Reaching the bottom of the staircase, Narcist paused, her eyes narrowed as she searched the heavy shadows in every direction. While vampires possessed superior night vision, they still needed at least a modicum of illumination to make that happen. While she didn't doubt this space had powerful lights and spotlighting for displays and such, somebody had gone through the trouble of turning them all off. Which meant there was an ambush out there, waiting for them to trigger it.
"My left fang for an IR flare!" she muttered as the rest of Viper Team gathered behind her, each of them staring off into the pitch darkness beyond the gloom at the foot of the stairs.
"C'mon," Naryan growled. She could feel the enemy measuring them from their hiding places in the dark.
All five twitched when there with a meaty thud from the darkness, fingers twitching on their triggers. Then their hearts began to race as it was followed by several more, mingled with sounds of pain, and the odd muted 'crack' of bone breaking. Then silence, aching with tension and thick with mystery.
Out of that silence a familiar figure strode, dropping what appeared to be a bloody sword as he did.
"Viper Team," Lash said with a measured look. "Are you waiting for something in particular?"
"Light damn you, Ingamon Lash!" Naryan sputtered as Truk laughed out loud, no longer surprised at how the big vampire managed to cheat death at every turn.
"The man knows how to make an entrance," Ballan said with a grin, sharing a fist bump with Truk and Absinthe.
Smiling, Narcist walked up to the big man and held out a fist, which Lash calmly bumped.
"Good to see you, boss," she said, naked relief in her voice.
"Good to see you, Narcist." Then he was grunting as Naryan threw her arms around him in a tight hug. A hug that Narcist quickly joined in on, followed by a still chuckling Truk, a smiling Ballan and a grinning Absinthe.
"See, Abs?" Narcist whispered. "Too damn cheerful!"
"Alright, team," Lash said, gently untangling himself from the group embrace. "We can do warm and fuzzy back on the Nighthawks. We still have a job to do!" Then he was turning to step back into the darkness.
"Stay close. I don't want you tripping over the bodies!"
Tanner and her team had most of the over two dozen liliths being held captive detached from their harnesses and lying on the floor by the time Lash led Viper Team back through the pitch black market interior to the storage room. As they moved into the air, Lash was sending them with tight knife hands to the clusters working on the liliths on the ground to close off the non-essential tubes and connect the spare air supplies to their airways.
"Strike One, Viper One. Sitrep," Lash said as he knelt beside one of the legionnaires and helped her secure an air supply to the side of the unmoving lilith's face mask.
"Viper One, Strike One. We have penetrated the enclave nearly five hundred meters and are currently clearing a nest of shifters in armor with heavy guns," Fordricht reported tersely. "We're seeing shoulder-mounted anti-personnel weapons being moved up the street but smart munitions are keeping them unable to dig in and deploy."
"Copy. I need you to hold them there for another ten minutes then start your withdrawal back to the stairs. Recon Two has the majority of the liliths secured. Those ten minutes will get them outside and in a Nighthawk."
"Copy ten mikes to exfil. Get the queens to safety, boss. We'll keep them occupied in the meantime!"
"Copy, Strike One. Good hunting." Then Lash was disconnecting to focus on prepping the remaining liliths to move.
It was a frenetic few minutes spent getting the liliths cut down, the tubes to their suits secured, then carefully moved to the sea entrance. Then Tanner and her team were gearing back up to make sure a path was still clear past the sub parking lot.
A few tense moments then Tanner was reappearing to flash a thumbs up.
"Nighthawk Two, Viper One," Lash said as Truk and Ballan began to carefully lower the liliths into the water and the waiting hands of Tanner's marines.
"Viper One, Nighthawk Two," Fiadh answered. "Go."
"Bring the gunship to where the marines were dropped and have it drop its cargo net into the water through the belly door," Lash spoke quickly. "Have Ellie and Meredith standing by with medical gear. We're putting the liliths into the net and winching them aboard that way. And have Dru cover the net. We've got merpeople in the water and they may attempt to retake the liliths before they're secure. Do you copy?"
"I copy, Lash," Fiadh said confidently. "Dru is setting up the cargo net now and Ellie and Meredith are prepping the beds. Standby for the net in the water in thirty seconds!"
"Copy thirty seconds. Tanner's team is on the move!"
With a handful of the marines forming a cordon to keep an eye out for merpeople attacks in the dark water, Tanner and a couple of her team pulled the liliths in a rope chain out of the entryway and towards the spot they had been dropped off at. Just as they were about ten meters from the spot, the water abruptly lit up from spotlights shining down from the Nighthawk hovering smoothly above. Then the heavy, woven-nylon cargo net was dropping onto the surface.
Reaching it with a couple of hard kicks, Tanner pulled it down and began to quickly and carefully load the liliths into it
"Second rope chain is in the water, Tanner," Lash indicated over comms. "We're following it in. Recon One, Strike One and Two are exfiling now!"
"Copy, Viper One," she replied into her diving helmet's built-in comms. "Last lilith in chain one is now in the net." She looked up at the dark mass of the hovering Nighthawk with its rectangle of light marking its belly door.
"Dru. Net is loaded. Commence the winch in!"
Dru's voice came over the comms.
"Copy loaded net," the Nosferatu queen replied. "Winching in now!" And the heavy cargo net, now filled with the unmoving forms of fourteen liliths, lifted out of the water.
As she watched the net begin its ten meter journey into the hovering gunship, Tanner caught flashes of light beneath the surface out of the corner of her eye. Immediately dropping below the surface, she looked in that direction. And watched several of her legionnaires firing their Stingers at dimly-seen figures moving towards them from deeper water.
