by M. Lorrox
Owen relaxes into the seat inside the cockpit until he realizes there should be many more people at the base. He scans with the turret and video camera to both sides, and he frowns. Did we lose the others? Damn this thing and its startup nonsense!
Then he hears the whirring air from a drone near the opened rear hatch, and he turns to see it fly past to the electric cannon.
Hector points a green laser pointer at the monitor that displays the drone’s video. “There, that’s it beside the lifter-bar. Take it out!”
Stephanie hears the drone too, and she turns to take aim, but she’s too late. -BOOM!-
Charlie turns. “What the hell?”
“Another incoming!” Gabriel waits for a good shot, then takes the zombie out.
Stephanie lowers her gun. Smoke fills the area beside the rotary cannon, and small pieces of plastic, electronics, and carbon fiber splash into the water. She sighs. “Their drones have remote bombs on them.”
Charlie scoffs. “Not enough to sink our boat... Idiots.”
Stephanie rolls her eyes, then scowls when she can see through the smoke. “No, but enough to take out our targeting system, fuck up the opened hatch, and it looks like it also damaged the engine strut.”
Charlie winces. Cazzo.
Hecate notices something out of her peripheral vision coming at them from the east. She turns with her gun, then takes her finger off the trigger. “Wounded incoming!”
Charlie turns and sees Eddy carrying Balena’s upside-down body. He leaps out over the equipment cases and runs toward them. “Cover me!”
Stephanie pivots and drops down beside Hecate. “I’ll take anything on the left, but be careful of their explosions.”
Hecate looks at her. Yeah, I learned that the hard way.
Charlie grabs Balena’s torso and hoists her up.
Eddy shakes his head. “Keep her down to limit her blood loss.”
Charlie furrows his brow, then notices that Eddy’s ACU top is soaked with blood at his shoulders. “Okay, here. Give me her legs then.”
A moment later, they get her to the base, and Gabriel, the team’s designated medic, relieves Charlie and begins to address Balena’s wounds.
Owen yells from the boat, “Targeting system’s fucked—I can’t cover from here!”
Charlie yells back, “Pick up a rifle then!”
Eddy notices the Patton saber and July’s dagger laying off to the side in the grass. He furrows his brow and glances in all directions, then turns toward the boat. “Owen!”
He was spinning on his heels to grab a gun, but then pauses and turns back, yelling, “What?”
“Are Johannes and July on the boat?”
Owen shakes his head. “Negative!”
Charlie and Eddy look at each other. Eddy quivers. “Johannes sent me east to back up Stephanie and Balena. That’s the last I saw of them.”
Gabriel looks up from Balena. “They didn’t head south.”
Eddy spins to the north and sees a heavy set of footprints—a man’s footprints pressed deep like he was carrying something. She might be hurt! Eddy checks that he still has his weapons, then he bolts away from base, following the footprints.
Charlie blinks and his son is twenty feet away. “Eddy! Hold!”
But he’s gone.
Hecate calls out a zombie to the northeast. Stephanie notes movement to the south and clears her throat. “Colonel, want me to cover the south?”
He grimaces as he spins. “I got it, I got it.”
Owen fires from the opened rear hatch of the Ghost attack boat and takes out the zombie approaching Charlie’s position. “I got it!” He lowers the rifle, and in a moment between shots, he swears he hears that same whirring air sound. He looks to the air, high and toward the south, where he can see three distant black specs. He points at them and yells to the shore, “Drones coming!”
Johannes runs up the hill as fast as he can while carrying July’s unconscious body across his shoulders. A thin line of blood trails from her neck where he injected a powerful sedative.
He reaches the top of a small foothill, then turns to look back at the base in the distance. They’re still firing at zombies, good. He’s about to continue his climb when he hears Eddy’s shouts in the distance. Damn, I can’t outrun him with her. He looks around and spots a flat area below an outcropping a bit ahead. He nods to himself. That’ll do.
