The Vampires of Antyllus

by Michael E. Gonzales

  "There is what I call a universal antigen in their systems, making them immune to…well, everything.

  "When they become injured, those injuries heal completely and with amazing speed. Not surprisingly, they also enjoy unusually long lives. There is, therefore, no need for a clinic. But—" Reggie paused a moment and brought a finger to his lips, "that clinic, is in all probability, a laboratory built to study them."

  ○O○

  General Steinherz received Chuck's report over his COMde. Chuck had remained at his station in the coms center day in and day out, catching naps on a cot in an adjacent room. "Sir, I've been trying to pin down the source of the communications interference and simultaneously trying to circumvent it. What I've learned is that Indra is orchestrating the jamming. The question is…by whose order?"

  General Steinherz knew perfectly well that Wilmington had given the order. Wilmington knew the CDF had this Long Range Patrol out, and he knew they had scouted the clinic. The general also knew Wilmington did not want that patrol divulging any further information it may have learned to him.

  General Steinherz had made his secret plans. In fact, he and his staff had drawn up several different plans to deal with any likely discovery by Sel's SUBs. They ranged from apologizing to Wilmington, to lodging a simple complaint to the IIEA, and the planning went as far as a complete takeover of New Roanoke, including the possible use of deadly force.

  He also planned for a defense of the colony against the possibility of an attack by the Indigs. Whatever happened, he would be prepared to act, and he would take full responsibility.

  ○O○

  Chuck amplified and adjusted his equipment and sent out a ping to all COMdes on a maintenance signal that had been long in disuse. He hoped Indra ignored it as useless. Any active device within thirty kilometers should receive the signal and respond. That response would also provide him a real-time location for each device. He watched the monitor closely as he initiated the ping. In sixty-seven milliseconds, the signal went out and came back. In that brief modicum of time, Indra detected the attempt and shut down Chuck's maintenance signal. Nevertheless, the markers had flashed on the map faster than Chuck's eyes could perceive them.

  Standing to Chuck's immediate right was Captain John Hillhurt, a SUB. "I got it, Sergeant," he told Chuck. The captain had seen the display flash on the monitor, and it was now recorded in his memory. Chuck called up the map of New Roanoke and its surroundings out to forty kilometers on his computer.

  "As expected, the colony itself is lit up like a Christmas tree," the captain reported, "but here, south of us at the extreme range of the ping are three signals, very close together. Sergeant, did you stop to consider that Indra now has this information?"

  "Captain, Indra has been location pinging them on a covert beam for some time, now. What worries me is the location of the others. If the colonel found Dave, and I've no doubt she did, there should have been six responding signals.”

  "Sergeant," the captain responded, "what makes you think she found them, dead or alive?"

  "Faith, sir. I have faith in Lieutenant Colonel Selina. Sir, I need to monitor this station, would you please take this information to the general personally? I'm not using any form of E-coms. I'm sure Indra has everything covered."

  "I'm on my way, Sergeant."

  "And Captain," Chuck added, "I suggest you take a weapon with you."

  The captain stood still a second…then nodded.

  ○O○

  Mitch, Cassie, Webster, and Illat were making good time heading back to New Roanoke. They had spent last night in a small cave that Illat told them he used often while hunting. They left early the next morning, but only after Illat had eaten and the sun was well up.

  As they exited the small cave, Illat lifted his head and pinched his throat in an odd manner then opened his mouth very wide. He took a deep breath and produced a strange sound, unlike any produced by a terrestrial creature. The piercing sound echoed through the woods, and in moments it was repeated from some distance away. With their SUB's ears, Mitch, Cassie, and Webster heard it repeated even farther off. In a moment, the sound returned, the pitch and timbre were different, though.

  Illat looked concerned.

  "What's comot’n?" Mitch asked, using a popular slang. Illat just looked at him and shook his head, confused. Mitch tried again. "Comot’n, commotion, what's the S-2, give us a sitrep."

