Day after 26/11, Mumbai is burning: Can India make Pakistan pay?
About 30km out from the frontier, the MiG-29K sparked off an explosive reaction on the ground. Across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, an entrenched network of air defence radars sounded the red alert signalling an inbound enemy aircraft.
Sure, minor airspace violations across the frontier took place pretty often, mostly as manoeuvers to test defences or simply cock a snook at the other side. But the Pakistani ground radars that night had been whipped into their most frenzied state in decades.
Every pair of radar eyes within a 40-kilometre stretch was now locked on the speeding Indian MiG-29K, expecting it to arrogantly swerve any moment back into safe airspace with a flourish, the way Indian pilots usually did.
With the terror attack in Mumbai still on, Pakistan had been prepared for this sort of posturing in the air that night. Except, this MiG-29 wasn't turning.
The damn pilot had opened his engines to full power.
Sirens went off across the air defence network on the other side, with emergency protocol swivelling every last sensor in the area straight in the direction of the incoming fighter plane.
On the radar screen in the X2, the MiG-29K's blue triangle silently went across the Line of Control just under 14 kilometres to the north of where the helicopter waited, hovering. In the fighter cockpit, the pilot held his breath as he watched his own radar screen show him zoom over the militarised frontier and into some of the most hostile airspace in the world.
"Go! Go! Go!" Lieutenant Commander Saraswati shouted, still clutching her now fully assembled sniper rifle, as Akeela immediately gunned the chopper out of its hover, switching off all communication and cabin lights, pitching forward and snaking through a narrow network of ridges and valleys, ever higher, ever closer to the Line of Control.
The X2's rotors mere feet from rock and trees, Akeela and Vikramaditya threaded the aircraft carefully through a path just forty feet above the ground, the helicopter's inherent stealth now made better by the perfect hiding place that treacherous terrain afforded.
"Three minutes till we cross," Vikramaditya called out. With the screaming fighter drawing all hostile eyes towards it and providing what the X2 hoped would be a wafer-thin window of cover, the helicopter edged onward toward the frontier.
The MiG-29K, now well into airspace over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, slowed briefly as the pilot pulled up on his stick, sending the jet suddenly nose up and soaring higher. The radar warning receivers in his cockpit were already blaring, confirming that not only had he been spotted, he was being tracked at every move now. He smiled. And he knew there was nothing to smile about.
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Four minutes to play. Three minutes till the X2 crosses. And another minute to keep the ground radars occupied.
Zooming up over a big grey cloud deck, the MiG-29K tore into a tight left turn, edging deeper into enemy airspace. He needed to spread himself around if he was going to take on what was sure to come at him at any moment.
Three minutes was an eternity up here, the pilot thought as he ducked back beneath the clouds, deciding it was best to keep the ground visible even if it meant making himself more vulnerable. Gunning down his throttle to conserve fuel, he correctly guessed the two things that were happening on the ground not far from where he had penetrated Pakistan-controlled airspace.
Two Pakistan Air Force F-16 Falcon fighters were scrambled from the Sargodha air base. Fighters that would arrive on the scene in minutes, not to chase the Indian intruder away, but either force him to land in Pakistan - or shoot him down. But there was still time to deal with that.
The MiG-29K pilot knew he would have a more immediate danger to deal with. And only seconds after he had the thought, his missile approach warning system confirmed he was right.
Roaring up from the ground in a hiss of smoke and light, a pair of Chinese-built LY-80 anti-aircraft missiles screamed towards the MiG-29K. The missiles were being guided by radar on the ground that had trained every single one of its beams straight at the enemy airplane in its airspace.
This wasn't an overreaction by any stretch.
The MiG-29K was a warbird. Its presence in this airspace was openly hostile. The weapons it carried could have blown a frightening hole in any Pakistani establishment unfortunate enough to have been chosen by its pilot and laser-guided targeting systems.
The man in the cockpit steeled himself, pulling rapidly out of a climb and readying himself to dodge two missiles that knew nothing except to destroy themselves against him in the next few seconds.
His missile warning system was now a high-pitched wail, a recorded female Russian cockpit voice calmly informing the pilot that his aircraft was about to come in contact with 70 kilogram warheads designed to explode just feet away from their target, sending white-hot shards of pre-fragmented shrapnel slicing through everything in their way.
Metal. Glass. Flesh.
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| Cover of Incursion, by Shiv Aroor, Juggernaut, 2016. |
[Excerpted with permission of Juggernaut Books from Incursion by Shiv Aroor, exclusively available on the Juggernaut app. Read the full excerpt here.]
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