by C. E. Martin
The base was like a museum. Rooms were preserved, glistening with a thin coating of ice over tables, chairs, clocks, and equipment. Whatever the Nazis had once used the base for, it appeared as though they'd abandoned it a long time ago.
"Got something," Jimmy called out over the comm channel. He and Josie were clearing rooms on one side of the long tunnel, while Kenslir cleared the other side and Laura and the Mossad agent provided overwatch in the tunnel.
The Colonel exited his room and met Jimmy in the tunnel. Kane shone a small penlight on a bit of paper in his hand.
"Whatchamacallit," Jimmy said as the candybar's wrapper became visible. He switched his light back off.
"Yeah, so Nazis liked candy, big deal," Laura said.
"They didn't make these until the 1980s," Jimmy said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the base has been in use since at least the 1980s," Josie said.
Colonel Kenslir thought about it for a moment. "Not enough. We keep looking."
"Not enough?" Javi Wallach almost yelled. "You're own psychics said the überwolves were here. Bring in the troops and let's clear this place."
"Once the team deploys, we're all stuck here," Kenslir said as though speaking to a child. "Until we know for certain, I'm keeping them in the air."
He turned back to Jimmy. "I think it's time we skip ahead. Care to try doing some tracking?"
"You got it, boss," Jimmy said, grinning. He quickly unscrewed the silencer from his pistol then stowed both away. He handed Josie his M4 then began unzip his vest.
"Hold on," Laura Olson said. She tapped a finger to her nose. "I can sniff just as good as wolfboy. But if he goes all Mississippi leghound, I won't be able to track a damned thing."
"Do you have something now?" the Colonel asked.
"I can't tell. Between you, Jimmy and Olive Oil, it's pretty ripe in here."
Javi bristled at the comment but gritted her teeth instead of replying.
"Allright, Doctor Olson and I will go ahead," Kenslir said. "Jimmy, you and Josie guard Ms. Wallach-"
"I am not a child!" Javi snapped.
"Strength in numbers," the Colonel said. "You head back to the beginning of this tunnel and perform overwatch. If we find something, head topside and wait for the team. Understood?"
"Sir," Josie said, objecting.
"I need you two to watch her," Kenslir said, pointing to Javi. "But stay on your toes—nothing says they aren't outside on the ice while we're in here looking around."
"Yes, sir," Josie and Jimmy said. Javi just glared at the Colonel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"I never thought we'd get rid of those third wheels," Laura Olson said.
"We're still live," Kenslir said, tapping his goggles.
"Well, pooh," Laura replied, fake pouting. "I wanted to spend some quality one-on-one time with you."
The Colonel and Laura Olson were now in a side tunnel of the bunker complex, working their way down, deeper into the earth.
"Do you have a scent or not?"
"I've been told I smell delicious," Laura teased.
"Laura!"
"Fine, fine," the vampire said. "Yes, I smell your stinky Nazis. And some fresh blood."
"Human?"
Laura stopped, kneeling down and rubbing a finger along the ground. She sniffed her finger then licked it. "No. Some kind of animal. No idea what." She reached to brush the finger off on her pantleg.
Kenslir grabbed her hand and held her fingertip up under his own nose. "I don't recognize it either."
"Well, well, well," Laura said, grinning from ear to ear. "If you didn't want me for my nose, whatever did you bring me along for?"
Kenslir cybernetically adjusted the output on his and Laura's tactical goggles, severing the link with Josie, Jimmy and Javi Wallach. He and Laura's markers would still appear on the team's HUDs, but the live feed was now restricted to Command only.
"Your senses are more fine-tuned than mine."
"But you do smell something."
"I can't track it. The best human nose is still far less accurate than a dog's—or a vampire's."
"Are you sure you just didn't want the others getting in the way?"
"Follow the scent," Kenslir commanded.
"Yes, sir!" Laura said, smiling and saluting. "And when are you going to shut down our connection with headquarters?"
