Inquisitor Aurelian strode to the front of the expansive conference room. Every chair was filled and the walls were lined with personnel standing. Every member of the extended High Command was present, alongside every unit commanding officer within the Terra Vanguard that wasn't in the field.

  The large monitors that lined the walls illuminated to show a map of the globe, punctuated with red dots across its entirety.

  The usually stoic inquisitor cleared his throat, an unusually upbeat energy about him. "With the completion of a special operation in Europe, we have come into new intelligence. It is an understatement to call it a coup." He gestured to the screens. "Ladies and gentlemen... we have everything."

  There were some confused looks.

  "This has been the culmination of months of work on the part of ISR, ground reconnaissance and more luck than I am willing to admit. Regardless,"

  The maps shifted. Points of interest expanded, revealing installations, factory complexes, airfields, and command centers hidden under corporate facades, social concerns and even charities. "These are not mindless predators hunting in the dark. Under Queen Persephone’s rule, they have consolidated into a singular war machine. Her clairvoyance makes her a threat beyond reckoning—every movement we make, she may already anticipate. But knowledge, ladies and gentlemen, is a double-edged sword. We have taken their secrets. We know where they are strong, where they are vulnerable, and where we will strike. It will, however, not be easy. We have learned that they control Nyx Dynamics, yes, that Nyx Dynamics; that controls 75% of digital infrastructure."

  He pivoted, his gaze raking across the assembled leaders. "Vampiric forces operate with terrifying speed. Their thralls move with inhuman agility, their shock troops can overrun entire defensive lines before conventional forces can react. We have now learned that they hold a significant reserve of unfielded advanced autonomous war machines, experimental combat platforms, and cybernetic enhancements beyond anything even Nyx Dynamics previously disclosed. But they are not invincible. They have weaknesses—sunlight, fire, and the disruption of their intricate command networks. Isolate them, deny them their reinforcements, and they wither like dying embers. In that way, they are like any other conventional army on Earth."

  He gestured, and the monitors erupted with coordinated battle plans. "This is how we will break them. Keep in kind, this is a framework for a plan. As always, we don't expect our plans to survive contact with the enemy."

  "Phase One: Decapitation. Covert units will execute strikes against key Nyx Dynamics executives and strategic personnel within their wider network. Which contains an east-Asian communist guerilla network by the way, if you find that funny. We will sever their command chain before their counteroffensive even begins."

  "Phase Two: Total disruption. Airstrikes will cripple their manufacturing hubs, data centers, and communication relays. The sky-carriers will provide forward airbases, launching relentless assaults into as many strongholds at once. Airborne landings will deal with the hardest targets."

  "Phase Three: Siege and annihilation. Once the plan unravels, so too does the enemy, they will collapse around their most important assets. We will corral and consolidate around them like a noose. No half-measures. No diplomacy. We will take the fight to the seat of their power and crush them beneath our treads."

  He turned away from the monitors and let his gaze sweep the room, meeting the eyes of every officer present. Aurelian was not normally one for theatrics, but he had learned a few things from the Coliseum. "We face an enemy that sees itself as the next step in evolution. They believe humanity is obsolete. They think they have already won. They are wrong." He straightened, voice ringing with conviction.

  "We do not yield, we do not bend, we do not break, and we cannot afford to lose. We will shatter their empire, burn their fortresses, and drive them from this world like the parasites they are. We will turn their arrogance to dust. And when the last of them falls, it will be by our hands."

  Silence hung for a moment, thick with anticipation. Then, one by one, the officers stood—first a few, then all—until the entire room was on its feet.

  Aurelian let the energy swell before delivering the final words with absolute certainty.

  "This war ends with their extinction. Nothing less."

  Undisclosed Location

  "My contact has checked in. They say the traitor Vespera is still alive." The spymaster said, head bowed before his Queen.

  Svetlana frowned. "That will be a problem."

  Persephone smiled coldly. "Hardly. The Vanguard is predictable. They went violence, they will get violence."

