A glance at the chrono on the wall then Fiadh was back to packing a duffel bag with the equipment she had been accumulating ever since joining Lash's small Ventru company. According to the big vampire, he had made arrangements for heavy transports to go and pick up a full legion and a half of Silver Legion troops to garrison Hunters' Fjord and keep the rescued liliths safe while they restart their hunt for the rogue Ventru High Born, Anna van Tallert.
A light tap on the door made her pause her packing.
"Come," she said, looking over at the door. And smiled when it slid aside to admit Meredith, the blonde lilith wearing her hair in a tidy bun that had a sheathed dagger in its midst holding it together, and carrying her own duffel bag on her shoulder.
"Hey," she said with a bright smile, stepping in to give her a quick half hug and a kiss on the cheek. "You just about ready? I thought it'd be nice to walk down to the muster area together."
"Just about," Fiadh replied with a warm smile of her own. In the time since they were at NachtFeuer, the two had become friends, brought together by their mutual love of a certain giant vampire, and their efforts to help him keep Ventru from being destroyed by an unjust pogrom.
With Meredith looking on with interest, she put her spare set of neuron armor into the bag and zipped it closed before holstering her Stinger once she ensured it had a full magazine of charged flechettes. Her spare magazines went into their holders on her utility belt then she was grabbing her duffel by its strap and flashes a smile over at Meredith.
"Okay, let's go!" And together they stepped out of the small apartment Lash had given her to use.
It was a quick journey from the cluster of apartments the adjunct liliths had been given, to the muster area just down the hallway from the command center. But they had only gotten halfway before Narcist joined them.
"Honored Mistresses," the Ventru tech said respectfully, nodding to each in turn before falling in beside Fiadh. "Looks like you're ready to travel."
"Well, when the big man says pack your things, experience has taught me I need to pay attention," the Irish lilith said with a grin. Narcist chuckled as she nodded in agreement. Then they were stepping through a sliding double door and into the muster area.
The muster area was originally designed as a briefing area for officers with a view of the command center and the strategy room on the opposite side. Today, however, it was being used by the adjunct sisters to gather in one spot to make sure they weren't left behind when Lash's task force left Hunters' Fjord.
Continuing through the door, Fiadh went straight to the cart where the duffels belonging to the other liliths were already stacked. Adding hers, and Meredith, hers as well, the Irish lilith stepped back as the cart, a motorized drone that was programmed to take their equipment to their assigned Nighthawk, came alive with a ripple of lights across its control panel. It then sunk out of sight on a previously invisible elevator, using the base's internal logistics system to move to the hangar where the gunships waited.
That done, she turned and paused to give her fellow liliths a measuring look. The one Australian, Isla Martin, she had already met. Her fellow Australian, however, Cassie Botha, a tall and athletic vampiress of Maori descent, she hadn't met. Decorated with tribal tattoos on her face, Cassie was heads together with Isla as they charted out what they needed to do.
In the time since she had met Isla in the galley, the Irish lilith had been informed that both Isla and Cassie had gone through some sort of shearing ritual to remove their connections to House and Clan. Directly after that ritual, Isla had asked to be permanently attached to House Lash via the Embrace.
Cassie, only recently Ascended to her place as a Queen of her people, was both too shy and unaware of things such as adjunct status to have accompanied the original group that had asked for it from Lash. However, her fellow South Pacific lilith Isla quickly educated her, as well as informing her of her newly shorn status. While painfully shy, she was still smart enough to see the benefits of being Embraced by such a powerful and ancient Great House and immediately went to the big vampire and also asked to be attached to House Lash. From an objective point of view, it was an incredibly savvy move by the two South Pacific liliths, being Embraced by a House as well-positioned as House Lash.
From a personal point of view, however, she found it grinding her stones like nothing else. How dare these newcomers swoop in and use an ancient law that nobody had heard of, to directly connect themselves to Lash's House! She wanted to be connected to Lash's House. Meredith wanted to be connected to Lash's House. And they couldn't, because of Conclave law. But those two had figured out how to do it, and it was a smack across her face. Who were they? Certainly not the vampiresses that had fought at Lash's side across a war-torn Ireland and mainland Europe.
To add insult to injury, they both now had that relaxed air about them that confirmed they both had their seasons taken care of the old fashioned way. Again, objectively, she didn't blame them. With an alpha prime male possessing a straight line of descent from the Ancient One available, one would have to be brain dead not to try and take advantage of the situation. But personally, they deserved to have their eyes clawed out.
