Lash's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he watched Narcist work on the tablet she had pulled out of her kit as soon as she had dropped into the sling seat she had picked from the half dozen set against the cargo plane's inner hull. A modified C-5 Galaxy that was additionally armored against the deadly ambient radiation that made daytime travel so hazardous for vampires, the cargo plane had been waiting for them on the tarmac at Van Tallert's private airstrip when their shielded helicopter dropped them nearby before returning to base.
The team had sprinted across the intervening fifty meters between where they hopped off the helicopter and the plane's lowered cargo ramp even as their skin began to burn from the approaching sunrise. The ramp closed just as the sun peaked above the horizon, narrowly blocking the first rays of sunlight from slashing into the cargo hold.
They had taken a moment to get settled, Narcist using an ambient radiation sensor to make sure the hold was safe. Then, as most of the team curled up to get some sleep in the sling seats the cargo hold was equipped with, she had pulled out that tablet and got to work.
For his part, already well used to operating during daytime hours thanks to his work with the psylord Mordecai during the campaign to defeat the Brotherhood of Advanced Intellects in Canada, Lash had slumped into a sling chair opposite van Tallert's tech expert. There, arms folded, he had watched with interest as she worked with smooth efficiency and speed, her hands fairly dancing over the tablet.
It could only be the parsing of the redundant signals they had gotten from the shattered phone that she was working on. Narcist had indicated the parsing was only partial by the time he, Truk and van Tallert had finished receiving her report and that it would take another ten, perhaps fifteen minutes to complete. And that had been with the fortress's mainframe at her beck and call.
Now, reduced to either working remotely via a commlink with the mainframe, or having downloaded the signal onto the tablet to do more hands-on work, he had little doubt that time frame had expanded exponentially. He could only hope that she could get it done in the two hours it would take them to fly to Carnmore Airport, the closest airport large enough to land the C-5, or their efforts to find the endpoint would face some serious challenges.
Thankfully vampire infrastructure in Ireland was extensive. One of the first places colonized by the then-young vampire race over 2500 years ago, shortly before the arrival of the Iron Age, and the Roman invasion of Britain, Ireland quickly became a refuge for early vampires fleeing persecution from humans on mainland Europe.
In the years following that colonization, they had built up their holdings, gathered resources, and prepared for a human onslaught on their fallback that never came. Instead, it left them relatively unhindered to continue developing their own culture, technology, and infrastructure far in advance of what the humans would possess. So, as soon as Lash and his team hit Irish airspace, they should have access to that infrastructure, including high-speed wireless information portals. Which should get any effort Narcist was making to parse the signal back on track.
Satisfied for the moment that his team was, despite not being the Qos Viran specialists he was used to working with, doing all they could to be prepared for whatever they faced on the ground, Lash turned his attention to his own electronic devices. Drawing out a small tablet he had gotten from the Van Tallert armory, he quickly called up what the Ventru database had on the Magnar estate.
One of the founding families of the Irish vampiric Houses, the Magnar holdings were almost as old as the colonization itself. So the estate was equipped with a proper castle of Irish stone quarried out of the nearby Twelve Bens Mountains in the Connemara. A castle that was heavily fortified against attack, and shielded against ambient radiation, possessing a level of military technology that would make most vampires hesitate to even consider attacking.
Then again, the same could've been said about Lady Van Tallert's compound and the Hand laid siege to it regardless, albeit with artillery and tanks. Lash's eyes narrowed as he considered that. The Qos Viran commander knew his Lord Commander's castle well, having spent many a-day there training and socializing with other Qos Viran officers. That knowledge led him to want to avoid a frontal attack, if they could help it, since they certainly wouldn't be in possession of tanks and artillery like the Hand had.
A swipe across the face of the tablet brought up a blueprint of the castle taken from Lash's own personal database, accessed via a virtual storage cloud. He quickly made note of the hard points and possible, if not massively difficult, access routes into the fortified structure. Then he pulled up images from a dedicated Qos Viran satellite that thankfully he still had access to.
Those images told him that there wasn't significant activity around the sprawling fortified campus that Magnar maintained in close proximity to the castle. Which was good; any additional positions would've revealed not only did the Irish vampiric lord suspect he was about to come under attack, perhaps in confirmation of his treachery, or in fear of an assault by the Hand for being a Ventru ally. But it also would've made any penetration of the compound that much more difficult for his team.
Keeping the satellite image up, Lash pulled out a notebook from a bag and began to quickly sketch out a plan of possible attack, along with a couple of alternatives. If it came down to needing to make a frontal assault just to get Magnar's attention, he wanted to be as prepared for it as possible despite not having a Qos Viran team, and being denied any sort of rehearsal to get them truly ready to attack.
The veteran soldier had finished his third alternate assault plan when the pilot's voice came over the plane's internal intercom.
