The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Unwelcome Guests

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.