Nocturnal Cannons 5

Chapter 5: Last Round

5a

We adapter a large military freighter for our special necessities in the project. Due to the priority set for this mission I was able to obtain all the resources and personal necessary. The best resources in reach. To keep things in harmony, we renamed the freighter Last Round. The name of another establishment in the computer game Vampire the Masquerade. A bar, used by Anarchist Vampires.

By the moment when we left that space-station I was beginning to accept this tacky but strangely complex harmony. Of crimson and dark, jeans, leather, medieval dresses and adeptus astartes inspired armours, mixed with Chinese themes, steampunk cosplay seriously executed and unironically dressed. All that in an environment where human looking subhumans where a expressive minority. Nevertheless, a minority.

The courts differed from the general populus in the Asylum and in the LR in the fact that they didn’t dressed “like vampires” most the time. Their faces and bodies where mostly similar to those I saw inside the vampiric court. Uplifteds, with variated degrees of humanization, from more species than I could recognize or remember. Conceptuals, quite a number of them. Those who looked exactly like humans where Fallen: former alexandrine humans who decided they didn’t wanted to die when they where about to reach 300 years. Instead, they opted for sacrifice their status of person, and all their legal rights under Alexandrine Law.

Was a strange, interesting, time to me. In any case, I am jumping some important steps. We didn’t left the space-station immediately after my first visit to the Asylum.

Took us half a year to stablish the basic necessary grounds for this experiment. I don’t believe any human had the chance to be that close to the process of transformation of humans into vampires before. Those selected for the process do not see much of it, and what they see fades from their memory. Even the so called “vampire thralls”, humans who serve vampires and get small vampiric powers in reward, are not involved in this.

Most vampires only know fragments of that part of their society. The Ritual of Blessing has many names, and I was not surprised to hear King Norris refer to it as “embrace”, following Vampire the Masquerade terminology for the transformation of humans into vampires.

Albeit, the real process is very different from the way things happened in that fictional setting.

Only vampire kings can turn humans into vampires, and only Elder Vampires can turn humans into vampire kings. The transformation of a human in vampire king is fast, I was told, takes months. And it is a personal process, that involves constant attention from the Elder Vampire, know as “benefactor” in this relationship.

The transformation of humans into normal vampires is a lot less personal. The ritual usually is performed with thousands of humans, or subhumans, in the same auditorium. It involves sharing of blood, and other things. The candidates are not conscient, and do not need to be voluntary.

After the transformation the new “nocturnal children” must be locked in and kept locked. Because they are irrational predators, without memory or capacity to think. This period of their existence is called “The Cannels”.

Vampires have little memory about this period, those memories are confuse, blurred nightmares. During this period the vampire babies need to be fed and protected, in isolation.

After almost a century most of them start emerging again. They remember how to speak, gradually, and can be taught self-control. Some never reach that level, and expend the rest of their existences as mindless beasts. Most gain their status as nocturnal children, but will need another couple decades or more to remember their name as humans. Recover all their human memories may take centuries, or even thousands of years.

Vampires never say to a child of night anything about the past.

5b

Vampires never say to a child of night anything about the past. They must remember by themselves, since vampires consider very harmful for the development of each individual to be **** to recover any memory about their live as humans.

That is the reason why vampires must choose a “vampire name” when they leave the cannels. It is not just a convenience for psychological purposes.

By tradition, vampires choose names from literature, more often than now Earthling Literature, pre-Baby Steps Age. Literature, computer games, comic books, anything about vampires. The name chosen in usually the name of some vampire, and has always something to do with the kind of personality and/or social role the nocturnal child wants to build.

This uncanny predilection of vampires (still strange to use that word in serious conversations, but I am learning to accept it) for their fictional counterparts, from old stories, is something that has been present in vampire culture since the first human-based vampires. There was a curious deviation from that general tone in the planet named Litmus, in Mystery System. Where most vampire houses are more inclined to some sort of Eldrich Monstrosity, Lovecraftian in general flavour. Something like Dungeons and Dragons Illithids, not as alien as the true form of Elder Vampires, but more so than our average human with long canine teeth.

