Target Rich Environment

  Taking out his flask, Munetaka enjoyed one last drink. It was the finest sake in Nippon, and he’d saved it for a very special occasion. Only the best would do for today. Putting the flask back in his kimono, Munetaka took another look at the horizon, then back at the creature, carefully estimating its speed. “Hold this course no matter what.”

  “There’s rocks straight ahead, Captain!”

  “No matter what!” he shouted.

  Closer.

  He readied the special arrow. There would be only one shot.

  The other ships were forgotten. A warship clipped the beast’s side and was sent spinning away. A single, crazed samurai leapt from that ship onto the beast’s flesh, stabbing at it while trying to climb up its body as if it were a mountain. The monster did not seem to notice. It was entirely focused on the Friendly Traveler. The warrior lost his grip on the slick hide and disappeared into the churning waters.

  Closer.

  Munetaka took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. His body moved in time with the violent rolling of the deck beneath his bare feet.

  “We’re almost on the rocks!”

  “Steady . . .”

  The Great Sea Beast loomed over them. The air stunk of rotting fish. A black rain began to fall upon them, and he realized it was demon blood weeping from a thousand shallow cuts.

  His hands did not tremble.

  The golden edge of the sun broke over them. Vast white eyes, accustomed to the darkness of the deep ocean, twitched and mighty lids slammed shut with an audible slap. He’d looked directly into those giant merciless eyes so long ago, and he’d wondered afterwards why it had spared him. At the time he’d thought it was because he was insignificant. He was a bug to the Great Sea Beast, not even worth crushing.

  Now he understood that he had lived because it was his destiny to end this abomination.

  While staring into those white orbs before, he’d seen that there was a tiny circle in the center, an off-white pupil, only visible when you were close enough to choke on its stench and its tentacles could taste your blood on the water. He intended to put an arrow through that pupil and straight into the creature’s brain. Two hundred paces away, at an extreme angle, from a rocking ship against a rapidly moving creature the size of a castle, and his target was as big around as the bottom of a sake cup.

  Only Munetaka had spent many long hours studying the bottoms of empty sake cups.

  The arrow knows the way.

  Munetaka drew back the bow in one perfect motion.

  Father, guide my hand.

  He let fly.

  The entire crew held their breath as they watched the arrow streak through the blood rain.

  The huge lid blinked open the instant before the arrow struck.

  The arrow disappeared, sinking right through the clear jelly of the pupil.

  It twitched.

  The crew gasped.

  There was an incredibly long pause. Then the creature’s eye began to spasm wildly, like it was about to leap from its head. It leaned back, head jerking, tentacles thrashing. Webbed fingers clutched at its face. The horrific noise it let out threatened to split the world. The noise trailed off into a moan.

  “Turn hard to port! Hard to port!” Munetaka ordered. “Now!”

  The crew did as they were told. Seconds later their hull made a sickening sound as it ground against the rocks. Salt spray came up over the side from an impact, but they kept moving. To stop was to perish.

  Lumbering forward, the Great Sea Beast continued to clutch madly at its misshapen head, but it was too late. The blessed arrow had worked its way deep into vulnerable tissue, and no living thing could survive for long, bleeding from inside its brain. It stumbled, then began to fall. It was like watching a great tree being felled by an ax, only they were beneath the tree.

  Munetaka’s crew knew what to do. They understood what would happen if they didn’t get out of the way in time. There was no need to give instructions because they were already working hard. So Munetaka simply stood there, watching, as the Great Sea Beast fell. Live or die, it no longer mattered. His duty was complete.

  The Great Sea Beast collapsed. The gradual impact of its bulk threw up a huge wall of water before it. They were lifted and pushed on the wave as sailors held on with all their might. The Friendly Traveler was hurled through the maze of rocks. They hit open water, violently spinning, and a few men were flung over the side. Yet, they were through the rocks. Normally that would have raised a cheer amongst the crew but the monster was still collapsing on top of them, and all they could do was watch and hope.

