The heavily armed operator in tactical gear and a bulletproof visored ballistic helmet paused to glance down at the tracker in his hand. Then he was using a free hand to wave the soldiers clustered behind him forward. Their target was deep underground, in what ground-penetrating radar had scoped out as some sort of fortification in the midst of a large cavern.
Finding it had been relatively easy, after the tracking signal had led them to Warsaw. Seeing the fortifications at street level that protected the single entrance to the cavern was enough to tell them the hardest part would be actually reaching the cavern. Assuming, of course, that the filthy bloodsuckers would let them just cut through those fortifications to reach the passageway.
Tactical had suggested it was a fool's errand to try to breach such a solid obstacle, then fight their way through what would likely be a determined and stout bloodsucker defense. But the High General was most insistent. The traitor Demaskieros was pivotal to their plans against the European vampires and was to be extracted at all costs.
So in went Special Operations Division with their best assets, ones with extensive experience fighting not just bloodsuckers, but ferals, and sparkies as well. They still had enough for a good push into the vampire holding even after losing so many during the attack on the vampire base in Norway in the operation to extract Romanescu, the other high value vampire traitor. They had underestimated the skills and capabilities of the vampires that had guarded him. It wasn't a mistake they would repeat here.
Another wave brought forward a team with a ballistic penetrator on a reinforced mount. A modified mortar designed to fire horizontally at an obstacle instead of an arcing shot into the distance, it was nicknamed 'the door knocker' by the assets that favored it.
The tracker watched the assets assemble the knocker for a moment before a spill of data across his HUD made him look first up then back over his shoulder and down the road they had just egressed up.
"Attention all assets," he hissed in heavily accented English. "We've tripped the suckheads' perimeter alarms. They now know we're here. Prepare for contact!"
Lash frowned as, from the shadows cloaking a nearby corner, he watched the White Flame with the handheld tracker stow his device and pull his rifle into a firing position.
"We've been made," the big vampire husked against his throat mike. "Let's give these filthy bastards the welcome they deserve. Tracker and penetrator crew first."
His Kali came up to target the tracker.
"Fire on my mark."
The tracker twitched as a whisper of air scythed down the assets that were assembling the penetrator, the deadly volley coming from every direction. Then several battering rams of force were slamming into him, easily punching through his reinforced body armor to sear burning hot pathways through his flesh and organs.
Mortally wounded beyond his nanites ability to repair, the tracker began tipping over, his vision going dark. But not before he watched the rest of his team grotesquely twist before dropping limp to the ground.
Seeing the final White Flames flop bonelessly onto the ground, it's spine shot out, Lash let a tiny smile of satisfaction curl up the corners of his mouth. It would be a frozen day on the Pyre before humans, enhanced or not, outperformed the Qos Viran!
Then a sound, clanking metal on stone, made him through up a fist to hold his team in place before they could step out of hiding. He then dropped his hand to tug free his personal recon drone from his waist. A quick tap on his wrist control panel to wake it up, then he tossed the fist-sized flyer out into the air in front of him.
A shift of imagery in his HUD, then the drone's optics cleared, showing the road. And what was traveling carefully up it.
"It's a Leopard 2A7 tank," he tightly reported. "One of Humanity's best battle tanks on the European continent. Ilya, go to the kinetic bolus setting on your Kali and punch a hole in that thing. Or it's going to turn this road into a heap of rubble. With us underneath it!"
"Copy that, Wolf," a hard voice replied over the comms, his vampiric rounded by a Russian accent. "Charging."
Before the Vorinov vampire could report he was ready to fire, there was another voice coming onto the comms.
"Force commander, this is Team Two," the voice said in crisp Romanian tones, marking them as Nosferatu. "We are taking contact from multiple vectors." A heartbeat later:
"This is Team Four. We are also taking contact," Truk's voice reported. "White Flames, rolling in with armor."
"All teams, this is Lash. Secure your positions and return fire with prejudice," Lash tautly directed. "The perimeter cannot be breached. Acknowledge."
A chorus of acknowledgements quickly followed. His expression tightened with satisfaction then Lash switched to his team-only channel.
"Ilya, take the shot!"
"Copy. Taking the shot," the Vorinov vampire replied before stepping out of cover to take aim.
