The Liberty had shot passed the Dracos craft that had been attacking it, and continued on toward one of the moons of Auriga III, the two remaining Dracos ships, the flagship Blade of Rhovanion and the warcruiser flame of Celthris slowly began to break orbit, power up their engines and give chase.
Senergid, a hero of the Dracos people himself, and commander of the entire Dracos fleet was still amazed that this little ship had withstood attacks from three of his best ships, and even gone on to destroy the Vengeance of Kelmarroth, sure their foe was quick and nimble, but it was nowhere near the size and power of the warcruisers. The destruction of the Vengeance should never have happened.
The fight to reclaim the lost halo world was proving to be a costly one, if they could not recapture the planet, Senergid was going to abandon it, there was no way he was going to risk an empire to capture a planet, no matter how important the Eye of the Dracos was to his people.
The small enemy ship had gained quite a headstart, his larger warcruisers were much slower to turn, though now they had successfully broken orbit and were chasing after this annoying little vessel.
“Reinforce the aft shields, take the forward graviton generators offline, and shunt the extra power to the rear ones, just as before.” Michael said as he turned from addressing Logan to the viewscreen ahead, the moon was becoming slowly larger as they neared, the peaks and troughs of its cratered surface more detailed.
The destruction of the Dracos ship had buoyed the crew up immensely, their weapons could, in fact, hurt these Dracos vessels; they could be destroyed. Although they were not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, there were still two more of them out there, and coming in from behind where the Liberty was weaponless.
However if Michael’s plan was to succeed, they would need to take a little pain for a lot of gain.
“Incoming!” Logan shouted.
Torpedoes raced towards the small warship, as Eldathar swung the ship from port to starboard to evade the worst of the onslaught, two of the warheads flashed past the Liberty overshooting their target, the contrails clearly visible on the viewer as they sailed by.
Two others however slammed hard into the Liberties reinforced aft shields, pitching several of its crew, including Michael forward. The Liberty captain braced his fall by landing on his outstretched palms, the deck plating thrummed gently to the touch, as the Solarian derived Ionic engine worked at full capacity, catapulting the ship forward in an effort to get some distance between the Liberty and the chasing Dracos ships, the plates were also cool, a reassuring feeling as Michael scrabbled quickly back to his seat.
“Shields at eighty three percent.”
The Liberty continued to hurtle headlong through space towards the safety of the moon, the tiny ship’s flight path criss-crossed with deep violet laser lance blasts from the Dracos cruisers chasing it, several slammed into the Liberties aft shields, weakening them further.
“Shields are down to fifty one percent, we won’t be able to withstand this kind of pounding for much longer!” Logan Jones replied.
The ship rocked violently under the withering onslaught; a console shorted out, exploding in a shower of sparks and shattered glass flying across the bridge.
“Hold your course Eldathar!” Michael shouted over the din of explosions and violent shaking.
The Solarian pilot nodded an affirmative as he concentrated on trying to dodge the hail of weapons fire directed at them. He had managed to evade the majority of the fusillade of laser lance fire, but in doing so had flown straight into the path of three torpedoes heading straight for them.
“Brace for impact!” the Solarian shouted in alarm.
All three warheads slammed headlong into the Liberty, crewmen were thrown through the air with the sheer force of the impacts. Conduits exploded all over the ship, power flickered in several sections, as delicate circuits struggled to cope. Smoke and the debris of collapsed supports filled the bridge, virtually all the command staff were thrown hard to the floor.
Kinraid lay unconscious near to his ruined sensory console, the display had shattered, leaving nothing more than a blackened charred wreck, filled with sparking and damaged circuits.
Michael groggily got to his feet, his head throbbed, and he rubbed his temples to clear the fog from his mind. Wiping away the debris from the grey leather of his command chair, he slumped slowly back into it.
“Status,” he asked weakly.
Logan managed to make his way to an auxiliary sensory console to the left of where he fell, picking his way through the detritus littering the floor. “If I’m reading this right, we’ve lost the aft port graviton generator, the other one is about to shut down to vent off excess energy. Main engines are still intact, though we have several stress fractures along the aft hull.”
“So we are defenceless?”
“It looks that way.”
