The Liberty continued to race through plasma drive, though the Auriga system was relatively near Malthus, it was still a journey of several hours.
Drax however, was enjoying hunting down the interlopers, he found them resourceful, worthy, but ultimately easily killed. Although his own men had taken severe casualties, his other team virtually wiped out, and his own team reduced to seven out of the original ten men. Now they were bolstered by the arrival of the two survivors from the second team. Even better news was on the cards however, as word had reached him of two more Dracos ships that had come to join in the fun, and would likely be despatching their own assault teams shortly.
He and his men had checked every room on the second floor, quietly creeping through ventilation ducts and service passages, never along the main corridor itself. Now they were heading down toward the third and lowest floor, he knew they had to be here, there was simply nowhere else they could hide. The thought of the slaughter to come excited him greatly.
Further they crept, through the narrow square shaped metallic interior of the ventilation ducting. Following precisely the outline of the map displayed on the A.R. uplink over his left eye.
Finally, when he switched his view onto thermal imaging mode, he was rewarded with what he was looking for; thermal signatures given off by his enemy’s body heat. Drax waved for his men to follow cautiously.
The Dracos Kallan warriors crept forward slowly, and with such skill that barely a sound was made, just metres away from their prey now, some were sleeping while others kept watch, a few others were acting as sentries out in the corridor beyond the large room being watched by the arrayed men.
Drax quietly ordered his team to split up, there wasn’t much point in keeping all his men together as had been proven by the ill-fated second team, he ordered two Kallan to drop into the next room, come around and eliminate the sentries, thereby creating a diversion allowing himself and the four other Kallan to swoop in and wreak havoc.
Drax and his guards silently waited as the two other Dracos peeled off down the narrow ducting.
The two scientists Matthew Broadhurst and Pablo Gomez were guarding the entrance to the briefing hall. They were tired, heck everyone was tired, though they didn’t know just how long they had been down here. Everyone had lost complete track of time after the chaos of the initial attacks, together with the business of staying alive. For all they knew it could have been weeks, Broadhurst however doubted it was any more than a couple of days. The rations wouldn’t have lasted that long anyway, food was already becoming scarce, if they didn’t think of something soon, they would all starve to death down here.
Kathryn was still tending to the injured Thorsson as best she could under the circumstances, and as for poor Corporal Jankov, without his sight he was effectively a walking dead man. Broadhurst and Gomez continued to scan the dark, wide corridor that extended into the gloom as far as they could see in either direction.
Broadhurst thought he could sense the faint shuffling of feet, a paralysing fear came over him, his skin ran cold and clammy, his nerves set on edge. The gentle hairs on the back of his neck began to rise.
He swung his weapon in the direction of the sound, “what’s that?” he whispered nervously.
“What’s what?” Gomez whispered back.
“I thought I heard something, I’m going to check it out, stay here.” Broadhurst crept through the darkness.
“Get back here!” Gomez shouted after him, but it was no use, he had already disappeared into the darkness.
Broadhurst ventured through the gloom alone, the flashlight from his pistol illuminating the various dark foreboding panels, casting deep shadows along their edges. He nervously crept further and further away from the briefing hall doors, his weapon shook gently in his hands as he mentally tried to calm his jangled nerves. The shuffling sound was getting steadily louder, there was definitely something down here, and close. He risked a quick glance back over his shoulder, and could still see the faint glow given off from Gomez’s flashlight; it reassured him a little.
He stopped at the entrance to the next room, the environmental systems monitoring station that had been damaged earlier in the fighting. He tentatively shined his torch inside, almost afraid of what he might see, his heart pounded in his chest; there was nothing. He breathed a huge sigh of relief, perhaps he had just imagined it? After all, tiredness and extreme stress can do strange things to a man.
Wait a second, there it was again, a faint, almost imperceptible shuffling, now he knew he was not imagining it, his nerves set on edge again, the pounding returned, cold fear reasserted itself with a vengeance, as slowly, nervously he peered closer, his breathing quick and shallow, straining to hear the noise again. Drawing level with the door itself, he looked around at the interior of the room, there was nothing but smashed consoles. A few were working, their lights shining brightly in the surrounding darkness, coating the nearby panels in flickering red, green, and yellow colours. The shuffling had stopped, and so did Broadhurst, standing absolutely still, barely daring to breathe in order to pick up the faintest of sounds. A cold sweat trickled down his temples to the sides of his neck; his whole body shook in a cold fear and his hands felt clammy as he tightened the grip on his pistol, eyes constantly flickering around the room, alert to the slightest hint of movement.