"Captain Truk, Commander Lash: we are in Galway airspace," the pilot, a human Ventru familiar, which allowed for daytime flight, announced in a respectful voice, his vampiric slightly accented. "As soon as we get a response from the beacon, we'll begin our descent into Carnmore. Please prepare for daytime egress."
Having looked up at the nearest speaker as soon as the pilot had began his report, Lash's thoughtful expression deepened as he considered how much time it would take for the descent. Then he was stowing both the tablet and the notebook.
"Truk," he said as he pulled the bag containing his neuron armor and weapons from Mordecai closer. Already partially awakened by the pilot's announcement, the Ventru nestari officer stirred at the big vampire calling his name.
"I'm up," the captain said from his place a few seats down, his voice a bit muted.
"Good. I want you to get some of this specialized armor I'm about to make for everybody," Lash indicated as he drew out the mini-forge and began setting it up to make additional neuron armor pieces. "We should have just enough time to make a full set for everybody, along with an EM field dampener for each."
That last bit made the Ventru officer shoot straight up in his sling chair.
"EM field dampener?" he repeated quizzically. Then his eyes were widening in surprise and wonder as the mini-forge, now being fed raw material by Lash, began to spin out a piece of armor like some sort of advanced 3-D printer.
Not realizing that Truk's attention had been momentarily captured by the mini-forge, the big vampire nodded in response to the question even as, with one hand, he grabbed the original generator Mordecai gave him and tossed it to the wondering Truk, who was forced to pull his attention off the mini-forge in order to catch the device.
"A gift from a friend," he indicated as, with eyes wide and his attention now fully engrossed with his new target, Truk slowly turned the hand-sized generator over in his hands to examine it from every angle. "It'll allow us to operate in broad daylight."
"Broad daylight?" This time the echo came from Narcist, who had wrapped up her parsing efforts to come over and see what Lash was doing. A gesture from her made Truk toss the generator to her before she too was turning it over and over in her hands, eyes narrowed as she carefully looked it over.
Lash nodded as he finished the first part of armor he had been making and began its adjoining piece.
"Very handy against vampire targets," he indicated without looking up, his attention focused on the mini-forge. "They'll be asleep in their lead-lined beds when you come hunting for them."
Truk frowned thoughtfully.
"Very handy indeed," he agreed before looking over at Narcist. "But that isn't vampire tech."
"Or any kind of tech I've seen before," Narcist added before handing it back to Truk. "Including the bleeding edge shit I've seen the psionics use." She folded her arms beneath her breasts. "I mean, we're ahead of the humans by a couple generations, the sparkies are that much more ahead of us, and between the two of us we haven't been able to perfect a multi-spectrum EM dampener effective enough to completely filter out everything that hurts vampire physiologies."
"True," Lash said before lifting up the first piece of finished armor. After giving it a critical eye to make sure all the seams were sealed properly, he then tossed it to Truk.
"Try that on," he directed. "It goes over the top of your shirt but beneath your body armor."
"What's that?" Narcist wanted to know as, after nodding in understanding, Truk shucked his jacket to begin slipping the flexible neuron armor over his upper body. "Another gift from your friend?"
Lash nodded in reply even as he turned back to the mini-forge to begin fashioning the next set of armor.
"It's called neuron armor," he explained as he worked. "Created from something very similar to carbon fiber, it's bullet-proof in addition to blocking out harmful EM radiation and insulating your nervous system from not only ambient rad but psionic energies as well."
"Psionic energies?" Narcist mouthed, her eyes flying wide as she returned her attention to the captain as the nestari finished putting the armor on. "Just who in the name of the Dark Father is this friend of yours??"
Lash smiled tightly.
"Better for you that you don't know," he replied somewhat mysteriously before sobering. "I will tell you, however, that both the armor and the dampener were payment for the Qos Viran assisting with a problem in North America." He paused to point at the armor piece he was currently working on. "The neuron armor works in conjunction with the EM dampeners to give us one hundred percent coverage even with psionics in the field. Not only will our assets be protected, they will also be virtually invisible to most visual detection technology."
Lash finally looked up at the two van Tallert nestari.
"Magnar won't even see us coming, if it comes to that."
By the time the big cargo plane was on the ground, using heavy reverse thrust to stop in time on the short runway, Lash had finished a full set of neuron armor and a dampener for each of the team. Already in their armor, the big vampire, Truk, and Narcist watched as the rest of the team that Truk had assembled, carefully put on the additional gear that the Qos Viran commander had crafted for them.
"Now remember," Lash began as they began putting their jackets and flak vests back on over the top of the neuron armor, fastening the generators to their belts in the way he had shown them. "The vests are tough, and the dampeners tougher, but they won't save you from a mine, or a hit from a high-caliber weapon." He folded his arms. "If coaxing Lord Magnar out far enough for me to talk to him doesn't work, we're going to have to shoot our way in. This place is fortified to the fangs so we'll take heavy fire every step of the way."
