E.D.F chronicles - The Krenaran massacre.

by Ian. J. Smethurst

  On the bridge of the Ulysses it was a scene of similar destruction; flames, collapsed girders, and the smashed remains of consoles littered the area. Several bodies of horribly mutilated crewmen lay motionless on the deck.

  “Report!” a sweating, grimy Wainwright screamed over the din of the roaring flames and cries of the injured.

  A battered Ensign replied, “We’ve lost port rail-cannon ‘B’. The port forward turning thrusters are also destroyed. Crew Quarters block A has taken a direct hit, heavy casualties reported.”

  “Damnit!” Wainwright shouted. “Navigation; have we broken orbit yet.”

  “Negative Captain, another thirty seconds at least.”

  “Once we are clear, I want all power diverted to the main boosters, and then engage plasma drive; get us the hell out of here.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “What about the crew on the surface?” Iuliov asked.

  “We can’t wait for them; we’ll have to leave them behind,” Wainwright responded.

  He hated doing it, but it was the only choice. If the Ulysses hung around, the entire ship could be lost.

  Slowly but inevitably, the two enemy carriers bore down on the battered, embattled E.D.F fleet. With a certain grim finality those deadly twin rectangular pods once again arose from the decks of the two huge alien ships. At the same time from underneath the carriers, waves of fighter craft advanced on the E.D.F force.

  The remaining fighters of the Furious changed course to intercept this new threat, the E.D.F carrier also launched its own bomber wing. The mighty God-hammer bombers closed on the mysterious alien carriers.

  Two stealth ships converged upon the Europa, the distinctive green energy beams ripped into its boosters, and the bright white torpedoes smashed into its hull. The flames lit up the impact sites of the torpedoes in a fiery orange glow, which gradually spread throughout the ship as internal fires took hold; before the cruiser finally blew itself apart in a huge fireball sending out a massive shockwave and spraying out debris in all directions.

  The Endurance powered up its own boosters and started to chase down a stealth ship, both ships jinked this way and that to avert the mass of flaming wreckage and debris of the other ships.

  The small; fast light cruiser managed to stay on the tail of the Krenaran vessel. The Endurance’s forward torpedo launchers lit up as three torpedoes streaked towards the Krenaran ship.

  The enemy ship rapidly zigzagged to avoid two of the incoming torpedoes; however the third hit home, slamming into the Krenaran ships rear engines, and in a small explosion the brightly glowing blue strip blinked, and then finally faded out as the Krenaran ship slowed to a halt.

  Aboard the battered, smoke filled bridge of the Ulysses, Lieutenant Iuliov shouted aloud in jubilation. “We got one, damnit we got one!”

  “Who?” Wainwright shouted.

  “The Endurance just took out one of the enemy ships’ engines with a torpedo shot, they must be vulnerable to our torpedoes.”

  “Not necessarily, the Endurance may have just got lucky, but concentrate your shots on their engines anyway. Right now, we’ll take anything we can get.”

  In retaliation, two of the stealth ships opened fire on the Endurance, twin beams of bright green energy hit the small cruiser directly amidships; blasting a massive ragged hole straight through the vessel; and sending it drifting through space, on fire and powerless. Multiple fires on board overwhelmed the small ship. Before it too exploded in a bright fireball, as its plasma tanks ruptured.

  Elsewhere the E.D.F fighters and their Krenaran counterparts were locked in a bitter battle, both sides were taking casualties, as the mass of fighters jinked and danced around one another in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

  God-hammer bombers managed to skirt around the worst of the fighting. And closed with one of the alien carriers; their deadly payload ready.

  Two other stealth ships flew close to the Ulysses preparing for another run on the damaged battleship, its smaller point defence lasers blasting away in a desperate attempt to keep the Krenaran vultures from picking apart the ship.

  The alien ships jinked left, right and quickly barrel rolled to avoid the incoming fusillade from the battleship. Before both unleashed their primary weapons; one shot tore into one of the primary dorsal rail-cannons, detonating it in a huge explosion that lit up the entire upper section of the ship. Flames and debris streamed out from the smashed emplacement.

