“Kaeleth, have two units of my elite Kallan warriors form up in the main hangar bay. I want two assault landers ready to launch immediately, you are in command of the ship until I return; see that she remains in one piece.” Drax added with a malevolent grin.
“But sir,” Kaeleth made to protest. A simple wave of the hand had convinced him that his commander had made up his mind, it was useless to try to change it.
With a final nod, Drax left his dark, brooding, ominous command centre and headed straight for the hangar bay. This will be an interesting hunt, he thought to himself, the thought amused him.
Drax gave off the air of a consummate and powerful commander, a brutal disciplinarian, he was not above executing even his own people if they dared challenge him. In fact he had done so once, several years ago, a young second officer began to conjure up thoughts above his station. As commander of his ship Drax could not tolerate that, and so tore open the throat of the upstart on his own bridge, before tossing the body out of the nearest access hatch. It took quite some time to clean the gore afterwards, he recalled.
Drax and his people all shared the same mottled white and grey skin tone, an incredibly pale complexion. They looked remarkably like a shortened version of a Solarian, in that they were tall, and yet dainty, slim and awkward looking.
Although Drax was indeed not as tall as a typical Solarian, being seven feet in height. He was by no means short either, standing over six feet himself. He had large almond shaped eyes similar to Solarians, and predominantly black irises. Solarian eyes tended to give away a hint of calm serenity, his eyes were tinged with a kind of dark malevolence, a wickedness that despite his best efforts, he could not hide.
Making his way over to a small, yet wide hangar bay lined with two rows of assault landers facing each other two to a row, there was a wide aisle in the centre. The dark craft were tiny in comparison to his ship, but looked immense and powerful here. The ship was equipped with four of these in total, together with half a dozen attack shuttles, which he used from time to time to hunt down weaker prey. Seeing as he didn’t really know who this new enemy were, it was more prudent to use the landers.
Twenty of his finest Kallan warriors were stood in two perfectly formed rows ten men to a lander. They held their weapons silently aloft, their barrels pointing to the roof in a traditional Kallan salute as he neared. They were already wearing their black environment suits, and dark battlehelms, only ever reflecting the bright scarlet of their eye lenses. The Kallan were his races finest fighting men, feared across the galaxy for their ability to go unseen, and strike when least expected. They were famed for their brutality, savagery, and above all else for their love of torturing their prey.
Drax addressed the assembled men in his native tongue, “tonight will be a glorious hunt, against a new and unknown prey. We have never encountered this race before, and that makes them dangerous. Below us lies Auriga III, until recently a forgotten world. On this small isolated planet lies the remains of one of our people’s greatest achievements; the mythical eye of the Dracos, a facility capable of producing virtually unlimited energy.”
He paced up and down his men; each warrior’s stare fixed upon him in rapt attention. “A facility built when our people were at the peak of their power, and we, the chosen few shall re-claim it and restore the Dracos to their rightful place once again!”
The Kallan voiced their approval in a loud roar; thrusting their weapons forward in salute.
“Tonight the screams of the dying will fill our ears again!”
There was another wild roar before the men fell out, striding up inclined ramps attached to the underside of the landers. They had no need to strap themselves in for the flight to the surface, all Dracos environment suits were moderately magnetic, allowing them to cling to walls and ceilings in order to launch lethal surprise attacks. Thus in the lander, they sat perfectly still, securely clamped to the metallic seating and walls as the two craft powered up their primary Ion engines, coating the interior of the hangar bay in a bright green light. The hangar bay doors opened revealing a stunning vista of the starlit backdrop of deep space. The two craft gently arose from the floor of the hangar bay, their delicate landing gear slowly retracting inside their elongated bullet shaped fuselages. The ailerons on their angular, sickle like wings pitched the craft anti-clockwise so that they now faced the hangar bay doors themselves. With a deep ‘thoom’ the Ion engine of the craft increased power, and they quickly accelerated out of the hangar bay.
The two craft were not large, although they did share some features with old Earth military jet aircraft. Most notably the bullet shaped fuselages, and small winglets below the fully enclosed cockpit. That and the two huge tail fins which jutted out from the twin bulbous secondary engine pods mounted atop the main fuselage. There the similarity ended, as halfway along the fuselage, it widened noticeably, forming a type of bulge on its underside. This was where the Kallan were gathered, ready to burst forward from the boarding ramp at the front, and attack their prey.
The crafts main Ion engine was lit an intensely bright emerald green as it maneuvered toward the planet, the engine itself was nestled in-between the two giant engine pods. The most curious thing about these craft were their strange, forward swept sickle shaped wings, giving it the appearance of some kind of giant mechanized bat, made all the more appropriate by its dull black coating designed to make it all but invisible during night attacks, the Dracos’s favourite form of attack. At each wingtip, a vicious laser lance was mounted, often used by the pilot to clear a bloody path through the enemy, before offloading the troops contained within. The two small craft dove into the beige coloured atmosphere of Auriga III.
