This Forsaken World Chapter 15
Sergeant Victor Grimm
As we drove through the city I did my best to avoid any roaming patrols. Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult as they were too busy flushing civilians out of hiding. I hoped our luck would hold as I tried to remember the exact location of the crash.
You'd think it would be easy to find a massive site of destruction but either I had imagined the event or I had no sense of direction at all. After what felt like an eternity I saw a stream of smoke in the distance angling towards the outer wall and grinned.
Excited that we were going to be able to escape, I cursed as our luck failed us. A pair of enemy scout mechs spotted us and attempted to cut off our approach. Shards of metal speared out from twin cannons and I swerved behind a destroyed Alliance tank.
Hank was barely able to avoid the fire, a few shards piercing the driver side of the mustang and causing him to slam sideways into the side of a building. The muscle car scraped along the surface, glass, metal and sparks flying everywhere before he recovered.
A handful of infantry fanned out in front of our truck and trained weapons on us as the mechs followed the mustang, the infantry unable to follow the fast vehicle, therefore focusing on our stationary truck.
"Evan!" I yelled, grabbing both pistols and jumping out of the cab to take cover behind the armored vehicle in front of me. The machine-gun opened fire as the private unloaded on the enemy troops.
Leaning out from cover, I tracked an alien attempting to change positions and fired on him with a pair of rounds. The pistols weren't very accurate at this range but one of the bullets hit its target in the shoulder and he spun sideways, falling to the ground. I wasn't sure if it was a kill shot but it was better than nothing.
"We need to get out of here!" I yelled, noting it was pretty obvious Evan couldn't hear me over the machine-gun. I tried to decide if the truck was safe to drive again under the circumstances.
While the Staff Sergeant was most likely on his way to the breach in the wall with the mechs on his tail, I didn't think we could safely leave without taking heavy fire from the enemy infantry spread out in front of us.
A loud click sounded as Evan ran out of ammo and he cursed, throwing himself out of the vehicle and landing in a heap on the ground. Scraping up the shotgun from the bed of the truck, he took cover next to me and grinned.
"I got at least four of them!" He leaned out of cover and fired a shot. "Man I'd love to have a sniper rifle or a marksman rifle right now."
Looking around for a solution to our predicament I growled as nothing came to mind. The private continued to talk over the gunfire.
"You know, I was supposed to be a sniper, but there were no openings and I was moved to line infantry instead. Damn shame that, I'm a hell of a shot!" Another shotgun blast echoed almost as if he was proving a point, the sounds of an injured alien finishing the statement.
"Listen, we're running out of ammo fast and there going to get reinforcements soon with all this gunfire." I surveyed our surroundings once more and grinned as I saw something interesting.
"There!" I shouted, firing another pair of rounds blindly around the corner. I pointed with a pistol barrel to an object that was barely visible behind a buildings stone pillar. Evan followed my direction and smiled broadly. "Shit, is that real?!"
The run to our salvation was at least a hundred yards over open ground and my ammo was almost out. I just hoped the vehicle would run, if not we were well and truly dead.
"I'm gonna fire until I'm out, you break out of cover and rush over there. Get it running and draw there fire so I can run around that building to our right. Swing around and pick me up and we'll get the hell out of here. Ready?" I asked.
Evan nodded, fishing the last shotgun shells out of the bandoleer and pumping the slide to load a fresh round. He only had four more shots but it would have to do.
Breathing in and out a few times to get my courage up, I jumped up and fired both pistols in a sweeping arc in front of me. The alien's dove for cover as the bullets pinged off the cover they were hiding behind.
Evan broke into a run straight for the vehicle, going into serpentine mode right and left to throw off the aim of the enemy. As he dove behind the pillar and cleared the open ground, I smiled and squeezed the trigger on the last of my bullets, the slides locking back as the weapons emptied. The roar of an engine sent a thrill through me as the private rode into sight on a Ducati V4 Superbike.
The motorcycle was a bit out of its era but it was well preserved and had to belong to a collector who rode it daily within the city. It was a thing of beauty and the sounds it emitted did the job of drawing enemy fire.
"Hell yeah, now that's one of the few things that might trump a muscle car." I smiled as I watched him pull a wheelie, vanishing around a corner with over half the infantry pursuing him.
I was about to take advantage of the distraction when an alien rushed me and I cursed. Of course this would happen, my luck really sucked!
Commander Devin Crowe
Sighing I shook my head. "Figures. You guys look like the vampire's were described in old fiction. Fine, you can have some blood, just don't take too much, if you didn't notice I've already lost quite a bit." I turned my attention to the MP's in front of us.
"Stand down, but if she kills me, your free to fire every bullet in your guns until she's dead." The men looked between themselves before lowering there weapons reluctantly.
"Go ahead." I whispered, glancing over my shoulder. Sally smiled before giggling. "Yeah, your too tall, I'm going to have to improvise in order to feed on you properly."
The white haired woman jumped onto my back and used her legs to grip my midsection, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and burying her fangs into my jugular. At first there was pain like getting a shot, then a wave of pleasure swept through me and I shivered.