King Norris says that he didn’t liked this inclination at first, and many vampires, specially kings and queens, have some ambivalent relationship with this taste for fashion and decorating that is acquired along with the blood of their Elders.

In time, they all end up making regular concession to that.

To understand the complexity of vampiric powers was more important to me. And the King was less cooperative in that regard. What was one of the factors that slowed down the advance of our project. Because I would not accept a next step until I had some sense of security in that area.

Vampire Hierarchy is very simple. Elders, Kings and Common Vampires. Those are absolute separations. No king or queen will ever reach the level of power of the lesser Elder. Elder Vampires are not former humans, they are the alien natives of Mystery System, and they share only a drop of their power with human based vampires. A commoner with one hundred thousand years may find out he is physically stronger than a newly created King. Just not by much, and the advantage will last centuries, at best.

Despite that advantage in strength, possibly speed, the commoner will hardly be a match to the royal neonate. Because royal vampires have a portfolio of powers that exceed those any single vampire commoner can hope to master.

They are not just able to create commoner vampires, they also have a great level of mental influence over those vampires they create. Even the mindless ones, in the cannels. In addition to that, vampire royals are natural legal authority in their society. Each vampire court exists to follow the commands of their vampiric sovereign. Kings and Queens deal with each other, only. And very rarely.

The Kings and Queens usually reside in a secret location, and indicate Nocturnal Barons to deal with administration, contact with human authorities, their cannels, etc. Barons indicate Lords, Knights, and give tasks to each vampire in the court. However, the King is never in any risk of being victim of treason inside his court, because he can control the minds of any vampire created by them. Send message directly to their minds, feel where they are and how they are feeling.

This impossibility of turn vampires against the throne they serve was well know by me, of course. That has been a cause of frustration for many operations of intelligence over the thousands of years of war between our races.

When a vampire king or queen is destroyed, their court disperses and some of those individuals may change their loyalty. Rarely happens, but it can happen.

What knew information to me, and to our intelligence, the reason why some royal vampires accept our offer to defect from Deshiar territory. A royal vampire is under the protection of his benefactor, Elder Vampire. Even if this Elder Vampire is distant, this relationship is implicit. When the Elder Vampire is destroyed, in some conflict against his pairs usually, all royal vampires under his protection must hold their ground against unfavourable odds.

Those kings and queens may seek protection from some other royal vampire, as a special sort of vassal. What is humiliating, more or less so depending on the personalities involved, and may not be viable for all individuals. Since the relationship between thrones under different Elders is not always or natural friendship.

A royal vampire will never abandon the vampiric society, without the blessing of his benefactor. All vampires working for Humanity have lost their Elders.

5c

I finally accepted to move forward with the project. Not with Kinetic-Cannons at first, I needed to see some subhumans turned into vampires first. Less powerful telekinetic breeds, telepaths, some people who had been in the KC program but failed to graduate. If their genetic psychic abilities didn’t manifest properly after their embrace, we would have no reason to move forward.

I needed to find out if those vampires with telekinesis would be able to hurt vampires with this power alone.

For that, we started selecting a group of 100.000 newborn babies, from different breeds. We would observe them for the next 12 years, and select together the first group who would be turned, after they reach 22. No one in that group would be a Kinetic-Cannon. I insisted in observe those individuals in their passage through the cannels, that part was the difficult one.

It is a taboo to have any non-vampires involved with the creation of new vampires. The King was as diplomatic as he could be, he insisted, but some traditions cannot be bend. Much less broken.

His Barons, they were seven, didn’t liked my presence in their inner circle. Most of them expressed that openly with frequency. Since treason is a non-issue in those courts Barons can speak boldly sometimes. Using a tone and a choice of words that would get any military official dishonourable discharge or worse if directed to a superior.

In the end, there was no question about, they obey their sovereign.

Those first decades and centuries of project gave me chance to get acquainted to other vampires in the Asylum. About 90% of them were former subhumans. Most of those who had been born Alexandrine Humans were old vampires, embraced by their king when Mystery System was still isolated, and even communication between the colonies in the system was very difficult due to the high concentration of shadows in the system.

