Galactic Frontiers: A Collection of Space Opera and Military Science Fiction Stories Page 16

  A low growl escaped the dog, and it stood.

  Just then the door behind it opened, and out stepped the largest vampire Brent had ever seen. They’d all heard his name whispered in the halls—Erand. Brent had even caught a glimpse of the vampire once from afar, but seeing him this close, his red, glowing eyes, fangs exposed, and arms thick as trees, it was a whole different story. His voice caught in his throat and, even though he meant to salute, his arms were frozen.

  “You’re the new bloodbag?” Erand said, voice deep like a tank rolling across rubble.

  Brent tried to open his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a, “Yes, sir—” before Sarah stepped out another room, fully decked out and ready to roll.

  “That’s the piece of shit I was telling you about,” she said, picking out several weapons from the wall and placing them on the table, one at each seat.

  Erand took the spot at the head of the table, eyes never leaving Brent, though, Brent was glad to see, the red glow faded.

  “The Shredder here is the best gun for suppressive fire,” she said, placing a massive assault rifle in front of an empty chair and nodding to Brent. “You ready to die?”

  “I—I’d rather kill them, if it’s all the same.” He approached the chair, unsure what the proper etiquette was here.

  “We’ll see about that,” Erand said. He touched his wrist and said, “Prepare for flight.”

  Brent’s heart skipped a beat. “We’re going now?” he asked.

  “We got Goldies to kill, don’t we?” Erand said with a grunt. “The longer they live, the sooner we don’t.”

  Judging by Sarah’s glare, showing a lack of confidence right off the bat like that had been a bad idea. He steeled himself, pulling it together, and sat up straight.

  “Let’s get some,” he said, holding up his Shredder and checking the mags Sarah had placed next to it.

  “Indeed,” Erand said with a thoughtful gaze.

  The other doors opened and three more vampires entered, all decked out in special forces gear with the red collars, and they stood at the far door, waiting. Finally, Erand gave a nod and he and Sarah stood, grabbing their weapons, and went to the door.

  “Funny,” Erand said with a glance back as Brent joined them, “that the first day of your new life could be your last.”

  Brent wasn’t sure he saw the humor in that, but he nodded and said, “Yes, sir,” before following them all out through the door.

  They emerged into a long hallway. Windows lined the walls so that they could not only see the expanse of space all around them as they walked, but the battleship that awaited them at the other side of that tunnel.

  “You ever fly in one of these?” a thin vampire asked. His nametag said Triarg.

  “Only the transport ship up here,” Brent answered.

  “That’s like comparing a cat to a cheetah,” the vampire said with a chuckle. “Hope your stomach can handle it.”

  “I’ll handle anything you all throw at me.”

  Triarg’s eyes narrowed, and then he laughed. “Yeah we’ll see.”

  ***

  The thin vampire hadn’t exaggerated the ride, and when it really picked up speed, Brent found himself gripping his legs, eyes closed, focusing on just trying to keep his meal down.

  He tried to think of anything pleasant to keep his mind away from the queasiness—he thought back to a lemon cake his mom had always made when company was over, and the way she’d drizzle the frosting on to form spirals, because he’d liked it once as a kid and asked to always have it that way. He thought of the smell of a freshly brewed coffee the morning of a big exam for the academy he knew he’d pass, and he focused on the vanilla taste of Massie’s lips… the gentle press of her stomach against his, the warmth of her thighs, and—

  “Blood-bags gonna puke,” Triarg said with a laugh, interrupting the pleasant thoughts.

  Brent’s eyes popped open to see that the vampires were all looking his way from their seats. Most were humored, but Sarah was glaring. Erand was sitting in front of him, and hadn’t bothered to turn around.

  “It’s a bit rougher than I was prepared for,” Brent admitted.

  “You want to see rough,” Sarah said, “Get ready for this. Erand?”

  “Touching down in three,” Erand said, and then the ship pushed forward at a rate that made Brents feel like he’d just gone inside out as the stars turned to streaks.