“Injuries, casualties?”
“Yet to come in, so far we have two casualties reported.”
“How long until we reach the moon itself?”
“Another three minutes sir,” Eldathar replied studying the display in front of him, one of the few that remained undamaged on the bridge.
“This is it, we have no more room for error, if we even take a single hit, we are done for.”
Eldathar gravely nodded his understanding, just as a laser lance shot smashed into the undefended rear of the Liberty, blasting straight through the hull, and almost pitching the ship into an uncontrolled spin.
The Solarian wrestled against the controls with every ounce of his strength, in an effort to keep the ship stable, if he lost control again they were all doomed. Alarms signalling damage to the ship blared out loudly throughout the vessel.
“We’ve got a hull breach, deck three, aft section, casualties reported,” Logan said.
Michael slammed his fist down into the arm of the chair, he was getting a little sick of being shot to pieces, “main engines?”
“They missed them, by a matter of just two metres.”
The Liberty captain let out a relieved sigh, at least he still had the engines intact, it was about the only thing in his ship that was.
“Structural integrity is at sixty three percent,” Logan reported.
Eldathar managed to jink the ship to avoid another barrage of fire, just as a voice came across the speakers.
“You have fought bravely, your ship and crew should be commended. However, you cannot win this battle. You are out-gunned and outmatched in almost every regard; it is over. If you surrender now you have my personal word that no harm will come to your crew.”
Michael considered this for a moment, but didn’t believe a word of what he was hearing, “to whom am I speaking?”
“My name is Calvaris Senergid, commander of the Blade of Rhovanion.”
Michael carefully picked his way through his debris strewn bridge to Eldathar’s position, before whispering, “are we still on course for the moon?”
“Yes, captain.”
“Good, don’t deviate for a second.”
“Understood.”
“I am giving you one last chance to leave here with your ship and crew intact; I await your reply.” Senergid said once again, the sternness in the Dracos commanders voice all too apparent.
Michael calmly re-took his chair, eyeing both Logan still manning the tactical station, and Eldathar in the pilot’s chair.
“It’s a fine offer, Calvaris Senergid, a noble one. But one thing you don’t know about us. Is that the Liberty or its crew never surrenders to anyone. So in the words of my people, screw you!”
“How dare you spea…” Michael nodded to Logan to cut the transmission, which he did with a smile.
Kinraid slowly regained consciousness, and staggered his way over to the auxiliary sensory console that Logan was using, his face was burned and bore a nasty cut down his left side, which bore the brunt of his console exploding. His long auburn locks were blackened and matted, the pain in his movements evident to see.
“Glad to have you back commander.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for te’ world cap’n.” Kinraid smiled weakly.
“You cannot hide, you cannot run, we will hunt you down and destroy you, I am offering you a way out.” Senergid’s voice came across the speakers once more, his voice still betraying the anger at being unceremoniously cut off.
“Is he still speaking?” Michael asked with a smile.
Kinraid whispered, “Approachin’ the moons gravity well in ‘tirty seconds.”
“Can you get a transmission to the Eisenhower?”
“Once we’re on te’ other side of the moon, yes. ‘Tey won’t be able to jam our transmissions then.”
“Good, do it, we’ll need their help.” Michael smiled, he had the plan, now all he had to do was carry it out.
“You cannot possibly think you can mount an effective defence any longer, surrender…” Michael motioned for the transmission to be killed with a silent wave of his hand.
“Approachin’ gravity well in five, four, tree, two.”
“Hold on to your hats,” Michael said, betraying just a hint of nerves.
Eldathar poured every last drop of power remaining into the engines at the exact instant the Liberty hit the moon’s gravity well, the ships own momentum, in addition to the gravitational pull of the planetoid, meant that the Liberty surged forward, far outpacing the Dracos ships in pursuit.
The small ship shuddered and rocked as Eldathar fought against the gravitational stresses of the moon that threatened to pull the vessel toward it.
“Speed is at twenty percent over maximum, we are approaching eighty percent of light speed.”
“Keep it coming!” Michael shouted over the din of violent shaking and rocking, the occasional snap of a torn power cable, and general rattle and crash of fallen debris.
