Chapter 4

There were two more of the smaller Draculas that showed up in the next hour, but the major target finally made its appearance. Neither of these creatures had a chance to come close to being a problem because they were spotted in time for me to blast them while they were over water and before they began their swoops at me.

At last, the large Dracula showed up, and, like the other pterodactyls, did not fool around. Its dive began at what must have been an altitude of over 1,000 feet. It reminded me of the newsreels from WW2 of the dive bombers raining terror on the ground below. It actually deployed what looked like dive brakes as it came in at me. I had plenty of warning, so I was not caught by surprise.

I fired my customary burst of four of the proximity-fused rounds, and they went off as expected. Uh-oh, this time, though, the wings were not shredded by the shrapnel. There were obvious holes in the wings, and I assumed that the beast was in pain from them, but that did nothing to quell its desire for my blood. I fired a second set of the same kind of round, and I got no better results.

By this time, the beast was very close and had opened its mouth to scoop me up. Dammit, there was no time for finesse! All I could do was to dive out of the way as the beast tried for me. Fortunately, the Dracula had no choice but to remain in the air and swing around for another pass at me. This short time was enough for me to order new ammunition from the replicator.

This time, I switched to hog-load shells. I ordered 20 of them, enough to fill my magazine. This time, I was going to take that damned beast seriously and go all out to cause it some pain, even if I could not bring it down. I worked as fast as I could and exchanged all of my shells in the drum magazine for hog-loads. This time, I was going to fire on full automatic right down the beast’s throat as it tried to scoop me up.

It took some time for the giant pterodactyl to gain enough altitude to be satisfied, but eventually down it came in one of those terrifying swoops that one knew was going to end with you passing down the beast’s gullet. Well, I am made of sterner stuff, having faced charging African bull elephants caught in the peak of musk.

The Dracula swooped down almost exactly as before, the only difference was that it was not moving quite so fast this time. That was to my advantage, and I was ready for the beast’s arrival. It came at me with its mouth wide open, so I had the perfect opportunity to use my latest tactic. At about 30 yards, I opened up on full automatic and blasted hog-loads into its mouth and down its throat.

There was no question that the hog-loads were performing as they should because gobs of blood were pouring from the Dracula’s mouth as it flew toward me. I kept the trigger pulled back and fired off the full complement of 20 shells. I could see those teeth in great detail as I finally jumped to my left. Previously, I had moved to my right, and I didn’t want to establish a pattern that the Dracula could work with.

Oh, my God, this time I was not so lucky. I was hit in the right shoulder blade by the leading edge of the Dracula’s right wing. Dammit, that hurt. I was thrown a good 20 feet and rolled right up to the edge of the deck before I was able to catch myself and keep from falling into the water.

Shit, I had pushed my luck too far that time. I could hardly move my right arm without excruciating pain, but I was committed now, and I was not going to back down. Maybe it was that male machismo thing that was so infamous, but my pride was just not going to give in. From the looks of the way it was flying, the Dracula was in even more trouble than I was.

It could hardly flap its right wing, and it was not able to gain any altitude with its feeble flapping. It was flying no more than about 10 feet above the surface of the water when suddenly in front of it, a multitude of tentacles were extended from the water.

The Dracula smashed into that barricade of tentacles and crashed into the water. It had no time for any resistance as it was dragged beneath the surface. That was the last any of us ever saw of that particular Dracula!

The moment the Dracula disappeared, I called for transportation back to the spaceship. I was in so much pain by then that I was sure that I was going to die. However, I was rushed to the medical facility, stripped of my clothes, and run through a machine that bathed me in blue light. The pain was erased almost instantly, and I was sent to my own room two minutes later. I was told that my broken shoulder blade was now mended, and I should be back to full speed after another hour of rest.

All I have to say is, “Hooray for Science and Technology!” At the end of the hour, I was ravenously hungry, but I was feeling the best that I had felt in years by the time I finished eating. Lola met me in my room and supervised my rest and my meal. She refused to talk about the program, and she kept visitors out until after I had eaten. What more could I ask from a production assistant?

I was ready and impatient to get started editing the raw footage. The cameras had captured everything that had happened on the floating platform and the surrounding sky, so we had a full record of all of the attacks and the final defeat of the last Dracula. We had so much significant footage that there was no way to condense it into 47 minutes, so we decided to make a full blown extravaganza out of what we had and made up a 94-minute show. We still had to throw some of the footage away, figuratively, but we wanted to keep as much as we could.

Once we had the visual part of the program ready, we wrote the script for Lola’s part in the program. That alone took two days as we worked on her narration of the actual fights. I swear that the narration added to the suspense and the drama, and I was proud of the way she delivered it. When that was combined with the introduction and the closing remarks, Lola had made a significant contribution to the program.

I was not part of the closing segment as we had done on the previous two shows. Instead, I was shown being carried into the medical facility and some of the less gruesome things that the medical people did for me. After all, children were expected to view the show, and nobody wanted to shock them too much. However, we spared no effort in showing as much as we could of the intensity of the fights with the five Draculas.

We now had two one-hour shows and one two-hour show, or else we had four one-hour shows. I didn’t know how the company was going to market these shows, but I had some ideas of my own about that.

We had another screening of the last production for the executives, and they were so moved by the show that the medics had to be called to look after two of the executives before they could get out of their seats. In other words, they were even more impressed by this show than they had been by the others.

AC made his usual speech about the show and said that he thought that we should suspend production so that the production crew could get some rest. This time could be used to bring in people from the TV networks to determine how they felt about the show. That was normally a tedious process because there were over 200 networks in the galaxy that could be interested in showing our work.

I suggested that a representative of each network be invited in to view the three shows, but they all should see the shows at the same time. That would kill any jealousy among the networks about any perceived favoritism, and it could be used to ignite a bidding war among the competitors. For that suggestion, I was cheered as a marketing genius. I didn’t argue with them.

Later that day, I discussed with AC the possibility of releasing the programs to Earth TV. He was shocked by that suggestion, but I could see that I had tripped another scheme in his head.

The next day, AC called me into his office and asked, “Emil, how should we present our shows to the people of Earth? Frankly, I am at a loss.”

“Okay, I can understand that feeling. First of all, nobody is going to take you seriously if you show up at a network office and offer them the show. Once they see you, most people will react in terror and equate you with one of the monsters from our own past. Nobody will talk to you; instead, they will start shooting. We have to be a lot more subtle about the whole thing and approach this initially as a bit of fiction.