There was a whoosh of displaced air as in an instant a black arm whipped around and slammed into his throat, Broadhurst felt a searing agonising pain, coughing and spluttering he realised he couldn’t breathe. Stumbling backwards, his neck felt warm and wet. The arm festooned with a series of razor sharp, shark fin like blades, coated with a thick smear of blood retreated back behind the other side of the wall. Broadhurst dropped the weapon and clutched at his throat, his vision began to get spotty, cloudy, he was weakening, slumping to his knees he coughed and gurgled on his own blood, before slowly collapsing onto the floor. The slash of the Dracos wrist blades had torn his throat wide open. The last thing Matthew Broadhurst saw were the forms of the two Dracos warriors rushing past him in the reflected torchlight, the bright scarlet of their vision slits permanently etched onto his slowly dying mind, as he lay still in a slowly growing pool of his own blood.
The two Kallan sprinted into the corridor, zigzagging and crossing paths wildly so as not to afford Gomez a clear shot. He heard footfalls racing toward him and instantly levelled his weapon, the flashlight illuminated the on-rushing black figures. He pressed the trigger and opened fire, the muzzle flashed brightly in the darkness as the flurry of pulse pistol shots echoed aloud. He managed to clip one of them in the upper arm as he charged, sending the alien stumbling off balance into the wall of the corridor, before quickly leaping to its feet again.
The second came on relentlessly though; the dark suited alien launched itself like an arrow through the air, wrist blades outstretched. The lethally sharp blades sliced right through the exposed neck of Gomez. His body seemed to freeze for a split second, and, just as the Kallan warrior executed a neat forward roll upon landing. The scientists head, slowly, wetly separated from his body, before both collapsed into a bloodied heap.
The gunfire outside instantly alerted those sheltering within the briefing hall, they rushed to grab their weapons. There was shouting, screaming, and widespread panic at the horror they had witnessed at Gomez’s decapitation.
The two Kallan who had just slaughtered Gomez and Broadhurst, now took up positions either side of the doorway, effectively laying siege to the room, they released their eviscerator rifles magnetically attached to their backs.
Rachthausen hefted his own captured Dracos eviscerator in response, and quickly took cover amongst a small row of chairs.
The other scientists were all trading fire with the two Dracos looming either side of the doorway. Though not as highly trained as an E.D. F soldier they were poor shots, many simply blasting away in their fright. The energy blasts slammed into the walls surrounding the door, and the far side of the corridor beyond. Sparks showered from the small impact craters, the wall was quickly becoming pock marked as the untrained scientists blasted away.
Corporal Jankov, unable to see due to the intensely bright energy release that had scorched his eyes, attempted to shout over the din, “what’s happening!”
Anderson was also busily blasting away at the two attackers who had them pinned inside the room, completely oblivious to the small air circulation vent opening behind him, one of the Dracos warriors slowly emerged out of his hiding place and crept along the ceiling.
“Shit, there are more of them!” Thorsson shouted at the top of his voice, although he couldn’t move due to his ravaged knee, he could see perfectly well what was happening. Quickly gripping his pulse rifle next to where he was propped, he levelled it and opened fire. Several laser energy pulses blasted open the chest armour of the Dracos’s environment suit, while the last one tore away half of its head, the warrior fell from the ceiling with a dull, sickeningly wet crack next to Anderson. Who spun around to be confronted with yet more Dracos emerging from their hiding place. Just as he brought his weapon up to bear, an eviscerator disc fired from those still at the doors, sliced deep into the back of his head with a spray of blood and bone matter. He began frothing at the mouth, his grip slowly relaxed, and his weapon clattered to the ground, before slumping face first onto the smooth, deep grey floor himself.
