Under My Heel

by Michael Anderle

  Gabrielle looked down the length of the boat to see if anything looked amiss. When she couldn’t find anything wrong she turned around and put her arms on the rail. She stood next to Darrell, staring out at the sea. “More vampy how? It isn’t like you have a choice of vamp or not vamp.”

  Darrell replied, “More like John. He has been upgraded somehow. However, he isn’t a vampire. At least, I don’t think he is, right?”

  Gabrielle laughed, “John? Lord no, he is not a vampire. I’ve talked to Bethany Anne about his situation, and from what I understand he just had incredibly good genetic DNA. When she gave him so much blood the nanocytes fixed a lot of things. Even with the good DNA strands, he hadn’t grown up to their full potential. So, now, he is actually the absolute best specimen he could ever be.”

  Darrell digested that information. “So if mother nature had rolled a perfect score for him in his mother’s womb, this is how he would’ve been without Bethany Anne’s help?”

  Gabrielle nodded, “Yes, this is how he would’ve been. What is the real reason you guys are asking about this? What is on your minds?”

  Darrell gave her a rundown of his conversation with Scott back in Florida. And their desire to “be upgraded” to better be able to handle the challenges coming at them as part of her guard retinue. He finished the conversation by asking her if she could both, give advice, and maybe go to bat for them with Bethany Anne.

  Gabrielle put her arm on his back, “Darrell, I don’t have to go to Bethany Anne for this. She would do anything for the four of you guys. Whether it is giving some of her blood to you guys, or figuring out how best to help you. But you guys have to approach her with it. She is not going to assume anything. I have had some conversations with her, where she has told me the stories of how you guys all met. My belief is that she is very sensitive about being ‘vampy’ around you guys. She doesn’t want to feel like she’s pushing something on you that you don’t want. And yes, she worries about every one of you. A lot. We will be going into dangerous situations. And being human, like you are, increases the chances of you being hurt more often. With me being around, you generally would have a good shot at being healed quickly, but that is not the same as being better yourselves.”

  Darrell spoke facing the sea, “What’s it like?”

  Gabrielle wasn’t exactly sure which question Darrell was asking. “What is what like? Having better abilities, needing to drink blood, being Mistress of the dark?”

  Darrell chuckled at her effort to lighten the mood. “Not being human? I mean I understand that all of you guys are, strictly speaking, human. But you have been given enhancements, from those nanocytes things, that the Kurtherians brought to earth. But still … folklore, for most of your life, has made you out to be a vampire, an undead creature of the night.”

  Gabrielle answered in a snarky tone, “I have never been ‘dead in the night’. That’s my father. At least, it was when he was older. Before Bethany Anne changed his attitude about living. I’ve always loved a good party, myself.”

  Darrell stayed quiet, recognizing Gabrielle’s effort to change the subject, if ever so slightly.

  Her tone was resigned to answering his question when she said, “It was tough for a little while, when I had to get accustomed to outliving my human friends. Relationships are the hardest part of this whole thing. Now, I probably have the first girlfriend I’ve had in… well let’s just say, in a really long time. Also, not needing to always be looking at necks as my next ‘happy meal’ has brightened things considerably. Also, don’t get me started on, being able to enjoy the sun again.”

  “You bring up a good point, what about relationships? You know, with regular people?”

  “Darrell, you learn to love people for them just being them. It becomes less about what they can do for you as much as just living in the moment. And, appreciating them for who they are. Take my recent relationship with Ivan as an example. We both got caught up in the moment and it was amazing and fun while it lasted. But my relationship with Bethany Anne changed my priorities. I, also, had something else that changed inside me. It made a longer-term relationship with Ivan more difficult to figure out for me. Do I miss him? A little bit. But I think that’s true for anyone that’s a good friend, or friend with benefits. We didn’t part on bad terms or anything. What about guys in the military? In your case you guys are gone a long time and you could die at any moment. How do military wives accept that?”

  Darrell said, “Well, both spouses need to be truthful. I’ve spoken with married guys and I’ve spoken with a few married women who have spouses back in the states and it’s hard on both sides. You pretty much have to know that the possibility to die is always there, and then go out and do your best to not let it affect your performance.”

  “My life is similar at times. I’m away from those I care about and then I trust friends or significant others will be there when I get back. But it’s hard to go through it, damned hard. How does Eric feel about this?”

  “He is all in. Of course, he is also thinking about how nice it will be to not be getting his ass kicked horribly, by you, all of the time.”

  “And John?”