  The second shot sheared the command section clean off the ship, leaving a ragged hole in the hull of the battleship. The drifting; flaming wreckage of the command section became caught in the gravity well of the planet as it slowly began to burn up in orbit trailing smoke and flame.

  This final punishment was ultimately too much for the Ulysses, and it listed. The beleaguered vessel caught within the gravity well of Agemman; it began to heat up, as it continued its uncontrolled descent into the atmosphere. The remains of the once proud battleship burst apart in the upper atmosphere trailing fire, debris and smoke.

  The Furious, the only surviving E.D.F vessel remaining in the conflict tried to make a break for it. The huge boosters firing for all they were worth as the huge carrier desperately tried to get up some speed. It did manage to get some distance between it and the battle, under the cover of its few remaining fighters and bombers.

  Its forward plasma emitters continued to power up, finally, twin streams of bright blue plasma arced out from the vessel and shot straight ahead of the ship; however as it accelerated toward the plasma wake multiple torpedoes from the approaching enemy carriers detonated the Furious’s engines and blew the carrier apart in a massive fireball, sending out a huge, bright shockwave.

  Without a stable stream of energised plasma, the plasma wake disintegrated as quickly as it was formed.

  The E.D.F fleet had been completely and utterly decimated.

  Far below on Agemman itself, the landing party continued to carefully make their way towards the colony hub, completely unaware of the huge battle that had just taken place far above them.

  Rennick held out his hand in a motion to stop. The party stopped dead. The Lieutenant Commander whispered, “can’t you hear that.”

  “Hear what?” Juan Angel replied looking at Rennick.

  The thud, thud, of heavy footsteps was barely audible, but was getting louder, and closer.

  “Everyone into the ruins,” Clayton said quickly.

  The rest of the landing party complied; and they quickly dove into the ruins. The party readied their weapons as they took up positions amongst the rubble. They were just in time as seven of the alien warriors strode into view.

  The entire landing party stayed absolutely still, barely daring to breathe; Sergeant Clayton and the rest of the troops slowly trained their weapons on the aliens who thudded past them; also headed toward the colony hub.

  One of the landing party troopers slowly eased into a better position to track the small alien group with his weapon, when a piece of unstable masonry gave way under his boot. The soldier fell, and tumbled down the rest of the broken pile of debris; causing a huge amount of noise and a plume of dust as he fell flat on his back onto the road just behind the alien patrol.

  The Krenarans quickly spun around and let loose a guttural roar; levelling their large arm mounted weapons at the lone trooper.

  The rest of the landing party hunkered down amongst the ruins and opened fire with their pulse rifles, with a fizz multiple blue flashes slammed home on the aliens.

  The laser energy fired from the pulse rifles simply dissipated on the metallic armour of the alien warriors; one of the hulking brutes did go down though, as a shot slammed into its unprotected head; the ruin of its face spraying white ichor onto the cracked tarmac below.

  One of the aliens returned fire, targeting the exposed trooper; a loud ‘wuu-doom’ noise came from the alien weapons as the trooper was blasted backwards into the air, completely off his feet and landing with a sickeningly wet thud on the road.
His head snapped backwards with the force of the impact and smashed into the tarmac with a crack. A foot wide hole blasted through his mid-riff.

  The rest of the alien force followed suit and opened fire into the ruins, their monstrously powerful cannons blasting away large chunks of masonry, and sending plumes of dust and debris high into the air.

  Commander Angel took a lucky hit in the arm. The shot blasting his left arm clean off at the elbow spraying out blood from the wound. The force of the shot spun him almost completely around; he screamed in pain before a second shot blasted a hole through his back, pieces of torn intestine and gore splattered onto the rocks in front of him, as he was simultaneously catapulted face first into the debris.

  Sergeant Clayton had managed to down another of the burly aliens. His pulse rifle blasting half of the aliens’ skull away; chunks of brain matter and white ichor flowed out of the half destroyed alien head. The warrior collapsed with a thud as its knees buckled.