  It struck. The world was consumed with thunder. For a moment, all of them were blinded by spray.

  The Great Sea Beast’s head smashed into the rocks right next to them, tons of flesh and bone compacting and rupturing against the unyielding earth. A spine came crashing down, shearing effortlessly through the Friendly Traveler’s mast and rigging. Captain Munetaka stepped calmly aside as the razor tip of the spine cleaved through the deck where he’d been standing.

  And then they were away.

  The Great Sea Beast lay still, ooze pouring from its head in such great quantities that the Friendly Traveler was floating on a sea of black.

  It was silent except for the creaking of wood and rope.

  “It is finished.”

  They were heroes.

  The crew of the Friendly Traveler were welcomed in Kamakura and showered with gifts. Lord Minamoto Yoritomo granted every member of his crew lands and titles. Songs were sung about their long journey along the shores of foreign lands, and their battle against the Great Sea Beast grew larger with each telling of the story.

  Captain Nasu Munetaka sat alone beneath the shade of a tree, watching the tide come in. It was good to escape the noise of the adoring crowds, but the silence made him realize a few things. His father was avenged. His family’s honor restored. Yet, what good was a samurai without a purpose? He took out his flask and raised it to his lips. He was a great captain and probably the best archer in the world, but he did not know what came next . . .

  Are there other monsters in the world?

  Then perhaps I shall find them.

  He poured the rest of his sake into the grass.

  His hands did not tremble.

  Sometimes story ideas come from the strangest places, especially when you are motivated by deadlines. I had agreed to provide a story to the Kaiju Rising anthology, but I kind of forgot about it until the last possible minute.

  I needed a story fast. Luckily, I had run a Legend of the Five Rings RPG campaign, during which one of my players had an alcoholic samurai/pirate/archer who just so happened to have a blood vendetta against a giant sea monster which had ruined his life, and the resulting story had worked out really well. So I took that campaign, ground off the serial numbers for the IP, changed the names and settings to match real world history (only with more giant monsters), and wrote “The Great Sea Beast.”

  It turned out pretty good, and made the Distinguished Stories list for Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015.

  So, thanks, Tony Battaglino, for letting me steal your role playing game character.

  FORCE MULTIPLIER

  “Force Multiplier” originally appeared in V Wars: Blood and Wars, edited by Jonathan Maberry, and published by IDW.

  THERE WERE FOUR GUARDS manning the Russian security checkpoint. Two were inside the guard shack, huddled next to an electric space heater. The other two were outside, next to the DhSK heavy machinegun mounted on a tripod.

  He clicked his radio. “Execute,” Kovac ordered.

  The snipers fired simultaneously. The wet impact of the bullets was far louder than the suppressed rifles. The soldiers next to the machinegun emplacement collapsed, leaving behind a fine red mist floating in front of the spotlight. Clean shots.

  A split second later a shadow moved inside the guard shack and was immediately followed by a large quantity of blood splattering against the interior of the win
dow. Basco’s genetic heritage was Indonesian, and his mutation made it so that he could move like a fucking magic ninja.

  There was no alarm. Quick and quiet, just like they’d practiced.

  The smell of torn-open bodies and fresh blood wafted over. It made him hungry. Kovac keyed his radio again. “Checkpoint is clear. Bring up the trucks.” He lifted himself out of the snowbank he’d been lying in for hours. Cold didn’t bother him anymore, and his body seemed immune to frostbite or hypothermia; that was one welcome change . . . among many.

  Kovac used hand signals to order his squad to move out. Ten figures rose from the snow. Their snipers would remain on the mountainside and cover their approach. Everyone knew their individual assignments, and responded quickly. A few of them were so fast that they seemed to simply vanish, while others were slower, but nearly invisible in the dark.

  There was only one road in. The terrain here was unforgiving, consisting of iced-over rock, steep angles, and deadly cliffs. It was an excellent location for a secret research facility. Assaulting this place would have been suicide for humans.

