trying to lay into our necks, and that was good news.
The PT went first. I imagine that Clueless got tired of the old man insisting that he was in charge. It's occurred to me many times that vampires have little use for rank outside of who created whom. Since Clueless was the master creator on the sub, he had the clout, and he didn't take kindly to the old man demanding the same standing he'd had before he'd been turned.
After that, they took down their weakest and least useful members to sustain the strongest core, weeding the ranks as I'd once suggested doing with handguns. By the time we neared the port we intended to use, they had weeded themselves down to forty-five vampires. I realize that's still an enormous threat, but it was a hell of a lot better than a hundred and twenty-six, you know.
The port was in chaos. If you want to know the truth, it was hell on Earth. There were riots and panicking people in the streets. We figured the war had started without us. The docks were abandoned, which made offloading twenty-six weary and half-crazed sailors in stealth a breeze.
That was both good news and bad. The good news was that the governments of the world would be too damned busy to worry about the heat bloom on satellite. The bad news was that we'd have to tough it out, hope we weren't shot as spies and try to convince the US government that we weren't defectors or deserters when we finally managed to make it back to a friendly Marine at a consulate somewhere.
Then again, we were leaving an armed US submarine in the hands of a hostile force, but we could fight the right and wrong of that situation with whatever higher power was left alive in a year.
We took our weapons, personal belongings, food and as much 'special supplies' as we could haul with us. As a last challenge, Clueless offered us the chance to join him. I won't repeat what I said to him verbatim, but I'm sure you know me well enough to figure out which four-letter terms of endearment I used. I even told him that the first to follow us would be shot with the remaining shotgun shells.
No shit, there we were: twenty-six completely wired US Navy submariners in civvies, sea bags strapped to our shoulders, weapons in hand, standing on a foreign dock in the North Atlantic. Damned if it didn't feel great to be out of that tin can, better than it had ever felt before, and I'd had ten years of 'before' to compare it to.
Sure, we were standing in hell, fires burning on the horizon.
Fires will keep us warm tonight.
We didn't speak the language.
Hell, a lot of people in this area speak passable English.
We had military IDs but no passports.
So what! Military IDs will get us all over Europe and even home.
I took a deep breath. "Well, let's get the fuck out of here."
"Where are we going to go?" That came from Jakes, his nose dark red and his breath so thick, it looked like cream filling.
"Away from the gunfire. Anywhere but back to the damned black tube of death." Funny, that term had never been more appropriate.
It was cruising away slowly, probably cautious because of the lack of a tug to help them out of the harbor.
We were off the pier and skirting around town when the group surrounded us. We had no question what we faced. We'd seen enough of the undead in the last few weeks to imprint the breed into our senses. Their non-smell gave them away...and the way they moved. Most of all, those red eyes and fangs did.
"Fuck me," I breathed. "Can't I get a break?" The certainty that Clueless knew very well what we'd been walking into assaulted me, making me cold as even the night wind north of the Arctic Circle couldn't.
I didn't question why he didn't tag along for the fun. On the sub, he was king of the vampires. Out here, there were likely higher-ranking ones than him. Better to stay ahead of the war and make his followers think he was top of the food chain than end up someone else's midnight snack when they ran out of humans.
"What the hell is going on
The PT went first. I imagine that Clueless got tired of the old man insisting that he was in charge. It's occurred to me many times that vampires have little use for rank outside of who created whom. Since Clueless was the master creator on the sub, he had the clout, and he didn't take kindly to the old man demanding the same standing he'd had before he'd been turned.
After that, they took down their weakest and least useful members to sustain the strongest core, weeding the ranks as I'd once suggested doing with handguns. By the time we neared the port we intended to use, they had weeded themselves down to forty-five vampires. I realize that's still an enormous threat, but it was a hell of a lot better than a hundred and twenty-six, you know.
The port was in chaos. If you want to know the truth, it was hell on Earth. There were riots and panicking people in the streets. We figured the war had started without us. The docks were abandoned, which made offloading twenty-six weary and half-crazed sailors in stealth a breeze.
That was both good news and bad. The good news was that the governments of the world would be too damned busy to worry about the heat bloom on satellite. The bad news was that we'd have to tough it out, hope we weren't shot as spies and try to convince the US government that we weren't defectors or deserters when we finally managed to make it back to a friendly Marine at a consulate somewhere.
Then again, we were leaving an armed US submarine in the hands of a hostile force, but we could fight the right and wrong of that situation with whatever higher power was left alive in a year.
We took our weapons, personal belongings, food and as much 'special supplies' as we could haul with us. As a last challenge, Clueless offered us the chance to join him. I won't repeat what I said to him verbatim, but I'm sure you know me well enough to figure out which four-letter terms of endearment I used. I even told him that the first to follow us would be shot with the remaining shotgun shells.
No shit, there we were: twenty-six completely wired US Navy submariners in civvies, sea bags strapped to our shoulders, weapons in hand, standing on a foreign dock in the North Atlantic. Damned if it didn't feel great to be out of that tin can, better than it had ever felt before, and I'd had ten years of 'before' to compare it to.
Sure, we were standing in hell, fires burning on the horizon.
Fires will keep us warm tonight.
We didn't speak the language.
Hell, a lot of people in this area speak passable English.
We had military IDs but no passports.
So what! Military IDs will get us all over Europe and even home.
I took a deep breath. "Well, let's get the fuck out of here."
"Where are we going to go?" That came from Jakes, his nose dark red and his breath so thick, it looked like cream filling.
"Away from the gunfire. Anywhere but back to the damned black tube of death." Funny, that term had never been more appropriate.
It was cruising away slowly, probably cautious because of the lack of a tug to help them out of the harbor.
We were off the pier and skirting around town when the group surrounded us. We had no question what we faced. We'd seen enough of the undead in the last few weeks to imprint the breed into our senses. Their non-smell gave them away...and the way they moved. Most of all, those red eyes and fangs did.
"Fuck me," I breathed. "Can't I get a break?" The certainty that Clueless knew very well what we'd been walking into assaulted me, making me cold as even the night wind north of the Arctic Circle couldn't.
I didn't question why he didn't tag along for the fun. On the sub, he was king of the vampires. Out here, there were likely higher-ranking ones than him. Better to stay ahead of the war and make his followers think he was top of the food chain than end up someone else's midnight snack when they ran out of humans.
"What the hell is going on
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