Frenzied screams resounded faintly in the distance.
Vampires were hot on their tail.
* * *
Justin flew out of the secret exit from the maze to the airport surface.
Sam, Taylor, and Patrick followed closely behind him. He checked the ammunition counter on his SAW. It read, ‘99.’ He was a tick over halfway through his second two-hundred round magazine. He didn’t have another spare, neither did anyone else in his team. They had been chased for more than five hundred yards by a horde of frenzied vampires. They had killed as many as they could in the shadows of the tunnels but there were still many more left and their silver and lead hollow-point ammunition was running low.
Screams and yells of frenzied lust and hunger arose from within the tunnels.
Justin indicated with a nod of his head and laid his stinger III missile launcher upon the ground. They’d followed Arthur’s instructions to the letter, breached the defenses around his caches and extracted the four prototype hypersonic surface to air missiles.
He snapped his SAW to his shoulder. Patrick stood to his left and Sam and Taylor stood to his right in a loose semi-circle facing the open shaft into the maze.
The mad shrieks burst into the night air, then the vampires boiled forth like frenzied ants defending their nest.
The Blake force team opened fire as one. Their SAWs pouring round after round into the spreading mass of vampires. Blood sprayed in red whips, or bloomed in pink mists. Silver stricken vampires fell to the ground and were trampled by those who came after them.
Justin’s ammo counter raced past fifty.
The team dropped back another ten yards together. No matter how many vampires they killed, more emerged and they were flooding the area around the team. Two pincers extended, composed of wailing vampire flesh. It was like a giant’s hand reaching to surround them and then crush them to death.
The team gave more ground, moving back to back as the vampires surrounded them.
Justin’s ammo counter dropped to zero. He threw the smoking weapon away and drew his katana. His team mates ran dry within the next half second and did the same. It would be hand to hand combat from now till victory or death.
Four vampires screamed and attacked Justin, another thirty rushed his small team.
He didn’t believe in last stands but this was certainly looking like one.
* * *
With his good right arm, Cornelius pushed a concrete block away and emerged from the rubble.
His left arm hung limply at his side, broken in more places then he cared to count.
Armitage moaned nearby. He glanced at her. A vampire that could still make a noise was unlikely to be in mortal danger. She held her head with both hands as if to keep it steady, caught his gaze, and stated matter-of-factly, “I broke my neck, I’ll need a minute.”
The skin on her face was healing from several gashes and burns. He figured he was no better off. He tapped his broadcast communications channel and called over the tactical link, “Hoffman report.”
Browning responded, “Hoffman, Cantor and their squads are dead, Sir.”
Cornelius frowned, his eyes narrowing. This night was piling one calamity on top of another. He asked, “Where are you?”
“Six hundred yards northwest of the hanger ready to fire on any aircraft that come out of it.”
“Enemy status?”
“The Mirovar team is currently in the hanger. Militia in the tunnels are converging on their position. The Blake team is on the surface near the middle of the airport fighting thirty plus militia. They appear to have run out of ammunition, shall we engage?”
Cornelius wasn’t going to lose any more loyal troops tonight with little to gain from it. “No. Hold your position and prepare for immediate exfil.”
It was clear the Panopticon was not at the airport. There was no further need for restraint. He ignored his broken left arm and broken ribs, and limped over the fallen masonry and exposed steel mesh. He passed a couple of spot fires and the hull of the drone. It had been opened up like a tin can. There was no engine or visible internals. It was a mock up after all. Slayne switching it on had just been another ploy to get him to act as Slayne wished.
Cornelius had no idea how Slayne had done it but Slayne had played him like a puppet on a string. Nausea gripped his guts, what else did Slayne have in store? What was Slayne’s plan ‘B?’
A cold fury erupted within him, vaporizing the momentary illness within his stomach. He ascended the pile of rubble. A few moments later he stood on the highest point of the surviving facade of the warehouse.
The airport spread before him. The Blake force team was in the open fighting twenty-three militia vampires hand to hand. The Order operatives were killing the unskilled vampires with desperate and brutal efficiency. They may well survive.
Cornelius’ eyes tightened with suspicion. Why had they emerged where they did? Why expose themselves to attack from above? He scanned the ground around them. Yes, there was the reason. They had stinger missiles. A regular stinger II missile was a poor choice of weapon against a shadowstar drone’s speed, maneuverability, and defensive systems.
But only a fool would assume these were regulation production line stingers. Slayne would have something special deployed for tonight, and the Blake force team would be operating in accordance with Slayne’s orders.
Cornelius grinned mercilessly. Not only had Armitage’s speed saved his life, his tactical helmet was still functional. He contacted his command drone, the other three shadowstars were slaved off its command and control systems. He directed them to adopt defensive maneuvers against a hostile surface to air missile environment. The four drones broke formation, and began flying back and forth in zig zags over the airport at varying heights. Their countermeasure systems were put on active mode with hair-trigger response times. Finally, he directed them to open their weapon bay doors and make their conventionally armed hammerhead hypersonic cruise missiles ready to fire.
