A Vampire's Planet

For days we drove on. I wasn't thrilled with our situation. And to be honest, the cold was getting to me. It didn't seem to bother Raphael much. He was exceptionally resilient. I couldn't tell whether it was day or night without looking at the vehicle computer. Raphael claimed to have the coordinates of the Sanctuary, the place where the Isolationists had built their temple, in defiance of the rampant atheism of our century. I thought about all the people in the cities of Erebus. Men and women from a myriad planets across the galaxy who got slaughtered by this implacable foe. I thought about my family. My dad probably thought I was dead, along with untold millions all over this world. How I wished I could somehow let him and my brothers know that I was still alive.

Slowly but surely, we traveled the hundreds of miles which separated us from the nearest human outpost. It was during one of those nights that I almost died, and discovered something extraordinary about the man I loved. One thing many tourists on alien worlds forget to do is inquire about the local hostile life-forms. One night, Raphael and I were camping. He went into the bushes to take care of some business. Apparently, the cold didn't bother him as much as it did me. I stayed by the vehicle, warming my hands over the fire. That's when I heard something approaching. I thought it was Raphael, so I wasn't alarmed. I should have known better. For, out of the darkness came a monstrous creature the likes of which I had never seen.

A ten-foot-tall, bear-like creature with a horned head and a massive body covered in blue fur. The monster came charging at me, fangs bared and claws ready. I fired a shot, but that didn't even slow it down. The monster hurled itself at me. I got one more shot out, before it came bearing down on me. It knocked me to the ground, and I dropped the rifle. I thought I was done for. That's when the most astonishing thing happened. Out of the darkness came Raphael. He placed himself between me and the beast. I shook my head, urging him to get out of the way. I was certain that I was about to witness his death. That's when the strangest thing happened. Raphael...changed. Yep. Right before my eyes he changed. It seemed that his body got thicker, and hairier. He became something I barely recognized. That thing launched itself at the bear-like alien. The two of them wrestled on the ground. Like titans they dueled. I had never seen anything like it. The sheer ferocity of combat between these two. The creature Raphael had become raked its claws across the alien's throat. The alien fell, dead. A victorious Raphael howled ferociously. I blinked. What the hell?

I slowly got up. Raphael stood there, staring at me. Before my very eyes, he simply...shifted. The hairy, muscle-bound creature he had been shifted back into the man I loved. I stared at him, astonished. He took a step toward me. And for some reason, I wasn't afraid. Truth be told, I was afraid. Very afraid. But not of him. Not really. I wasn't sure what was going on here but I knew that Raphael meant me no harm. He was still my Raphael. And he had countless occasions to kill me. Surely he didn't mean me any harm now. He stood a foot away from me, moving slowly. He told me that he could explain. I hesitated, then touched his face. It was incredible. The same face I had come to know and love as well as my own was the one which shifted into a wolfish visage moments ago. Simply amazing. We sat by the campfire, near the corpse of the slain alien beast, and Raphael told me the story of his life.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn't expecting this. Raphael told me that he wasn't human. He was a member of a species which humanity mistakenly called the Wolf Men. They were the werewolves of ancient Earth mythology. A long time ago, at a time when humans were still discovering the wheel, the so-called Wolf Men were a technologically advanced race of beings which roamed the stars. They were humanoid in form, yet closely resembled the wolves of ancient Earth. They could change their appearance through sheer strength of will and pass for human. The Wolf Men possessed superhuman strength and speed, as well as the technology to travel through the galaxies. They visited the planet Earth and liked it. Many of them chose to stay, blending in among ordinary humanity. Then the Vampires came.

