“Sparrow-two-two has one away… and two away. Steady on the marker. Sparrow-two-three has the ball.”
Pathanya tightened his grip on the binoculars. He had seen this show before. Kamidalla shifted in his concealed position within the trees and looked up through the scattered shadows of the leaves.
Three seconds later he caught the faint glimmer of the fins of a laser-guided-bomb as it slammed into the lead T-80 tank on the road. The explosion was catastrophic and the T-80 was shredded underneath an inverted cone of flames and smoke. Chunks of concrete flew off in all directions along with inverted civilian cars by their dozens as the shockwave expanded out. The second bomb slammed into the fourth T-80 from the lead and similarly disappeared inside another massive detonation…
The twin shockwaves dissipated as they expanded out whipping past the pathfinders. The trees ruffled with the pressure wave and swayed. The smell of burning metal and petroleum came with it. Vikram spat out the dirt that made it into his mouth.
“Goddamn it!” He said and spat out some more.
Pathanya ignored the others and focused on the mission as he keyed his comms: “sparrow-two-two, this is pathfinder. Good drop. Extensive damage to convoy. Seven T-80s destroyed. Multiple secondaries. Additional ancillary damage to convoy. Pleasure doing business with you!”
The radio crackled: “Likewise, pathfinder. Have a nice day. Sparrow-two-two is bugging out.”
Pathanya continued to look through his binoculars and surveyed the damage. It was extensive. He could see the bright flames furiously churning their way through what was left of the first six T-80s in the convoy. The seventh one was intact but spewing smoke. He could see other Pakistani soldiers from the trucks rushing up to get survivors out. Civilians were running about in chaos from the site of dozens of burning cars. Bodies and body parts were strewn all over.
“Dear god!” Kamidalla added as he saw the carnage.
“Didn’t you say to me at Vairengte that you wanted to see combat?” Pathanya slowly crawled back from his position into the small depression behind them and towed away his binoculars. “Well, here’s your fucking combat!”
Kamidalla didn’t respond. Neither did Vikram, who was quietly stowing away the laser-designator between himself and another soldier. Kamidalla finally swallowed.
Pathanya noted it: “you have something to add, Captain?” He asked brutally.
“Have our rules of engagement changed? We just ended up killing a lot of civilians out there.” Kamidalla asked hesitantly. Pathanya hefted his rifle closer to this chest: “the enemy didn’t ask the citizens of Mumbai what they wanted. They just nuked them. So spare me your sensibilities about the enemy’s civilians. I find that I just don’t give a damn.”
27
Grewal walked into the underground pilot’s ready-room and instantly the idle chatter ended, replaced by the noise of chairs grinding on the floor. The seven other pilots in green overalls stood at attention and saluted, which Grewal returned: “at ease, gentlemen.”
As the pilots took their seats, he walked over to the projector and powered it on. The screen came alive with a true-color, daylight satellite image of a complex of whitish-brown buildings. The center of the image was dominated by the near-vertical image of a large cylindrical structure. The bottom-right corner of the image was indented: CHUSHMA NUCLEAR REACTOR COMPLEX, PAKISTAN
Grewal looked at the screen and then the pilots to let that image sink in. He saw the slight shifting on the seats and the exchanged glances amongst the senior pilots. The body language amongst his pilots was aggressive. Good.
“As you are aware, the primary strategic objective for us has always been to punish Pakistan for the attack on Mumbai. That has translated to surgical strikes against terrorist encampments, infrastructure and support elements within the Pakistani military establishment. But Rawalpindi has retaliated with full-scale mobilization for war. We have preempted them and the chain reaction has brought us here today. The air-force has been directed to take apart the enemy air and missile capabilities. This we are aggressively prosecuting. The Pakistani air-force has been pushed back from the border and is being stretched to breaking point. Soon it will snap, not with a bang, but with a whimper and disappear into the background noise. We realize this. And as such, certain elements are now already transitioning to phase-two to include strikes against specific Pakistani national infrastructure. We are one of these elements.”
“Okay,” he said as he pointed to the screen showing the satellite image, “this right here is the Chushma nuclear complex, two-hundred kilometers inside Pakistani territory. It is heavily protected and is one of only two functioning reactor complexes in Pakistan. The second location is near Karachi. We won’t worry about that one. The navy is going after it with gusto tomorrow. We will focus our attention on this target right here. Other elements will strike other coal and hydropower plants across Pakistan. Questions?”
Grewal looked around and saw three raised arms. He nodded to the first pilot in front of him: “sir, are Pakistani civilian infrastructure now allowed as legitimate targets?”
“Not across the board. Selective only. All civilian infrastructure hits must be authorized by command. Do not consider them free-for-all secondary targets!” Grewal saw the suppressed smiles within his pilots. He noted the morale, which was high despite the three pilots they had lost so far in the squadron. He nodded to the next pilot behind:
“Sir, Why are we striking these targets at all? Why not just launch missiles at them from a safe distance?”
“Good question,” Grewal noted and turned to the screen. He pressed a button that moved the image out and showed the red-circled locations around the complex like a star pattern. “These,” he gestured with his hand, “are battery locations showing the Spada-2000 medium-range SAMs deployed northeast and southwest of the complex. Further east, between the complex and Lahore is this one HQ-9 long-range SAM battery. The reason these are alive and active is because we haven’t had the chance to go after them yet. But rest-assured, we will. The HQ-9 is a Chinese copy of the S-300s and we have plenty of experience of taking those down from the China war. The HQ-9 is not as effective: lesser range and lesser reliability. But it is still lethal.
“So it will be taken down by air-launched Brahmos missile strikes. We will trail behind flights of Jaguars who will nail the Spada battery near the nuclear complex. Once the battery is down, they will initiate a strike against the nuclear complex. We,” Grewal turned to the pilots, “will provide overhead security to the Jag boys.”
“What’s the airborne threat picture there? We are going to be deep inside bad-guy territory here.”
“Expect limited resistance from the PAF survivors at Peshawar and Multan. The Flanker boys are going to be sweeping north and south of us to keep the enemy hunkered down while we do our job. However, any enemy aircraft that slips past the Flankers is fair game. We are going in with eight birds in two flights of four. Call signs: dagger-alpha and dagger-bravo. I will lead dagger-alpha. Ramesh, you have dagger-bravo.”