The Crane War

by Graeme Rodaughan

  She tapped her tactical link. “Peter, your weapons are hot.”

  “Thanks, Li,” Peter called back.

  Li rubbed her right forearm. Her implant was warm, no longer a fiery spike. She’d become a living conduit for information. She turned back toward the quantum processors. The blue light of the Panopticon had vanished. The web of light glowed with the warm golden color of Juliette’s flame. Li was connected to the quantum processors. She reached for information, filtering, integrating what she found with the limitless power of the quantum machines.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh … OH … OH!” Now she could see, she could really see what to do. She smiled grimly, a frown creasing her forehead. There was very little time left to act.

  Almost no time at all.

  * * *

  He’d get one free shot before the enemy reacted.

  Peter selected four of his seventy hammerhead land attack cruise missiles armed with conventional warheads. It would take each missile three seconds to launch, rise, maneuver, and spear into its designated target. Firing a hypersonic cruise missile at a specter tower less than a mile away was an unusual tactic at best and at worst madness. But still, it would give the towers an immediate and inescapable threat to deal with and buy him essential time.

  Time was his most precious commodity.

  Peter flexed his fingers; it was time to kick ass. He set off the hammerheads. Four long panels came out of the sides of the nemesis tower and slid aside. Four bright steel frames pushed out, each loaded with an eighteen feet long silvery dart. The four missiles leaped away on vertical columns of gray smoke, vanishing into the bright afternoon sky.

  Four dark blue tracks appeared on the holographic battlespace display, leaping above Peter’s head toward the apex of the dome.

  * * *

  Chiara stared into the entrance of the stairwell.

  The muffled roar of the cruise missiles a footnote to her readiness to fight.

  Li called out over the broadcast tactical link, “Two praetorian squads are about to hit your position at the tower.”

  Chiara glanced up at Peter, he glanced back for an instant. His expression said everything, ‘how will you survive?’ before he turned back to the cockpit controls.

  She turned and faced the stairwell. Don’t worry about me. She lifted a pair of captured assault rifles, and paused at the doorway waiting for the vampires to hit the bottom of the stairs. A heartfelt whisper, like an old and honored friend slipped into her mind, I am an initiate of the third rank of the test of the Olgoi Khorkhoi. I have mastered the disciplines of the Red Empire. I will honor the way of my ancestors. I will honor the faith of my mother and father. I will bring ruin to my enemies and see them choke on their heart’s blood before I die. This I vow before God and let my life be forfeit before I break this oath.

  Heavy footfalls fell on the first of the steps at the base of the stairwell. They became a rush. The praetorians and day guards were coming as fast as they could. There was no stealth and no finesse. Their strategy was as simple as it was obvious, swamp the tower with numbers and kill all within it.

  Chiara dived deep into silence. Her hands becoming utterly still, her gaze piercing the air. There was no point in allowing the enemy to advance to the top of the stairs. No, she’d make them fight for every step, bleed for every yard. Let them question their purpose while life fled from their eyes. Let them wonder at how they were beaten. Let them know the true fury of a gifted initiate of the third rank.

  It was time to reveal to the world who she really was. To uncover her true self. The Raven was a dim memory. Chiara Romano a discarded mask. Now there was only Chiara Morte, a true princess of the Red Empire.

  She blurred down the stairs.

  * * *

  Peter locked the rail gun phalanx on the southwest specter defense tower.

  It was time to see what it could really do. He depressed the trigger on the joystick. There was a brief, almost innocuous hum. The rail gun phalanx fired; three forty-five-pound kinetic spikes accelerating to eleven times the speed of sound as they left the barrels. They covered the three quarters of a mile to the southwest specter defense tower in three tenths of a second. The spikes punched through the specter tower’s nano-ceramic armor and hardened ferrous shell, shattering the tower’s primary support structures a yard below the command center before passing through the other side and vanishing into the floor of the valley in plumes of gray dust.

