Book One chapter Thirty: The Infiltration of Hemlon

Nick and his friends finally infiltrate Hemlon! It is no easy task, as they are met with yet more resistance. Saja is paranoid, no?

Chapter Thirty The Infiltration of Hemlon: I looked downwards towards the ground as gravity began to take hold and pull me downwards. I saw that we were at a frightening height of what I estimated to be at the height airliners back home cruise at, around thirty thousand feet! I let out a fear fueled scream, believing that this was the end.

Just then, I felt a hand grasp mine soon after I fell a few feet overboard. I gasped with relief and looked to who my savior was. It was Federov!

“We cannot have you dying now, can we?” Federov said with a wry grin.

“Thank you for saving me, Federov!” I said as he began pulling me back aboard The Annabelle.

“Do not thank me just yet, if we do not deal with those airships, we are all going to die!” Federov said in a panic.

“Let us get on it then!” I told him.

“How will we do that? The port and starboard guns are destroyed! That leaves us with the bow and the stern weapons!” Federov said.

“Can we not make do?” I asked him, eyeing the only three guns that remained intact of the airship.

“No, we will be torn to pieces before we even turn, we need to think of something quickly! I think that we have just over a minute to think of a plan before The Annabelle is destroyed and we fall to our deaths!” Federov shouted in worry.

I bit my lower lip, searching for a way to escape death. If Federov was right about his prediction on how much time we had left, we needed to think of something! I looked around to see that we were losing altitude very quickly. A glance upwards revealed that the balloon was still intact, but it had multiple holes in it.

“Nick! What do we do? The whole balloon is going to go down very shortly!” Luna yelled in dismay.

I looked around, frantically searching for a way to survive.

“I do not know!” I shouted, still searching.

I looked at the enemy airships, they were below us, firing their weapons upwards so that they hit the bottom of our hull. This allowed them a clear shot at our engines, but they had to shoot through the hull first. The rhythmic Ping! Of the enemy airship’s bullets was growing louder and more plentiful. Looking downwards at the enemy airships and noting their altitudes gave me an idea.

The enemy airships were only thirty feet or so below us. They were on an angle, so they were not directly below us. I ran through a quick plan in my head: We could leap overboard and aim for the enemy airships. We could land on the balloons and slide downwards onto their decks! A glance at the airships showed that they were not too badly damaged, and they were still flying, we could overpower the crew on the airship and fly to Hemlon, Saja will think that we are one of her airship crews and she would let us inside! It was a little rough around the edges, but it is the only plan we had. Now was the time to put it into action. I sprinted over to Anara and told her my plan. When I was done explaining it, she nodded quickly.

“Attention all crew members! I am ordering an abandon ship! I repeat, abandon ship! Leap overboard and head for the enemy airship’s balloons! Land on them and slide down to the deck of the airship! From there, we will overpower the crew members and infiltrate Hemlon!” Anara yelled into the microphone that projected her voice over the loudspeaker.

I saw that Carmella, Anna-Maria, Fenton, Federov and Luna were already jumping over the starboard side, aiming for the enemy airship’s balloons. I peaked downwards and saw that it was quite a long fall. A simple error could be fatal.

“After you.” Anara said to me.

“What?” I asked in bewilderment.

“You jump first, and then I will jump.” Anara said.

“Really? Are you really doing this right now?” I asked her, baffled at her sudden childish behavior.

“Yes, now jump before it is too late!” Anara said.

I then turned and leaped over the starboard side of the airship. Fear filled me as I realized that if I did not hit the enemy airship’s balloon, it was a long way to the ground, no one would survive that. My cheeks spread apart with the rushing of air that filled my face on my rapid descent to the enemy airship. Below, I could see the airship that I was aiming for, and even farther below than that, I could see field and hills on the ground, I could even see what I thought to be Fonereth and Sven. Moments after I jumped overboard, I heard a scream of adrenaline from Anara, who had just jumped overboard.

“Yaaaaaaa hoooooo!” I heard Anara scream as she flew through the air, aiming for the same airship as me.

Below, I saw Luna, Carmella, Fenton, Anna-Maria and Federov had already hit the enemy airship’s balloon and they bounced into the air like it was a trampoline. Seconds later, I hit the balloon as well, followed by Anara. I heard the screams of fear as my friends flew through the air. I screamed in fear as I hit the balloon and was thrown into the air like it was a trampoline.

“You all know the plan! Get on deck and overpower the crew!” I heard Anara shout.