  She stopped to select a mortal she intended to feast on.

  Her fangs elongated as she prepared to feed.

  "Go on the offensive."

  Cry Havoc

  It had been hours since the operation had ended and Whirlwind carefully extricated itself from Italy. Despite his element making it back to the carrier, Ensign Perelli had not dressed down. He remained in Freikorps armor, sans helmet.

  A gloved hand gripped the monitor that displayed the vampire in her holding cell. The mass murderer sat perfectly content. She was fully restrained in a specialized block that practically encased her entire body, preventing anything more than a few inches of movement. It looked like a torture device, how uncomfortable it had to be. A metal collar came up to her nose and hid half of her face. Her eyes were blindfolded.

  But she did not tense against her restraints, or even try to challenge them. She had even allowed herself to be put into the device without trouble to her captors. She occasionally used what freedom of movement she had to tap her fingernails on the smooth, solid-cast metal.

  It was a sickening sight for the junior officer. An extreme amount of effort had gone into restraining an enemy that could teleport, when they could have far more easily killed her.

  Eyes sharp and a soul filled with hate, he watched.

  But he could not do so forever. Finally, as his left leg went numb from standing for so long, he turned away from the screen.

  In the passageway, on his way back to officer's country, he was approached by CR Klaus Weber. The German held a datapad and looked freshly washed. His uniform was crisp and straightened to perfection. He offered a sharp salute. Perelli returned it slightly weak, almost half-heartedly. If the German was displeased with his officer he did not show it.

  Weber reported, "Squads are fully dressed down, sir. I've taken the liberty of writing up my own report on the operation to accompany yours... considering our diverged paths. We have two men with injuries, but they're walking and will join us for the debrief. I've also passed along a separate report on the death of Warrant Officer 2nd Class George Trombly, the Royal Marine who was killed. It awaits your review. Element debrief is in 35 minutes. Commander Waller has scheduled an all hands for the entire unit tomorrow morning."

  Perelli took in a breath, suddenly feeling tired. "Very well. I'll go over the reports later. Let me get cleaned up I'll join you in the debrief."

  "Aye, sir." The German snapped to attention and turned to leave, but turned on his heel to face Perelli again before he did.

  "Sir... vengeance is the sharpest of steel, and the mind that carries it, the greatest of battle implements,

  one must be careful not to point it inward."

  Langley, Virginia

  Gunshots rang out in the formerly immaculate hallway on what was formerly the most secure level of the Central Intelligence Agency's Langley HQ. Three agents, two in suits and one in tactical kit took turns rapidly expending rounds into a dead corpse. Finally, they stopped when a suited man approached them from behind. His badge read: "Deputy Director".

  "Alright, he's dead, stop. Jesus, you can stop now." He told them, exasperated. A few more shots rang out even after he gave them the command. There was the final jingle of brass casings hitting the tile floor.

  "Can't be too sure. It took a belt of 5.56 to the chest and still tore through my team." U.S Army 1st Sergeant (retired) Mack Elroy said as he glanced at the carnage behind him. The dead bodies of the rest of his rapid response team, responsible for the building's security, painted the walls. The dead man on the ground had to seen to their rapid dismemberment, as well as that of other agents across three other floors of the clandestine building.

  "What the hell is this thing?" A female agent said, her trembling hands still keeping her weapon pointed at the corpse.

  "Whatever it is -was- it killed the director." The last one said, changing mags. "Made a bee line for him the moment he walked out the elevator."

  The suited man regarded their assailants remains coldly. "This is a mess. This is the head of accounting."

  "We have an accounting department?" the females eyes flicked up at him.

  "Someone has to track all the black market cocaine." The suited man told her, as if the answer was obvious. "Secure the floor... and give me some space. I have to brief the Executive on this."

