CH31
Tom and Josh were jogging back across the bridge to get back to where they took a fork in the road.
This direction led them to a row house that was abandoned. The search of the place turned up nothing. "What were they doing over here? There's nothing here." Josh was getting pissed.
"What or whoever was here has moved out. Maybe this is where they started before moving." Tom offers.
"So what was that first place with all the drugs? Are they hooked on it somehow? This planet has a drug that affects vampires and they raided it?" Josh didn't understand.
As they ran back across the bridge all the cars slowed to look at them. They had traffic backed up for miles. They had just finished crossing the bridge when a car with lights blinking pulled over out in front of them and two men in uniforms got out at started yelling at them.
Tom and Josh simply ignored both of them and started running faster to leave them behind.
They soon saw several other cars just like it with their lights flashing that seemed to be working together to try and stop them. Ultimately there were two cars that had blocked their way with the men that were inside the car standing outside with their weapons drawn.
Tom opened fire on the two on the left with rounds from his weapon while Josh shot the two on the right. After they jumped over the two cars they kept running only pausing long enough to fire a plasma ball that blew up the two cars along with two civilian cars.
The shrapnel from all four cars exploding struck 8 other cars. Behind them they left 4 police officers dead along with 4 civilian deaths and 12 injured. It also stopped all traffic going both ways.
Tom and Josh didn't encounter any more trouble until they reached the fork in the road where they stopped to consult their scans of the city to see where to go now after determining where the vampire trail was going to take them. There was some mild interference on their scans. It was suggesting that everyone around them was part vampire, or maybe it was because the Beckett's had been everywhere recently.
Their built-in alert system alerted them to another 4 cars with lights blinking that had all stopped with the occupants getting out and using their cars as cover. Ordering them to drop their weapons and get on the ground.
Tom fired one plasma ball while Josh fired another. The result was 4 more destroyed police cruisers and 8 more dead police officers.
Tom and Josh took off running in the direction that their scans told them the vampires had gone. However now they were traveling down smaller side streets and only ran across people walking and only a little traffic. Most of the traffic being taxi's.
"I've got a trace of vampires in the taller building over there and in the shorter 5 story building over there. Life signs show that the taller building presently has a larger number of life signs, while the 5 story building has only a handful." Tom informs Josh as they try to hide from being seen.
"If we fire enough plasma balls into the taller building it may be enough to cause it to collapse, perhaps temporarily trapping the vampires in the rubble, allowing us time to clear the other building.
If we don't find them in the 5 story building we come back to the rubble and search it." Josh offers.
"The destruction of the building will likely cause this planet's emergency services to show up. Care for the injured, put out the fire, take away the dead." Tom comments not caring how many civilians die in the process.
"And likely more of those humans with weapons will arrive." Josh adds.
"Depending on how many there are we can switch to hand to hand while we search the rubble, saving our ammunition for later or for larger organized attacks." Tom points out.
"Filthy vampire lovers." Josh curses.
"I'll take the left, you take the right and we meet in the middle. Fire only at the ground floor." Tom tells him. "3, … 2, ….1, … Fire."
Tom quickly fires two plasma balls at the building on his end and meets Josh in the middle each firing another two plasma balls.
Neither of them stays long enough to see the results of their attack. However their HUD built into their helmets shows them the results of their attack as they approach the 5 story building. They were both clear of any interference from the local authorities for the moment.
Both of them knew that getting back to their shuttle would likely be more trouble. However they had an entire planet to get their food and fuel from.
Kate was with Alexis putting stickers on the window. Snowflakes, Snowmen, Santa and Candy Canes. "Did you hear that?" Kate turns to look at Lanie.
"It sounded like multiple explosions." Lanie answers back looking at Kate. "Hard to tell how many, four maybe."
"Demolition of a nearby building maybe?" Rick answers having heard both of them as he brings another box filled with Christmas decorations in it. Rick however hadn't heard the explosions they were talking about.
