Lathiel knew there would be problems, with such a small crew everyone knew everyone, so he had to keep to himself as much as possible. Since everyone was busily getting the ship ready for departure, he decided that he would hole up in a cramped, confined, gloomy maintenance access corridor on deck six for the time being.
“ Hey Siccio!” One of the crewmen shouted.
Crewman Siccio walked over to him, “whassup Frankie?”
“ You seen a weird looking guy walking around here lately?” crewman mike ‘Frankie’ Franklin asked.
“ Nope, not a thing, why do you ask?”
“ I saw a guy before, coming from the cargo hold. Never saw him before in my life.”
“ It’s probably one of the loaders from the station, you know how people get moved about in this dumbass war, besides I heard something earlier about some new guy transferring over, might be him.”
“ Yeah, your probably right prettyboy.”
Prettyboy was Siccio’s nickname, ever since the crew used to make fun of how long he spent in the mirror, Siccio was the ships pilot and sometime helper, he modelled himself on the classic brylcreem boys of the 1950’s and was vain to a fault.
Siccio left the cargo hold and headed back in the direction of the station, while ‘Frankie’ made his way towards the command centre. Once there he met up with the transports commanding officer, Lieutenant Pryce.
“ What’s our status?” he asked.
“ All supplies have been stowed onboard, everyone is accounted for, Siccio has just popped over to the station to get his flightplan approved, then we should be all set.”
“ Good, as soon as Siccio returns I want to get underway,” Pryce said nodding.
“ Understood.”
Half an hour later Siccio had returned, and the transport began to get underway.
“ Contact Delta base control and request permission to depart,” Pryce said as he settled in his cracked and worn command chair, letting out a small yawn, he had done this a thousand times, the monotony was unending.
“ Delta base confirms,” Frankie replied after a few seconds.
“ Release docking hatch and back us away from the station, ten percent reverse thrust.”
The crew complied and the comparatively tiny transport began to back away from the gargantuan station, navigation lights and the light from observation platforms played gently across the outer hull of the small vessel, its twin forward thrusters shot out streams of super heated hydrogen, forcing the vast bulk of the transport into reverse.
When the transport was clear, the rear thrusters briefly fired to kill the reverse motion, and then the rear port and front starboard thrusters fired simultaneously to gradually turn the transport away from the facility.
Once a safe distance away, its much more powerful inter-system engines blazed into life and accelerated the transport away from the station.
Lathiel crouched motionless in the maintenance corridor, he could feel the ship accelerate through the gentle vibrations in the deck plating under his feet. He knew his time had almost come, they would soon enter into plasma drive; and then he would act.
The transport continued on its course away from the station, until what was a gigantic near spherical structure with its outer defence perimeter surrounding it like an enormous halo, was just a tiny metallic gleam, glinting far in the distance.
Finally, Pryce gave the command with all of the tiny amount of enthusiasm he could muster, “activate plasma drive.”
Siccio keyed in the controls and a single incandescent beam of bright blue energy shot forth from the transports plasma emitter and opened the familiar swirling energy of the plasma wake directly ahead of the transport.
“ Enter plasma drive,” Pryce said.
The ships inter-system engines roared once more, and it gradually disappeared inside the wake, the energy quickly collapsing behind it.
“ Now it’s this all the way to Barnards star.” Pryce said, slouching in his command chair.
Lieutenant Pryce was a full blooded E.D. F naval officer, or that was what he thought, he should be serving on one of the huge and powerful warships of the fleet patrolling the front lines, getting in on the action.
Instead, he commanded this flying rust bucket, it was degrading. Truth be known, Lieutenant Samuel Pryce wasn’t nearly as clever as he thought he was, poor results at the academy meant that he wasn’t chosen to be a serving officer in the fleet, and when war broke out he was posted to this transport vessel, dashing his dreams of front line action overnight.
Only when the elderly former commander Ben Howard died four months ago, was he even placed in command of the ship.
