“Yes, I knew two.”
“So, tell me about them,” Peter asked.
“What do you want to know?” Stephen asked. “They tasted pretty good,” he winked to Peter and then stood up, moving to the next plate.
“Hey!” Peter called out as he grabbed the next floating plate, “You can’t say they tasted pretty good and then drop the story.” The two men locked the last plate at the back of the truck and walked up to the front where two of Todd’s Guardian Marines were affixing the last two plates.
Stephen patted him on the shoulder, “How about you get dressed? Talking with a naked man isn’t the biggest deal with me, but you are causing a ruckus.” Stephen pointed to some of the female Wechselbalg who were dropping tied up PLA soldiers outside of the building.
Peter looked up to the top of the roof, “Well, shit.”
“Oh, don’t be a wimp,” Stephen said as he grabbed Peter under the arms.
“What the hell are you… FUUUU!” Peter screamed as Stephen took three fast steps towards the building then threw Peter up. The sound of Peter’s landing caused Stephen to smile when he landed with a painful thud. The werewolf finished yelling, “UUKKK!”
“Hurry up,” Stephen called to him as he turned to find Todd with a smile on his face, “Are the packages ready to go, Todd?” Stephen asked the Guardian Marines leader.
“Aye, sire, that they are,” Todd told him and then grinned even larger when Stephen’s mouth pressed together.
“I’ll get my Queen back one day for giving me a title,” he grumped and then smiled when he heard Peter’s loud ‘son-of-a-bitch’ when he landed after jumping from the roof behind him.
“ADAM, two presents to return to base.”
“Understood, Stephen.” ADAM’s voice could be heard in Stephen’s receiver in his ear. It vibrated the bones and produced sound. No one else would ever hear it.
Moments later, the two huge PLA transport trucks started lifting into the air, accelerating in speed the higher they went up before the night swallowed them both.
“You know that rocks hurt like a bitch, Stephen?” Peter said as he came up beside him. “That roof had a shit load of them.”
“Then next time, young and unlearned,” Stephen looked over at Peter, “I suggest you think ahead about clothing needs.”
Military Base - Kaifeng, Henan Province
“No sir,” Private First Class Mi spoke to his commanding officer, “We lost communications with them right after they said they were entering the parking lot, sir. We have not been able to contact them up since.”
“What could be the problem?” Captain Zhia wondered, “This was supposed to be a secret mission.”
“Sir?” Radar operator Bolin called out, “We have two strange contacts heading this direction.”
Captain Zhia turned and stepped over beside the radar operator. He hit a button on the console, “Those are too big to be planes. When was the last time this equipment was looked at?”
“Sir, last quarter per regulations,” the Radar operator answered. “Look, they are coming here.”
“Should I hit the alarm, sir?” Another Radar operator asked, seeing the two unidentified objects approaching.
“Where did they come from?” the Captain asked.
“We picked them up coming from Zhengzhou, sir. Ten kilometers this side of the city.”
The Captain’s eyes drew together, “Show me.”
The Radar operator pointed to the location on the map.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” he murmured and then picked up the phone, “Give me the base commander.”
Five minutes later, two hundred men, all with weapons at the ready, but half dressed only in underwear were standing on the edges of the runway. They watched in confused silence when two large empty PLA troop transport trucks crashed down out of the night in the middle of the base’s main runway.
The base commander ground his teeth together as he waited for the four men detailed to go look inside the transports. Seconds later, they confirmed no one was in the trucks. The base commander turned around and growled.
“Someone find my damned men,” he told his sub-commander as he stalked off towards his office to call Beijing.
All Guns Blazing, Outer Docks - QBBS Merideth Reynolds
“So, there are the four of us,” Eric told the four men and two women who were at his table. Thirty had been picked to be a part of the evening’s festivities. The backdrop was outer space as the guys each told stories at different tables on the viewing deck. Each time they held this celebration, they would invite a handful from those new to the teams, whether Wechselbalg, Marines, Operations, Navy, Engineering or Defenses.
They shared some drinks, some food, and stories. Together, they grew by passing on the emotions, the pain, the effort to fight through the fear to do what was right.
For each other, and for the world.
Eric pantomimed holding his rifle, looking left and right, “The four of us figured we had one Nosferatu to deal with. Now remember, we were entirely human, no enhancements at that time. For us, Nosferatu were fast fuckers, stronger than cement head over there…”
“Heard that, Escobar!” John called out over his shoulder and resumed his own story.
