Interspersed within the sound of gunfire were the screams of the injured and dying. I have been a witness to many battles through the ages and I could never get used to the psychic agony that accompanied massive death and agony. If I had not been wearing the Field Generation unit I knew the sensory experience would have been intense. The Palag were killing the Federal Agents as quickly as they could rush to their own dooms.
We reached the end of the staircase and went through the last doorway and directly into the maelstrom of the battle. It was every bit as bad as I had expected it to be. I blocked the doorway and then shut it in the faces of the men still trying to push their way through. I ripped the handle from the door and threw it to the floor. The Humans were only in the way, but they had halted the Palag long enough to give us time to react.
There was no defensive line within the corridor, just chaos. Bodies lay heaped everywhere, but nowhere was there the telltale rapid decomposition that would indicate that either a Vampire or Palag had fallen. We were the first Vampires to reach the battle, apparently. A quick scan of the long corridor made clear to me that we faced only five Palag.
The agents could have no organized defense when the Palag could move amongst them at speeds that effectively made them invisible to their Human victims. It was butchery pure and simple, with the agents watching their fellows fall to pieces around them by invisible means, and shooting like madmen at the ghosts doing it, only to cut down even more of their own comrades in the process. More agents had died from friendly fire than had been by the bloodied blades of the Palag Elders.
Only one of the five was truly old. So ancient it was beyond my ability to reckon. I do not know how I knew this, with my helmet in place, but I did. So did Sonafi. She chose this one, out of the five, and went directly towards it, her throwing stars whirling out from her towards first the eldest Elder Palag, and then the others, sending all of them scrambling to get out of the deadly path of Sonafi's whirling blades. I scrambled quickly to follow her.
Sent all but the eldest Elder scrambling. That being hardly seemed to notice the six stars that Sonafi sent its way. He twisted around to allow them to pass harmlessly, moving sinuously out of the way like flowing water and all the while maintaining eye contact with me. We stared at one another while Sonafi continued to plunge on ahead. She released another stream of the deadly stars as she moved, and finally the old Master was forced to give ground.
He ran up the wall to his left, across the ceiling, down the opposite wall and straight for Sonafi. She was now two steps ahead of me and ten steps from the old Master. I gained her side as they came together, as the slashing blades of the Palag danced around my wife and would've killed her if I had not added my own to her defense. Sonafi was immediately overwhelmed as she tried desperately to fend off the Master's blurring attacks, saving herself only by falling back before his attack while my blades halted his forward momentum. He crashed into my defense like a freight train and between the two of us we held him, barely.
The Palag Master's surprise was genuine as, possibly for the first time in its life, another living creature thwarted it, even if it took two. In the momentary lull which occurred while it appraised us, out of the corner of my eye I saw Sonafi's blades disappear and her hands reappear holding more stars. Two in each hand. Instant flicks of her wrists sent them hurtling towards the Palag in front of us. Then was it that I saw exactly what it was that we faced.
No more than five feet separated us from the Palag Master when Sonafi's hands came out of her loose-fitted clothing holding the stars. She released them with a blurring speed that even I could not follow, but all four stars, sent out in a horizontal line pattern that should not have given the Palag the leeway to escape, passed through only empty air where the creature had been. It moved with a speed that was both shocking and horrifying all at once, because I had never seen anything move so quickly, or so surely, in my entire life.
It was under no pressure from Sonafi's attack and even seemed to linger a moment mockingly before it did move. Yet it was gone long before Sonafi's stars passed through the empty air where it had been. It went up the wall to its right this time and, with momentum gluing it to both wall and ceiling, ran right above us, attacking me with its twin swords as it did so. Only the delay in the time it took it to run up the wall gave me an inkling of the attack that was coming and my swords somehow rose to parry his attack.
On our initial charge down the corridor Sonafi had scattered the other four Palag and now with all five Palag on the other side of us I grabbed Sonafi and bodily threw her behind me. In the sudden hush that ensued as the last of the Humans died on the swords of the four lesser Palag, we stood and took stock of our situation.
We were well out of our league, but we have faced seemingly overwhelming odds in the past and have lived to tell the tale, and if I could not destroy this Palag, he would destroy us all; all Vampires and all Humans. It was for my entire species and that of the Humans as well that I would now fight. I was the last line of defense and well I knew it. Everything rested on my ability to best this monster, yet I did not know how I was going to do it.
Its movements were blurs to me. From somewhere it had learned the art of swordplay and its skill was certainly that of the Master. It carried two blades, one that was obviously of Human manufacture and the other distinctly Palag, a fine ribbon of carbon with markings running down its length in a language I immediately recognized as otherworldly. I have been alive since before the conception of a written Human language and I am familiar, to a certain high degree, with all of them. This I immediately recognized as other than Human.
The other was a blade of such exquisite workmanship that at first I could not believe what I was seeing. Then I could not deny it. It was a Cumosachi Katana, one of Hamaterara Cumosachi's earlier works, but exquisite to a fine degree. I could not begin to imagine how the Palag had come by it, only of its authenticity. It was a Cumosachi Katana all right. I guessed then at the Palag’s other side. A side of them we had never before seen, a side of them that could value individual artistry. Something that made them more than just flesh and blood machines, pre-programmed to carry out their hive-like automata functions. They had individuality!
