Kaz had terrible static nightmares.
Regrets painted in the sounds of rain that fell in great sheets.
When she stirred, the rain stayed with her. She opened her eyes and it was that quiescent time between midnight and dawn where stillness resides. She saw him there, standing in the haze of her dreamscape, but he didn’t say anything. She slept like that in a bed in an inn near Starymost. It had been a bed and breakfast once, but after the Arcadians had set up a base nearby they’d converted it into a hospital for the wounded. They’d stitched her up good, including treating the old scar that ran like a slash through her left eye.
... well, “good enough”.
Even when she stirred, the vampire in her room didn’t move. He just lingered there like a malignant spirit, tethered to her by their invisible bond. When an hour passed, listening to the rain, she finally spoke.
“What’s your name?”
He didn’t respond - at least, not immediately. He watched her, dissecting her with those feral eyes of his, like a starving street dog deciding if she was worth eating.
“I said, what is your name, spirit?” she repeated flatly.
“Yevhen,” he finally said in his resonant voice, though it sounded like he might have thought his answer was some kind of joke.
“I’m Kaz.” The reply was automatic, drilled into her by decades of social niceties. The silence stretched between them, growing uncomfortable. “I’m Kaz, and I’m not going to thank you.”
“You shouldn’t,” he replied simply, still finding all this amusing... or at least enticing. “Because one day you’ll regret it and, if I’m being honest, I’m a real piece of shit anyway.”
“I know; I’ve read my Red Gospel. It was the choice I had to make in the moment. I won’t regret it though. I’m gonna live with it.” She tried to put on a brave face and state it as simply and straightforwardly as possible.
The vampire sighed and moved to a small cracked leather chair next to her bed.
He still wore his dark suit, though it looked as immaculate as when she'd seen him in his coffin. He had long hair, tanned skin, wide features and proportions and looked... old. Not that he looked a day over 30, but his features spoke of an older era somehow.
“Everyone eventually regrets it,” Yevhen said matter-of-factly. Though he seemed to have deflated a bit, his tone was almost conversational. He eased into the chair and it creaked. “I’ve had two other masters and they always regretted it in the end.” There was a wistfulness in the way he talked and he offered a wry little smile.
“Why did they regret it?” She couldn’t help herself.
He sighed and explained, “They both fell to The Pillar. They simply couldn’t resist it.” He was introspecting on something, a far-off memory.
“The Pillar?”
He shook his head and replied, “I can’t speak on it. Let’s just say it’s... what’s across the River Styx. A burning brand that marks the damned.”
She raised an eyebrow at that and he smiled, revealing thick teeth and large fangs. They were thicker than she pictured - each thicker than a human tooth and his fangs easily as thick as her pinky finger.
“That’s ominous...” she said but thought better of it, “but irrelevant. I need to know, Yevhen.” His name felt strange, Yev-Hen. “Why did you agree to my terms?”
He shrugged, almost nonchalantly. “I could tell you it was because you were the only one who’d walked by my grave in fifty years, that I was bored to death, or that I saw your ‘inner nobility’ or some crap, but that’d be a lie. No... the truth is I tasted your desperation, your need to survive. I hadn’t felt that in a while … ages, really... and I thought you’d be fun.” There was a psychotic glimmer in his eye that shook Kaz to her core.
“So this is some kind of sick game to you?!” she asked, more than a little pissed, as she sat up. Keeping her temper had never been her strong suit. He seemed to consider this in his low leather chair and turned his palms up.
“I’d be lying if I said otherwise. I was put there because I became dull. A knife needs to be sharpened regularly to keep its edge and I... I wasn’t getting sharpened. I’d grown bored. I tried alcohol, I tried debauchery, I tried feeding, and I tried killing. Nothing fulfilled me anymore - not even doomscrolling, surprisingly.” Yevhen smirked a bit at that. “I used to tell myself I could spend a thousand years just reading all the books in Gondishapur with my new unlife but... I only lasted five. When you have everything you fall into this kind of... daze. What does tomorrow matter when you have another tomorrow after that? It’s like being in an airport and being perpetually stuck waiting for your plane to depart, or being stuck on a download page for porn that never completes.”
“So you’re a vampire with ennui? How original,” she scoffed mildly. Poor him. He was an unholy abomination that had seen the rise and fall of civilizations and he was complaining about existential dread and boredom?
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He smiled, “I never claimed to be. I took my last nap after the bombs fell and I’ve been wallowing in that ennui ever since.” Kaz thought his smugness was unbecoming of him.
“Our deal holds even if you get bored, though.” She wanted to add “right?” but stopped herself. Better not to give him an out.
“Yes... my master.” He gave a little bow from his seated position and smiled, revealing his fangs mockingly.
“Even if you’re in this for shits and giggles, I’m here to win. Mithris has been stomping on us since last October and we’re running out of foreign aid to keep them at bay.”
“Mithris... the Russians?” He seemed to be searching for context. No one called them “Russians” anymore. What had been Russia had been fragmented and the shard that had grown into Mithris had spread south to engulf most of the Caucasus region before swallowing up the land around the Black Sea and traveling north in a pretty thin line all the way up the Barents sea. Mithris had Arcadia surrounded on two sides and the west was bordered by the neutral countries of East and West Malithovia that they could pass troops through.
“More or less. They’re the only big player left around here. Came in here on some half-assed pretense that even they don’t believe. Said they were getting rid of Nazis or fascists or communists - it depended on the place.”
“It’s always the fascists who want to ‘protect you from fascists’...” Yevhen said, shaking his head dismissively.