Eric winked to his table, “Stronger than John, I mean. We were out in the Florida Everglades, and if you don’t know that area of the United States, it’s hot, muggy, filled with water and small areas of land and alligators. It’s getting on towards the evening, and we have one fucking Nosferatu to take down, and they’re four of us. We’d been fighting these sonsabitches for months all across the United States. We lost a lot of good men, and we had just one vampire to help us. This little switch of a girl with black hair…”
“Heard that Escobar!” Bethany Anne called out before she went back to her discussion.
“I mean this full-bodied woman with raven hair…”
Bethany Anne called over to Eric, “You’re so full of shit!”
Eric rolled his eyes and looked over to Bethany Anne, “Why is it I can’t tell my story here?”
She waved him off, “Ok, zipping my lips…maybe,” she said to him and turned back to her group again.
“So, Bethany Anne and the four of us hear that Dan is under attack. John tells BA to go help them. Otherwise, they are all dead because we were in a trap, a setup. The Forsaken that had planned this did a good job and we were fucked. Our ace in the hole was the recently changed Vampire. But, we didn’t know her, she didn’t know us.”
“You had never worked together?” One of the engineers asked.
“Nope. John and I went to the airport to pick her up as she arrived in a jet fighter from Europe. We didn’t know how to act around her because vampires are notoriously touchy. They could just as soon help you as rip your face off.”
Bobcat came to the table and started grabbing empty bottles and replacing them. Bobcat and William had to start bussing these events because their usual help would listen to the stories and forget to do their jobs.
“So, she agrees, and John sees her disappear. Which, let me tell you is still freaky as hell now but was blowing our ever-loving minds back then. So, we got one Nosferatu, and Bethany Anne has about twelve. I said something about it seemed fair we get one, and she get’s twelve, and Scott says,” Eric smiled, “I shit you not, he says ‘We wouldn’t want her to think we gave her the easier task because she’s a girl, right?’”
Eric was slapping the table laughing as Scott called out across the room, “Escobar, kiss my ass!”
Eric’s team was enjoying the antics between the four Queen’s Bitches as Eric flipped Scott off over his shoulder, “So Darryl says ‘I wouldn’t let her hear you’ and Scott is like ‘FUCK No!’”
Eric wiped at the tears in his eye, “So, we are feeling kinda cocky and loose at this moment. Then, God helps us, we find out we have two of the Nosferatu, not one like we thought. Let me tell you, we all probably thought we were going to bite the bullet and di
e that night. So John takes command and tells Scott when he counts to three to light up one of the Forsaken and keep it busy so the three of us can maybe get the drop and kill the other Forsaken that is in front of us.”
Eric takes a pull off of the beer Bobcat had left him and then sets it back down.
“So, our chances of living would go up a million percent if we can just kill one of these fuckers. Now, we start cussing, but we are having to do it creatively because if not, we all figure the ghost of the recently departed vampire helping Dan’s group would jump out of the bushes and make us do a hundred push-ups or some shit. It’s getting pretty hairy, and we all know we are up shit creek without a paddle. So, in one of my less lucid moments I scream out, ‘Come get me, you ginormous shit eater! Hey, spanky love nuts and your friend fudge slapper maximus over there.’ to get their attention.”
“Did it work?” a woman from operations asked, “calling them names?”
“Well, with Forsaken, breathing gets their attention. It wasn’t so much the words as the activity behind it. You see, we were dead. But, because of Bethany Anne and her antics, we decided we were going to go down fighting showing those cum-camels our middle finger. The two bastards crisscrossed and one got to John, breaking his arm, backhanding him damn near unconscious and grabs John’s knife. Nosferatu are strong. This one took John’s knife and shoved it all the way through his protective vest. The punch with the blade was so strong, John flew something like thirty feet…”
“Ten feet Escobar, shit get the story right,” John called out again.
“Hey, you tell it your way, I’ll tell it mine,” Eric shot back before turning back to his table. “That leaves that particular Forsaken in front of us, and we all unload on his ass. Darryl and Scott go after the last Forsaken, and I rush to John, whose knife is fucking embedded in his chest. Blood is coming out of his mouth and then John is busy trying to admit he’s always loved me and …”
“Do I need to come over there and beat your ass, Eric?” John asked.
“Ok, he didn’t, but he calls me a prick so I ask him what Bethany Anne has said about crap level cussing and he looks back over my shoulder and says, ‘I don’t know, why don’t we ask the little rectal hole dictator herself’?” This time, Eric’s table erupted in laughter, and Bethany Anne just shook her head.
This was the third such party on the actual anniversary of the event and the team always tried to listen to see where Eric was working to pad the story and get his story back on track.
Which was to say, somewhere near reality.