  “Mr. Adonis you mean?” Darrell chuckled, “He is good with whatever is decided. We are all pro-Bethany Anne. But John is determined to make the life, that Bethany Anne gave him back, count. Right now, that means keeping Bethany Anne safe.”

  “What about later?”

  “Whatever Bethany Anne thinks is best. He wouldn’t mind getting another upgrade, to help, either. In the military, we always talk about escalation. You have a knife and they bring a pistol. You have a rifle and they bring a machine gun. You have a walking Werewolf, what are they going to produce?”

  “You guys are worried about becoming irrelevant?”

  “Not so much irrelevant as too easily defeated. You might end up doing more to protect us, than the reverse. We need to be able to hold our own. We have all talked and we’re pretty sure it’s only going to get worse, before it gets any better. We might lick this Forsaken issue, but this has all been in the shadows. There are plenty of bad-ass characters who are going to come after us when we step into the light. From talking with Bobcat, we are about to step into the light.”

  “That’s pretty true. You know, I’ve never changed anyone myself…”

  Darrell turned to Gabrielle, shock on his face only to see her finger scant millimeters from his nose, “Gotcha!” She turned to walk around the ship and called back to Darrell, “I’ll talk with the boss and let her know what you guys are thinking. She’s still going to want to hear this from you, but I’ll get the preliminaries out of the way.”

  Darrell watched her walk off, admiring her balance.

  And her ass.

  “You’re paying attention to the wrong area, Darrell!”

  Embarrassed, but laughing at himself, Darrell pushed off the rail and started a patrol of the boat. Heading down the stairs to TOM’s ship’s area below, he wondered what all of those metal boxes Marcus had placed by TOM’s ship were for.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Queen Bitch’s Ship Ad Aeternitatem

  Stephen could hear the cursing, and the ringing of metal on metal, coming down the hallway from the ‘garage’. He knocked sharply on the door, and stepped in. He doubted any human would be able to hear him knocking over the noises that William created as he beat on a piece of metal, yelling at it the whole time.

  “I… Will… Teach…You…A…Lesson… You…Mother…” Bobcat finally got Williams attention. “WHAT?” Marcus flinched at William’s loudness. Bobcat mimed William taking off his ear protection. William pulled aside one ear muff and said in a more reasonable tone, “What?” Bobcat pointed behind the man.

  William turned to find Stephen almost on top of him. Stephen was looking around him at the small closet-sized metal box that he had been bashing the moment before. “Oh! Hello.”

  Stephen looked up at the huge man, “Having a bit of difficulty expla
ining something to the dense box, are we?”

  William’s look of annoyance came back with a vengeance as he turned to look at the box. “Yes! I have a sitting area which doubles as a pack load location. I didn’t consider how I was supposed to install the seat, after I had already built the surrounding box. Bad manufacturing planning on my part; however, I believe I have almost accomplished getting my point across. Another couple of sharp sentences should see the seat placed where I want it.”

  Stephen looked up over at Bobcat, “Can we talked for a couple minutes?” He waved his head back over to another area of the garage. Stephen hoped it was far enough away from the ‘conversation’ William was having with his seat.

  When Bobcat caught up to Stephen, he asked, “What’s up?”

  “I am concerned that your helicopter is not big enough to handle everybody flying to the landing zone. How many people can your Shelly carry at one time?”

  “She is rated for four crew members plus eleven other troops loaded out. With the long-range fuel pods she will easily make it the 250 miles or so we need to go.”

  “I don’t believe there is a ‘we’ in this conversation. Or did you forget what Bethany Anne said?”

  Bobcat rubbed back of his head, “No, I didn’t forget. I was just hoping you did. I don’t like missing this operation.”

  “Can’t be helped, is there any way that you guys can get these…” Stephen looked over his shoulder when William resumed hitting the box, “Ships?” He turned back around to Bobcat, “Ready to go?”

  Bobcat whistled loudly catching Marcus’s attention and waved him over to join the two of them. Once Marcus had joined them he asked the question so Stephen could hear the answer, “Once we have the IZTA shells complete, how long will it take for you to install the engines?”

  “Not long at all, I have been communicating with TOM for the past two days. He says that the manufactured engines that I have so far.” Marcus flinched as William caused a resounding crack and then the noise from his area ceased. He loosened his shoulders and continued the conversation, “Sorry, TOM says that the engines I have so far are ready to be powered up. However, he doesn’t want to energize them without the ships ready to go. We have the engines placed around his ship ready for the empowerment. However, we will need Bethany Anne to help with that.”

  Stephen asked, “Why is that?”

