To Spite Another God Pt. 11

She looked at Jenny. Jenny looked back, biting her lower lip.

"What do we do now?"

***

"We have to retreat!" General Schlieffen said, slamming his fist down into the makeshift table inside of the Martian facility that they had captured. Outside, troops were rushing here and there and everywhere, still following through on the plan that they had concocted before the attack. Here and now, they were supposed to prepared to shoot down flying machines with the French quick firing guns, using vampires' strength and reflexes to make sure of their gunnery. But...

"We can't retreat," Fosch said, frowning.

"You may be willing to die for some French town, but-"

"No, Fosch is right," Mina said. "Noon is past, the vampires cannot change -- they're not in mobile forms. They're in strong forms. If we try and run, we'll be running at the speed of infantry -- and where do you think we'll find food, if we can't get back to our base in time?" she shook her head. "Is there any chance that our guns can pierce that thing?"

"Not a chance," Dr. Elphinstone said, shaking his head. "I've only done preliminary observation, but...if it's as tough as the scout cylinders were, they tried to dynamite one during the initial invasion of Briton. It didn't work. If they can withstand dynamiting, then they will resist these artillery pieces -- and those were the smaller cylinders."

"Then...that is it?" Schlieffen asked, his ancient face twisting into more and more pronounced wrinkles. "Hurmph. To think, I will die under the command of a woman."

Mina shook her head, slowly. "No," she said, quietly. "No, I'm not going to go down without a fight. Dr. Elphinstone!" she said, pointing at him -- and felt the strangest prickle of incongruity, an awareness of how very strange her life had become, giving orders to a man, a doctor, and someone she was fairly sure had fucked her brains out just a few nights before while she had been tied to a table, and him immediately accepting those orders without hesitation or delay...

It was a momentary awareness, but it still caused her to stumble faintly on her words, her cheeks heating: "C-Can you see about salvaging the heat rays from the field -- not all of them were destroyed. Begin to divine their use and array them in concealment." She turned to the Generals. "We're going to make a hole. Heat weakens metal -- we shall focus our fire upon the cylinder's hull until it is red hot, then we shall fire the guns into her. If we can just disable part of her Aresite plating, then she will be forced to withdraw."

"That...might work," Schlieffen said, slowly.

Fosch grinned. "My guns will give you all that they can, Murray."

Mina showed her fangs.

***

The invasion cylinder drew closer and closer by the minute. It's progress was glacial -- and yet, like an onrushing iceburg, there was in inevitability to it. As Martian machines and Martian supplies were ransacked by the soldiers and the vampires. Soon, they had twelve different heat rays, each of them set up, each of them being examined by Dr. Elphinstone and the others who knew some little about physical sciences. Soon, they had fired off a beam of heat into a wall, causing it to glow with dull radiance, and soldiers to cheer.

"Hip hip hooray!" the cry came, again and again, and Mina shook her head slowly as she stepped from the planning room. The Generals might still have their reservations, their concerns, their worries...

But she saw the German and French soldiers were smiling as they walked by.

They had won.

They had won a battle against the unstoppable Martians. It was not the tragic victories of some of humanity's armies and navies. It was not a repeat of the Thunder Child, which Mina could still remember vividly. It was a true, real victory, and the energy of it was buzzing through all the men as they stacked shells, threw up sand bags, and took up defensive positions. Mina looked out to sea at the invasion cylinder -- and she tried to judge how long they had. Maybe...an hour. She looked at the sky, and saw the hateful sun was still nearly directly overhead.

"S-So, you have a plan?" Jenny's voice drew her attention back. Mina smiled at her wife, reaching down and drawing her close.

"After a sort..." She said, then sighed. "I'm sorry, Jenny. I'm sorry that...that..."

"What?" Jenny chuckled. "I've seen worse plans go better and better plans go worse." She bit her lower lip. "And if there was anywhere I'd rather fight and die, it'd be here." She smiled, shyly.

Two soldiers walking by glanced at the pair of them. Mina traced their sightlines and saw that they were practically glued to Jenny's rump. She grinned, impishly, then focused: Hmmm, Jenny, I do believe that some strapping Germans have been oggling your ass.

"What!?" Jenny squeaked, jerking her head around, her eyes wide -- while Lucy came flapping down from the sky, landing on her head.

Did someone say oggling Jenny's ass? Lucy asked, her voice playful.

Jenny blushed, then scowled. "How can the two of you be thinking of oggling and...and...such at a time like this! We are about to be in the biggest battle of our lives, maybe, and...and we have no powers and...and..." She paused, then blushed even harder, her gray cheeks darkening. "Oh drat."

"What?" Mina asked, laughing softly.

