Blood Raiders

Also not my "bag", but also fun to write was this month's writer's club assignment. The theme was SciFi. (What is my bag anyway? I'm sure I have one.)



Blood Raiders
By Doc Walton



Their blood lust momentarily sated, the crew of the Vladmir Tepes lay in a deep, dreamless coma as their craft knifed up through gravity and on into space. Left behind was an eerily quiet planet. There had been life there once, animal life and a scattering of adventurous humans. Now though, a few scant months later, all was silent, all was still.

*

On Argon7 a call went out for help. This most distant stop of mankind’s reach was located on the cusp of the Milky Way and Galatia. It had an earthlike atmosphere, rare in either galaxy, and supported a human colony of some three thousand people on its surface without artificial aid. Although it was small, approximately the size of Earth’s moon, its densely oxygenated environment and lazy orbit around a distant sun – its days
and nights were 45 hours long - made it a haven for thousands of blood bearing species, both indigenous and imported. Humankind had arrived at Argon 7 some twenty years earlier and, having learned how from colonization elsewhere, adapted themselves seamlessly into the fabric of the planet. Their purpose was to create a platform for mankind’s next venture into unexplored space and their first launch was nearing readiness.

Chief Petty Officer Mina Murray received the curiously unencrypted message from Deltaan, Argon’s7’s nearest planetary neighbor. It simply read, “They’re coming.” Repeated attempts to acquire elaboration had failed and Murray worried that one of the relay satellites blinking in orbit between the two planets had shut down. If this was in fact the case, Argon7 would be cut off from all other human outposts. When it was clear that further contact with Deltaan seemed unlikely, Murray forwarded the message to her cousin, Jonathan Harker, the base commander.

Admiral Harker read it and gave two orders. The first put a reconnaissance ship on its way to Deltaan, a trip of five Argon7 days, and the second had ComU personnel sending distress calls both directed and random in hopes of attracting the attention of anyone anywhere. If Deltaan was silent, something was seriously wrong.

Two days into its recon voyage to Deltaan, Argon 7’s explorer craft picked up distress signals from a spaceship identifying itself as the Vladimir Tepes. The explorer’s crew charted a course for an interception and Argon 7 was advised. The last communication from the explorer craft was logged some two hours, eleven minutes later. “We are boarding the Tepes now, stand by for further Intel” were the words spoken by the craft’s pilot, Captain John Seward. Neither Seward nor any one of his four man crew was ever heard from again.

Admiral Harker issued a red alert and began making defensive preparations. Laser shields were activated, space fighters readied their crafts.

First Officer Lucy Westenra queried the Base Computer for information on the Vladimir Tepes and received a “not in files” response. An order for a further search by personnel in Archives was made and Archives self dubbed “geeks” set to work. A day later they reported that the information they had was sketchy and very old. If what they uncovered was to be believed, some two hundred seventy years ago, nine “Immortals” as they were then referred to, had been sealed in their caskets, placed on board the Tepes, and then launched from Earth into distant space. Even less believable were mentions that the Immortals fed on blood and shunned light of any sort, but particularly sunlight. “Geek” consensus was that some work of fiction had crossed into the Tepes computer file and corrupted the data.

Admiral Harker agreed, but ordered a doubling of the alert staff during the hours of darkness as an extra precaution. Following that, there was little else to do but wait. The Vladimir Tepes, if Arkon 7 was indeed its destination, would arrive he reasoned, within the next two days.

*

The newly commissioned Starship Demeter exited Blackhole Carpathia on its shakedown cruise and was testing its ComU ports when it picked up the distress signal from Arkon7. Its captain and commander, Victor Van Helsing, ordered an immediate cessation of further testing and plotted a course to that distant planet; its projected travel time; an Earth week.

*

On board the Tepes, the Immortals were rising from boxes of their native soil to feed on the animals they had captured and stored for that purpose. A darkness scheduled to their biological rhythms had enveloped the craft’s interior and each of the creatures rose from its casket with a ravenous hunger. Exotic and ferocious animals collected from the planets of several galaxies were loosed from their cages, but presented no difficulties to the Immortals whose strength and quickness assured them of a kill. The animals were gathered and quickly torn to shreds by tooth and claw filed to razor sharpness. Flesh was rendered and blood was drained. Both were consumed

The Tepes had drifted in space for over a hundred years before the Immortals had deciphered its encoded navigational specifications and learned to control the ship’s course. Since then, the craft had wended its way slowly back to within Earth’s long space arm, stopping often to feed on planets supporting blood bearing creatures and to restock their ship with the live food they needed.

Deltaan had been the Immortals first encounter with human beings since their departure from Earth. Initially they were cautious, fearing that a human species might have invented weapons of destruction from which even they might not be immune. When they learned that such was not the case, they feasted on their natural food for the first time in centuries. With appetites now whetted by the rich, metallic taste of human blood, the Immortals programmed the Tepes’ auto-navigator to Argon7 and returned to their coffins. The next darkness would bring them into orbit.