  Fuel cells caught in the passing shockwave detonated, sparking a near instantaneous chain reaction down the tower.

  The specter defense tower lit up like a two-hundred-feet tall firework, the command and control center evaporating in a brilliant glare of blue-white light as the fuel cells consumed all their energy in a single moment. The blast wave blew out the southwest corner of the fortress, obliterating anything standing within a hundred yards of the base of the tower.

  “Ghosted it.”

  Peter re-targeted the rail gun to the southeast specter defense tower. The thunderous crack of the evaporated southwest defense tower smashing against the nemesis tower like the whip of a vengeful god.

  * * *

  Thunder slapped against the side of the nemesis tower.

  Chiara almost flew down the stairs. The enemy were rushing the stairwell, rising upward against her. Four grenades appeared, hurled by men who were still out of sight around the curve of the tower. She feathered the triggers on her captured assault rifles. The barrels blurring from side to side as she simultaneously shot the two leading grenades, and then the two trailing grenades an instant later. The grenades ricocheted back down the curved stairwell before exploding amongst a mass of armored figures.

  She descended on the chaos, her guns firing on full auto. She blurred from side to side. Survivors in the front ranks returned fire, bullets whipping past her, cracking against the walls in a staccato racket.

  The vampires had stacked the front ranks with day guards. They were outclassed, the four grenades and concentrated assault rifle fire cutting them down where they stood. Behind them, the praetorians maneuvered violently avoiding the hail of bullets.

  Her magazines ran dry and she dropped her empty guns.

  In a single motion the vampires reformed, the front rank of praetorians dropped to one knee, the second rank stepped to the left and right, the third rank closed to the midline of the stairs, and the final rank stood tall. Eight squad automatic weapons snapped up and forward, barrels spitting flame, bright lines of fire flashing toward her.

  Chiara pulled back behind the curve of the inner wall, fire slashing past her face, bullets smashing against the main column or ricocheting against the wall behind her in a drumming roar. She snapped her P90 submachine gun up from her left hip. The vampires were already on the move, chasing their bullets up the stairwell. She had forty rounds of caseless high-performance armor piercing explosive tipped rounds in her magazine, and ten more made of solid silver. She leaped backward up the stairs, firing into the empty space in front of the onrushing vampires. They couldn’t see her, and she couldn’t see them - yet.

  The leading praetorian ran into her fire. Her rounds punctured his armor, ejecting plumes of bloody spray out the back of his torso. The first silver bullet hit him and he lost control of his body, his forward momentum smashing him against the outer wall.

  Chiara cut backward out of the streams of return fire, rushing back up the stairs and firing behind her. She needed to slow them down long enough for Peter to complete the destruction of the fortress’ defense systems. She would do it or die trying.

  She would keep her oath.

  * * *

  Peter swung the joystick to the left.

  The sphere rotated with his guidance. It only had to travel a short arc to bring the rail gun phalanx to bear on the southeast tower. The rail gun automatically reloaded. Threat markers appeared on the holographic battlespace display painting the interior of the sphere. The other three specter towers were turning weapons to b
ear upon the nemesis tower. They all had to do a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rotation as their default positions were facing outward.

  Peter had at least a second to react before the surviving three towers simultaneously attacked him.

  He glanced overhead; the four hammerhead hypersonic cruise missiles were maneuvering a mile above the fortress. In less than a second, they’d be spearing down like the fist of God upon the four specter towers. One would be wasted, pounding rubble, its target already destroyed. But the other three missiles must be on the threat matrix for the surviving towers.

  Peter was betting they would defend against the incoming strikes. It would be the default protocol. The towers would defend themselves first and then the fortress second on the principle that if they were destroyed, the fortress would be undefended for the next wave of attacks.

  The two class II rail guns on the southeast specter tower halted halfway around their rails, their long barrels reaching for the sky. The other secondary weapons continued to slide into position against the nemesis tower.