  Rennick poked his head up from his position to line up a shot; and was greeted with a cannon shot slamming into his face, exploding it like a crushed melon; spraying blood, bone, and brain matter onto the walls nearby.

  Michael had seen enough of this wanton slaughter and his nerve gave out. He sprinted as fast as he could away from the slaughter; cannon shots fizzed past him as he ran, exploding into the rubble and tarmac all around him.

  He never stopped running and never looked back.

  Adrenaline kept him going; he ran past numerous ruined buildings, past abandoned shops with dusty smashed windows; empty of all stock.

  Then as he carried on running he was rugby tackled to the ground; the bone crunching impact forcing the breath from his lungs.

  Mad with panic and desperation, Michael lashed out blindly with his boot at his unseen assailant, catching nothing but fresh air. He felt the cold steel of a combat knife pressed to his throat.

  “Who the hell are you!” shouted the man; holding Michael’s head so that he couldn’t make out his features.

  “Lieutenant Michael Alexander. E.D.F Navy,” Michael said gasping for air; “who the hell are you!”

  The man showed his face, he was a somewhat grizzled man, in his mid-thirties, with a slightly lined face and a dark brown moustache.

  “My name is Major Nikolai Vargev; 1stE.D.F commandoes, troop division. Well now that the formalities are over with, get over there,” he said in a forceful Russian twang as he pointed to a small metal manhole cover; forcibly pushing Michael towards it.

  Chapter 6 Captured

  Inside the manhole they crawled into a large sewerage tunnel, which was tall enough for the both of them to stand up in.

  It was gloomy, however some light was provided by the bulkhead lights fitted to the walls at regular intervals. The air absolutely stank. Michael had to seriously restrain himself from retching, however Vargev was barely fazed by it.

  The two of them continued walking up the tunnel for what seemed about a mile. The tunnel slowly opened out into a larger, wider chamber, and on one side of it, there was a slightly raised platform. There three other soldiers were sat on upturned crates playing a game of poker.

  They stopped their game as the two of them walked in, and in his customary Russian twang the commando announced, “Welcome to my new home Lieutenant,” Vargev and the rest of the soldiers laughed. Then the big Russian turned to Michael, an intense look in his eye.

  “Do you know you could have killed out there, you stupid Navy bastard! Do you know what those aliens are capable of, they will blow your head clean off.”

  “I know, I saw them attack the landing party I was with, we should go back for them,” Michael replied.

  “Forget it, there all dead,” Vargev replied dismissively.

  “You don’t know that Major!” Michael retorted.

  “I know enough not to go looking for them and wind up dead too Lieutenant. We are holed up down here for a reason, the aliens haven’t come searching down here yet, they don’t think there is anything down here,” Vargev replied.

  This got Michael thinking. “They mustn’t have the same drainage systems that we have wherever they come from. By the way the aliens are called Krenarans.”

  “Whoop de doo, now that the pleasantries are over with, I say the only good lizard head, is a dead lizard head!” a soldier shouted, as he high fived another.

  “Quiet!” Vargev shouted sternly.

  “You’re all commandoes, right?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah, so,” Vargev replied.

  “You’re a long way from home; you’re based at bravo base, Alpha Centauri.”

  “Yeah, we were sent on a training mission here a week before the attack on the Montfort. The whole colony went crazy, riots all over, people fighting and dying just to try and get off the damn planet, and then amongst the craziness those Krenarans attacked.” He bit into his lip as he remembered the carnage, before speaking again. “They seemed to have attacked at just the right moment to cause maximum casualties, with the troop division and the colony police trying desperately to keep a hysterical population in check, they were easy pickings,” he sighed. “To them we are only two things; slaves and food, it’s that simple. If the slaves co-operate they live; if not, they are fed amongst the others.” Vargev said with a genuine hint of sadness.

  “How do you know this?”

  “I’ve seen them in action, the population gets rounded up into slave chains, hundreds of meters long, then those ships come down and cart them off to god knows where. If any resist they are simply shot and left to rot,” Vargev replied shaking his head sadly.