*

When the Demeter arrived at Argon7 space, Van Helsing put it into a close orbit, one within easy reach of the surface by its Human Transport Module. It also circled the planet on its sunny side, directly opposed to the orbit of the Vladimir Tepes which moved in perpetual darkness. Communication with the Argon7’s remaining inhabitants – their number had been reduced by half – was established and an advance team was HTM-ed to the planet’s surface. An emergency query was directed to Earth Central from the Demeter’s advanced ComU System for information about the Tepes.

*

The only weaponry extant on Argon7 was located at the travelport where the Spaceprobe R.R. Renfield awaited its first voyage into the unknown. It was to there that Admiral Harker called for the planet’s people to make a last stand or, if firepower failed, to flee in the Renfield, a craft designed for deep probes into outer space, but not for transporting large human populations. Fewer than seven hundred people made it safely to the travelport. The rest, along with the Demeter’s advance team and most of the planet’s other blood bearing fauna, were torn apart for Immortal instant gratification or brought to the Tepes for later consumption.

*


The Intel reply from Earth Central to the Demeter was startling. The Immortals, according to their files, had almost instant regenerative powers and could not be killed by anything other than prolonged sunlight. A scientist who was, curiously, the great grandfather of Commander Van Helsing, had uncovered the locations of each of the nine Immortals and crafted the plan that ultimately led to their being captured in their coffins and launched into distant space, never, it was hoped, to be dealt with again.

A good plan, Van Helsing thought, but not one likely to work a second time. He would have to devise one of his own. “Get me to Harker” he ordered, “I need to conference.”


*

Admiral Harker had made every preparation he and his staff could think of to ready for the assault they knew would come as they became the planet’s last blooded beings. He was surprised when an HTM from the Demeter appeared within his defensive perimeter and Van Helsing strode from it. Why would anyone risk coming to Argon7 now? The question of evacuation to the Demeter had already been considered and found implausible. The ship’s lone HTM could only transport three people at a time and it would take too long to move the population. Who would be saved and who would be left to die were decisions Harker was not willing to make. Van Helsing, he was to learn, now had a better idea; an idea that became the planet’s best hope.

Argon7’s remaining populace began to dig.

*

The Immortals encircled and then closed on the travelport compound. Though their blood thirst was net yet sated, they were unhurried. The humans, after all, had no place to go. The nine Undead, as they had also once been called, were enjoying this hunt, this freedom from the confines of the Tepes, now guarded by mechanical drones. All nine would be there at the last to literally taste and savor their victory and drink in its blood reward. They moved slowly and deliberately towards the circle’s center, driving the last of the humans before them.

Harker and Van Helsing were the final two into the tunnel that lay at the center of the Immortals diminishing circle. They waited just long enough in the tunnel’s corridor to hear the blood eaters follow them, then ran quickly to the tunnel’s end inside the Spaceprobe Renfield. Argon7 technicians were already there locking in the final navigational directions for the ship’s immanent departure. When all was in readiness, Harker, Van Helsing and the techies disappeared through an adjoining hatch and into yet another recently dug tunnel, this one leading away from the craft. With them were the Renfield’s launch controls and three explosive detonators.

*

All nine Immortals entered the tunnel driven by a blood lust gone suddenly urgent. Their hunger had been awakened by the arrogance of the pitiful food things who thought they could deny them. They raced through the tunnel and then up into the ship, each one ready to appease its unholy appetite. But there was no one there; no one, no thing, no blood or flesh to render. There was nothing, just the suddenly noisy rumble of the craft’s engines starting to fire. As if with one thought, the Immortals fled backwards to the tunnel only to find it collapsed from the first of Van Helsing’s planned explosions. Another explosion and then a third sealed the second tunnel and the craft’s natural exits. The Immortals were cleverly and effectively trapped. There was rage among them then, violent, furious rage, but in the end, there was nothing they could do.

As the Spaceprobe Renfield began to ascend, a boarding party from the Demeter landed on the Vladimir Tepes and quickly overcame its defensive drones. All Immortal captives were released.

On Arkon7 the planet’s survivors watched the Renfield climb rapidly into space and disappear before loosing a deafening cheer. Jonathan Harker and Victor Van Helsing were among the loudest. Beside them, a thoughtful Mina Murray waited for the din to subside then quietly, almost sadly, pointed out that the Immortals were gone again, but possibly, probably, not for good. If they could survive without their coffins and native soil, the Immortals would one day return to ravage human kind again.

“I don’t think so,” Admiral Harper was quick to point out, “Because, you see, this time, Cousin, they are not being sent into far distant space. This time, their locked in, fixed, unalterable destination…is the sun.