He looked down upon the Blake force team. Justin Blake carved a great slash through the chest of the last vampire, neatly bisecting the creature’s heart.
Cornelius was confident that within seconds the Blake and Mirovar force teams would cease to exist.
* * *
The last of the militia vampires fell to the ground in a spreading pool of blood.
“The SAMs,” Justin shouted, reaching for one of the stinger III prototypes lying on the ground. His men rushed to obey, each rising with a surface to air missile.
Taylor flicked his white-blonde head at the praetorians standing in a loose group a thousand yards away. “What the hell are they playing at?”
Justin glanced at the vampires. They were not engaging. That could only mean one thing - his team were about to be attacked from above.
It was a race against time.
He snapped the stinger over his shoulder and activated the targeting system. His three team mates did the same. The stingers detected the four drones maneuvering violently over the airport and networked with each other to avoid targeting the same drone twice.
A moment later, the thin tone of missile lock alerts cut through the air. All four stingers were ready to fire.
Justin pressed the firing stud and shouted, “Fire!”
* * *
The Blake force team snapped their stinger missiles over their shoulders, raising their weapon’s dark throats to the sky. The Order operatives flared in the infra-red spectrum. Ramping, becoming still, firing as one.
Cornelius snapped, “Fire.” The drone’s responded as a single unit two miles above the airport. The first wave of four hammerhead hypersonic cruise missiles dropped from their cradles, spearing down toward the middle of the airport. A split-second later, the second wave of four missiles fell from the weapons bays.
Four hammerheads converged on the Blake force team. The second four veered toward the southern-most hanger and the Mirovar force team.
Four more missiles, small, sha
rp darts, lanced upward from the Blake force team. The twelve missiles passing each other a mile above the airport.
The Blake force team, already ramped, were fleeing back to the tunnels, blurring away in a race against the descending hammerheads. They were moving too slowly to escape the blast radius of four five-hundred-pound warheads configured to airburst ten feet off the ground. They were dead men; they just didn’t know it yet.
Cornelius tracked the rising stinger missiles. They speared upward on tails of blue fire, racing toward the shadowstar drones. Countermeasures bloomed like high-tech flowers a hundred yards across, dotting the sky with vivid multi-spectral reds, greens, and blues.
The blue fires of the small darts dodged violently between the countermeasures. The shadowstar drones bucked and shuddered on blasts of blue fire, maneuvering with maximum acceleration. The shadowstars engaged their final defenses, infra-red lasers lighting crimson strings across the sky.
Cornelius stared at the deadly beauty above him and whispered, “No.”
* * *
Red, green, and blue flashes lit up the night sky.
The Blake force team fled as one toward the secret tunnel entrance. Justin ramped to his maximum capability, blurring across the grass and tarmac. The world was eerily quiet, except for the sounds of breathing men and racing footfalls. Patrick was on his left and the Two Taylors were on his right.
The tunnel entrance was a square opening ten feet wide. Two doors covered in tarmac were open, laid out on the ground to the front and back. If they could make it and pull the doors shut, they could survive. The doors were heavy steel designed to withstand aircraft running over them without moving or giving way.
Justin instinctively summoned his strength talent, white lightning infusing every muscle, sinew and bone with power. He leaped, diving the last dozen feet toward the entrance to the tunnels.
Four warheads exploded on the corners of a square a hundred yards across, bracketing the Blake force team.
Light glared; the night made harsh day. Justin’s Order nightglasses instantly went black. His communication earbuds expanded, becoming tight protective plugs in his ears.
Air like a solid wall hit him from behind, throwing him forward into the hole. Justin reflexively lifted his right arm to cover his head, before slamming into the wall with the right-side of his body. Bones toughened by Ramp genetics, and filled with the pure life force of his summoned strength talent shivered, flexed and then shattered.
For the briefest of moments, darkness overwhelmed him.
The blast wave hit the front side door above him, lifting it up like a shutter in a windstorm and slamming it shut. Electromagnets automatically locked it tightly in place.
Justin bounced off the wall, twisting and landing hard on the stairs, the right-side of his body numb with dreadful shock. His nightglasses had gone, knocked free from his face. He stared through the open back half of the doorway; his dark brown eyes wide with horror.
Superheated metal fragments, fire and light lashed the air above the doorway.
Justin cried out, “NO!” The words whipped away on a torrent of air rushing from the tunnels to the dying hearts of the explosions.
The air stilled. White, actinic flashes overtook the night sky. Within the maze of tunnels, a vampire shrieked in the distance and was answered by a mad screech.
Patrick, Sam, Taylor - none of them had made it.
Justin lifted his left hand and covered his eyes, moaning quietly, “No, no … no.”
* * *
Missiles shredded the night air.
“No,” Li whispered. She whirled away from the hanger doors, blurring toward the fake fuel bowser. She reached the bowser, leaped to the top of it and rushed through the open hatch into the tank.
She slammed the hatch shut behind her.
The fuel bowser shuddered. Dull thunder booming beyond its rounded steel walls.
Li dropped to the tunnel floor.
Jay, Peter and Chiara glanced at her. Peter stated disconsolately, “Well, there goes our ride out of here.”