  “Not an end I would like,” another of the soldiers replied.

  “How come you guys survived?” Michael asked.

  “My detachment was 27 men strong when we arrived. We accounted for 44 of those lizard headed fuckers, then we were overpowered, started dropping like flies; constantly pushed back, until we arrived here, only ten of us made it, those Krenarans you call them don’t come down here, the other six died conducting lightning raids, so that’s it; just the four of us, nice and cosy.”

  “How did you manage to kill so many of them?” Michael asked again.

  “Got a lot of questions haven’t you navy boy, because we are tough sons of bitches! And because of our weaponry; we all carry the Armschlager .44 calibre heavy machine gun. For some reason their armour seems to be vulnerable to solid ammunition; what have you got?”

  Vargev walked over to Michael and checked out his weapon. “It’s one of those new fangled pulse rifles, which is absolutely useless; unless you hit them in the head.”

  The Russian walked over to the rear of the platform and picked up another Armschlager that was leant against the wall; handing it over to Michael.

  “Take this, it was Karllsons he was a good man; so take good care of it.”

  Michael silently took the weapon, “so how long have you been down here?”

  “Eight days,” Vargev replied nonchalantly.

  “Eight days!” Michael repeated amazed, “how have you survived? What about food and water?”

  “For food, we take what we can while out on raids, as for water there is plenty down here, Jackson has a purification kit in his pack.”

  Michael tried to contact the Ulysses from his wrist-comm. blissfully unaware of the events in orbit. There was no reply.

  “No ones answering”

  “Forget it; they’re all dead, I saw the wreckage burning up in orbit just before I found you. Looked like a bunch of smoking meteors,” Vargev said without emotion.

  “So I’m the only one left; Dylan, Captain Wainwright, all the other crew and the friends I served with all dead; damn this stupid fucking war!”

  Vargev stomped over to him, “snap out of it soldier, its war, people die! Do you think I like being in this hell hole, drinking water that tastes like piss, day after goddamn day! I’d rather be sipping vodka in the motherland, but I’m not; the reality is we are here, and unless we are very careful,
we might all fucking die; am I clear!”

  “Yes Major”

  “Am I fucking clear!” the Russian snapped.

  Michael stood rigid, “yes sir.”

  “Good.”

  Later that day Vargev showed Michael how to operate the Armschlager, and not to waste his shots as ammunition was very limited.

  He also explained that the average Krenaran was nearly 8 feet tall, and weighed approximately 400 pounds. “I’ve seen one of their punches snap a mans neck; so going in hand to hand is a no-go, instead we’ve got to pick our targets and out shoot them. We need to stay in cover. Our Armschlagers have a far greater rate of fire and are more accurate than their weapons, so we have the advantage, however theirs are much harder hitting.”

  “I’ve seen what their weapons can do to a person.”

  Later that night; Michael ate a ration pack, drank some of the purified water, and slowly drifted off into an uneasy sleep wondering how the hell did it all come to this?

  Next morning he awoke to the sound of a shouting Vargev, “get up Lieutenant, we have work to do.”

  “wha……What time is it,” a groggy Michael replied rubbing his eyes.

  “Its 6.15 in the morning, scope has just located another slave chain, and we are going to free them.”

  “Who’s scope?”

  “That’s Jackson’s call name,” Vargev said pointing to the dark skinned man covered in camouflage drapes.

  “The other two are hunter and piranha, I’m simply Vargev, and you shall be called.” Vargev stopped short thinking for a brief moment; “fodder,” he said with a mischievous smile.

  He turned towards the other soldiers and said. “Now, let’s move out!”

  In an instant the other soldiers were awake, had their weapons and were ready for action. Vargev handed Michael two magazines for his weapon.

  “These are 30 shot magazines; so you have 60 shots in all, remember what I told you and make them count.”

  “I will.”

  “Oh, and one last thing; don’t try and be a hero out there, I know you’ve lost people you care about and your angry, but now is not the time to be like the Terminator; we don’t want to have to carry your sorry ass back as well.”