I began my descent to the balloon again, my heart went into my throat as I plummeted towards it. I hit the balloon and did not bounce high this time, I flew a few feet into the air, but I began to slide down the surface of the balloon. As I fell down the top and began sliding down the side of the balloon, I noticed there were ropes that tethered the balloon to the deck of the airship. As I slid down the side of the balloon, I aimed for one of the ropes. I came to the rope and grabbed hold, sliding down the rope quickly due to the momentum I got from sliding down the balloon. I then hit the deck of the airship. I saw six vampires on deck. They all were around the same height, which was just under six feet tall, and they all had crimson eyes. (Duh.) They were also all wearing the same bland white tunics. Was it some sort of uniform? When I hit the deck, all of the six vampires looked to me. I saw that Luna, Carmella, Fenton, Federov and Anna-Maria had already reached the deck of the airship. Anara came close behind me.

“What the devil? Where did you come from?” Asked one of the vampires on deck.

“Where do you think we came from?” Anara asked cockily.

“It does not matter! Prepare to meet your maker!” One of the other vampires yelled.

I instinctively reached down to my belt and my hand clasped my sword, Sangiria. I drew it from my belt as a male vampire charged at me. As he ran at me, he reached down and drew a small pistol from a holster on his right hip. Attempting to stop his charge, I charged forward myself and swung my sword low, hitting the vampire’s left knee. He bellow in pain and fell onto his back. I took this as an opportunity to kill him. I reeled back with my sword and impaled the vampire, effectively stabbing him through the heart.

“Who’s next?” I asked.

I looked up from the dead vampire to see that my friends had already killed the other vampires on board. I also saw something I had not seen before; Anara’s weapon. Her weapon was a small knife, it had a diamond shaped blade that was about eight centimeters long. It had a handle that was even smaller than the blade, putting it at around seven centimeters. On the bottom of the handle was a small loop, just large enough to fit an index finger through. I believe that the weapon was called a kunai.

Anara walked over to the steering wheel of the airship. This airship was no different than The Annabelle. It had the same layout, as well as the same weapons! I walked with Anara, I watched Fenton climb into the crow’s nest, and the others mounted the guns. Anara and I arrived at the steering wheel, I noticed a small, old fashioned radio next to the steering wheel. There was static coming from the other end. Anara bent down to the radio, adjusting a small black dial. As she turned the dial, the static on the other end faded and a voice became clearly audible.

“Frederic! Frederic! Is your crew safe? We saw people jump downwards from their airship, are they dispatched? Hello?” A female voice on the other end of the radio asked.

Anara handed the radio and the small microphone to me. I understood. The captain if this ship was male, so she wanted me to speak to the woman on the other end and impersonate this Frederic. I held the microphone to my mouth and pressed the small red button on it, assuming that was the button used for speaking.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Frederic? Is this you? What happened?” Asked the female voice on the other end.

“Those fools dive-bombed us from above, we took care of them swiftly. No need to worry.” I reassured the woman on the other end of the transmission.

“Good, well as long as they are dead, our orders have been carried out. Come, let us report back to Lady Saja at Hemlon.” The female voice said.

“Roger that, we will follow you in.” I told the female.

“Understood, prepare your crew to mobilize.” The female told me.

“Copy that.” I told her.

“We will see you in Hemlon, Frederic.” The female told me.

This was great! They were going to lead us right to Saja! The other airship began to turn around and head to Hemlon. Anara followed the airship to the cansodin. It is at that cansodin, Hemlon that we would face off with Saja.

Anara turned the airship to follow the other airship that was going to lead us into Hemlon. The others, seeing that there was no danger, walked towards Anara and I.

“Everyone, when we get to Hemlon, we must find and kill Saja. That is all that matters.” I told everyone.

“Understood.” Fenton said.

“As for those of you who have not been with me very long, I just want to show you what Saja will do to you if she captures you.” I told everyone.

“What do you want to show us, Nick?” Asked Luna.

I then pulled down my shirt collar to reveal the many fang marks that Saja had given me during my time with her when she first captured me the night at Kao’s Cuisine. I heard everyone gasp collectively.

“What are… Those?” Asked Anara.

“They are fang marks. Saja captured me a while ago, she tortured me by biting me. She thought that I had information that she needed. I didn’t even have it. If she did that to me only to get a piece of information, imagine what she will do to us if she finds out that we hijacked one of her airships and attempted to kill her.” I said.

“Dear heavens, we must not fail.” Carmella exclaimed.

“That is correct, we cannot fail.” Federov agreed.

“We have arrived at Hemlon!” Luna said.