I couldn't quite describe the sensation but it was close to having an orgasm and I bit my lip. Sally drank deeply for a few long seconds before pulling away and licking the puncture marks. "Ah, much better. You taste great by the way." A kiss on the cheek and she let go, jumping off of me and moving to stand against the wall.
Touching my neck I was taken aback by the lack of a wound. I turned to face the vampire and she smiled, licking her lips to clean up any trace of blood. "Alright what was that? How did you heal the wounds and why did it feel so good?" My head was spinning as I struggled to get my emotions under control.
Sally crossed her arms in front of her. "Oh female vampires can give pleasure to there victims. Since we're not as strong as males we're gifted with other...incentives to help us feed. Also our saliva can heal wounds to conceal any evidence of a feeding if we want to remain unnoticed. That's why there are very few stories in your history of female vampires, mostly just males like that Dracula idiot."
Chuckling at this, the look she gave me threw me off. "Wait, he was real?" I took a seat in one of the chairs and watched her in fascination at all of the information she was giving me. Sally moved to sit across from me and leaned forward so she was a few inches away.
"Oh yes, he was a general. In command of a scout fleet his job was to monitor your planet for potential slave stock but he became greedy and tried to stake a claim for himself. He had planned on hiding the discovery from the Nocturnal fleet but one of his own men turned on him and stranded him on Earth. You know the rest I'm sure. I must admit, he made a name for himself but ninety percent of the story is all bullshit, trust me." Sally leaned back in her seat and smiled.
"Okay, so I'm assuming all of the stories of vampires in our past were what, spies, scouts and rogue elements of your military?" The woman nodded.
"Right. So why did it take your fleet so long to finally make a move on the planet when you knew we'd continue to evolve as a species and become harder to enslave?" I wanted to write all of this down but we were in short supply of paper lately.
"Ah see that's where it gets interesting. Our race is mobile, since sunlight is almost deadly to us we don't stay on any planet for very long." Before she could continue I held up a hand to stop her. "How is it deadly? The sun I mean." Sally inspected her fingernails as she answered.
"It can blind us, cause severe sun burn and make us overheat quickly. While we don't burn and sizzle and turn to dust like you people think, it is close enough to the truth." Satisfied with her nails, the woman leaned forward and looked me straight in the eye.
"Want me to continue your previous question?" Sliding a finger along my jaw I shivered. "Yes please."
Smiling, Sally sat back once more. "As I was saying, we move from planet to planet. We send in scouts to sabotage infrastructure and turn the population into fanatics with promises of being turned into a vampire and becoming immortal. That bit is also not true, we can't turn people into vampires but we are more or less immortal. We age incredibly slowly and the longest lived Nocturnal is around six thousand years old, give or take." An MP tapped on the door and I turned to look.
"Yeah?" I asked as the man entered. "Captain wants a status report on the interrogation." The guard informed me. I shook my head. "No status yet, tell her this could take a while." The MP left the room to pass on the message and I turned back to face Sally.
"Sorry about that." The woman nodded and continued with her story.
"Aside from creating chaos and anarchy, we also send in a deadly virus to control the population so there more manageable when we invade. The virus kills the indigenous lifeforms and reanimates them so they attack anything uninfected they see. The idea, which has worked very well I might add, is to force the survivors into isolated communities so there all in one place instead of spread out through the planet." I cursed.
"Just like you did with us when we built walled cities and strongholds to fight against the infected. I must say, that's a brilliant strategy. I assume it also helps to disable military forces and control over population so the opposition isn't as powerful to put up a huge fight?" Sally smiled at this, her eyes lighting up with renewed interest.
"Exactly, your quite smart for a human. I must say, from what I've seen if I had to be enslaved by anyone, I rather like the idea of being yours." The word 'yours' and how she said it sent a wave of excitement through me.
I knew it was bad to have a slave and to even think about it was revolting, but she was a truly beautiful creature and so far from talking to her I had taken a great liking to her personality. She was playful while being strong willed and she had a seductive edge that made my entire being thirsty for her pleasure.
"Ahem, moving on." I waved a hand for her to continue and she smirked, noticing me shift uncomfortably in my seat as I tried to hide my arousal.
"That's why we waited to invade, that and we were a bit busy. The Nocturnal fleet has made a lot of enemies in the years of our traveling and well...we had to fend off a combined assault. Four surviving species from previous harvests banded together to try and attack us. It was an amazing fight, lasted about fifty years." From the look in her eyes, blood lust was coursing through her from memories.
"Just how old are you?" I inquired.
"Oh, five hundred and twenty two of your Earth years." Wow, so the idea of potentially dating someone was indeed the concept of 'older woman'.
"I gotta say, you look great for someone over five hundred years old." I tried to joke. She evidently didn't catch the expression and raised an eyebrow.
"Did you defeat the enemy?" I continued, the moment rather awkward for me. I tapped my fingers on the table and watched her carefully, trying to assess her thought process. While she was very emotional, her true intent and thoughts were hard to read.