“Bastards!” Thorsson screamed out at the top of his voice at the loss of his friend, opening fire again and managing to dislodge another of the black suited monstrosities from the ceiling, the laser pulses blasted its head apart in a great gout of blood, brain matter and black helmet fragments, the Dracos toppled lazily to the floor, gore oozing out from the headless corpse.
Two lethally sharp eviscerator discs sliced into the abdomen, and upper chest of the immobile Thorsson, his entire body shuddered under the impacts of the two simultaneous strikes, then laid still, a thin dribble of blood spewed forth from his mouth, and small crimson patches began to form through his ragged and torn fatigues. Cold sightless eyes looked upon the dark form of two Dracos warriors dropping from the ceiling onto their prey.
Drax and the other surviving Kallan warrior were amongst them now, and the whirlwind of bloodshed began in earnest, with acrobatic leaps and bounds wrist blades whipped and slashed out, eviscerator discs sliced through flesh and bone. The Kallan whooped and revelled in the gore fest, this was what they had been looking forward to.
“We have to get out of here!” Rachthausen shouted to a terrified Kathryn, caught up in the bloodletting.
“I can’t just leave them to die!”
There was no time to argue, the burly sergeant leapt over the chairs, barely missing a swipe from a passing Dracos wrist blade. Hefted Kathryn over his shoulder, and with his free arm lit one of the flares, bathing the room in an intensely bright red light.
Drax and the other Kallan in the room flinched and recoiled under the onslaught of the light burning at their sensitive eyes, he dived into a shadow provided by a bank of chairs further up the incline.
Holding the flare aloft Rachthausen sprinted through the room, over the torn and shredded bodies of scientists, soldiers and Dracos alike. The two at the doorway shuddered and retreated away from the intensity of the light as the sergeant forced his way through carrying Kathryn, his stolen eviscerator rifle swung loosely across his back. One of the Dracos behind him took a swipe, the blade bit deep into the flesh of the sergeant’s upper arm; he winced and flinched under the pain, almost dropping Kathryn. Whirling around, he held the flare aloft, blinding the alien warrior. Rachthausen fled down the corridor with the still protesting Kathryn, the red light illuminating his path as he went.
The briefing room had been turned into a scene from hell, a gore streaked bloodbath, bodies of dead and dying scientists lay scattered across the floor; their groans, like a sweet symphony to the Dracos commander, who stood in the centre proudly.
Severed limbs and body parts lay like bloody, grisly trophies around the smooth floor, their inferior blood tainted this place, Drax thought. One of the scientists was giving a spirited effort in trying to crawl away to safety. The primitive environment suit that he was wearing was sopping wet with blood seeping out through a long, deep slice to his back, he whimpered pitifully with each and every movement due to the excruciating pain the laceration was causing him.
The Dracos commander decided to have a little fun, and with a wide grin, deftly picked his way over the fallen corpses to where this strange creature crawled in a desperate bid to escape the slaughterhouse.
He nonchalantly kicked the scientist in the ribs, unimpressed. The body sprawled across the floor, a loud whimper made the Dracos smile, now this was entertainment, he thought. He allowed the creature to continue on its hopeless bid for safety, before viciously kicking it a second time, a weak but nevertheless audible gasp of pain, emerged from its lips, Drax laughed in delight.
“Such pitiful creatures, they are squidgy, and die easily.”
He picked up the struggling scientist by the open wound slashed across its back, causing him to scream out in intense pain, almost losing consciousness altogether. This sent waves of delight through the Dracos commander. Before he placed the barrel of his eviscerator pistol against the scientists dark haired head, and calmly pressed the trigger. A resounding crack echoed through the now silent room, as the disc sliced through Dieter Kalschacht’s skull, then flung the blood soaked body aside indifferently.
“See, easily killed.”
The other remaining Kallan warriors stood and watched appreciatively at a master at work, before Drax turned his weapon on them, and gunned all three of them down in cold blood also, their bodies gently slumped to the floor just ahead of him.
Two of the prey creatures had escaped, and he was going to be the one to finish this hunt personally.
Rachthausen and Kathryn fled toward the blast doors, once there though, they had realised their mistake. In their hurry to escape the butchery, they had forgotten that private Anderson had earlier welded the doors shut, if they could not find a way though, those alien warriors would catch them for sure.