Eric put down his beer, “This is the best part, I promise.” His table quieted down. “So, John is there dying, knife in his chest and Bethany Anne is willing to help save him. She drinks blood out of pouches, and then she yanks the knife while I get the vest and shirt and shit off of him. She slices her wrist and gets him to drink the blood and then puts some on his chest wound. Now, you know we are connected with an Alien now, but back then we didn’t have a clue. John is healing from the nanocytes in the blood and Bethany Anne collapses beside him, spent herself.”
Eric looks around and leans forward to his table, lowering his voice as the others lean into to hear him. “So John wakes up and is a little freaked about turning into a vampire. We promise him that he isn’t going to, or at least that’s what Bethany Anne has told us. So, then John flops his left arm around and his hand lands on Bethany Anne’s chest and he ends up groping the boss.” Eyes around the table open wide, not believing Eric who puts up three fingers, “Scout’s honor, no shit. Then, Bethany Anne says, ‘I just spent a lot of effort to heal you, Mr. Grimes. If you don’t get your hand off my tit, I’m going to waste all of that effort when I kill you myself.’”
People started laughing, and Eric, smiling wide put his hand up to quiet them down, “John says, ‘Well, what do I spend the points on for cussing creatively if not to buy a quick feel?’ and Bethany Anne replies, I’m not kidding, ‘John, I have a headache.'”
This time, there was no keeping Eric’s table quiet as they saw Bethany Anne place her head in her hands as if she was trying to hide.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Schwabenland, Antarctica
“Is this the right choice, Maria?” Horst asked her.
Maria was sitting at the large table, listening to those who would decide where the group would go. While Maria’s decision was accepted as the core desire, the decision related to where all of them should go was something that those at the top of the group needed to agree upon. It was larger than just a location, it concerned what would happen with their legacy as well.
Schwabenland would be no more.
Maria looked around the table, to the other eight people present. She smiled at them all and gave the tiniest of shrugs. “I cannot be sure, but I can tell you that the decision allows me to sleep at night.”
“We left one war, to join another,” Horst told her. “Ironic, that.”
“Were we ever not at war, Horst?” she asked him. Maria could tell that those with concerns had voted Horst the spokesperson. “We made a deal with the devil to be here. I’m sure he thought once he took care of the world, he would have time to deal with us.”
“Then the Americans came,” Horst reminded her.
“Yes, they did. And you and the guards of freedom fought for our own version of independence. Choosing never to accept a world leader over us, again.”
“And now, what is changing your mind?” Horst asked.
Maria looked towards those around the table, “Relations…and time.” She turned back to Horst, “Would you want to fight, continue to fight, against those here on Earth? We have been attacked already, and the Etheric Empire is leaving.” She pointed up, towards space, “They are leaving to take the fight for Earth’s freedom away from here. It makes sense,” She pulled her arm down, “We have a choice. Never again will we have freedom due to obscurity. No, we have the opportunity to be welcomed in any country. Not for our bodies,” there were a few chuckles around the table, “but for our minds and more importantly, for our technology. Once they have that? Well, we would be irrelevant once again.”
“And the Etheric Empire, what do they want us for?” Horst asked. Not in a disrespectful manner, but a firm request nonetheless.
“Actually, nothing.” Maria answered, “Our technologies are not as powerful as what they have already mastered. Their people, some of their people, are so advanced due to genetic and nanocyte manipulation they will live to be hundreds of years old.”
“I thought Barnabas was already centuries old?” Horst asked.
“He is, Horst. He has lived over ten centuries. If you want to know the measure of evil, he will tell you that he has lived it. At one time, he feels he was the living embodiment of evil.”
“And we would follow such as this?” Cheryl, a woman wearing a faded green dress asked from her left. Her hair, long and gray, fell past her shoulders. “Can evil redeem itself?”
“That is the existential question, isn’t it Cheryl?” Maria answered, “It is not the actions that need to change. Those are imprinted in history, and one can only atone for the actions. No, the question is can one’s soul change.”
“So, what is the answer?” Horst demanded.
Maria blew out a breath, “I’ve come to understand that to answer the question, we need to ask that of ourselves.”
“What! How so?” Horst asked, surprised.
“Because, I’ve been in contact with the alien TOM. It seems that those who provided myself and my sisters with help are not generally considered wise, caring and as wonderful as perhaps we thought them.” She shrugged, “So, from that perspective, if it is true, we have implemented evil. It was only due to something happening on the Aldebaran’s side, what I don’t know, that we didn’t finish the effort necessary to have them arrive here.”
“How were we supposed to know?” Cheryl interrupted.
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