"Naturally. Our fleet is vast and we have armada's all over the universe. Reinforcements arrived in time and we eventually defeated them. That's when we turned our attention on you. See, we have to go from planet to planet to keep a fresh flow of blood. While we keep slave labor forces, if we were to feed on all of them we'd have nothing left. Male vampire's almost always kill there victims, there animal urges take over and they can't control themselves." She sighed at this and shook her head.
"Men..."
I laughed out loud and she smiled, sharing in my humor.
"I imagine Angel would agree with you on that one. Now that I think about it, you two would get along great. Okay, so you planted the virus, you stirred up those idiots who attacked our ground forces and sabotaged the orbital station defenses and now your hunting down every human you can find. Anything else you can tell me?"
Sally thought about this for a moment, staring at the ceiling and putting a finger on her chin. "Not that I can think of. So, what are you going to do with me?" She asked, staring at me intently.
"For now, you stay in here. I have to ask the Captain what she thinks since she outranks me the decision isn't mine to make. I don't know how your armed forces work but in our military we have rank and structure. I know you said Dracula was a General but that doesn't tell me a lot. I'm only a Commander, so in the Alliance I'm an upper tier officer but there are a lot of people above me. The Captain is in command of this ship so I report to her. If you need anything, ask the MP's outside and I'll return when I can."
I stood up and started for the door before Sally wrapped her arms around my midsection from behind and pressed her head against my back, being careful to avoid my wounds. "Don't be gone too long. Also, I was a Captain so if this were the Nocturnal Fleet, I'd outrank you. Think about that when your away, Master." I felt like someone had taken my breath away from not only the proximity of the woman but the word Master.
Shaking my head, I disengaged from the embrace and left the room, my thoughts twirling and tumbling from the influx of new information and mixed emotions.
Sergeant Victor Grimm
Just as the alien was about to fire a tranquilizer weapon at me I threw one of my empty pistols. The weapon slammed into the assailants face and he stumbled sideways. For some reason the enemy was still wearing the thick ventilation masks and I couldn't figure out why.
My thoughts on this were interrupted as a second alien charged me. Spinning to the left I knocked the weapon aside and slammed my open palm into his gut. The enemy soldier grunted and staggered and I followed up with a round house to the side of the head laying the man out on the ground. My ankle was killing me and I struggled to keep my balance as I recovered from the kick.
The roar of the bike was still sounding around me as Evan continued to draw the enemy away and I scooped up the tranquilizer gun the enemy had been carrying, making haste to run towards a nearby building.
I checked to make sure the strange weapon was loaded and circled the building. The sounds of the bike engine echoed as it got closer and excitement ran through me as the private came into sight, a dozen infantry shooting weapons at the rapidly moving rider.
Evan slid to a stop so I could jump on before revving the engine and taking off again. I did my best to hold on and growled in his ear. "Just because we're this close together doesn't mean I'm buying you dinner!" I snapped, firing the weapon one handed at an enemy as we rode past.
Evan laughed at my comment as the dart speared the enemy in the neck and I threw the weapon aside. The bike sped up as the private gave it more gas and we closed the distance swiftly to the hole in the wall.
The pair of mechs I assumed were chasing the mustang earlier came into view and Evan performed a few sharp evasive maneuvers to avoid the incoming fire as they opened up. Taking a sharp turn, the private went off road along the sidewalk in front of a sky scraper.
As we cleared the building, Evan cut right and we rode into the open, our destination looming ahead of us. "There!" I cried out as the mechs attempted to target us, trying to spin in place. The two tall war machines accidentally collided as they got too close and they fell away from each other to crash onto the ground.
"Nice!" I called out. The private smiled as he found a gap, ramping the bike off a concrete slab and clearing the wall. Finally we were out of the city and I breathed in a sigh of relief.
I pointed ahead to some tire tracks in front of us. Evan nodded and began to follow the markings, obviously evidence of the Mustang. Looking around at the open landscape before us I smiled to myself. While there were infected humans trying to chase us all around we were no longer trapped in the walls and the enemy was behind us.
While we still needed weapons, ammo, food, shelter and more humans to put together a resistance, it was a start. At least out here we had a chance to reorganize for a counter attack or at least to hinder the enemy operations.
Looking back over my shoulder I marveled at the sight of more enemy ships breaking through the cloud cover, alien reinforcements and more than likely a true invasion force, coming to lay claim to its prize.
I turned back to the path before us as the Mustang came into view and noted Hank waving at us. The Staff Sergeant was leaning up against the vehicle, a bloody patch on his left shoulder. Lila and Lucas were near the trunk, unscathed, and waving excitedly as we approached.
Evan slid to a stop and I dismounted. At the moment no infected were in sight but that would change quickly. "Glad you made it." I said, clapping the grizzled veteran on his good shoulder.
"Aye, same. So now what?" He asked, shaking hands with Evan.
Sighing, a feeling of freedom filling me as well as a desire for revenge, I turned back to the city. "Well, after we get settled and organized, its time for some payback..."