The Crane War

by Graeme Rodaughan

  She tumbled and twisted helplessly. The nearest wall filled her vision with a dreadful inevitability composed of reinforced steel and concrete. A single thought raced through her mind. This is going to hurt!

  The impact sent Chloe’s world into utter darkness.

  * * *

  Tamsah had thrown the young red-headed Order operative to the mob.

  Their frenzied attack on her had given him time to break contact with them. But before he’d dropped her to the tunnel floor, he’d noticed a belt she was wearing around her waist. A belt he’d appropriated and now wore strapped above his hips. It sported four canisters - white phosphorous anti-personnel grenades. They were illegal throughout the civilized world but clearly the Order had a manufacturing site somewhere. They were a particularly useful weapon against vampires, but suicidal to use inside a tunnel with nowhere to run. The burning phosphorous would suck the oxygen from the air, asphyxiating the Ramp masters as the vampires burned.

  Tamsah had shed most of his blood-soaked clothing and boots, stripping down to a pair of black shorts, his daggers and the grenade belt. There was no way he could maintain stealth versus other vampires, while smelling like a human abattoir.

  He’d determined the location of the truth speaker from the signature of her heartbeat. The Order operatives had split into two groups. The remains of the Blake force team heading deeper into the maze, while the Mirovar force team headed for the southern-most hanger where Tamsah had started from. Their path would lead them to the fake fuel bowser and into the hanger. The way before them was clear, but a sizeable mob of militia vampires was tracking them through the maze tunnels.

  A chain rattled somewhere in the last hanger. It was too faint for a human ear to hear. With their sensor array destroyed, the Order operatives were running blind. Someone was waiting in the hanger. All the militia vampires were in the tunnels, and most of the Order operatives were accounted for. It was infeasible the two Slaynes had managed to cover the surface path to the hanger beneath the weapons of the four shadowstar drones. They had to be back at the warehouses, or in the tunnels. He paused for a moment and sharpened his senses. Yes, there the Slaynes were, close together and near the last warehouse toward the north. About as far from the last hanger as you could get in the maze.

  Tamsah blurred forward. There was no time to waste. It could only be Crane, Armitage or the praetorians who lurked and plotted within the last hanger against the truth speaker.

  He concentrated, integrating everything he knew about maze lore against the echo imprints unwittingly revealed by the militia vampires. There had to be another path into the last hanger and he knew where it must be.

  Tamsah diverged, taking an alternative path to the last hanger. He would come upon whomever was lying in ambush and take them from behind.

  The truth speaker must be saved.

  * * *

  The echoes from the massive explosion over the last warehouse faded away.

  Crane had recently entered the selfsame building. Senior squad leader, Frederic Hoffman considered the possibility that something drastic may have happened to the king of the vampires but refrained from making the call over the tactical link.

  Questioning the survival of the king was not the done thing. He waited a moment to see if Crane or Armitage issued any new commands. The tactical link remained filled with silence. In the absence of any confirmation of a change of plan, he continued with his current mission.

  Hoffman regarded the disposition of his troops in hanger number one.

  There were six private jets owned and operated by vampires within the hanger. The windows made of distinctive opaque black glass. His team had arranged them into a rough semicircle facing into the center of the hanger. The seventh and final jet, a long bodied private aircraft designed for about sixteen passengers, resided in the back right-hand corner of the hanger.

  He counted the aircraft clockwise from the fake bowser. The first aircraft held Cantor’s squad. The aircraft sported two doors behind the cockpit, both were open. When the Order operatives arrived, Cantor’s squad would spring from hiding and take them by surprise with concentrated minigun fire at point blank range.

  The second vampire jet was empty. The third jet was the original sixteen-seater near the back right-hand corner. The fourth jet was his own near the south wall. He stood on top of it, his squad waited on the floor of the hanger in front of the wings. They would open fire once the Order emerged from the tunnels through the hatch on top of the fake bowser. They would be the only ones in the fight to draw the Order forward into the killing field in the center of the hanger.

  To his left, directly opposite the bowser was the fifth aircraft which remained empty. Beyond it was the sixth jet which held three members of the Browning squad, with the same plan for a surprise attack as the Cantor squad. Between the Cantor and Browning squads, and his own squad, the Order operatives would be caught in a deadly crossfire from three directions.

  The last man of the Browning squad stood near the open main hanger doors, guarding the approach from that direction. He had recently moved a thick chain aside, and it had clanked loudly. He would need to be disciplined after the mission was over for making excessive noise in an ambush scenario, but in the meantime, his eyes were needed. The sensor arrays from the shadowstar drones were constantly sweeping a circle ten miles across centered on the airport. They would spot any Order operatives approaching the hanger, but Hoffman wanted a vampire’s eyes watching too. There was no sorry in this business - there was only being safe or being dead.

  Finally, diagonally opposite his own aircraft was the last of the vampire-owned jets in the hanger, resting silently and unused.

  Hoffman lifted his right hand from his minigun and rubbed his chin, wondering once more about the health of his king. The last warehouse had partially collapsed in on itself, and spot fires were burning everywhere. If only the king and Armitage were tracked in the same way the praetorians were, he’d know if they were alive, wounded or dead.

