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“Get Pathanya on the horn and tell him to hold that bridge he’s on. We have no defenses north of Thimpu other than Pathanya’s men. Until we can get reinforcements brought into Paru, I want him to fight a delaying battle with the help of Fernandez and his precision rocket launchers. Keep delaying the reds until we are ready to take the fight back to them. I want to fight this battle on our terms, not theirs. Right now they have a larger force slowed down by its bulk. We have a fast and flexible force with superior firepower. Let’s use that to our advantage!”

OVER SOUTHERN SIKKIM

DAY 6 + 1800 HRS

“Inbound bombers! Heading south from Golmud!”

The radar operators on board the CABS AEW aircraft were quick to detect the approaching H-6s from Wugong at long-range.

“Missile launches! Detecting stand-off ripple launches!” the operator shouted over the intercom. The mission-commander, Group-Captain Virendra Roy, ran over.

“What do you have?” he asked while leaning over the shoulder of the operator sitting before him.

“Thirty-six cruise-missiles from the six H-6s launched towards Baghdogra and Hashimara airbases!” the radar operator confirmed.

The missiles were moving straight in with no deviation: expected performance from the YJ-62 type missiles.

“Okay, who’s up?” Roy asked.

As it turned out, a flight of two Mirage-2000s patrolling over Paru in Bhutan were the closest. The two Mirage pilots were quick to move on the threat. They were soon dumping their under-wing drop tanks into the turbulent slipstream behind them and lighting up afterburners to close on the inbound threat…

BAGHDOGRA

DAY 6 + 1810 HRS

Klaxons were sounding off on the airbase as the crew of the two An-32s on the ground rushed into their cockpits to get the aircraft off the ground. Emergency start-up procedures were enacted as ground-crews cleared the support vehicles and logistical equipment supposed to be loaded on board for a flight to Paru.

The first An-32 engine fired up, quickly followed up by another just as the control tower passed the word that it was shutting down and operational control being passed to the base-operations center, located within a large underground bunker nearby. The handful of Mig-21s on the ground that had just returned from strike operations against Chinese targets in the Chumbi valley were now being quickly moved by primer vehicles into their hardened shelters.

North of the airbase, the Akash surface-to-air missile battery came online. Its phased-array Rajendra radar went active and began scanning the northern skies.

OVER THIMPU

DAY 6 + 1815 HRS

The capital of Bhutan was in total and utter chaos.

Civil governance had broken down completely. Residents were fleeing the city in droves and were making their way south. Pillars of smoke could be seen from areas where government documents were being burnt in piles as military vehicles sped by.

When the supersonic booms broke over the city, it caused many of the residents below to look up at the evening sky in fear. But there was nothing to see. By the time that sonic wave had hit the city the two Indian Mirage-2000s had already streaked north, ripple firing Matra Super 530D missiles at the inbound cruise-missiles…

“Pickled one and two! Clear release!” the lead Mirage pilot said.

In front of him he could see the white contrails of his two missiles heading north, veering slightly to the west.

“Copy! Clear release!” the second pilot also confirmed, sending his two missiles on their way as well.

A hundred kilometers to the south, the CABS AEW aircraft had also confirmed clear release of four missiles against the thirty-six inbound YJ-62 missiles. With another four missiles on board the two charging Mirages, a total of eight were available. Even if all eight hit their targets, twenty-eight missiles would get through.

Because the YJ-62s were heading straight to their targets, oblivious to the intercepting missiles, all four 530D missiles slammed into their targets, splashing four of the Chinese missiles out of the sky. As two orange fireballs announced the detonation of the warheads over the mountains, thirty-two missiles streaked by and continued heading south…

“Two, they are too close for another head on, attempt! Let’s roll in behind for a chase-solution!” the lead Mirage pilot ordered.

He flipped his aircraft to the right, and pulled down and to the west, attempting to roll in behind subsonic cruise-missiles. His wingman did the same. By the time the maneuver was completed, the YJ-62s had streaked past and cleared Thimpu and were one-hundred kilometers from Baghdogra.