From the Australians, she scanned over to the other adjunct liliths. Sakura, she also already knew and, while the Japanese lilith had nearly lobotomized Lash with her oversaturated Compulsion, at least she used Compulsion. And oddly the Irish lilith felt better about that. At least, she didn't find her grinding her stones like the Australians were.
Then there was the Indian lilith, Inaya Patel of Clan Ganges. While liliths possessed a level of beauty and physical perfection that put them an order of magnitude of attractiveness over a regular vampiress, Inaya somehow possessed a level past that, combining the flawless genetics of her people with a lilith's perfection to make all the other vampiresses in the room look merely ordinary.
Much to Fiadh's chagrin, she too had that relaxed look that said her season had been sorted by Lash himself, instead of with biochems. From this distance, she couldn't tell whether Compulsion was involved but, again, if it wasn't, she couldn't blame Inaya for wanting to have Lash active and participating. But at least she hadn't manipulated her way through the situation to get attached directly to Lash's own House.
Beside her and looking almost ordinary in comparison, was the fiery Italian lilith, Sofia Cogliano, of Clan Giovanni out of Sicily. She had pulled her long, curly dark brown hair into a more functional braid and her bright blue eyes were intent as she conversed with the Indian lilith. She and Inaya were quietly discussing the Stinger Sofia held in her hand, but the hand gestures Sofia used to explain herself were almost shouts amongst the muted sounds currently filling the muster room.
It wasn't surprising that Sofia also looked comfortable and satisfied. A force of nature, she had stormed Lash's rooms the very night Isla had her season taken care of, according to a frustrated Lash the next morning. The last thing the big vampire wanted was to find himself being used to sort out lilith seasons and not have the time to prepare his task force to deploy.
From House Cogliano, a sept of Giovanni, one of the more powerful Great Houses in Italy, and the premier House in the Clan that bore the same name, it was a mystery why the Italian clan had refused to retrieve their lost lilith. Unfortunately that put Sofia in a position where she needed to ask for Lash's assistance, her own House and Clan refusing to do so. Lash expressed a hope that they'd discover why in short order, preferably before Sofia did something that put them all in danger!
The last two liliths that had begged to be accepted as adjuncts to House Lash were the Spanish liliths Isabella Garcia and Gabriela Martinez of the Toreador. The two were further evidence of how badly the Toreador had been mauled by the Brotherhood during the last decade, as the Spanish Clan, once powerful enough to have a dedicated seat on the Council of the Night, now lacked the power and the resources to help the two rebuild after their compounds were destroyed by the slaver attacks.
Isabella was the more relaxed of the two, a serene beauty with wavy brown hair, flashing green eyes and a ready smile. Gabriela, with eyes so dark, they were nearly black, had straight brown hair and an intensity about her that nearly rivaled Sofia's. But both had found their way to Lash's rooms at some point during the week they had been waiting for the Conclave to give them the liliths' transfer plans and, while speaking intently with taut gestures as they discussed various plans of battle, they too looked comfortable and relaxed from having their seasons taken care of.
At least the two Spaniards and the Italian were well-versed in the non-stop conflict between vampire Houses in Europe. What was the term Isla used? Ah, yes: Fortress Europe. Fitting, actually. Having spent their entire lives in Fortress Europe, the Spaniards also involved in the war with the Brotherhood, the three of them would be good in a fight.
That left Druzha, the Nosferatu, the only lilith that wasn't attached in some fashion to House Lash and still in possession of her estate and Blood Guard. Even as she looked at the dark haired lilith with the shaved sides of her head and intricate braid, she found Dru striding towards her.
Like all of them, the Nosferatu was dressed in black Qos Viran fatigues, her Stinger holstered on her hip like Fiadh's. And while Dru didn't have a reason to continue in their company beyond her attraction to Lash, the Irish lilith found her presence strangely more comforting than those of the other adjunct liliths, though not nearly as comforting as Meredith's friendly one.
Nodding in greeting to Meredith, who had remained close by, Dru looked at Fiadh.
"Ready?" she asked, earning herself a quick nod. "Good. Between us, I'm glad you two are with me. We've fought together and are battle comrades." She looked over her shoulder at the other seven.
"These others, I don't know. Sofia, Isabella, and Gabriela obviously didn't make it to NachtFeuer, but even before." She frowned as she returned her attention back to Fiadh and Meredith.