  Ukraine

  The two groups of soldiers stood in uneasy silence, their breath visible in the frigid air. Though their weapons remained in hand, barrels pointed downward apprehensively, their eyes flickered warily between one another. The muddy squelched beneath their boots.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  At the center of their gathering was a T-90, its diesel idling with a low, guttural hum. The tank commander sat half-exposed through the open hatch, his helmeted head framed by the crude lattice and sandbag works of a cope cage—a desperate defense against drones. His fingers drummed nervously against the rim of the hatch, eyes locked on the grotesque spectacle before him.

  A thick oak stood fractured in the clearing, its trunk shattered where the tank’s 125mm cannon had pierced it. But it was not just wood that it had pierced. Impaled upon the tree was something that had once been human.

  Its head had split down the center, peeling apart like a grotesque flower, revealing jagged, inward-facing teeth that framed what remained of a skull. Its limbs had elongated and divided at the elbows into writhing, sinewy appendages tipped with black talons. Its chest, now a gaping ruin where the tank had struck, was broader than any man’s, the ribcage expanded as if forced to contain something unnatural within. Whatever it had once been, it was no longer bound by human proportions.

  A Russian officer, his fatigues torn and bloodied, exhaled sharply as he studied the creature. The Ukrainian officer beside him, his uniform caked in mud, crossed his arms and muttered something in his native tongue before speaking aloud.

  “What is it?”

  The Russian huffed. “I thought you would know. It came from your trench.”

  The Ukrainian’s jaw tightened. “Da. After slaughtering twenty of my men.”

  A ripple of unease passed through both groups. A soldier fidgeted, shifting his grip on his rifle. Another muttered a quiet prayer under his breath.

  The Russian officer turned his gaze back to the corpse, his lips pressing into a thin line behind his titanium Altyn helmet. “Well, whatever it is, it killed my commanding officer.”

  The Ukrainian gave a humorless chuckle. “What a way to initiate a ceasefire.”

  For a moment, there was no reply. Just the distant rumble of artillery in the background as a human war still carried on, oblivious to the horror that had forced these foes into an uneasy pause.

  Alcatraz Island

  In the heart of the decrepit prison-turned-tourist attraction, not all was as it seemed. The U.S military maintained a secret and still-active level of the facility, far from the tourist routes. This small, specialized and classified section had been reactivated very recently. Within thick concrete walls was held the only vampire ever captured alive by the United States.

  Sirens wailed and yellow lights flashed as the prison struggled to maintain a tight lockdown. Two individuals walked unopposed through the halls lit only by the flashing warning lights.

  "Dmirty." The female prompted, pointing at the last obstacle in their way.

  The quiet male vampire, fists covered in coagulating blood from the security guards he had killed on their way here, punched the thick metal door standing between him and Svetlana, and their quarry. The door bowed inward.

  He gripped the now-exposed sides of the frame and with one final guttural grunt, he ripped it from its hinges and tossed it aside. He stood aside and Vespera strode in.

  On the other side was an emaciated and pale man with disheveled long white hair that fell over his face; advanced in his years. He was strung up on a wall and held in place by titanium-composite shackles thicker than a tank shell. He didn't acknowledge his visitors.

  "Oh, come now. I think a little gratitude is in order." Svetlana said coyly. "Today, you are granted freedom."

  He didn't acknowledge her.

  "Yes, yes, it is quite humiliating, I know, being captured by mortals. But my master has use of you, Old One." she said, trying to probe for a reaction only to receive none.

  She rolled her eyes. "Queen Persephone promises vengeance on the ones who put you here." Still nothing.

  "She promises, you'll get to eat the President himself."

  That got a reaction.

  He spoke, his voice gravelly and deep. "What would your Queen ask of the first born vampire?"

  FL450, 70 Nautical Miles East of Cape Canaveral

  Twin F/A-39 Screechers, the fighter variant of the ubiquitous Vanguard aircraft, sliced through the night sky, their formation tight and disciplined. Captain James Bush, call sign Magic 2-1, led the flight with Lieutenant Olivia Reyes, Magic 2-2, off his right wing. Their aircraft, sleek and predatory, carried a full loadout of long-range radar-guided air-to-air missiles, heatseekers and a belly tank for endurance.

