Once all the commandoes were safely aboard, the link separated from the lander and retracted back inside the Liberties own hull where it resealed itself, an armoured hull panel gently slid over it, in order to hide the weak point and maintain the warship’s stealth capabilities.
The tiny lander banked slowly away from the Liberty, as the dark, angular, wedge shaped craft powered up its main engines and glided gently away from the small craft.
“Set course for the Auriga system, bearing zero-one-seven degrees, elevation twelve.”
“Understood, captain” Eldathar replied as he worked the controls again to manoeuvre the Liberty into position, the ship banked left slightly, the intense electric blue of its main engines and thrusters flared bright in the blackness of space, as the ship swung quickly around.
“Maximum plasma drive.”
The Liberties main engine flashed brightly as the ship rapidly accelerated to maximum sub-light speed before activating its plasma drive engine, shooting forth an incandescent blue beam of plasma, which collided in an intense flash of bright white energy, and slowly coalescing into the swirling plasma wake. The Liberty leapt through it at full speed, and onwards toward its ultimate destination.
Michael prayed they were not too late.
Nikolai Vargev strode onto the familiar looking bridge of the Liberty, a place he had not visited for five years. It had changed little in that time, the last he set foot here, he was involved in the mission to prevent an assassination plot at the hands of the rogue Krenaran agent, Lathiel. That all seemed like a long time ago now, he still bore the scar from the knife wound on his arm inflicted by that Krenaran son of a bitch. While Michael was forty years old, Nikolai was almost ten years his senior, a forty nine year old commando; despite his advancing years, the big Russian could still mix it with the best of them, he strode over to an old friend sat in the centre seat.
“Hello comrade, pleased to see me?”
Michael swivelled in his chair, unaware of the approach of the giant colonel, “Nikolai Vargev!” Michael announced with a broad grin, his old friend was with him again. “How are ya’ buddy?” he said as he almost leapt out of his seat to give the big Russian a tight hug.
“Not too bad, yourself?”
“Oh you know how it is; come we have much to discuss.” Michael said, beckoning the colonel to follow him to his personal quarters, just off to the left of the command centre itself, “Kinraid you have the bridge.”
“Understood, Cap’n,” Kinraid replied from his station.
The two men made their way across the busy command centre of the Liberty, and through a set of sliding doors that led into Michael’s personal quarters.
He sat at his glass-topped desk, strewn with the usual maintenance reports that always seemed to filter through here; Nikolai sat opposite.
“Coffee?”
“Thanks.”
Michael walked over to a small personal drinks synthesiser, and keyed in a command for two lattes.
“I guess this mission must have come as quite a shock?” He asked as the machine did its work.
“Kind of, we have been training in simulated hostage rescue missions for the last three months on Gamma Aurigulon, but we didn’t expect to go into a real one. They only told me the gist of what happened, nothing more.”
“That’s because to be honest, they don’t know. All E.D. F command really knows is that the Copernicus; a small survey ship, doing a routine mapping mission in the Auriga system had found some unusual alien structure on the third planet. A team was sent down to investigate, and the station somehow re-activated itself. Within a couple of hours, boom! The Copernicus was blasted into space dust by some unknown alien ship, which bears more than a passing resemblance to a Solarian battlecruiser.”
“So the science team are still on the surface?”
“As far as we know, yes.”
“How many?”
“Sixteen, although when I looked at the timestamp on the logs, it showed the information to be three days old now.”
“So, we could well go in there to find them already dead,” Nikolai stroked his dark moustache in thought.
“Quite possibly, Kathryn Jacobs was the one leading the science team on the surface.”
Nikolai remembered Kathryn fondly, a flicker of a smile appeared across his lips, he first encountered her at Delta base during the Krenaran war, rescuing her from the besieged and battered station, she was out of her mind with fear. They crossed paths again when he and Michael fought the Krenaran commander, Alax together. Kathryn had patched him up after that, both men knew that they would never stand idly by and let Kathryn die on that forlorn alien world, no matter what problems she had in the past, they knew they had to get her and the others out of there.
“These aliens, any other info?”
“I spoke with Eldathar about that, it turns out these aliens call themselves, the Dracos.”
“Huh, nice name.” Nikolai grunted skeptically.
“It gets better, these Dracos were once a part of the Solarians, in fact they are Solarians, they were a radical sect promoting violence, extreme pain, and torture. The Solarians, kicked them off their homeworld, and systematically hunted them down like dogs, throughout their space.”
“A little harsh for the Solarians,” Nikolai interjected, “they must have really pissed them off.”
“From what I have been able to gather, three hundred years ago they attempted a coup of the Solarian government, when it was defeated, they chased them away.”