We accompanied the new vampires for 200 years, after their embrace. Most of them developed stable, “normal”, vampiric personalities. The experiments confirmed that vampiric telekinesis was as effective against vampires as vampires claws and fangs are. I had no excuse to stop the project by this point.

Still, I insisted in a second test, with the same parameters. Only after that, we proceeded to the final objective.

We needed to test those Nocturnal-Cannons in real combat, and, before that, we needed a safe environment to make them. For other groups we had build a structure of cannels at the space-station. Isolated from the cannels in the Asylum.

To kinetic-cannons, however, that was not an option. In their decades of furious madness, they could disrupt the peace around the station. Even compromise our position.

To prevent that, we build a “cannel-vessel”. The Asylum accompanied us from safe distance.

When the Kinetic-Cannons were near to their 70 years in the cannels we got an emergency message by long-range telepathy. A dozen fleets of demon vessels were moving against a particularly important system. They would arrive in about 900 years, and the system was being evacuated before their arrival. The escaping vessels in those situations spread as much as possible, to improve the chances of save some people and resources.

This is a game we have been playing for a long time. However, the demons have improved more than us in that game. The percentage of people who scape those hunts dropped considerably around 10 thousand years ago.

The command was to intercept a specific scaping fleet and help them as much as possible.

We turned the higher possible number of Kinetic-Cannons we could, given the limitations of people to sustain vampires inside the Asylum. We trained them, and the combination between vampiric endurance and their kinetic powers surpassed any projections.

This battle was the first solid victory the Unified Military of Humanity saw in a very long time. Opening the path for more Nocturnal-Cannons.

We maned to kill two Mecha-Demons in that battle. That was two more than the total humanity had destroyed so far. Unti them, we had only managed to hurt some of them enough to **** retreat. Tried to capture them and failed. Captured a couple of them, for little more than one century, only to lose them to a rescue mission from the demons. This time, we actually had some destroyed. In combat.

For 1707 years that was my life. To travel between the Asylum and the Last Round. Coordinating the experiment, along with Cal and his most trusted tenants, at first. After the successful battle it was not an experiment anymore. We were a unique weapon, essential for the war effort. Other courts allied to Humanity would try to replicate our success, certainly. However, not immediately.

Because the vampire kings the command trusted were a restrict number. And the investment of resources to give each one of those courts their Nocturnal-Cannons was considerable. The command needed more information before raise this project to the largest scale possible.

Was strange to be in that position, of contact between the United Military and this vampiric court. My free time was invested walking among the subhuman population, as much as frequenting the events in vampiric court.

When no vampire or vampire thrall was present, this society reminded me the old days of Baby Steps Age. Because back them we where all biologically immortal. And the subhumans that constituted the non-vampiric population in both vessels was also that kind of immortal.

Of course, they didn’t produced children in frenetic numbers. Like we used to do during Baby Steps. On the contrary, children were a rarity. After battles, people would get permission for repopulate, according to how many had died in the fight. Other than that, you would hear about some **** from suicide, someone killed by a vampire during hunt, some accident killing a few dozen. Couples waited for those opportunities hopping to get their permission in the next occasion.

In normal inter-stellar vessels similar restrictions are necessary. Specially in warships. However, the majority of the population is usually human. And humans only live 300 years.

I imagine the reality could have been a lot like that, for all vessels. Vampires excluded. Since the end of Baby Steps. If we didn’t had the Alexandrine Law, or if Alexandria had not restricted human longevity to 300 years.

Most people would need to wait until the ship reach a stellar system. Where they could leave the vessel and integrate a local community. In order to have children and raise them.

Back in Baby Steps time we didn’t had that many subhuman species. And “subhuman” was a term almost never used, due to being distasteful. We would say “non-humans” or sometimes “furies”, since most non-humans back them were uplifted primates, dogs or cats. Almost all of them were mammals. Birds and reptiles were still rare and exotic.

Genetic engineering, cyborg implants, all that evolved a lot since day one of Expansion Age. Our engineering too, goes without saying. However, the most **** difference I find between this society and the one that existed in Solar System before Expansion was intentionally created by Law.