Eddy follows the footprints and broken twigs at an incredible pace. If he’s carrying her, she must be hurt, but why would they leave the base? Why wouldn’t they take cover in the boat? Maybe he didn’t want to risk swimming her, but why not just find a place to hide? Eddy glances to his side at the remnants of a large, dead tree. They could have just hidden right there. He groans and sprints up the hill even faster. The old wakizashi and the brand-new M4 carbine are both strapped to his back, and as he runs, his shoulders slam the weapons back and forth.
It doesn’t slow him though. Instead, the impacts are a steady reminder about the dangers he and the team find themselves confronting—like a driver’s whip at his back, it pushes him harder.
In another minute, he sees something that drives him to run even faster: July, lying on her side on the ground with her eyes closed. He reaches her and skids to a stop by her side. He grabs her shoulder and shakes her. “July!”
From a rocky outcropping above, Eddy hears a -click- and he looks up and into the barrel of an M4 carbine. “Johannes? What the fuck?”
“Drop your rifle.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Drop your rifle.”
“FUCK YOU!”
Johannes snarls. “Should I be aiming this at her instead? I said, DROP, your fucking, RIFLE.”
Eddy lifts the strap from across his shoulders and extends it. The rifle dangles beneath, out to the side.
“Toss it down the hill.”
Eddy does.
“Now your sword.”
Eddy grits his teeth.
Johannes doesn’t flinch. “I will kill you if I have to. I’ve killed a lot of people, you’d be a high number on that list.”
Eddy removes the sword, but instead of tossing it to the side, he draws the blade. “You’re not going to hurt her or me. You’re going to get the fuck out of here before the others come.”
Johannes sighs. Stupid kid. “You can’t win this fight. Drop the sword and get out of here.”
Eddy shakes his head. “No. YOU can’t win this fight. I’m not leaving her.”
“Don’t be a fool. I’ve trained ten times longer than you’ve breathed. There’s no—”
“Then fucking prove it, you piece of shit, backstabbing coward.”
Johannes fumes. “Drop your goddamned sword and leave, or I swear to god I’ll kill you.”
Eddy raises his blade and takes a step to the side. “You’re going to have to. You coward. Get down here and fight me. You’ve got a sword, right? Put it where your mouth is or be a fucking coward, cold-blooded murderer. You garbage, you—”
“SHUT UP!” Johannes shakes his head. I could knee cap him, that would do, but I still have to get July, and he’ll fight from the ground… What a fool. And they’ll hear gunshots down at the base, and maybe they’ll catch up… “FINE. I’ll take your sword but leave your life.”
“No you won’t.” Eddy squints and growls as Johannes hops down, gun still aimed at his chest.
Johannes draws a Zinner sword and holds it at the ready, then he pops the bullet from the chamber of the rifle and removes the magazine. He drops the gun, magazine, and bullet on top of July. He takes a breath and focuses his thoughts on the task at hand, then he looks into Eddy’s eyes.
They’re unflinching.
“This is your last chance, son. I don’t want to have to kill you.”
“Same to you, you fucking traito
r asshole son of a bitch.”
The flow of zombies has reduced to a trickle, and the sound of the drones slowly grows louder. Charlie lowers his gun and turns to the others. “We have to take cover in the boat. Gabriel, take Balena. Stephanie and Hecate, can either of you manage on your own?”
Hecate nods. “Just get me into the water, I can swim.”
Stephanie is sweating and pale. “I can’t. You all go, and I’ll cover you.”
Instead of responding, Charlie bends and lifts her onto his shoulders. “Cover us from here.” Then he extends a hand down to Hecate. “Let’s go.”
She grabs his hand, and she is ripped from the ground. Whoa! Okay. “Just get me to the water.”
Gabriel picks up Balena as Charlie helps the others to the water. Hecate limps in, winces when the salt water hits her massive leg wound, and swims. When Charlie is in waist deep water, he sets Stephanie down. “Just float now.”
She nods to the south. “Better aim me so I can shoot south, they’re coming.”
They swim to the boat, and mostly because she’s pissed that she’s injured, Stephanie fires at the distant drones.