The Liberty raced forward, inverted to the cratered lunar landscape below them, giant boulders, impact craters from asteroid strikes, peaks and troughs shot past them in a grey blur as the ship continued to ride the crest of the moons gravity well.
The Dracos ships attempted to maintain some kind of a pursuit, but their hesitation had cost them dearly, the Liberty was now far ahead of them. Senergid ordered the two ships to a stop while they waited for the Liberty to come around the far side of the moon.
“Transmissions ‘r’ free cap’n, ‘te moon itself is blocking their jammin’ systems.”
“Send out an alert one message to the Eisenhower, tell them we require urgent assistance, that should get their attention.”
“Aye sir, transmittin’ now” Kinraid said, as he worked the controls at his console.
After a brief pause, the commander spoke up again, “message received, ‘tey are inbound, an’ ‘tey are not alone.”
Michael looked at Quinn questioningly, the commander simply winked back at him.
“Command have been busy,” Michael smiled as he settled back down into his seat, things were about to get interesting.
The Liberty shot forth as it continued to circle the moon, increasing speed all the time. The shuddering increased in its intensity, an occasional panel blew out, resulting in a loud explosion and an almost blinding shower of sparks. They had to hold on, had to stay the course.
“Approaching ninety five percent of light speed!” Eldathar announced.
The craters, boulders, and mountainous terrain of the lunar surface shot past ever faster as the Liberty continued to pick up speed. It raced headlong around the moon, and as the ship came around to face their attackers. Still in the process of changing course themselves to bring their own weapons to bear. The Liberty with all its accumulated momentum behind it, was by far the fastest. The Solarian gently glided the ship on its apogee away from the moon, and used the last remnant of the force emitted from the gravity well itself to slingshot the ship towards the Dracos cruisers, the Liberty rocketed toward them with incredible speed, the Dracos ships simply had no chance to react.
“Fire!” Michael shouted; fist clenched.
The Liberty fired torpedo after torpedo, a flurry of five warheads all shot towards the Dracos ships as the E.D. F warship closed with terrific speed.
The torpedoes slammed home with such force that it caused one of the Dracos cruisers to lurch wildly, its shields flared brightly as they desperately tried to absorb the explosive force of the high energy warheads. The third impact caused the shields to ripple and fade, the remaining two torpedoes smashed directly into the ships hull with devastating force. Blasting apart one of the ships wing-tip laser lances in an intensely bright explosion that lit up the entire port side of the vessel.
The second tore its way deep into the ship’s main hull, a gigantic explosion carved out a deep, black crater. Torn and twisted decks were plainly visible, flames streamed out of the hull breach, having the appearance of an open wound. Smaller explosions nearby continued to burst out through the ships dark outer hull in miniature balls of flame. The ship slowly listed, as the fires within began to consume the entire vessel, escape pods could be seen jettisoning in a desperate attempt to flee the growing maelstrom.
The intensely bright incandescent blue beam of the Liberties fusion cannon, tore the stricken enemy ship apart in an almighty explosion, the final coup de grace, sending out a powerful shockwave and debris in all directions.
Senergid was dumbfounded as he watched the fiery destruction of the Flame of Celthris, the small enemy ship which should have been destroyed a long time ago, now slowed to a stop dead ahead of his own vessel.
Towards the rear of the Blade of Rhovanion, four bright white flashes heralded the arrival of the Eisenhower, two Ghandhi class destroyers, and the Washington class heavy cruiser Arizona.
Caught between the guns of the Liberty directly ahead, and the firepower of the E.D. F flotilla closing in from behind, Senergid knew it was all over.
“Contact that alien ship,” Michael asked, staring intently at its dark crescent shape filling the viewer.
“Channel open.”
“Senergid, your position is hopeless, now it is you who is outgunned and outmatched, we demand your unconditional and immediate surrender.”
The Dracos fleet commander looked up from his chair at the face of his enemy filling his own viewscreen, straightening his black robes in a last ditch attempt to retain what was left of his shattered pride.
“Well played captain, well played. This is not over, your people have made a powerful enemy here this day, and you cannot protect this system forever. We will return one day, and we will reclaim that which is rightfully ours.”
