Vampire Apocalypse: Descent Into Chaos (Book 2) (14 page)

Falconi looked through his night binoculars and could
see the occasional flare of heat walking through the camp that
denoted those on guard duty. The guards did not stray too far from
the waning heat provided by the dying fires so they were easily
identified and marked. Falconi had two hundred thralls with him. He
had sent half of his force to the next camp a mile or so along the
trail. Once the fighting started the other camps would react to the
noise of the attack and come to re-enforce their colleagues so,
rather than stick to the original plan developed by Wentworth and
his generals, Falconi had added a few tweaks that he thought would
increase his own odds of surviving.

The original plan called for him to attack the two
camps, disable as many of the heavy armor as they could, kill as
many as was prudent, and then run back towards their own lines
where they would be covered by friendly fire. While this was a fine
plan overall for the Wentworth cabal, it did not fill Falconi with
much confidence for his own survival. Ralph Falconi may have only
been a low-level criminal but he had always been blessed with a
higher than average intelligence that had kept him alive up until
now.

As he looked into the quiet camp he began to see the
flaws of the original plan that would most likely get him killed.
The camps were far too close for him to achieve his goals and get
out before the other camps arrived and cut them to pieces. The
problem was that it would be obvious where the attack was coming
from as soon as the first shot or scream announced their position.
The other camps would rally quickly and he and his men would be
torn apart. Wentworth and his generals would still have a major
victory if they destroyed the tanks but Falconi wanted to be alive
to enjoy his promised rewards. On the other hand, he could not
return without destroying all the armor in the two camps assigned
to him either.

He decided to compromise a little and split his
forces further. There was no time to pass on his improvements to
the plan to the other group so they would just have to make do. He
turned from the camp and issued orders to the squad leaders that
squatted beside him. He sent the three smaller groups along the
chain of camps with instructions to take out as much of the armor
as they could and make as much noise as they could before returning
to camp.

He promised each squad leader many more rewards than
he was capable of delivering but was certain that few of them would
survive the night’s events anyway. He watched the men disappear
into the darkness and settled down to wait for them to get into
position. If the enemy were not sure where they were being attacked
from then they would not be able to organize a strong counter
attack but would also have to split their forces. The camps on the
periphery of the attack would rally around those camps nearest them
and, with his own assigned camp being in the middle, he should have
plenty of time to get his job done and get back across the border
before the enemy forces managed to get to him.

If all went well he might even survive the night.

The first explosion of the night made everyone jump.
There was an intense white flare about a mile in the distance that
briefly illuminated the area surrounding the explosion, and then it
seemed to implode and disappear before a reddish orange glow
appeared and cast eerie shapes around the illuminated area. Falconi
cursed, the attack was not meant to begin for another ten minutes
so something had gone wrong somewhere. He raised the binoculars but
the light from the fire was far too bright and ruined the night
vision.

“Right,” he shouted to his own men, “get into the
camp; destroy everything that has an engine.” They had spent the
last thirty minutes placing charges and taking out any guards on
the periphery of the camp. These were set to detonate on a timer so
there was still nine minutes before those charges would blow. They
had not been able to get at the majority of the tanks, though, as
most had been parked close to the fires and were draped with the
sleeping bodies of the enemy thralls. The plan had been to enter
the camp under the confusion of the destroyed outer vehicles, plant
more explosives and then get out.

Now that plan was shot to hell.

He launched himself from their position and aimed a
long burst at the sleeping figures on the nearest tank. His men
fanned out to either side of him and the noise of gunfire filled
the night. Thralls died as they struggled from sleeping bags or
tightly packed blankets, many of them did not even have the time to
free their arms, let alone grab their weapons. Falconi felt no pity
for them as he watched them die. In this world only the strong and
intelligent survived.

He had twenty men with him but they slaughtered many
times that as they swept through the camp. Deep booms of explosions
filled the night as his other teams set about their own slaughter.
The armor surrounding the camp suddenly began to blow, had nine
minutes really passed already, and then the tanks on the inner
circle began to go up as well. Bodies, still wrapped in their
blankets, fell on to the campfires and the smoldering embers
engulfed the material greedily. Soon flames licked upwards,
tentative at first and then growing stronger as the awakened pyre
devoured clothes and flesh. Shadows danced around the camp as the
flame’s ochre incandescence cast an eerie glow on the carnage.

In the distance Falconi could hear the roar of
engines and the deep thump of shells as the surviving tanks fired
them. The high-pitched chatter of .50 millimeter guns from the
enemy armor filled the night, and Falconi knew that the other camps
had already begun to fight back. The level of noise on either side
of him as the enemy rallied and poured their fire into his men was
frightening and he was glad he had created a buffer between himself
and the hell that poured over his men in the other camps.

He called to his own patrol, only twelve left he saw
in the undulating light from the fire, and signaled for them to
return to the border. He looked back briefly on the camp and saw
the burning, mangled remains of the mechanized equipment and the
many dark mounds that testified to a hard fought victory. He
smiled. He felt himself growing aroused as he thought of the
rewards that would soon be his. This war could very possibly be the
best thing that had ever happened to him.

Bloody War is the worst thing that has ever happened
to me, Major William Carter moaned as he shot up out of his
sleeping bag and cracked his head against the metal of the tank’s
interior console. He had spent an uncomfortable night so far in the
command chair. He really had thought that being inside the tank on
a cold night would be better than being outside, but now he was not
so sure. The metal shell of the tank seemed to intensify the cold.
He had opened the hatch earlier and the air outside had seemed far
warmer than the icy interior but he had made such a fuss about
taking over the tank that he did not have the nerve to move.