Kathryn looked up at Kalschacht with a hint of sadness on her normally gentle features, “we have to assume the Copernicus has been destroyed. Night is closing in, and our best shot is back inside the base.”
They carried the prone form of corporal Jankov in a portable stretcher with them.
It was the second night, Kathyn had barely slept all day, the mission should have been wrapped up hours ago, however despite how tired she was, she knew she had to keep going for the sake of the others.
Kalschacht turned to the other scientists, “Quickly, grab whatever we can use from the shuttle, we may only have a matter of a few minutes, if the Copernicus has been destroyed, they may know we are here also.”
The assembled group all began looting the craft, taking food supplies, water purification kits, anything of any use.
Kalschacht worked the communications console one last time, so that it would emit a continuous distress beacon, before the entire science team exited the shuttle and made their way as quickly as they could, toward the main hatch of the facility, carrying the wounded Jankov with them.
As they neared the hatch, on the horizon they could just about make out the faint forms of two black shapes descending towards them.
Rachthausen looked back to see them also, “everyone inside now!”
They barely made it inside the hatch, as the two craft swooped down over their position, intensely bright flashes of violet laser energy shot forth from the Dracos craft’s twin wingtip mounted laser lances, lighting up the whole area, and tore the grounded shuttle apart in a gigantic explosion, debris rained down around the immediate area.
Rachthausen was the last to make it inside, after making sure everyone else was safely within the structure. Then he himself dived underneath and closed the hatch, all he saw as he slammed the hatch shut were the fiery remains of the shuttle, billowing out into the night sky, he cursed to himself silently.
The assault landers both gently touched down nearby the flaming wreckage of the small craft, the boarding ramps quickly opened, their heavy ends slamming into the ground as the Kallan poured out of the craft, all donning their advanced black environment suits. Even Drax had changed into his own suit during the flight to the surface. Rarely did he get the chance to wear one, yet when he did, he savoured every moment.
The Dracos environment suits were a marvel of his peoples technology, constructed of a lightweight, yet immensely strong carbon fibre weave, it was wearable and also extremely tough. In addition to the advanced construction of the suit, it could be configured with additional accessories for each individual mission, Drax had opted for a set of razor sharp blades jutting outward from his left lower arm, so that he could make slashing attacks by simply swinging it. On his right wrist he had concealed a weapon favoured by many of the Dracos. A devastating weapon, known only as ‘the silencer’, it consisted of a tiny steel monofilament line attached to a spool that shot the line out at several thousand revolutions per minute through a small barrel. At the end of this line was a viciously sharp weighted metal spike, barely larger than his thumb, within the spike nestled four tiny barbs that flicked open once it passed through its target. Then all he had to do was press a small switch to retract the line, thereby tearing the barbs straight through the victim, causing immense pain and in many cases death, hence its macabre moniker, it was one of Drax’s favourite weapons.
In-case things got a little ugly, which he doubted they would, he carried a typical Dracos eviscerator pistol as a sidearm.
His men mainly carried eviscerator rifles, some wore wrist blades, others had equipped silencers like his. For now, they kept their main weapons attached to their suits via magnetic strips on the weapon casing, allowing it to be stored on the body. Many had them attached vertically across their backs for easy retrieval.
Drax switched his helmet to infra-red night-vision mode, so he could see better in the dark, not that he needed to. Most Dracos had adapted to living in dark conditions over the last three centuries anyway, hence why their skin had become so pale and grey.
He cycled it again to thermal imaging mode, and did a quick sweep around the area, the flames of the shuttle lit up as brilliant whites and yellows on his display, however there was no sign of any form of body heat for a quarter of a mile in any direction, which was the limit of the onboard thermal imaging processor.
“Let the hunt begin,” he said into the comm. link.
Rachthausen and the other guards used the pryzors to help seal the top hatch shut, and also make it more difficult for whoever those aliens were to access the facility, he could feel the gentle thrumming of the base begin to increase, it was about to release another gigantic blast of energy, he hoped it would immolate those aliens on the surface as well.
“It won’t hold them for long; we need to get as far away from here as possible.”
“I agree, let’s all form up on the third floor,” Kathryn said to the group.
They all hurried inside the elevator, pressed the button for that floor, and the contraption shot them to the lowest point on the facility. The group jogged along to the briefing hall they passed earlier, dropped their supplies, and rested the badly injured Jankov.
Everyone was panting considerably; Kathryn turned the re-breathers back on within her suit. “Hey I’m getting clean air through, it’s no longer stale.”
“Some sort of automated environmental system must have kicked in when the facility was activated,” Kalschacht replied, gradually removing his helmet, “that’s better, it was getting rather stuffy inside.”