As soon as the transport had leapt into plasma drive Lathiel acted, he cautiously made his way along the tight confines of the maintenance corridor, stopping at the hatch at the end, gently pressing his ear against its cold steel. He could hear nothing, so he took a calculated risk and quietly forced the hatch open. The corridor was clear.
Replacing the hatch, he continued to cautiously advance down a larger, more brightly lit corridor. He could hear footsteps approaching, looking around the corridor, he noticed a door was ajar. Diving into a smelly, dimly lit room, he silently unsheathed his stolen knives. The room happened to be a communal toilet block, he entered a cubicle and closed the door behind him.
“ Man I gotta pee,” a voice said as its owner noisily burst into the room, the sound of footsteps went past the cubicle and stopped. The familiar sound of a zipper being undone and then liquid splashing against a hard surface gave Lathiel all the clues he needed.
While the man was busily relieving himself, Lathiel silently and very gently opened the cubicle door. The man had his back to him, taking great care Lathiel silently stalked the man.
His target, completely unaware of his impending doom went to zip himself back up, when he felt a sharp, agonizing, searing pain in his lower back, as though something had bitten into him. His hand went to feel the source of the pain, and it returned slick with blood.
He staggered around, and to his incredulity saw another E.D. F officer, smiling, and brandishing a combat knife, coated in blood.
As the mans vision began to fade, he spluttered. “you?….who the hell are….you.” The victim gave up his struggle for consciousness and flopped face first onto Lathiel, who picked up the man in a firemans lift and seated the body on the toilet.
“ Death,” Lathiel replied with a sadistic grin, gently brushing his hand on the man’s pale cheek as he activated his crodes gland. With a roar of agonizing pain, slowly but surely took on the form of the man he had just murdered in cold blood.
He took the I.D. card from the corpse and learned that the mans name was Bryan Fletcher, and was another engineering assistant. Lathiel gently closed the cubicle door on the corpse of the real Bryan Fletcher.
The Krenaran assassin washed his bloodstained knife in the toilet sink, hid them back inside his uniform, and left the toilet. One down, eleven to go, he thought as he headed to engineering, eager not to arouse any undue suspicion.
The transport continued on its journey through the swirling vortex of plasma drive. On the command centre, Siccio was making minor course corrections and Lieutenant Pryce was getting increasingly bored. However down in engineering Lathiel was already planning his next move.
“ At last, glad you could join us, how long does it take to go for a piss,” a dark skinned man said.
Lathiel guessed the man to be in his forties, he was slightly greying at the sides of his short fuzzy looking hair, and he didn’t like the mans tone. Something he would remedy later, however at this moment in time he was stood in the middle of a wide-open engineering bay and there were witnesses.
“ Listen Fletcher, the main power conduit on deck seven has come loose again, things a pain in the ass. I need you to go help Jackson fix it.”
“ Yes sir,” Lathiel replied.
“ You feeling okay Fletcher?” The man asked.
“ Yes sir, why do you ask?”
“ Because you never call me sir it has always been lieutenant.”
“ Sorry lieutenant,” Lathiel replied, mentally chastising himself.
With that, he left engineering and headed straight for deck seven, a few minutes later and after a short journey on the elevator, he had arrived.
Finding that there was no power anywhere on the deck, Lathiel’s Terran eyes found it hard to adjust to the gloom, however he could just about see the beam from Jackson’s torch in the distance.
Lathiel drew his knife again, and steadily advanced, like a panther stalking its prey, waiting for the exact moment to make the kill.
Jackson was busy working on the coupling, the conduit had worked its way loose from a vital connection. It was to be expected, he thought. The ship was nearly thirty years old after all.
He heard movement behind him, in blind panic he whirled around, his heart thumping, sweeping his torch left and right, the surrounding supports and bulkheads threw off a myriad of shadows as the torchlight swept over it, his eyes strained in the dark. There was nothing. Jeez Jackson, get a grip, the sooner this damned power coupling is fixed the sooner the lights come back on, he thought.
