Truk, eyes narrowed in concentration, carefully brought the Nighthawk into the fjord's mouth under the watchful sensors of the perimeter guns protecting it. As the remarkably agile vehicle evened back out, Lash dropped into the copilot's seat.
"How are we looking?" the big vampire asked as he let his eyes scan over the readouts and displays.
"We're through the perimeter challenge and on final approach, Wolf," the former Van Tallert nestari reported. Like Narcist, he had been more than happy to accept Lash's invitation to join House Lash in whatever capacity the big vampire had for him.
Truk, after another scan of his readouts, then looked over at the Qos Viran Lord Commander.
"You catch that tomb time you were talking about? You're not going to get much once we're back at base."
Lash sighed. Leaving the adjuncts behind wasn't something he planned, even though it made Anna's extraction significantly less troublesome. That, however, had introduced a complication he hadn't expected, a uniquely vampiric problem.
With fertility such a strong focus for a species that had significant trouble procreating, laws were enacted in antiquity to ensure every demand by one fertile party on another fertile party was honored to its fullest extent. So Lash had been obligated not only by his own honor, but by laws ancient and binding to respond to every lilith that asked, pleaded for, or straight up demanded his time and essence. And in the last few days, those demands had come frequently.
The unfortunate side effect of having such heavy lilith demands on his person was his body had made several adjustments to compensate. Which, after things had calmed down after the extraction, he found those adjustments extraordinarily distracting. In truth, the best resolution would've been stealing Naryan for a half hour or so and having a chat about it.
But with three squads of Legion Vanguard aboard, she was sufficiently unavailable because of existing duties that he made the offer to Ellie instead. Which, of course, had its own challenges.
While she was a very willing partner, Ellie was also a little sister. And in a counterintuitive manner versus how liliths operated, she had severe restrictions on her reproductive freedom. Putting an unregistered child into her extremely willing person would be a death sentence for her, even if that child was fathered by an alpha prime belonging to a bloodline straight from the Ancient One, such as himself.
Thankfully Ellie was also open to putting his seed into places other than her womb. Or his discomfort would've been considerable. Regardless, it was a perfect illustration of exactly what he didn't want to be dealing with at the moment.
War needed to be his focus. Not fulfilling lilith obligations.
"More or less," he finally said in reply to Truk's question. "I just hope things at base are significantly more straight forward!"
"Doubt it," Truk said, his expression pragmatic. "With so many legionnaires there and providing escort or protection, the liliths will be wandering all over the place and, no disrespect intended, getting in our night-blessed way."
"Which means more hiding in the command center for you, boss," Narcist added as she stepped onto the flight deck and dropped into her usual spot at the electronic warfare officer's station.
"Unless you've somehow figured out how to not be an alpha prime with straight-line lineage and the Night Father's right hand of retribution?"
Lash grunted as Truk chuckled.
"Right hand of retribution; I like that one. Is that a Narcist special? Or did you overhear it?"
Narcist grinned.
"That one's all mine," she said before looking over at a thoughtful Lash. "And the boss likes it. He even grunted when I said it!"
A ghost of a smile touched the big vampire's lips at that. Things had been so serious recently, the three of them hadn't had the chance to banter and verbally joust with each other as they had in Ireland and France. So it was almost comforting to hear the friendly verbal fire flashing around his ears like it used to a couple weeks ago.
Then a winking light on the board, followed by several tactical displays rotating into outside views with distance readouts recaptured his attention. They were about to land at Hunters' Fjord!
After coming into the camouflaged top approach, Truk dropped the control yoke as Hunter, the base's AI took over piloting. With complete control over the airspace in the giant, hidden hangar, the powerful AI easily kept the Nighthawk off the walls during the passage through the narrow part of the descent. It then angled the rotors and slid the gunship sideways and forward, its target an open Nighthawk berth against the south wall.
Lash frowned when he spotted that the berth had a significant population standing close by.
"The lilith welcoming committee," Truk grimly noted and Lash felt his lips twist with a hint of displeasure and frustration before he could school his features into careful blankness.
"Just don't let them drag you away, boss," Narcist warned, her frown an unhappy one as well in seeing so many liliths waiting for them. "Or we won't see you for a couple of weeks!"
"I'll do what I can, Narcist," Lash tightly replied, already trying to remember the hangar's layout in an attempt to sneak off the Nighthawk without being seeing by the waiting liliths.
Then he had it: the auto-reload system. There were a number of transport conduits big enough to move missiles and larger ordnance into the Nighthawk that would easily accommodate a vampire even as big as he was. He just needed to get into the vehicle's magazine and activate the system from there.
Hopping out of the co-pilot's seat, he turned to head into the passenger cabin.
"By that happy bounce in your step, I'd guess you've figured a way off this bird that doesn't entail walking past twenty liliths," Truk said with a grin.
Lash nodded, returning the smile.
