Low-Altitude Escape
"Tell me where the other aircraft is."
"No contact on the second aircraft," the AWACS said. The Erieye system sometimes developed blind spots when the platform adjusted its orbit; just when you needed it, it might be lumbering through a turn. Of course, the other possibility was that the enemy had ducked behind a mountain.
"Group Captain, check below you." Hassan's voice. Sami rolled immediately and saw a missile climbing toward him in silence. It was still some distance away. He pushed the stick forward, diving almost into the missile's path. He knew the R-60s1 these MiG-21s typically carried; flying toward it would actually confuse the seeker head. The airspeed indicator began to wind up, but the aircraft was only doing 600 kilometres per hour. A problem. The only remedy was to steepen the dive and let gravity add an extra g when the time came to break. At the last instant the group captain dispensed several salvos of flares and chaff and broke hard to one side. The missile sailed past and flew on aimlessly. He turned back, searching for the hidden attacker, and spotted a MiG-21 below, coming head-on. His own last PL-5 lacked a strong head-on capability; the seeker, confronted with this MiG-21's front aspect at barely more than a kilometre, could not acquire a heat source.
The group captain was now caught in a pincer. Even if he evaded this pass, he would immediately be dragged into a turning fight, still sandwiched between the two. Low-altitude turning was one of the MiG-21's few genuine strengths; by then his Thunder would have neither the speed nor the altitude to survive.
"Falcon One, I need you here. Now." As the group captain flashed past the head-on MiG-21, it fired a burst of cannon. The MiG, underpowered and struggling to hold its nose steady, sprayed the rounds wide. Not a scratch on the group captain. The MiG swept over his canopy, and Sami looked back to see that it had not lit its afterburner. Instead, it was attempting a low-altitude loop; for a MiG-21, with its poor low-speed handling, this was a gamble close to Russian roulette, risking a flameout or a stall.
Now both MiG-21s appeared at his four and seven o'clock. One was slower, but this still severely limited his options. Any hard turn toward one would put his tail in front of the other's nose.
Eject if it comes to it. Let's hope these Indian pilots don't shoot at parachutes. This was the group captain's thought as he made one last turn. He could clearly see the dirt track on the ground, two hundred metres from the hillside. Where the hell was Hassan?
One of the pursuing MiG-21s exploded in mid-air, breaking in two. Probably an AIM-120C. Sami saw a second missile streak toward the remaining MiG-21 but miss. The last MiG, unwilling to press the fight, dived away and accelerated east. The group captain had no fuel left to pursue. He turned north and disengaged. The sky was fully light now. In this round of air combat, the Pakistan Air Force had once again come out markedly ahead: three to one,2 enough to give the Indian Chief of Air Staff indigestion.
"Praise be to God," the group captain said, and meant it.
"Black Spider lead, your tally appears to be five now. Congratulations."
"Where's the nearest airfield?" Sami asked. He ignored Hassan's honeyed greeting. He was thinking that he now owed the man a very large favour.
"Benazir Bhutto International, I'm afraid.3 Though there's a tanker to the south… oh, right, your little aircraft probably can't refuel in the air."
The group captain pressed the return-to-base button on the multifunction display and set the navigation for Benazir Bhutto International, the closest airfield.
"Falcon lead, thank you for not wasting time before you fired."
"Group Captain, No. 5 Squadron never wastes time. Next time you can't shake an Indian fighter, I'll be there to save you again."
"Enough, Hassan. I know you and your squadron well enough."
"Thank you for your kind words. You are the pride of the Air Force."
A lone MiG-21 flew into the glare of the morning sun, heading for Sarsawa Air Force Base.4 Four aircraft had launched from there before dawn. Only the flight leader, Captain Metis,5 was returning. The captain replayed in his mind, over and over, the moment each of his three wingmen had been shot down. He knew there had been only one enemy aircraft, and it had torn his flight apart. An intolerable fact, built on a catalogue of obsolescence: ageing fighters, radar warning equipment that did not work, and that damned AWACS from 181 Flight that had never once shown up on time. All of it had cost him three comrades in the space of minutes.
Metis had heard his pilots' cries over the radio as they were hit. He had not seen a single one eject. Those ancient ejection seats probably had problems too, but there would never be answers now.
"Dagger lead,6 report your status. Ground radar shows no other aircraft."
"Dagger flight lost three aircraft in the engagement." The ground controller asked nothing further.
"Why didn't the Tridents provide cover?" Metis pressed.
"Unclear. Trident flight has just landed. They report one F-16 destroyed."