“Well, that’ll do it alright.” Nikolai shrugged.
“These Dracos have been living in isolation ever since, slowly re-building themselves, strengthening their own military. They only showed up to destroy the Copernicus after that base activated, the facility has been shooting massively powerful streams of energy out into space ever since it first powered up. I’m pretty sure it’s no coincidence that what happened at the base attracted them. It seems very convenient that within the space of a couple of hours they show up, despite being unheard of for three hundred years.”
“Like a giant, come get me sign?”
“Exactly.”
“Thing is though, where that one ship has come, there might be more of them out there.”
Michael passed Nikolai his cup, “thanks,” he said as he took a sip. “It looks to me, like the odds of finding anyone alive down there are slim to none, and these Dracos like inflicting pain and torturing those they come across.”
“It’s more than that, Eldathar says that, to them they treat it as an artform, they revel in it.”
“So, we are dealing with an isolationist, probably paranoid fledgling empire, who just love to maim and torture, and possibly using some form of old Solarian technology.”
“That about sums it up.”
“I would say the odds of finding anyone alive after three days of being up against that, would be along the lines of, slim, to, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Do you even know just how screwed we are?”
“I know, but we have to try anyway.” Michael sighed deeply.
Vargev studied him for a moment, “There’s more isn’t there?”
Michael paced the room, peering out through the oversized window into the translucent swirling multi-hued mass, that was the plasma wake. “Things have changed Nikolai,” he stared out from the viewport. “Since peace broke out, it seems that there is less and less need for a dedicated warship like the Liberty anymore, apart from the occasional escort run or anti-pirate sweep. We’ve just been upgraded with these new graviton shields, great! I thought. Until I realised it was just as a test bed for a new secret project. It’s as though the Liberty has become little more than an afterthought, a glorified lab rat, so that its technology can be disseminated through the fleet”
Nikolai studied Michael, feeling his frustration. “The Liberty is still, the most advanced and one of the most powerful ships in the entire navy. This ship is absolutely unique because it was not built by human hands, we don’t have the skill or the technology to make more Liberties. That is not to say the fleet cannot benefit from her; this ship became a legend throughout the Krenaran war, its crew heroes. The memory of this ship and its crew will never fade in the minds of the people. Peace is never a good time for a soldier, especially ones who are forged in the fires of the battlefield. When the time comes, the E.D. F will need good, strong troops once again, and the navy will need the Liberty.”
Vargevs lucid response got Michael thinking, his features softened as he turned back to face the colonel, “you know what, you’re right.” He said with a gentle smile, “thank you.”
The two men headed out onto the bridge, Michael re-took his seat from Kinraid.
“I see you still haven’t gotten a haircut,” Vargev teased as he eyed Kinraid’s neat pony tailed ginger curls.
“Get away wi’ ya’, ya’ cheeky old bugger ye’,” Kinraid replied, smiling back at the colonel.
“Oh, I almost forgot to mention, we have set up temporary quarters for my men in the main cargo hold. We’ve also brought aboard a couple of crates of heavy weapons and ammunition for the mission.”
“No problem,” Michael replied.
Vargev left the bridge and headed to the cargo hold himself, to brief his men on the new intelligence he had just gleaned from Michael.
“Come on, we’d better keep on moving.” Kathryn said as she got back to her feet.
Rachthausen hefted his weapon and began to make a move with her, the doors slowly opened to reveal the dark form of Drax stood before them, the scarlet light from the lenses on his helmet seemed to glow with an almost crazed light. “Going somewhere?”
Both Kathryn and Rachthausen froze in horror, as their pursuer made ready to level his eviscerator pistol. Kathryn dropped to her knees and shone her torch directly at the Dracos commander. The beam of light was enough to temporarily blind the delicate eyesight of their foe, although he had managed to fire off a single shot. The small eviscerator disc whipped through the air, but the light was enough to distract him, his aim was off, and it embedded harmlessly into a computer console with a cracking of glass barely inches away from Rachthausen’s head.
Kathryn fired her own pistol in response, but Drax had already dived into the cover of darkness on the other side of the wall. The energy pulse thumped into the wall of the corridor, causing a small spray of sparks.
“Come on!” Rachthausen shouted, as the two of them sprinted out of the control room, and down the long corridor to safety. Drax was nowhere to be seen.
As they ran, Kathryn managed to ask between breaths, “How did you know he wouldn’t attack us?”
“You blinded him, at least temporarily, he’ll hide now until his vision clears again, which could take a while if he is sensitive to bright light like Kalschacht said he was, he can’t attack what he cannot see.”
That was exactly what Drax was doing, he had taken cover amongst a small recess, near to the second set of blast doors, while he waited for his sight to clear.
