He looked below and to the sides, hoping to see their charges coming up to the rendezvous point. The Brahmos missiles heading west to take out the HQ-9 missile battery west of Lahore would be happening already. His only indication of the strike would be the termination of the noise being made by his onboard radar-warning-receivers when the long-range surveillance radar of the battery was destroyed. They weren’t even get close enough to see the impact from the missile strikes. Too bad…
But he did see his charges: three flights of four Jaguars each were approaching from the northeast: “dagger, this is warhawk-actual. Be advised, you have friendlies approaching from your five-o-clock, three-thousand feet below.”
“We see you, warhawk.” Grewal responded.
“Glad to hear it, dagger. I understand you boys will be our escorts for this milk run?”
Grewal grunted. A heavy enemy suppression mission against a guarded nuclear-reactor complex is a milk run? He wondered what hell these guys had seen during the China war to make them feel this way…
“Roger, warhawk. dagger has your back.”
Grewal noted that the enemy HQ-9 radar was no longer active. And that meant only one thing. Time for civilities was over: “mongol-two to warhawk and dagger: Starlight is in play. I say again, Starlight is in play. Warhawk, you are clear to proceed. Dagger, be advised, warhammer and scabbard flights are sweeping south and north respectively. Hold station until warhawk has suppressed enemy defenses and then move to cover. Warhawk-actual has the ball. Out.”
Grewal saw the Jaguar pilots instinctively diving for the deck. Their flight of twelve aircraft dived away to the west to do what they did best: flying low amongst the weeds and shocking the enemy with their appearance. But he found himself holding station while everyone else got to play. It wasn’t fair. LCAs weren’t designed to be long-range fighters. That was what the Su-30s were for. No, his job was to fly escort and that is what he would do while the Su-30 and Mig-29 drivers were slashing across Pakistani skies looking for PAF scalpels. The only scalpels he would get would be leftovers…
He sighed.
The Jaguar pilots were already out of sight. He would cruise at high altitude to preserve fuel. They were currently burning the fuel in the centerline tanks so that it would be the first thing they dropped off if they made contact with the enemy. But their slow cruising speeds meant that the Jaguars had already accelerated ahead of them. They would be going after the Spada-2000 missile systems defending the Chushma complex. Grewal checked his moving-map-display and saw that he was scheduled to arrive over the target just as soon as the Jaguars had suppressed the enemy defenses… in seven minutes.
These were long and boring seven minutes. Nothing to do but scan the comms, the skies and their radar screens. The comms were alive with Jaguar pilots talking to each other as they smashed the enemy’s defenses. He could also listen in on the chatter between the Su-30 pilots to the south as they tangled with whatever fighters the PAF could muster into the air to defend their nuclear reactors. To the north the Mig-29 pilots were doing the same with a pair of Pakistani JF-17s. But their own radar screens were clear. No enemy had made it past the screens of Indian fighters around him.
The radio crackled: “well, this is shaping up to be the most boring escort mission ever!” Ramesh said for everyone.
Grewal said nothing. The man was right. If things kept going as they are, they just…
“Contact!” Grewal said abruptly as his radar showed him something at extreme range. “You see it, dagger-two?”
“I have it! “ Ramesh responded. “Must be something large to even show up here. What the hell could it be? Not a fighter, surely!”
Grewal went through his mental checklist: the contact was too large to be a fighter. But what else could it be? An airliner? No, all airlines had ceased operations from Pakistan days ago. Could it be a transport aircraft? Certainly a multi-engine aircraft. Either way, a juicy target!
“Dagger-two, maintain cover for warhawk with dagger-bravo. Dagger-alpha: on me! We are going after this contact!”
The four LCAs punched off their mostly-empty centerline tanks and punched afterburners. Grewal was pushed into his seat as the nimble aircraft accelerated, gaining momentum and closing range on the contact. A few minutes into the chase and he had a clear contact: a multi-engine aircraft with two escorting fighters. The group of three aircraft was heading northwest, into Afghanistan. His curiosity was spiked even more. The two escorts guarding the enemy aircraft were breaking formation and diving towards his LCAs. Some Pakistani ground radar was vectoring them…
“All right boys,” Grewal switched for long-range Astra missiles, “spread out for a long-range shot at the two bastards protecting that transport aircraft. One long-range shot and we are in the merge. Take them down!”
The four LCAs spread out from a finger-four formation to a line abreast. The Pakistani pilots fired off two missiles before the LCAs did. But with the fast closure rate and the conditions for the shot, the two missiles swept past the diving LCAs and did not turn back.
Two of the Astra missiles did the same. But the last two slammed into one of the fighters and it was blotted out of the sky in fragments, disappearing from all radar screens. The other Pakistani pilot flipped his aircraft to the side and dived past the LCAs.
Grewal saw the Mirage-III dash past his cockpit and lose altitude. He flipped his aircraft and did the same. His wingman followed him like a shadow. The pilot of the Mirage-III was experienced and was weaving in three-dimensional space. Grewal had to call on all his skills to stay behind. All the while, the Pakistani pilot was maneuvering into position behind one of Grewal’s LCAs that had dived to avoid the initial missile salvo…
This guy is good! Grewal could feel the sweat inside his mask and the dryness in his mouth. He had to get this bastard before he got one of his boys. The skies was lit up with tracers as the Mirage-III pilot began to rattle the novice pilot in dagger-alpha-two.
Grewal tried lining up for an infrared shot with an R-73. But the Pakistani pilot kept avoiding him. He would make a violent maneuver just as Grewal would try to get a shot off, dumping chaff and flares in his wake. These represented a kind of hazard in their own way, considering the close distances between the Mirage-III and the LCA. Grewal knew he must be dealing with a senior Pakistani pilot here. He was keeping four LCAs at bay with his outdated Mirage-III!
All Grewal needed was one mistake from this enemy pilot. And it happened a split second later when the man maneuvered yet again. He slid across Grewal’s gun optics and Grewal let loose a long salvo of cannon rounds. The tracers ripped into the Mirage-III from above like a deadly scythe and the aircraft detonated into a fireball. Grewal had to maneuver violently to avoid passing through the debris. He barely managed to avoid it.
As he pulled away to the west, he saw the flaming debris of the Mirage-III disappear into the white clouds below. He didn’t see a parachute. Grewal made a mental note to find out who it was that he had killed tonight. It certainly had been no average PAF officer…
But that was for later. Right now, they had to catch the enemy transport. Where was it? He checked his radar and found that the transport was making a dash to low altitude under the clouds as it headed north towards Peshawar. Grewal opened comms: “dagger-alpha: regroup on that transport! Don’t let it escape!”