I turned to look in the direction of the huge cansodin. I had been so busy talking to my friends that I had not noticed how far we had travelled. The cansodin was huge! It was a massive walled city on top of a gigantic piece of land. We followed the other airship in to a large space inside the piece of floating land. The other airship entered first, and then we did. As we passed through the opening’s entrance, I took in the sights. Inside this huge opening was a metal room. Everywhere, there were people wearing the same plain white tunics that we had seen the vampires wearing before we hijacked their airship. There were airships just like The Annabelle all over the place. On the walls every few feet was a massive metal gate. Right now, the gate that we just passed through was the only gate that was open in the entire room. In front of us, the airship that we were following flew across the room and landed on the metal floor. We flew next to it and did the same. I looked over our port side to see where the crew to the airship we had followed here was going, in case we had to follow them. I saw that they were headed towards us! Worry filled me. They would see that we were not Frederic and his crew, and then they would sound an alarm, which would vanquish the advantage of surprise that we held over Saja. I heard footsteps as the crew from the other airship walked up the ramp to our airship, which was now docked.

“Everyone, hide!” I whispered.

All of my friends nodded and bolted. I ran to the staircase that led below deck and found a few storage crates. I hid behind one of them. I also found that Luna had already hid there. I crouched down next to her and remained silent. I heard the footsteps of the other airship’s crew.

“Frederic? Where have you gone? If you leap out and scare me I will have you reported for harassment, do you understand me?” I heard a female voice say.

That voice was the same voice that I had heard on the radio when I was impersonating Frederic.

“You two, search below deck, knowing Frederic, he is probably fooling around, waiting to jump out and scare someone.” The female voice said.

“Yes ma’am.” I heard two male voices say in unison.

A few seconds later, I could hear footsteps thumping down the staircase that lead below deck, where Luna and I were hiding. The people that the footsteps belonged to could be heard walking around below deck.

“What is wrong with that Frederic man? Why must he desire to frighten people? This is at least the third time he has done this just this week!” Said one of the male voices.

“I do not know, maybe he thinks that it is humorous to see someone in fear?” The other voice said.

“Could be. I doubt that he is down here, if he was he must likely would have come out by now.” The first voice that spoke said.

“Well, Let us report back to Estelle.” The second voice said.

“Agreed.” The first voice said.

With that, the footsteps retreated back up the staircase. When the footsteps had reached the top of the staircase, Luna spoke.

“That was close. We could have been found.” She said.

“I know, let us hope that the others remained hidden.” I told her.

Luna and I waited behind that storage crate for a few more minutes, as footsteps could still be audible on the metal deck above us. What happened next made my heart freeze in my chest.

“Hey! Who are these two?” I heard the female voice, presumably Estelle say.

My heart sank into my chest.

“Please tell me that we were not discovered.” Luna said.

“I’m not sure that I can.” I told her.

“Unhand me!” I heard Anna-Maria yell.

“Back off, I am warning you!” I heard Carmella yell.

I then heard two sharp gunshots ring out. I recognized the gunshots. They were the same pitch as Federov’s revolver’s shots.

“They hijacked Frederic’s ship! Kill them!” I heard Estelle order her crew.

I then heard a barrage of gunshots marked by the telltale rat tat tat sound. Worry filled me as I wondered any of the others had been shot. There were no cries of agony, so I assumed that no one was hurt. I then heard frantic footsteps of a group of people. The footsteps were followed by more rat tat tat sounds. The footsteps were now audible at the top of the staircase, and they did not stop there. They descended the staircase. I peeked out from behind the crate that I was behind. I saw my friends! They looked out of breath, but they did not look hurt. I ran out from behind the crate and joined them.

“We must set up a defensive position! Those vampires will be on us any second now!” Anna-Maria screamed.

Without hesitating, I looked around for things that could be used to make a barricade to hold the vampires above off for a few minutes, at least. I found a suitable building material.

“The crates! Stack them and form a barricade!” I ordered, pointing to the many storage crates that littered the room.

“Right!” Federov yelled.

Federov used vampire speed to rush over and grab two boxes, each bigger than him in each arm. He sped back at vampire speed and layed them so that they blocked the staircase.

“That will not hold for long!” I yelled.

“We need more crates!” Yelled Carmella.

I then heard footsteps at the top of the staircase.

“There they are! At the bottom of the staircase!” Estelle shouted.

I heard Federov dash across the room to get more crates. He returned at vampire speed with two more crates. He piled them at the bottom of the staircase, effectively blocking it off.

“Everyone, assume a defensive position! That barricade will not hold forever!” I ordered while drawing my sword.

Author's Note

Please tell me what you think :)