“He can look after himself.”
“You hope.”
Arthur frowned, but kept his silence. The situation was fluid and if Anton lingered in the tunnels, he risked becoming separated from the rest of the team.
Justin suggested, “Whatever Anton’s situation is, we have bigger issues right here. Their next attack is imminent. Arthur, Jay, we need to position our forces - they’ll swarm us again.”
Jay nodded. “It’s a certainty.” He glanced at the P-Case strapped to Arthur’s back. “They’ll try and wear us down until we’re too weak to defend the Panopticon.” He looked hard at Arthur. “What’s your real exfil plan.”
“What I said five minutes ago still holds,” Arthur snapped impatiently, nettled by Jay’s implication he hadn’t told the whole truth earlier. “We gut their main force against this fortress, then cut through the maze tunnels to hanger number one where our private jet is ready to fly. Along the way we pick up a set of Stinger III prototypes and take out the shadowstars. With the way clear, we damn well fly out of here.” He paused for a moment. “We have to persist. They will send a third wave, perhaps a fourth to wear us down. Then the praetorians will come, and Armitage and Crane with them.”
Jay stared at him. “Oh my God! Crane is here too?” His face paled for a moment, then filled with steel. “Let him come. He will find the sharp edge of the White Dragon here.”
Arthur looked around the assembled Ramp masters and declared firmly, “Yes, I have no doubt Crane and Armitage are in a drone circling this airport. They haven’t committed to the fight yet. They haven’t been bled enough to commit. But the moment is coming when they will have no choice but to come at us to get the Panopticon back.”
“Shit,” one of the Blake force team muttered.
“Hold fast,” Justin ordered. “Come what may, we will prevail.”
Jay declared, “We are united against them.”
Arthur stepped forward, pointing to a high walkway that lined the warehouse’s outer wall. Multiple ladders rose up to it. “I have a dozen squad automatic weapons and half as many multiple grenade launchers armed and ready on the upper level. Yes, they shot out our sentry weapons but we can still stem the tide. Now take up positions next to the shooting slits,” his right hand chopped from one location to the next along the walkway, “here, here and here. When Anton comes back with the stingers, we’ll be ready to exfil once we take out the drones.”
Jay and Justin issued a series of rapid commands. The assembled teams assented and went to their positions, picking up extra weapons and ammunition as required. Arthur stood back and calculated the options. Anton could have found a cache, but only if he made it all the way before the sensor array was knocked out. Otherwise, without the instructions provided by the sensor array he’d come back empty handed. That wasn’t a disaster. They didn’t really need the SAMs yet. He’d sent Anton into the tunnels more to keep him safe than for any other purpose.
Arthur sighed. He just hadn’t told anyone the reason why he’d done that. He was beginning to have suspicions about what his whole-self had planned to do and he didn’t like the way the plan was playing out. Had he really been that desperate twenty years ago when he’d embarked on this course?
His eyes widened, he had no idea and no way to find out.
* * *
Slayne looked pensively at the static-filled display screens, apparently lost in thought.
Li joined in with the Mirovar and Blake force teams, and mobilized to defend the warehouse against the next wave of vampires. She scaled one of the ladders up to a mezzanine style walkway six yards above the floor. The walkway was made of gray steel mesh, ten feet deep, spanning all four walls. Justin and Jay conferred briefly and set Red Cevarre, Max Guerra and Chiara watching the rear and side walls. The rest of the Ramp masters lined up across the front of the warehouse facing toward the hangers.
Only Slayne remained on the ground floor, preoccupied and whispering to himself. She was beginning to seriously doubt his sanity but there was nothing she could do about it. She glanced around. Peter was next to her on the left, a short-barreled light machine gun with a heavy bag magazine in his right hand and a fully loaded MGL in the other. He glanced at her, grinned wryly and said, “Same shit, different night, huh?”
She shook her head and replied, “No, different shit this time.”
Peter pursed his lips and then gazed out the firing slit toward the silent hangers.
On her right, Patrick Wichowski gazed at her with warm blue eyes. He wore his sandy hair long and tied back in a pony tail. He held another squad automatic weapon out to her. She took the SAW and checked it over. It was a short-barreled light machine gun that could be mistaken for an assault rifle. Patrick offered, “It’s a two hundred round magazine with a mix of silver and lead hollow points with tracers every fifth round. It should make a mess of them.”
Li lifted an eyebrow.
Patrick smiled and said, “I’m not trying to teach you to suck eggs. I probably just talk too much.”
Li reached out to his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Talk away,” she paused for a second, “actually, I need to ask you something.”
Patrick looked at her an ironic glint in his eyes. “Ask away?”
“Have you ever encountered Set.”
Patrick’s smile vanished. He put his weapon down against the wall and gripped Li’s shoulders. He stared into her eyes and asked, “What have you experienced?”
“He’s been showing up in my loremaster visions. Umm,” Li hesitated for a moment. “I had an involuntary vision on the way here where he appeared as my dead brother and showed me what he claimed to be was a vision of the future.” She reached up with her right hand, rubbing her neck and left shoulder. “He touched me once, and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’”
The silence stretched for a long moment. Patrick let go of Li’s shoulders and took a deep breath. “That’s creepy.”