“ Hey Fletcher, is that you!” He shouted down the corridor, just in case. There was no answer.
“ Where the hell is that asshole,” Jackson mumbled to himself.
Lathiel had secreted himself behind a small support girder a few feet away from Jackson. He gently adjusted his grip on the knives so that the blades pointed inwards following the contours of his forearm, and slowly approached the doomed Terran.
As Lathiel approached, Jackson spun around to face him. “Jesus, Fletcher don’t creep up on me like that,” he said as his hand clung to his chest.
He was jumpy, nervous, Lathiel was enjoying this, without another word, the Krenaran assassin swung the concealed knife upwards and outwards in a wide arc, catching and slicing open Jacksons throat.
He dropped his torch and fell to his knees gurgling, spluttering, and clutching at his ruined throat, to help the man on his way Lathiel gripped the mans neck, and with a sharp twist broke it. Jacksons body fell face first on the floor, motionless.
Lathiel quietly picked up the torch and scanned the corridor for a door. There was one on his right, about ten metres ahead.
Dragging the blood soaked body into the room, he found it was a very small sickbay, and was deserted. The entire deck was until they got the power back online down here. Shining his torch around the room, Lathiel could only see a single bed, it would have to do. He hauled the limp body of Jackson onto it, before cleaning his knives again and exiting the room.
Re-sheathing and hiding the blades back inside his uniform, Lathiel headed back the engineering section, three decks above.
Once there, the dark skinned man greeted him again, “Hey Fletcher, you fixed that coupling I told you about?”
“ Yes lieutenant,” Lathiel lied.
“ Where’s Jackson?”
“ Oh, he’s just finishing up, getting the tools together,” Lathiel lied again.
“ Couldn’t you have helped him?”
Lathiel knew this man had a dislike for him from the tone of his voice, and from his posture as the man disrespectfully turned his back on him. He did a quick scan of the room, nobody else was here, it was just the two of them, and time for a little sweet revenge. Lathiel drew one of his knives, and before the man even had a chance to turn around he threw the blade with such force straight at him, the knife whistled through the air.
The man staggered forward as he felt the impact of the blade embed itself in the back of his skull. His eyes began to roll, and he began foaming at the mouth as he desperately clutched at the blade protruding from the back of his head to no avail. Finally, his legs buckled and he collapsed with a thud onto his back. His head snapped back and slammed into the deck plating, forcing the knife ever deeper inside his skull, until the very tip of the blade was faintly visible protruding through his forehead.
“ Maybe that will teach you some respect,” Lathiel spat at the corpse as he dragged the body into a side room taking care to seal the door shut behind him. Only nine more to go, he thought with a sadistic grin.
Siccio arrived in the toilet block and immediately noticed one of the cubicles was busy, there was no sound coming from the cubicle though which was strange. One of the crew might have fallen asleep on the toilet, he thought.
After relieving himself he asked, “You okay in there buddy?”
Siccio didn’t know whether to open the door or not, after waiting a few seconds he bit the bullet and forced the door open.
The pale form of Ensign Fletcher stared blankly at him.
“ Damn man! You could have said something!” Siccio said, angered at the ignorance of the man slumped in front of him.
The body slowly gave way, and flopped off the toilet seat, leaving a crimson smear along the cistern.
“ Holy shit!” Siccio panicked, as terror gripped him, his heart pounded in his chest, dashing out of the toilet block and into the corridor, wanting to be anywhere but back in there. He sprinted back to the command centre to tell Lieutenant Pryce the grisly news.
Back in engineering Lathiel had reverted to the form of the man he had just killed, looking at his I.D. card his name was Lieutenant Junior Grade Wesley Forrest. He was the ships chief engineer. Unsure of his next move, he decided to take a walk through the ship waiting for a target to present itself.
Finally it did, in the form of a rather attractive dark haired young woman, heading toward the mess area, it was almost a shame he had to kill her. Lathiel elected to calmly follow the woman, another crewmember walked past them; greeting him informally.
