Disclaimer: "Rainbow Six" and all related characters are the sole property of Rubicon, Inc. This work of fiction is for entertainment purposes only and no money has changed hands. All original characters and situations are the sole property of the author and may not be used or archived without express permission.

Author's Note: If you want something done right…

Rainbow Six:

SPECWAR

by Darrin A. Colbourne

Hahmed Peshawar was having a bad day. This wasn't a surprise to him. His life seemed to have become one long bad day ever since he'd taken this job. The money was important, of course. It would someday help to fund a resurgence of the cause. Until then, however, he was forced to take money from ignorant opium lords and spend his days ferrying intoxicating drugs to weak, foolish infidels. He was performing that task--transporting shipments of opium to destinations on and around the Malay Peninsula--when this particular day went sour. Now, he found himself on a speeding cabin cruiser with six of his compatriots, trying to outrun the Singaporean Coast Guard's Fast Patrol Boats. They were weaving through the shipping traffic off the Singapore Coast as the Patrol Boats worked to cut them off and bring them to heel.

No man in Peshawar's crew wanted to be caught, least of all by the authorities of the small city-state. Singapore was notoriously hard on its criminals, a policy necessitated by the fact that the nation was one of the major commercial hubs in Asia. A country willing to cane a pampered American youth for spray-painting a few letters on a wall would have no compunction about tossing a Libyan former "freedom fighter" into the deepest darkest dungeon for eternity, or at least something close to it.

He watched carefully as they sped through transports of various types. The Singaporeans were making their move. Soon two of the patrol craft would be able to cut them off, leaving them trapped while the rest swarmed in. To beat these odds he needed a plan that they could execute on the fly. When he saw a container ship nearby, a plan formed in his mind. He rushed to the pilothouse to talk to the helmsman.

"That way!" Lt. Trahn of the Coast Guard Patrol Boat 15333 said. They'd almost lost the drug smugglers when the target boat made a wild turn into a group of fishing boats. Trahn anticipated the move, and was able to redirect the patrol force to reform the trap. The smugglers ended up behind a container ship that was just headed out to sea.

15333 gunned it and darted for the bow of the container ship as the other patrol craft closed in. The container ship looked just like any other, a massive, long-hulled ship piled high with boxy, metal containers, but her markings designated her as one of the fleet of a British shipping company. Trahn made a mental note of her indentifying characteristics as his boat passed her bow.

As the patrol boat turned to cruise down the ship's massive flank, Trahn spotted the harbor tug that was positioned to nudge the container ship in the right direction to exit into the South China Sea. He expected to and did see the cabin cruiser he was chasing ensconced behind it, as if that would hide it from the authorities for very long.

Then the unexpected hit him like a ton of bricks.

The smugglers weren't trying to hide the cabin cruiser. They'd taken over the tug. Two of the criminals were on the smaller ship's deck, using members of the crew as human shields. Each was armed with AK-74 assault rifles. Four other criminals were climbing up ropes that had been thrown over the side of the ship. They were armed with rifles as well. The two smugglers on the deck were shouting something at the Coast Guardsmen while they brandished the guns and held their hostages in chokeholds. One of them tried to operate his rifle one-handed and fired an ineffectual burst in the direction of Trahn's boat.

The gunners in Trahn's crew were setting up on the deck of the boat as the other patrol boats in pursuit started to close up on the scene. The smugglers on the tug started waving their guns and shouting at those boats as well, as their compatriots continued to climb up the side of the container ship.

"I've got a shot!" One of his shooters called out. "We can take the ones on the ropes!" Trahn could see that, but he could also see that the ones on the tug were holding their weapons clumsily, and it wouldn't take much for them to shoot them off and do serious damage to their hostages, either by design or by accident.

"Hold your fire!" He commanded, then to the helmsman: "Come about! Match the container ship's course and speed!" They were starting to drift away from the action. He wondered why the master of the ship hadn't stopped already. He may not be able to see the boarders climbing onto his deck from the bridge, but surely someone or something might have alerted him to the patrol boats crowding him. Then it occurred to Trahn that the man might have noticed and decided to press ahead anyway. He wasn't violating any Laws of Navigation as far as he knew, and he had a delivery schedule to keep. Unless the Coast Guard formally ordered him to stand to, he would press on to open waters.

That order would be given. Trahn contacted the boat nearest the fantail and tasked its commander to find out the name of the ship after he told the other officer what company it belonged to. Then he had a conference with all the other boats (three besides his own) and together the commanders came up with a plan. After the ship was brought to a halt the Coast Guard would form up on the tug and try to force it away. The movements of the ships would leave the would-be boarders stuck, forced to hold tight to the ropes as the big ship slowed, while their compatriots were stuck on a small, barely defensible craft, disoriented by the movements of the two vessels and the loss of their partners. It was a gamble, but all they could manage on such short notice.