  In typical old Soviet military architectural style, the facility was a concrete cube. The main doors were designed to stop a tank. Breaching those would take too long, and the Russians would call for reinforcements. Instead, his squad moved down the mountain, toward the side that the Russians considered impossible to climb. The snow here was a thick, clinging slush, but most of the squad had no problem moving across it at in incredible rate of speed.

  Their intel said the Russians ran constant patrols through this area, normally consisting of two men and a dog. Kovac sensed the approaching patrol before the guard dog smelled them. He flashed a signal at Meeker, who gave him a nod, then disappeared into the trees. Thirty seconds later, there was some commotion as the possessed German shepherd latched onto its surprised handler’s throat. There was a thud as Meeker eliminated the other guard, and then a yelp as he dispatched the confused animal.

  Meeker reappeared, covered in steaming blood, carrying an AK-74 in each hand, and wearing a new fur hat he’d taken as a trophy. He grinned, revealing a mouth filled with hundreds of needle-shaped teeth.

  Gregor was the fastest, so he took point. Kovac ran after him, down a narrow rock shelf. The closer they got to the facility’s wall, the more treacherous the footing became. One slip would mean a three-hundred-foot drop, but he wasn’t worried. It was hard to imagine that he used to have to concern himself with things like balance. The mutations took on various forms, so he’d given out assignments to the team based on their different abilities. The slowest would bring up the rear and would need help scaling the wall, while the quick ones eliminated the opposition and secured their entrance.

  Kovac was running out of mountain. He studied the rapidly approaching edge of the cliff. There was a twenty-foot leap to the icy wall on the other side. Gregor’s ancestors were from Ghana, where their legends told of vampires living in trees. He had already jumped across and was climbing so quickly and effortlessly that that bit of folklore seemed very plausible.

  Kovac didn’t hesitate. Hurling his body across the gap felt as natural as breathing. He hit the smooth concrete of the far side and began to slide, but he latched on and clung there like a spider. Wind and weather had created handholds that he never would have found when he’d been human.

  He waited a moment to make sure his impact hadn’t made too much noise. There was a flashlight moving high above, but the patrol wasn’t lingering. There was no adrenaline in the guards’ scent. They were unaware, dull from the aching cold. Kovac began climbing upwards. His bare skin stuck to the wall, and it burned each time he had to peel his hand away. It took him nearly twenty seconds to scurry up the side. The others who were physically capable had jumped across and were following him. They’d throw down ropes for those who were not so athletically gifted, but even the least of his men were more than human.

  Kovac reached the top and hesitated, listening, smelling, and feeling. He could sense that the humans had their backs turned. He’d developed an instinct that told him where mortal eyes were lingering, and how to put himself in the places where people weren’t looking. There were several soldiers up here. His senses were so sharp he could smell the grease on the bolt carriers of their AK-74s and what brand of cheap cigarettes they were smoking. The squeak of boots against the metal catwalk told him their position, their stance, even their weight.

  Gregor was already over the railing and moving down the catwalk, stalking a guard. Kovac picked another guard and went the other direction. This soldier smelled old. His sweat had vodka in it. In the old days, he’d have used a knife for this kind of business, but he didn’t need to do that anymore. Instead, he simply reached out, took hold of the back of the guard’s neck, and dug his fingers in until he had a handful of spinal column, and twisted. Lowering the body to the catwalk, Kovac noted that Gregor was feeding on his victim and Bennett had secured the climbing rope for the others. Silent as a ghost, Kovac had snapped two more necks before the next member of his squad arrived.

  It took him a moment to find Lila, and that was only because of the leathery rustle of wings. He couldn’t actually see her. In fact, when she was in her hunting form, she was nothing but a dark blur, until you caught her out of the corner of the eye. He turned his head until she appeared in his peripheral vision. She was crouched, naked, on top of a railing, her bare feet curled around the pipe like a raptor’s claws. Security cameras didn’t have peripheral vision. He’d tested her, and knew that her presence would be confusing every camera within a hundred yards. It was nothing too overt, more like a simple blur. The guards watching the monitors would probably think that snow had gathered on the lenses, nothing more.