The race of the Vampires was a sentient, technologically advanced species which the Wolf Men encountered in deep space tens of thousands of years ago. They were enemies. A long time ago, they had a deal. The Vampires were forbidden to enter Wolf Men's space. The Vampires had the numbers. Their interstellar empire encompassed tens of thousands of planets and untold trillions of individuals. The Wolf Men had an empire which encompassed a few hundred worlds and a few hundred billion individuals. They lacked the numbers to defeat the Vampires. But the Wolf Men had technological superiority. They could cause a planet to fall apart with a single blast of a weapon they called the Endgame Cannon. They traveled to the heart of the Vampires Intergalactic Empire, to the planet Magrahkor, birthplace of the Vampire Species. They destroyed the planet, killing billions of Vampires. Then the Wolf Men built orbital defense cannons around the many worlds of their empire, ready to destroy any Vampire fleet which came nearby. The Vampires were biding their time. They needed the numbers to take on the Wolf Men. So they came to Earth, around 5000 B.C.

The planet Earth did not belong to the Wolf Men's empire. The humans were considered fair game by the Vampires. Yet a few thousand Wolf Men and Wolf Women remained on the planet, to fight alongside primitive humans against the Vampires. Together, the humans and the Wolf Men were able to defeat the Vampires. Now, thousands of years later, the Vampires were back. They were infinitely more numerous. They wanted to take over the Human Interstellar Alliance, transform billions of humans into Vampires and finally reach the numbers they needed to destroy the Wolf Men. I listened as Raphael spoke. This made for a very interesting story. But what was a Wolf Man doing at the Interstellar Military Academy? Raphael smiled, and told me that he was the descendant of Wolf Men and Wolf Women who chose to remain on the planet Earth long after the defeat of the Vampires. He was native to the planet Earth. It was the only home he had ever known. And he would fight for it. When he was done, he looked at me. I looked at him. Would you believe me if I told you that this really didn't surprise me? Raphael being an alien didn't surprise me all that much. Now a lot of things made sense. I hugged him, and we simply held each other.

The rest of the trip proved much better. Raphael and I reached a new level of comfort with one another. He could finally be himself around me and I finally understood him. Gosh, it must have been really tough for him. Living among people he cared about yet couldn't be himself around. I asked him a ton of questions. I wanted to know more about Wolf Men society. The Wolf Men and Wolf Women who lived on Earth lived out their lives pretty much like the rest of humanity. They were soldiers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, judges, police officers, firefighters and every other profession one could think of. They were just ordinary people, albeit from another planet. They'd been living in secret among ordinary humanity for thousands of years. A population within the population. Wow.

According to Raphael, there were roughly about a million Wolf Men and Wolf Women living on the planet Earth. They lived secret lives. Long before humanity discovered space flight, they had spacecraft capable of traveling between galaxies. The Wolf Men had done many great contributions to human history. They've been extraordinary scientists as well as doctors, lawyers, teachers and soldiers. Yet they always kept their true identities secret from humanity. I was fascinated by this. Why was he telling all this? I asked him. I mean, I appreciated his honesty, but maybe he ought to keep the secrets of his race to himself? Raphael laughed, then told me that among his people, a Wolf's mate was his other half and there ought to be no secrets between them.

For the next few days, we traveled toward the Sanctuary. Finally, we saw it in the distance. A massive complex made out of stone. From time to time, we had glimpsed Vampire spacecraft in the skies. Luckily, they didn't see us. Finally, we came to the Sanctuary. What we found amazed us. The bodies of dozens of men, women and children. Completely drained of blood. I was shocked. Raphael told me to be careful, the Vampires had done more than feed here. They were here for the Spawning. The Spawning was when the Vampires mass-transformed a large number of humans to replenish the ranks of their armies. We stepped into the Sanctuary. The place was in ruins. And there was blood everywhere. The Vampires had come and unleashed carnage upon what once was a place of worship. A place where Catholics, Buddhists and various other religious people gathered to hide from an atheistic, hostile world. Raphael told me to be mindful of our surroundings.