“And we will be ready,” Michael replied calmly, though in truth the force behind the enemy commanders statement sent shivers running through his spine.
The communication ceased, and the mighty Dracos flagship slowly came about, and made to leave the area. It moved slowly and solemnly, as though a dark monster who knew it had been defeated and was slinking back into the darkness of its home. Its giant engines lit up in a bright orange glow, as it accelerated away from Auriga III.
“Eisenhower is requesting if we should pursue?” Kinraid asked.
“Negative, there has been enough bloodshed for one day, let them go.”
In a way Michael realised, he felt sorry for the Dracos. Though once Solarians, they had let their hate consume them. Their hatred of the Solarians who they blame for almost destroying their people all those years ago, their newly found hatred of the E.D. F for keeping a planet that they believe is rightfully theirs away from them, and their hatred of the galaxy as a whole. In their hate, they had become insular, isolationist, and fiercely paranoid; in a people that held the kind of power the Dracos did, that was a dangerous cocktail.
It’s a shame, Michael thought, if they learned to co-exist peacefully with those around them, they wouldn’t need to resort to their isolationist ways.
“Set course for the veil, it is time to return to Corvandris, the galaxy is not ready for us to emerge just yet.” Senergid said with a mournful sigh, a lot of Dracos had died to reclaim a world that was theirs by right.
One day he knew they would have to emerge from their self-imposed isolation, although he also knew of the problems plaguing his people. In their isolation, the galaxy had forgotten about them, history had moved on, new races had come to the fore and overshadowed them. Just like this E.D. F, a great sadness came over the Dracos commander as his ship returned to the all-concealing darkness of the veil, the electromagnetic interference overcame his ships sensory systems, rendering them useless, as he began to navigate his ship by memory alone. Just as every other Dracos ship had done within this all consuming nebula.
The Liberty, too badly damaged to risk another atmospheric entry, docked with the comparatively giant Eisenhower, the four hundred and thirty man heavy cruiser dwarfed the Liberty at over five hundred metres long, it was fully four times its size.
Michael said to Kinraid, “you’re in charge until I return.”
“Where ‘r’ you goin’?”
“To say hello to an old friend.”
With that, Michael left the battered debris strewn bridge of the Liberty, and headed down toward the ships main docking hatch, passing various members of his crew attempting to affect temporary repairs, and restoring broken power conduits. The crew seemed in good spirits, despite the utter pounding they had taken, he wondered just how much of those spirits were down to the fact that the fighting had stopped. Crewmen saluted him as he passed, smiling warmly.
The elevator he had taken was not its usual self, a little stop-start instead of its typically smooth three hundred mile per hour transition of the ship, still it was to be expected.
He passed sickbay on his way to the hatch, partly to get cleaned up a little, he was bearing a number of scrapes and bumps himself, and covered in the soot and grime of battle, and partly to see how Lillian was coping with the casualties the ship had taken. He did not want to bother her, as he could see the ship’s tiny sickbay was simply swamped with crewmembers bearing various forms of injuries. The scene made him feel guilty, Michael, being the experienced ship captain he was, knew he had to keep his own form of professional detachment from his crew, just like Lillian had to when she declared a crewmember deceased, or at least he tried to.
Truth be told though, the Liberty had come through so much, it had fought through the entire Krenaran war. Fought against pirates in numerous engagements, and now this, the crew had become so close, it wasn’t like they were a typical crew on a typical ship anymore. It was as though they were brothers and sisters, they were a family, and they felt each others loss, grieving accordingly, that was a hard thing to keep a professional detachment from.
There were just three beds in the Liberties sickbay, all were full, and Lillian was frantically working from bed to bed. Stabilising one, and then moving on quickly to the next, Michael had to admire her skill.
Her two medical interns wheeled away a body zipped up in a black bodybag, with the occupants name, rank and serial number daubed on it in white ink. One of the interns looked at him with eyes filled with sadness. “Sorry sir, we lost another one.”
He hated these moments, a lump began to form in his throat, which he fought to keep down, “Who?”
“Crewman Lonaz, sir.”