  He pressed his lips in a thin line, perhaps he should send a man to check.

  Something punched hard into the base of his skull and exited between his eyes. His mouth dropped open as if to cry out but no sound emerged. A second blade dug through the base of his spine, lifting him off the roof of the plane with tremendous force.

  Death arrived before he could feel the pain.

  * * *

  The truth speaker was only seconds away from emerging from the maze into an ambush.

  Tamsah whirled, throwing the lifeless squad leader at the sole praetorian on the right-side of the aircraft.

  He leaped to the left, his gore-soaked twelve-inch tri-bladed daggers trailing droplets of blood in a pair of thin ribbons. There were two praetorians beneath him. They were focused on the fake fuel bowser, waiting for the imminent emergence of the Order operatives. Every vampire in the chamber could hear their approach. Their hands were encumbered with their miniguns. Their heads flicked left on reflex as the squad leader’s body crashed into the praetorian on the other side of the plane.

  Tamsah landed behind them, slamming his daggers through their backs. The hardened blades punched through the nano-ceramic plate up to the hilt, neatly severing their aortas an inch above their hearts. They both twisted around, dropping their guns, reaching for him with desperate hands. Tamsah struck again, driving his daggers up beneath their chins. His knives sliced into the praetorian’s brainstems with wet slaps and they both began to drop toward the concrete floor.

  Tamsah blurred right, ducking beneath the body of the plane. The fourth praetorian in the squad was rising from the concrete, having thrown his squad leader’s corpse aside. His minigun sat on the concrete floor, jarred loose from his hands by the surprise arrival of his squad leader.

  The fourth praetorian’s hands flashed to a katana at his waist. He drew it clear of its scabbard with a glimmering flash of light, and slashed a high beheading strike at Tamsah.

  Tamsah ducked beneath th
e blade, blurred close, his knives driving into the vampire’s chest from left and right. His fists blurred across each other, the blades slicing over each other. The praetorian’s eyes bulged behind his visor and he slumped backward, his heart trisected into three parts.

  Before the vampire hit the pale floor, Tamsah blurred toward the back of the hanger opening up the angle into the first jet where another four praetorians hid. They would be spilling forth within another second, responding to the noises he’d already made.

  He tucked his daggers within his belt and grabbed two canisters. Tamsah had dialed the fuse down to three tenths of a second. It would be just long enough to throw and escape the blast wave. He threw them on flat trajectories, and followed with a third grenade. They raced through the air as if rocket propelled. The canisters disappeared through the jet’s open doorway, ricocheting into the cabin.

  One of the praetorians within the cabin roared, “Fu-”

  The first grenade exploded with a thunderous crack. The second and third grenades detonated, blowing out the cabin windows with jets of white fire. The body of the aircraft evaporated in a brilliant glare. The fuel tanks in the wings detonated in secondary explosions a moment later and the aircraft vanished in a white-gold blast as debris shot through the hanger.

  Tamsah retreated toward the back of the building and the second secret entrance near the sixteen-seater private jet. He shielded his sensitive eyes from the glare of the burning aircraft with his left hand.

  An automated sprinkler system came on, jets of water spraying down from the roof. There were another four praetorians, he could hear them moving on the tarmac and cursing outside the hanger. They were beyond reach now. He could not surprise them, but the threat they presented to the truth speaker was reduced to what the Mirovar force team could handle.

  Tamsah leaped back into the tunnels though a well-hidden manhole. He landed on the pale concrete, wet, nearly naked and alone. His hand fell to the final grenade on his belt. He didn’t need it right now, but he might need it later. Be prepared for any contingency - it was a solid precept of the Way of the Faithful, and Tamsah was filled to the brim with faith.

  Eight praetorians were dead. The ambush was disrupted. The Mirovar force team and the truth speaker would be wary entering the hanger. The surviving praetorians had withdrawn to the safety of the tarmac.

  Providence had fulfilled his faith. A glimmer of hope sprang into life within his heart. Perhaps one day, his faith might be rewarded. He might find honor once again. And what a great day that would be.

  Tamsah’s heart burst, and tears filled his eyes. There had to be a greater purpose for him becoming a vampire.

  There just had to be.

  * * *

  Li was first to the ladder, the rungs were dripping with water and more was showering down from above.

  She’d insisted on her time on point. She wasn’t a fragile thing to be held in the middle of the team while everyone else bore risks for her. She held her SAW in her left hand and clambered up the rungs to the hatch, getting drenched along the way. As she reached the top, she wished she had a hand held mirror. Lacking such equipment, she ramped hard and poked her head above the hatch for a quick scan before ducking back down.

  No one fired at her. There was a smoking, sizzling wreck directly to her left toward the back of the hanger. There were four apparently dead praetorians nearly opposite the bowser around the base of another aircraft parked slightly toward the rear of the hanger. Something had happened to blow up the nearby plane and set off the sprinklers. Probably the same something that had left four praetorians lying in pools of their own blood.

  She ramped and poked her head up again for a second look toward the front of the hanger. She couldn’t see any threats. She looked down the ladder at the rest of the Mirovar team and said, “Looks okay. I’m going in.”

