The Crane War

by Graeme Rodaughan

  A hail of bullets tore the wall apart at the end of the final corridor behind him.

  Jay landed in a crouch, and backed up against the opposite wall facing anything that might come from the station. His left arm hung limply; his H&K 416 assault rifle held like a hand gun toward the corridor to the station.

  Francis pulled to a stop next to him, then dragged him another dozen feet deeper into the dog-leg. He said urgently, “Your arm. Give me your arm.”

  Jay turned, leaning against the corridor wall, his left arm hanging like a loose noodle from his shoulder.

  Francis picked up Jay’s left arm with both hands.

  Jay braced himself against the wall, his face set in anticipation of what was about to happen. Ramp epigenetics enhanced the ability to operate in the face of pain but everything still felt the same.

  Francis twisted and pulled.

  The arm slipped back into its joint, a wave of agony ripping through him, then ebbing to background thunder. Jay panted. Something caught his eye. Another gun barrel edging past the far corridor - from behind them. His rifle flashed up and he let rip with a three-round burst. The bullets ricocheted off the edge of the wall around the barrel and it vanished back behind the corner of the wall.

  Francis blurred, taking up a position forty feet away facing into the corridor back to the fortress. He fired a 40mm grenade down the corridor and followed with a long burst from his assault rifle.

  Return fire ripped into the wall a meter to his right. He glanced back at Jay, frowned, his lips pressing together into a grimace. He snapped into the broadcast link, “Mon Dieu, we’re surrounded.”

  Francis looked hard at Jay, and flicked up his right hand once with three fingers, and then again with four. He’d got a glimpse of the forces that had come up behind them. Another three squads of day guards had cut off any escape route. They were trapped on the edge of the power station by twenty-four opponents.

  They were just short of their mission objective, but the power station might as well have been on the moon. Jay stared at Francis; a fatalistic look passed between them - they were going to die on this mission.

  We have less to lose, Jay thought bitterly. We’ll take as many of them as we can with us and have an honor guard when we pass through the gates of hell. They can blow trumpets and beat drums, and know they faced the best of the Order of Thoth before they died.

  He blinked; his eyes suddenly moist with tears. He wiped them away with a hard brush of the back of his hand. It was time to open the gates of hell, and come what may, he’d die on his feet with weapons in hand, and rebellion on his lips. “After all,” he whispered to himself. “They can only kill me once.”

  And Yvette is already there…

  * * *

  The reports came in over the command and control center’s audio system.

  “Hendrickson reporting in. The nemesis tower is locked down. Three squads on site. Two hostiles trapped in the ground floor chamber.”

  “Mason reporting in. Kraken dash two is secured. Six squads on site. Two hostiles trapped in the maintenance tunnel just short of the Kraken dash two lower mezzanine level.”

  Clayton Maze demanded, “Commander, what is the status at the main server guardhouse?”

  “Still secure,” Siobhan Ulysses responded. “Cameras have Arthur Slayne, Anton Slayne, and Li Wu on the lowest maintenance level. They will need to rise to sub-level dash four to access the front of the guardhouse.”

  “Maintain our forces in position. All we have to do now is keep them where they are. Once the praetorians are free, we can mass our main strength against their weakest positions. Mirovar and Creeley are the most exposed but clearly, they can’t move with the number of day guards in position around them. Now open a broadcast link with my praetorian squad leaders, I need to give them fresh orders.”

  Ulysses nodded and flicked a switch. “The link is open, Sir.”

  Clayton stared at the main screen. One of the picture in picture views showed sixteen praetorians standing in a corridor waiting for the fire doors to retract. He said, “Carney, Holdsworthy, Sutter, Tench, I have fresh orders for you.” Four of the vampires in the corridor looked up at the camera. “Sutter and Tench, take your squads to the base of the nemesis tower and engage the hostiles there. Carney and Holdsworthy, take your squads to sub-level dash four, link up with day guard squads one and twelve and crush any hostiles encountered there. Once the nemesis tower and the approach to the main server guardhouse have been secured, then transfer to the Kraken dash two power station and mop up the last of the hostiles. Is that clear?”