He had only just drifted off to a fitful sleep when
he had heard a loud thump in the distance but the sound had been
somewhat muted within the metal cocoon of the tank’s cab and he had
not been sure what he had heard at first. He heard a commotion
outside as a guard began to shout. He lifted himself painfully from
the chair and opened the hatch. There were a number of men pulling
themselves from their sleeping bags on the tank around him and in
the distance he heard more explosions.

“What the fu…?” he muttered as he saw the horizon
light up with strange tawny illuminations to the east. A guard
shouted up to him about an attack and his brain finally began to
join up the pieces. “Christ,” he shouted down to the thrall, “you
mean they actually attacked us?”

The thrall looked up at him with a strange expression
and Carter ignored him as he scrambled from the tank. The thump of
explosions was constant now, almost like thunder rolling through
the mountains; only this thunder was interspersed with the tinny
chatter of machine gun fire. His position was right next to the
first of the now glowing areas where the attack was centered but he
could see that fighting had also broken out in other areas further
along the border. He offered up a silent prayer of thanks to
whichever Gods might still be around that he had not been deployed
in any of those areas.

Someone would pay dearly for not securing their
perimeters—assuming, of course, they survived the night. He had
deployed his own patrols in a skirmish line and had assigned his
personal guard to shoot anyone not keeping to their assigned patrol
area. It was obvious to him that Wentworth might send out a
commando raid to try and take them by surprise. He had heard one
shot early in the night and assumed that an example had been made
as he had heard nothing since. Surely the others had deployed their
own patrols? How had the enemy gotten through?

Another volley of explosions roared from the camp
next to his and he shook himself from his deliberations. He shouted
a stream of orders to the men who surrounded him, and in seconds
vehicles roared into life and men assembled in the pale light of
their own smoldering fire. Diesel fumes filled the air and he gave
the order to advance.

It would only take them a few minutes to close the
distance, and he imagined himself as the rescuing hero. There might
yet be something to be gained from this little war, after all.

The path between the two camps was lit by the pulsing
glow of the many fires that consumed the ruined vehicles that now
dotted the approach to the border. Yesterday, as the tanks had been
deployed, the line of vehicles had been as impressive an array of
armor as you were ever likely to see anywhere in the world. Row
after row of gleaming metal behemoths had been arrayed with their
barrels pointing towards the border, waiting for the next day and
the carnage they would exact on any forces foolish enough to
approach them.

Now, however, all that remained were twisted husks
whose fuel burned furiously in the night and announced their
defeat-like beacons. Von Kruger had wanted to make an example of
any attack that might occur so he had ordered his tanks filled with
fuel so that they could take full advantage of any assault by
retaliating with all his might and driving the enemy forces back as
far as they could travel. Wentworth would not be able to contest
any territory gained in such a maneuver if it had been him who had
instigated the original attack. But he had been outmaneuvered and
now hundreds of gallons of fuel burned brightly and illuminated the
entire area.

Bodies littered the ground around the tanks and
inside the camp as well, but it was impossible to see what uniform
they wore in the undulating light. Carter saw a number of men on
their feet in the camp and he ordered his crew to open fire. He did
not intend to take any chances, besides he was doing them a favor.
Any of Von Kruger’s forces still alive in those camps that had been
over run would be better off dead rather than face their masters
and explain why they had lost so badly.

He signaled for his vehicles to spread out and
approach the camp in a horseshoe formation to ensure that they did
not get hit from behind. Gunfire erupted to his left and bullets
slammed into the armor just beneath him. He dropped quickly back
into the cab of the tank and ordered the gunner to respond to the
attack. It wouldn’t do to be showered with honors posthumously, now
would it?

His tanks powered through the camp and destroyed
anything in their path, cutting through enemy and friendly forces
with equal indifference. Ahead he could see the occasional flare of
machine gun fire in the next camp, and he ordered his men to
continue forward.

Wentworth watched the pinpricks of light flare into
life in the distance and reveled with each roar of thunder as
another tank blew up. The horizon was filled with individual fires
and he gave up counting when he reached fifty. He noted that the
fires spread further than his plan had called for and he made a
note to watch his new commander carefully. The Captain was no fool
and could be an asset or a threat, depending on how he was
handled.

There was now a huge hole in the defenses of the
enemy. Most of the forces close enough to the areas under fire had
by now mobilized and moved to re-enforce those who were pinned,
leaving their own designated areas unguarded. Wentworth turned to
his men and signaled phase two of the night’s operation. Around him
trucks, armored cars and as many tanks as they could fuel, which
was not many, roared to life and began to approach those darker
areas in the defenses. Once behind enemy lines they would turn and
attack the enemy forces from the rear.

By the time someone figured out what had happened
they should have taken out enough of the enemy armor to make sure
that Von Kruger would think twice about flaunting his superior
forces again. He had also assigned a number of his thralls to steal
as much fuel as was possible during the confusion. If luck remained
with them they might actually do well out of this little
incursion.

Von Kruger tore through the night air with each
powerful stroke of his wings. A vampire’s ability to fly is more
suited to riding air currents that flying at speed but Von Kruger
ignored the pain in his shoulders and continued towards the glowing
horizon.

The radio had alerted him to the attack only moments
ago but the panicked report had been cut short before they had been
able to get confirmation. His radio operator had frantically tried
to contact other camps but static mocked him with each attempt.
Those they had got through to had known next to nothing. Von Kruger
had never been patient and his four hundred years of existence had
not tempered his disposition in any way.