Of all the Palag I have witnessed only this Master had been allowed to carry such a Human artifact. Almost as if to do so was to give face value to a species they were effectively annihilating. There was no doubt in my mind now that here was the highest of the Palag. The Eldest of the Elders. He is the one to whom I must bring annihilation.
He almost killed me then. He came at me so quickly that I could not even register his movement. Only the millions of repetitions of sword movements that I had driven into muscle memory through my daily practice now allowed me to move, to react before I thought, before I had the time to think, and bring my swords up to parry those lightning fast attacks.
Showers of sparks flew as we danced around one another and our blades met a dozen times in the first millisecond's span. The Palag was perfectly at ease as he attacked me and I felt his nearness like a physical thing; despite the Field Generation riot helmet I wore which should have blocked all such telepathic communion, his conscious presence, if not his thoughts, were getting through. It was an immense, overwhelming weight which attempted, of its own right, to weigh upon my self-confidence, leach my resolve, bear me down by dint of his overshadowing superiority alone! The barest smile cracked the corner of his slit-like mouth as he pressed me, but with the truth shining from those fathomless black teardrop eyes it was more a sneer of contempt than any true Human empathy with my perceived dilemma. I did not think that this creature was any longer capable of humor, or any emotion besides rage. It had been consumed by its pre-programmed genetics to hate everything and anything that was not a continuation of its long lost progenitors' purpose. At that moment I actually felt sorry for him. Not so sorry that I would not kill him, but aware of the irony, the utter waste of such a long lived life, spent in hating everything around it, in
cluding the Juveniles of his own species.
A crash down the hall from where we had entered sounded the approach of our Vampire brethren as they ripped their way through the steel door like it was no more than aluminum foil and came pouring into the corridor to join the fight. They were none too soon. The four other Palag had turned to aid their Master and we would surely have been finished if those Palag did not now have to turn back to meet these Vampires. It was Samon Du Bon and Drye Ahmed leading the attack, I saw with amazement, having no idea where they had come from nor caring, either. Just that they were here was enough. They took one look at the situation and led the charge down the hall to meet the Palag. With an audible snarl, and the sneer which had been curling the Palag Master's lip now vanished like the morning fog under the hot rays of the rising Sun. He turned on me once again and I had no further time for thought.
Sonafi sidestepped me and slipped past as I tried to crowd her behind me while meeting the Master's attack. As my own blades countered the blurring attack Sonafi assaulted the Master, thrusting with her long knives and he had momentarily to give his time to defending himself from her attack. I used that moment to make a false attack, feinting with cane-sword and then the true thrust with my Cumosachi.
The Palag brushed my Cumosachi aside negligently with his Palag weapon, his parry a blur of speed even while his Cumosachi stove off Sonafi, who had gained his opposite side. He wove through her thrusts and slices like so much smoke through the slow moving blades of a fan. She was in instant peril for her life. Even one-handed and half his attention drawn to me she was still so far out of her league that it was purely only a matter of time. I had to draw more than half his attention, but even with only half of his attention, I was already beginning to struggle myself.
Our blades came together again and again as I began to attempt to turn the tide of his aggression and allow myself even the opportunity for one counterattack. If I could just get him on the defensive for one moment, I thought that I could change the tone of the entire fight, but I could do nothing to him, not even wound him. If I could not find enough of an opening for one single attack, when every iota of my energies seemed to be devoted to parrying the one blurring blade that danced around me, and that when I knew that my precious Sonafi faced a fight untold degrees more difficult than my own. She was only half my age, possessing half my abilities, yet fighting the same fight I now found so daunting. It could only be a matter of time if I did not do something and do it quickly.
I threw caution to the wind and forced myself to step closer, letting my training- how many thousands of years have I spent practicing, sword in hand, repeating the same motions over and over and over again until the sweat poured from my brow and those motions became instincts- take over for cognizant thought. Letting the patterns which had been ingrained into my cells by the millions of hours of practice, which were now as strong and powerful as instincts, direct my hands.
It was still all defense. He had not given me the time for one counter, but I was beginning to get a feel for the rhythm of his movements, to recognize before the move from where his blade would come, which way it would twist, turn or writhe. This school of attack wasn't an art I have ever before seen, and I have seen them all. All that this world had developed.
As I forced myself forward again, I began to feel rather than see the weakness in his forms. Only slight, miniscule things, but there, I could sense them- a significant pause here, the ever-so smallest opening there, things so small that they almost went undetected.
I tried to force myself forward once again, these increments so small they might not have been noticed under other circumstances but noticeable when cold steel barred the way. As I stepped forward, the Palag stepped back, towards Sonafi, and she fell away. It was with horror then that I realized she had been run through. It happened so quickly and my concentration had been so fully on the Palag that I had not seen the thrust which had done it. As she fell away, blood blossomed on her shoulder, above her heart! I only had the barest flicker of a moment to glance her way, because now the Master turned his full attention upon me!
