by Ricky Sides
Clarissa kissed him gently and he responded hoping that if she felt passion for him she would spare him the turning process that would surely kill him. A moment later, he felt her bite his neck and begin sucking. His vision grew dim and he passed out. He awoke to someone calling his name. Clarissa was holding her bleeding wrist to his lips. He grasped her arm and began to drink her blood. One of the elite twenty stepped forward with a hypodermic and gave Thanatos a shot, injecting him with a large amount of some dark liquid substance. He felt stronger than he should feel if he were near death. Thanatos assumed that she had stopped well short of the point of no return. Oddly, as he drank her blood he felt his strength returning faster. Soon she wrenched her arm free and said, “Sleep now, Thanatos. When you awaken you will be reborn as the twenty-second real member of our vampire nation.”
Thanatos slipped once more into unconsciousness.
***
The Peacekeeper arrived and hovered over the mansion. Namid was flying escort and she radioed in saying, “Peacekeeper, I thought I saw movement in three different positions around the house just a moment ago, but now I can detect no further movement.”
“Tell her that we are responding to her information,” Jim instructed Patricia. “Pol, take your drone in for a closer look. Use your infrared camera,” Jim requested.
“Yes, Captain,” the scientist said and dropped down to fifty feet for a reconnaissance pass over the property. “I detect no external heat signatures, Captain, though the house must be occupied. There are a few minor heat leaks as you’d expect around doors and windows of an occupied dwelling,” Pol reported when he had completed his run.
“Are we certain that this is the correct location?” Jim asked.
“The tracker beacon is probably in the garage, sir,” Patricia responded. It’s hard to be certain because we are right on top of the signal and it is a powerful beacon. Holly wanted to make certain we didn’t lose the target,” she explained.
“She did a good job,” Jim stated. “We found the tracker easily enough.” Turning to his brother he said, “Find us a spot to land so that we can deploy the strike team. I want eight of the other men to encircle the house to guard against an escape. Once those guards are in position I want the strike team to make their entry.”
“Patricia, ask Namid to keep a close eye on the area while we land,” Jim instructed.
“There’s a large enough spot to the left of the house, Captain. I’m setting us down there,” Tim announced.
Signaling to Patricia to open the intercom channel Jim said, “Lieutenant Wilcox, have your team ready. In a moment we will open the cargo bay door.” He then outlined the plans adding that the remaining two men would guard the cargo bay and then he wished the men luck.
“Pol, I want…,” Jim began.
“Patricia flipped a switch on her communications board and all over the ship they heard Namid’s frantic voice saying, “Peacekeeper, abort! I say again abort! Do not open the cargo bay door! There is movement all around your perimeter. Men are rushing to board the ship!”
Tim slammed his hand against the emergency stop button and the cargo bay door froze in place only partially open.
“Peacekeeper, climb, they are jumping for your door! Climb!” Namid shouted.
Tim slammed the ship into an emergency climb as Jim asked, “Pol, what do you see on your infrared?”
“Nothing, Captain!” Pol said.
“Then switch to your standard camera,” Jim ordered.
“Switching. Oh my god, sir!” Pol exclaimed. Then he shouted, “Two climbed inside somehow. I saw them disappearing inside the ship.”
“Peacekeeper, two got in. Don’t ask me how the hell they made that impossible jump but they did. You have been boarded,” Namid confirmed what Pol had said.
Pete and Jim were running for the cargo bay with their pistols in their hands. Jim paused for just a moment and said, “Patricia, lockdown mode now!” and then he followed Pete.
Patricia activated a control that she never thought she’d need to activate in a real life scenario. The cargo bay door closed and locked. All over the ship, every door that was closed locked and could not be unlocked until Patricia deactivated the system. A specially designed panel slid into place effectively isolating the control room from the rest of the ship when the alloy fused itself into position.
Patricia followed the protocol and announced to the crew that this was not a drill. The ship had been boarded and was on lockdown until the emergency was under control. Still following the protocols, she put out an emergency call that any ship in the peacekeepers would answer. The unthinkable had happened. A peacekeeper ship had been boarded.