  "Dear," Cassie interrupted, gently taking her husband's hand, "you're just confusing the poor fellow." She then turned to Illat and asked, "Me'Kow Owlie Vesti?"

  "Kay," Illat replied. "Now, I am understanding. I have just made the anensa, and spoken to all E'meset who can hear. Their voices tell me your friends come out of the metal city to meet us. Two hands and one are out along our path. Another set of hands lines the path. We are still a flight of Pen'E Ku away."

  "A flight of what?" Mitch asked.

  "Pen'E Ku is their small moon, the fast moving one," Cassie replied. "I take it to mean we have about six hours before we walk into—"

  "Their ambush," Mitch ended her sentence. "How does Wilmington know where we are?"

  Cassie thought a moment, and then her eyes lit up. "Mitch, Brenda…our COMdes! They must be using them to locate us! Shut them down!"

  With a simple mental exercise, they all shut their communication devices off.

  Mitch turned to Illat and explained. "Those people who came out of the metal city are not our friends. We need to get back by some other means."

  "Coola, Ula lavat…come," Illat responded, and started off at a trot, Mitch and Cassie followed.

  Illat's plan was to circle around the ambush site way to their left, then close in on the entry point from out of the west.

  By late that afternoon, they lay near the crest of a hill looking down on the door through which they could get back beyond the security wall and into the compound.

  "I would have people watching this door," Cassie observed.

  "Particularly after they lost our signal and then we failed to walk into their trap," Webster added.

  "I don't see anyone," Mitch added. "Do you think these mercs are that good?"

  "I will go see," Illat volunteered.

  Cassie took his hand as he was about to jump up. "Be careful Illat, these are bad men."

  Illat looked at her, smiled, and said, "Kayan nein Lu'aya taho."

  As Cassie watched him vanish like a ghost into the woods, she softly repeated his words in English for Mitch, "I go as Lu'aya wills."

  They waited. Waiting was the hardest part. Mitch remembered in Oceania, when he was still a bio, waiting to attack or be attacked. He remembered his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to control his breathing. He remembered the taste in his mouth, the feel of his stomach tied in knots, how his arms felt heavy like he'd not be able to lift his weapon when the time came. What he was recalling was fear. It was with him now like an old and unwelcome companion. He also remembered how, when the first shots were fired, his debilitation vanished, even if his fear did not, and he did what had to be done.

  Mitch glanced at Cassie, who seemed resolute and calm. It dawned on him that this was just like those last hours on the Moon during the battle inside JILL. He was fighting for Cassie, to protect her. He would protect her again. His fear fled.

  Mitch was about to comment on how quiet it had become. Just like in Oceania. Quiet just before—

  Six shots rang out and voices could be clearly heard.

  "It went that way!" a voice with a heavy Eastern European accent was heard to call out.

  "No, no it's over here!"

  "I got a blood trail, this way!" a third voice shouted.

  The sound of the men tramping through the forest was easy for Mitch and Cassie to hear. They did not, however, hear Illat.

  Several moments passed, then Illat appeared out of the foliage and ran to them. He slid down the little rise behind which Mitch and Cassie had taken cover and began panting for breath.

 
"Are you hurt?" Cassie asked.

  Illat raised his arm to expose a large wound in his side. A bullet had struck him, but glanced off a rib. He looked at both Mitch and Cassie, then lifted his bloody hand and touched both in the center of their chests leaving a bloody handprint there.

  "Yuhes tuva an?" he asked.

  "Yes," Cassie replied, "we are your friends."

  Illat's large green eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward. Mitch and Cassie grabbed him. He was losing a lot of blood. They laid him back upon a bed of black and orange ferns.

  Webster opened the bio med pack she carried and applied a spray that stopped the bleeding, temporarily.

  In a weak voice, Illat said, "Toysata da quey…vee lavat." The long narrow pupils of his eyes opened wide, like doors allowing his soul to escape.

  "Illat!" Cassie’s voice was bursting with sorrow. She turned to Mitch, and with her eyes shut, grabbed him and hugged him. "Mitch," Cassie’s voice was both sad and urgent, "he said there are five, and they are coming! Get ready!"

