Using firm motions of her arms, Absinthe guided the second plane's pilot into the bay. As soon as it was deep enough for the roof's shadow to cover the cargo ramp, she was giving the kill signal.
"Get that ramp down!" she shouted. "We've got a bird waiting on the deck! Go, go, go!"
Lash nodded as the plane lurched back into motion. That meant plane two was offloading and they were getting waved forward to get ready to come into the bay. A glance at his chrono revealed they were almost at the point they would see the Nighthawks appear on the edge of the airstrip as they moved into position to pick up the Ventru strike team.
Almost as if the AI's guiding the gunships were listening in on his thoughts:
"Lord Commander Lash, Nighthawk One," a sexless voice spoke into his earpiece, likely having cycled through active vampire frequencies in use in the local area to find the right one.
"Nighthawk One, Lash. Go."
"Lord Commander, One and Two will be on-site in sixty seconds. Be advised, you have incoming enemy aircraft. Permission to assume active combat umbrella."
Enemy aircraft?? Lash took a step towards the window and looked out, eyes narrowed. Where? Better yet, how??
"ACU authorized, One. Go weapons hot. Protect the airstrip; we have assets in play."
"Acknowledged. Assets are in play. ACU now active. Firing."
With the rhythmic thud of helicopter rotors working hard against the thinner mountain air, two SA330 Pumas in dark gray paint jobs but with no identifying markings lifted above the edge of the airstrip. Each had their side doors open to reveal mounted and manned M134 mini-guns.
"Kadasa!" Lash snarled as he watched the two barrels swing around to focus on their transport. "Everybody down!"
Absinthe jerked as she heard the soft chitter of mini-gun fire slice through the thumping of the rotor blades and leaned out to take a quick look at the two Pumas hovering as they laced the third transport blade with devastating fire.
"Third plane is taking fire!" she snarled. Then she, Jensen, Morel, Faust and Kazza were stepping out in the open to open fire with their rifles at the two helicopters as, behind them, with their heads down, the rest of the breeders scrambled down the ramp and towards the entrance into the hub.
Armored against small arms fire, the two Pumas were untouched by the hailstorm of bullets the Ventru sent their way, multiple sparks marking the points where bullets were deflected away, including the glassed in flight deck. But it was enough to get their attention. As one stayed on station, raking the transport broadside with a two thousand rounds per second rate of fire, the other started swinging around, its mini-gun firing a line along the fuselage and over the cockpit before falling silent to allow the helicopter to bring it to target the hangar.
The Puma had its nose pointing at the hangar, the mini-gun swung as far forward as possible to begin firing as soon as it had a solution when, with a flare of motion and exhaust, an Impaler air to air missile hammered into the open side door and the Puma erupted into a ball of flame. It then quickly dropped out of sight.
Then, from the far end of the airstrip, the first of the Nighthawks appeared. With two large horizontal rotors on its shoulders with the ability to independently move to aid maneuvering, and smaller fans providing stability in the tail, the black painted Nighthawk was all curves and menace as it swung into view. Then the second helicopter was disappearing into another ball of flame, victim of another Impaler in the tail section.
A heartbeat later the second Nighthawk appeared over the left hand edge, smoothly and silently lifting into view, its gatling guns on gimballed mounts on the edge of the main rotors shifting uneasily. Then they were opening fire. But not at anything nearby.
Lash stood and again went to the window.
"Nighthawk One, Lash. I'm hearing weapons fire. Sitrep."
"Lash, Nighthawk One. Incoming rockets were detected. Gatling fire initiated to terminate inbound tracks before target lock was achieved," was the quick answer.
"Acknowledged. Maintain ACU. Lash out." As he pushed away from the window, he could see the armored metal and ceramic fuselage pushed in in a handwide furrow where the M134s were trying to cut the plane in half. He then looked over the breeders, who were huddling on the deck, many of them whimpering in fear.
"Everybody okay? Anybody with holes they weren't born with?"
"We're good, Lash!" Ellie said from somewhere in the uneasily group of breeders.
"Good." Then louder: "Pilot! Get us moving!"
Slowly standing back up from the crouch she had fallen into when the second helicopter was dropped out of the sky, Absinthe exchanged a quick look with Morel, and Fordricht, who had joined them just as the first Puma was blasted apart to signal all the breeders were safe. Then she was looking at the Nighthawk slowly weaving back and forth, its gatling guns silent for the moment.
"Dark Father's fuzzy beard, I didn't know we had those!" Then Fordricht was giving her a push in the shoulder.
"Focus," the North African growled. "The enemy has somehow found us. We need this plane cleared out of here so we can get number three in here and offloaded preferably before we come under fire again!"
With the Ventru refocused, they got the plane turned around in short order and pushed back out of the hangar bay. Then, as plane three moved to the side to give them room, they roared down the airstrip and jumped into the air at the end with a rocket assist to quickly climb out of sight. However, the third plane already moving forward didn't give them the opportunity to admire the second plane getting away
Props rumbling, the scarred transport slid into the hangar to put its ramp under shadow. But before the Ventru could move forward to get the ramp down and the breeders offload, the space was filled with heavily armed, black uniformed and helmeted vampiresses in tactical gear. One of them with what appeared to be a flash of silver on her collar, used tight gestures to send the rest out into the sunlight to set up a perimeter. Then the ones closest to the ramp were standing to the side to let the ramp drop.