  "Magic Flight, check weapons and fuel state," Bush called over the encrypted frequency.

  "Magic Two-one, full loadout, 8,600 pounds internal, plus external tanks. No malfunctions," Reyes responded crisply.

  "Copy, Two-one. We’re fencing in. Master Arm safe, but be ready to go hot if this thing gets hostile."

  Their target—an unidentified radar contact—had been pacing eastward over the Atlantic at an altitude of 50,000 feet, well beyond the performance of conventional aircraft. Yet, no transponder, no IFF handshake, no comms, and almost no radar return. It was being tracked purely by a Vanguard AWACS directing all of their radar transmission capability over the object, and even then it provided a weak blip on their screens.

  "Magic two-one to AWACS Sky Eye, request latest bogey position."

  "Sky Eye copies. Target now bearing zero-six-five, seventy-two nautical miles from Canaveral, angels five-zero. Speed fluctuating between zero and Mach two—non-ballistic."

  Bush tightened his grip on the stick. "Sky Eye, confirm—bogey is executing subsonic to supersonic jumps without acceleration profile?"

  "Affirm, Two-one. It’s skipping like a damn stone across a pond."

  Reyes let out a low whistle. "This just turned into a wild night."

  Bush keyed his mic. "Two-two tighten on me. We’re approaching merge range. Radar is painting it, but returns are inconsistent. Switching to TWS."

  He flicked the mode selector, locking the target in Track While Scan, but the contact shimmered on his display, as if it was phasing in and out of detection.

  "Two-one, confirm visual."

  "Negative. Still just a phantom on scope."

  "Sky Eye, we’re moving to VID."

  "Copy, Two-One. Maintain ROE—no engagement unless fired upon."

  Bush adjusted his throttle, keeping the Screecher just shy of Mach 2 as they entered the final ten-mile intercept. Suddenly, his HUD flickered. The bogey—now five miles ahead—executed a hard break straight upward, pulling what had to be a hundred Gs in a perfect ninety-degree climb.

  "Break, break! Contact just went vertical! Angels six-five and climbing fast! Son of a bitch is making for the thermosphere!"

  "Two-two, tally! That was instant—no turn, no bleed. Just gone!"

  "Magic Flight, this is AWACS. Contact is now off scope. Will advise intent."

  Bush exhaled, scanning the empty sky ahead. "Two, anything on IRST?"

  "Negative, One. No heat sig, no contrails. It's like it was never there."

  Silence hung between them before Reyes finally muttered, "That was no drone."

  Bush adjusted course back toward the coast. "AWACS, Magic Flight is going to stick around. I wanna see if it comes back. We've either got something very wrong with our understanding of physics or we're chasing a phantom."

  As they turned west into a holding pattern, Bush eyed his radar display. For a fraction of a second, a faint blip reappeared, just behind their six o’clock—then vanished again. His fingers over the selector switch for his heatseekers and counterneasures simultaneously, unsure which he would need.

  Eniwetok Atoll - Undisclosed Location

  Leader-Commander Tambor took his place at the center of a the decrepit concrete bunker, originally built by the IJA in World War II, in front of a large gathering of individuals. The remote location had been chosen for its ease of anti-espionage preparation.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for responding to the Vanguard's call for help. I am not a politician. When I asked you here it's because I knew, strategically, that you understand the situation humanity faces. I have either noticed you or you have been brought to my attention by my subordinates because of your awareness of this situation and your willingness to do something about it. I will admit to being wrong and more than a little bit naive in thinking I could make deals with heads of state. The Black Sun looms at the threshold of our solar system, an eldritch malignancy that bends minds and corrupts flesh. We do not know what it is, only that it is an existential threat."

  "For too long, the nations of Earth have ignored the warning signs, shackled by their own arrogance or paralyzed by the grip of those who drink from this corruption. The cults of the Black Sun have embedded themselves in the highest offices of power."