That made it all the more difficult to bear, crewman Lonaz, a Mexican, was one of the youngest to serve aboard the Liberty, just sixteen years old, and on a placement from the E.D. F academy. He was training as a propulsion technician, so would have been near to where that Dracos barrage breached the hull. He was a good man, had a bright future ahead of him, Logameier often spoke of him.
“How many so far?” He asked the interns.
“That’s the fifth, sir.” They said before they wheeled the body away down the corridor to the ships morgue. It was times like these when he would give anything just to be a simple lieutenant again; spared of the responsibility of having to fill in killed in action reports, and informing next of kin that their wife, son, or husband had been killed in the line of duty. It was an awful reality of command, and one he did not relish performing.
Michael continued towards the hatch itself, pressing his wrist comm. “Kinraid, decompress and open the hatch.”
“Aye, sir.”
After a pause of a few seconds while Kinraid worked at his console on the bridge, a green panel alighted above the circular hatchway doors themselves, indicating it was safe to enter. Michael took two deep breaths and pressed the hatch release.
A blast of cold air rushed past him to fill up the small temporary inter-locking corridor between the Liberty and the Eisenhower, almost blowing him off his feet in the process. He gently pushed off the edge of the hatch, where the artificial gravity generated by the Liberties environmental systems ended, and weightlessness began. He floated slowly, silently along the delicate little corridor that connected the two ships, the sudden blast of cold made him shiver, even though it took only a matter of a few seconds to traverse the distance.
Once at the other side, a second hatch opened and allowed him egress onto the Eisenhower itself. Slowly, and rather clumsily Michael stepped onto the floor of the hatch, and artificial gravity resumed again.
It had been a long time since Michael had stepped within the confines of another E.D. F ship, the difference to what he was used to on the Liberty was startling, and he needed a few seconds to adjust to his new surroundings.
Instead of the Liberties ultra-modern, highly advanced Solarian derived systems, the Eisenhower was a relic in comparison. Clunky, utilitarian and heavy, instead of the customisable touch screen displays the Liberty possessed, the Eisenhower had keypads and strange monitors that jutted out from the walls at odd angles. This was all very strange to Michael, almost as though he was stepping into the past, into his time aboard the Ulysses.
A female officer approached him, escorted by two other junior officers, judging by the rank insignia’s on their epaulettes, he quickly found that one held the rank of lieutenant, the other a more senior lieutenant commander. The woman leading them was slim, in her early thirties, and had a gorgeous mane of auburn hair, tied neatly in a bun, she was not altogether unattractive, and bore the rank of commander. They all saluted Michael appropriately.
“Welcome aboard the Eisenhower, captain. I am Commander Erica Fontain, commanding officer of this vessel,” she motioned with her hand to introduce her accompanying officers, “This is Lieutenant Commander Ben Maddox, my executive officer, and this is Liu Chung my senior sensory officer. Both ourselves and the Arizona, have made shuttles ready for dispatch to get everyone off the surface quickly should the Dracos return in greater numbers. I trust you wish to begin the evacuation immediately?”
“Of course,” Michael replied. He was a little surprised to find merely a commander in charge of such a ship. Nevertheless, he had found in his experience, it was not always prudent to question the orders of the admiralty.
“If you would like to follow me, I’ll escort you to our hangar bay.”
Michael fell into step behind the entourage, which led him down a long, slightly cramped corridor, festooned with all manner of pipes and conduits overhead. The interior of the Eisenhower was painted in a traditional military olive green. This instantly signified to Michael that this was, in fact, an old ship. The engineering services stopped painting these ships that colour fifteen years ago, in favour of the more familiar battleship grey of today.
As they walked, commander Fontain spoke up, “it has been a great honour and a privilege for us, it’s not every day we get to walk with such a living icon as yourself. The Liberty, its crew, and your exploits throughout the Krenaran war are legendary to us.”
Michael was a little uncomfortable with the hero worship, “just doing what we had to do,” he replied meekly, sometimes he hated being the most decorated captain in the navy.
“I wish I could have been there with you, and experienced what you had experienced, the Eisenhower was mostly assigned to the defence of Charlie base at sigma XI, prior to gamma IV, far away from the fighting.”