  There was a chorus of assent.

  The link closed. Events were progressing as expected, it was a marked improvement over the recent past. Clayton glanced at the fire alarm reset counter. It read, ‘01:20,’ and ticked over to 01:19 as he watched. In another eighty seconds the praetorians would be free.

  He allowed himself a triumphant grin. Arthur Slayne was still outside the main server guardhouse, and the rest of his forces were pinned down and trapped, unable to reach their objectives. Arthur Slayne’s mission was already a failure and soon, very soon, the Order forces would be crushed beneath the heel of the best of the Vampire Dominion.

  Clayton’s smile broadened.

  Victory was inevitable.

  * * *

  The lowest maintenance level was as quiet as a tomb.

  Li prayed quietly to herself that it wouldn’t become one. She drew comfort from the slight sounds of their footfalls, rustling of gear and drawing of breath. Simple things that proved they were in the real world and not lost in a loremaster vision gone awry. Thin strip lights ran in a single line down the center of the ceiling. They cast just enough illumination to render the Order nightglasses superfluous. Li, Slayne and Anton still wore their nightglasses for access to the tactical networks and situational metadata. She ran next to Anton, following his grandfather through the twists and turns of the maintenance tunnel.

  Arthur Slayne paused for a moment before a ladder ascending within an alcove to sub-level-4. The level holding the entrance to the main server room and the Panopticon. He looked around at Li and Anton and declared, “The others should be in position by now, but they haven’t reported in.”

  Anton frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word Francis called out over the tactical link, “Mon Dieu, we’re surrounded.”

  Peter whispered quietly over the same broadcast channel, “Chiara and I are trapped on the ground floor of the nemesis tower. We have too many day guards outside and no way to maneuver around them.”

  Li looked from Slayne to Anton and back again, and declared, “Everyone is pinned down.”

  Slayne stepped away from the ladder. “Well that sucks.” He put his hands on his hips and stared hard at Li. “It’s time for you to do your thing.”

  “Do what?” she asked perplexed.

  “C’mon. You’re the only loremaster we have. Hack into their networks, find a weakness and exploit it. We need to get past these day guards and their damn smart rifles before the praetorians get loose.” He tilted his head, and his lip curled derisively. “Or, our goose is well and truly cooked.”

  Li looked to Anton. His lips thinned and he shrugged his shoulders. He was lost for ideas too.

  Her chest tightened and she snapped, “Do you realize how close to the Panopticon we are. I’ll only have seconds before it mounts a counter attack with all the might of the main server room behind it. It could fry my implant, my laptop, and leave us blind.”

  Slayne took a step closer and leaned in. “Then I suggest you ramp as hard as you can before you go in,” his gaze nailed her to the spot, “and make it as quick as possible.” He put a firm hand on her shoulder and whispered, “We’ll keep you safe.”

  Li looked at him with wide eyes. It wasn’t her physical safety she was worried about. It was everything else. A memory rushed through her from the roadhouse that morning. Slayne had said, ‘How do you think the loremas
ter tech can work against the Panopticon?’

  Li’s mind raced. Slayne knew about the loremaster tech. He knew all about it. He was the one behind it. He’d probably invented it.

  Slayne gripped her other shoulder, leaned in further, his face mere inches from her own. “Ramp as hard and fast as you can go. Accelerate yourself, do what you have to do and get the hell out again before,” he arched an eyebrow, “anything untoward happens.”

  He knows. He knows about the thing in the darkness. A cold fear clenched like a frozen fist in her guts. And he’s sending me in.

  The crackle of automatic gunfire came over the tactical link, followed by the crump of exploding grenades. The team was in dire straits. The elder Slayne watched her with flat eyes that hid secrets beyond counting; while Anton kept glancing away down the maintenance tunnel, looking for threats that weren’t there.