"See you on the inside where I'll tell you how I got out!" Then the big vampire was gone.
Dru frowned as the ramp into the passenger bay finished descending and, in orderly rows, Silver Legion Vanguard legionnaires began marching out. Eyes narrowing, she peered past the legionnaires and found the small group of operators Lash had taken with him into Brussels to retrieve Anna van Tallert. Who, still hooded, was being held tightly in their hands.
Captain Naryan, Sergeants Tanner and Galloway, and Lash's closest confidantes, Narcist and Truk, along with one of his senior officers Ballan. But no Lash. An unhappy twist went through her as her emotions spiked behind her frustration.
First, he leaves them alone with the adjuncts on the Nighthawk they came in on to rescue Naryan after she took a high caliber shot through the body in the midst of the White Flame counterattack. Then he brought her to the other Nighthawk to extract after ordering the Nighthawk carrying the liliths to retreat. And finally he didn't wait for them to return from Hunters' Fjord after dropping off Iris van Tallert. He just jumped into the middle of a hostile human city to get Anna van Tallert from a mysterious spy agency called the Viseith.
"Captain Kingsguard," she called out with as much firmness as she could muster as a senior sister in the European Queens' Conclave.
"Mistress Druzha," Naryan quickly replied as she and the others handed Anna van Tallert off to a squad of legionnaires for transport to a holding cell, her mother Iris looking on with an expression that was part outrage, part fury, and part heart-rending sorrow.
"A word, if you don't mind, Captain." And Dru stepped away from the rest of the liliths that had gathered to await Lash's return.
With a quick look at Narcist and Truk, Naryan slipped through the waiting liliths and their escorts, the assembled queens now starting to murmur and talk amongst themselves when they also noticed that Lash wasn't aboard the Nighthawk.
"Yes, Mistress," Naryan came to a halt in front of the visibly unhappy Nosferatu lilith.
"Lash," Dru said, a muscle rippling with tension in her jaw. "He's not on the Nighthawk. Where is he?"
"I don't know, Mistress," Naryan said. And immediately stiffened as the first scent of compulsion pheromones began to swirl around her.
"I swear on my oath as a Silver Legionnaire, Mistress, I do not know where Ingamon Lash is!"
Dru's face tightened imperceptibly. But she might as well have shouted her disappointment and frustration across the hangar deck.
"Then, Day Witch take us all, where is he??" she hissed, her fists clenched with the power of her frustration.
Somewhere deep inside the Qos Viran base an access panel just inside of the command center armory silently slid to the side. Then, moving with more agility than just every other mortal his size could, Lash unfolded himself from the space inside and eased out into the armory. He then looked down to make sure the panel moved back into place and sealed.
That done, he quickly stepped to the door leading outside, a biometric input panel opening as he approached. A retinal scan, handprint, and drop of blood later, the heavy double doors that protected the armory were sliding aside and he stepped into the corridor beyond.
Intimately familiar with the command center heart of Hunters' Fjord thanks to the time he had already spent here while waiting for the Conclaves to claim their missing liliths, Lash quickly made his way to the commander's quarters just off the war room where he had basically lived. A couple more biometric scans and he was stepping into the small, but well-appointed apartment that used a tele-wall to give him a view of the fjord spreading out from the base.
"There you are," a soft voice said from the apartment's small kitchen. With only the entrance light on, it was still in shadow.
Immediately coming to a halt, Lash tried to penetrate the shadows to see who it was. But even with his night-enhanced vision, he could only make out an outline. It was then that he caught the too-familiar scent of lilith pheromones. As far as he was aware, there was only one lilith that had her biometric information in the command database and could access his quarters.
"Are you okay, Mara?" he asked in a careful voice.
"No," the Ventru lilith replied, standing from where she had been sitting at the kitchen table. She then took several quick steps into the pool of light cast by the entrance light. And Lash instantly saw the pain etched into her flawless features.
"Uh oh," he said, reaching out to gently cradle her face with a big hand. Mara quickly lifted her own hand to hold his against her face after turning just enough to kiss his palm.
"We have something we need to do, don't we," he said with a warm smile. Mara felt a smile touch her own full lips as she nodded in confirmation, her green-eyed gaze unwavering as she looked up into his handsome face.
"It started on the flight back and hit me full force," she said in a hoarse whisper. "I thought it would be okay, since you were on the flight in with us. But then ... you didn't come back."
"I'm very sorry about that," Lash gently said. "If I had known ..."
"Don't say you wouldn't have gone to get Anna," Mara interrupted, lifting her other hand to tenderly caress his face. "We both know your sense of duty is too strong for that to have happened." Her fingers lightly ran over his cheek then along the line of his jaw.
"But it no longer matters. You're here now."
"I am." Lash captured the hand that caressed his cheek and kissed the palm. "Lead the way, Mara. I will follow." Then she was in his arms and kissing him deeply, slowly, and passionately.
****