E.D.F Chronicles : Eye of the Dracos

by Ian. J. Smethurst

  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, a
nd 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 mean
dering 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.