His eyes burned, fluid streamed from them, he cursed under his lips in a maddened rage. He knew he had to remove his helmet, albeit briefly, to allow the cool air circulating around the base to cool his streaming eyes. He pressed a small catch just under the chin, and the fully enclosing black helmet separated down the centre via a pair of tiny hinges hidden beneath small armour plates above his crown. Grasping the front of the helmet with one hand, and the rear with another, he slowly pulled the helmet out wide enough in order to release his pale skinned head.
The cool air was welcoming to his black almond shaped eyes, though he cursed his luck that he had not been able to end the hunt right there. If that pitiful female hadn’t blinded him, he would have already been on his way back to the lander, having eradicated the taint of the interlopers.
He wiped at his irritated eyes with his gloved hand, managing to clear away some of the tear fluid, blinking as his vision slowly began to return to normal, and could just begin to make out the delicate etched panelling of the corridor wall opposite him. Snapping back into action, he clipped his battlehelm back on, and ran a cursory systems check on the display attached to his right arm. He was glad he did, it showed just over one percent of power remaining from the power cells contained within his suit, they were designed to last for seventy two hours without the need to recharge. That gave him around one hour before his suit shuts down completely, and would need to be recharged from a Dracos docking station either on the lander, or on his ship.
If the suit did shutdown, he would lose all the functions of his helmet, together with the silencer attached to his wrist, and the magnetic charge that allowed him to cling to walls and ceilings, rendering him suddenly very vulnerable. He would have to finish this hunt quickly, there was no longer any time for games. His vision had now cleared sufficiently so that he could see properly again, so immediately set after his quarry once more.
Kathryn and Sergeant Rachthausen made it to the end of the corridor where they came across a second elevator.
“Maybe it will take us to the surface?” Kathryn asked.
“I doubt it, underground facilities like this usually only have one way in, and one way out, it’s easier to defend that way. There is an emergency escape hatch though, to be used in the event of a fire or some other disaster. It’s on the floor above us, according to the map I saw anyway.”
“It’s worth a try.”
“We have to get off this floor anyway,” Rachthausen looked nervously over his shoulder, he could see nothing in the pitch blackness.
The elevator automatically stopped in front of them, exactly like the first one, they stepped inside.
Drax however, had taken a different route, throwing caution to the wind he raced up the facilities air circulation ducts, and, using the magnetics within his suit, was climbing swiftly up an air shaft that supplied oxygen to the floor above. The gentle breeze buffeting his suit was soothing, produced by powerful pumps within the oxygen storage tank over a hundred metres below him. He knew where his prey was heading, and was determined to cut them off.
The elevator stopped on the floor above, Kathryn and Rachthausen exited and looked around this new unexplored floor. It had basically the same layout as the others, one long wide corridor, with a plethora of rooms tailing off it for various purposes.
“If I remember the plans correctly,” Rachthausen said thinking aloud, “The emergency escape hatch was located around here somewhere, it was how those Dracos managed to get in, try looking for a panel or a large hatch.” The sergeant suggested.
The two of them searched frantically for the panel covering the hatch that would guide them to safety on the surface, though in the darkness they could find nothing. Eventually, while they searched, they found their way into an elaborate plush office with a thick black granite table, and began searching there.
Two black armoured boots slammed heavily into the sergeants chest, sending him sprawling to the ground. Kathryn tried to bolt for the door, however a tiny metal spike like projectile attached to a thin wire wrapped itself around her arm.
Drax retracted the silencer as he jumped and clung back onto the ceiling. The wire shot back with such force it threatened to tear Kathryn’s arm from its socket, she screamed aloud in pain as she was forcibly hurled to the floor, landing heavily.
Rachthausen was still dazed from the blow he received to his chest.
Drax hissed his anger at the pair who had eluded him; the device uncurled from Kathryn’s arm and affixed itself back into his weapon.
Rachthausen got to his feet and drew his combat knife, he knew he was hopelessly outmatched by Drax. Nevertheless, he might buy just enough time for Kathryn to escape.
“Kathryn, get out of here!” He shouted more forcefully than he intended.
She got back to her feet again, hobbling from a bruised hip suffered from the fall, “what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, just run!”
Kathryn turned to leave, watching the sergeant square up to the vicious black suited alien ahead of him, the red eyes shone menacingly in the darkness.
“Kathryn, I will always love you.” Rachthausen said softly.
Sorrow welled up from deep within her, a tear ran down her gentle cheek as she realised that Rachthausen was sacrificing himself so that she may live. She was torn asunder as the two combatants stabbed and sliced at one another. Her love, the single person she really, truly loved was destined to die for her, at that point, that very second she wanted to die too.