All her shots miss, but the muzzle flashes caught on video encourage the drone operators to take a less direct approach. The drones stop for a moment, then turn to loop around the side.
Eddy steps to the side, away from July. He wields Ukigumo, the floating cloud wakizashi Charlie was given in the late 1500’s, and he holds the thirty-inch weapon with both hands. He points the sword straight toward Johannes’ unpatched eye, a technique that helps hide the distance of the blade from the opponent.
Johannes follows Eddy as he steps to the side, but he ensures he’s always closer to July—and his gun—than Eddy is. He waits, gripping the handle of the Zinner sword in one hand and extending his other hand to the side for balance.
The sun is setting, and with it, it takes the last of the day’s warmth. A breeze crosses between the two vampires and blows a bit of Eddy’s hair into his eyes. He raises his hands—and the sword—pretending to reach up and slide his hair out of the way. His legs are bent, his weight is forward, and with the raising of the sword, he springs into an attack. He angles the tip of the wakizashi back over his right shoulder and strikes out hard in a flash of horizontal steel.
Johannes is surprised at Eddy’s speed, but he’s not caught off guard. He slides his left foot and left shoulder back as he blocks the strike by extending his right hand and sword toward Eddy. Their blades meet with a -Cleetch!- Johannes drops the tip of his sword, then extends his hand toward Eddy—the tip of the longer blade whistling through the air on its path toward his head.
Eddy bounces back, the tip of the Zinner passing only inches from his eyes. Eddy subdues a grin. He over-blocked by six inches. If I pull my next strike, he might extend too far. He howls and launches forward again, this time to Johannes’ right side.
The kid shows too much. Johannes’ right leg is still forward, and he withdraws it onto its toe. At the same time, he throws his right elbow across his body while keeping his fist in about the same place, swiveling the sword around to point its tip down his right side.
Perfect! Eddy is attacking on the left, with his right arm horizontal and his left arm bent like he’s working his bicep in the gym. His blade is inching closer to Johannes’ block, and in a flash, Eddy too throws an elbow and swivels his blade. He pulls his fists—and the wakizashi’s tip—back as he throws his right elbow toward Johannes’ face. Then, he swings the blade over his head and attacks on the other side. He moves fast, and he’s unable to put a ton of strength behind the strike.
Johannes knows he can’t unwind his block fast enough. Instead, he extends his left forearm up and out, right into Eddy’s sword’s path.
-CLANG!-
What? Eddy glances at his sword; it’s stopped at the side of Johannes’ arm. Before he knows it, Johannes launches forward and slams Eddy in the face with the Zinner sword’s full, steel handguard.
Eddy’s face smooshes against the metal, his nose breaks, and his eyes instantly burn. He jumps backward and out of Johannes’ range.
Johannes takes a nervous breath. Damn he’s fast. He looks down at his torn sleeve. The plate mail bracer that saved his skin during Catherine’s Ascension shines back at him with a new—and very deep—scratch.
As Eddy flies back, he blinks his eyes hard to clear the pain and haze. He opens them as he touches down on the ground, and he sees Johannes distracted and looking at his arm. Eddy stays light on his feet and blasts forward again, this time without a cry and with his hands holding the sword over his left shoulder. Don’t pull this one! Cut straight through his block—through his sword—through his damn head!
Eddy knows weapons, and he knows the complex techniques that are used in making samurai swords. Ukigumo’s Tamahagane steel was folded sixteen times, resulting in 65,536 layers of steel being welded together. It was differentially clay tempered, so its cutting edge is hard, and the back edge is soft to absorb impact. It was hand-sharpened and hand-polished, and now, it’s cutting through the air with all of Eddy’s strength. Eddy knows that if his strike is at the right angle, his sword will easily cut through the Zinner’s shitty, mass-produced steel blade that was ground from a cold-rolled bar.