In the Constitution, Bill paled as he heard that emergency call. “Holly, sound emergency recall now! Use our external speakers and tell the men we lift off in three minutes! Drone operators get the location of the Peacekeeper and get there as soon as possible!”
“Message transmitted, sir. Melissa is asking if she should lead her squadron on to the Peacekeeper,” Holly asked.
“Yes, but leave one fighter here to fly cover while the men board,” Bill ordered.
The Alabama had responded to the distress call in a similar manner. A steady stream of men ran for the cargo bay doors at top speed. Sergeants stood at the foot of the boarding ramps of both ships urging the men to greater speed. Their escort fighters departed in a g-force acceleration leaving only one fighter to fly cover over each ship as the crews boarded.
In the control room of the Constitution, Bill received a message from Braden. “Captain, I pray we don’t have to fire on the Peacekeeper. I’m trying to get an update from them, but they are not answering our calls,” Captain Braden Murphy said.
“Patricia is probably busy with any of a hundred emergency steps at this moment. She’ll also be bombarded by calls from ships and bases. She’ll answer the moment that she can,” Bill said with more assurance than he genuinely felt. As the closest available ships, the Constitution and the Alabama would be given priority when it came to responses from the Peacekeeper.
“I pray that you are right, Captain. I do not wish to be the instrument of destruction of the Peacekeeper. But as captains, we must remember our most solemn vow. We will destroy any peacekeeper ship that falls into the hands of the enemy,” Braden said and his voice broke as he made that final statement.
“It won’t come to that. The crew will deal with the boarders. They have to. They know the consequences if they fail and failure is not an option for the crew of the Peacekeeper,” Bill stated firmly. This time there was no lack of conviction on his part.
“Our men are aboard and the cargo bay door is closing,” Braden said. “Good luck to you, Bill. We’ll see you there.”
“We won’t be more than a minute or two behind you, Braden. Good luck to you. Just don’t make a premature shot,” Bill said.
“The Alabama won’t be the first to fire on the Peacekeeper, Bill. I can promise you that we won’t fire unless they fire on us first, or try to flee the area. Barring either of those situations, I will follow your lead. You were a member of that crew for years. Your instincts will tell you if the ship has fallen under the control of the boarders.”
Chapter 19
Inside the cargo bay of the Peacekeeper, the strike team and the ten Base One peacekeepers assigned to the ship for the Birmingham mission stood ready to execute their missions. “Lock and load!” shouted Lieutenant Wilcox as the cargo bay door began to descend. The men all chambered a round in their weapons and flicked on the safeties.
Then they heard the intercom broadcasting Namid’s frantic message as she said, “Peacekeeper abort! I say again abort! Do not open the cargo bay door! There is movement all around your perimeter. Men are rushing to board the ship!”
The cargo bay door stopped its descent and a moment later, they heard Namid say, “Peacekeeper, climb, they are jumping for your door! Climb!”
The strike team aimed their weapons at the open space but th
e lieutenant shouted, “Hold your fire! You can’t fire in the bay!” and then two dark cloaked figures scrambled over the top of the door as the ship went into an emergency climb.
Lieutenant Wilcox saw the door closing as his men braced for hand-to-hand combat with the two boarders. He saw one of the enemy boarders grab a man by the throat as he drove a dagger into the peacekeeper’s chest. That man was tackled by a big peacekeeper that bore him to the ground. Other peacekeepers converged on the pair with their own knives drawn. They pinned that boarder to the deck and stabbed him until he stopped struggling.
The other boarder flung himself upon a group of three peacekeepers. He impacted their bodies so hard that he managed to knock all three men off their feet. A peacekeeper charged the man and hit him square in the mouth with a hard right punch. The intruder grabbed the peacekeeper who’d hit him and he bit the man’s throat. Savagely shaking his head, he ripped out a section of the hapless peacekeeper’s throat. The peacekeeper fell to the deck. His right leg kicked twice, and then he lay still.