  She blurred out of the hatch and ran into the hanger, her boots slapping against the wet concrete, her head on a swivel, and her SAW held tight against her right shoulder. The rest of the team followed her into the hanger and spread out, covering all their potential blind spots.

  Again, no one fired on the team.

  Jay called from the front of the hanger, “I’ve got eyes on four praetorians armed with miniguns. They are out on the tarmac, six hundred yards away. They look like they are waiting for something.” He paused for a moment. “Hell, the last warehouse is toast!”

  Is that where Slayne went after we separated? Li thought. Where the hell is Anton? Is he with his grandfather? She was genuinely fearful for Anton’s safety. He’d been separated from the team for a long time and the vampire swarm was roaming the maze. God only knew what would happen if they met. He’d already burned himself out once today, he could easily kill himself trying to fight them all. Anton might rub her up the wrong way more often than not, but she’d be the first to admit her world would be poorer if he wasn’t in it. Her heart ached for what Anton might become if he survived this battle. His future was laced with possible horrors and she feared for him with all her being.

  Jay hung back, deep within the hanger. His face grim. It was safe to assume the vampires had seen him and knew they were in the hanger. He turned to Peter and pointed at the sixteen-seater plane at the back of the hanger. “That will be Arthur Slayne’s plane. It’s the only one with normal windows. Check it out and make sure it’s ready to fly.”

  “Sure,” Peter replied and headed off to the long-bodied private jet.

  Jay turned to Chiara and commanded, “Chiara, stay on the bowser. No doubt some of those damned crazy vampires are tracking us. Watch our back and be ready for action.”

  Chiara lifted her SAW in salute and blurred back to the top of the fake bowser.

  Jay strode over to Li and looked down at a nearby praetorian lying in a crimson puddle of blood-saturated water. “Who killed these guys?”

  “Did Slayne and Anton get ahead of us?” Li asked.

  “If they did, where are they now?” Jay asked as he leaned down and examined the puncture marks in the praetorian’s armor. “Look here, Li. These vampires weren’t killed with a katana. More like a dagger of some sort.”

  Li’s mind snapped back to the memory of the tunnels beneath the conclave hall. The praetorians there had been killed with a spiral triangular knife. Justin had insisted it was the work of a Red Empire operative. Whomever it was, he was one dangerous individual who appeared to be on their side. “Whomever killed them, he’s gone now. More to the point, we can’t leave those praetorians alive on the tarmac.”

  Jay nodded and glanced back out at the runways. “Their miniguns will tear a private jet apart. Even an armored gunship couldn’t survive them. They have to be dealt with.”

  “We don’t have an exfil path with them out there.”

  Jay pressed his lips into a thin line. He reached out and grasped Li’s shoulder. “The situation is very fluid. If we have to deal with them, we will. Stay frosty there’s more to play out here tonight.”

  Peter jogged over from the sixteen-seater and declared, “It’s ready to go, fully fueled. All we need is clear airspace to get out of here. She’s got big tanks too - she’ll do six thousand miles before we have to land.”

  Chiara called out from the top of the fake bowser, “I’ve got more vampires approaching through the maze.”

  Peter stooped and picked up a fallen minigun, and offered, “This’ll help.” He looked across at the next fallen praetorian and stripped him of his minigun and backpack of ammunition, and chuckled. He lifted the pair of miniguns and their ammunition backpacks from the dead praetorians and suggested, “Let’s see them deal with these puppies.”

  Jay grinned mercilessly, glanced at Chiara and offered, “We can use our SAWs to add silver to the mix.” He turned back to Li. “I need you to keep an eye on the praetorians. Peter, Chiara and I will deal with the oncoming vampires in the tunnel.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “At the base of the ladder. There is a straight
stretch before it that is tailor made for the miniguns.” Jay looked at Peter. “Are you okay to handle two miniguns at once?”

  Peter hefted the two 7.62mm miniguns, their ammunition backpacks resting on the concrete floor, strips of caseless ammunition running from the backpacks to the weapons. His big hands flexed around the handles and he waved the forty-pound guns left and right like they were 9mm Glocks. “I think I like these guys.”

  “Okay,” Jay commanded. “It’s decided. Peter, Chiara, and I will take a position at the base of the ladder.” He looked at Li, and then across to the open hanger doors. “We need to hold this hanger - until we can’t. Keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel. I’d like to give you backup but we’ll have enough to deal with in the maze.”

  Li nodded.

  Jay and Peter broke away from Li, and joined Chiara on top of the bowser. A dozen seconds later they had disappeared within it.

  Li ran across to the hanger doors and took a position on the edge of the doorway. At the doors, she was beyond the worst of the sprinkler system. She swept water from her forehead with her left hand and ran her right back through her long hair. She lifted her SAW and focused on the airport. She needed to keep a watch on what was happening beyond the hanger.

  Movement caught her eye. Justin emerged from the ground within the center of the airport close to a mile distant. His team followed him. They dropped some tubes on the ground and snapped SAWs to their shoulders. They formed a semi-circle facing back toward the hole in the ground.