The two of them arrived at the mess area, Lathiel sat down and quietly observed. The woman proceeded to order some disgusting smelling Terran food from a simplistic, battered looking food synthesiser; he was hard pushed not to be sick. However, he deigned to push such thoughts to the back of his mind. He had a mission to complete and nothing was going to stop him.
He made his way toward the machine as if going to order something himself.
“ Oh hello Wesley, is everything going okay down in engineering?” The woman asked politely.
“ Perfectly,” Lathiel replied, resisting the urge to sneer.
“ Oh good, I suppose that’s one thing to be grateful for at least,” The woman said as she moved to walk away from the machine and sat down at a table not too far away.
As he was pretending to order the food, he ever so gently unsheathed one of his blades, and as he walked past the seated woman; rammed it straight through the back of her chair. The woman lurched forward under the force of Lathiels powerful thrust, blood spurted across the table from her mouth and she flopped forward into her food. Lathiel retrieved the knife and calmly left the mess area.
Siccio had now arrived on the bridge, panting and panicking. “Lieutenant!”
Pryce could see the man was in a state, “calm down Siccio, what’s wrong?”
“ It’s Fletcher, he’s been murdered.” Siccio gasped, his heart still racing.
“ How?”
“ Looks like someone’s stabbed him,” he said.
“ Let’s go; Chambers, set the ship to computer control.”
Pryce, Chambers, and Siccio all left the command centre, and made their way to the toilet block to see the body for themselves.
“ I swear, I’ll have whoever’s done this blown out the airlock,” Pryce said as they headed to the elevator.
A few minutes later, they had arrived at the grisly scene.
Pryce checked over the body, “He’s been stabbed alright, in the lower back. He wouldn’t have even seen his attacker; poor bastard.” He turned to face Siccio, “since at this moment, you are the prime suspect, I’m placing you under house arrest for murder, until we can rule you out as a suspect.”
“ But I didn’t do it!” Siccio protested.
“ You were the first one on the scene, are there any other witnesses that can provide an alibi?”
“ Well, err, no. But I swear I didn’t kill Fletcher! I was taking a piss for Christ sake!”
“ Chambers, lock him in the forward hold until we can find out who did this.”
Chambers advanced on Siccio, who pleaded once again. “Pryce, you’ve gotta believe me, I didn’t do this!” He said pleading as he pointed to the body.
“ Sorry man,” Chambers said as he ushered an irate Siccio out of the door.
“ You believe me, don’t you?” Siccio asked, as Chambers continued to lead him away.
“ For my part, yes, I believe you,” Chambers acknowledged. “But you know better than I do, rules are rules, I don’t like it but I have to follow it. You were the first on the scene, and you have no one who can back up your story. Standard E.D. F policy dictates that you are the prime suspect until proven otherwise.”
“ Damned E.D. F rules, I liked it more when we were civilian.”
“ Blue-177 is a Lincoln class supply ship, built by the E.D. F, maintained by the E.D. F, And ultimately governed by the E.D. F, sorry man.” Chambers repeated as they headed to the forward hold.
Lathiel arrived on the bridge, strangely it was deserted. He quickly checked over the room and the captain’s quarters, not a soul in sight, the ship was flying under computer control.
This presented a unique opportunity, he thought as he studied the dirty, scratched computerised displays lining certain areas of the oval perimeter.
Finally he came across a control that sealed the bridge doors shut in-case the ship was boarded. With a sadistic grin, Lathiel keyed in the controls and with a heavy metallic clunking noise the bridge door interlocks closed.
Soon stage one of my mission will be complete, he thought as he glanced over the environmental systems monitor and began to experiment with the controls. Finally he pressed the activate button.
Along the entire length of the port and starboard sides of the transport, exhaust vents slowly opened, and began venting the ships oxygen out into space. The remaining crewmen on board gasped for breath as the deadly vacuum of space sucked the air out of the vessel. Temperatures plummeted, as lieutenant Pryce, crewmen Franklin and Chambers, Siccio, and everyone else on the ship all fell to their knees, as they slowly, horribly, suffocated before gently freezing to death.
