"Inconsequential." Persephone talked down to her former executor. "That's all this is." A clawed hand gripped the side of Vespera's head, digging into her skin and drawing blood. She tried to pull away, but Persephone held her in place, on her knees with her arms bound behind her back with chains. The chains were etched with holy symbols that inhibited her teleportation powers. They were put in place by mortals, lest any vampires that touch them suffer the same weakened fate. Muffled gunshots echoed down the passageways of the underground bunker as vampiric forces engaged in an all-out civil war.

  Sadly for Vespera, it was drawing to a close. And she had lost. Ren lay dead behind Persephone, who had forced Vespera to watch as she eviscerated him into a pile of organs. Vespera refused to meet her eyes, clenching her teeth. The bodies of more of her rebel faction littered the ground outside and inside the room.

  The sadistic Queen continued, "You have served your purpose. Far better than any executor I have ever encountered. I should thank you. You have amassed far greater strength than I had predicted."

  Vespera finally stared back, eyes full of pain and hate.

  Persephone snapped her fingers. "Executor," she prompted, and Svetlana stepped forward. "But your ambition has been your downfall, dear Vespera."

  Svetlana regarded Vespera with a smug glance. Vespera glared back with an even more intense and burning hatred. She opened her mouth to speak, but Persephone slashed her claws across the former executor's face, leaving deep and lasting scars.

  The Russian vampire handed a rolled-up piece of paper with a tight wax seal to the Queen.

  Through labored breaths, Vespera finally spoke. "You are the traitor here. You have murdered the Council of Equals. Our kin will hang you for this!"

  Persephone allowed herself a self-satisfied smile. "I have no equals." She held up the scroll. "And this, a document of your own forging, will ensure their compliance."

  The scroll contained written confirmation from the four other members of the Council of Equals, declaring their support for Vespera to usurp Persephone. The document, signed in secret, paved the way so that all Vespera had to do was challenge Persephone, and the various council heads would back her. Instead, it had now been adjusted. As loyalists to Queen Persephone scoured the remaining forces of the other factions, the only word that would leave this bunker was that scroll, which now read that the Council had bestowed absolute authority upon Persephone. When she left this place, she would control the combined forces of every single vampire clan on Earth.

  "Really, this was a trivial event to predict. Lesson number two, executor: absolute power does not lie with the crown. It lies with the hands that carry it." She shared a glance with Svetlana.

  "Just kill me and be done with it," Vespera spat.

  Two large explosions violently rocked the facility, causing the lights to dim and debris to float down from above. Persephone looked up with a smile.

  "No... no, you will not have that honor. The pawns of the light are here. I will leave the indignity of your death to them." She looked to Svetlana. "It is time to leave."

  In the dead of night, a stealth cruise missile screamed through the Italian mountains at relatively low speeds. Despite its wide, telephone pole-length body, it maneuvered nimbly. It hugged the ground, evading Italian air-search radar and carefully keeping itself just under this upper limit. Even if it strayed above its programmed parameters, its angular stealth body would give it no greater a return than a hawk.

  The missile exited a valley and lined up on its final approach to the target. In doing so, it dropped to mere feet off the ground. Its engine, running at low power, kicked into high gear. On terminal approach, it ignited afterburners and blasted through its first barrier—the sound barrier. A second and a half later, it blasted through its second barrier.

  The underground facility was defended by two sets of thick blast doors, strong enough to repulse a low-yield nuclear detonation. The door-knocker missile slammed into the first door faster than the guards outside could even comprehend its presence. The 500-pound thermobaric shaped charge bored through the door. A searing jet of molten plasma, guided by its precision liner, punched forward at hypersonic velocity, liquefying steel and composite plating in an instant. The metal bloomed outward like a fiery flower.

  Then came the thermobaric detonation. The charge dispersed a superheated aerosol, saturating the space beyond the breach before the secondary ignition ripped the oxygen from the air. A pressure wave, hotter than the surface of the sun, flashed through the corridor, vaporizing anything unfortunate enough to be standing near the blast. The shockwave didn’t just kill—it pulverized, turning flesh to mist and reducing hardened concrete defenses to molten slag. The second door was blown inward, off its rails.

  As the guards outside just began to recover from the explosion, a second missile exploded overhead in an airburst detonation fifty feet above them. Its altimeter fuse triggered at the precise moment to maximize devastation.

  For a fraction of a second, there was nothing—just a sharp, concussive crack as the casing fragmented. Then, the fireball erupted outward in a furious sphere, igniting the air itself as a superheated shockwave expanded at supersonic speed. A scalding overpressure surge slammed downward, collapsing lungs, rupturing eardrums, and hurling bodies like ragdolls across the shattered ground. Armored vehicles were tossed aside like toys. The entire mountain range shuddered under the sheer force.