“Get out of here!” Rachthausen repeated as he grappled with Drax.
Kathryn could say nothing but whisper a faint, almost imperceptible, “I’ll always love you,” before running headlong down the corridor, away from her nightmare.
Rachthausen was the stronger of the two, yet significantly less agile than Drax, the sergeant managed to hurl the Dracos commander to the floor, he landed heavily in a crumpled heap. Rachthausen followed up his attack by trying to stab the Dracos warrior.
Drax however was far quicker and deftly swept the sergeants legs from under him. The heavy, burly sergeant toppled backwards over the granite desk himself.
Drax hissed again, pure hate in his voice as he advanced, slowly, purposefully toward the sergeant, who struggled to get back to his feet. The maddened Dracos commander slashed his wristblades at him with such speed they could scarcely be seen, though Rachthausen managed to parry the frenzied attack with his own blade. The sheer force of the clash of blades sent them both staggering backwards.
Drax swiped his blades at him again, hacking and slashing in a whirlwind of deadly blade strikes, he launched himself acrobatically into the air, latching onto walls and ceilings to launch yet more blows. Rachthausen was putting up a brave defence, he had managed to parry the worst of the onslaught, though Drax was fighting like a madman, a rabid wolf, launching attack after attack, ultimately however a few slashes had made it through the sergeants desperate guard, he was bleeding from several nicks to his chest and arms, and was gradually weakening.
The Dracos aimed a vicious roundhouse kick, catching the sergeant square in the chest again, and sent him tumbling to the ground, his fatigues now stained and torn in several places from the cuts he had sustained.
“This is too easy,” the Dracos commander jeered, “this is no sport.”
Rachthausen; panting heavily staggered back to his feet, through the haze of pain filling his mind, he hoped he had bought enough time for Kathryn.
Drax kicked him hard in the ribs, sending him sprawling across the ground once again, tumbling over and over. A pain like fire spread through his side, then another kick landed, and another, a deadly torrent of blows rained down on the badly weakened sergeant, and Drax threatened to kick him to death. Blood streaked down Rachthausen’s face from a nasty cut on his forehead, the pain in his side was agonising, and he feared that several ribs were broken. Yet still fixed the Dracos commander with a defiant stare, even though he was beating him to a bloody pulp, the longer he was taking to finish him, the more time he was buying for Kathryn.
Drax kicked him hard again, and the sergeant let out a small whimper of pain, a sound that delighted the Dracos warrior, “this is starting to be amusing after all.”
He kicked him one last time, causing the sergeant to gasp as he crawled along the floor in an effort to get back to his feet; and, dropping his guard for just a second. Drax took full advantage and slammed his fist into the sergeants injured arm, Rachthausen screamed in agony.
Drax smiled, delighted to hear the scream of his enemies torment and anguish, this was his time now, this was one of the things he loved about being a Dracos commander, it made him feel alive to hear his enemies screams, just as it did his ancestors.
Finally the kicks and torture stopped, Rachthausen was a bloody mess lying in a foetal position on the floor, his combat fatigues sodden with blood, the floor slippery. Drax gripped the sergeants matted hair, pulled his head back exposing his neck, and whispered, “playtimes over.” Before slicing open the sergeants throat with his wickedly sharp wristblades, and shoving the body to the ground.
He left the office with a maniacal laugh, as Rachthausen’s corpse slowly bled to death across the office floor.
“We are entering the Auriga system,” Eldathar pointed out, after studying the real-time data from the star map laid out in the console just in front of him.
“Understood, prepare to drop out of plasma drive on my mark, we need to get as close as possible, before we re-enter normal space.”
The Solarian pilot silently nodded his understanding, a tense few seconds passed as Michael waited to give the order.
“Now!”
A blindingly bright flash of energy heralded the re-emergence of the Liberty into normal space once again. The deep beige coloured sphere that was Auriga III was clearly visible ahead of them, together with its twin moons.
“Excellent work,” Michael smiled with praise for the crew, at least now he hoped they wouldn’t be blasted into space dust before they even reached the planet.
“I’ve got some bad news for ya’ cap’n!” Kinraid said as he studied his sensory console, “we ‘ave ‘tree unknown alien ships orbiting the planet, so we ‘ave. Not just the one; and they all match the one ‘tat destroyed the Copernicus.”
So Nikolai was right, there were more of them out there, “any chance they have detected us?”
“Two of them are breakin’ orbit, heading straight for us, the other is maintaining its orbit.”
Damn, it looks like they can see through the stealth abilities of the hull, Michael thought as his features screwed up into a slight wince. “Looks like we are going to have to fight our way through this one.”