  “Because she is the only one that can get into TOM’s ship and the engine room. Apparently, in order for these engines to get activated they will need a charge. Kind of like jump starting a low battery in a car. You hook it to a car already running, then rev that car’s engine for 20 minutes.”

  Stephen considered Marcus’s comments, “Is there an issue with the engines once they are energized? What happens if we have the ships just sitting here for a day or two without them being used? Are they like a battery where they will sit still for a while, or will they eventually explode without draining their energy?”

  “No, TOM assures me that everything would be fine. However, if anyone were to steal an engine right now, it wouldn’t get them anything. It’s only once they have been energized that it will make sense that they are something beyond a box with weird circuits and a glob of stuff in the middle.”

  Stephen asked, “What is your ‘glob of stuff’?”

  “It is xenon difluoride, normally a white crystal used to etch silicon conductors. We have it compressed pretty decently, but TOM is going to do something inside the engine room that is going to be pretty impressive. Further, TOM will provide an integrated connectivity to the etheric. Otherwise, just a minor bump would cause all of the pent up energy state to release instantaneously.”

  Stephen considered all that Marcus just told him, “That would be bad?”

  “Well, it would be bad for those that are on the Polaris. For those of us here on this ship we wouldn’t have two cells still stuck together so we wouldn’t, personally, care anymore.”

  Bobcat nodded his head sagely, “I would consider that bad.”

  “Indeed,” Stephen nodded his head. “It seems the good doctor has a dry sense of humor.”

  “Who was trying to be funny?” Marcus asked, “That is exactly what would happen.” His look of confusion sealed the deal. Both men started chuckling due to the scientist’s comment.

  Stephen saw that William had put up his tool and was placing some cushioning inside his structure. He motioned for the two men to follow him back over to Williams working area. William noticed the guys walking up.

  Stephen asked him, “Did you finish your conversation?”

  “Sure did. Message was learned loud and clear.”

  Stefan walked around the metal box that opened on one end. “What am I looking at?”

  William answered him, “You are looking at the first prototype of the IZTA 001. This box is set up to handle two people, plus their equipment. After they have stored their equipment, underneath the seat, and on the side racks there and there. They, then, get in here at this open door. As you can see the door latches from the inside as well.” William pulled the doors open a little bit further. “The next version will have glass so that they can see out. However, for this version we are going without glass since our manufacturing capabilities are a little limited at this time.”

  Stephen asked him, “how will they be able to see where they are piloting?”

  Marcus jumped into the conversation, “They won’t. TOM will be moving all of the ships via the engines that we will place in the lower quadrant. You can’t see the access panel on the other side from where you are now.”

  Stephen walked around the other side and noticed a one foot by one-foot door with hinges and locks. He knelt down and unlocked the door, opening it up and peered inside. “Not much in here?”

  Marcus answered, “No, the engines are self-contained. Once we have them inside this box, the engines are effectively a component of the larger ship. The engine generates a…”

  Bobcat interrupted Marcus, “Magic shit happens and the engine takes them where they need to go.”

  Stephen smiled and turned to look at the project leader, “I take it that you have heard this explanation multiple times?” Stephen stood back up after latching the door back again.

  “Yes.” Bobcat said. “And I can tell you that even after listening to him explain it ten times, it still makes as little sense as it did the first time I heard it. Engines should work on components of air, gasoline, and spark. Not shit that can blow up, three hundred and twenty-five foot-long super yachts, if a little thumbnail piece of it gets tapped wrong.”

  Stephen Looked over at the doctor, “Truly? A piece that small could blow up this whole ship?”

  Marcus nodded, “We have enough of the substance right now on the ship that if it was energized by TOM, we could blow up New York City and leave one big smoking crater.”

  That caused the normally jovial vampire to lose his smile for a moment. “That is pretty powerful.”

  William smiled, his prototype might look like it was made in a junk yard, but his babies were going to be hella-quick.

  Stephen asked the team, “How long would it take to produce eight of these ships?”

  Bobcat scratched under his chin, “well, we could theoretically use that one right there as one of them, but it would take us at least two weeks doing it here in our garage.”

  Stephen shook his head, “That’s too long, think outside the box Bobcat. What is it you would need to get eight of these built super-fast. Remember our facilities on the land. You guys get me the blueprints of how you want them built, and we will make sure that they get built. The main operation is a go, however, I would love to have a backup. We can’t hold the op off for two weeks. We lift off ship late tomorrow morning.” Stephen look at the three men, “if this op goes bad, the only thing you’ll find of us in two weeks would be our bones. Get with Lance, I need this backup in forty-eight hours.” With that, Stephen left them looking at each other.