Lash frowned as he spotted the black uniforms in a perimeter out in the sunlight. Legionnaires? Here? Then he pushed that out of his mind to look back at Ellie, giving her a nod. The former Ventru little sister returned the nod then turned to her fellow breeders.
"Come, my sisters," she called out. "Time to leave this plane behind!"
With a smooth surge, the breeders moved down the ramp, took a hard left and headed straight for the recessed staircase leading into the building. As they did that, Lash squeezed out the side with his duffel bag, teeth grit in effort to move quickly and smoothly with only half of his blood supply.
"You're looking a little shaky there, fella," one of the legionnaires turned to remark in a familiar voice. "You need a hand with that big, bad duffel bag?"
Lash couldn't help his snort.
"Captain Naryan Kingsguard," he said with a half smile. "A long way from NachtFeuer, aren't we?"
Naryan laughed lightly.
"Yeah, just a bit. Colonel Kassidy said something about a part two of a shared mission? I'm pretty sure you know what she's talking about."
Lash grimaced before he could stop himself.
"Aye, I know," he conceded. "At least she was smart enough to send you and your Vanguard legionnaires instead of garrison troops. How many did you bring?"
"The two squads I used to stop the White Flame infiltrators," she indicated, looking back at the black uniforms on the perimeter. "We basically got back on the choppers and got told to orbit until we had a destination. Which ended up being this place." She looked back at him. "Transit hub for the breeder network?"
She then looked at the breeders making their way off the transport even as Dru and Fiadh appeared, bracketing a gingerly moving Meredith as the three liliths moved down the ramp as well.
"And three planes full of breeders along with three liliths, one a senior sister of the Conclave." Naryan looked back at him. "I wasn't going to ask about the breeders 'cause frankly it's none of my damn business. But seriously, where the hell did you find so many breeders??"
"The White Flames hit the Night Market," Lash grimly reported. "Thousands of vampires dead. When the Legion ramparted, they pulled out all the liliths from the hidden city, but deemed the breeders too low of a priority to spend the resources to evacuate."
"Shadrak's Ghost," Naryan growled with a shake of her head. "Damn Atrix and her priority algorithm. So you went in and got them out? How the hell did you even know they were in there?"
"We went to retrieve the gear we left in the courtyard outside of the puzzle door when the Legion evacuated us out of there and saw the door had been breached with shaped explosives. I felt compelled to investigate and heard gunfire coming from the Blood Exchange. We infiltrated and moved in, discovering the breeders that were in the Exchange when the White Flames breached, hiding in a store room. Of the m'tada the Legion left behind to protect them, they were almost wiped out. Only one was left and he was bleeding out from a wound he took, cutting a sundog from his body before he ashed out."
Lash frowned as the last of the breeders left the plane and ran out of sight.
"I couldn't just leave them there, Narya."
Naryan shook her head.
"Of course you couldn't," she said. "You're Dark Father-blessed Ingamon Lash, Vampire God of the Ventru, protector of the weak and destroyer of our enemies."
Naryan paused to shake her head again, this time in disbelief.
"I leave you alone for less than a day and this is the trouble you get into!"
Then again she paused, this time as she looked up the ramp as the last of those inside came down.
"Ellisondra?" she exclaimed in disbelief. "Is that really you??"
As the two old friends embraced and excitedly began talking, Lash picked up his duffel and strode forward.
"Nighthawk One, Lash."
"Lash, Nighthawk One. Go, Lord Commander."
"Drop your ramp. Time we saddled up and left this place!"
The hovering gunship directly in front of the hangar immediately spun around and began to drop towards the ground. At the same time the loading ramp under its tail began to descend.
"Ventru!" he barked. "I want Fordricht and his First Squad on that bird now!"
His duffel already over his shoulder, the North African quickly pointed to eight nestari then began to jog towards the waiting Nighthawk, transitioning into the light without a pause, thanks to his EM generator. The soldiers that he picked out, quickly scooped up their gear and followed him through the light, running up the ramp to disappear inside.
"Kingsguard, one of your squads now!" Lash then directed.
Letting Ellie go from the hug they were sharing, Naryan snapped her visor back down.
"Galloway! Your squad on the bird, double time!" she tightly directed and half the legionnaires on the perimeter picked up and sprinted into the hangar to grab duffels of their own before they were joining the Ventru nestari already on board.
"Nighthawk One, clear the zone and run out the welcome wagon for those troops on board as this is the first time on a Qos Viran craft."
"Copy that, Lord Commander. Rolling out the welcome wagon protocol." And with that, the gunship smoothly banked out of the way to swing around and take up the overwatch position Two was sitting in. Which, for its part, was already moving forward. As soon as it was in place, Two eased lower to the ground and began dropping its ramp.
"Kingsguard, your second squad."
"Copy that, commander. Tanner! Your squad on the bird, double time!"
As the legionnaires let their perimeter down to sprint into the hangar to retrieve their gear, Lash looked back at the three liliths.
"Ready, ladies?" he asked. At their nods, he went on. "Okay, as soon as the Ventru squad makes the run through the sunlight to the ramp, stick tight to me. I'll extend my EM field to cover Druzha." Then Naryan was running out into the light on the heels of her last legionnaire, heading up the ramp and into the Nighthawk without hesitation.
"Truk, take the remaining Ventru into the second Nighthawk now!" And the Ventru sprinted forward.
As soon as the last of his nestari were on their way, the big vampire gathered himself even as he reached down to the EM generator on his hip to thumb it to full power.
"Here we go!" he said and felt the liliths press close to him. Then they were running through the sunlight.