“Do you know what’s happening?”
“No,” Patrick answered, shaking his head slowly. “Not, really.”
Disappointment surged through Li like a rogue wave. She’d hoped the one surviving loremaster would be able to shed light on what was happening to her.
“However,” Patrick continued,” I can say this. You must be off the scale talented for being a loremaster. It’s a pity Juliette isn’t here to guide you, she is the only other loremaster on record who encountered Set.”
“How did she defend herself against him.”
“I can only tell you what she told me. The strength of your defenses against Set will depend on your ability to center yourself in a place of peace and love.”
“Really?” Li asked, suddenly out of her depth. She was finding it hard to find much peace and love in the world.
“You remember how she was. She was serene, and seemed to love everyone, but she could still nail someone’s hide to the wall if that was what was needed at the time.”
“Any advice on how to do that?”
“My understanding is that it’s something you cultivate and practice, like a spiritual discipline.”
“I don’t think I have the luxury of ten or twenty years of training to get this right.”
Patrick paused for a moment. “Find something you feel really safe with or someone you have a very strong love for. Find or if need be, create a place of security, love, and joy. Something strong that you can rest in. Find that and start from there.”
Li sighed; she had no real idea what such a place would be.
“What you must always do is never stand alone.”
Li nodded.
“And one last thing,” Patrick suggested, “He’s attracted to you because you have something important you can do. Us garden variety loremasters don’t get this sort of attention.” They stared at each other for a long moment. “Of course, this is all moot if we don’t survive tonight.”
Li sighed. “Yes, of course.”
Patrick offered, “If you have any o
ther questions, I’ll help if I can.”
Li nodded. Patrick turned and picked up his weapon. He’d given her much to mull over. Whatever she needed to protect herself from Set, it exceeded what she could do. For the first time in a long time, Li felt completely inadequate before a challenge. She put her weapon aside and turned to Peter. He looked down at her for a brief moment. His eyes widened. He stepped forward and wrapped his big arms around her, lifting her off the ground and hugging her tight. His strength and warmth were a bright loving fire before her heart, but in the depths of her soul she knew it was not going to be enough to ward off a god.
She breathed into his shoulder and kissed his neck. She pushed back lightly and he let her go like a friendly bear letting her down onto her feet. She put her hand gently on his cheek and looked into his blue eyes and whispered, “For luck.”
Peter nodded. “For luck.”
She expected they would need every ounce of luck tonight.
Chapter Fourteen
“The human soul is like a flag buffeted by the wind. First it flies this way, then that way, and then another way. But what if you become the wind?” - Arthur Slayne
* * *
Nevada, Arthur Slayne’s Private Airport, Hanger Number One, September 11th, 20:35
The dapper man looked around the Portland coven and their newly converted familiars and wannabes, and asked, “Can anyone see a tunnel entrance in this hanger?”
Tamsah nodded. He’d picked up the telltale signs of a hidden entrance to a tunnel system within minutes of arrival. Secret doors and hidden traps were standard fare for a highly-skilled Red Empire operative. He strode to a nearby fuel bowser, leaped up to the top of it and wrenched a maintenance hatch open. It was, as expected, empty. A white-painted metal ladder descended through the body of the fuel bowser to a landing thirty feet below.
He looked up at the dapper man and glanced around the other vampires. “Here it is. Here’s an entrance into a secret tunnel system beneath the airport.”
The Dapper man grinned. Perhaps he expected to be rewarded. The coven leader sent a text through his smartphone back to the vampires coordinating the militia. Tamsah leaped down from the fuel bowser. The tunnels were certain to be used in the coming battle. The initial combats were little more than the Vampire Dominion making introductions with the Order of Thoth. Tamsah expected the Order to lose more of their people tonight. That was inevitable given the forces arrayed against them.
Regardless of the battle between the Vampire Dominion and the Order of Thoth, his loyalty lay with the truth speaker. He would find her and protect her life. None would harm her. His tri-bladed daggers would drink deep in vampire blood and they would fall before the sharp powers of his faith.
Or he would die.
* * *
A red dot appeared over the most southerly hanger on the airport map.
Crane looked at Chloe and declared, “We have a tunnel entrance confirmed in hanger number one. We will run simultaneous assaults. The third wave above ground and the fourth wave through the tunnels. Reposition your fourth wave to that hanger for an immediate assault.”
Chloe issued the command. The Citadel command center would route the directive to the coven leaders in the hangers. In seconds they should be on the move to the southern-most hanger.
Crane stared at her and stated, “I need you to go in with the fourth wave.”
Chloe arched an eyebrow. “You want me to lead the tunnel assault.”
“Yes. I need someone with Ramp master skills down there.”
“Why … specifically?”
“To deal with something not seen since Mekra ruled - a blood frenzy.”
Chloe said with a touch of dryness in her voice, “I was beginning to wonder what was behind these new vampire’s outstanding commitment to our cause.”