  ○O○

  Webster had moved thirty meters to the far right of Cassie and Mitch's position and hid behind a large tree. She was carrying a war club. Cassie had three throwing spears and Mitch a single heavy lance.

  Five thugs busted out of the woods and stopped. "Where did it go?" one shouted.

  "Hey…the blood trail leads there."

  They all started running toward the mound behind which Mitch and his wife were hiding.

  "We got the bastard now." Those words were the last this mercenary ever spoke. In a flash, Cassie had popped up and launched her spear. It sliced through the man's neck and he fell backward, spitting blood. Cassie's attack was incredibly fast. She hopped up and fired again. This spear entered her target's right eye; the thug was dead when he hit the ground.

  The three remaining mercs opened fire, peppering the mound of dirt with a fusillade of bullets.

  Their thunderous firing was all the cover Brenda Webster needed. Having gotten behind the mercs, she used the fury of their gunfire to mask the sound of her rush from behind. Her first blow cleaved her target's head completely off. She followed through with her swing and chopped the other man's right arm off below the elbow; he fell to his knees screaming, out of the fight. The last man had already turned around and fired five rounds, two of which struck Webster in the abdomen. His finger then came off the trigger as Mitch's lance pierced his body armor and destroyed his heart. Cassie had grabbed Webster before she hit the ground.

  "Brenda, talk to me."

  "I'm okay, he missed my power supply, but the servos for my hips and legs are out. Leave me. I'll cover your rear."

  The one-armed man was whimpering on his knees nearby. He reached for a pistol with his remaining hand. Mitch kicked the pistol out of his hand with his left foot, and then kicked the mercenary in the chest. He fell backward, unconscious when he hit the ground. There he lay, bleeding out.

  "We'll carry you," Cassie told Webster.

  "Don't be silly. I'll only slow you down, and you know as well as I do that, even on the other side of that wall, you're still targets. You need to move and move fast, now go."

  "Just shut up, Brenda!" Cassie reached down and scooped her wounded comrade up and into her arms effortlessly.

  Mitch had grabbed all the weapons and ammo, which the mercs would no longer need, and they headed for the door in the wall.

  ○O○

  Sensors placed along the wall detected the discharge of firearms just outside the perimeter near door seven and alerted the security command post. This information was instantly relayed to Chuck in the coms center.

  Chuck knew what this meant. He leapt up, busted out the door, and started running down the hall to the security CP. As he neared the corner, he noticed a bullet hole in the wall but kept running. He tapped his right temple to initiate his COMde and called the XO.

  "Sir, do you have company?"

  "Yes, we do. A little birdy with a hurt wing, but he made it."

  "Roger. Be advised we have a lariat advance situation."

  Chuck burst into the security CP and headed for Captain Campbell.

  "Have you got them on camera?" he asked.

  "The camera recorded five of Wilmington's goons jump up from a hidden position and fire into the forest behind them."

  "That's got to be our people. Did you see anything else?"

  "No, I…wait, look!" The captain's eyes grew large and he pointed at the monitor. There, rushing toward the gate, were Mitch and Cassie, who was carrying Webster. Despite being wounded, Webster had a rifle. Mitch also had one in his hand and three over his shoulder.

  "Let me see them from cam eighty-two," Chuck ordered.

  The captain switched the view to that seen by camera eighty-two. A door in the side of the colony was open and a large number of Wilmington's mercenaries were rolling out.

  Chuck looked at the captain, who understood, and nodded. "I'm alerting the ready reaction force, I'm placing them on weapons hold unless fired upon."

  As the captain typed into the computer he said, "Sergeant, we're going to need approval for this."

  "I'm calling the general right now, sir."

  "On your COMde?"

  "Sir, Indra already knows."

  ○O○

  Mitch, Cassie and Webster were headed toward the side of the colony to the airlock that would put them right inside the CDF portion of the facility. Ahead of them were three kilometers containing a forest of thigh-high blue and purple vegetation, beyond that, was the landing tarmac, the taxiway, and the aircraft parking area.