“Shit! we’re trapped down here.” The built up desperation and frustration plainly evident in Rachthausens voice.
“There has to be something we can do?” Kathryn panted as she tried to regain her breath, she risked a look back and was reassured that nothing was following them, at least nothing she could see anyway.
There was one last thing Rachthausen could try, he pulled out the final grenade from his webbing and with some insulation tape attached it to the blast door itself, right over the scorch marks of the weld that Anderson had made. The blast of the grenade might just be enough to crack the weld and get the doors to open, it was a long shot, but the only one they had.
“Get ready to run,” he said as he pulled the pin from the affixed grenade.
“Run!” he shouted as he sprinted away from the door, Kathryn ran with him, they had just four seconds before the grenade went off. There was an almighty explosion as the explosive detonated. Echoing down the entire length of the dark corridor, Drax heard the faint blast even from where he was standing.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he whispered maniacally, as he clambered back inside the air ducting, he was much smarter than to risk the wide open corridor.
Sergeant Rachthausen checked over the weld line in the light given off by the flare, luckily for them Anderson was a far better soldier than a welder, and it had cracked under the immense pressure of the exploding grenade.
Kathryn desperately pressed at the door control, just wanting to get out of there, get out of this nightmare, although she felt guilty about leaving the others behind. She had understood Rachthausen’s decision in the end, if they stayed, they would have wound up dead too. Finally the door opened, and the two of them made their way through, pressing the control to close the giant doors behind them. They were free from Drax’s clutches for now.
Michael was studying a computer enhanced representation of the ship that attacked the Copernicus, it definitely bore more than a passing resemblance to a Solarian ship, although the Solarian ships looked sleeker, modern, and ultra-sophisticated. This too looked sleek and sophisticated, but not quite as modern, almost as if it was a throwback to an outdated design, a precursor to what the Solarians now have. He supposed that being constantly attacked, always on the move, then effectively disappearing for three hundred years. The Dracos no longer had the resources or the access to technology that the Solarians enjoy. He also wondered whether just plain jealousy was a part of the enmity the Dracos showed toward the Solarians. He contemplated just how old the Dracos ships really were, and how they had managed to survive for so long, alone, isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
Saying that; humanity was the same up until five years ago, blissful in ignorance, not knowing who or what surrounded them; the Krenaran war had changed all that. Changed humanities view of themselves, instead of being this one race carving out a small part of the galaxy to call their own, master of all they surveyed. They learned that they were, in fact, just one of many doing the exact same thing, a small backwater people just trying to get along. This more than anything finally broke through mankind’s arrogance, and as a people, they had come to appreciate just how humble they really were.
“One weird lookin’ ship eh, cap’n.” Commander Quinn Kinraid said as he stood over him.
“It has some design similarities with conventional Solarian shipping, but that’s about it.”
“You’ve bin’ staring at’ tat picture fur’ five minutes, is everythin’ alright?” Kinraid asked with a hint of concern to his voice.
“Everything is fine, commander, I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.”
“Well don’t you go givin’ yerself a hernia now Michael,” the Irishman said with a mischievous smile.
“I wonder Quinn, if E.O.C. A ever had a civil war, and the E.D. F was forced to fight itself, would we be able to survive it like the Solarians did?”
“Pray it’ll never happen, sir.”
“I hope so Quinn.”
“Asteroid field coming up ahead, captain.” Eldathar announced from his position.
Michael returned to his chair, “drop us out of plasma drive, slow to sub-light speed.”
“Slow to sub-light, aye.” The Solarian pilot confirmed.
A gigantic bright white flash of light opened up in the darkness of space, heralding the Liberties exit from plasma drive, the ship slowly glided at sub-light velocity.
“We’re approachin’ the outer dust clouds,” Kinraid announced.
“Slow to one half sub-light speed, and put it up on the viewer.”
The viewscreen shimmered into life, displaying the wide asteroid field ahead of them. It was some three light years across and two wide, one of the biggest in the sector.
“This is the Van Aiken belt,” Michael knew without even looking, the Krenarans famously used it as a hidden staging post, before going on to devastate the Malthus colony during the war.
“Can’t we go around it?” Logan Jones asked.
“If we do, we’ll have to detour another seven light years to skirt it, the scientists may not have that long,” Michael replied.