  The explosion wasn’t just heat and pressure—it was lethal fragmentation. A storm of high-velocity steel and tungsten shards rained death across a hundred-meter radius, shredding anything in their path. Shrapnel scythed through flesh and armor alike, punching through vehicles, walls, and anything that offered the illusion of cover. The guards, caught in the open, had no time to react—their bodies were torn apart mid-motion, their last actions frozen in time as silhouettes against the blinding fireball.

  In the aftermath, smoke and dust choked the air, the ground littered with the charred, motionless remains of what had been a defensive force mere moments ago. Fires flickered across destroyed concrete emplacements, the few standing structures scarred by the blast, their surfaces blackened and pockmarked with burning shrapnel impacts.

  The Papal Guard spies watched the explosions in stunned amazement from their vantage point. They didn’t know what was going on. As the leader hesitated to key his radio, trying to find the words to describe what he had just witnessed, two aircraft came in fast and low.

  Two Vanguard Kestrels came in so fast that their belly-mounted sentry guns didn’t even deploy. Their ramps were already down. They came in so fast that when their sturdy bellies hit the ground, they scraped along it for several dozen feet. From the open ramps, two trucks were launched forward by the inertia of the sudden stop. The two remotely controlled 5-ton supply trucks flew through the air for several yards before slamming down on their wheels. They were equipped with tactical rams mounted to the front of their frames. Their engines raced as they proceeded at breakneck speeds through the debris, slamming concrete chunks, vehicle hulks, and any other obstructions aside. They crashed through the wreckage of the doors and disappeared into the cavernous opening made by the missile strike.

  Then, down the ramps of the Kestrels came the infantry. A whole company slid—rather than ran—down the ramps, hitting the ground at a run. A few Rifles split off to secure the LZ, but most proceeded towards the entrance.

  Four squads amassing 36 Rifles between them, formed up outside the wreckage of the doors that had been pushed aside by the 5-ton truck rams. One moved notably slower than the others.

  Eight soldiers—an entire squad—were attached to an element under Ensign Perelli. They were quick, but not as quick as his other squad. They wore the same standard Rifle Adaptive Tactical Armor, but their armor panels were freshly painted white with bold black "INTERPOL" lettering on the chest piece. Their helmets and ballistic masks were blue with white U.N. stenciling.

  It had been a feat for the newly minted officer to bring the eight soldiers up to speed and properly equipped in the 48 hours between when he was informed they'd be attached to his element and when Whirlwind received the frag order to hit the vampire nest. Perelli, Weber, and Milo worked through the night over the past two days to get to know them and understand their skills—only to then tell them to forget all of it and train them to the Vanguard's standard. Despite their admirable effort, they hadn’t fully met that standard. The INTERPOL-but-actually-NATO troopers were the best their nations' militaries had to offer, and they certainly picked things up fast. But there was only so much that could be accomplished in the time they had. Perelli's hope was that at the very least, they understood his orders, the Vanguard’s way of war, and knew enough not to get in the way.

  It also didn’t help that Striker-Commander Federov insisted on using unconventional tactics, evidenced by Perelli's shock when he was informed that two 5-ton flatbed trucks would be specially modified with plows and dead weight to be used as literal battering rams.

  Thankfully, the Vanguard's way of war was simple and easy to understand: maintain economy of action through sheer force of violence.

  Perelli shared a nod with his counterpart commanding the other element, Lieutenant Junior-Grade Olson.

  "Mr. Wilhelm, let them know we're here!" Perelli ordered.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Aye, sir!" The Prussian-born Rifle aimed his rotary-fed grenade launcher at the darkness and emptied the cylinder. Six flash grenades disappeared into the opening. After counting six detonations, Perelli gave a simple signal: two fingers pointed forward.

  Of the four squads, they had six combat frames between them. The frames led the way, carrying large ballistic shields in one hand and submachine guns in the other. Behind them came the assault troopers armed with automatic shotguns, followed by the rest of the infantry. Perelli kept the U.N. team at the rear. They moved with discipline and speed, rifles raised, sweeping corners and overheads.

  The Rifle squads moved through the doors and into a vast concrete parking garage. Numerous vehicles were parked in the surprisingly well-lit space. A field of debris radiated away from the doors in a circular pattern. The vehicles nearest the door were heavily damaged, some stacked on top of one another. A stretched limousine was halved, its rear end completely missing.

  Beyond the initial wreckage was a more defined path of destruction. The two battering rams had proceeded through the garage, smashing everything in their path, leaving a trail of overturned and crushed vehicles behind—some worth more than a WWII aircraft carrier.

  Both rams continued until they plowed headlong into the concrete wall at the end of the garage. One sat still and motionless, its ram firmly embedded in the wall. Its frame had cracked where the cab met the bed. Transmission fluid and engine oil flowed freely from shattered components. The second was still running, its diesel engine in a runaway status. Its driveshaft was torn in two, leaving no power to the wheels. Yet, the engine continued to race and would keep doing so until it ran out of fuel or the engine block exploded.

