Group Captain
A time-to-impact countdown appeared in the upper left of the HUD. The flying officer was not confident the missiles would hit; the enemy's previous electronic deception had proved effective. But at this range, the high-powered phased-array radar was not so easily fooled.
Following standard procedure, the flying officer held the nose pointed at the enemy aircraft. His opponent began unhurriedly heading toward the mountains on one flank. This meant he had known all along he was being tracked. The man was plainly a veteran. He had probably worked out that this Su-30 carried no active radar-guided missiles;1 perhaps he had seen the loadout during the first head-on pass. Whatever the case, he understood that if a mountain blocked the Su-30's line of sight, it also blocked the radar beam, and the two missiles would go stupid.
Goyal pushed the throttles back into afterburner. He had to accept the risk: chasing at high speed through the mountains invited a collision, and the fuel consumption was brutal. The Sukhoi, at least, had one consolation; its pilot never needed to fret about fuel the way a light fighter's did.
But when Goyal came around the ridgeline, the enemy had already slipped off the radar. The pilot was clearly practised at this, adept at exploiting terrain to turn a light fighter's weaknesses into strengths. In the back seat, Jafar watched the vertical situation display as the two missiles flew straight ahead into nothing. If the target was not reacquired within seconds, the attack had failed.
"Ground radar scanning on the left. Continuous track," Jafar said.
"SAMs?"
"Doesn't look like it. Seems more like some kind of… flak battery radar—"
Before the words were out, a string of white bursts erupted around the aircraft. Even inside the enormous fighter's cockpit, the concussions were palpable.
"Damn it. It really is flak."
Goyal pulled up. The Su-30's engines hauled it clear of the ground fire within seconds; a few hundred metres of altitude and the guns could no longer reach. During the climb, however, a fragment struck his windscreen, leaving a white scar.
"Heh. That bastard really is something," Goyal said to his back-seater. He clearly did not mean the guns.
"He led us over that position on purpose. He could have run ages ago." Jafar was voicing what Goyal already knew.
"I'll remember you. You and your Thunder. We'll meet again." The flying officer spat the words, then turned east with his single kill, licking his wounds.
Among the mountains of Kashmir, a light grey aircraft flickered in and out of sight, heading northwest. In the cockpit, Group Captain2 Mohammed Sami was trying to raise the ground. On the large display before him, three caution flags pulsed without cease: launch failures on the Magic missiles under each wing, and a low-fuel warning. The group captain silenced the alarms.
"This is Black Spider3 lead. I must land at the nearest airfield. I say again, I must put down at Gilgit."
"Group Captain, this is base. You're cleared for Gilgit, but there's only one runway and a C-130 is currently waiting on it."
"Get that bloody C-130 off the runway. I can barely make it there. Sixty kilometres." His rank and seniority were high enough that he could, on occasion, order a ground base around.
"Understood, we'll sort it out. Headquarters wants to know Flight Lieutenant4 Zaraq's status. We can't see him on radar."
"He was shot down. Tragic. I didn't see him eject."
"Location?"
"Machhal valley5 area. We were ambushed by a Su-30MKI. I got the Indian aircraft's tail number: SB-302. Probably No. 24 Squadron.6 Must have launched from a deep rear base, which means they've changed their usual tactics."
"As far as we know, the only fighters in that sector are MiG-21s from No. 51 Squadron."7
"No. I saw it clearly. It was not a MiG-21. Do you seriously think I cannot tell a Su-30 from a MiG-21?"
"My apologies, Group Captain. I didn't mean to suggest that."
"If my missiles hadn't malfunctioned, I would have had him. A flak battery from the 23rd Infantry Division8 should have seen it too. I drew the Indian aircraft toward their position and they engaged him."
"Copy."
Sami ended the call and nursed his JF-17 toward Gilgit.9 The airfield was the seat of Pakistan's Force Command Northern Areas. It sat at high altitude and was poorly developed: a single short runway, far from ideal for landing a Thunder. But when the tanks were dry, one could not afford to be particular. On the navigation display, the field was close.
The group captain lowered the flaps and decelerated on approach. He could see a C-130 lumbering awkwardly across the apron; probably the one just cleared from the runway. There were quite a few transport aircraft of various types parked along the taxiway. At the far end, however, a white transport sat alone on a grassy patch to one side. It caught his eye: the markings on the Y-8's10 tail were not the star and crescent but a red flag. The aircraft of some Chinese military delegation, presumably.
