Ken Goddard - Chimera

Instantly, two dozen flashers — in varying colors of bright red, yellow and green — began to pulse in varying rhythms in the rocks in randomly set positions within a fifty-yard of his position. Then, two seconds later, strings of firecrackers began going off in the area of the flashers.

The effect on the armed eight men coming ashore was instantaneous. Seven of the men scrambled for their rifles and began firing wildly the flashing lights. The eighth man — one of the team leaders, Gavin noted — grabbed his night-scope instead, brought it up to his eyes, and began scanning the rocky promontory overhead.

He had just spotted an odd shape that looked out of place in the rocks high overhead when a single bullet from Gavin’s flash-repressed and moderately silenced rifle tore through his head. His body was still tumbling backwards into the boat when the remaining seven men began falling under the methodical onslaught of Gavin’s rifle.

The effect on the six armed men from the other two boats rapidly approaching the Avatar was equally instantaneous. Two of the men from the outboard motorboat leaped up on the bow of the fishing yacht — and immediately tumbled backwards into the water, victims of Lanyard’s similarly equipped rifle — as the min-cigarette boat approaching the stern veered away, made a wide circle, and then began to accelerate in a straight line parallel to the Avatar.

Approaching Tanga Island Cove

The Blackhawk helicopter was less than three nautical miles from Tanga Island when the pilots got the radio call.

“Colonel,” the pilot called on the Blackhawk’s internal radio system, “our resident Ranger on Rawi Island is reporting a gun battle taking place in the Ko Tanga cove between some Malaysian pirates and the men on the Avatar. We can see the flashes of gunfire from our position. The Ranger and his constable are approaching the cove in their patrol boat now, and a second boat with three more constables is on the way. What are your orders?”

Colonel Kulawnit unbuckled his seat harness, stood up, and looked out the cockpit window at the distant flickers of light, barely visible through the low clouds.

“Tell them to stay back and observe, and not to engage either side. We’ll be there shortly,” Kulawnit said. He returned to his seat, buckled in, then looked up at Preithat and reached for the selector on his throat mike.

“Kuhn Sat, I want these foreign guides taken into custody alive, if at all possible; but do not risk your men unnecessarily. I have no such concern for Kai and his pirates. They are within our jurisdiction; deal with them as you please.”

“I understand, Colonel,” Preithat acknowledged as Kulawnit turned his attention to Bulatt.

“Khun Ged, I am grateful that you were willing to accompany us on this investigation; your input has been invaluable. But you are not armed, by treaty convention; so I ask you also to please stay back and not to engage these men, if at all possible. I do not wish your life placed at risk.”

“Don’t worry, Khun Prathun, I’ll stay here in the helicopter,” Bulatt said, smiling as he glanced around at Preithat, the six assault rangers, and the two investigator bodyguards who were all busy checking their weapons, ammunition pouches, radios, vests, inflatable life jackets and night-vision gear while the two crew chiefs loaded their 7.65mm machineguns and double-checked their safety harnesses. “I think you have more than enough resources to deal with a few illegal hunting guides.”

Tanga Island Cove

Lanyard was lining up the dark green cross-hairs of his night-scope on the driver of the mini-cig boat — who had completed his wide circle and was accelerating into a power run along the starboard side of the Avatar — when he saw the other occupant, Kai, crouch down into the cockpit, and then jerk back up with his arms and legs to pull a concealed heavy machinegun up into a mount-locked firing position.

“Oh bloody hell!”

Lanyard dove to the deck just as the. 50-caliber armor-piercing rounds began ripping through the Avatar’s titanium- and Kevlar-lined bridge walls that had been designed to stop much smaller and far-less-lethal projectiles.

Cursing furiously as the half-inch-diameter bullets progressively shredded the Avatar’s bridge structure, Lanyard discarded his rifle, grabbed the 25mm M109 payload rifle, tucked the stubby weapon to his chest, and rolled to the rear of the deck just as the. 50-caliber bullets began a return sweep, ripping through the Avatar’s main cabin walls directly underneath the bridge as if they were made of tissue paper.

Still cursing, Lanyard came up to one knee, shouldered the fifty-pound rifle, and sent a pair of 25mm explosive armor-piercing rounds streaking into the engine compartment of Kai’s racing boat. The detonations blew apart the port-side engine and ripped the port-side drive shaft loose, skewing the boat sideways and catapulting Kai and his driver into the water.

Shaking off the recoil effects of the rapid two-round volley, Lanyard stood up and quickly sent a third AP explosive round into the engine of the outboard motorboat hovering near the Avatar’s bow — shredding the engine cowling and killing the two cowering occupants — and then instinctively swung around and sent the last two rounds in the M109’s magazine arcing across the water and into the engine compartment of the Forestry Division patrol boat that suddenly appeared, accelerating past the western edge of the island at flank speed with searchlights sweeping.

The explosive impact of the two AP projectiles inside the confined space of the patrol boat’s small engine compartment brought the coastal vessel to a surging halt, cutting off all power to the single propeller shaft and the two glaring searchlights in the process; but not before their final sweep revealed Kai pulling himself into the smoking cockpit of the mini-cig boat and fumbling for the. 50-caliber machine gun.

Too busy to curse now, Lanyard tossed aside the spare magazine of armor-piercing rounds he’d instinctively pulled out of the blue-striped ammo box, grabbed instead the single magazine of anti-personnel rounds, slammed the heavy box magazine into the M109, pulled back on the arming bolt, thumbed the weapon’s computerized BORS ranging system to the new ammo, and came up to one knee with the payload rifle already on his shoulder.

He triggered the first anti-personnel round at the moment Kai — visibly stunned and bleeding profusely, but still furiously intent on destroying the fishing yacht and anyone on board — was bringing the. 50-caliber machinegun around to bear again on the Avatar’s bridge.

The ‘slow-velocity’ 1-inch-diameter bullet, electronically controlled by the M109’s optical ranging system, detonated against the breach of the. 50-caliber weapon into hundreds of extremely-high-energy fragments, dislodging the heavy machinegun from its mount and literally vaporizing Kai’s upper torso — just as the blinding searchlights from a rapidly approaching Blackhawk helicopter switched on, illuminating the Avatar and flaring-out Lanyard’s night-vision goggles.

Reacting instinctively, Lanyard flipped his recycling night-goggles up and away from his eyes, winced against the searing glare of the searchlights, and fired the M109 twice in the general direction of the hovering helicopter.

Distracted by the barrage of AK-47 rounds ricocheting off rocks in a fifty-foot radius around his position, and only vaguely aware of the big-caliber firestorm that had erupted on the far side of the distant Avatar, Jack Gavin was having a much easier time with his assignment.

In the time it took Quince Lanyard to empty the first magazine of M109 explosive rounds into the three approaching boats, dodging nearly a hundred. 50-caliber bullets in the process, Gavin had dispatched seven of Kai’s wildly-firing assault team. He was waiting for the last pirate — a grizzled older man with enough common sense to take cover when he saw or heard the effects of Gavin’s first few shots — to make a run for one of the boats when he heard the M109 fire again; and then saw the searchlight from a rapidly approaching Blackhawk helicopter suddenly light up the Avatar.