Kate takes in a deep breath and is suddenly panicked. "HUNTERS!"
It got Lanie to do the same. "Two of them and they are close, just outside the building." Lanie adds.
Rick literally drops the box he is carrying and runs back into his study.
"Take Alexis upstairs and hide her." Kate tells Lanie and literally picks up Alexis and tosses her across the room into Lanie's arms who instantly runs upstairs and into the far bedroom.
Kate runs into the study and has a vest hit her as soon as she clears the door. Kate finds Rick bent over and unlocking the bottom drawer allowing Kate to take out a weapon along with two clips and then runs back into the living room.
Rick is left behind as he pulls down the other vest and straps it on quickly using the velcro straps to secure it in place. And then closes that drawer and opens the one above it. Unlocking it, he pulls out the FN and two clips. One goes in the weapon while the second goes into his back pocket.
Kate has gone into the dining room and upset the dining room table and shoved it up against the breakfast bar and then jumps over all of it landing in the kitchen.
Kate quickly puts on her vest and readies her weapon and then she opens a cabinet and starts pulling out knives. All of them are throwing knives made of the hardest material Rick could get.
The table and the kitchen cabinets stood no chance of stopping any of the Hunter rounds. Kate was simply hoping for that fraction of speed that the rounds might be reduced. Enough for her vampire speed to avoid them.
Neither of them had long to wait as suddenly rounds started penetrating the door in a loop, shooting the lock off as it fell on the floor.
The door was then kicked open and Tom was the first one in. Before his HUD could identify Kate's location, Kate threw all six throwing knives one at a time striking almost the exact same point on his visor.
None of them penetrated, however what they did accomplish caused Tom's visor to shut down as a spider web formed because of the impacts, impairing his vision.
Tom stepped inside allowing Josh room to follow in behind him.
Kate switched to her weapon and emptied her first clip into almost the exact same point in Josh's visor. This caused the same affect on Josh's visor. His HUD system shut down and his visor was filled with spider webs, impairing his vision.
Trying to take away one of the Hunters advantages had been one of Rick's ideas, hence the weapons training Rick had taken Kate to on occasion.
For both Tom and Josh the automatic system took over and retracted the visor allowing both of them to see without obstruction. It did however mean their faces no longer had any protection, from damage or gases.
Tom opened up first and used full automatic and sprayed the dining room table from left to right causing Kate to jump, roll and spin behind the makeshift barrier.
Kate however screamed out in pain as a single round struck her side and caused her to land on the floor trying to stay flat as the rest of the rounds went over her body.
Rick meanwhile pushed some of his books aside and emptied his first clip into the armor of Josh, watching him dance in place as each round struck his armor.
Of the 30 rounds fired only a third managed to penetrate his armor a little. Those 10 rounds however caused both of his lungs to collapse and severely damaged his left side as he started bleeding out.
Josh lifted his weapon and fired on full automatic as he sprayed the area where Rick was located. However thanks to Rick's training he had fallen to the ground and rolled to one side to get into a new position, and started changing out his clip for a fresh one.
Problem was as Josh started to fall to the floor as his body started to shut down from the damage he had taken, his weapon started falling too, while still firing on full automatic.
One round easily penetrated Rick's vest and entered his left shoulder, while still another penetrated his vest and entered his right shoulder. A third ripped open his vest on his back as it traveled from his shoulder to his butt and out. Ripping open his back causing Rick to scream in pain.
Kate could smell his blood and turned her head to look his direction. "NO!" As Kate saw blood splattering all over up into the air.
Kate struggled through the pain to crawl to the edge of the counter so she could look around it and see Tom.
Tom opened fire and sprayed the kitchen area, ripping the floor to pieces as he panned from left to right again. Kate had lifted her weapon and ejected the spent clip and slapped in a new one, and was just getting ready to try and aim for his open visor when suddenly his entire arm holding the weapon fell from his body as it continued firing.