The captain could not stop himself from weeping. For the past year, everyone in the squadron had been earnestly discussing a rumour: No. 45 Squadron was to re-equip with the advanced Rafale.7 Some pilots had already travelled to Bangalore to try the French aircraft's simulator. They all looked forward to the day when better equipment would make them a first-rate air combat force in South Asia. But today he had watched his squadron mates fall like leaves.
"Dagger lead, check your approach waypoint. You need to descend." The tower's call pulled the captain back.
"Captain Metis, I too am grieved," came an unfamiliar, elderly voice, taking over the frequency.
"We need better aircraft to fight them."
"You will have them. Everything in time. I promise." In the ground control room, the speaker was Air Chief Marshal Bifrata,8 Chief of Air Staff of the Indian Air Force, who had been directing operations in person.
Meanwhile, two hundred kilometres away, a JF-17 on its last drops of fuel was trying to land, and the approach controller would not let it.
"Eastbound fighter, you cannot land on Runway One. A large airliner is on approach. You are too close."
"I can see the 747. I will land immediately after it touches down. But I cannot go around. I have no fuel."
"Fighter, you are far too close. This is dangerous. That aircraft is the United Nations special envoy's plane."
"Oh, what? I'm sorry, my VHF radio has a problem. I can barely hear you. That settles it, then."
The UN envoy's aircraft entered its final waypoint for Benazir Bhutto International on schedule. The co-pilot called the tower several times; the controller told him the main runway was available. The co-pilot noticed, however, that a small grey fighter had been flying alongside them for some time. This puzzled him. He looked back at the fighter. The pilot in the cockpit waved, then rocked his wings. The co-pilot could see a missile still hanging under the wing.
When the 747 lowered its landing gear, the fighter vanished. The crew put it out of their minds. But the moment the airliner touched down and was turning toward the apron, the pilots saw the small aircraft again: it came tearing past the 747's tail trailing a blue drag chute, rolling all the way to the far end of the runway before coming to a stop. The sight gave both airline pilots a fright. They had flown into countries at war before, but they had never seen air traffic control quite like this.
1. R-60 (R-60导弹): The Molniya R-60 (NATO reporting name AA-8 Aphid), a lightweight short-range infrared-homing missile weighing only 44 kg. Standard armament on IAF MiG-21s. Sami's tactic of diving toward the missile exploits the R-60's uncooled seeker, which loses track when the target presents a low-contrast front aspect against the cold ground. ↩
2. Three to one: The overall exchange from the dawn raid: Pakistan lost Lieutenant Issa's F-16A (C12) while the IAF lost three MiG-21s (this chapter) plus one Jaguar helicopter site destroyed. If the Tridents' claimed F-16 kill is added, the ratio narrows, but Sami's personal contribution of at least one MiG-21 kill brings his cumulative tally to five. ↩
3. Benazir Bhutto International Airport (贝娜齐尔布托国际机场): Islamabad's main airport (ICAO: OPRN), renamed in 2008 in honour of the assassinated former Prime Minister. The coincidence of Sami's emergency landing and the UN envoy's arrival on the same runway sets up the chapter's closing scene. ↩
4. Sarsawa (萨尔锡): The Chinese 萨尔锡 (Sā'ěrxī) most plausibly corresponds to Sarsawa Air Force Station in Uttar Pradesh, an IAF base that has hosted MiG-21 operations. ↩
5. Captain Metis (米蒂斯上尉): A fictional IAF MiG-21 pilot with No. 45 Squadron. The rank 上尉 corresponds to Flight Lieutenant in IAF nomenclature, but the translation uses "Captain" to match the army-adjacent ground-control context. ↩
6. Dagger (匕首): The callsign of No. 45 Squadron "Flying Daggers," an IAF unit that historically operated MiG-21 Bisons before converting to the HAL Tejas in 2016. In the novel's timeline, the transition has not yet occurred; Metis and his pilots fly the older type. ↩
7. Rafale (阵风): The Dassault Rafale, a French twin-engine multirole fighter. India signed a contract for 36 Rafales in 2016, with deliveries beginning in 2020. In the novel's timeline this procurement is still in the future, existing only as a rumour among the MiG-21 pilots. The mention connects to C8N6, where Rujadnahan dangles the Tejas as an alternative upgrade path. ↩
8. Air Chief Marshal Bifrata (比夫拉塔上将): A fictional IAF Chief of Air Staff. The Chinese 上将 means "General" or, in IAF terms, Air Chief Marshal. His personal intervention on the radio to console a junior pilot returning from a devastating sortie is a detail that humanises the Indian high command. ↩