This was hardly the only Chinese military presence in Pakistan at the moment. When the group captain had set out that morning, a group of Chinese Air Force pilots had been at Kamra,11 three hundred kilometres away, originally there for an annual exchange exercise. The sudden escalation had put paid to that. This conflict could spiral out of control. That afternoon, as the group captain had approached the border, he had seen heavy Indian vehicle convoys ferrying supplies toward the front. The two 454-kilogram bombs12 he had dropped had merely destroyed a single observation post the Indians had erected after crossing the border, and for that he had lost a precious Mirage and a pilot worth more than any aircraft. By tomorrow morning at the latest the Indians would have built a new post. The thought sat badly with him.
"Black Spider lead, watch the crosswind. Your approach speed is too high. The runway here is only thirteen hundred metres."
"Understood."
The group captain aligned the nose with the centreline, added a touch of angle of attack, and held the speed down to 220 kilometres per hour.
"Fuel status?"
"None left. And you'll need weapons handling specialists. I have two hung missiles on board. The fuzes have been safed, but they need to come off immediately."
The tower paused. "Try to stop as far along the runway as you can. We'll remove them there."
The group captain lowered the gear and touched down on the high-altitude strip, then deployed the drag chute. The light fighter hurtled along the concrete and finally came to rest at the far end, where the number 5213 was painted. Sami thought the runway felt barely half the length of Kamra's. He popped the canopy and waited. A few jeeps carrying ladders drove up, and while the men fiddled with them the group captain unstrapped his helmet and looked around.
The airfield was vast, quiet, its security lax. By the runway, a handful of Chinese soldiers escorted by Pakistani officers were staring his way; perhaps they were interested in this Chinese-designed fighter that had just made an emergency landing. From their uniforms, though, they were all army. A pity.
1. Active radar-guided missiles (主动雷达制导的导弹): The opponent correctly deduces that this Su-30MKI is carrying only semi-active R-27s (see C2N11), which require the launching aircraft to illuminate the target continuously, rather than fire-and-forget R-77s. ↩
2. Group Captain (上校): The PAF equivalent of Colonel; see C1N11 for the rank system. That Sami holds this rank and still flies combat sorties places him as an unusually senior combat pilot; the novel presents him as a wing-level officer who insists on leading from the cockpit. ↩
3. Black Spider (黑蜘蛛): PAF No. 26 Squadron, the "Black Spiders," based at Peshawar. The squadron became the first PAF unit to operate the JF-17 Thunder when it received fourteen Block I aircraft in February 2010, making it the logical choice to introduce the type into combat. ↩
4. Flight Lieutenant Zaraq (扎拉克上尉): PAF equivalent of Captain; see C1N5 for rank conventions. Zaraq is the pilot of the Mirage V shot down by Goyal in the preceding chapters. The name is phonetically plausible as Pashto or Baloch. ↩
5. Machhal valley (马查河谷): Also spelled Machil or Machal. A valley in the Kupwara district of Indian-administered Kashmir, directly on the Line of Control, site of repeated infiltration attempts and military engagements. ↩
6. No. 24 Squadron: See C1N17. The appearance of a Su-30MKI from No. 24 Squadron, based hundreds of kilometres to the rear at Bareilly, represents a tactical surprise; Pakistani intelligence expected only MiG-21s in this sector. ↩
7. No. 51 Squadron (第51中队): IAF No. 51 Squadron "Sword Arms," a MiG-21 Bison unit based at Srinagar. One of the last IAF squadrons to operate the type. ↩
8. 23rd Infantry Division (23步兵师): A Pakistan Army formation under X Corps, responsible for sectors along the LoC. Its deployment of anti-aircraft artillery in the border area is consistent with the defensive posture described. ↩
9. Gilgit (吉尔吉特): A city in Gilgit-Baltistan at approximately 1,460 metres elevation. Gilgit Airport has a single 1,646-metre runway designated 07/25. The author states 1,300 metres; the discrepancy may be deliberate fictionalisation. Either way, a JF-17 landing with no fuel reserves would find it uncomfortably tight. ↩
10. Y-8 (运8): The Shaanxi Y-8, a Chinese medium transport derived from the Antonov An-12. The red flag tail marking identifies it as a PLA Air Force aircraft, contrasting with the PAF's star and crescent. ↩
11. Kamra: See C1N12. Home of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, where the JF-17 is assembled. ↩
12. 454-kilogram bombs (454公斤的炸弹): Precisely 1,000 lb; the Mark 83 general-purpose bomb, standard NATO-pattern ordnance carried by PAF Mirage Vs. ↩
13. Runway 52 (写着52): Gilgit Airport's actual designation is 07/25. The "52" appears to be the digits of "25" reversed, likely an authorial error. Runway numbers are derived from magnetic heading divided by ten; "52" would imply a heading of 520°, which is impossible. Translated as written. ↩