“I would advise caution,” Eldathar replied from the pilot’s chair, “even though those ships are based on old Solarian technology. They are still powerful, and it looks like they have been doing a few upgrades of their own over the years.”
“Enemy ships ‘ave now broken orbit, and ‘r’ changing course ‘t’ intercept.”
“Full alert status, full power to main engines and thrusters, charge main fusion cannon, and activate the high energy launchers. Initiate graviton shielding system.” Michael barked out his orders with customary ease, he had been in this situation many times before.
“Aye sir,” Logan Jones replied as he frantically worked at the tactical console, the bridge darkened noticeably, and red alert lights reflected off the various darkened consoles, bathing the entire command centre in a deep ruddy glow.
“Fusion cannon is powering up, torpedoes are standing by, main engines and thrusters are at full power, graviton shields are charging.” Logan informed Michael, who watched the dark shapes of the enemy craft approach intently. Their command sections swept forward, sharp and angular like a serpent poised to strike.
Michael gnashed his teeth in defiance, “well if they want a fight, then by god they are going to get one!”
The Dracos ships, Blade of Rhovanion and Vengeance of Kelmarroth advanced upon the tiny E.D. F cruiser, at over four times its size each, the Dracos commanders on both ships figured this was going to be a short battle indeed.
“Ready all weapons and defensive systems, order our escort to do the same.” Senergid, the commander of the Blade of Rhovanion ordered, the flagship of the entire Dracos fleet was not about to be embarrassed by this little upstart pipsqueak.
“Dracos ships continue to close, they’ll be in weapons range in ten seconds,” Logan informed.
“Eldathar, send the ship into a spinning barrel roll on my mark.”
“Sir?”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Err…aye, sir.”
The dark predatory hulls of the alien craft continued to loom ever larger in the display, suddenly a burst of bright flashes erupted from their torpedo batteries.
“We have incoming!” Logan shouted in alarm.
“Eldathar, now!” Michael shouted as he clung onto his seat.
The Liberty corkscrewed toward the alien craft in a whirling blur of black hull and blue light, the crew onboard fought to hang on as artificial gravity systems struggled to keep up with the frenetic rate at which the ship was spinning.
“Multiple torpedoes, fire!” Michael shouted, as he clung onto his seat.
Half a dozen high energy torpedoes shot forth from the spinning Liberties own launchers looking like a circle of bright light, as the warheads streaked toward their targets.
Some collided with the approaching Dracos torpedoes, resulting in gigantic, bright explosions that wreathed large areas of space in flame as the Liberty spun past towards its attackers. The other warheads, raced toward the Dracos ships themselves, arcing toward their targets and smashing home with incredible force, a bright green energy haze formed around the dark crescent shaped hulls of the alien craft. The Liberty itself shot between the two giant alien vessels.
Aboard the Blade of Rhovanion, Dracos warriors and crew alike were flung to the ground, as Senergid clung onto his seat for dear life, showers of sparks burst forth from damaged and overloaded circuitry. He couldn’t believe it, whatever that thing was, it was no ordinary ship, it hit with all the force of a Dracos prowler beast.
“Damage report.”
“Shields at sixty percent, minor damage to port thrusters.”
The tiny Liberty had shot past both ships, and was now heading toward the planet itself.
“Follow that thing!” Senergid shouted to his men.
The Liberty continued onward toward the planet. “Okay, you can level us out now,” Michael said.
Eldathar did so, much to the relief of the crew, who had been clinging for all they were worth to their stations and chairs, many of which now had a healthy dose of motion sickness.
“Enemy ship status?” Michael asked.
Kinraid studied his display, “both ‘ave suffered minor damage, they’re coming around to intercept. ‘Ya sure gave them a right sucker punch there eh!”
“Let’s just hope they don’t give us one in return,” Michael replied. His lips pressed into a thin whisper. He was outnumbered and outgunned, the only advantage he had was the Liberties speed and manoeuvrability, on top of all that, he had to get Nikolai’s troops onto the surface in one piece.
“Head for the planet maximum possible speed,” he said, “shut down the forward graviton emitters, and shunt the remaining power to the rear.” That should help, he thought. Though he had no idea how long the graviton shields would stand up to a pounding from those two ships, he figured he would find out soon enough.
The two Dracos cruisers finished coming about and resumed their chase of the Liberty. “If he thinks he has escaped us, he is sorely mistaken,” Senergid said, almost to himself. “Ready laser lances and dark matter torpedoes, destroy that thing!”