  The Rifles and U.N. team were completely uncontested. There were two exits from the garage, both leading deeper into the mountain. They decided to split up. LTJG Olson took his element, designated "Prost" for this mission, to secure a tunnel veering right. Perelli led his squad and the U.N. team, designated "Bagger" to the left.

  The left tunnel was sealed by steel double doors. "Prepare to breach. Krakowski," Perelli ordered, calling on the Polish GROM operator.

  The Rifles and U.N. team stacked up on either side of the doors. Krakowski set a thermite breaching charge along the center seam. He peeled back the adhesive backing and pressed the charge firmly against the metal. Weber moved to assist, but the GROM operator silently, yet firmly, rebuked him, pushing him away. Perelli noted the incident.

  Weber and Krakowski were professionals, but they were still human. Like all Rifles, Weber had renounced his national ties—his past no longer mattered. But that sentiment wasn’t shared by Krakowski, who remained ill at ease around the German whose nation had once invaded and plundered his own.

  The small disruption didn’t escalate, so Perelli chose not to address it.

  The thermite compound was arranged in a shaped configuration, concentrating the molten jet on a narrow path to maximize penetration. Thin copper rods embedded in the explosive compound would act as linear guides, directing the white-hot plasma directly into the composite doors.

  Krakowski then connected the ignition system—insulated wires leading to a remote detonator. The system used an electric primer to initiate a violent exothermic reaction in the thermite mix. Unlike conventional explosives, there would be no shockwave—just intense, focused heat reaching temperatures in excess of 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit, ideal for breaching in an underground complex.

  With the charge in place, Krakowski signaled the team, his voice low and steady over the comms, “Thermite set. Breaching in thirty seconds.”

  Cry Havoc

  Aboard the sky-carrier, the progress of the ground team was tracked in real time. The carrier flew low over the Tyrrhenian Sea in the midst of a thick fog bank, just a few hundred feet off the water. The sky-carriers could never be stealth and never be undetectable. It was virtually impossible to hide such a large city of flying steel. So instead, protocol was to simply hide the real mission behind a fake one.

  The Havoc flew low and slow in a predictable pattern and she broadcast her position on AIS like any other vessel on the high seas. Meanwhile, she launched Screechers and Foxhounds as part of a CSAR and gunnery exercise. Said exercise was well-broadcasted, with the Vanguard even publishing several notice-to-mariners messages which were available to the entire world, denoting areas of the ocean where the exercising aircraft would be dropping ordnance.

  All the assets tracking her saw, from the NATO AWACS aircraft from Spain to the Russian submarines from the Bospuros, were these operations. They did not see the launch of two long-range stealth cruise missiles or the kestrels drop from her belly in the dead of night.

  In Havoc's CIC, Federov, Commander Waller and the U.N. "Guests" watched a large screen as the two elements penetrated the facility. Sky-Captain Kilmer remained on the bridge, she coldly thought of the INTERPOL team more as dead ballast and made her aversion to them clear to the Striker-Commander.

  Bundeswehr analyst, Amelie Wagner was undisturbed by their hosts cold attitude towards them and watched the screens intently. She lived for this kind of analysis. But what she saw didn't make sense. None of what she had seen over the past year did. The Terra Vanguard was, for her, an easy organization to understand once Helsing was revealed to her. They fought relatively conventionally, but their level of technology meant they operated on a completely different wavelength and level from any other armed force on the planet. They were simply enabled in ways nobody else was.

  The vampires on the other hand were quite an enigma. They were the underdog, forced to fight from the shadows, but they evidently had immense equipment reserves. But they weren't fighting like it. As Amelie saw it, the vampires could easily inflict significant pain on the Vanguard. All they had to do was fight asymmetrically, like a guerilla force. They could engage the Vanguard on their terms and with their surprising, and also highly frightening, ability to fill their ranks they could certainly afford a high attrition rate.

  But that wasn't happening. The vampires were fighting like a conventional force that had gone to ground, playing a game of whack-a-mole with the Vanguard; with themselves as the mole. It was devoid of any doctrinal thinking. Every time Amelie thought she had them figured out, they went and did something surprising; mostly in a way that thought was stupid. For example: Kotlin. The vampires engaged the Vanguard openly on the battlefield with stolen Russian equipment. By all means, they had assembled a very well-kitted fighting force. With effective leadership, the battle would and even should have been extremely painful for humanities proclaimed defenders. Instead, the cultists and their vampire handlers had been steamrolled.

  Waller tracked the situation closely. He looked to a crewman operating a sensor station. "Give me an update on the VIP."