  As soon as the opposing towers could bring weapons to bear, they opened fire. The 20mm chain guns ripping into life, streams of fire reaching for the hemisphere atop the nemesis tower. The 30mm auto-cannons opened up, seeming to operate in slow motion firing three rounds per second, each one pinging off the transparent armor of the sphere with dull thuds.

  The dark blue threads of the hammerhead tracks streaked down over the battlespace display. The hypersonic cruise missiles shredding the air over the fortress in their race to their targets.

  * * *

  Chiara was running out of stairs.

  The vampires were pushing her back too quickly. Machine gun fire ripped up the stairs, filling the stairwell with plumes of ceramic dust. It was enough to haze sight and provide a moment’s desperate cover. She dove deep into her ramp, reversing her momentum and leaping up against the outside wall, running horizontally along it. She pulled the trigger on her submachine gun, riffing through the last of her armor-piercing and silver bullets.

  The praetorians rushing up from below twisted away, grimacing as the tang of silver hit their nostrils. One was crowded by the others and took the brunt of her fire from point-blank range. His torso ripped open as the explosive rounds tore him apart. A pair of silver bullets sent him down to the stairs.

  Chiara drew her katana mid-air, one of her throwing daggers appearing within the grip of her bandaged left hand, the other silver-laced blade now strapped to her right forearm.

  The praetorians reformed in pairs, wielding their edged weapons. Guns left holstered for close quarters combat against an opponent who could dodge around a barrel.

  It was six against one. Chiara landed three stairs in front of the leading two vampires, her sword slashing down just right of the first praetorian’s midline, inviting him to deflect her attack toward the second vampire on her right.

  The first vampire took the bait, swatting her katana aside.

  Chiara went with the strike, her blade flashing through the second vampire’s right arm, taking his limb off just below the elbow.

  He howled, spinning back into the internal wall, his sword held tight by his gauntleted fist clattering to the stairs. He clutched his stump, blood sluicing through the fingers of his remaining hand.

  Chiara’s hands blurred, swapping her katana to the left and her throwing dagger to her right. She ignored the excruciating agony pulsing from her left hand. She’d suffered worse at the hands of her instructors. She blocked the first vampire’s counter attack with her sword, using the force of his strike to push her to the right. Her dagger flashed upward, diving to the hilt beneath the second vampire’s jaw. She stepped back a pair of stairs. The silver-paralyzed praetorian, eyes glazed with sudden death, falling like stiff timber across the stairs in front of her. His colleagues would have to step over his rigid, partially dismembered corpse to attack her.

  Chiara liked that idea - let them witness their impending doom.

  The odds had improved to five against one.

  * * *

  Above the southeast specter tower, the descending hammerhead missile evaporated in a glaring ball of white-gold fire as a pair of defensive kinetic spikes struck home.

  The rail gun phalanx locked onto the southeast specter tower. Peter pulled the trigger. The phalanx hummed and fired. The three kinetic spikes decapitated the second specter tower and detonated the fuel cells within it. The southeast specter tower went the same way as the first specter tower, taking out the southeast corner of the fortress a moment later.

  The second hammerhead disappeared in a cloud of fire above the northwest specter tower. The third pummeled the remains of the southwest tower. The fourth managed to avoid the less than righteous kinetic spikes of the northeast tower, planting its one thousand pounds of high-explosive warhead on top of its target.

  The warhead didn’t detonate until the missile had penetrated half a dozen yards into the throat of the specter tower. The combined forces of the cruise missile strike and the stricken tower’s fuel cells created a massive blast, ripping a crater more than two hundred yards across, obliterating all evidence of the specter tower’s existence.

  Only the northwest specter tower remained. It was in the opposite direction to Peter’s rail gun phalanx and its rail guns were already halfway to bearing on the nemesis tower.

  A fatalistic dread gripped Peter’s soul. He was going to be too late. The last specter tower would get in at least two rail gun shots before he even got a lock on them. There was nothing he could do to stop the specter tower’s kinetic spikes detonating the nemesis tower’s fuel cells. He’d just witnessed three examples of exactly what would happen if the fuel cells exploded.