Lathiel was protected from venting the oxygen from the ship, through the act of sealing off the bridge earlier, effectively creating a separate environment within the room. He calmly waited seven or eight minutes, just to be absolutely certain that everyone else onboard was dead.
“ Ah at last, a little peace and quiet,” he smiled to himself as he keyed in the controls, returning the exhaust vents to their original positions.
Making his way to the pilot’s position, he strapped himself in, and calmly plotted in a new course. Zero-six-seven degrees, elevation zero, straight for earth.
On the Liberty, Captain Michael Alexander was attempting to tune into the outer colony news service, to get a glimpse of what he had to expect on Earth. They were two days into the journey now, and had just passed through the Wolf 359 system.
Finally he had found the correct frequency, and in a small corner of the cracked display the video feed from the outer colony news service flickered into existence.
“ I am Annika Raumov; this is the outer colony news service. The top stories today; it has now been two days since the historic Gamma IV peace treaty was signed between a team of E.O.C. A diplomats, and the Krenaran military, bringing peace to the war ravaged outer colonies. Celebrations and street parties continue to take place on colony worlds across E.O.C. A territory as news of the peace treaty spreads. In three days time, E.O.C. A president James Rushfeldt will be giving a speech broadcast throughout the colony worlds, congratulating the valiant struggles of the military, the population, and the spirit of humanity. There will also be a two minute silence to remember the greatest loss of life humanity has suffered since the second world war over one hundred and twenty five years ago. There will also be a warning about the tough times still to come, as the devastated outer colonies begin to re-build.”
“ That is when he’ll strike,” Dalvosh said, his lumbering form hunched over Michael.
“ Then we’ll have to make sure that he doesn’t.” Michael said as he continued to study the display, “do you have any other information that might help us with this guy?”
“ Not really, I wasn’t at the facility where he was trained, all that I know is that he’s an expert assassin who has a specially created bio-technological gland that secretes this morphos x into his bloodstream. This gland also has a memory that keeps his original Krenaran D.N. A in a state of suspended animation. So that he can revert back to his Krenaran form. Ultimately, the stresses of changing shape and bone structure will kill him, but by then the damage will have already been done.”
“ Tough break, so basically he is expendable,” Vargev said.
“ Yes, Lathiel is just an experiment, if he proved successful we were going to recruit more subjects in an attempt to eliminate your highest value targets.”
“ Jesus, if the war didn’t end when it did, we could be looking at hundreds of Lathiels,” Michael said.
Dalvosh silently nodded, his reptilian eyes almost giving away a hint of sadness at the level his people had sank to.
“ Just how much of an expert is this guy?” Vargev asked.
“ There are rumours amongst the higher ranks in the Krenaran military, that he can approach, kill you, and then disappear before you even knew he was there,” Dalvosh replied.
“ Then I guess that the odds are not on our side,” Michael said rubbing his temples.
“ I would say not.”
Lathiel was sat alone in the pilot’s chair of the now captured E.D. F Lincoln class transport blue-177. He grew weary, he was weary of the simplistic, cumbersome nature of Terran shipping. Indeed, Terran ships were grand and massive, but they were also awkward, and slow to maneuver, on top of that they had a woeful top speed. It was no wonder, he thought, that Krenaran ships had decimated scores of them.
He was just passing the Barnards star system, and was only three days away from his destination. Three days until the weakling E.O.C. A president dies, and the Terrans will have no choice but to surrender to Krenaran superiority. Then he could go back to his home on the Krenaran moon of Klymar, a rich man. He had heard no word from his lord Alax on Gamma IV, Lathiel presumed that he was either still fighting the Terran ships around that area, or that he had finally claimed the large Terran base there and would resume contact soon, the thought heartened him. Somehow Lathiel doubted that the pitiful resistance offered by the Terrans and the hated meddling Solarians, would stop the overlord of the Krenaran empire.