I retreated under the new fierceness of his attack and now there could be no doubt. The curl of lip and sneer returned to his face.
I had never been forced to fight with such abandon in my entire life. Each blade fought with an essence each its own, each contest to be won or lost on its own merit. He pushed me back relentlessly, and I felt the nearness of the end of the corridor like a living, breathing thing, because the end of the corridor was a beast I could not overcome. He was better than I, faster, stronger, and the weaknesses I had sensed within his art were now more like illusions than ever, now that I faced both his blades, a surreal deception fed to me to trick me, but even as he pushed me back, even as I fought for my life, I began to anticipate his attacks. My blades began to rise to the expectation of his attacks rather than to barely fend them off, barely to stagger into their courses to deflect them only at the last moment. My backward flight slowed and I finally, consciously, took my last step backward, his furious momentum slowed by dint of my sheer willpower alone.
The look of surprise on his face could not be masked as I counterattacked for the very first time. He parried it easily but the mold had been shattered. I was able to strike three times while crowding him, looking for those weaknesses I had noted. They were there but even a flaw in his form could not easily be translated to an effective attack when the reflexes he possessed more than made up for those lapses.
A desperation suddenly seemed to come over him and the scene behind him explained why as he attacked me with a renewed vigor, but something had changed. I was no longer off-balance. I was meeting each attack squarely. Blade to blade and even pushing back. I realized then that I no longer feared him and knew that I would eventually wear him down and best him.
The Palag Master had other ideas than to be eventually worn down and bested. Leaving our contest he dropped both his weapons and sprang away from me to leap upon the wall to my right. He reached into his clothing and pulled out what I knew could only be a weapon. An energy weapon not of Earthly origin.
His leap had been only a fraction of a moment faster than the blade that Sonafi, undauntedly back to the attack, swung through the space the Palag had just occupied. Her left arm hung useless from the shoulder, the collarbone severed. A Vampire's accelerated ability to heal did not mean a broken or severed bone would knit as quickly as a flesh wound. She spun halfway around as the blades she had anticipated would strike the Palag actually met no resistance at all, and she finished the spin facing the snarling visage of the Eldest and the strange small weapon he held pointed now directly in her face.
Then, as if I were the Elder and the Palag no more than a newborn Juvenile I slowly, in a detached sort of way, watched the monster's finger settle towards the little actuator on the small weapon. It looked like something you might expect to find on the shelf of a toy store, but I never doubted for a moment that I was looking at a weapon which held the potential to completely obliterate its victim and probably the entire corridor beyond.
I was too far away to stop what was about to happen but I had to try. I spun the hilt of my Cumosachi Katana within the fingers of my right hand and raising it like a spear I cast it through the air. Even as I cast it, the Palag's finger settled on the actuator of the little weapon. Too late my Cumosachi flew through the air… then the entire side of the Palag Master exploded outwards in a black spray of blood and gore and bullets as a dozen agents who had followed the rest of the Vampires into the corridor suddenly found a clear, stationary target. The roar of those weapons rolled over me only a millisecond later, as the sound of the compressed combustion of those rounds caught up with the bullets they had propelled.
In an instant the Palag was struck hundreds of times, and it tore the old Master apart, ripping him from his perch on the wall and throwing him to the floor at my feet. The little weapon had not been discharged and I caught it in midair as it flew from the Pal
ag's nerveless dead fingers. I slipped the weapon into my pocket as I turned to Sonafi.
"I think that went well!" I said to her wide-eyed, open mouthed visage. She nodded. Shell shocked but recovering quickly.
"It could've been worse." She agreed. She looked surprised to be alive. I think we all were. Those of us who were alive.
Chapter 31
Azavar knew that her thoughts were going to give her away the moment that she stepped foot back aboard the Explorer Mother ship. She was the only member of the foray team to return but the pilot was at first busy at his controls and did not have the time to seek answers. She closed her mind to him and he did not press her. As the lone survivor it could be expected that she had suffered a traumatizing experience and was not readily willing to share it. Her people were not particularly social in the first place so it was no great surprise that she made it back to the Mother Ship without any questions being asked.
The larger shock came when she was allowed back aboard the Explorer Ship and no one either questioned her about the events which had led to the destruction of almost the entire party or even surprised that she was keeping her mind closed. The arrogance of the Elders was such that they did not deem anything she might have to say worth hearing, and it was soon to be understood that the Elders would do themselves what the Juveniles had failed to do.
Azavar could hardly believe that no one noticed the difference within her. That the other Palag- those few who still survived- could walk right past her and not know that within her an alien tide was surging, transforming her, remaking her into a new form. A day later, when its effects were completely manifested, she waited with bated breath every time one of the others came near to her, as infrequently as it occurred, but never once did one of the Elders approach her. They enjoyed the seclusion of the privileged upper decks and, knowing the effects they had on the Juveniles, the Elders seldom came down to bother them.
The Alien Agenda Page 23