Lieutenant Wilcox stabbed that intruder low in the abdomen and pulled up on the blade slicing through the man’s torso to his sternum. The wounded boarder grabbed at the lieutenant’s bandaged neck attempting to reopen the wound but two of the lieutenant’s strike force members grabbed the man’s arm and pulled it away from the lieutenant. Another of the men stabbed the intruder in the heart and finally that man fell.
Jim and Pete entered the cargo bay on the run with their weapons in their hands but the battle was over. The two intruders were dead but two peacekeepers were also down.
Jim used the radio in the cargo bay and ordered Patricia to stand down from the lockdown so that they could get the wounded men inside the infirmary where Maggie could assist them. The lieutenant’s men grabbed the wounded peacekeepers and loaded them onto stretchers while the medics did what they could for the men.
To the utter amazement of the peacekeepers in the cargo bay, the two enemy bodies began to stir. Someone shouted a warning and quickly several peacekeepers converged on the boarders who were struggling to get up. “Hold your fire!” Pete shouted as some of the men aimed rifles at the enemy. Shots fired inside the ship would ricochet around until all of their energy was spent. A peacekeeper with a machete walked up and struck the heads from the bodies. “They won’t be getting back up now, sir,” he said grimly. “They must be really high on drugs,” the man speculated.
Maggie arrived a moment later and took a quick look at the two injured peacekeepers. She shook her head and covered the face of the peacekeeper with the throat wound and then she turned her attention to the other man. His armored chest plate had almost, but not quite stopped the blade. He was a lucky man. Had he not been wearing that chest protector he would have surely died. “Get him to the infirmary, boys,” Maggie said and she started to leave.
“Can you save him, Maggie?” Jim asked.
“He should be alright though you can never be certain,” Maggie said. “I think he’ll pull through, but that man’s out of action for a few weeks at best. It’s a shame Pol can’t laminate the chest pieces with a thin sheet of the alloy,” she said and darted away.
“I’ll make it a point to ask about that. It should be possible if Reager Industries is willing to extrude the material thinly enough to make it practical,” Pete said thoughtfully.
Jim nodded and radioed Patricia to ask Namid what the hostiles were doing. She said that they had all melted away into the night around the house after the failed attempt to take the ship. Then she said, “Captain, I know this sounds insane, but the men who boarded the ship leapt almost twenty feet into the air to do so. I have the tape to prove it if you’d like to see it later.”
Patricia said through the intercom, “Captain, you’d better get back to the control room. The fighters and drones are arriving, and captains Young and Murphy are asking for an update. We’ve also been getting jammed with radio reports from the peacekeeper fleet. They are en route.”
“All of them?” Jim asked.
“Aye, sir. Every ship in the fleet and a good number of fighter escorts,” Patricia confirmed.
Jim responded, “Tell them all that two intruders entered via the cargo bay door. Tell them the crew killed both intruders but the boarders killed one peacekeeper and seriously wounded another. Tell them what Namid said about the jump. Advise them not to attempt to land to insert peacekeepers. I’ll be in the control room momentarily. Have Pol check with both cameras. I’ll want to know why these men don’t show up on the infrared.”
“Aye, Captain,” Patricia said. “Should I tell the rest of the fleet to stand down, sir?”
Jim considered that a moment and then he said, “For now yes, but I expect we’ll have an emergency meeting of all peacekeeper captains and base commanders when this is finished, so ask them to try to clear up their schedules to attend. But I still want the Constitution and the Alabama here.”
“Aye, sir,” Patricia stated.
Turning to a medic Jim said, “Secure blood and tissue samples from the two boarders. Follow all safety protocols. When that has been accomplished I want the bodies dumped and the samples delivered to the infirmary.”
“Lieutenant Wilcox,” Jim said. “Once your men dump the bodies get a detail together to clean up the blood in here. Follow all safety protocols for contagions,” he added. “And I do mean all the protocols,” he stressed.