Alax had once visited the top secret training facility on Corvandris, and in his Krenaran form Lathiel was slightly taller than average, standing at just over 9 feet tall. But even he was in awe of the size and power Alax exuded on those powerful mechanical legs of his. He was the epitome of raw Krenaran strength and power.
Strangely though, it wasn’t Alax himself who had sent him on this mission, it was another high ranking Krenaran officer by the name of Galdon. Lathiel had managed to check this Galdon’s clearance before departing for Terran space. And it was definitely high, he had level ugro access codes, and only a member of Alax’s personal staff had that high a level.
Lathiel, who’s real name was Krovash, a name that only Alax and Axus had known, although Axus was killed. This was intentional, for fear of it leaking out into public knowledge.
He had spent his early years with his father Vugron, who was a Krenaran foot trooper, the young Krovash desperately wanted to follow in his fathers glorious footsteps. To be in the Krenaran military was one of the most powerful positions a Krenaran could obtain. It granted housing, land, even political power. Indeed, the head of the Krenaran military is widely judged to be the head of the Krenaran race.
Vugron, however never got to that lofty height, he was just an ordinary rank and file soldier. He had his small house on Gravosh III, he had his family, and that was all that his father wanted in life, and this was where the young Krovash grew up.
However, things were to change when Krovash came of age to join one of the many Krenaran military academies, he knew very early on that he was destined for some other purpose.
In Krovash’s training, he would never accept that a frontal charge using brute force and with all weapons blazing was the answer. Much to the chagrin of his superiors, instead Krovash repeatedly opted to attack from the shadows, to blend in with his surroundings, and to strike when his enemy was at his most vulnerable. Many thought Krovash’s techniques were superior, however military commanders viewed it as a cowardly affront to the pride and power of their military, Krenarans skulking in dark corners like frightened children, never.
It was this tendency that ultimately unsettled the warriors within his company, many thought it an insult to the Krenaran sense of honour and pride in combat. This led to him being given the title Gromish alcra, the sword from the dark.
His company commander however, recognised his talents and transferred the young warrior to the newly operational top secret training facility on Corvandris. Where, for many years he perfected the art of striking from the shadows, as well as from distance; to kill without ever being seen.
It was this innate ability led to him being selected for this most dangerous of missions.
Three days later, the transport blue-177 finally entered the Sol system. Lathiel, with consummate skill dropped the ship out of plasma drive on the far side of the moon. He wanted to get as far in-system on plasma drive as he could. Thereby shortening the time in which the pathetic E.D. F could react to his intrusion.
A communication blazed through the speakers, interrupting his concentration. “Transport blue-177, this is lunar control, state your reason for approach?”
Lathiel had to think hard, and quickly. “Lunar control, this is transport blue-177, we are on approach to Earth to deliver medical supplies from Barnards star.” He managed to remember from the late Siccio’s flightplan.
“ Transport blue-177, you are earlier than scheduled. Can you give any satisfactory reason?”
Lathiel grew anxious, if he didn’t give the correct response now, within five minutes fighters would be all over him picking him apart. “Lunar control, we were loaded faster than anticipated at Barnards star.”
A long pause ensued, which only served to heighten the tension. Finally, a communication broke the silence. “Transport blue-177, you are cleared for approach to Earth.”
Never had Lathiel felt such relief at hearing that news, he gently increased the power to the ships inter-system engines which roared into life, and the transport gradually picked up speed and headed towards Earth itself, the inter system boosters blazing white hot.
Barely half an hour later, the battered Liberty dropped out of plasma drive near alpha base, orbiting mars.
“ Get me alpha base command,” Michael said, he had no time for pleasantries.
“ Admiral Mason here, welcome back Liberty, I’ve heard great things happened over at Gamma IV.”
“ Sorry admiral we are here on business, it’s an emergency. Have there been any unusual events happening around Earth?”