  Off to their right, Mitch caught movement. He zoomed in to see a large number of armed mercs running their way. SUBs could, of course, run faster, but the mercs did not have as far to go to intercept them. Mitch knew they were not going to make it.

  "Put me down, dammit!" Webster demanded. "I can slow them down…give you a chance. Right now, you don't have one."

  Though there were no tears—SUBs couldn’t cry—weeping was evident in Cassie's voice, as she sobbed, "No!"

  "Mitch, explain it to her, will ya?"

  "Brenda, I don't have to. We're soldiers, too. If we go down, we all go down together."

  "What the hell, are you—a lyricist now? If you're soldiers, be soldiers. Leaving me behind is a classic delaying action. Think of me as le arrière-garde, the rear guard."

  "No!" Cassie cried again.

  Webster began to fight against Cassie's hold until, at last, she struggled free and fell to the ground. As Cassie turned to retrieve Webster, a bullet snapped in the air between them, followed by several that slammed into the ground around them.

  "Go, run!" Webster shouted at them, and then she took aim and dropped a merc at 300 meters.

  Mitch grabbed Cassie's arm and pulled her toward him. "Baby, please, we're gonna get killed!" he pleaded.

  Cassie only surrendered to him because the crescendo of gunfire was drowning out his voice. Cassie cried tearlessly, and unabashedly. The two took off again for the airlock door and safety. They had run about 150 meters when the rattle of gunfire suddenly melded together into one massive roar. Turning around, they saw Brenda being ripped apart by a swarm of angry bullets. From this distance, it didn't look much different than the death of a bio, with the exception that there was no blood, only a froth of white mist. Above her head, they saw her identifier, "CDF – CYB – 223 – Webster, Brenda. Sergeant First Class" as it slowly faded away.

  From out of nowhere, Mitch and Cassie were surrounded by CDF soldiers in their blue and gray camouflage uniforms. There were at least 150 of them, perhaps more. Several of them took Mitch and Cassie and started to move them away from the confrontation. As they were being shuffled off, they heard a familiar voice over the PA system. "This is the CDF. You mercenaries are ordered to stop where you are and lay down your arms immediately. We are authorized to use deadly force should you fail to comply," announced Chuck.

  Chapter 17

  Bürg
erkrieg

  General Steinherz, his XO—Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, and his aide—Captain Scott, watched the large, holographic monitor in the general's office anxiously as the SUBs were secured by friendly forces.

  "Why didn't the guard towers open fire on them?" Captain Scott asked.

  "Doubtless because Wilmington wants the two scientists alive to determine what they have learned," the general responded.

  "Can't we stop this, sir?" the captain asked.

  "It's entirely in Wilmington's hands. At this very moment, his commander on the ground out there is asking him what to do. What do you think Wilmington will say?"

  "I hope he'll tell his men to stand down."

  "He won't," the general stated flatly. "There will be bloodshed, and then we'll have all we can do to stop a general rebellion. Colonel Fisher, execute op plan Troglodyte."

  "Yes, sir." Fisher saluted and headed off.

  "Troglodyte, sir?" the captain asked. As he did, the world on the monitor exploded. Several of the mercenaries opened fire and four of the CDF men fell. The main body of the CDF went prone and returned fire. Simultaneously, a third of the CDF force which had moved to a flanking position, now engaged the mercs.

  With far less experience and discipline, the merc force was ill prepared to engage the numerically superior force of highly trained veterans of the CDF. They found themselves in a crossfire. Some mercs didn’t react fast enough and were dead before they pulled the trigger. Some tried to dash for cover and died running. Those that just dropped in place survived the initial volley, but almost half their comrades were out of action by the time they'd hit the dirt.

  In seconds, the sound of gunfire diminished as the shock of the CDF's response sank in. Again, Chuck's voice blasted out of the PA, "Leave your weapons on the ground and slowly stand up, or you will be killed."