Chimera Read Free

communications before they had left, leaving the system working, the place booby-trapped, the bodies cleared up and after sending a distress call. Within hours the reinforcements had arrived via Mi-17 helicopters and Gephel and his men had the satisfaction of hearing the large thunder and an orange-black fireball rising to the sky as the trap had gone off. As that fireball had gone up into the sky, turning into a black pillar of smoke, all enemy forces in the region had instantly mobilized, and had begun searching for the perpetrators. But by that time Gephel and his men had travelled far to the south...   
    “Pathfinder-One to all Pathfinder elements, Thirty seconds. Stand by,” he spoke softly into his comms mouthpiece attached to the helmet. His eyes never left the road and the convoy approaching that one special spot along the highway. The response was a whisper:
    “Copy.”
    And then there was the silence. The calm before the storm…
    Gephel reflected on where he was and what he was doing as he waited for the exact time to act. He realized that this was probably the first time in half a century that someone from his side had managed to be where his men were now, much less doing what he was about to do. It was just too bad that he couldn’t talk about it to anyone afterwards. Assuming he survived to talk about it in the first place.
    The unsuspecting convoy finally reached that one spot on the road.
    “This is it! Light it up! Now!”
    The explosives-specialist in each team reached for the cover of their firing triggers, flipped it open with their thumbs and then depressed the button all the way in…
    There was a split-second delay that caused Gephel’s heart to skip a beat…and then there was a massive flash in the darkness that overpowered the dim light of the moon.
    Then another.
    And then another, after which the flashes became almost continuous. The shockwaves followed up along the ground and the thundering noise reached their ears. The original white flash was followed by large orange-yellow balls of fire rising into the sky one behind the other along a stretch of the road occupied by the enemy vehicle convoy only seconds ago. The clean painted military vehicles were now, burning pyres and hulks. Just as soon as the fireballs emerged, they also vanished, leaving behind a drifting cloud of smoke and dust, and five fiercely burning vehicles…
    The debris had been thrown all around. To Gephel’s amazement, a crewmember from the leading armored-personnel-carrier at the front of the convoy stumbled out, obviously hurt, and fell on the ground next to his vehicle. As his attackers watched from long distance, the injured survivor began to drag himself away from the burning hulk of his APC and move back along the road, hoping to meet friendly forces up on the road to the north. That the nearest friendly forces were at least a dozen kilometers away was not a concern to the desperate soldier.
    It was almost sad, Gephel thought. Almost.
    He picked up his rifle and fitted the magnification scope. Raising it up and tugging it into his chest, he took aim. It took him a couple seconds to adjust his sights for the wind and the ballistic drop. He was about to depress the trigger when his target collapsed on the road and stopped moving. Gephel lowered his rifle and looked at the small dark speck lying on the gravel filled plains, backlit by the flames of the burning vehicles. He then removed the scope and tucked it away. His team began to pack up and prepared to move out. Nobody spoke a word. There was no time. A lot of people had probably seen the explosion in the surrounding hills. This was now an unhealthy place to be.
    As the team members switched on their low-light goggles, stowed their gear on their backs and pulled their rifles up, a UHF call came through from Ngawang’s team.
    “Pathfinder-Two to -One. The fires are burning as planned. Next one’s by the playbook, right?”
    “Right, -Two. Catch up with you