The two craft opened fire on the Liberty now out-pacing them, Eldathar did his best to evade the withering fusillade of fire, torpedoes raced out toward them, multiple violet flashes from deadly laser lances lit up the space the tiny ship was flying through. Though even with the Solarians skilful flying, the weight of fire was just too great; several torpedo and lance hits slammed into the Liberty, causing it to shudder violently under the impacts, several crewmembers were launched from their consoles, and Eldathar was having a tough time keeping the ship under control.
“Graviton shields are taking a hammering!” Logan shouted over the din of explosions and weapons fire.
Another hit slammed into the ship, sending more crewmen flying from their seats.
“Hold your course, Eldathar!” Michael shouted over the din and explosions of battle.
The Solarian strained to keep the bucking ship steady under the intense barrage.
“Shield status!” Michael shouted as another impact threatened to hurl him from his seat.
“Graviton shields at forty percent and weakening, they won’t be able to last much longer before they have to shut down to vent off excess energy,” Logan replied.
Another barrage hammered into the Liberty, sending sparks flying out from a ruptured console, smoke billowed out from fried circuitry.
“Twen’y seconds until we hit the atmosphere!” Kinraid announced.
Just a little bit longer, Michael willed his ship on through clenched teeth, “ready two torpedoes, set them to timed detonation, five seconds each.”
“What for?” Kinraid asked.
“Mines,” Michael replied, “fire!”
Logan pressed the fire control on his tactical console, “torpedoes away.”
Two dumbfire torpedoes were launched lazily from the Liberties launchers, their engines did not ignite, and the ship hurtled straight past them, leaving them directly in the path of the pursuing Dracos ships.
Michael silently began a countdown, three, two, one.
Both torpedoes detonated in a massive explosion, throwing up the familiar green haze around the dark enemy cruisers, and rocking the Liberty itself in its violence.
“Both ships have taken damage to their forward shields, they are backing away, though still pursuing.”
That should give us some breathing space at least, Michael thought as he watched the deep beige of the planet fill the viewer.
“Atmospheric entry in five, four, three, two,” Kinraid counted down as he watched the fast approaching atmosphere on the viewer.
The Liberties hull began to rapidly heat up as the ship entered the upper atmosphere of the planet, it was a familiar sight to Michael. He felt almost like he was reliving the great battle of Gamma IV during the Krenaran war, where his ship crash landed on the planet surface; enemy ships had chased them then too.
A violet energy flash shot past the Liberty and snapped him immediately out of his reverie, the shot coated the ship in a bright purple hue, it was so close. It blasted apart a pocket of methane gas in the planet’s atmosphere, the heat of the laser instantly igniting the dangerously flammable gas in an almighty explosion that ripped through the upper atmosphere, temporarily blinding the bridge crew in its intensity, a gigantic shockwave raced out toward the ship.
Michael strained to see in the brightness, watching in horror as the massive wall of flame surged towards them, unable to do anything except shout.
“Brace for impact!”
The massive shockwave slammed hard into the ship, with all the force of a tidal wave crashing headlong into a beachhead.
Crewmen were thrown completely clear of their stations, landing hard onto the unforgiving deck-plating, conduits ruptured in the intense impact, sparks and glass showered the crew, and fires broke out in a number of areas.
Smoke filled the bridge as Michael slowly picked himself back up amidst the debris of collapsed supports, broken girders and crackling power conduits. A combination of sweat and soot lined his features, he coughed a hacking, dry cough, the smoke had made his voice hoarse.
The Liberty itself was hurtling out of control; it had been thrown into a vertical spin as it careered through the atmosphere, pulled along by the planet’s own gravity.
Kinraid gradually re-took his seat and studied his own flickering, partially working console, “hull temperature exceedin’ maximum tolerances, if we don’t get the ship under control quickly, we’ll burn up.”
Eldathar strained for all he was worth against the controls, trying desperately to regain attitude control, “come on!” he shouted as he clenched his alien teeth.
The ship’s wild careering through the atmosphere began to slowly stabilise, as the Solarian fought against the controls.
“Looks like we’re through the worst of it, hull temperature’s returning to normal,” Kinraid announced.
Thank god for that, Michael thought letting loose a relieved sigh, together with the entire bridge crew. “Great work, Eldathar.”
The Solarian risked a quick glance back at his captain, and smiled.
“Status report?” Michael asked.
Kinraid studied his instruments, “Graviton shields ‘r’ down, we ‘ave some minor hull fractures, there ‘r’ some injuries amongst the crew. If it wasn’t for those new fangled shields, we’d all be toast; beggin’ ya’ pardon cap’n.”
“I know; those graviton shields have definitely proved their worth, what about those Dracos ships?” Michael asked as he wiped his brow with the sleeve of his uniform, leaving a dark grimy smear across his forehead.