Without any alexandrine humans around, except of one who is as biologically immortal as they are, this people seemed different. More “human”, perhaps.

Was a great experience for me, but my time in those two ships had to end. My mission was complete. What I learned in that Nocturnal Court had to be shared with my fellow Asgardians in the United Military, for the sake of Humanity.

5d

I said there was no humans in those vessels, that is not exact. There was six hundred of them, more or less. Nine clans in the Asylum, one in the Last Round.

Because the ships need High AIs to run, and AIs only interact properly with alexandrine humans. Those human communities lived in isolation almost complete. For the first 500 years I visited their neighbourhoods frequently, in my free time. When I wanted to rest from all the exotic atmosphere in the rest of those vessels.

After that, I almost forgot they existed.

Every one else in that environment was like me, immortal. One could argue the vampires are something else, not “biologically immortal”. Maybe “practical immortality” applies better to them. Considering how hard they are to kill. Would not make much difference, really.

What was significant was that neither vampires nor their preys had a limited longevity. Unless they died violently, one way or another, they would remain alive for all the time we worked together. In theory, they could be alive for millions, even billions, of years more. Exactly like me.

By this point, I doubt there is any society like that made totally of Asgardians.

To live surrounded by timeless people, like us, is a rare experience.

I will miss it for a long time, probably forever.

Epilogue

Back in the days of Baby Steps Age, when the Alexandrine **** Line came, I made a promise to myself. Never to have another child.

Because the options where to be the father of an alexandrine human, who would only be allowed to live for 300 years. Or father a subhuman, who could have biological immortality, but at the cost of being forever under risk of being reduced to slavery. This time I worked with the vampire court of Asylum was the only period in my existence ever since when I questioned myself about that decision.

The lives of those subhumans where so different from what I was used to find in another parts among subhumans, that I almost could convince myself that they were above the dystopian curse of being eternally fools for an end external to themselves. Despite the obvious irony in that line of reasoning.

Considering we all are tools in the war for the survival of humanity. And that is specially obvious in a military vessel. Particularly for those who know other places, not being born in the vessel and not intending to die in the same vessel.

I felt in love for a woman. I will not talk about her, but she decided to stay in the Asylum, and I cannot disagree, that was a wise decision. Painful as it was for me.

That ship was a better place for a subhuman family to live than any other I can think about.

I had the Magritte waiting for me, my personal inter-stellar yacht. A genre of vessel practically only owned and used by Asgardians. For being too small to serve comfortably as multi-generation ship for any reasonable population. The looks like a fly next to the Last Round.

Was pleasant to be back here, I have learned to think about this place as “home”. Since that is the place to where I return after every mission.

My room vibrated like a sleeping kitten, now.

The comfort melody of my distant past, right under my feet. Unnecessary energy, one Moebius Tower generates more than enough energy for a ship a thousand times larger than mine. And I have two multiphasic generator to keep the vessel alive inside stellar systems and other territories where the proximity of active Moebius Towers forces me to deactivate mine. Because would be too unpractical to recalibrate the tower to a different element every time. One would suffice, the second is there for redundance, and extra acceleration when necessary.

Still, the quiet vibration under my cabin wraps my sleep in sweet dreams.

I had plans to keep contact with my former wife in the Last Round, five daughters and two sons, some of them living in the Asylum, others in the Round. For the nine years that followed my departure.

Until the tragic news came.

First, there was the unconfirmed deduction from evidences, that both ships had been destroyed by an ambush. Sleeping traps left by demons, apparently.

Then, few centuries later, came the confirmation. My dear friend, the king, had deserted us in favour of his former loyalties to Deshiar Nation.

No way to be sure if he always intended to do so, or just got an offer he could not refuse. Or would not refuse. Whatever happened, some people wanted to forget that my participation in this project was in obedience to superior orders. I was not the one who decided this was a good idea in the first place.

Impossible to contact my family now. More likely than not, I will never hear about any one of them again.

I really should take that incident as a message from destiny, and leave military life for good.