They had no choice but to go through it, the thing is, Michael thought. There were rumours that the Krenarans had mined this field.
“Cut all power, except for minimal power to the thrusters and main engine, activate the graviton shields, and take us in; slowly.”
Eldathar gently leaned forward on the throttle arm as consoles all around the bridge faded slowly to black, all except the emergency running lights winked out, the fusion cannon was powered down, even the ships main engine died down to a shadow of its normal brightness.
Michael prayed that the old re-programmed Krenaran IFF codes, the Solarians changed when they upgraded the Liberty might still be enough to fool the mines into thinking she was on the same side. Although all the extra upgrades she was carrying might prove otherwise, it would be touch and go.
The ship slowly crept forward through the thin veil of dust clouds, it was like a fog made up of all the tiny chips and slivers of rock broken free from the larger asteroids colliding with one another, constantly pulverised over millions of years into a fine dust. Gravity held the cloud in place, so that it formed a kind of long meandering fringe around the edge of the field. The Liberty gradually emerged through the dust cloud blocking the view of the larger and infinitely more dangerous obstacles beyond.
Gigantic asteroids were floating haphazardly with smaller ones, making it difficult for Eldathar to plot a steady course through; still the Solarian persevered.
He deftly guided the ship around a particularly large, crater strewn space rock, it was large enough to be classified as a planetoid. Michael witnessed several scorch marks, and what resembled metallic hull fragments clustered around a small impact area, he guessed the pirates who tried to gain a foothold after the Krenaran war ended, didn’t figure on the mines strewn amongst the asteroids.
The Liberty glided ever deeper inside the field, flying in-between two other space rocks, it was an incredibly tight squeeze, the audio warning of the collision detector blared from Eldathars console in alarm. The Solarian ignored the klaxon wailing at him, knowing the exact dimensions of the ship he was flying to the millimetre. He knew better than anyone else, which places the Liberty could go, and which ones it couldn’t. The experience he had accumulated over the past five years of flying the vessel, and several hundred years of flying other craft, had told him the ship would get through.
What he hadn’t counted on however, was the two mines, heading straight for them.
The Liberty had been lucky so far, it had already glided past half a dozen of them, no doubt fooled by the old Krenaran IFF signature, however these two were not so easily shaken off. The mines had detected the Liberty and were now picking up speed.
“Incoming mines, we ‘ave two of the buggers coming in fast, impact in twenny seconds!” Kinraid shouted out in alarm.
“Ready a salvo of torpedoes, lock onto the mines and fire!” Michael gnashed his teeth, it would be close, Lieutenant Logan Jones mashed the button on his gunnery console.
“Torpedoes away.”
A bright flash erupted from the Liberties twin upper launchers, heralding the launch of the two high energy torpedoes, tracking and now hurtling straight for the incoming mines, their sophisticated targeting systems quickly locked on to the targets, and they raced headlong toward it.
“Impact in three, two, one!”
A gigantic, intensely bright fireball lit up an entire section of the asteroid field, before slowly dying down into darkness again.
Michael figured that the mines sensory nodes had probably malfunctioned, most likely due to lack of maintenance. It had been five years since the last Krenaran ship even thought about passing this way; things can change in that time.
The Liberty cautiously advanced through the remainder of the field, flying under yet another large asteroid and around two more before the command crew got their first glimpses of starlight that lay beyond.
Then disaster struck.
Another mine raced toward the aft engine of the ship, zeroing in on the energy emitted by the powerful Solarian drive systems, the Liberty, defenceless from a rear attack, could do nothing. Eldathar strained at the controls, trying desperately to shake it off their tail within the limited confines of the field itself. However the mine was not to be shaken off this time, it hurtled towards the ship, skipped off its graviton shields evoking a clear wavy ripple from the Liberties shields, not dissimilar to looking through textured glass, then detonated in an almighty explosion.
Those onboard were thrown hard to the ground under the force of the impact, a flurry of sparks burst forth from overloaded circuits, Michael desperately held on to prevent being thrown from his seat. The red alert siren immediately sounded to warn the crew they were under attack.