I kept my eyes peeled but I never sensed them. Not until when they were upon us. But Raphael did. The newly risen Vampire Half-Breeds. They came for us. A large black woman dressed in priestly robes, and a tall, blond-haired young man. Their faces were hideous, evil. Their eyes were red and they came for us, fangs bared. Raphael blasted them with the rifle. Two short bursts to the chest did them in. But more were coming. Raphael tossed me his personal weapon, an electrified scimitar. An energy blade. A female Vampire came for me. With superhuman strength she gripped my throat. She bore her fangs down upon my throat. I drove the energy blade into her chest. She went down, screaming. Raphael changed form, going from human to Wolf Man. With animalistic fury he waded into them, smashing the blood-thirsty freaks to bits. I fought by his side, slicing and dicing them. More always seemed to be coming. Raphael found a grenade on the floor, and tossed it into the building, when tons of Vampires came marching out. The high-intensity explosion blew them to pieces. We found the survivors and cut them down to size. Until we were the only ones left standing. A Wolf Man and a human female. Together, we had brought down a legion of Half-Breed Vampires.

Raphael wasn't thrilled with what he saw. I wasn't either, but the Half-Breed Vampires were dead and we were alive. Wasn't that cause to celebrate? Raphael didn't share my sentiment. He told me that the Vampires would return and they would discover our presence. They had most likely shot down all human spacecraft which attempted to reach space and also blasted the communication systems planetwide. The human world beyond these stars wouldn't know the Vampires were here until they had completed their Spawning. Raphael told me that in all likelihood, millions of human beings had been transformed into Vampires. This planet was lost. But we could warn others and possibly give them a fighting chance.

I looked at him questioningly. What was he talking about? He showed me something he called the Subspace Transponder. According to him, it was invented by an alien scientist a long time ago. The Subspace Transponder looked like a five-foot-long metallic canister. I asked him what it did. He explained to me. The Subspace Transponder was a way to send a distress signal on a specific frequency. This was Wolf Man technology at its best. Faster than the Internet of old. I looked at Raphael. Who could he be calling? He looked at me sadly and told me that this was a piece of technology passed down in his family from generation to generation. The eldest child of the family got to be its keeper and protector. It enabled them to communicate with their planet of origin. Silas, the Wolf Man home-world. I was stunned. He had this piece of technology on him all along and didn't bother mentioning it to me?

Raphael explained to me that this technology was unknown to humans but not to the Intergalactic Empire of the Vampires. The moment we activated this beacon, they would sense it from their spaceships in orbit and come calling. He hoped he would never have to use it but his people had to know that the Vampires had invaded yet another human world and were massing to conquer the entire Interstellar Alliance. If humanity fell into the clutches of the Vampires, they would have the numbers to eradicate the Wolf Men. Raphael sighed, and asked me if I was ready. I thought about it. If any other force in the universe could assist humanity in the war against the Vampires, it had to be the Wolf Men. We had to warn them. At no matter the cost to ourselves. I didn't know how to handle alien technology but he gave me detailed instructions. Together, we put the Transponder together. I watched as the alien machine began to glow bright red. Raphael smiled, and told me it was working. He pressed several buttons on the side of the machine, then it blasted off into space. I watched it go from matter to energy before my eyes. Like a comet, it shot into the skies, and beyond.

Raphael smiled and clasped my hand in his. We had succeeded in sending the beacon to the Wolf Man homeworld. They would know that the Vampires had invaded the Human Interstellar Alliance and had to be stopped before they could mass-transform humanity into blood-thirsty shock troops. I looked at him, amazed. What a man. So strong, so brave and so kind. Infinitely more human than any person I've ever known. I felt nothing but love for him in that moment. We kissed. That night, we made love. I knew Raphael as I had never known him before. He was lively, and vigorous. Ours was a passionate union. Afterwards, we lay in each other's arms. Vampires, and Intergalactic Warfare be damned. All we had was each other. I didn't know whether we would ever get off this godforsaken world. But who cares, really? As warriors, we had done our duty. We warned the friendlies that the enemy was upon us. Hopefully they would come en force and save the day. Yeah, our days were numbered. The Vampires would find out about the Transponder and come calling. I looked at Raphael and he looked at me lovingly. I didn't know how much time we had left together but I wanted to make every second count. Let's just say that I was going to make him purr that night. Watch out, the fur is flying!