She moved forward, leading the way further down the corridor. "Cause you know, I can hear these little gadgets." She tapped her goggles to emphasize her point.
Kenslir caught up to her, senses still straining in the barely-lit tunnels as they searched. "What do you mean you can hear? Hear what?"
"Well, the tissue that is energized, creating the twin resonance in other tissue samples," Laura said. "It's like a painful, animal scream."
"To telepaths—we know. Are you telling me you can read minds now?"
Laura laughed. "If I could read minds I'm sure you'd make me blush... but no. I can't read minds. But I can sense them. Always have been able to. I think it's how we vampires hunt."
"And you never told-"
"I just started hearing these telemitters since you brought me back," the vampire said. She paused at a door. "I think he went this way."
"Command!" Kenslir said almost excitedly. "Everyone needs to go dark, receive only!"
"What's the big deal, babe?"
Kenslir shut down the live broadcast from his and Laura Olson's transmitters. "If you can hear it, these überwolves might be able to as well."
***
"What just happened?" Javi asked. She was crouched in a doorway, behind a table she and Josie had overturned and set up as a barricade. From within the room, they had a clear vantage of the long tunnel leading away from the passageway to the surface of the glacier. Jimmy was similarly set up across the tunnel from them, in another room with only one entry or exit.
"Command?" Josie asked. "Command, what is going on?"
A virtual reality panel sprang into view in their tactical goggles, filled with Major Campbell's face. "Doctor Olson just revealed that the telemitters broadcast a signal that vampires can sense. Colonel wants you to go silent, receive only."
"But-" Josie started to say. But Campbell's screen had already blinked out and the tactical goggles flashed "RECEIVE MODE" three times.
"What is a telemitter? What is he talking about?" Javi demanded.
"These," Jose said, turning to the Mossad agent. She tapped her goggles. "These don't use radio waves to communicate."
"Then what do they use?"
"You know how twins often say they can feel each other's pain?" Josie asked. "Well, tissue from certain host organisms reacts the same way."
"I don't follow."
Jimmy chimed in. "Imagine if when you bit into an apple, the tree felt it."
"More of your magic?" Javi said angrily. It was bad enough she had to wear the dragon bracelet to keep from freezing to death.
"No, not magic," Josie said. "At least I don't think it is. It's more like a psychic phenomenon. Tissue samples are halved, kept alive and energized. One in our telemitter, one in a telemitter back at HQ."
"Energized? Is that something like electrocuted?"
"Yes."
Javi looked down at her vest, and the pocket where the small transmitter and black box for the tactical goggles was stored. "So there's living tissue in these things?"
"Yep," Jimmy said.
Javi sat quietly for a moment. "What kind of tissue? From what?"
***
The Nazi was at it again, pounding away at Dean's leg, his good leg, with a hammer and chisel. His third chisel and his fourth hammer.
"Give it a rest, Hans," Dean said, wincing with each blow. He was amazed his stone body hadn't cracked yet. As it was, he had a number of grooves cut into him.
The German paused, wiping sweat from his brow and examining his chisel. The end was deformed and cracked. It too was eventually going to break. "That is not my name," he said.
"Bruder!" another überwolf declared sliding into the room.
"What, Bernhart?" Friedrich exclaimed. Even though his body didn't tire, he was growing frustrated at the lack of progress with the Golem.
Bernhart switched to German. "Do you not feel it, brother?"
"Feel what?"
"They're here!"
Friedrich started to scoff at the idea, but then he finally noticed it as well. "Yes, like this one's."
He turned back to Dean Johnson. "Your communication device, how did it work?"
"Ask Steve Jobs," Dean smirked.
"Nein!" Friedrich yelled, smashing his hammer down on Dean Johnson's chest. "I know what an iPhone is, Herr Golem. I am not an id-"
Friedrich noticed the look on Dean's face. It had been momentary, but it had been there. Pain.
"So, the stone man has an Achilles heel after all..." Friedrich leaned down and laid his ear against Dean's chest. He struck the chest lightly with the hammer beside his head.