Li stared at them in horror. Peter’s face froze, and he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Justin! … and the rest! They were out in the open.”
Jay put his hand on her shoulder and suggested, “Last I saw, they were heading for the tunnels … surely they made it.”
Set’s prediction had come true. He’d given it to Li when he was wearing the appearance of Qi back at Enoch in Utah. “No,” she declared, tears streaming down her face. “They’re dead.”
“Hell,” Peter whispered.
Vampires shrieked and howled, shouted and cursed in nearby tunnels. They were almost upon them. Li slumped back against the wall as the rest of the team readied themselves.
What could anyone do against a god?
* * *
Two clouds of glittering confetti fell toward the ground.
The command drone and a second shadowstar had managed to survive the advanced stinger missiles and continued to zig and zag over the airport.
Chloe stepped gingerly onto a block of concrete sporting horns of severed reinforcing steel mesh, and followed Crane’s gaze over the airport.
Crane growled. “The Panopticon was never here. Slayne has already hidden it.”
“This place was always a trap for us,” Chloe murmured, a touch of awe in her voice.
Crane turned his head and stared at her. “You admire him?”
“When was the last time we came so close to death?”
Crane harrumphed. “And that’s a good thing?”
Chloe arched an eyebrow, a slight smile on her full lips. Crane frowned for a moment, then declared, “We’ll exfil Browning’s squad and ourselves. Ensure that Haley and the Osprey II are at a safe distance. This site must be sanitized.”
“Yes, Sir,” she responded, stepping down from the pile of rubble and pulling her smartphone out of its armor-protected sleeve. Her fingers flew over the screen, a moment later, she sent a message to James.
She glanced up. The surviving shadowstar drone was descending over a mile away, preparing to land next to Browning’s squad of praetorians. The command drone was descending to the middle of the warehouse ruins.
Crane commanded, “It’s time to leave.”
Chloe nodded. Indeed, it is.
* * *
Meat-that-talks lifted his communications device.
A picture of an older human male was displayed. He stated, “This Ramp master must be captured alive and brought back here. He will be within the airport. He was last seen in the tunnels.”
Gullette memorized the image with a glance. Meat-that-talks showed the image to Kavanne and Shemina. It seemed to imagine that Shemina would participate in this favor for the blood thief.
Gullette leaned forward. The human’s eyes tightened. It was often frightened, but it tried to hide its fear. He unfurled his longest finger at Shemina and declared, “Two needed, more is not helpful,” he wagged his finger back and forth, “she stays here.”
The human nodded, and agreed, “Sure. She stays here. I’m certain there’s nothing wandering around out there you two can’t handle by yourselves.”
Gullette grinned, his head bobbing backward and forward. Meat-that-talks had little understanding of the full powers of the People. He glanced meaningfully at Kavanne, and hummed a short note. Kavanne’s head bobbed in response - he would follow Gullette’s lead.
Gullette’s skin tingled with the change, and Kavanne vanished too, although Gullette could still smell and hear him. He turned away from the puny human and raced into the airport, Kavanne following behind his left shoulder. They would find the old human in the captured image. There were few vampires left. They were still seeking blood; they would converge on the remaining humans. Even now some fought within the tunnels to the south.
Another two groups of vampires stalked prey near the center of the airport. That was the place to look first. From the sounds, there was an open entrance to the s
urface there.
It was a pity the Ramp masters could not be eaten. The changes to their bodies spoiled the meat.
Gullette felt like a snack.
* * *
The vampires screamed and howled with blood lust, turning around the intersection and running forward en masse along the corridor.
More leaped and clawed their way forward along walls and ceiling. The lights flickered as vampires momentarily obscured them, shrouding their approach with leaping shadows.
Li sat slumped against the back wall and couldn’t see an end to them.
Peter stood in the middle of the corridor, flanked by Jay on his left, and Chiara on his right. He hefted the two miniguns and opened fire. Electric motors whirred, barrels spun, and tongues of flame leaped from the weapon’s throats. Gray smoke bloomed, and streams of light tore into the vampires.
The creatures ran into the fire, driven beyond caring for their own safety by pure blood lust. The heavy rounds slammed into flesh and bone, passing through on gouts of blood.
Jay and Chiara opened up with their SAWs, bright silver hollow points ripping into the swarm.
The vampires fell, were trampled, and died in spreading pools of blood. For every vampire they killed, two more leaped forward. The swarm advanced, screeching and laughing, closing to thirty feet on a carpet of gore.
The vampires closed to twenty feet. Peter growled low in his chest, sweeping the minigun fire across the front ranks. Vampires fell apart under the sustained hammering of the heavy rounds.
“I’m dry,” Jay shouted a moment later, and threw his SAW aside in disgust. He swept the White Dragon clear of its scabbard and held it high above his head, his eyes glaring at the screaming swarm. He shouted without looking back at her, “Li!”
The vampires closed to fifteen feet.
Chiara’s SAW clicked on empty and she dropped it. Her last silver dagger and her katana appearing in her hands.
The Crane War Page 42