreast formation when they jerked to a stop. The crews of all three vehicles noticed that the ground shook beneath their feet as explosions erupted on the ground they had
just
been on to the east. The dust cloud from the explosions was now rising into the black sky above…

But that was what the Pinaka multi-rocket launchers were designed for. Much like their bigger Brahmos brethren, the Pinaka launchers were autonomous. They could fire and move to a new location to deny the enemy a chance to counter-bombard them. In the age of weapons-locating-radars, such autonomy and precision meant the difference between life and death. And it had already proven lethal to a lot of men tonight as both sides rolled fire into each other’s fixed tube-artillery positions in the mountains. Unlike the all-terrain trucks on which the Pinaka system was mounted, the long-range guns of the Indian and Pakistani armies were not nearly as mobile. And over the years both sides had meticulously marked out each other’s guns to painful detail. At the moment, the two sides were thrashing each other out. And a lot of the gun crews were having to make their escape from counter-battery fire by the seat-of-their pants.

By comparison, the Pinaka crews were in the very lap of luxury. Sitting inside a protected cabin and having the ability to control most operations via automation, they were extremely quick and highly precise over long ranges. And as Pakistani artillery crews had found to their frustration, extremely hard to pin down…

In these mountains, the range of the Pinaka system was enhanced by reduced density-altitude conditions such that a nominal range of fifty kilometers was achievable. Consequently, the three Pinaka batteries in this sector were laying waste to Pakistani fixed artillery positions, command-and-control centers and logistics. Each new target was handed down via the army’s artillery-combat-command-system. This system networked with the airborne sensors in the form of unmanned drones and manned stand-off sensor systems to find target locations, which were then passed along with other strike information down to the individual Pinaka autonomous groups. The system had worked well during the war with China. And like that war with China, most of the Pinaka crews were spending time taking out the opposing artillery forces during these initial stages.

But these vehicles were an exception to that mission.

The three vehicles shuddered as the launch tubes emptied with the large warhead rockets leaping off their tubes in ripple-fire mode. The vehicles were instantly backlit with the orange-yellow glow of the rocket exhaust before disappearing under their smoke. All three vehicles were engulfed in the back-blast of the rocket exhaust. As the last of the rockets leapt of the tubes, the lead vehicle rumbled to life. It was followed by the other two vehicles as they reformed into a convoy and swerved back on to the road. Two kilometers west, they would meet up with their rearming vehicles and drop the spent tubes and pick up new ones. By the time the Pakistani radars back-calculated their now-deserted launch position and responded in kind, the three vehicles would already be rolling further down the highway, delivering death at every turn.

E
very long-range strike needs damage-assessment to determine its fruitfulness. On the line of control, this was often provided by the eyes of the friendly infantry hunkered down in their bunkers. When possible, the eyes were above the targets via unmanned-aerial-drones.

This one was somewhere in between.

“
Kaboom!
”

Jagat noted with a wicked smile as they watched the shared forward-looking-infrared, or
FLIR
, feed from Dutt’s
LCH
“leopard-one”, hovering further up the ridgeline. The
TV
view was silent, but they heard the sounds soon enough as the shockwaves rolled down to them.

“
Shit!
” The radio squawked. Jagat recognized the voice of the crew on “leopard-two”, assisting Dutt’s helicopter on the ridgeline.

“You okay, -two?” Dutt chimed in, voice laced with concern.

“All green, leader. Um…the smoke just ate up my visibility, though. Have to readjust position. Standby.”

“Don’t stray too far.”

“Wilco.”

Jagat ignored the chatter between the two air-force crews, focusing instead on the steady video feed from Dutt while the other
LCH
maneuvered to a better vantage point. The black-and-white infrared
TV
showed them what the
FLIR
sensor on the
LCH
hovering a half-kilometer ahead was seeing to the north. Such sharing of sensors between cockpits was a result of sensor-fusion enhancements to the
LCH
and Dhruv helicopter fleets. It was extremely useful for special operations. The
LCH
being a gunship was much thinner, smaller, more agile and well-designed for an observation platform for friendly artillery units. Up in these mountains where most helicopters struggled to hover or climb gently, the
LCH
had the horsepower and light-weight design to allow it to climb at rates far in excess of what was needed to avoid enemy detection or fire. It’s thin-frontal cross section and composites cover made it impossible to detect on radar amongst the rocky terrain behind it. And it’s pixilated, digital camo made it very difficult to detect on infrared scanners. If one of these birds-of-prey happened to be looking at you when you spotted it visually, chances were that you were already dead but just didn’t know it yet…

              “What do you see, -two?” Dutt’s voice chimed in again.

              “Strike
highly
effective, leader. I see one, maybe two, bunker positions still untouched, though.”

              Jagat shared a look at his co-pilot: “Is leopard-two sharing his feed?” The co-pilot nodded and changed the knob setting to a different position. The display shifted from leopard-one to leopard-two and showed the
FLIR
zoomed in on what looked like an inactive Pakistani bunker on the line-of-control. It was hard to determine whether it was still occupied just by looking at the infrared view. That was the problem: the rockets had lit up the entire southern side of the Pakistani controlled ridgeline.
Everything
was showing up on thermals! But they had to fly past it into Pakistani territory, so it couldn’t be ignored…