  And just as fast as that, they came to a step, and then dipped into a quick descent, a red planet coming up before them, fast.

  “Holy—” Brent clutched his stomach, then one hand shot to his mouth as bile rose up. He kept it down, but when they landed, he longed to be back at the training station and away from this horrible feeling.

  “Get your trigger finger ready,” Erand said, standing and checking his gun before heading for the door.

  “Wait, isn’t there going to be a briefing here?” Brent stood, nearly fell, and stabilized himself on with a hand on the back of the chair.

  “Briefing?” Triarg laughed. “Mission—shoot those golden bastards. Much as you bastards like to think they’re gods, they aren’t. Keep them pinned down, we’ll do the rest.”

  Erand stood at the door and waited for Brent to step into his exoskeleton and secure his helmet. Breathing in these things was never comfortable, but it was certainly preferable to a quick death by overexposure to the gasses known to be thick in the air of these planets. Many out this way were near inhabitable, if you could figure out a way to filter out the gasses, which is why the Empire had set up defensive positions in a ring of planets, and why they bothered to defend them from the Goldies.

  “You remember when blood-bags used to worship us like gods?” one of the other vampires said to her buddy. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

  “Now we’re their attack dogs,” the other agreed with an annoyed look back at Brent before exiting the ship.

  Brent stood, working out the kinks in his suit and feeling the enhanced strength the exoskeleton provided, and then grabbed his rifle and followed them out.

  “Get your ass up here!” Sarah shouted, just as a golden glow formed on the horizon.

  Brent stared, totally confused about what he was seeing, and then he heard the explosions, the blasts of plasma cannon, and the BRRRT of automatic fire.

  The assault was already underway.

  Up ahead was the space station they were here to defend, he guessed, and vampire teams with their human Suppressors were taking up defensive spots, assault pods moving into position.

  “Here goes everything,” Brent said, and he charged up to join the others.

  The golden light was growing, almost blinding, the sound of warfare near deafening. Sarah appeared beside him, shouting something but he couldn’t figure out what, and then she reached over and hit a button on his suit. At first he thought she’d released his helmet, because everything grew dark, but the readjusted and he saw that she’d only turned on a filter, one that allowed him to see in spite of the gold light.

  “You’re welcome,” she shouted, and then a figure appeared behind her.

  It was like a man, almost, but twice as large, its skin glowing as if everything inside of it was gold. He could certainly see why the first humans to interact with these beings had thought they were gods.

  But one look at the eyes, large, empty eye sockets, clothes that flowed around them as if there was a strong wind blowing in every direction even though there wasn’t—he knew they were more like demons than anything else.

  Sure, they’d traced back the beings to a planet yet unreachable by any technology humans or vampires had yet to come up with, so by all definitions these beings were aliens. But he decided he’d stick to thinking of them as demons, or the devil incarnate, as he pulled around his Shredder, unlatched the safety, and unloaded on the first Goldie he had the displeasure of meeting.

  Sarah turned with surprise, apparently not realizing one had gotten so close, and then she was on
it, pulling it down and out of Brent’s line of fire so that she didn’t get hit as she sank her fangs into the being’s neck.

  Brent stopped firing as he watched in astonishment as the golden glow faded. When she was done, Sarah dropped the being to the ground. It was like a dried up snake skin, nothing left to the terrifying demon that had been ready to consume them.

  “That’s how it’s done!” Sarah shouted, turning to him with a broad smile, her skin glowing with a slight gold hue. “Hell yeah, Helms. Hell fucking yeah!”

  He couldn’t help but feel he was probably glowing a bit himself right then, but the moment for revelry didn’t last long, as three more Goldies touched down at the edge of the space station where Triarg and Erand had just taken up defensive positions. They were shooting and shouting for their suppressor, so Sarah said, “Come on,” and they ran for the attack.

  This next group proved more of a challenge, even with a second team coming in for the assault.

  He shot at two of them, another Suppressor joining in, as the vampires moved in for the strike. The third Goldie swooped in on the second Suppressor and lifted him into the air.