The bolus hammered into the Tiger's forward left quadrant, immediately stopping it and rocking the heavy vehicle back with a visible percussive wave. Then Lash stepped out from cover and hit the tank with a second kinetic bolus.
Not waiting for the Tiger to settle back onto its tracks, its turret now warped, the big vampire moved forward in a tactical crouch, sending white hot ceramic slashing down the road at the White Flame squads that were following behind the tank's advance. And the human faction soldiers quickly returned fire.
Lash's eyes narrowed as sundog rounds bounced off his tactical armor. Even with suppressors, the humans' weapon systems were significantly louder than the nearly silent Shiva and Kali weapons platforms. It would be just a matter of time before ...
"Boss," Narcist came over the comms, her voice terse. "Local law enforcement is receiving reports of weapons fire at your location. Special tactics and armament teams are being dispatched to investigate and contain."
"Copy. Reroute the tactics teams, Narcist," Lash directed as he deftly knocked down a fire team with precision fire. Behind him and on all sides his team had joined him in the roadway and, using the tank as cover, they were vigorously exchanging fire with the humans.
"While an untainted blood meal would be welcome after this fight, they'll just get in our way."
"Copy the reroute. Hacking their comms and traffic control now," the veteran tech replied.
Lash nodded as, with curt knife hands and gestures, he repositioned his team to get maximum coverage down the road. As expected, the White Flames were offering stiff resistance, holding their position even in the face of withering fire from his team. With every moment spent trying to push the enhanced humans back an opportunity for the White Flames to penetrate the perimeter, he needed to do something to compensate for the enemy's skill and tenacity.
Stepping fully behind the defeated tank and into cover, the grim vampire looked down at his wrist control. A couple taps accessed the Qos Viram network then he was searching for nearby assets he could utilize to tilt the fight in their favor.
Before Lash could select any of those assets, there was the sharp roar of a heavy gun being fired nearby. Then reflex pulled him out of the way of a fasting moving object larger than his head, a move only made possible by him being a highly trained vampire soldier.
A heartbeat later it smashed into the stone wall protecting the hidden entrance to the castle cavern they were there to defend. The impact tore deep into the stone, sending vicious shards snarling through the tortured air in every direction. And in doing so, revealed itself
It was a tank round.
"Kadasa!" Lash tautly hissed as he twisted back around to look down the road. Yup. There it was: a second Tiger battle tank making it's way up the narrow road, haloed by several squads of White Flames in their Spec Ops gear.
"All assets, take cover and prepare to receive tank fire!" he barked over comms even as he brought up his Kali. "Charge for maximum impact kinetic bolus."
"Charging," the weapon's AI replied in its tiny, sexless voice. "Standby. Full charge in five seconds."
Lash grimaced as he watched the tank and it's soldier escort advance. That was four seconds ...
Another twitch back via reflexes and he felt another tank round streak by to pound into the wall.
"Boss," Narcist then chose that exact moment to say over comms. "Heads up. We've got an airstrike inbound."
Airstrike?? The big vampire hazard a glance up at a gray, wintery sky. Which was when he heard the low, almost grinding snarl of approaching jet engines. It was a very particular sound, one he had heard once before as he and his Venture team were trying to egress from Lord Magnar's Irish estate.
"Bolus ready," his Kali told him.
Instantly his POV dropped back onto the tank and he was firing. Lash then smiled tightly as the bolus round slammed into the tank's right, front corner just below the turret. With a percussive shudder the turret was blown off even as the tank came to an abrupt halt, forcing the escort to step away from the piece of armor to avoid getting crushed.
"Team, re-engage," Lash directed after putting his Kali back to normal operating mode with a terse command. And his team stepped out from cover to begin hammering away at the advancing humans.
They needed to knock down as many as they could before the A-10's engaged. With their depleted uranium munition, the deadly ground support aircraft would cut the vampires to pieces, their advanced body armor notwithstanding. Just like they did at Galway.
Which brought up the question: how in the Day Pyre did these bastards manage to get the local humans to agree to them flying over the city with war planes?? Either the local government was infiltrated by White Flames supporters that okayed the operation.
Or, as they aptly demonstrated in Galway, the White Flames cared nothing for their fellow humans and their governments. Why ask for permission from sheep? Just do what they needed to do. If it achieved the desired outcome, any means we're justified.
