Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

“Stop it! Or you’ll regret it!” Kashchey shouted, pressing his back to the shaking gates. Nothing changed. Kashchey shrugged. “I did warn you…”

He opened the electrical panel and switched one of the levers to the “on” position. There was a deafening explosion on the street. White lights sparkled dazzlingly, illuminating a third of the planet. The walls shook, the windows cracked in some places, the lamps flickered, and pieces of ceiling began to crumble. A strong ozone smell filled the air. The electroshock he’d preserved for uninvited guests had just been discharged by letting out the energy it kept accumulating for over four thousand years.

The knocking and growling stopped.

Kashchey waited a bit and then peered out from behind the gates, curious to see what happened to his guests. The clearing had turned into a flat field covered with gray ash. The first vampire, who was decently blackened, remained in the same crooked position, though he wasn’t uttering anything any longer. The other vampires had been simply erased from the face of the earth, leaving only tiny particles of ash behind. The trees disappeared for several miles around, as if they’d never been here. The foliage of the surrounding woods was torn.

“You okay?” Kashchey asked sympathetically. The figure muttered something and fell to the ground. “Wow! What a tough guy! Almost like me!”

The gates slammed shut.

Half an hour later, Kashchey restored the situation in the main hall, mainly by calming the frightened princess.

“What happened? Did the sky fall?”

“No, just some ugly mug.”

“And it was that loud?”

“Ugly mugs are always loud!”

“You didn’t let them in, of course.”

“Naturally. He wants to take over my castle…”

“He?”

“Yes, he! The ugly mug!.. Wow! Look, he’s climbing the windows! He’s recovered quickly.”

The vampire climbed on the windowsill and angrily kicked the unbreakable glass. He didn’t expect the recoil, so he fell right down, waving his wings but unable to remain in the air because of the increased gravity.

“Ahhh!” they heard.

“We’ve heard that one before!” Kashchey shouted indignantly.

“Did he crash?” Maria gasped.

“Why would he? Those like him don’t crash! He’s tenacious like every other parasite. Like me,” Kashchey explained and opened the window. Glancing at the vampire and making sure he’s still alive, Kashchey shouted, “Wait, I’ll bring you a nice little souvenir!”

He ran away and soon came back with a black balloon about half a meter long.

“Get ready for a small explosion,” Kashchey announced, pressed the only button on the ball and threw it into the street. It fell to the ground next to the vampire. “Now run!” Kashchey shouted, shutting the window with a loud bang. “It’s a humming bomb! It’s going to howl in a way that’ll raise the dead! It’ll last for three hours!”

“What?!”

“Uuuuuuuggggg!” the bomb hit their ears with its almost unearthly decibels. Maria tried to imagine what the vampire felt like, but it was difficult to think. The howling was unbearable. After making a few steps toward the door, she swayed and fell unconscious.

When she came to her senses six hours later, she discovered herself in the same room with the strange name of “Central control”. Kashchey was sitting in the chair, clicking on something enthusiastically. Noticing that the princess woke up, he gave her some water and happily said that after running through the corridors back and forth, he’d gotten lost. After another turn, he came across what he’d been looking for by accident.

“That’s one powerful bomb!” he said, either stating the fact or showing off, or maybe empathizing with the vampire. “I hope our guest doesn’t come to us again. Of course, if after that sound attack his brains are intact. You know what? I learned a lot of interesting things. You rest for a while.”

He flicked the switches and pressed various buttons, checking what would happen, memorizing the result while leveling everything that stood a little above the ground in the vicinity of the castle. He finished only when the tops of the towers let out bright rays into the sky and the planet Phaeton appeared between Mars and Jupiter, along with its asteroid belt.

“I’m powerful!” Kashchey summed up. “I’m so powerful it’s scary to think about it!”

The vampire woke up and immediately regretted it, but falling back unconscious was already impossible. He rose to his feet, trying to move as smoothly as possible, and walked away, deciding to return when he felt better. Gas molecules, also known as air, were colliding with each other deafeningly, and the wind whistled, watching their dance. After having lost his elite vampire troops in one moment, he realized he’d made a big mistake. He should have taken the castle immediately upon his arrival five thousand years ago. And when he decided to rectify the situation and make it his impregnable lair, he’d chosen the wrong approach once again. He shouldn’t have thrown himself into this wilderness without really knowing who lived here. And here was the result, a staggering defeat and a blow to his plans to seize the planet.

His head buzzed, the wind howled and whistled unbearably. Somehow getting to the forest, the vampire found a dark place and collapsed there, unconscious.

The captain watched the actions of princes enthusiastically. Yeah, they were brave soldiers. He remembered them from how they’d reacted to his ship. Such people were able to defeat the vampires, and the captain was glad he hadn’t burned them during an emergency take off.

The robot-interceptor was recording their conversations, and it became clear that the princes were heading to the mysterious Kashchey, whom everyone called the Immortal. Only it wasn’t clear whether this was really so or if it was just an exaggeration. The peasants, for example, when talking about their battle with the vampires, had increased the number of killed enemies by exactly three… thirty-three times. And the soldiers in the capital hadn’t even blinked after hearing about a new problem. This world, it seemed, firmly stood on its feet, and people were ready to fight back at any moment. Their military skills were of top class.

Now, if he could learn who Kashchey was…

Why not? He didn’t have to worry about the vampires, the people themselves would destroy them. Now he understood why the vampires had failed to conquer this planet. The people didn’t allow it! (The captain didn’t know how deeply wrong he was by jumping from pessimism to excessive optimism so quickly.) So, he just had to follow the princes, and soon it would be clear who Kashchey was and what he represented.

The captain gave the command to the robot-scout and it began to move after the princes, keeping a careful distance behind them. The captain focused on installing the night vision system. After he returned home, the film would become such a sensation that he would be able to buy a whole planetary system!

The captain dedicated himself entirely to his task, but toward the night, he was distracted by a strange event. Something flashed from the north side so brightly that he’d lost his sight for a moment, and the night vision devices went permanently out of order. The computer showed the calculated power of that flash, and it turned out that it was equal to the explosion of a nuclear bomb with a capacity of three thousand eight hundred megatons.

The tornado beams came from the same direction.

Funnily, the computer showed that princes were moving to that exact region. Conclusion? Only the devil knew what was happening here. He had to leave the ship and look around. Not directly, of course. With the help of mega-scanner.