"I-I'm now thinking about some of the more handsome soldiers..." Jenny bit her lip. She shook her head. "It was easier to control myself when-"

When you hated your own body? Lucy asked, her wings flapping down to hug to either side of Jenny's head. Jenny bit her lower lip, clearly thinking about everything -- but ahead of them, Mina could see that the invasion cylinder was drawing closer and closer -- and that large ports along its flanks were beginning to open. Thin tendrils emerged into the air, each of them gripping long, angular mirros. She frowned, then stepped forward.

"Those are heat rays," she muttered.

"Antoni!" Jenny said, looking around. "Antoni! Do you have shrapnel shells?"

Mina glanced at Jenny, who blushed just a bit harder. "O-Oh, was that too forward?" she asked, which caused Lucy to laugh, then lean forward and bump her cute little bat nose against Jenny's nose.

"No, you're right. Our guns outrange their heat rays," Mina said. "If we can just knock a few of them out of the running-"

The water ahead of them suddenly bloomed with a wave of rippling heat. Steam gushed into the air, creating an immense white curtain that blocked off the view of the invasion cylinder. In a single instant, the entire thing was obscured from their roof and wall mounted pieces. Antoni's voice clearly rang out into the air with a strangled, furious shout. "Damn it all!"

Mina scowled. "I really prefer it when the enemy isn't so blamed clever. Lucy! Fly up!"

Lucy bobbed her head, then beat her wings. Her bat form shot into the air and Mina breathed in. She tried to focus her thoughts, tried to draw in her mind. But her thoughts were skittering, out of control -- thinking of the oncoming cylinder, and whatever new threats it contained within. She bit her lip, hard, and then she felt two cool hands upon her shoulders. Jenny's fingers squeezed her and her voice murmured into her ear, her lips teasing her pointed eartip. She whispered. "You can do this, Mina Murray. You are the best of us."

Mina closed her eyes tighter.

Focused.

And then she felt the slender thread connecting her and Lucy -- and through that, she saw Lucy's vision, of the cylinder and it's approximate distance to the wall of mist and fog that it was kicking up, and the distance between the fog and the pier, and all of it mapped into her brain as approximate distances. She balled that up, and flung it to Antoi. She felt, through their connection, a shivering ping of awareness, and she swore she heard his grunt in her ear.

"Ah ha."

Elevations were called out.

Then, ringing loud across the field.

"Fire!"

The artillery that they had dragged across Europe spoke in a rippling pattern of fire. Flames belched from their barrels and the shells were made visible by the way the steam wall ahead of them rippled and twitched. Through the vision she shared with Lucy, she could see the shells bursting against the front and side of the cylinder. Heat rays exploded into fragments as shrapnel flew outwards in each direction, lacerating tentacles and crunching fragile components -- and the remaining tentacles withdrew in a hurry. The steam wall began to part and the ground itself began to shake as the cylinder drew closer and closer.

Mina's eyes snapped open.

"Fire the heat rays!"

Dr. Elphinstone and his assistance did whatever it was needed to activate the liberated Martian weapons. The beams played silently along the hull of the immense cylinder, and Mina could see the immediate reaction as steam exploded away from the hull -- material flashing into bubbling nothingness. The heat collected more and more as Dr. Elphinstone bellowed out orders and pointed -- the beams all intersecting. Soon a circle roughly ten meters wide began to shine a dull red, then a bright red, then white. And yet, as it shone, the cylinder started to gently turn to the side, presenting more of her flank, trying to turn the hot spot away from the guns.

But by then, the guns had reloaded.

"Fire!"

The guns roared and detonations burst around the glowing spot of heat -- but then the metal rippled as if it had been a pound hit by a rock, dead on. The entire cylinder shuddered and green smoke began to pour from the hole blown into the side. The cylinder shuddered again -- but it had begun to turn around, facing its side towards them. The side, Mina saw, that had not been struck by shrapnel shells. She saw the ports opening, and tentacles emerging, bearing heat rays. She turned and flashed the thought to her vampires while shouting at the same time: "COVER! NOW!"

Antoni and the other vampires on the guns reacted with alacrity that only the undead could have: They sprang away from the guns and then dove into the cover that had been prepared. The Martian structures were made of a queer, heat drinking metal -- that alone saved so many. It did not save all, though, as the heat rays swept along the roofs and the grounds between them. Gun after gun burst apart and exploded as their stores of ammunition (small stacks, really, they had known this would be a risk) were touched off. Shrapnel rained down, but far worse was the heat rays' sweeping between the buildings.

Any man who was unfortunate enough to be standing in the wrong place, or ducked behind cover that did not quite intersect with the ship, or simply was too slow, was struck. Some were struck full on, having no time to scream before their whole bodies were consumed in a flash of immolating flame. Others were struck glancing blows -- blows that were almost more cruel, as they left them shrieking in hideous pain as their clothing burst away and their skin peeled back, revealing charred bone beneath. Their comrades, if they could, dragged them to the security of cover...but too often, they had no choice but to remain hunkered down as their friends screamed and screamed.