It didn't go quite the way Trahn hoped. The ship, now identified as the MV East India Lines Majestic, was ordered to slow to a stop. This was accomplished within a minute--she wasn't going all that fast--and the boarders found themselves dangling for their lives with only a half-meter or so between them and the container ship's deck. Meanwhile, the tug got hit by a swell from the Majestic's bow wake, forcing it away from the big ship's hull and causing it to list. The smugglers and hostages on the transom lost their balance and went down. The tug crewmen recovered first. Both of them ran for the side and dove into the harbor. The tug, still running at cruising speed and free of its burden, slid away from Majestic's bow.

The patrol boats stormed in, armed men on each deck and each 5-inch gun mount loaded. One slid in under the smugglers hanging off Majestic. Trahn's boat stopped to pick up the two swimming seamen. That left the last two to close on the tug.

The seamen on the patrol boat under the climbing smugglers shouted orders to them in Mandarin, German and English, telling them in no uncertain terms that they should drop their weapons into the sea and come down, or they'd be fired upon. For a moment it looked like they'd comply. The two men on the lower parts of the ropes unslung their weapons one-handed…then fired them at the patrol boat. The vulnerable shooters dove for whatever cover they could find. One was hit in the shoulder as he piled back into the boat. Meanwhile, the other two smugglers climbed as fast as they could to get onto the deck. Once there, they provided suppressing fire for their friends while they climbed up. Soon all of them were aboard the merchant vessel, while the patrol boat peeled away so her crew could regroup.

The boats advancing on the tug got a similar response. The two smugglers on deck, free of their human burdens, fired with abandon on the Coast Guardsmen. The Singaporeans fired back, dropping one and forcing the other to flee back into the tug. It wasn't until one of the windows in the pilothouse broke that the Singaporeans realized there was a seventh smuggler. He introduced himself by showering the two Coast Guard boats with bullets from an M-16 assault rifle.

Trahn watched these events in horror. "Get them below! Get them below!!" He screamed at his crew. He wanted the tug's seamen belowdecks as soon as possible so he could back up the other boats. He glanced at the hull of the Majestic just before he gave the order to assist the boat trying to subdue the climbers. "Shit!" He said in Mandarin as he realized he was too late.

Four smugglers were running along the ship's deck, heading for the superstructure aft of the cargo. For a fleeting moment, Trahn had hope that the captain might be smart enough to seal the structure off. That hope was dashed when he saw two of the merchie's seamen heading down the deck from the superstructure, probably sent by their captain to see what the hell was going on. They were headed right for the smugglers, who were now running double-time after potential hostages.

"Go back!!" Trahn screamed at the merchant seamen, then realized they probably couldn't tell what he was saying. He rushed to get his bullhorn and tried again. "Go back!! Get into the superstructure and close it off!!"

That got their attention, but it didn't make them go back. Instead, they stopped dead and turned their attention to Trahn's boat, then started to take in the entire scene, with the rapt attention any human being would pay to a traffic accident on a major highway.

It gave the smugglers just enough time. They started shouting at the seamen when they were in point blank range. That made the two civilians recognize the danger, and they started to run back to the superstructure. The smugglers fired over their heads, causing them to dive for the deck. Before the two men could get up and run again the smugglers were on them.

Trahn gritted his teeth as he watched the smugglers drag the seamen to the superstructure. He brought up his binoculars and looked at the structure itself. Of course. Now they started to button up! The smugglers could see that, too, and dragged their hostages to a part of the deck where they'd be visible to the bridge. They shouted orders at the bridge, indicating a hatch at deck level where one of their men was waiting. They threatened the hostages, trying to show that if the crew didn't open up they'd have two dead comrades. The captain relented. Trahn watched as the hatch opened and the men rushed inside.

By now, all the Coast Guard ships had pulled back. The Singaporeans had no doubt that soon the merchant vessel would be under the control of the four smugglers that made it to the ship. The others already had control of the tug, which was now chugging out to sea. Suddenly, Majestic's diesel engines started up again, and the big ship started to move, brushing aside the cabin cruiser the authorities had been after in the first place and making its own way to sea.

A routine drug takedown had suddenly turned into two hostage crises, one of which would require better resources than the pursuit force had at hand. Trahn made the call back to his station to apprise his superiors of the situation and request back-up and instructions. Something had to be done before either craft made it into the South China Sea.