“They’re tossing armor and fangs at us like they’ll never run out.” She saw him considering what she’d just said. “With you, though? We’ve got a chance.”
“No... I doubt it.” His words were cold and stung her more than the still-healing gut wound.
“What?! Why?!” she yelled and coughed a bit. He just smiled knowingly, pityingly.
“Because you’re weak.”
“Weak?! We’ve been fighting off Mithris for months! They’ve rolled over six other countries and - ”
“You’re weak because you’re relying on others. Sounds like your military is holding on thanks to foreign aid, and you’re the kind of girl who makes dubious agreements with vampires in sketchy old churches."
“It doesn’t matter where the bullet or the gun was made. It matters who has the courage to fire it when it counts!” she shot back and he nodded back, smiling more.
“It sounds like you’re bringing courage to a money fight. And let me tell you, the market for courage was never that good. While you might have chutzpah, they can buy more guns than you. ” He was right, of course, but she didn’t want to hear it. He sighed deeply and shook his head.
Fuck him.
Yevhen seemed to take pity on her, rubbing the back of his broad neck and sighing, “Look, I am here for a good bloodbath but suicide has never been on my to-do list. Pivot a bit, my master. If pushing them out of your country is beyond your grasp you have a few options. You could attack their military industrial complex - destroy their fuel and power infrastructure, raid bases, shut down import-export routes. Or you could make it so painful to attack you that they stop. You could have a cold war, a static position, and hope outside pressure changes their mind...”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “My battles are your battles. You swore to help me get my revenge on Mithris.”
“Revenge takes many forms, my master...” He didn’t sound like he was patronizing her that time. He was apologetic, almost sad. He clearly knew a bit about revenge...
She shook her head in disgust and commanded, “We’re doing it my way, got it? We’re going to rip the skulls off every Mithrian pig from here to Belomorsk and shove it up their asses. And when we’re done I want to see it in their eyes that they’re defeated! I want to know it!” Her chest was heaving now. Damn temper.
“As you wish, my master...” There was cold comfort in his words. Kaz knew they were hollow. The road between here and revenge was going to be a long one and, given what he’d said, she didn’t like their chances. “That being said, there is a complication.”
She looked up, concern written on her lightly scarred face, “What?”
“I may be a strix, but I used up a good deal of my remaining strength in that last battle.”
“What? Are your blood batteries drained or something?” she spat back.
“Something like that. Like all old men, I have a refractory period after I blow my load, and I’m the oldest there is.” He stated it daintily and haughtily, but the corner of his lips lifted a smidge.
“Great, we’re in a hospital. Just drink as much blood as you need and we’ll get back to killing Mithrians.”
“If only it were so easy, my master.”
Was he embarrassed? Kaz thought he might be embarrassed...
“How the hell is it not ‘that easy’?” she shot back. “You’re a vampire. Go drink some blood.”
“Yes, it’s as you say, my master.” Kaz was starting to get sick of hearing “my master”. “But the blood of humans simply sustains us.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “It is the blood of other vampires... more accurately, their souls which are contained within their blood, that feeds our power. Much of mine has returned to The Pillar while I slept.”
Kaz let out a barking laugh which caused her to wince in pain. “Wait. You’re serious?! To keep up your strix juice, you gotta ‘Highlander’ other vampires? You’re all basically cannibals?”
“You’re all still watching ‘Highlander’? Oh my, that franchise had legs, I guess. I thought it was dead, for sure, after ‘The Source’. But, yes - you have the long and short of it. Highlander, but instead of cutting off heads, we drink each other like juiceboxes.”
“That’s... unfortunate,” Kaz said, considering what he said before continuing. “Look, there are only two things more certain than death and taxes. The first is that shitty 80s movies will get rebooted until the end of time.”
“Granted. And what’s the other?” Yevhen asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. And I intend to use you to be as violent as possible."
“The disposition of the mechanized forces, or “mechs”, as they are more commonly called, in use today by the Arcadian forces are varied. There is little homegrown industry for their production so they are imported from the allies supporting them and the Arcadian military simply adapts these often secondhand mechs to their standards.
Most numerous are the Mackay-Class Scout mechs. Produced by Johnson and Sisson they are armored with 33 cm (13 in) armor over most vital points and make use of the STAR-2 modular rocket pod system to hit targets beyond the horizon. For close-in defense they have a self-stabilizing, remote-controlled 20mm autocannon and an integrated pair of 30 mm autocannons. While originally a product of the Trans-Asian Alliance, it is currently produced by Johnson and Sisson in Nkwek?r?ta Ah? (NA) factories.
Mackays are known for their stealth and small radar profiles. Its heat dissipation capacity is much improved over the previous models thanks to advancements in nitrite-based coolants and organic acid technology (OAT) coolants that, with their advanced heat-shielding, allow them to have almost no heat signature. Cost reduction in iron ball paints and MagRAM coating allow even these relatively cheaply produced scouts to have a much smaller radar profile, though Arcadia has proven unable to get these supplies in ample amounts.
Mackays form the backbone of the hit-and-run style of combat the Arcadians have been using to great effect on their Mithrian enemies. They serve much the same way light tanks did in the 20th century, serving as a force multiplier to other elements like mechanized infantry and are used to hit structures, drones, aircraft, and other light mechs. They suffer against heavier mechs who can withstand the barrage from their STAR-2 rockets and can pierce the Mackay’s comparatively lighter armor at range.”
Discourse Magazine
Arcadian Mechanized Forces
Issue 125, May 2412