“Yes, Indeed,” Crane remarked. “You know I limit total vampire numbers to less than a thousand and I keep my praetorian troop deployments to less than twenty. There’s a madness that can erupt when there are too many vampires fighting and feeding in a group. The larger the group the more likely it will happen. Like sharks smelling blood in the water they go into a feeding frenzy. A blood lust that’s impossible to control and only stops when it burns out.”
“Being a Ramp master protects you from this?”
“Mostly, you should be able to control it when it hits. You’ll feel it too, but it won’t overwhelm you.”
“Wonderful,” Chloe remarked sardonically.
“I expect you to keep your head while those around you are losing theirs. Find the P-Case and kill the Slaynes. Now let’s see if we can open up an entrance on Slayne’s warehouse. Send Cantor and Browning down to the surface and use their 30mm cannons to cut through the front doors. Those guns are designed to take out a tank and should be able to handle a pair of steel doors.”
Chloe nodded and issued the commands. The last of the flanking shadowstar drones dropped out of formation and descended to join Cantor’s drone. The pair of drones then descended in formation to the surface of the airport.
“Now take us down to Hanger number one. Have you noticed it’s the only hanger which had a private jet in it when the militia arrived?”
Chloe nodded. “That will be their exfil path.”
“I will set my praetorians to guard it in case you fail to stop them leaving with the P-Case.”
Chloe looked hard at her king. “There is no chance of that.”
“Then complete your mission.”
Chloe activated the controls and the shadowstar drone rolled and descended down to the southern-most hanger in the airport.
It was time to get her blade wet.
* * *
Peter peered east through the shooting slit at the airport hangers.
Masses of vampires were running from the northern hangers to the last hanger on the right. The rest of the combined team standing on the front wall began murmuring amongst themselves. Justin called out. “They are regrouping at hanger number one.”
Arthur called out from the floor. “They must have discovered the tunnel entrance in that hanger, they will come at us from two directions.”
“Can you lock the tunnels down?”
“There is a door, a couple of yards from the entrance beneath our feet. Once locked, they’ll need explosives to get through it from either direction.”
Li stated, “Anton’s still down there. That door needs to be open for him to get back.”
“Yes,” Arthur conceded. “I’ll drop down into the tunnel and guard that pathway. I will wait for Anton to return. He has his nightglasses and can follow the map back to here.”
Justin nodded.
Arthur turned and disappeared into the shipping container above the tunnel entrance; the P-Case still strapped to his back.
Peter frowned. He hated the idea of Anton being stuck alone in the tunnels with a horde of vampires heading his way. He crouched down on the walkway to look up into the night sky. While the destruction of Arthur’s sensor array had robbed his Order nightglasses of local camera feeds and specialized metadata, they still retained all their fundamental visual functions.
Two shadowstar drones descended toward the center of the airport, directly opposite the second warehouse. A third drone descended further back and to the right, hovering over hanger number one. The same hanger all the vampires had been running to.
The first two drones’ ventral weapons bays opened up, their 30mm multi-barreled cannons dropping into firing position. He was staring into the barrels.
“Uh, oh,” Peter whispered, and then shouted, “Off the wall, take cover.”
The other Ramp masters glanced at him, and then blurred off the walkway down to the floor below. Upon hitting the floor, they vanished deep into the warehouse behind rows of shipping containers.
The front of the warehouse had a pair of large thick steel doors that opened by recessing into the walls. The doors were five yards high and the same wide. They had been designed to
withstand a massed vampire assault.
The first 30mm round hit the right-side steel door, punching through it in a shower of molten metal and brilliant white and gold sparks. It was immediately followed by a titanic hail of hard metal. The doors fell apart in molten edged fragments, thunder rolling like a giant’s scream in the relative confines of the warehouse.
Peter crouched halfway toward the back of the warehouse and whispered beneath his breath, “Oh, shit.”
* * *
The top-front of the command drone’s hull lifted up, exposing the interior of the cabin.
Chloe grabbed the Red Dragon and leaped over the side. She fell fifty yards down to the hanger roof, landing in a crouch. She rose to her full height, strapping the Red Dragon to her waist. The command drone rose rapidly into the night sky on blue jets of flame.
The night surrendered to the two 30mm cannons hammering the front doors of the second warehouse. An actinic glare lit the front of the warehouse, the 30mm rounds ripping through the heavy steel doors. Cantor and Browning’s shadowstar drones rested ten feet off the ground, their multi-barreled cannons whirring, caseless ammunition vanishing in long tongues of bright flame and gray smoke, streams of shining fire spearing into the steel plate of the warehouse doors.
The drones pivoted from left to right and from right to left. The bottom half of the doors evaporated leaving a gaping hole in the front wall of the warehouse. The drones ceased firing, rising into the night sky like they were being pulled up by giant strings.
With the cessation of the hammer blows of cannon fire, Chloe’s ears were assaulted by the excited shrieks of vampires. Random members of the third wave began rushing across the open from the other hangers toward the warehouse. Crane’s voice barked over the tactical link in her helmet. “Catastrophe! It’s started too early. Get down into the tunnels and get ahead of the madness.”
The Crane War Page 36