Michael lost his cool a little at this, “do you know what we experienced; do you? It was brutal at times, bloody, ships being torn apart and people dying all around us. Whenever I go to sleep it haunts my dreams, I get no rest, no solitude from it; ever. Nobody should have to experience what we experienced.”
Fontaine stared at Michael in shock, “forgive me, I meant no offence.”
“None taken,” Michael replied calming himself once again, “but these heroes, this larger than life captain you depict. We are not those people, we did what we had to do to survive, nothing more.”
“I understand.”
Eventually they came upon the wide hangar bay, it was home to a dozen short range shuttles in two rows of six, one side facing the other. Their elongated bullet shaped fuselages and downward curved cockpits, made the place look like the interior of some gigantic rifle magazine.
The ceiling of the hangar bay was high, a good fifty or sixty feet above them.
“Two shuttles are launching from here, and another two from the Arizona,” Fontaine informed him.
“Good, then let’s get moving shall we,” Michael did not want to waste any time in getting the survivors and Nikolai’s men out of that hellhole.
“Understood, lieutenant commander Maddox, and lieutenant Chung will be piloting the second shuttle, I will be overseeing things from up here.”
“Thank you commander,” the two officers saluted.
Michael silently nodded his understanding. Fontaine was in command after all, and while he had no doubt she would have loved to accompany him, her first duty was to her ship. If he was in her position he would have most likely done exactly the same thing, he would be piloting the first shuttle alone.
Commander Fontaine curtly turned on her heel, left the hangar bay, and the men to begin their flight.
Michael and the other crew members all pressed the door release at almost the exact same time, the small hatches at the rear of the craft both opened outwards in unison. They all climbed onboard the shuttles and the hatch doors slowly closed back down automatically, re-sealing themselves.
He began the start up sequence, it had been a while since he had taken a ride in one of these shuttles. As he worked, he could feel the old techniques coming back, the rust coming away. Controls flickered on and panels lit up across the pilot’s instrumentation, attitude sensors came online, short and long range communication systems came to life, and main power began to build up to full charge.
Michael pressed a few controls on the console in front of him, opening up a communications channel with the Arizona, “Arizona this is Michael Alexander in shuttle Eisenhower alpha-six, preparing to get underway.”
“Confirmed Arizona, shuttles are clear and have left hangar bay, awaiting rendezvous.”
Damn they’re quick, Michael thought, “understood Arizona, getting underway now.”
He keyed in the gravitic engine start up sequence, and powered up the main boosters. The engines themselves roared into life as the solid fuel contained within ignited, slowly filling the giant hangar bay with steam and exhaust gases, keeping the thrust to the boosters at a lowly ten percent, he instead used the gravitic engines to manoeuvre slowly within the hangar bay.
The small shuttle gently inched forward, slowly picking up speed as it began to taxi out into the wide launch bay, Michael saw his own shuttle slowly pass the other in his peripheral vision.
The hangar bay doors opened with a blast of escaping oxygen, and the rush of exhaust gases venting out into space.
“Well, here goes.” Michael said to himself as he increased thrust to the main boosters, the nozzles on the twin directed thrust booster engines opened fully as Michael eased the throttle to maximum. The roar of the engines echoed loudly throughout the entire hangar bay as the shuttle rapidly accelerated, shooting past the hangar bay doors and out into the blackness of deep space.
The stars shone brightly through the cockpit glass. He could just make out the swirling emerald green clouds of a distant nebula, and the bright glow of the second moon of Auriga III, as the light from the system’s sun reflected of its rocky, cratered surface.
Michael had always loved the serene quietness of space, it was one of the reasons why he had joined up to serve as a naval officer in the first place. It was calm and contemplative, immense yet also giving a sense of freedom to those who travelled through that vastness. There was no better view than up close through the simple cockpit glass of a shuttle, sure the Liberty with all its technological wizardry could depict a one hundred and eighty degree, high definition depiction of surrounding space on its viewscreen. It still could not match actually being here, witnessing the spectacle for yourself.
He sighed contentedly as he looked down at his sensors, telling him that the other two shuttles were holding position between the Eisenhower and the Arizona, he keyed in a few controls to release a short burst of thrust from his port thrusters, to bring the tiny craft around. Using its forward momentum, the shuttle deftly flew around the relatively huge primary inter-system boosters of the Eisenhower, each one over three times the length of the shuttle itself. They still gently glowed with the intense heat produced when they manoeuvred the ship into orbit after cornering that last Dracos cruiser.