Dean struggled against the chains holding him, bucking, but he could not break free.
"Bruder!" Bernhart said. "What do we do?"
"Go. Take care of them. How many can there be?"
Bernhart looked back and forth between the door out of the machine shop and his brother. "But-"
"I am busy!" Friedrich exclaimed. "Go!"
Bernhart nodded, then dashed out of the room, a blur of vampiric speed marking his passage.
Friedrich smiled at Dean and selected a metal spike from a nearby work bench. It looked like a railroad spike. He placed it against Dean's chest, just below where his heart would be.
"So stone man, why are you hollow? What secrets do you hold inside?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"In here. I'm sure of it," Laura said. She stepped to the side of the large door, hand on the wheel that would have to be turned to open it.
Kenslir stowed his tomahawk, sliding it into the ammo carrier strapped to his left thigh. He drew his pistol from his left hip and screwed a silencer on. Holding up a hand, he counted off on his fingers—one, two and three.
Laura spun the wheel and jerked the door open. To her surprise, the heavy metal pressure door opened quietly, its hinges well-oiled. Kenslir stepped quickly through, handgun at the ready, covering wherever he looked.
The chamber beyond was vast, easily as large as the Fountain Chamber back in Miami, maybe larger. Its ceiling stretched up not three stories but six or even seven, terminating in a high, vaulted ceiling made of huge blocks. The chamber was round, save in one area where there was a flat wall crusted with a thick layer of ice. The flat wall was at least sixty feet across.
"Jimmy'll love this," Laura Olson said, stepping through.
In the middle of the large chamber, suspended from I-beam cranes were the remains of at least three aircraft. Circular, about thirty feet in diameter, with heavy metal plating and Iron Crosses painted on them, the vessels did not look like any conventional flying craft. They were more disk shaped, almost like flattened bells.
"Don't get too excited," Kenslir said, ignoring the aircraft and looking around the chamber. Light was glowing from the very blocks of the ceiling, which he zoomed in on with the tactical goggles. The measurements came back quickly: each was precisely three cubits long and one cubit high.
"We found flying saucers and you're like no big deal? Seriously?"
"I've seen pieces of them before."
"Say what?" Not much surprised Laura Olson—she was, after all, a super vampire herself now, and had been killed and returned to life twice.
"The Nazis had alien technology and you knew?"
Kenslir crept around the chamber slowly, pistol at the ready. "They're not alien. They're antediluvian."
"Like the shapeshifters? Or those smurfs we capped in Greece?"
"Neither," Kenslir said grimly.
Laura stopped walking, putting her hands on her hips. "Okay, stop. Just stop. I get the feeling there is so much more that you know that I don't."
"It's going to stay that way." The Colonel was by another door in the circular wall of the chamber, ignoring the aircraft that Laura now realized were either in a state of disrepair or unfinished assembly.
"Excuse me, but I thought I was a part of this team!" Laura's voice was getting loud now.
"Get over here!" the Colonel said in as loud a whisper as he could. "Now."
Laura walked over slowly, shaking her head in disbelief, almost unable to tear her eyes off the three aircraft. "How have you seen these before? Are there other bases? Have you been here before?"
Kenslir rolled his eyes, but knew the vampire wasn't going to shut up. "They're Vimanas—ancient flying craft described in the Sanskrit epics. The Nazis recovered several and reverse engineered them. After the war, they were flying them all over the place, testing them."
"And?"
"And we shot them down. So did the Soviets."
"Hold on," Laura said raising a hand. "You're telling me all those UFO reports were Nazis? And how do you shoot a flying saucer down?"
"With a heat seeking missile. Same as any other aircraft. Eventually, we stopped seeing them."
Laura was at a loss for words. It was more than something of a revelation for her.
"What about this one?" Kenslir asked, gesturing with his pistol at the door.
Laura sniffed the air, even leaning in close to the door. "Yes, they've been through here."
Kenslir reached for the door, then hesitated. "In case you hadn't noticed, this chamber wasn't built by the Germans."