However all of these rounds were impacting the sofa. It got Kate to alter her vision from the weapon firing still in his hand lying on the floor to the body it came from.
As Kate watched she saw something shining and crackling with energy run upwards from between his legs until it exited out the top of his head. As the two pieces of the body fell off to each side, Kate could see someone standing right behind him.
"DAD!" Kate's eyes went wide. Jim was standing there with a flickering blade that looked and sounded like a sparkling super thin yellow piece of lightning about 3 feet in length, maybe a little less. DAD HAS A VIBRO BLADE!?
Right behind him was her mother who had the exact same thing in her hand who stepped over to the other Hunter and sliced his head off his body.
Jim was on his daughter in a heartbeat. "Honey, you alright?" Jim looked her over. "You've been hit." Jim's blade disappeared and he bent down to lift his daughter up. He needed to get her to their shuttle and up to their ship for their EMH to patch her up.
"No dad, we have to help Rick." Kate shoved him away and staggered over to where Rick was lying in a pool of blood.
Kate fell on the floor next to him. "RICK, NO, PLEASE!" Kate started crying. And then Kate looked up. "MOM? …. PLEASE?" Kate knew her mom had training in medical.
Johanna deactivated her blade and knelt next to her daughter. "He's human." Johanna could smell his blood, and see the pure anguish of pain on her daughters face.
"Please mom, you have to help him. …. Please!?" Kate's tears were falling fast and landing on the floor.
"Our shuttle isn't very close to here." Johanna points out a problem. Running as fast as she could in broad daylight was going to cause attention.
"Ours is on the roof." Kate points out.
"Did you fix your EMH?" Johanna asks Kate.
Kate was nodding her head "Alexis found it and I downloaded him. It works fine." Kate answers her question.
Johanna stared at her daughter with a face of "Who's Alexis?" However Johanna picks Rick up and carries him bridal style and runs up the stairs headed for the roof. Kicking open doors until she saw the shuttle.
Johanna placed Rick in the passenger seat and strapped him in, then ran around to the other side, and fired up the shuttle. Taking off and headed for space instantly.
Jim turned to his daughter. "Where's Lanie?" Kate was hurt but where was his other daughter.
"Upstairs with Alexis." Kate answers his question.
Jim lifted his head. "LANIE HONEY!" Jim yelled out. "LANIE, … you up there?"
Lanie cracked the door open and slowly approached the railing. "DAD!" And Lanie leaped over the railing and landed on the floor and jumped into Jim's arms.
Then Lanie saw Kate lying on the floor, bleeding. "KATE!" Lanie kneeled down to get a better look at Kate. "You're bleeding bad Kate. We need to get it to stop."
Lanie looked upstairs. "Alexis honey do you have a first aid kit?" Lanie yelled up.
It was only now that Jim saw a little girl with reddish hair show up at the railing. Who instantly ran down the stairs as fast as she could.
Alexis was instantly at Kate wanting to hug her and make her feel better and make herself feel better. Then she saw all the blood and instantly started to cry.
"Alexis honey, I'm fine. I'll be fine. Show Lanie where the first aid kit is honey. … Go on, Lanie needs it to help me." Kate offers motioning to Lanie to take Alexis.
Lanie takes Alexis by the hand. "Show me the first aid kit honey."
Alexis was conflicted, she wanted to stay with her mom, and yet her mom had told her to do something. So Alexis took Lanie into the master bedroom bathroom, where Lanie started searching the cabinets for what she wanted.
"There are blood bags in the refrigerator and the microwave is on the counter. The straws are in a box next to it." Kate tells her dad and motions with her head.
Jim gets up and heads for what looks like a refrigerator and opens it find some blood bags inside. Jim's throat was burning however he only took out one bag and placed it in the microwave to warm it up.
After poking a straw into it, he took it back to Kate who instantly started drinking.
Lanie with Alexis right behind her was soon back with the first aid kit, which was a big one. Lanie opened it and went to work on Kate.