  And then the man was simply gone, his essence filling the Goldie with more light that shone bright in the dark of space.

  Brent took a step back, totally caught off guard. He’d heard about how they absorbed your soul, but seeing it first hand was a whole new level of horror.

  “Focus!” Erand said, then made a run for a Goldie that was coming down for Brent. Rifle blasting, Brent ran backward toward the space station.

  Triarg plowed into the Goldie, trying to get his teeth into the being as Brent dove for cover. When he looked up again, the Goldie had company, two were tearing at Triarg, their golden clothes whipping around them like flailing whips, and the vampire screamed as blood flew.

  Brent opened up on them, careful not to hit Triarg, but the vampire cried out as a bullet tore through his calf.

  Just then, Erand arrived with a blaster shot that got one Goldie’s attention, even though it barely phased him.

  Erand landed a punch and then pulled the being in to end it, but, while Triarg should have been attacking the second one, he fled.

  “What’re you doing?” Brent shouted as the vampire flew past him and into the space station. Receiving no response, he turned and fired just in time to distract the second Goldie, which had been about to catch Erand from behind. Sarah leaped into the fray and took it down, giving Brent breathing room.

  He turned, debating his next move, and figured he better check on Triarg. As he entered the space station, a force plowed into him and he hit the far wall, hard. When his head cleared, he saw Triarg tearing his helmet off. The space station was pressurized, luckily, but that didn’t mean Triarg’s fangs weren’t a threat.

  “You watch your shot, blood-bag!” Triarg said, then brought his fist across Brent’s jaw so hard that it left him seeing stars.

  “What the hell?” Brent shouted. “We gotta get back out there. The others—”

  “Shut up!” Triarg pulled back his fist, as if about to strike again, but then he paused and a wicked smile spread across his face.

  “Triarg….”

  “No, enough talking from you.” Triarg’s eyes glowed red as they roamed down to Brent’s neck. “You know, there’s a way for vampires to heal relatively fast in battle.”

  “It’s not gonna happen,” Brent said, desperately racking his mind for some way to get this vampire off of him. He wasn’t going to risk everything for his Empire, only to come out here and serve as a healing treat for some cowardly vampire.

  “Food has very little to say on the matter,” Triarg said, holding Brent’s arms down so he couldn’t struggle as he moved in, fangs at the ready.

  “Get off me!” Brent shouted, pulling at the extra strength of his exoskeleton, but still unable to resist the vampire. “When the others hear about this….”

  The tip of his fangs pierced skin, and Triarg pulled back just enough for Brent to see him licking the blood from his lips.

  “If they hear about it, you’ll already be dead. You think they’d care about one measly little human?”

  “Yes,” came an answer. A feminine voice, and then BAM! Sarah was on Triarg, pulling him from Brent and pinning him to the wall.

  “Let me go,” Triarg shouted. “You traitor to your kind! He’s blood, nothing more!”

  “He’s one of the team,” Sarah said, then let her grip loosen. “Do you understand that?”

  Triarg held up his hands, as if he surrendered, but then broke free from her grip and charged Brent.

  It wasn’t even a decision, but pure instinct when Brent pulled up his Shredder and pulled the trigger, watching with astonishment as he saw what that thing did to a vampire at close range.

  Triarg fell to the floor, holes throughout his body, blood flowing. “You… bitch.” He tried pulling himself up, crawling toward Brent, but Sarah stepped in his way.

  “This stops now.” She pulled her own gun on him.

  “If I don’t feed, I die!” Triarg yelled, then coughed up blood. “Don’t you see that?”

  “You chose death the minute you attacked one of your own team members,” she said. “But I’m forgiving. Pick yourself up and forget this, and you can return to base for questioning and, if they’ll hear it, a trial.”

  “Fuck. You.” He lunged for her now, but not even bothering with the gun, she side-stepped, leaped into the air, and then brought her fist down hard into the side of his face, so that when the two landed on the ground, his head was mush.