Everyone else followed suit, laying their helmets on the ground, Kathryn’s long dark hair flowed out over her shoulders, “okay, so now what do we do?”
Rachthausen turned to face her, “we hold out for as long as we can, Laveaux, how much food and water do we have?”
Private Laveaux, a slightly thin, lanky soldier came forward, “we have enough food to last four days. We might have enough water, and we managed to gather a couple of filtration kits from the shuttle also.”
“What about weapons?”
“We have the weapons we carry, and we also managed to gather a few pistols from the shuttle.”
“Okay,” Rachthausen said pausing in thought, then turned to his troops, “everyone give your sidearm to the scientists, they’ll need a weapon.”
The guards unclipped the holsters housing their pulse laser pistols and handed them over to the scientists, together with the weapons they had gathered. Each scientist was now armed.
“Here, take this, you’ll need it,” the sergeant said gently as he handed her his own sidearm, accidentally brushing her hand in the process, and smiling down at her. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
Kathryn took the weapon, and smiled back up at him tenderly, “thanks.” She felt something stir slightly within her, something she did not expect, Kathryn buried the thought as quickly as it emerged; it was inappropriate to be thinking of subordinates in that way.
“Gather around for a demonstration,” he said to the arrayed scientists, who began to make their way over to the big, burly sergeant.
He held a pistol out in front of them, pointing to a circular indent in the underside of the barrel, about an inch ahead of the trigger. “This is the laser pod attachment port. To place a new laser pod, insert the top of the pod inside the port and twist anti-clockwise. You’ll feel a click, that means it is housed properly. Each pod is good for thirty shots; we use the new high yield pods now instead of the older ones, which were only good for ten.”
The sergeant pointed to a set of two buttons on the side of the weapon, just above the trigger. “The first one, is the priming button, press this once when you click in a new laser pod, the other is the safety switch.”
He then proceeded to point to a series of four rather scorched looking holes either side of the outer wall of the weapon, just below the barrel. “Do no touch these at all, they are heat dispersion holes, used to vent off excess heat from the barrel after firing.”
The surrounding scientists all nodded their understanding.
“I’ve lost count of the number of cadets who have had their finger ends melted by playing with these holes.” He proceeded to show the assembled group the top and underside of the weapon, “this is a laser sight, it automatically comes on whenever the weapon is ready for firing,” he said pointing to a bulbous protrusion from just under the muzzle of the weapon, “and this is an accessory rail, normally used for attaching a flashlight, any questions?”
There were none, the sergeant had given a pretty thorough demonstration of how to use the gun. All the scientist had managed to clip in the laser pods with little difficulty, and pressed the priming button.
Thank God for small mercies at least, Rachthausen thought as he watched the assembled scientists all ready their weapons successfully.
“Okay, we don’t know how many of them there are out there, and we have no idea what they are capable of. So everyone needs to be extra careful, myself and the guards will try to draw most of their fire. If you do have to use your weapon, try to make your shots count, once these are used up we only have five spare laser pods for the pistols.”
Drax and his Kallan warriors approached the main hatch. As they looked upon it, they saw a small illuminated panel. They keyed in the control to enter the facility, and were greeted with a loud scraping of metal and some small jerking movements. The doors wanted to open, but something on the other side was blocking them.
Locked themselves in, Drax thought. A shame really, they are only delaying the inevitable. He took a few steps back from the hatch and pressed a tiny control, secretly embedded on a unit around his right wrist.
“Drax to the Flame of Celthris.”
“Kaeleth here, sir.”
“I want a full layout of this facility, search the ships main database, and then transmit it to my suits augmented reality uplink.”
“Understood, I’ll do the search now.”
The communication ended, Drax could feel the ground shaking from beneath him, it wasn’t violent, just a gentle rhythmic thrumming, although increasing in its intensity. The wind was blowing but not to this degree.
He eventually realised what it was, and screamed with all the urgency he could muster, “Everyone down, now!”
No sooner had the Kallan flattened to the ground, than the station released a second massive burst of energy through the atmosphere, the whole facility briefly turned a bright shade of orange, as the intensely bright stream of pure power, shot skywards and out into space once again.
“Recover!” Drax shouted out to his men.
The immense beam of energy shot passed the Flame of Celthris, briefly silhouetting the dark shape of the ship in its intense orange light, before hurtling onward into the depths of space once again.
After several minutes of searching for Dracos structures built on Auriga III, the ships computer finally found something that matched. A layout of a giant energy installation known simply as the eye of the Dracos, Kaeleth was fascinated. Although Dracos technology had evolved over the three hundred years the base was abandoned, nothing they built today even approached the scale of the eye.
He contacted Drax, “I have the plans, transmitting now.”
From inside Drax’s helmet a tiny lens displayed the layout of the station over his left eye, he studied it intently, and after a few seconds of silently searching, smiled. The facility did indeed have another way in after all.
“Follow me,” Drax called out to his men.