“ Not around Earth captain, there was an E.D. F transport that came in out of plasma drive near the lunar control station. I found it a little odd, since transports don’t usually drop out of plasma drive this far inside a system and it was much earlier than expected.”
Michael grew tense, half an hour. That would mean it would be getting ready to dock at Earth.
“ What was the identification of the transport?” Michael asked.
Mason consulted something off-screen for a few seconds, “blue-177, what kind of emergency captain?”
“ There is going to be an assassination attempt on the president at his speech today, do you know where it is taking place?”
“ Sure, everyone knows. It’s in Prague, at the institute of quantum mechanics. Due to start in about an hour and a half’s time, what proof of this do you have captain?”
The huge form of Dalvosh stomped into view of the admiral, “The threat is real admiral, he is a rogue agent activated before the war ended, and he can take on the form of any humanoid he touches; only we can stop him.”
“ My god!” The admiral gasped, “I’ll contact Earth, let them know of the situation, and get you emergency landing clearance.”
“ I would recommend alerting your guards quietly, if Lathiel notices any sign of increased activity, it could spook him,” Dalvosh suggested.
“ Understood; Mason out,” the communication ceased.
“ Continue on course for Earth, maximum sub-light.” Michael said, preying that they weren’t too late.
“ Yes captain.” Eldathar replied working the controls.
The Liberty rapidly accelerated past the gigantic spherical installation of alpha base, and headed for Earth.
The small transport had cut through Earth’s atmosphere with relative ease, and continued to descend through the cloud cover towards a freight loading platform, just outside of Prague.
The speakers blazed into crackled life once again, “Transport blue-177 you are cleared to dock at pad D, once docked please have your crew remain onboard for security checks.”
“ Understood control,” Lathiel replied before he ended the communication. They won’t find anyone aboard, he thought. Just corpses, which, while they are busy trying to find out what has happened I’ll be slipping straight out the front door.
The twinkling lights of the city of Prague were visible now as the transport gently glided on its final approach toward the platform.
Lathiel kept his eyes peeled on the viewer as he tried to make out the shape of the platform amongst the sprawl of buildings. Gradually it revealed itself; just on the outskirts of the city.
Quickly keying in some controls on the pilots console, five landing legs gently lowered from their positions secreted within the underside of the transports hull.
The small ship continued to slow and descend for its final approach to the platform. Lathiel keyed in the control to add reverse thrust as the transport came in, and gradually slowed the ship until it virtually hovered above the landing pad using just the power from its gravitic engines. He killed the power just as the transport came to rest on the pad. Lights from the surrounding buildings shone down upon the transports aged hull.
Lathiel, still in the guise of lieutenant Forrest, went to greet the cargo inspectors. Making his way through the tight confines of the ship and down towards the lower loading ramp on deck seven. He punched in a control and lowered the main ramp with a loud hiss of pressurised air. Once the ramp had finished lowering, three men came aboard. Lathiel acknowledged the men with a polite nod “Lieutenant Forrest, bringing in those medical supplies as requested.”
“ Forrest, where the hell is the commander here, you’re three days early! We might have to turn you around, does he even know how much shit he is in! He’s damned well screwed up our schedule for the next three days.”
Another man spoke up, “There’s another transport due in on this pad in a few hours time and we’ll have to divert him, which throws the others out.”
“ Just following my orders,” Lathiel said, trying to remain as blank as possible.
Two of the three men headed towards the command deck in an attempt to find the now dead commander, lieutenant Pryce.
“ You can check through the inventory with me,” the third man said, he was a shade taller than the other two, with a rather scruffy looking unkempt beard.
“ No problem,” Lathiel said with a smile, his chance had now come.
The Liberty closed in on Earth, just passing the moon.
“ Get me E.D. F command headquarters on Earth,” Michael asked.
“ Patching ye’ in,” Kinraid replied.
A young woman with long dark brown locks flickered up on the holoviewer, “greetings Liberty, what can we do for you.”
