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On board the AEW aircraft, the onboard mission-commander was directing more aircraft to the battle. Most of the Indian presence over the Chumbi valley had been Hashimara based Mig-27s and Bisons from Baghdogra. Both these types relegated to the ground attack role in support of operation Chimera. The No. 7 “Battle-Axes” Squadron had been providing the required air-cover over Sikkim and Bhutan with their Mirage-2000s.

But there were just not enough fighters in the IAF to defeat such a large standoff attack against a single target. And so the AEW controllers were caught in a tough situation. If they let these two Mirages from No. 7 Squadron expend all of their missiles against the YJ-62s and let the remainder be taken care of by the Siliguri Akash SAM battery, it would leave Bhutanese airspace undefended for a while before other aircraft from the Battle-Axes squadron could take position.

If on the other hand, they held back the two Mirage pilots from expending their weaponry and return to station over Paru, the Akash battery might not be able to intercept all of the inbound missiles. If that happened and Baghdogra took a hit, it would cripple local air operations severely. The mission-commander on board the AEW made his decision:

“Sharpshooter-One, take as many out as you can!”

“Roger! Sharpshooter is rolling in. Out!” the flight-leader confirmed.

By now the two Mirage pilots had the yellow engine exhaust of the YJ-62s on the horizon in front of them, heading into India…

Not while I am still here!

The flight leader thought as he depressed the launch button and felt the jerk as another missile fell off his pylons, fired its rocket motor and appeared from underneath the HUD, its exhaust quickly converting into white trails which spread over the cockpit glass and moved above it. The second missile did the same a moment later. His wingman followed suit. A few seconds later the familiar bleeping noise in the cockpit turned to an undertone screech indicating that the missiles had acquired.

Four small orange-yellow explosions erupted.

“Splash-One! Splash-Two!” he said. Twenty-eight missiles left…

“We are out of weapons, boss! Guns?” the wingman’s voice came through on the comms. The flight-leader smiled underneath his breathing apparatus.

“Roger that! Let’s roll!” he ordered instantly and punched afterburner to gain on the fast moving missiles. They were burning fuel rapidly but they knew they could always tank up after from an orbiting Il-78 after.

The two aircraft dived into the attack and lined up an YJ-62 each. It only took small bursts of fire to destroy the delicate missiles and send them crashing into the ground below or blow up their warheads in a jarring fireball that rocked the attacking fighter behind it. A few minutes of combat later, the two pilots had claimed another seven missiles, bringing the total inbounds down to twenty-one…

“Eagle-Eye-Four, we are out of ammo and the fuel lights are lit up over here! Where’s the nearest tanker?” the “Battle-Axes” leader said as did the calculations on fuel and both fighters pulled out of afterburners and climbed for higher altitude. On board the AEW, Roy heard the request and lowered his comms mouthpiece as he faced one of the controllers nearby:

“Tell me we have a tanker in the air near Sharpshooter flight!”

“Roger!” the controller replied, conferring with his screen. “Bareilly outbound tanker bird approaching A-O. Sharpshooter has priority.”

“Good!” Roy said with a thoughtful nod before turning back towards the other operators: “Inform that SAM battery near Siliguri that our boys have disengaged! Tell them to take their shots now!”

NORTHEAST OF SILIGURI

INDIA

DAY 6 + 1830 HRS

“Sharpshooter is clear! IFF diagnostic is complete! Target scatter-pattern identified! Take the shots!” the battery commander ordered

From the plains east of Siliguri, four Akash surface-to-air missile launchers swiveled to the proper azimuth. With the phased array radar controlling four of them at a time, each truck mounted launcher fired one Akash missile. The four white smoke trails left the vehicles with a rumble and a slap-bang noise announced the activation of the ramjet engines on board the missiles. Four other missiles followed suit as the phased-array radar moved through the list of targets and allocated one missile to each. It could handle dozens of targets and was only limited by the number of missiles on hand…