Memories
Inside the small terminal at Safdarjung military airfield in New Delhi, Flying Officer Goyal was anxiously waiting for the Ministry of Defence shuttle to take him back to Bareilly. He was not in a good mood. A few hours earlier, his weapons systems officer Jafar had told him he had received transfer orders from the Ministry: he was being posted south to join the newly reformed No. 45 Squadron.1 Shortly after, an AHQ Communications Squadron Dornier 228 had whisked him away to Sulur Air Force Base. Goyal had never seen Jafar as giddy as a child. It had caught him entirely off guard. He realised he had never truly considered how his back-seater felt. All along, Jafar had longed to fly an advanced single-seat fighter on his own, but had kept the wish to himself. Now Jafar had what he wanted: soon he would be flying Hindustan Aeronautics' creation, the world's lightest supersonic fighter.2 Goyal, meanwhile, could only sit alone in the empty terminal, waiting for a ride back to Bareilly. War was imminent, everyone said, and he would have to break in a new WSO under fire.
The shuttle did not come. A Ministry car did. Singh's chief of staff, Rujadnahan, stepped out of an official vehicle, walked into the terminal, and found Goyal waiting.
"Captain, the aircraft has been delayed. You have a new assignment."
"Captain?" Goyal turned. He remembered the tall director well enough, but was not sure the man was addressing him; his promotion notice had gone to the base, so as far as he knew he was still a flying officer. But there was no one else in uniform here.
"Captain, don't be shy. The Ministry has a task for you."
"Good day, Director. The situation is extremely urgent. I must return to the front immediately. I need time to work up with a new WSO."
"There are many ways to strike the enemy, Captain. Not all of them require a cockpit. Right now this task needs you more."
"?"
"Hindustan National Television is producing an emergency programme. It's called 'National Heroes.' You have been selected by the Ministry of Defence as the subject of the first episode."
"Television?"
"That's right. Think of the lovely Miss Bansali.3 In a few hours she will host the programme in person, and you will appear as a national hero."
"Miss Bansali from India Today?"
"She'll ask you some questions the public wants answered. Your conversation with the Prime Minister, your feelings after shooting down the enemy. Simple enough. It's a pity the decision was delayed; Captain Jafar has already left."
"So I'm doing the interview alone?" Goyal asked. The thought of facing the famous anchor by himself made him uneasy. The woman regularly confused state capitals and mangled the names of parliamentary coalitions, but this did nothing to diminish her status as an idol among Indian youth.
"No, no. There's a second guest. He'll take Jafar's spot on camera."
"Who?" Goyal asked. The director did not answer; perhaps he had not heard. Outside, a Mi-8 helicopter was settling onto the tarmac, its roar drowning out the conversation.
"You asked who? Here he comes. Captain Shubh Rawal,4 a flight leader with the Trident squadron. We haven't met yet, but in this morning's air battle he shot down an F-16. Whether it belonged to Pakistan's vaunted No. 5 Squadron is still being verified by intelligence."
"Really?" Goyal was stunned. Shooting down a Falcon had been the recurring theme of his dreams.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the helicopter had shut down. A hatch opened and a young officer in air force blues leaned out, holding his peaked cap against the rotor wash. He jumped down.
"A Trident MiG-29?"
"That's right. Come, let's go meet him."
The Hindustan National Television building stood on Dalhousie Street in the heart of New Delhi, directly opposite the Anglican cathedral and close to both Parliament and the Presidential Palace. The state broadcaster had long served as the government's principal channel for policy announcements.
Goyal and the taciturn Captain Rawal sat facing each other in the green room. Staff hurried past, preparing for the recording. A few minutes earlier, Rujadnahan had vanished, off to find someone. The two pilots had not yet spoken. Rawal sat with his head bowed, lost in thought. He showed none of the elation you would expect from a man who had just killed an enemy aircraft.
"I hear you may have downed a Falcon?" Goyal ventured, trying to break the silence. He disliked his own tone; it was too deferential, and that chafed against his pride.
"I'm not sure how to put this, Flying Officer. I did fire a medium-range missile and destroy an F-16A or B that was climbing after dropping its bombs. He was careless. But this morning's battle was not… not exactly a success."
Rawal's words startled Goyal. He waited for the captain to continue.
"Before dawn we received an emergency scramble order. Four MiG-29s from our squadron, plus four MiG-21s out of Sarsawa." Rawal recalled the events mechanically. Goyal suddenly sensed the real score was not one to nil, just as his own was not two to nil.
"They had that damned AWACS sitting 250 kilometres west of the border, providing early warning the whole time. Ours never showed up. You know they're good at fighting in the mountains. Without an AWACS on our side, even with a numerical edge, it was never going to be a fair fight." Goyal nodded. He agreed entirely. India's most capable Phalcon AWACS5 was too few in number, and 181 Flight's HS 748s had an abysmal sortie rate. Counting on them in combat was futile.
"We reached the combat zone. The enemy had already completed their bombing run. We fired several R-77s and brought down the F-16. It was climbing out of low altitude, made no evasive manoeuvre. Then the MiG-21 flight leader said their fuel radius was nearly up; they needed to disengage."
"And then?"
"We detected two No. 5 Squadron F-16s approaching. Our attention was completely fixed on them. But…" Rawal sank into painful recollection.
"A Thunder came charging straight at us. Like a man possessed. I don't know how else to describe it. He was alone, and he attacked us head-on."
"A Thunder?" Goyal thought unbidden of his own encounter. Of course it could not be the same aircraft.
"I had my flight fire four R-27s at it, at about seventeen kilometres. It dropped to extremely low altitude and used the mountain valleys to shake off every missile. Then it vanished from our radar. The last thing I saw on screen was it turning. I assumed it was running."
"It turned toward the MiG-21s?" Goyal asked. By now he was beginning to suspect that either every Pakistani pilot had reached an extraordinary level of tactical proficiency, or Rawal was describing the same aircraft he had faced.
1. No. 45 Squadron (第45中队): IAF No. 45 "Flying Daggers," historically a MiG-21 Bison unit. In the novel's timeline it is being reformed with the HAL Tejas, consistent with the real-world transition that occurred in 2016. Jafar's transfer there means he will finally fly a single-seat fighter rather than serving as a WSO. ↩
2. World's lightest supersonic fighter: The HAL Tejas LCA (Light Combat Aircraft), an Indian-designed single-engine delta-wing fighter. The description is a standard piece of Indian defence marketing. ↩
3. Bansali (班萨莉): A fictional television presenter. Her characterisation as beautiful but geographically confused is the author's satire of Indian 24-hour news culture. She is replaced before the broadcast by the more politically reliable Dr. Rani (see C21). ↩
4. Captain Rawal (罗尔上尉): A MiG-29 pilot with No. 223 "Tridents" squadron. His rank 上尉 corresponds to Flight Lieutenant in IAF nomenclature. His subdued demeanour, contrasting with Goyal's ambition, marks him as the novel's first Indian character who is openly uncomfortable with the propaganda apparatus. ↩
5. Phalcon AWACS (费尔康预警机): The IAI/DRDO Phalcon, an airborne early warning system mounted on an Ilyushin Il-76 platform. India operates three units. Their scarcity, combined with the unreliable HS 748 AEW of 181 Flight, has been a recurring disadvantage for the IAF throughout the novel. ↩