  A board illuminated behind him with very high-profile names and faces illustrated and an attached rap sheet of crimes. Some of those gathered seemed surprised. Most did not.

  "They whisper into the ears of prime ministers, they sit in your war rooms, and dictate policy from behind veils of bureaucracy. They are not men anymore. They are something else. Something that should not be."

  "But they are not untouchable. The Terra Vanguard believes in removing this threat by force of violence and if it bleeds, then it can be killed." He said with hint of a smile, but quickly returned to a more serious demeanor.

  "We have obtained high-confidence intelligence that maps the arteries of their infection. We now know where they hide. Ninety percent of their lairs, their strongholds, their places of worship—we have them all. This is not a moment for hesitation. This is a moment for action. Most of you in the intelligence community already know that Vanguard does not take kindly to idleness "

  "You are here because you understand that the fate of humankind depends on what we do next. Every asset, every operative, every sympathetic hand in a position of power must move in concert. Disrupt their networks, sabotage their supply chains, expose them where possible and eradicate them where possible. The old way of war will not win this fight, but neither will timidity. We strike hard, we strike fast, and we do not allow them to regroup. We are on the offensive."

  "The price of failure is unthinkable. But success? Success means a world where men are free to look upon the stars without fearing what lurks beyond them. It means a world where our children are not born into servitude to horrors beyond our comprehension."

  "We are the Terra Vanguard, but I need your help. We do not flinch. We do not falter. We carry the torch in the dark, not for glory, not for recognition, but because there is no one else who can. You have already made your choice by being here. Now, we act."

  "The Black Sun will not rise."

  Citadel City. Terra Vanguard Nuclear Laboratory.

  The two researchers carefully went about their work in a sterile laboratory in heavy lead suits that offered great protection against radiological components. Inside a thick glass tube, they manipulated robotic arms as they fully disassembled the nuclear device recovered in Italy.

  The casing was carefully peeled back and the Urnaium-235 was exposed. The various redundant geiger counters went wild. Samples of the isotope were swabbed for and placed in their own containers for further chemical analysis. While one researcher went about this careful work, another typed away on a ruggedized laptop.

  The plasma mass spectrometer finished its analysis and both researchers examined the results, becoming more confused as they did so.

  "This is impossible," The female researcher finally muttered, scrolling through the readout again, as if sheer disbelief could force the numbers to change. Her accomplice frantically began combing a shelf full of binders, selecting one that contained a database that tracked all radioactive material manufactured in the past decade. "This isn’t just highly enriched It’s... perfect."

  "There's no decay products. No trace isotopes. No contaminants. No neptunium-237, no plutonium, no americium. Even the best Soviet and American fissile material—hell, even weapons-grade uranium—has traces of unwanted isotopes. Reprocessing, enrichment, even the best gaseous diffusion leaves a fingerprint." She exhaled sharply. "This has none."

  The other researcher compared the results with what was in the binder, containing sample readouts from every reactor and laboratory on Earth. "No oxygen, no carbon, no metallic impurities. No tungsten, no molybdenum, nothing from diffusion membranes or centrifuge seals. This uranium hasn’t just been purified—it was never impure to begin with. It’s as if it was formed this way."

  The thought hung in the air like radiation, unseen but undeniable. Human refinement techniques always left signatures—residual thorium in Soviet warheads, telltale signs of fluorination in American uranium feeds. But this? There was nothing.

  "Ma'am," The assistant researcher pointed at a matching result in the binder. There was one readout logged months ago that matched what they were seeing now. It was not accompanied by a Russian flag, an American flag, or Chinese or Indian or any other. It was accompanied by a seal depicting a shield with crossed cartridges, the seal of the Terra Vanguard.

  Both researchers were in shock.

  A voice came over the intercomm, a question from an observer behind a thick glass viewing port. "What is the problem, doctor?" it asked.

  "Sir,... this is our Uranium."

  Behind the glass, Over-Commander Tycho's expression instantly darkened as the implications flooded in. His hands clenched into fists.