  "Aye," the crewman responded. "No change. Gamma scope hasn't logged her exiting the facility. She's still in there."

  Waller shared a look with Federov, who nodded calmly. Their men knew to proceed with caution.

  A radio transmission, marred by static because the transmitter was underground, was received by the CIC.

  "Home Plate, Bagger Element, You seeing this?" It said.

  After breaching the tunnel system, Bagger element was met with a grim sight. Weapons raised, they advanced into the remains of a battlefield. The hallways were strewn with dead bodies and destruction. Bodies in various states of brutal disassembly littered the floor and walls—some even hung from the ceiling, or at least, what was left of them. The battle had clearly been fought to the last man. Discarded weapons were scattered across the ground, the walls were pockmarked with shrapnel and bullet holes, and the lights flickered sporadically from the damage.

  Perelli signaled his team to proceed cautiously. As his spearhead advanced, he documented the devastation with his helmet cam. He approached a body sprawled across a table, a knife embedded in its skull. He kept his HR-15 trained on it as he pried its lips apart, revealing a set of wickedly sharp fangs.

  "Home Plate, we’ve got vampires intermixed with the dead. Split’s about fifty-five percent human, twenty-five percent thralls, and twenty-five percent vamps," he reported.

  "Looks like they tore each other apart," a Royal Marine observed.

  A SEAL asked, "Is it normal for them to fight amongst themselves like this?"

  Milo shook his head. "Not from what we know. Certainly not like this."

  Perelli pointed to the fallen. "These are from different factions. I'm seeing different races, different attire. This was an inter-factional war. Stay sharp. If you’re not sure they’re dead, make sure. Last thing we need is a live vampire inside our formation. Forward."

  They moved deeper into the tunnel system, eventually entering a cavernous chamber filled with even more bodies. Five podiums stood on an elevated platform at the center, overlooking the lower echelons, which were similarly strewn with corpses. Two figures lay motionless at their podiums, indicating they had been among the first to fall, likely dying quickly.

  The Rifles were in awe and the INTERPOL troopers were visibly shaken. The chamber was lavishly decorated with gleaming metal arranged in brutal, imposing angles. It was clear that the beings at the podiums were meant to be feared and revered by their followers. Most of the bodies were full-blooded vampires, distinguished by their elegant, high-status clothing. A few thralls were scattered among them, their attire marking them as guards or attendants.

  Milo snorted and tapped an INTERPOL trooper on the shoulder as he approached a body that had fallen headfirst, its back bent at an impossible angle, legs curled backward over itself. Grabbing the skull and jaw, he manipulated the corpse like a puppet. In a mocking, high-pitched voice, he said, "I’m an undead loser, and I died like an undead loser! But at least I had the courtesy to die without wasting your ammo."

  Milo grinned, but the INTERPOL trooper looked horrified. Weber shot him a glare. "Knock it off."

  Perelli’s voice cut through the tension. "Secure the area. Hutchinson, get over here."

  "Moving," the Royal Marine responded.

  Perelli was examining a body slumped at one of the podiums. The vampire wore an exquisitely tailored suit and a solid-gold watch, both marred by the blood that coated them. His chest cavity had been ripped open, organs spilling across the fine fabric. Perelli’s HUD ran facial recognition, and the ID came back: Lord Charles Wentworth of the British royal family.

  Perelli looked to Hutchinson. "Look familiar?"

  The Marine’s eyes widened. "Yeah... that’s Lord Wentworth. Third in line for the throne."

  Across the room, Weber called out, "I have ID on zis one. Preston Krate. CEO of Nyx Dynamics."

  "The tech magnate?" someone muttered.

  "Seems so."

  Perelli keyed his radio. "Home Plate, I’ve got two high-profile casualties. Did we know either of these guys were vampires?"

  "Negative," came the response.

  "What’s the chance our target’s already dead?"

  There was a brief pause. "Dead or alive, you still have to find them. They’re down there somewhere."

  "Copy." He turned to Tetsu. "You got anything?"

  The massive robot glanced up from the corridor he was covering alongside a Roman assault trooper. "Yes. Traces of Cobalt-60. The target was in this room, but the source is no longer present. Additionally, I am detecting traces of Uranium-235."

  Perelli’s jaw clenched. "How much? Is it weaponized?"

  "Unknown," Tetsu replied. "Trace amounts, slightly above background levels. I cannot determine if it was weaponized."

  The atmosphere in the chamber grew tense. Perelli’s grip tightened on his HR-15. He keyed his radio again. "Home Plate, you getting this? Request guidance."

  "Bagger, we have no intel suggesting nuclear material is in play. Assume Frame sensors are accurate. Proceed at your discretion."

  Perelli exhaled slowly. "Copy. Moving forward."

  Just as he switched channels, his gaze returned to the podiums. He had a sinking feeling they were walking into something far more complex than a mere battlefield.