“They’ve both backed off, resumed orbit. Guess they didn’t wanna’ be on te’ receivin’ end ‘o’ that explosion.”
“I guess so,” Michael replied as he shook off his debris littered uniform, and brushed down his seat with his hand. The environmental control systems had kicked in and removed the smoke, small jets of carbon dioxide extinguished the remaining fires. Things slowly returned to normal as he surveyed the extent of the damage to his bridge.
Several consoles had completely exploded, leaving blackened twisted remains along the bridge perimeter, dark scorch marks lined the walls. Others, like Kinraid’s were barely functioning, their flickering and buzzing a constant distraction. The snap and hiss of flailing, damaged circuits from the roof hung limp, adding to the scene of desolation.
“There is nothing stopping them simply bombarding our position from orbit, should we ever land,” Michael said.
“Not if we land close enough to the facility, I doubt they would risk firing on their own base,” Eldathar suggested.
“Good idea,” Michael smiled, “head for the base.”
The Liberty flew over a windswept jagged mountain range, through a forest of strange alien looking trees, like enormous hyacinths their petals instead were leaves.
“With a carbon dioxide atmosphere like this, I guess photosynthesis must work backwards here,” Kinraid said as he perused the viewscreen from his position, “instead of producing oxygen as a by-product, these plants must produce carbon dioxide instead.”
The dark warship glided over a flat land, with what appeared to be a river meandering its way through it, the silvery sheen of the water reflected the sunlight at them as they glided past.
“Well now I know why the Dracos chose this planet, ample water supply.”
“Yea’ but for all we know, tat could be the only river for a t’ousand miles,” Kinraid replied.
The sharp inwardly curving pylons of the Dracos structure became clearly visible on the horizon as the Liberty gently glided towards it.
“My god, the thing is gigantic, those pylons must be a good thousand metres tall,” Michael gasped.
Indeed they were, and visible for miles around, an enormous set of four focusing pylons, gently curving toward one another, exactly like a giant set of claws had sprouted out from the ground and was reaching up to pull the sky down. The sun was slowly setting on the horizon, bathing these mighty monoliths in stark shadow.
Michael touched a communications terminal on the arm of his chair, “Michael to Nikolai; have your men ready, we’ll be touching down in around one minute.”
“Understood,” Nikolai said as he spoke into his helmet mic.
Colonel Vargev spoke to his arrayed commandoes one last time before the fighting commenced. “Okay, as per the briefing, we’ll be splitting up into two teams of ten men each. I’ll be leading alpha team who will go in and storm the complex, bravo team will be providing close fire support. Razor, you’re in command of Bravo team.”
“Sir, yes sir,” the powerfully built Robert Jansen, A.K. A Razor replied.
“This is what we’ve trained for people, remember, don’t let the enemy get too close. Intel says they may have a lot of bladed weapons, and love to slice and dice, don’t give them the opportunity. We all have motion scanners, and we have night vision attached to our breathing gear, so we should be able to see them just as well as they see us. Watch yourselves out there.”
“Yes colonel,” they all shouted in unison.
“Let’s show these bastards, who they are really messing with.” Vargev grinned.
“Ooragh!” was the loud reply.
Nikolai had armed his men heavily, and they all carried the ubiquitous, high-powered forty-four calibre armschlager heavy machine gun. A weapon which had proven to be so devastating to Krenaran troops during the war. In addition to this however, he had ordered his men to wear the new apex body armour, consisting of ultra tough carbon fibre plates hidden under their traditional camouflaged flak jacket. Each man had half a dozen grenades, a pulse pistol sidearm, and two men of bravo team also carried the slingshot, a portable rocket launcher equipped with deadly new dead aim missiles. A missile that’s guidance system was so accurate, so finely tuned, it could lock onto and track a target, purely from its body heat. To save them being blown to pieces by their own missile, all commandoes wore a tiny microchip concealed deep within their chest armour, which allowed the missile to identify between friend and foe, the missile was not to be used where civilians would be present, as it could just as easily kill them, but on an open battlefield, was a formidable weapon.
“Commandoes, form up by the port access hatch.”
“Yes, colonel!” The troops all shouted in unison, and as one the body of twenty men all marched their way through the confines of the ship, passing blown, smashed consoles and damaged circuitry. The glass littering the deck plates crunched under their heavy military boots.
The Liberty swooped in fast, Michael saw the six Dracos assault landers all arrayed near the structure, it was one headache he could do without. “Logan, target those landed ships, fire at will.”
“Aye, sir.”