  Li let her eyes droop and wondered for a brief moment how she could push on. Then she reached for her laptop, sat down cross legged on the floor and opened it. Did she have a choice? It seemed that she didn’t; there was nowhere to hide from reality and she wasn’t one to look for an escape from responsibility. If she was the only one who could, then she was the one who must. After all, she was her father’s daughter.

  She centered herself in the moment and smashed through the noise within her own mind, drowning herself in silence bordering on the absolute. Slayne and Anton stood watch over her seated form. She glanced at them; they were as still as statues. Her perception of time had accelerated to a new maximum.

  The external world vanished with an electric snap.

  The darkness was waiting.

  The fortress was no longer a shining thing of modern lights and clean surfaces. It was transformed into a gloomy ruin of dust-laden stone. Power cables and data conduits ran like veins over a corpse of basalt and steel. A dark sky, lit with alien constellations hovered overhead. Her breath came in a misty plume in front of her face.

  Li shivered and flexed her fingers, a thin layer of ice cracking over her skin, sharp needles penetrating her flesh.

  Something howled in the distance, an alien roar of agony or ecstasy - it could have been either or both.

  The fortress writhed, stars whirling away to infinity.

  She pulled into herself, gathering everything she was to the hidden center of her soul.

  Crisp walls, gleaming tiles, straight lines of networked light hung before her for a moment, then twisted away.

  Chaos.

  A single drumbeat of time thundered throughout the world.

  Was it a millisecond? A minute? A day? How much time had passed while she strove to gain control?

  Too many questions.

  …

  Li let go, sinking deeper into the silence.

  She forgot her name and then her own existence.

  The fortress was the only reality.

  She who was no longer Li reached through her implant into the surrounding networks. A pressure was building on the edges of her awareness. The lightning fast processors of the Panopticon core were already responding to her presence.

  Time was running out.

  She reached automatically through the network, there were hundreds of smart rifles connected to the Panopticon. There was no off switch, but there was a diagnostics protocol. She reached for the program and ran it. Every rifle went offline, checking its status, running a set of automated instructions to test its readiness for use. They could still be used as regular assault rifles but the enhanced aiming was offline.

  She had gained twenty seconds for the team. All she had to do now, was emerge from the vision and tell them before the window for action closed. If only she could remember how.

  The fortress peeled away, darkness spearing through the tears in reality like negative light - displacing everything before it.

  Icy terror lanced through her heart.

  Dark malice swirled around her. A golden flame burst into existence before her. The dark recoiled, the flame spread, an expanding sphere of warm light engulfing her.

  The golden light brushed past her skin. She remembered, I am Li.

  The dark tensed, massed and struck. The flame withered but did not go out. A terrible presence appeared behind her but she was frozen to the spot - unable to flee. Cold, heavy hands landed on her shoulders. Something leaned in against her back, its breath rotten with death against the side of her face. It declared in deep tones of terrifying longing, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Li burst out of the vision, screaming at the top of her lungs. She leapt to her feet. Her laptop flying. She pranced on the spot, knees jerking up and down, wildly slapping at her shoulders. Her skin was alive with goosebumps; shivers rippling over her shoulders, crawling up her spine and sliding over her scalp. Just the ‘thing’s’ touch carried a wretched violation of her soul.

  She pulled to a halt. Her eyes wide, panting for breath, bent over, her hands on her knees. Li jerked upright. She tapped her nightglasses and broadcast an order over the tactical link. “Attack now, their rifles are offline - you have seconds to act.” She stared wordlessly at Slayne and Anton. Both men were wearing looks of utter perplexity, the latter holding her laptop like he’d caught it mid-air. “Later,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Slayne looked at her quizzically, a half-frown creasing his forehead. “You okay? Still good for the plan of attack once we get to the main server room guardhouse?”

