Night Raid (not to be confused with Chapter 11)
"That aircraft should have been past half fuel by then. We'd seen every Pakistani aircraft in the first wave drop its bombs. We assumed it couldn't fly far. So we pointed every nose toward the two F-16s coming from the Mianwali direction. That was the wrong call."
"He went after the MiG-21s?" Goyal asked. He could scarcely believe anyone would stalk a force four times his size, unless the man was insane.
"Extremely seasoned. He tailed the MiG-21s along the border and ambushed two of them."
Goyal's mouth hung open. He waited for Rawal to go on.
"Then he got drawn into a turning fight, one against two. Our radar's look-down was limited; we couldn't track him properly. By that point we'd used up our fuel and our medium-range missiles. But the Falcon F-16s that arrived still had plenty of fuel and AIM-120s. They shot down the third MiG-21. In the end, only one MiG-21 made it back to Sarsawa."
Rujadnahan reappeared from somewhere. Goyal and Rawal broke off their painful exchange.
"Gentlemen, some bad news. The recording has been postponed. Everyone is waiting for the government's latest statement. I believe war is not far off. Your programme won't tape until the small hours. Tomorrow evening, the entire nation will be proud of you; every squadron will look up to you as their standard. Also, some good news: the presenter has been changed to the esteemed Dr. Rani.1 The Ministry has decided that a woman should not interview heroes."
Goyal looked up in dismay. He could not fathom how this qualified as good news. Rawal kept his head down, indifferent to who conducted the interview.
Jorbhat Air Force Base was in a frenzy. Four MiG-27UPGs of the first wave stood lined up beside the runway; four more were being fuelled and armed. The first-wave pilots were already in their cockpits. Everyone was waiting for the Prime Minister's statement. The pilots knew, of course, that this would be no welcome to a UN delegation. It would be a declaration of war. The timing served a dual purpose: politically, it condemned the UN's perceived bias; militarily, the small hours were when Pakistan's defences were likeliest to be slack.
0005 hours. Squadron Leader Makunda's voice came over the squadron frequency: "Two minutes ago, the Prime Minister declared a special counter-terrorism war footing. All borders are sealed. We are in a state of limited war with Pakistan. Operation Hunhkesh2 has commenced. No. 29 Squadron will proceed as planned."
"Chieftain, this is Scorpion One requesting takeoff." Pandit sat in his cockpit, calling in.
"Runway is clear. Scorpion flight may launch at will."
Captain Pandit pulled on his oxygen mask, switched the fuel selector to internal, and started the engine. He watched the RPM gauge climb, glanced back to confirm the ground crew had disconnected the external air supply, and released the brakes. The aircraft rumbled into a turn onto the lit runway. Above, the starless sky was a wall of black. He did not know what awaited him.
"Scorpion One, cleared for takeoff."
The aircraft began to accelerate. His left hand left the throttle to push the variable-sweep wing lever to the minimum 16-degree setting; the lock indicator lit. He returned his hand to the throttle and shoved it into afterburner. Even with the burner lit, the speed built slowly; the aircraft was too heavily loaded. He had to wait until the very end of the runway before rotating.
The MiG-27's silhouette vanished into the darkness at the runway's end. Only the navigation lights and the glow from the exhaust nozzle still flickered. When the second aircraft entered the runway, the watchers saw the first set of lights lift off. The leaden machine was finally airborne.
"Scorpion One, check main hydraulic pressure and wing-sweep indicator."
"Scorpion One, copy." Pandit scanned the post-takeoff instruments and adjusted the panel lighting. Night operations were a nuisance, especially in an old aircraft that lacked a head-down display showing the route or any modern navigation.
The captain orbited the airfield, waiting for his three wingmen to form up. Being in the first wave was no blessing: his only escort would be a few even older MiG-21s from No. 23 Squadron. If they stumbled into a low-altitude SAM battery or enemy interceptors, those MiG-21s would be hard-pressed to save themselves, let alone him. But as the squadron leader had said, surprise was the real protection. Lahore was just across the border, very close. The only formation defending the area was the understrength IV Corps, whose sole air-defence brigade was spread thin along a very long frontier. The HQ-9's effective engagement range against low-flying aircraft was far shorter than its maximum.
"Scorpion One to Chieftain, formation complete. Heading 260. Fifty-seven kilometres to the border."
"Scorpion flight, no ground-to-air radar detected. No AWACS detected."
"Fighting has begun in the north. Pakistani aircraft are heading toward Punjab. They are moving away from you."
"Scorpion flight, descend to four hundred metres. Attack formation. All aircraft maintain spacing. Watch your six."
Pandit led the four MiG-27s down. He set the wing sweep to the intermediate position and increased speed to 500 kilometres per hour; this way, No. 23 Squadron's MiG-21s would not overtake them and lose the ability to provide cover.
"I see them. Left side, a few kilometres."
"Calling Black Panther lead."
"I see you too, Scorpion lead. We're at your three o'clock."
Pandit had no faith that these short-range-missile-armed fighters could protect anything, but having them was better than nothing. At least his flight would not be the only blip on an enemy radar. As they neared the border, the MiG-21s also switched off their navigation lights. Now neither formation could see the other, though both knew which side the other was on.
Pandit's flight crossed the border at very low altitude without incident.
"Scorpion flight, check gunsight collimator."
The captain had been watching his Sirena radar warning receiver. It had stayed silent. Whether that was luck or whether the antique equipment had simply failed to register anything, he could not yet tell.
1. Dr. Rani (拉尼博士): A fictional right-wing television commentator who replaces the originally planned female presenter. The Ministry's reasoning that "a woman should not interview heroes" is presented without editorial comment; Goyal's dismay is entirely about losing the more attractive host. ↩
2. Operation Hunhkesh (亨赫什行动): Hindi हुंकेश, meaning "roar" or "battle cry." The codename for India's full-scale air offensive against Pakistan. The declaration of a "special counter-terrorism war footing" rather than a formal declaration of war gives the offensive legal cover under the emergency powers granted by Parliament in Chapter 16. ↩