During the block, Johannes had reset his sword’s position, and now the Zinner sword’s tip points to the heavens. He sees a blur before him—attacking hard and fast to his right side. He’s striking hard—he’ll cut right through my damn sword! He steps his left foot forward, toward Eddy and across his own body, then swivels around, hoping that his spinning block lands closer to the middle of Eddy’s arc of attack, thereby lessening the speed and strength of the blow and deflecting the strike with the spin instead of trying to stop it. Then I can take him by the throat and force surrender!
Eddy sees Johannes step and whip in a circle, and he knows he’s done for. If Eddy didn’t commit all his strength to his plan, he’d be able to recover and take advantage of Johannes’ back. But as it is, Eddy can’t, and he finds himself in the perfect set up to be stabbed through the gut. All Johannes would have to do is extend his sword as he spins, and Eddy would be skewered. Eddy throws his shoulders forward while jumping and throwing his legs back—to increase the distance between his vulnerable center and Johanne’s sword.
He misjudges Johanne’s intention, and his fast reaction is his downfall.
Johannes whips around as Eddy expected, but instead of stabbing to the gut, he tries to block Eddy’s sword—which is no longer there. Johannes pushes into the block while spinning his blade in the direction Eddy’s sword should be moving, but instead of steel, the Zinner meets flesh.
Eddy doesn’t even know what’s happening until it’s over, when both his hands drop to the ground beside his body. He lands hard on his chest; his leap backward literally lifted his feet out from under him. When he opens his eyes, he stares at two bloodied stumps extending from his shoulders. His right arm is cleaved off at the elbow, his left a few inches down the forearm.
He shakes while he attempts, and fails, to process what happened. He takes a fast inhale to scream, then a boot connects with his temple, and his world is as dark as his worst nightmare.
Johannes groans. FUCK. Stupid kid. He bends down and rolls Eddy onto his back. Blood spurts from both arms. Johannes sighs as he shakes his head. “I warned you.”
While the drones move into different positions around the team’s remnants, Charlie hands Stephanie to Owen, who pulls her from the water. Gabriel has already handed Balena off to Owen, and Hecate has also climbed aboard. Gabriel climbs up, then extends a hand for Charlie to take, but it’s left empty.
Charlie wipes water off his face, then squints and curls his lip. “I’m going after the others. Cover me from the drones.”
Gabriel nods and readies a rifle.
Hecate limps over to Gabriel’s side. “The drone
to the north is mine.”
Gabriel motions. “I’ll take the one headed south.”
Owen frowns at his quickly fading commanding officer, then he walks out the back of the ship and climbs onto the roof. “I’ll take the other one, headed west.”
Charlie is already swimming to the shore. In his mind, he’s already running and following the trail that led north, and finding out what the hell is keeping Eddy.
Andre squeezes his hands into fists. “Sir? ...Your orders?”
Hector analyzes the situation displayed to him through different monitors hanging on the wall. Finally, he nods. “Keep the boat busy. If there’s an opening, take it and detonate. When you run out of battery, kamikaze.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hector uses his green laser pointer and draws a circle around two green triangles on the Unit Overlay monitor. “These zombies haven’t detonated. Are they mobile?”
Paul answers. “Yes, sir, they’ve been moving around, they were just slower than the others and didn’t make it to the battle. They might be wounded.”
“Okay. Bring them into their little base. Let’s try and take out the equipment they left there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Congratulations everyone: it looks like this operation was a complete success. Stay on your toes until all the players are off the field.”
One drone makes a rush toward the boat while it rotates around in an arc to be a more challenging target. Owen follows it as it crosses in front of the drone Gabriel is aiming at. Then, the one Hecate targets rockets straight up and moves over the top of the boat. She sighs as she limps in a semicircle to follow it. “I feel like I’m the ball in a shell game.”
Gabriel chuckles, then Owen’s drone dives straight in toward the boat.
Owen places his finger on the trigger. “I got it.” He aims and waits, then it pulls hard to the side as it hits the deck. Owen tracks it with his gun and finds himself aiming at Gabriel’s back. “Gabe, you’re blocking me!”