"So keep your fool heads down," Truk stepped in to add. "I don't want to fill the back of this cargo plane with body bags if I can help it."
"Not to mention, my mother wouldn't appreciate the senseless loss of so many of her trained soldiers," Anna, who had chosen to stay almost hidden at the back of the group, finally spoke up to say, earning herself not a few turned heads.
"No, she would not," Truk agreed, his face grim. "Especially if one of those bodies turns out to be yours, Anna. So stay vigilant even at the back of the formation." Then the pilot was speaking once more.
"Captain, Commander, we are ready to take off. If you would kindly disembark and make your best way to the large green building close to the terminal, you'll find the ground transportation Lady van Tallert arranged for you waiting there. We will fall back to Dublin and standby for your extrication request."
"I think I'd rather have a helicopter here, at Carnmore, in case things furball," Narcist leaned in to say, her words for Lash and Truk alone."
"Agreed," Truk said with a grimace. "But our options are limited this far from our base of operations and without knowing how many of the Irish Houses are against Ventru. Lady van Tallert extended herself greatly getting us here in the first place."
"Then let us not waste the opportunity to dig up some answers," Lash grimly suggested. He then strode to the ramp lowering switch, set close to the back, and hit it with a closed fist.
"Weapons to first position!" he barked as late morning sunshine reached in through the widening space.
With instincts honed over many generations, the vampires in the front ranks, including Truk and Narcist, took an involuntary step back as that light washed into their previously shielded space, subconsciously concerned that their protection wasn't as bulletproof as their commanders were leading them to think. But, as they watched it cascade over a waiting Lash without him starting to smoulder, they relaxed and readied their weapons for a rapid, vigilant egress.
As soon as the ramp was down, Lash held up a clenched fist to keep the team in place before motioning to his eyes. Then he was easing forward, heavy assault rifle up and ready to fire at anything that looked like a Hand agent.
A quick look to the south yielded the green building that the pilot had indicated, a hanger of some sort with a number of small planes parked on the tarmac outside. A swing to the left found the terminal, a smallish building with an equally smallish parking lot possessing a smattering of cars. Nothing that looked like an armored and shielded vampire-owned vehicle, however. Nor were there any military style vehicles in sight.
Of course, that didn't mean there weren't any, hiding in ambush to take out any unsuspecting Ventru. They would have to remain cautious while moving at best speed across the tarmac. Hopefully there weren't any humans looking out at the big cargo plane at the wrong time or there would be unnecessary bloodshed.
Lash hazarded a quick glance over his shoulder at the waiting nestari. Speaking of moving, he was looking at a dozen vampires that had never actually been in the sunlight, little yet tactically move in formation in that environment. It was a realization powerful enough to make him wish he had learned more about daytime military tactics during his time with Mordecai and Avalon. Then, at least, he could show them how to advance.
Abruptly the big vampire sighed. There wasn't enough time to stand here and ponder the ramifications of their lack of experience. They needed to move, and move now or risk getting caught out in the open. And that meant they would have to ... improvise.
A quick hand gesture pulled the team out of the shadows and down the ramp.
"Broken line, don't bunch," he quietly yet tautly instructed. "Stay low and don't give snipers a profile they can easily shoot at. Keep your night vision shuttered and your polarized goggles on. I don't want any of you going blind in our run to the building. Now follow me." Then he was leading the way, his weapon up and sighted to target anything that posed a risk. Behind him the nestari formed into a loose, staggered line before moving towards the green building, some 150 meters distant, as quickly as they could in low, ready stances.
"Truk, keep an eye on the terminal," Lash dropped back enough to hoarsely whisper. "I don't want humans seeing us by chance."
"Copy that," the Ventru officer quickly replied, immediately taking a quick look over towards the much smaller building.
"Narcist, are you picking up any radio chatter?"
Just off Truk's shoulder with her rifle held at the ready, the veteran nestari shook her head.
"Good. Stay sharp, everybody." Then he was quickening his pace to put himself back at point.
It would be the last time the veteran Qos Viran would talk to give instructions. Maintaining radio silence, he grimly continued to lead the way towards the green building, now within fifty meters as behind them the C-5's engines began to rev in preparation for takeoff.
Then they were in the building's lee. Twisting around to put himself at the corner, Lash waved the rest to cover behind him as he looked back towards the cargo plane. His eyes fell onto it just as it finished accelerating down the runway and leapt into the air with the help of rocket assists.
Seeing that only hardened the big vampire's resolve. Now they were truly on their own!
"C'mon," he growled, turning back to his waiting team. "Let's go find our transport!"