An idea slipping to the forefront at that very instant made a grim smile touch the big vampire's lips. Two can play that game!
Sliding back behind the first destroyed tank and into cover, Lash slung his weapon and again brought up his control panel.
"I'm calling in drone interceptors to handle the air support, Narcist," he tautly indicated. "Clear me space."
"Copy drone deploy," Narcist replied, her voice calm and efficient. "Local air space reports ..." There was a slight hesitation, then:
"Clear. Local air space reports clear, boss."
That tightened Lash's expression. To his mind, that confirmed local collusion. And made him regret the decision not to manipulate the local humans for their own benefit before this all started with the trial.
Just as well; the deliberate blindness may also work in their favor.
"Advise General Hightower to put an intercept group of Warbats on standby. In case the drones can't handle the White Flame Thunderbolts. Deploying drones."
The icon on his wrist control flashed twice after he tapped it, to indicate the selected drones, fast attack Basilisks like the ones they used over Belgium to cover their withdrawal from the van Tallert compound, were fueled, armed, and ready to fly. But, before his finger could drop down and signal the drones to deploy, he hesitated.
The Basilisks, equipped with high level Qos Viran AI, were effective and would likely hunt the White Flame A-10's down satisfactorily even without the support of a NightHawk gunship to direct them. But he didn't want satisfaction.
He wanted domination.
"Scratch the drones, Narcist," he said, slipping the control panel's protective cover back into place. "Scramble a full squadron of Warbats. I want aerial dominance over the city. If the humans aren't going to notice the White Flames, then they won't notice us either! So I want to leverage ..."
It was instinct that made him duck, barely avoiding the spray of red-glowing shrapnel that gashed through the space his upper body had just occupied. 'Dark Father's grace, was that rocket fire??'
"Hub, Team Four," Truk came back on comms to tersely say. "We are taking shoulder-launched rocket fire."
"Mind your sight lines, Truk," Lash tautly directed as chunks of stone rained down all around his crouching position. "They need line of sight to be effective!"
A quick look down the road revealed the White Flames were doggedly advancing despite his team hammering them with withering fire. With the same steel and ceramic shields they had used to some effect in Belgium creating a wall to hide behind, the modified humans were picking their way forward, with one occasionally popping up to fire off a rocket.
Then Lash was snatching himself back to avoid stitching strafing fire from a pair of A-10's that snarled overhead, followed quickly by explosions that rocked the walled-in road.
"Northeast entrance, sector eight has been percussively breached," Narcist grimly reported.
Looking at the massive, gaping hole that marked where the entrance to the caverns once stood, Lash grimaced. It most certainly had.
"Scramble the fighters, Narcist," he directed as the A-10's passed by overhead, preparing for another strafing run. "I need those A-10's burning on the ground!" He then turned to send hot ceramic munitions humming down the road at the advancing humans.
"Warbats are scrambling out of Frankfurt now, boss," the House Lash tech indicated. "They'll be on station in sixteen minutes from my mark." There was a slight pause then: "Mark."
Lash's expression tightened. He should've had a squadron of the advanced aerial dominance fighters staged closer, Wroslaw perhaps, at the smaller, but still well-equipped base there. Because a lot could happen in sixteen minutes.
As if to underline his thoughts, the big vampire heard more missile strikes landing at other nearby locations. Judging from the direction of the blast sounds, they had hit another entrance. But most weren't close to the remaining access points.
That meant what traitors they still had in their ranks hadn't managed to give their enemies all the keys to the castle. At least, not yet.
A quick assessment of what the missiles had turned this entrance into, however, tightened his expression.
"All assets, status report," he tersely sent. And slowly got reports to trickle in, confirming what he had feared: the percussive surge that had blasted open the access point had rattled the team good. But, as the last of them sounded off, he was relieved to hear that he hadn't lost anyone.
"Tighten up now," the big vampire directed. A unit of Qos Viran operators wouldn't have been rattled by a danger close strike like the one they had just experienced. They would be already back in position and emptying the street of enemy combatants.
But these weren't Qos Viran in his team. They were nestari from a half a dozen different Houses and three different clans. And if they were going to prevail here, they needed every gram of his experience and leadership leveraged into making it so.
They needed the Wolf of Frankfurt.