  He dragged the joystick to the left. It was always going to be the last specter tower that would be the most trouble. Peter was left with nothing but hope and a prayer, and he hated it. In seconds, there would only be one tower left standing.

  In the moments left, Peter offered the shortest prayer of his life that his tower would be spared - and armed his secondary weapons. They’d been turning with the rail gun phalanx, now they whizzed on their magnetically levitated rails to point northwest.

  Lining up dutifully on the last specter tower.

  * * *

  Thunder cracked and roared against the walls of the nemesis tower.

  The vampires surged up the stairs. Chiara had to give ground or be overwhelmed by weight of numbers. Allowing them to surround her would surrender her defense of the tower and result in certain death.

  The two nearest vampires, the original first on her left and a new one on the right, slashed, feinted and ground their blades against her flashing katana.

  Chiara double feinted left and right, drawing both vampires’ defenses. She flicked her left wrist, sending her silver-laced dagger into the throat of the praetorian on her left. He froze. She smashed hard to the right against the other vampire’s blade, then whirled back, her katana flying through a high horizontal arc, beheading the stationary vampire.

  Her strike collected the silver-laced dagger embedded through the vampire’s Adam’s apple, knocking it free. It bounced against the outer wall, ricocheting behind her. She leaped backward, giving ground while catching her flying dagger mid-air.

  She landed, her katana whirling, blood flicking off in thin ribbons. She wore a merciless grin, her long plait snaking over her right shoulder, ready to face the remaining four vampires. They growled and snarled like a pack of wild animals, rising up the stairs in a dark-armored wave.

  * * *

  The northwest specter tower brought all its weapons to bear on the nemesis tower.

  The nemesis tower’s rail gun phalanx had reloaded, but was still pointing into the valley to the right of the last specter tower. The dome still rotating to bring the massive weapon to bear on the last specter tower but not quickly enough to matter.

  The specter tower’s class II rail guns fired as one. Kinetic spikes tearing thro
ugh the barrels and heat fins of the rail gun phalanx. The nemesis tower shivered, steam pouring from shattered heat dissipation fins. Two of the three rail gun barrels were truncated by kinetic spikes, spinning debris falling three hundred feet to the ground below.

  Peter focused on his remaining weapons.

  The specter tower’s chain guns, auto-cannon, and lasers were hammering the armor of the nemesis tower. The nano-ceramic ablative was doing its job, absorbing energy and evaporating away - but under these weapons it would be a short-lived defense. The rail gun phalanx’s heavy forty-five-pound spikes had proven to be lethally effective against the specter towers. Peter didn’t want to find out the hard way the class II eleven-pound spikes were just as effective at penetrating the nemesis tower’s protective skin. What he’d been able to glean about nemesis and specter defense towers over the years suggested that the nemesis tower’s armor should be better but he had no specific facts about it.

  The specter tower’s rail guns shifted aim to the base of the nemesis tower.

  Peter aimed his rail guns at the specter tower’s rail guns.

  It was going to be a slug fest.

  All four rail guns fired at the same time. The spikes traveling at two miles per second covered the distance between the towers faster than the eye could follow. The nemesis tower shuddered. The opposing rail guns evaporated in clouds of shredded metal and silvery fire. They’d never fire again.

  A roar thundered up from the base of the nemesis tower.

  Peter arched an eyebrow. The absence of instant incineration indicated the fuel cells hadn’t detonated. He swung his rail guns in. A pair of cross-hairs painting the location just below the command and control center dome on top of the specter tower.

  A double tap to the throat. He pressed the trigger. The rail guns fired, a pair of spikes slamming into the neck of the specter tower. Flames shot from the impact points. The specter tower’s lesser weapons continued to fire, raining rounds and searing threads of heat against the nemesis tower’s fraying skin.