The whole ship had lurched diagonally forward under the immense force of the explosion, Eldathar fought hard to keep the wayward vessel under control, he knew if he lost stability in this kind of environment they were all done for, as the Liberty would simply crash onto one of those asteroids out there. He barely managed to regain control of the ship, after it came within metres of slamming port side on to a large floating space rock; the Solarian breathed a sigh of relief.
Michael resettled himself in his chair, “well, at least we know the new graviton shields work.” He knew full well that if that was the Liberty of five years ago, they would all be playing harps right about now. “Damage report!”
Kinraid took a moment to understand the data flashing across his console, “Both th’ aft graviton generators ‘r’ down, th’ force o’ th’ explosion overloaded both, it’ll take anot’r minute or so to vent off th’ excess energy from th’ blast. Luckily th’ hull escaped major damage though, some minor ‘lectrikel damage from overloaded circuits, but ‘tat’s about it, and no injuries.”
“Good, have engineering teams repair any damage, and Eldathar, get us the heck out of here!” He shouted over the din of the wailing siren, his face covered in a dark ruddy hue from the red alert lights.
“Aye, sir.”
The Liberty flew under, around and above the few asteroids remaining, and out through the thin veil of dust on the other side, finally the full, starry blackness was revealed to them once again.
“Resume course to rendezvous with the lander, maximum plasma drive.”
“Aye, sir.” Eldathar replied as he punched in the controls to activate the Liberties plasma drive systems again.
The small ship accelerated to full sub-light speed, before firing a burst of bright plasma energy, opening up the plasma wake in an intense burst of multi coloured light, before racing through and disappearing within it. The wake closed as easily as it had opened.
Kathryn and the injured Rachthausen continued to hurry down the long semi-circular corridor, which skirted alongside the main aperture. Again the deep rumbling began to reverberate throughout the facility as the collider geared up for yet another release of energy.
Kathryn needed to tend the sergeants badly bleeding arm, sustained from a slash from one of those evil dark warriors. They both knew they could not stop yet, the enemy commander was right on their tail, and would make mincemeat out of them if he caught them.
They continued running along the pitch dark corridor, trying to put as much distance between them and their pursuer as possible, Rachthausen’s flare was beginning to die down, and so he flung it to the side, replacing it with the torch from Kathryn’s weapon.
Finally, they came upon the second set of blast doors separating the military wing from the science wing.
Not knowing whether there would be an army of Dracos on the other side, Kathryn nervously, hesitantly pressed the control. The great metal doors ahead of them slid slowly open, revealing empty corridor once again. With a gentle sigh of relief, she and Rachthausen stepped through into this new unexplored area of the facility. The lights were still down, and it was still pitch black inside, they were travelling solely by torchlight. The low, deep rumbling of the collider, sounded ominous in the darkness.
They searched for somewhere, anywhere to hide, to give Kathryn time to tend to her companions wound, finally they came to a vast control centre, full of complicated looking consoles, displays and systems, far larger than the one they had previously discovered. Setting Rachthausen down gently, she closed the door behind them, although she had no way of locking it, and no time now to find out how.
Kathryn took a small amount of what water they had left and bathed the wound, the laceration was deep, almost to the bone, Rachthausen flinched as the water ran over the cut. She tore off a strip of plain white cloth from the arm of her coat and slowly, gently began to wrap the strip of cloth around Kinraid’s blood soaked upper arm with typical practiced skill. The sergeant looked up at her as she continued to tend to him, she had a sweet vulnerability about her, such a kind person, often going without herself in her effort to care for others. Rachthausen knew he had feelings towards her, and also knew that those feelings had grown the more time they had spent together. She was far more than just a fellow officer to be protected now, that both scared him and enamoured him in equal measure.
Finally, he could stand it no longer, for too long he had put what he wanted to say off, and he might not get another chance. “If we are to die here, will you grant me one last request, So that I may die without regret?”
“What’s that?” She asked while she finished tying the makeshift bandage tightly around his arm, making him wince and gasp in pain once again.
“Kiss me.”
Kathryn was shocked, taken aback, yet not overtly so, she was more surprised that Rachthausen had developed the same feelings for her, that she had been suppressing all this time.
“If you do not wish to, I understand,” he said a little sheepishly.