Laura looked around again, ignoring the aircraft and actually looking at the walls and vaulted ceiling. "What is this place?"
***
"Josie!" Jimmy whispered across the hallway. "Josie!"
"What?" Josie whispered back.
"How do we override the broadcast lock out?"
"We don't."
Jimmy shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable. "This is ridiculous, I'm getting a cramp in my leg. How long do we have to wait?"
"This is a pretty big place, Jimmy."
"I have to pee."
"Go in the corner or something—you're a boy."
"Shh!" Javi hissed. "Shut up, you two." She strained to see in the dim light of the tunnel, trying to focus down the hall. Somehow the tactical goggles sensed this and zoomed in, replacing her field of view with a digitally enhanced view.
"What?" Josie asked.
"I think I heard something."
"Oh, God," Jimmy said sighing from his room. "I thought I was going to burst. My teeth were floating."
Josie zoomed in now as well, peering out into the darkness. She dug in one of the pockets of her vest and pulled out a small, tube-like device.
"What's that?" Javi asked.
"Infrared laser illuminator," Josie said. "Basically a flashlight on steroids."
She had it up and on before Javi could stop her.
"No! You'll give away our posit-"
It was too late. The light was on, revealing an überwolf in full werewolf form, not a hundred feet away, clinging to the shadows. The creature recoiled, then roared, mouth open wide.
Javi and Josie immediately opened fire.
***
"Well, it's about damn time," Dean Johnson said, relief filling him.
Colonel Kenslir and Doctor Olson rushed to his side, the Colonel checking the corners of the room with his pistol as he entered.
"Command!" Kenslir barked, briefly transmitting through his tactical goggles. "We have located Johnson! Deploy the team!"
"Are you injured?" Laura asked, then immediately regretted saying it. Johnson was missing one leg. If he was any more injured than that, he wouldn't be talking.
"I'm fine, look you've got to-"
"Where are the Germans?" Kenslir demanded. He was standing in the doorway of the room, half in, half out, watching the hallway he and Laura had taken from the prehistoric aircraft hangar.
"I don't know—he left just a fe
w minutes before you arrived. Look, sir, I need to tell you something."
"Can you get the chains?" Kenslir asked.
Laura shook her head. "They're welded. What the hell are they? Where do you even get chains this big?"
"They're anchor chains. Can you break them?"
"Maybe if I huff and puff..."
"Sir!" Dean Johnson said. "Sir, there's more than two of them!"
"What?" Kenslir said, turning his head to look in at Johnson. He stopped doing so as a large form came leaping out of the darkness at him. It crashed into the Colonel, knocking his pistol out of his hand and sending him flying down the hallway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
This was it. His first combat drop. Isaac Jacobson was excited. Very excited. He'd done two training drops before, but this was different. It was in to a live combat zone.
Laying on his back, he felt the coffin-like tube he was in pitch downwards, so his head was toward the earth. He knew it was rotating around as it fell, so that he was facing the planet, instead of on his back, looking up.
The HUD of the tactical goggles showed the blinking marker for the MA-12 Raven that had just dropped him and his teammates. The sleek, black, hypersonic plane was banking and turning back North, headed for a rendezvous with a refueling plane over the Atlantic. After so many hours of circling, the Raven had to be running on fumes. Loitering was not what it had been designed for.
The transport tube continued its rapid plummet toward the continent of Antarctica. When they finally reached a few thousand feet, Jacobson's goggles flashed >>>EJECT<<< and the drop tube blew apart.
He was tumbling in the air now, in freefall. He extended his arms and legs, trying to catch the air to stabilize himself. As heavy as he was, it was a lot harder than when he had been flesh and bone, but the stone soldier finally managed it.
He steered himself along, following the waypoints on his head-up display. At five hundred feet his parachute deployed and he was jerked around by the sudden deceleration.
He continued down, finally crashing into the ice, his boots breaking out huge chunks of ice from the surface of the glacier. He caught himself with one hand, barely avoiding landing on his face.