One round, punched out fast enough to be undodgeable even under water, darted through the intervening distance to hammer into a merman, the water breather illuminated by the dancing net of discharging electricity that cocooned him on impact. And he was revealed as a humanoid the size and dimensions of an average human male with visible gill slits in the neck and webbing between the fingers and around the feet to help them move quickly through their preferred medium. These were further assisted in their watery travels by close-fitting wetsuits, engineered to keep them warm in almost any temperature of water, their hair left deliberately long as a visual means of identifying individuals.
Then the cocoon of artificial lightning was gone and the dark shape that was the merman began to slowly sink out of sight towards the sea floor. And he wasn't the only one: striking from multiple vectors, the cordon was under siege by a determined force that easily outnumbered them.
"We're running out of Stingers here, Tanner," Rollins bit out as a second wave washed over the beleaguered perimeter. "Another five minutes and we'll be out and they'll overrun us."
Then Lash was coming back over comms.
"Dru, you should see controls for harpoons close to the belly door controls," he said.
"Copy, Lash, I see them. And there's a lightning bolt symbol on one of the buttons. Can these be given a charge?"
"They can. Charge them now by pressing that button. It will go red. As soon as they turn blue, they are ready to fire. And once you activate the harpoon controls, a targeting screen will appear. It uses IR cameras to identify targets in any condition."
"I've got it active," Dru indicated. "And I'm picking up multiple signals beyond our perimeter."
"Merpeople attacking our lines. Target them and fire a charged harpoon into their midst as soon as you're able." Lash directed. "And before you ask, the Recon team will be fine. Their suits are insulated."
"What about you and Viper Team?" she quickly countered.
"Never mind us," Lash firmly suggested. "Just clear those merpeople off Recon Two!"
There was a slight pause as Dru wrestled with the fact that she'd be putting him and the rest of Viper Team in danger. Then:
"Copy that, Lash. Targeting. Firing."
With a flare of actinic blue, a charged harpoon exploded out of the launcher that had dropped into sight just to the side of the belly doors. Like a lightning bolt from Zeus, it darted downward to slam into the water. Instantly the entire area lit up with underwater lightning, the harpoon discharging in every direction as it plunged deep into the dark sea. And everywhere that lightning went, merpeople went limp.
"Cordon is clear. Second chain is in sight," Rollins reported, a hint of relief in her voice.
"Dru, we need that cargo net back," Tanner indicated, popping back to the surface and looking up at the rectangle of light.
"Copy. We're almost clear," Dru said a little breathlessly. "There! It's on its way back down!"
Unconsciously nodding even though Dru couldn't see her, Tanner pulled back to let the sodden net drop back to the surface with a loud 'splat'. Then she was flinching as a second charged harpoon darted downward into the sea on the other side of their cordon, again lighting up the ocean with its discharge as it traveled towards the bottom. By that light, Tanner could see dozens of merpeople now floating limp, taken out before they could charge their perimeter.
"Lash, they're getting serious," she said into her comms. "Please tell me your team and you are almost here."
Tanner frowned when silence greeted her. Had Dru's fears about Viper Team's lack of protection come true? Not equipped with the marines' insulated suits, did they now slowly sink to the bottom along with the stunned merpeople?
Then she was twitching as Lash surfaced beside her and pulled out his air supply's mouthpiece.
"We're clear, Tanner," he said. "But I'd rather not be in the water if Dru has to fire another harpoon. I'm feeling fairly crispy from that second one!"
"Copy that. Rollins! How are we on the load up of chain two?"
"Just about there, Tanner," her second-in-command replied. "With those shock harpoons clearing our perimeter, I've pulled everybody in to help."
Almost before she was finished talking, another legionnaire was reporting.
"Chain two clear!"
"Copy that. Everybody aboard," Lash tautly directed. "We need to get out of the water now!"
Burdened by not only another fifteen liliths, but Recon Two and Viper Team, the cargo net lifted out of the water visibly slower than it previously had. But thankfully it was fast enough to clear the water to barely avoid being grabbed by several grasping merpeople hands. Bracing themselves against the netting, both Recon Two and Viper Team emptied their Stingers at any merpeople that were brave enough to try launching themselves dolphin-style out of the water in an attempt to land in the net and continue to cause havoc.
Lash grinned fiercely as a third harpoon stabbed downward, lighting the ocean up with blue fire and sending dozens of merpeople to the bottom, unconscious. Then they were within range of the belly doors and the helping hands of three liliths and a little sister.
"Careful now," Ellie directed as she and Meredith took a lilith from legionnaires' hands to lay the shielded lilith carefully on the deck. "Despite being rubber, those suits are slippery. I wouldn't want to need to dive back into an ocean filled with angry merpeople to retrieve any that we accidentally drop!"
"We absolutely do not," Lash said in agreement as he maneuvered out of the cargo net's webbing to the edge and onto the deck just as the net cleared the belly door and Dru began the closing process to seal the ship back up.
After making sure his footing was secure, the big vampire then reached out to help Tanner and Absinthe lift yet another lilith out of the net.
"Strike One, Viper One. Sitrep," he commanded as a second lilith began her transfer from the net to the deck.
"We have successfully exfiled from the enclave, Viper One," Fordricht reported. "We have boarded Nighthawk One and are making our way to your position. Zero casualties to report."
"Outstanding, Strike One. Pass my compliments to your team, Strike Two, and Recon One. We are moving to the secondary fallback point. Meet us there. We'll need to transfer some of our lilith casualties to your medical bays. We've run out of space."
"Roger that, Viper One. Rendezvous in five mikes."
****