Kathryn could suppress her urges no longer, she was attracted to him, wanted him from the first time they had landed on the planet and found themselves stuck in this predicament together. Desire burned within her as though he had just poured petrol on the spark she was carrying for him. She quietly, slowly leaned down beside him; the lights from a dozen consoles gave the room a kind of hypnotic kaleidoscope effect. She searched his features; saw his longing in his eyes. She leaned in closer, fixated on those gorgeous blue irises of his, their lips touched and she kissed him deeply, longingly and passionately. A gentle warm wave of pleasure filled her body, and at the same time a weight had been lifted, the weight of her own suppressed emotions, she could hide it no longer, she was in love with him.
She was now torn, a battle was raging inside her. Her head was telling her that she was a Lieutenant commander and should not be fraternising with junior ranks, even one as comely as this. Her heart however, was telling her that she wanted him so badly that it hurt.
Gently he released her from their tender embrace, “Now, I can have no regrets.”
Outside the base, the rumbling reached a critical peak once again as the base shot forth its fury, in the form of another gigantic stream of intensely bright energy through the planets atmosphere and out into the darkness of deep space, illuminating the three black Dracos ships orbiting nearby, as though three dark spiders come to prey on the planet.
The two other craft sent down a pair of assault landers each, four small black craft arced down through the planets upper atmosphere trailing fire from the heat of entry. They had cleared the majority of interlopers from their ancient facility, now it was time to claim the planet the structure was built upon, in the name of the Dracos.
The sleek, advanced looking assault landers cut through the thick layer of methane cloud, the diffused sunlight from the Aurigan sun glinted off their bullet shaped fuselages, sickle wings, and upper engine pods, as they gently touched down on the surface, throwing up an immense cloud of dust as they did so.
The Dracos Kallan warriors quickly emerged, charging down the access ramps of the craft and surrounding the immediate area. Within seconds forty more elite Dracos warriors dominated the area around the landing craft. The time for the ultimate victory was at hand, their squad leaders barked out orders for those under their command to fan out along the ground near to the base. While another squad entered inside to find out what Drax had been doing.
“Landers from the Blade of Rhovanion, and the Vengeance of Kelmarroth have successfully touched down on the surface,” a junior officer announced.
Kaelleth held his head in his hands, not believing how badly this was all going, twenty of his finest men had been sent down there, to clear out a few pitiful interlopers, now just one Dracos remained. One so utterly devoted to finishing the hunt, that he had turned dangerously insane, and may very well end up dead too. Yes, the facility was all but secure, but it had cost the Dracos dearly in blood to do so.
He looked up from the centre seat of the Flame of Celthris, “understood,” he managed after a short pause, “keep me informed.” He really just wanted to put this whole sorry mess behind him now, and return back to his home within the warm subterranean depths of Corvandris once again.
The Liberty was closing in on the small Stockholm class lander that carried Colonel Nikolai Vargev and his elite team of E.D. F commandoes. Michael could now see the olive green, square looking craft in the Liberties viewer. He had seen this type of craft a hundred times before, they were used extensively in the Krenaran war, but he never got over just how ugly the thing looked.
They resembled little more than a flying brick, in fact that was their nickname amongst the soldiers of the troop division and the navy alike. It was wide, yet short and stubby; from its central crew compartment, which took up the majority of the tiny vessel. Two winglets jutted out, on the edge of each was a powerful gravitic engine, rotatable through ninety degrees. Jutting out from the back of the main crew compartment were two large stabilisation fins, which served as the crafts tail when inside a planetary atmosphere. There was a very small reinforced command bubble located at the front of the thing, about three quarters the way from the bottom, looking like the top of a small cut diamond jutting out from the front of the craft, yet devoid of any kind of sparkle or lustre. It did however, provide the pilot an unparalleled view of the terrain when flying.
“Open a channel to the lander,” Michael said.
“Channel open,” Kinraid replied.
“E.D. F lander, this is the E.D.F. S Liberty, we are alongside you, request permission to soft dock to allow crew transfer.”
The Liberty, being one hundred and forty metres long, utterly dwarfed the tiny twenty metre long lander. One of the few things the Liberty did dwarf, Michael thought with a smile.