  Kovac wiped his bloody hand on his pants and unslung his AKS-74U. Stomach rumbling, he stepped over the last dead man, confident he’d feed later, preferably on someone that didn’t taste like bad cabbage. Gregor finished and tossed the partially drained human over the side. The soldier was too weak to scream on the way down. Gregor went to the door, tilted his head to the side and listened. “There is no one on the other side,” Gregor said as he tested the door. Of course it was locked.

  The roof door was reinforced steel, but he’d brought flexo linear shaped charge in case they needed to breach, though he was hoping to be deep inside the facility before they went loud. As soon as Doroshanko came floating over the edge, Kovac signaled for him to move up. They kept him masked and hooded, because otherwise the weird pale glow his skin gave off would give them away. Though not worth a damn in combat, it turned out Moldovian DNA possessed some handy traits. Their vampires could go anywhere they felt like. Doroshanko took his glove off, revealing oddly translucent flesh that gave off a glow like a lava lamp, and placed his hand on the door handle. The handle began to vibrate, and that spread out through the whole door. He moved out of the way. “It is unlocked. There will be no alarm.”

  They stacked up, ready to enter. Some would fight with firearms, others with their natural gifts. Most of them would stick together, but a few were better suited ranging around on their own as solo killers.

  Kovac keyed his radio. “Strike team is in position.”

  “Extraction team is in position.”

  “Overwatch is ready.”

  Those were the responses he’d been expecting. There was a heat in his chest, and this wasn’t like the rush he’d used to feel before an op. This was different. This was better. He’d found them, brought them together, given them a mission and a purpose. Kovac had taken several individual apex predators and molded them into a lethal pack. Now they were going to fulfill their destiny.

  “Execute.”

  Every country reacted differently to the I1V1 virus. When it was revealed that latent vampire DNA was activating among a small percentage of the population and causing strange predatory mutations, some governments saw this evolutionary offshoot as a threat and immediately cracked down. Others were more lenient, and tried to reconcil
e with their new vampire citizens.

  Neither response worked.

  The outcome had been inevitable from the minute patient zero was made known to the world.

  There were two things Kovac had studied exhaustively during his mortal life: war and history. The topics were hopelessly intertwined and rather complex. History was rather clear about what happened whenever a superior group clashed with an inferior one. The inferior society was always eventually conquered, absorbed, subjugated, or eliminated.

  The real question was, Which species was the inferior?

  Evolution had made the vampire physically and mentally superior. Humans were their food. On the other hand, humanity had vastly greater numbers, established command and control, and infrastructure. It was now believed that vampires had existed before, hence the various cultural myths about them, as the folklore about their various subtypes was turning out to be far too accurate otherwise. If that was the case, despite the vampires’ evident superiority, humans had wiped them out once before. He knew that many of his fellow vampires—those with enough sense to actually think about the future at least—assumed that it would happen again. It was just a matter of time.

  Kovac had pondered on the implications of this prior loss. It suggested that humanity was better suited to win their competition and vampires would eventually be hunted to extinction once again. Of course, vampires had lost last time. Individuals, no matter their skill, would eventually be destroyed by the side with superior numbers and logistics. Direct action between the two would always end the same way.

  History demonstrated that there was only one way for a smaller force to defeat a much larger one.

  The last twenty-five years of his mortal life had been spent learning the ins and outs of asymmetrical warfare. He’d spent a decade fighting an army made up of illiterate Third World goat rapists. His side had been armed with drones, satellites, and cruise missiles, while the other side had been armed with the technological equivalent of a Radio Shack and whatever the Iranians could smuggle in, and they’d managed to remain a pain in the world’s collective ass the whole time. Approximately twenty thousand jackoffs in a country the size of Texas had held out against the most advanced military coalition ever assembled. They were motivated. They had direction. They could disappear among the locals. And most importantly, their opponent’s political leadership did not have the stomach to go far enough to exterminate them because of collateral damage.