  Li nodded.

  “Okay, then,” he said, turning away and blurring up the ladder to sub-level-4.

  Anton handed back her laptop and gently grasped her shoulder, “Are you really okay?”

  Li nodded once, glanced up the ladder and said, “Let’s do it.”

  Anton blurred up after his grandfather and Li followed after him.

  * * *

  “- you have seconds to act,” Li called out over the tactical link.

  Peter didn’t hesitate, his big right boot blurring sole first into the middle of the slatted door. The metal door bowed outward, then snapped free as locks and hinges shattered, flying across a ten feet wide landing before ricocheting up the stairwell. He followed the momentum of his kick, stepping through the doorway. His hands snapped to the pair of battle-axes strapped across his massive shoulders. The bright metal of their curved blades gleamed in the overhead lights as they arced free, while he pivoted hard to the right, his boots screeching across the tiles.

  Four day guards stood forty feet in front of him down the main corridor, ready to fire. A pair of guards ten feet away on the left and another pair the same distance on the right either stood, or knelt on one knee. Eight gun barrels lined up on his position in the landing before the stairwell.

  Peter pushed deeper into his ramp, power coruscating like lightning through his limbs. He leaped, flying six feet above the floor toward the two day guards on the right.

  Streams of fire erupted from all the trooper’s rifles - passing beneath his leap, ripping into the wall before the stairwell. Chiara erupted from the maintenance corridor like she’d been shot from a cannon, flying over the hail of bullets tearing the stairwell’s landing apart. She flashed toward the other pair of guards, her katana gleaming in the overhead lights.

  Peter twisted mid-air, landing on his feet a yard in front of the two guards. They twisted left and right, separating, their guns firing, bullets streaming past him aimed at where he’d been. The rifle barrels swung in toward him. Hot throats spewing puffs of gray smoke, individual rounds resolving, muzzle flashes strobing across his deep chest. Each deadly round cracked like a whip, echoing through the corridors.

  His axes fell, sweeping through a pair of diagonal slashes. Striking both men at the point where neck met shoulder, tearing through armor, flesh and bone. Peter’s blades completed their arcs without slowing down, and he threaded the gap between the butchered guards as they fell away to the left and right, broad swathes of blood painting the cream walls and white-tiled floor in his wake.<
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  Peter jagged hard left. Across the chamber, Chiara had hit the other two guards with equally lethal results. Their dismembered bodies lying in spreading pools of gore. The squad down the main corridor heading into the administration building stopped shooting. Chiara and Peter were now in the wings of a ‘T’ intersection and out of the immediate line of fire.

  One of the guards deep in the corridor muttered loudly, “Shit.”

  That was good enough for Peter. They had to press the issue before the smart rifles started firing with deadly Panopticon guided accuracy. Boots stormed down the stairs; the third squad were descending from the top of the tower to join the fight. They were still exposed to a potential crossfire from the day guards, and they had no way of knowing when the smart rifles would come back online. They could only assume the restoration of Panopticon driven accuracy was imminent.

  Well, Peter considered, they might be smart rifles, but they can’t shoot around corners.

  Another guard shouted, “Fire in the hole!”

  Four fragmentation grenades bounced off the throat of the corridor, angling left and right into the wings of the intersection.

  Chiara blurred backward into the corridor leading toward the pumping station.

  Peter turned hard left, blurring toward the corner farthest from the bouncing grenades. He leaped, rotating mid-air, flying backward into the upper corner next to the ceiling. His axes plunged into the walls on either side of the corner, becoming anchors beneath his elbows. His knees snapped up, becoming a wall in front of his torso. He ducked his head, making the smallest possible profile for a man his size. The grenades roared, smoke and fire rushing through the chamber. The edge of the blast struck him. A dozen small wounds opening up on his exposed skin. He dropped to the floor, blood running freely along his massive limbs and from a cut over his right eye.