The Eisenhower and the Arizona, at five hundred and seventy four, and five hundred and fourteen metres respectively, dominated everything around them. The Arizona in particular, being a Jefferson class heavy destroyer, a class which had garnered the nick-name of ‘the mini-monty,’ due to the classes resemblance to the much larger Montgomery class carrier.
As the shuttle flew past the raised crew blocks, dozens of portholes shone out towards him. The Jefferson was designed as a heavier, more survivable alternative to the ubiquitous Gandhi class destroyer, one of which was holding position to the other side of the Arizona out of sight of Michael in the shuttle. The Jefferson was almost twice the size of the Gandhi, and possessed twice the firepower too, in addition it sported a tough reinforced ablative armour hull. Designed during the height of the Krenaran war to make it that bit more survivable when in combat against Krenaran forces. It had mixed success however, many had still bought the farm, despite this improvement.
Michael could see the tiny shapes of the awaiting shuttles, silhouetted against the deep beige backdrop of the planet itself. His craft flew past the various gently raised panels of the Arizona’s reinforced hull, passed its command structure with its tall whip-like communications and sensor antennae, and past the four turreted high power laser batteries adorning the ships gently sloping wedge shaped hull; its primary armament.
Gently manoeuvring the shuttle into position, he joined up with the small formation waiting for him, within a few seconds the other shuttle from the Eisenhower which had been tailing him, had also joined them.
“Glad you could make it; stopping by for a little sightseeing on the way were we, captain?”
Michael recognised that voice, it was one he hadn’t heard for over twenty years, “Ruiz, is that you?”
“In the flesh.”
James Ruiz was one of the cadets who studied in the same pilot training school as Dylan Marcos and himself. For several years, Ruiz and Michael were rivals, not only as pilots, but love rivals also, though time, age and duty had tempered the rivalry between them.
“She’s one heck of a ship isn’t she? not a patch on the Liberty though, you lucky old swine.”
Michael was about to tell him that luck had nothing to do with it, but decided to let the matter drop instead. “She sure is, and upgraded too I see.”
“Yeah, she got an almost complete refit after the fall of Sigma XI, where she was badly damaged by Krenaran attacks, we were lucky to get out of there in one piece. She didn’t re-enter the war for another six months after that.”
Michael remembered that incident well, the fall of foxtrot base, it was one of the opening battles of the war. The Krenarans had taken out the E.D. F’s primary intelligence hub, almost one hundred and forty two thousand people, died in an instant. It was one of the worst atrocities of the war. The massive complex had largely been rebuilt now, though there is now a giant black monolith built just outside of the new foxtrot base, as a memorial commemorating all those who had died.
“Shall we?” Michael said over the comm.
“After you, flight lead.”
The small squadron of four shuttles accelerated ahead of the comparatively giant ships of the E.D. F flotilla orbiting high above the planet, keeping in a close wedge formation the entire time.
“Okay keep close, but not too close, we still don’t know what we’ll find down there.”
“Right with ya.”
The shuttles all hit the atmosphere simultaneously, their hulls heating up rapidly until they trailed fire and super heated plasma, the small craft shuddered violently under the forces exerted upon them as they sped through the upper atmosphere like four bullets shot from a giant gun.
Michael fought hard to keep control of the small craft through the violence of atmospheric entry, and to maintain formation. Eventually the four craft punched through the upper atmosphere, and descended through the thick swirl of the methane cloud cover.
“Ready atmospheric flight systems, deploy wings and stabiliser fins.”
“Copy that, flight systems engaged.”
The shuttle’s large Delta shaped wings slid out from underneath the fuselage, its twin tails swung out from recesses within the crafts two powerful boosters. The small winglets, essential to help stabilise the small craft when in flight slid out from small panels either side of the shuttle’s cockpit, as the four craft gracefully emerged through the thick cloud cover towards the giant structure, dubbed the Eye of the Dracos.
“Ready landing gear, and descend to one hundred feet, then engage gravitic engines for touchdown.”