  She stood, wiping her hand on her uniform with a look of disgust, and then turned her focus on Brent. “Hurry, we have Goldies to kill.”

  “But… you just killed a vampire. Over me?”

  “As I said. You’re a member of team.” She glared down at Triarg’s bloody corpse. “He… no longer was.”

  And with that she hefted up the corpse, waited for Brent to put on his helmet, and tossed Triarg out through the doors.

  “Another way to distract those bastards long enough to feed on ‘em,” she said, flashing a fang-filled smile back to Brent, “is with bait.”

  Gold light flashed outside, and then she ran for them, Brent close on her heels. Erand showed up a just as Brent made it through the doors and a second later, the two Goldies fell, lifeless husks.

  With a quick glance between Triarg and Sarah, Erand didn’t even have to ask. He simply nodded, then turned to Brent. “You ready, newb?”

  He checked his ammo, did a quick magazine swap, and said, “Hell yes.”

  “Stay tight,” Erand said. “I promise, this won’t happen again.”

  And then they moved out for the attack, a seamless unit taking down Goldie after Goldie. It was no longer Brent doing his part and the vampires doing theirs, because he knew where he stood with them now. He knew he was part of the unit, a unit with one mission—destroy these aliens and keep them from ever again doing what they’d done to his planet.

  As Erand and Sarah took down the last one at the same time, the golden light faded from the sky and a cheer went up from the remaining teams. There had been casualties, but they’d shown the aliens that this was one section of the defensive wall that would not fall.

  He smiled, knowing he was part of the team. He had a new family… But the thought of not seeing Massie in the near future put a dark spot in his joy.

  They showed him to his new quarters in the space station, and he found it quaint. Just enough space to sleep and do his morning workout, not much else. A former resident had etched what looked like Earth into the wall… as if anyone knew what that place looked like anymore. Not first hand anyway.

  He removed the exoskeleton and was just starting to undress when Sarah knocked and then opened the door.

  “You decent?” she asked, eyes moving across his shirtless body.

  “Decent enough,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “We got a new teammate already,” she said. “
Reinforcements, if you will. Thing is, I thought you’d want to meet first.”

  An image of another Triarg flashed through his mind and he glanced at his rifle in the corner.

  Sarah laughed. “You won’t be needing that.” She stepped aside and said, “I thought we could use two Suppressors on our team, you know, a kind of trial deal. You up for that?”

  Another human? He wasn’t sure what to say, when this second Suppressor walked up to stand beside Sarah, where he could see her.

  Massie.

  “I trust you know Sgt. Massie?” Sarah said, a glimmer in her eye, before she nodded, trying not to smile, and walked off.

  Massie smiled wide. “Can I come in?”

  “Hell yes,” he said, and took her in his arms.

  When they went downstairs later that night and all the teams and vampires welcomed the two of them with drinks and a feast for the humans, synthetic blood for the vampires, he couldn’t have been happier. He held her hand under the table and used his free hand to raise a glass and toast the new team.

  It was the perfect end to his first day on the new job.

  About the Author, Justin Sloan

  Justin Sloan writes vampires and shifters, often in the genres of post-apocalyptic, urban fantasy, epic military fantasy, and supernatural thriller. He is a video game writer (Game of Thrones; Walking Dead; Michonne, Minecraft: Story Mode), novelist (Justice is Calling, Hounds of God, Falls of Redemption, etc.), podcaster, and screenwriter.

  He has written on taking writing from hobby to career in his book Creative Writing Career and its sequel, and how veterans can pursue their passions in Military Veterans in Creative Careers. Justin studied writing at the Johns Hopkins University and UCLA after five years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and now works as a writer and editor for Military.com.

  Find Justin online: Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Website

  Books by Justin Sloan

  Reclaiming Honor Series (written with Michael Anderle)

  Falls of Redemption Series

  Bringer of Light Series

  Modern Necormancy Series (written with Michael La Ronn)

  Cursed Night Series