Jonathan Bond - The Terminus experiment

“Die, you godless bastard!” screamed Biggs as he burned the vampire’s head from its shoulders.

“Report,” said Julius as he advanced with Biggs.

“I figure there are still about sixty of ’em total, with the reinforcements. It only seems like more ’cause they’re so hard to put down. We’re sitting at about thirty percent casualties, about eighteen men dead. Nobody still alive has been bitten, far as I know.” Biggs’ voice was tight with adrenaline and fear. “But I got some boys staking anybody who goes down, just to make sure our own dead don’t get back up.”

Above his head, Julius could hear the sounds of four airborne drones in the background. They’d started out with six, but somehow the vampires had managed to bring down two of them. It didn’t really matter, though. The drones were little more than a nuisance to the vampires. With their light guns, the drones couldn’t target the vampires long enough to do any lasting damage.

Julius spoke over the commlink. “We can’t take this prolonged fighting,” he said. “We’ve got to make a hard push for the loading dock there. Teams Three and Four will fortify the position, and One and Two will start ransacking the place. Once we find Warren, I want this place burned to the ground. Understand?”

Biggs turned to him, and Julius could see his wide grin beneath the visor covering the top of his face. “My pleasure.”

Julius spoke into his commlink again. “By the numbers, people. Team Four, take the left flank and advance to just below the loading dock. Team Three, back them. Team One and Two, provide cover. When Three and Four are in position. One and Two take the building.”

Just then the entire back of the loading dock lit up with a brilliant light, and the concussion was enough to make Julius stagger. In the afterglow, he could see the door to the loading dock buckle outward and finally fly upward.

“What the hell?” Biggs had turned to stare, and so did everyone else out there, vampires included.

Then forms spilled out of the ruined doorway. Julius counted five of them, one so huge it had to be a troll. Even from here, Julius could see that they were in bad shape.

“Damn, he’s going to be hard to take down,” said Biggs.

Suddenly, the whine of a Vindicator brought the battle back into focus as the huge troll started chewing up the nearest vampires. The group was running, hunched low, shooting up any vampire that came close.

Julius accelerated the visual field on his helmet and switched to night-vision enhancement and flare compensation. He brought the group into focus, the troll first, then a human with pale pale skin and white hair. There was a small elf, and another.

He recognized this one. Rachel. Warren’s girlfriend.

What’s she doing here? The sight of her was so incongruous that for a moment, he couldn’t believe it. Then the formation of the team struck home. Fratellanza, Inc. had earned millions of nuyen trying to keep teams exactly like this from penetrating their client’s defenses.

She hired a bunch of shadowrunners. Julius realized in a flash that she must have been trying to rescue Warren. But if that true, then where is any son? He scanned the entire area and saw no sign of him. The runners didn’t have him.

Julius caught sight of another face among the group coming out of the compound. It appeared for a second, then was gone from his magnified field of vision. But for Julius, it was a face he would never forget.

The face of Martin de Vries.

This man had killed Derek, and he had kidnapped Warren. Or so Julius had thought. But if that were true, then why was he killing these vampires? And why was he in the company of Warren’s girlfriend, a woman Julius knew would never work against the interests of his son?

Julius had questions and he needed answers. He was determined to get those answers. And his son.

“Team Two, give them cover fire!” he yelled.

The night was rocked by gunfire and lit up like New Year’s Eve. Team Two poured everything they had into the enemy.

A small group of eight vampires, led by a female who was more cyber than vampire, tried to cut the group off. The man Julius recognized as de Vries tore her limb from limb, and used one of her cybered legs to beat another vampire to the ground, then reached down to pull out the creature’s heart.

Suddenly, the doorway to the loading dock seemed to swell like the ocean, and forms started pouring out into the night.

“This is Recon to Mobmaster One. We got lots of company. I count at least forty more vampires chasing that little group.”

Julius watched as the runners formed a circle, shoulder to shoulder. They were surrounded on all sides. He knew then that they were going to be overwhelmed. Killed before he had the chance to find out what they knew about Warren.

Rachel stood shoulder to shoulder with Sinunu and Truxa. At their backs were Flak and de Vries. Her legs felt like dead weight and she could barely stand from the fatigue. I will not let it end here, she thought.

Firing as quickly as she could aim, Rachel watched as the line of vampires advanced on them. The first of them was an old man. He was dressed in a tattered suit that showed recent bloodstains running down its front. His left arm was a clunky piece of cyberware left over from the Desert Wars, and the right side of his head was plate metal. Just behind him came a trio of women. They were all brown-haired and slim, but the middle one was missing her right arm from the shoulder, and the simple dress she wore still smoked near the neck. The arm had obviously been taken off by a laser, but she just as obviously didn’t seem to notice.

Flak’s voice came over the tacticom. “Sandman, it looks like this is it. They got us pinned down. Is there anything you can do?”

Sandman’s voice was strained. “Just hold on. I’m going to try to get control of the perimeter defenses.”

Suddenly, the night was lit up again, this time by the mini-guns on the roof and fence. Sandman’s aim wasn’t as good as a security rigger’s would have been, but it wasn’t half bad. Hot lead tore into the vampires, separating the wave that was advancing on them, opening a tiny hole in the middle of the line.

The runners were just about to move when the first of the miniguns fell silent. Rachel looked up just in time to see small knots of vampires, heedless of the damage being done to them, tearing the miniguns from their housing.

“Good, but not good enough.” said Flak over the tacticom.

Suddenly, there was a screaming roar from in front of Rachel, in the direction of the Fratellanza trucks. Out of the darkness, a huge form rolled forward, looking like some deformed locomotive. Scattering vampires like chaff, its wedge-shaped scoop cutting white flesh and dragging vampires under, the huge vehicle plowed through, bearing straight for them.

Just behind the monster truck, Rachel could make out the van that had transported them there.

“That more like it? Seems the military-type boys want to get you out almost as much as I do.” Sandman’s voice held a note of triumph that Rachel hadn’t heard before.

The huge truck turned at the last moment, catching a male vampire under its massive front tire. The man screamed with anger and pain, his pale flesh splitting over his abdomen and spilling his intestines on the ground.