Colonel Vargev’s voice came over the speakers, a voice Michael recognised, but one in which he hadn’t heard from in five long years. “This is lander alpha-two-niner, glad to hear your voice Liberty, we are ready for soft docking procedure.”
Michael was surprised to find that the lander could only communicate via speakers, although he quickly remembered that the Stockholm class, only had one long range radio transceiver. He guessed the troop division didn’t really go for complex electronics that could go wrong, they preferred their equipment rugged, simple and survivable.
“Err, cap’n.” Kinraid spoke, “ya’ do realise, ‘tat the Liberty has never performed a soft dockin’ manoeuvre before don’t ‘ya, we really don’t know how this is gonna’ go.”
“We’ll be fine,” Michael replied confidently as he turned toward his pilot, “Eldathar, we need to stay alongside that lander, and our docking hatches need to come within five metres exactly of one another, think you can do it?”
The Solarian nodded, then began concentrating on making the tiniest of movements in the pilot’s chair. Banking the Liberty very gently, so that the two ships hull’s came closer and closer together, the proximity alert went off once again, as they slowly continued to drift closer until it seemed as though their hulls would touch. Eldathar frowned in concentration, his blue Solarian features flushing a deep purple as he concentrated ever harder on the smallest of movements he was making with the arms of his chair. Eventually he stopped all movement and proclaimed proudly, “five metres, captain.”
“Excellent work,” Michael replied.
Docking with a Stockholm class lander was proving to be an exceptionally tricky affair, part of the landers wing was now holding steady, just a few feet above the Liberties sloped hull. If either ship deviated from their manoeuvre, even by the tiniest of amounts, it could mean disaster for both ships.
“Okay, now extend the port docking extension, and connect to the hatch on the lander.”
“Aye, sir.” Eldathar replied as he keyed in a few controls on the monitor in front of him.
The tiny temporary berthing corridor snaked out from the port side of the Liberty, it was not solid like the rest of the ship, but flexible, instead made from a lightweight, but extremely strong carbon cloth. The temporary corridor un-coiled toward the lander, growing a little longer each time it did so, very similar to the old folding fabric roofs of twentieth century convertible automobiles. The corridor continued to extend telescopically until it reached its maximum length of five metres, now within touching distance of the landers own hatch.
“Magnetise the hatch, and pressurise the corridor once connected,” Michael whispered as he anxiously oversaw the complicated operation.
Eldathar silently worked at the controls again, and the flimsy temporary corridor suddenly latched hard onto the landers own hatch with a resounding ‘clunk’.
The corridor stiffened noticeably as air was pumped into it to pressurise it, making it safe for those on the lander to cross. Although it lacked the sophisticated artificial gravity systems that the Liberty and the lander enjoyed, it would serve its purpose.
“Pressurisation complete captain, we can now begin transferring the troops aboard,” the Solarian said with barely contained relief.
“Fantastic work, Eldathar,” being a pilot himself, Michael knew just how tricky that manoeuvre was to accomplish. “Open the port hatch, and let them through,” Michael turned toward Kinraid. “Send them the all clear, commander.”
“Aye cap’n,” Kinraid replied. “Message sent; and received.”
Michael smiled down at Eldathar manning the pilots chair quietly, still concentrating hard on maintaining the equidistance and speed vital to a successful crew transfer. If the lander accidentally increased its speed by even a fraction, it could tear the delicate temporary corridor right off the hull of the Liberty, causing a devastating explosive decompression across the entire deck. If the lander slowed or the Liberty accelerated, the Liberties hull could collide with the lander’s, destroying it and potentially crippling the Liberty as well.
One by one, the commandoes all carrying their gear and full breathing apparatus for the mission ahead, began to float weightlessly across this small, cramped, cold corridor. Michael watched from the viewscreen as their tiny bodies floated across to the Liberty. With their camouflaged combat fatigues, helmets, black boots, their packs and heavy weaponry, they looked oddly conspicuous amongst the royal blue naval uniforms and Solarian uniforms the crew of the Liberty wore. It was as if they didn’t really belong in space; these were E.D. F commandoes, the most highly trained fighting force humanity possessed, and armed to the teeth. They had but one purpose, to fight and to win, on whichever planet they were assigned.