The heat rays ceased, then, with the cylinder opening up new notches.

They were about to launch the black smoke, Mina could see it.

She peered out from around the corner of one of the buildings, Jenny cuddling against her side. General Fosch had emerged as well, and he shook his head.

"Well, Miss Murray, it was...surprisingly honorable to serve with you," he said, slowly, taking off his hat, his jaw clenched. He looked at her. "You will survive this. All of you will. You must keep fighting. You must be a plague upon the Martians -- you must drag them down, and kill them, and fight until our world is free. And-" He blinked as she held up her hand, her brow furrowing, her finger touching to his lips.

"Do you...hear that?"

The Martian cylinder seemed to have paused -- its black smoke unlaunched.

As if it too was listening, intently.

And over the faint screams of wounds...over the clattering of falling debris...over the rustling roar of the hovering cylinder...they could all hear it as well.

It was a single, solitary trumpet -- playing a lilting, fast tone. A tone that Mina had heard once before, during the American Exhibition in 1887, years before. It played the same notes again and again, in a staccato pattern.

It was the song that played when the US Cavalry came to rescue Buffalo Bill.

Mina peeked around the corner more and there, to the west, flying dead out of the Atlantic, where three interlocking chevrons of Martian flying machines. But...they were not. Their bodies were less rounded, more angular. Their hulls were painted a dull gray-green, and their wings had rectangular American flags painted upon their sides. And their cockpits were made of clear, transparent glass, hastily formed into bubble shapes allowing purely human figures to peer out. They looked flimsier and more fragile and clumsier than the flying machines of the Martians.

But they were there.

Jenny cried out. "It's the Americans!?"

"Heat rays!" Mina shouted. "Give them something to work with!"

As she spoke, the ports that would fire the black smoke canisters closed, clearly not wanting to give openings for the Americans to take advantage of. The heat rays that they had focused their fire upon the cylinder, trying to heat the armor and soften it, but the Americans didn't wait for their attack. They swept forward, their engines humming audibly as their aeserite plates shifted and they brought themselves down. Mina saw that they had only machine guns on their noses, which began to chatter and clatter as they sprayed them along the cylinder. Sparks flew and clattered, and they swept away, but one of the heat rays on the cylinder sliced through an American flying machine. The wing came free and the whole machine spun and spun, then crashed into the ocean with a fierce detonation.

The heat rays focused again -- and another bright spot appeared. The Americans, spotting it, flew down and fired bullets into it -- and once again, green smoke began to pour from the cylinder. Other machines hovered to make their noses lay steady and their machine guns started to fire at the cylinder's heat rays, blowing them into pieces. The cylinder shifted -- and then turned once more. The sea shuddered and shook and trembled beneath it as the Americans soared around it, their guns chattering and clattering and firing away, to little to not effect, save for where they raked the heated sides of the cylinder. But even that was not happening as quickly as Mina might have hoped -- though she saw why, as Dr. Elphinstone and his heat ray operators had to hastily adjust their angle of fire and shut their heat rays down to avoid destroying the American flying machines.

But that hardly mattered.

The cylinder began to recede, firing off black smoke canisters as it went. Those were shot down by daring and brave American pilots, bursting harmlessly over the sea rather than landing on Dunkirk. And as the cylinder flew to the distance, cheers burst from the German and French soldiers, fists thrusting into the air. Jenny laughed and leaped up and down, clapping her hands together -- and Mina stepped out, beaming, as she saw the American flying machines soaring back around, forming into chevrons. They landed, one by one, around Dunkirk, wherever they could find places to settle. The one that landed nearest to Mina popped open before it had even settled.

A rather short, pugnacious looking gentleman dressed in a khaki uniform, with a Captain's chevrons sewn onto his shoulder, emerged. His upper lip was covered with a bushy mustache, and he looked as if, at any moment, he was ready to use his fists as well as his words. He swept his gaze about, then spotted General Fosch and General Schlieffen, both standing to either side of Mina. He strode forward, nodding.

"Good afternoon sirs!" he said, speaking French with a rather thick German accent. "Captain Theodore Roosevelt, commander of the First American Air Volunteers! We've heard that you had a spot of trouble and we've-" He stopped up short, looking down at Mina -- she was just a tiny edge shorter than he was. "Good heavens, miss, where are your clothes!?"

Mina remembered, quite suddenly, that she was dressed as she normally was: in a sheer white shift, with her feet bare so she could enjoy the feeling of the ground against her preternaturally tough skin.

"Well-" she said.

And that was when, emerging from one of the other flying machines, a rather buffonish looking gentleman with spectacles and a round, doughy face, cried out in alarm and hurled a vial of holy water directly into her face.

TO BE CONTINUED