"At least they're European and will know how to fight," she said, which Fiadh silently found ironic since Dru herself was so protected by her position and power, she hadn't experienced battle until joining Lash's company.
"The South Pacific sisters have no experience, their former clan apparently pacifist. The Nakagi are diplomats, not warriors. And I know virtually nothing about the Ganges, other than it's also the name of a river sacred to the humans living in the same area."
Then they were all looking at the ceiling as a gonging sound came over the intercom followed by Hunter's quiet, sexless voice.
"Attention. Transports carrying Silver Legion troops are currently on final approach. The Lord Commander has requested all assets begin moving to their assigned transports now.
Nodding, Fiadh pulled out the Qos Viran smart phone Lash had given her and swiped to login.
"Nighthawk Three?" Meredith asked, leaning in to look at her screen. "Please say Three, Fiadh. If I'm all by myself on the Force Recon transport, I'm not going to be happy."
"I think the more important question is which transport will Lash be on," Dru pointed out and, despite herself, Fiadh found herself nodding in agreement. It would be worse than being isolated amongst a transport full of warriors if she weren't on the same transport as the big vampire.
Then the screen finished logging into the Qos Viran network and the number three appeared in the top corner as her transport destination.
"Thank the Dark Father!" Meredith breathed with a bright smile.
Then they were all looking over at Isla as the Australian lilith approached them, her smart phone also in her hand.
"Hey, all," she greeted them with a friendly smile. "You girls on Transport Three? Be nice if you were, and we had some friendly faces there."
Dru showed Fiadh and Meredith her phone, with its three in the corner.
"I suspect we are all on the same transport," she said before looking over at Isla, who nodded, her smile not wavering.
"That's fantastic!" the Australian exclaimed enthusiastically. "Look forward to flying with you girls, and maybe picking up a few pointers on what to do in Fortress Europe."
Before the three could respond, the door leading into the command center opened to disgorge Lash and Mara, the Ventru lilith. The willowy blonde beauty was leaning in close, a tablet in her hand, making a point about how they needed to approach the Van Tallert perimeter.
Seeing that, Fiadh couldn't help but feel yet another pang of jealousy. In her dreams, she was Mara, permanently attached to Ventru and able to see Lash whenever she wanted, and for as long as she wanted. That being said, she couldn't help but see the irony in the fact she was jealous of a lilith she had willingly helped Lash to find.
Then Lash speaking encouraged her to push those thoughts and feelings aside so she could take in what that warm, rumbling voice was saying beyond what it stirred inside her.
"Honored Mistresses," the big vampire began, as he shouldered his own duffel. "If you are ready to hunt, follow me!" Then he was descending the short flight of stairs connecting the command center with the muster room and hanging a hard right.
Following the big vampire and the Ventru lilith, the small company of liliths quickly moved through the heart of the base, taking a handful of secondary corridors to keep Lash out of sight of the other twenty two liliths that would continue making Hunters' Fjord their home. Then, after a final series of cutbacks, they were stepping into the hidden hangar, buried deep in the mountain.
But, as the gathered liliths nearly staggered to a halt at the astonishing sight they were now looking at, buried deep didn't mean small and cramped. Boasting a space that rivaled the cave that cradled the Night Market, the hangar was lit noonday bright by massive spotlights in strategic places. Along the far edge, there appeared to be fighter craft, War Bat aerial dominance fighter planes: sleek harbingers of death that looked ready to leap off the concrete deck to wreak havoc on their enemies.
To the left of the planes were armored vehicles, including Wolverine personnel transports, heavy shouldered Dominus assault tanks, and Lupus rapid advance all terrain vehicles, each staged and ready to be loaded. The only thing they lacked were the transports big enough to take them. And, turbo fans humming, those were arriving, dropping through an entrance further up the mountain made for the larger vehicles.
"Those ... are massive!" Meredith breathed as, necks craned, they watched the extra sized ShadowEagles descend through the hangar roof to begin taking up space on the deck.
As the first of the big transports landed as lightly as a feather, its big turbo fans drew protectively into its shoulders. At the same time, its nose ramp and tail ramps dropped to let a stream of Silver Legion troopers pour out at a full sprint.
"Sorry, Honored Mistresses, but our rides are over there," Lash said, pointing towards a trio of Nighthawks, their fans already spinning at full speed.