"MOM?" Alexis was ready to go back to crying.
Kate reached out a hand to stroke Alexis's hair. "I'll be fine honey. Lanie will fix everything."
Jim's eyes were open wide and his mouth had fallen on the floor. "Mom?" Jim stares at Kate.
Kate smiled with a "Please don't shoot me dad, I can explain" look on her face. "A lot has happened dad." Kate smiles weakly.
"That's an understatement." Lanie adds nodding her head, as she continued to work on Kate.
"OWE!" Kate complains.
"Sorry." Lanie smiles weakly.
"MOM!?" Alexis was getting ready to give up not crying.
"Come on down here honey." Kate lifted up her good arm and helped Alexis onto the floor so Kate could hold her on her good side, and kissed the side of her head again.
Jim was taking it all in unable to form words for what he was seeing and thinking. Jim had no trouble working out that the little girl in his daughter's arm was human. Except there was something off about her. Something was different.
"This isn't going to hold for long Kate, we need to get you to the EMH eventually." Lanie points out. "And get that round out of you."
"MOM?" Alexis has a question.
Kate kissed Alexis's head. "What honey?"
"Where's daddy?" There was just her mom, Lanie and some strange guy that her mom was calling dad. Alexis hadn't yet seen the one whole body lying on the floor. Well almost whole since it was missing its head. Or thankfully the one cut in half.
Johanna landed in the hold of the Talyn that their daughters had gotten here in. It was almost literally right next to theirs. The Hunter ship was just on the other side.
Jim and Johanna had worked out that the Hunters had taken their shuttle down to the planet and they had decided to do the same when they found the one for the Talyn gone.
Johanna carried an unconscious Rick inside and dropped him off at the scanner table. "Computer, activate the EMH." And then Johanna continued on for the bridge, not listening to the standard greeting the EMH always gave.
Johanna sat down and started powering up the ship. Looking at the screens Johanna found that the Talyn still had a lot of fuel left. "How is that possible?" They were DEEP inside the tormented zone, like really deep.
The air started feeling fresher after a couple of minutes.
Johanna got up and went back to the scanner table where she found the EMH had already removed the vest Rick had been wearing, cut his shirt off of him and was busy cleaning the affected areas.
"Can I help you?" Johanna had some training, just what Rick needed was beyond her skills.
"He needs blood, he has lost a lot of it. Plasma will do however blood would be better." The EMH tells her.
Johanna moves to the bank of refrigerators and opens the first one. Empty. Moving on to the second one she finds four bags of blood along with some other items. Food items!
"Marie Callenders?" Johanna had picked one up and put it back. It looked like human food, which made no sense at all.
"I have two O+ and two A+." Johanna informs the EMH.
"Excellent, we can use all of them. Do you know how to set one up?" The EMH asked since he was busy.
"Yes." Johanna grabbed one of them and got to work.
Once she was done. "How is he?"
"One round has entered each of his shoulders and shattered each of his shoulder blades. The third round has traveled down his back and entered and exited his ass. No major organs have been damaged.
However it is his existing wound that is going to be the most difficult." The EMH tells her, never stopping what he is doing.
"He has an existing wound?" He had been in combat before.
"If this is the human named Rick, I was asked if I could remove a round that was lodged up against his spinal column. The answer was yes, of course. I was told they would be back." The EMH explains.
Katie had called him Rick.
"I do however have a problem. … While none of the injectors are empty, all of them have very little left in them. They will need to be replenished if I'm to make an attempt at removing the round lodged against his spinal column." The EMH points out.
"Our ship has some." Johanna knew they did, she had stolen it earlier at the first hospital they had stopped at to get blood. And if theirs didn't the Hunter ship was on the other side of this ship.
"Distance, time involved?" The EMH asks not looking up from his work.
"Five minutes there, five minutes back, … tops." Johanna just needed to suit up and step across to their ship and back again.
"Go." The EMH responds.