“Yes, Captain. I understand,” the lieutenant assured Jim. Like the captain, he thought that there was something undeniably strange about the boarders. They would take no chances.
***
The three ships met a mile away from the mansion and landed in an open field. The captains of the Alabama and the Constitution and their strike force team leaders left their ships and came aboard the Peacekeeper. The doors were sealed the moment that the teams exited their ships. The Peacekeeper door was sealed the moment they entered and the captains and their men went to the mess hall of the battleship drone for a critical meeting.
Security was incredibly tight. Ten fighters flew cover over the three ships and ten drones hovered all around the perimeter facing outward.
“They are just men, sir,” Lieutenant Wilcox stated. “My men can take them. Our hands were tied in the bay. We couldn’t respond to the attack with firearms.”
“I understand that, Lieutenant, but there is something odd about men who don’t register on infrared cameras,” Jim stated. “Look I don’t pretend to know how they managed the jump that they made to reach the cargo bay door, but that doesn’t matter to me. The fact that they were capable of doing so does matter. If the rest of the enemy possesses that potential, then sending in a ground unit seems terribly irresponsible to me.”
“Captain, they killed one of my team,” the lieutenant said plaintively.
“Lieutenant, they killed one of my crewmen,” Jim said slamming his right palm against the tabletop forcefully and staring the lieutenant in the eyes.
“My apologies, sir,” the lieutenant said. “I did not mean to imply that you had no regard for the loss. If you took it that way, then I am genuinely sorry, because I know you better than that. I meant I want to get the people responsible.”
“Understood, Lieutenant. Let’s both calm it down a notch and discuss this like professionals,” Jim said and then he turned to the two captains present. “Gentlemen, as I see it we have two choices here. We can bomb them from the air and wipe out the mansion or we take it with ground forces. Your thoughts on those options?” he asked.
Bill said, “An air attack can guarantee no loses. Unfortunately, it cannot guarantee two things. It can’t guarantee that we aren’t killing captives. It also can’t guarantee mission success,” Bill stated. “Oh it will guarantee we get anyone in the mansion or around it on the grounds. But if our goal is to guarantee that we eliminate the two leaders then we cannot bomb the mansion. For all we know there is an escape route below ground or a hardened bunker where they could ride out the attack
and leave in a week with us none the wiser.” Frowning Bill said, “Sorry I got long winded there.”
“Your points all had merit,” Braden said grinning, and then he added, “I was going to mention the tunnel or bunker theory myself.” Turning to Jim he said, “I agree with Bill. I know it is the more dangerous course of action to take, but I think we have to take it with ground forces. I’d add that if we are going to do it that way then we ask for volunteers and take every able bodied man who is willing to go.”
Bill nodded his agreement to that stipulation.
Jim looked to Pete and Tim and they nodded their agreement. “Alright gentlemen, we will storm the place with the largest group of volunteers that we can muster.”
“You should know that I intend to accompany my volunteers, Jim,” Braden said.
“As do I,” Bill said and he stared hard at Pete as if daring him to object.
“That makes it unanimous, Captains, because I’ll be damned if I’ll ask a man to go on this mission and not be there myself.”
Pete said, “I’m going too.”
Jim turned to Pete and said, “Pete, I wish you’d remain aboard the ship. With all three captains in the raiding party, I need a man capable of commanding the three ships in an effective manner. Tim is good. He’s damned good. But Tim lacks the experience to act as an admiral if that becomes necessary. You are accustomed to planning and utilizing more elements than the single ship.”
“Then why don’t I go, and you stay?” Pete asked seeing reason in what Jim had said but wanting to turn the tables.
“Pete, are the other captains sending men in their stead? Do you think I’m afraid because I resisted the ground attack idea?” Jim asked quietly as he stared into Pete’s eyes.
“You know better than that, Jim,” Pete said just as softly. Then he grinned and said, “I just hate to miss the fight.”