“ I need full emergency landing clearance in Prague, preferably as close to the institute of Quantum mechanics as you can get us.”
“ We have already been informed of the situation through E.D. F command, you intend to physically land a ship the size of the Liberty next to the institute?” She asked incredulously.
“ Or as close as we can get,” Michael finished for her.
The woman consulted something out of view for a few seconds.
“ There’s a park near to the facility that you might be able to land in. It’s called Stromoika park, I’ll arrange for the area to be cordoned off immediately.”
“ Thanks,” Michael replied, “Liberty out.”
“ Well here goes,” Kinraid said.
Vargev gave the commander a look of silent distain; he must be a newbie to come out with something like that.
“ Everyone hold onto something, this is going to be rough,” Michael said.
That enticing sapphire blue planet, with gentle wisps of white cloud that was the Earth loomed large, the bright azure glow of its atmosphere was clearly visible as the Liberty began its entry.
The outer hull began to heat up rapidly, and the ship started to shudder, at first gently then increasing in violence as the winds in the upper atmosphere increased.
Michael preyed that the ship would make it through entry, she had taken a heck of a lot of damage, and it would be touch and go.
The Liberties hull trailed fire and smoke as it punched ever deeper into Earths atmosphere. The shuddering became almost unbearable; conduits exploded and crewmen were thrown across the floor. Small fires began to break out amongst the damaged circuitry, the fire suppression system was knocked offline again. Outside the ship it looked like a travelling inferno, parts of damaged hull plating were torn completely off the ship due to the immense pressure.
Even the huge form of Dalvosh was struggling against the unrelenting violence of punching deeper and deeper into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The shuddering had finally stopped, smoke still hung thick across the command centre, and the crew immediately went to work putting out the myriad of small fires. At length, the environmental systems came back online and started clearing the smoke.
Michael wiped the sweat lining his brow, “We made it!” Elated, a wide grin played across his face. It was all he could do to stop himself punching the air in delight, damn I love this ship, he thought.
The holoviewer cleared, showing the white blanket of cloud cover below them, the ship continued to descend trailing smoke and pieces of damaged hull plating from its incredibly hot outer hull.
“ Status?” Michael asked as the rest of the command crew picked themselves up from the violence of entry.
“ We’ve got severe damage to the outer hull; multiple hull fractures. Integrity is at eighteen percent and holding, minor injuries reported.”
“ Well at least we made it through,” Michael said with genuine relief.
The Liberty quickly punched through the cloud cover, and flew over the landmass that was mainland Europe.
They descended quickly, and soon they could see the mountain ranges between them and the outskirts of Prague itself.
Lathiel silently approached the form of the man checking through the transports inventory, he had his back to him, consulting a handheld scanner. Before the poor soul even had a chance to react, the assassin grabbed his head, wrenched it backwards and savagely sliced the mans throat. The man staggered, coughing and spluttering on his own blood, Lathiel thought the man was making too much noise in his death throes so he rammed the mans head against a large shipping container next to him, instantly knocking him unconsciousness.
Carefully, he dragged the man’s body behind some other containers and activated his crodes gland again, pain ravaged the assasins body once more as he gradually took over the form of the inventory man, within seconds the transformation was complete.
The impostor searched through the bloodied, lifeless body, took the man’s I.D. card and wiped any trace of spattered blood from the card and his knife on the dead man’s coveralls. Silently, he left the ships hold.
As he made his escape down the ramp of the transport, out across the landing pad and towards the main building a small dark ship could just be seen overhead, trailing smoke. Its matt black hull and wedge shaped design resembled one of his own Krenaran ships, it seemed to be heading for the centre of Prague. However, its main weapon and torpedo launchers were completely different, deep indents in the sides of its hull gave off a bright electric blue light.
Lathiel recognised the ship as the Liberty, they must know of the plan, he thought, muttering a Krenaran curse; his job had just gotten that little bit more difficult.