The Liberty dived low and opened fire with its devastating fusion cannon, the raw power of the beam slammed into the first of the landers, tearing it to pieces in a fountain of twisted blackened debris, the bright incandescent blue beam raked the area tearing into the other craft just as easily as the first. Bright plumes of flame, smoke and explosions lit up the dusk sunset as onboard power cells and munitions ruptured, before the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere quickly quelled the blazing inferno of the wrecked craft. The wreckage however, still smouldered and continued to send out plumes of thick smoke into the darkening sky.
Michael could just faintly see the tiny black specks of Dracos warriors scurrying about on the surface below them.
A powerful blast rocked the Liberty, Eldathar fought to keep the ship stable, “the Dracos ships in orbit, are resuming their bloody firin’ on us!” Kinraid shouted, stating the obvious.
“Quickly Eldathar, set us down near the landers, get us as close as possible to the structure.” Michael said, a plan formed in his mind, he was going to use the smoke billowing out from the destroyed craft as cover for the landing.
“Lowering landing legs, gravitic engines to maximum, main engine thrust at five percent,” Eldathar exclaimed.
The Liberty slowed to a virtual hover, its shadow dominating the wreckage of the landers, powerful gravitic engines kicked up great plumes of dirt and dust.
“Open the port hatch.”
Kinraid pressed the port hatch release control on his console. The hatch depressurised, and then gradually opened.
“Go! Go! Go!” Nikolai shouted to his men, all of which had donned their breathing apparatus ready for the assault.
The twenty commandoes surged out from the port side of the Liberty, sprinting across the narrow stretch of open ground towards the smouldering wreckage.
The ground near to the landed ship erupted with a deafening explosion as a torpedo fired from orbit, ripped into it.
“Close the hatch, and get us airborne again, quickly!” Michael shouted his urgency, if they stayed too long on the ground they were a sitting duck for those shooting from orbit, and he didn’t feel like dying today.
The Liberty quickly picked up speed as it took off once again, kicking up another great cloud of dirt, dead foliage and various detritus, before climbing and racing through the atmosphere.
Weapons fire from the three ships orbiting above poured down towards it. Eldathar constantly jinked the ship in a zig-zag fashion to avoid the fusillade of laser lance fire and torpedoes streaking down toward the tiny ship.
“Eldathar, give it everything you’ve got!” Michael shouted as the viewscreen became littered with violet slashes of weapons fire, and the occasional blinding flash of a torpedo explosion.
“Logan, how are the shields?”
“Just about finished recharging after venting off the excess energy of that last pounding we took.”
“Shunt everything you can get your hands on to the shields, take it from non-essential systems, even environmental support if you have to!”
“Gotcha, captain” Logan worked furiously at his console, as he tried to divert every last scrap of energy he could muster into the shields.
The Liberty continued on its race through the atmosphere, scything towards its assailants, who were still busily pouring fire towards the small, but nimble warship.
“Is the main fusion cannon charged?”
“We’ll have full power back in fifteen seconds, captain.” Logan replied as he studied the power readout for the weapon from his console.
That should give us just enough time to get a single shot away, before we exit the atmosphere, Michael thought. The Dracos were about to get a very nasty surprise, the thought made his lips curl into an evil grin.
Several laser lance shots slammed into the ship, the rippling transparent graviton field deflected the worst of the energy, still the impacts themselves violently shook the vessel, it felt like the ship was being pitched about amid stormy seas. Michael held on as the vessel buffeted and shuddered under the withering barrage of fire from the three Dracos ships, slowly beginning to come into view ahead of it.
“Fusion cannon ready,” Logan announced.
“Target the closest ship; fire!”
The weapon roared its fury and an incandescent bright blue beam of utter destruction shot through what remained of the upper atmosphere, tearing into the Dracos ship beyond with such force, it spun the ship almost ninety degrees. Its shields flared violently under the sheer power of the impact; however it could not withstand the awesome fury of the Liberties fusion cannon for long. The shields withered and died as the beam ripped through the Vengeance of Kelmarroth’s command section, blasting it completely clear of its main hull. The ship listed, almost inverted, as though it were a boxer taking a knockout uppercut. Explosions ripped through the vessel's outer hull as gravity dragged it awkwardly down toward the atmosphere itself. Caught helplessly in the pull of the planet, several escape pods were visible jettisoning from the ship. Within the planet's upper atmosphere, its hull began to heat up to an intense fiery glow, before the entire vessel tore itself apart in a gigantic fireball.
Senergid watched the destruction of the Vengeance in stunned silence, as the tiny Liberty shot past once again.
“Head for one of the moons,” Michael said.
“They’ll only chase us again, so t’ey will.” Kinraid replied.
“This time, I’m counting on it,” Michael replied with a wide smile.
“Slingshot manoeuvre?”
“Exactly.”