E.D.F Chronicles : Eye of the Dracos Page 17

  Towards the rear of the Blade of Rhovanion, four bright white flashes heralded the arrival of the Eisenhower, two Ghandhi class destroyers, and the Washington class heavy cruiser Arizona.

  Caught between the guns of the Liberty directly ahead, and the firepower of the E.D.F flotilla closing in from behind, Senergid knew it was all over.

  “Contact that alien ship,” Michael asked, staring intently at its dark crescent shape filling the viewer.

  “Channel open.”

  “Senergid, your position is hopeless, now it is you who is outgunned and outmatched, we demand your unconditional and immediate surrender.”

  The Dracos fleet commander looked up from his chair at the face of his enemy filling his own viewscreen, straightening his black robes in a last ditch attempt to retain what was left of his shattered pride.

  “Well played captain, well played. This is not over, your people have made a powerful enemy here this day, and you cannot protect this system forever. We will return one day, and we will reclaim that which is rightfully ours.”

  “And we will be ready,” Michael replied calmly, though in truth the force behind the enemy commanders statement sent shivers running through his spine.

  The communication ceased, and the mighty Dracos flagship slowly came about, and made to leave the area. It moved slowly and solemnly, as though a dark monster who knew it had been defeated and was slinking back into the darkness of its home. Its giant engines lit up in a bright orange glow, as it accelerated away from Auriga III.

  “Eisenhower is requesting if we should pursue?” Kinraid asked.

  “Negative, there has been enough bloodshed for one day, let them go.”

  In a way Michael realised, he felt sorry for the Dracos. Though once Solarians, they had let their hate consume them. Their hatred of the Solarians who they blame for almost destroying their people all those years ago, their newly found hatred of the E.D.F for keeping a planet that they believe is rightfully theirs away from them, and their hatred of the galaxy as a whole. In their hate, they had become insular, isolationist, and fiercely paranoid; in a people that held the kind of power the Dracos did, that was a dangerous cocktail.

  It’s a shame, Michael thought, if they learned to co-exist peacefully with those around them, they wouldn’t need to resort to their isolationist ways.

  ***

  “Set course for the veil, it is time to return to Corvandris, the galaxy is not ready for us to emerge just yet.” Senergid said with a mournful sigh, a lot of Dracos had died to reclaim a world that was theirs by right.

  One day he knew they would have to emerge from their self-imposed isolation, although he also knew of the problems plaguing his people. In their isolation, the galaxy had forgotten about them, history had moved on, new races had come to the fore and overshadowed them. Just like this E.D.F, a great sadness came over the Dracos commander as his ship returned to the all-concealing darkness of the veil, the electromagnetic interference overcame his ships sensory systems, rendering them useless, as he began to navigate his ship by memory alone. Just as every other Dracos ship had done within this all consuming nebula.

  ***

  The Liberty, too badly damaged to risk another atmospheric entry, docked with the comparatively giant Eisenhower, the four hundred and thirty man heavy cruiser dwarfed the Liberty at over five hundred metres long, it was fully four times its size.

  Michael said to Kinraid, “you’re in charge until I return.”

  “Where ‘r’ you goin’?”

  “To say hello to an old friend.”

  With that, Michael left the battered debris strewn bridge of the Liberty, and headed down toward the ships main docking hatch, passing various members of his crew attempting to affect temporary repairs, and restoring broken power conduits. The crew seemed in good spirits, despite the utter pounding they had taken, he wondered just how much of those spirits were down to the fact that the fighting had stopped. Crewmen saluted him as he passed, smiling warmly.

  The elevator he had taken was not its usual self, a little stop-start instead of its typically smooth three hundred mile per hour transition of the ship, still it was to be expected.

  He passed sickbay on his way to the hatch, partly to get cleaned up a little, he was bearing a number of scrapes and bumps himself, and covered in the soot and grime of battle, and partly to see how Lillian was coping with the casualties the ship had taken. He did not want to bother her, as he could see the ship’s tiny sickbay was simply swamped with crewmembers bearing various forms of injuries. The scene made him feel guilty, Michael, being the experienced ship captain he was, knew he had to keep his own form of professional detachment from his crew, just like Lillian had to when she declared a crewmember deceased, or at least he tried to.

  Truth be told though, the Liberty had come through so much, it had fought through the entire Krenaran war. Fought against pirates in numerous engagements, and now this, the crew had become so close, it wasn’t like they were a typical crew on a typical ship anymore. It was as though they were brothers and sisters, they were a family, and they felt each others loss, grieving accordingly, that was a hard thing to keep a professional detachment from.

  There were just three beds in the Liberties sickbay, all were full, and Lillian was frantically working from bed to bed. Stabilising one, and then moving on quickly to the next, Michael had to admire her skill.

  Her two medical interns wheeled away a body zipped up in a black bodybag, with the occupants name, rank and serial number daubed on it in white ink. One of the interns looked at him with eyes filled with sadness. “Sorry sir, we lost another one.”

  He hated these moments, a lump began to form in his throat, which he fought to keep down, “Who?”

  “Crewman Lonaz, sir.”

  That made it all the more difficult to bear, crewman Lonaz, a Mexican, was one of the youngest to serve aboard the Liberty, just sixteen years old, and on a placement from the E.D.F academy. He was training as a propulsion technician, so would have been near to where that Dracos barrage breached the hull. He was a good man, had a bright future ahead of him, Logameier often spoke of him.

  “How many so far?” He asked the interns.

  “That’s the fifth, sir.” They said before they wheeled the body away down the corridor to the ships morgue. It was times like these when he would give anything just to be a simple lieutenant again; spared of the responsibility of having to fill in killed in action reports, and informing next of kin that their wife, son, or husband had been killed in the line of duty. It was an awful reality of command, and one he did not relish performing.

  Michael continued towards the hatch itself, pressing his wrist comm. “Kinraid, decompress and open the hatch.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  After a pause of a few seconds while Kinraid worked at his console on the bridge, a green panel alighted above the circular hatchway doors themselves, indicating it was safe to enter. Michael took two deep breaths and pressed the hatch release.

  A blast of cold air rushed past him to fill up the small temporary inter-locking corridor between the Liberty and the Eisenhower, almost blowing him off his feet in the process. He gently pushed off the edge of the hatch, where the artificial gravity generated by the Liberties environmental systems ended, and weightlessness began. He floated slowly, silently along the delicate little corridor that connected the two ships, the sudden blast of cold made him shiver, even though it took only a matter of a few seconds to traverse the distance.

  Once at the other side, a second hatch opened and allowed him egress onto the Eisenhower itself. Slowly, and rather clumsily Michael stepped onto the floor of the hatch, and artificial gravity resumed again.

  It had been a long time since Michael had stepped within the confines of another E.D.F ship, the difference to what he was used to on the Liberty was startling, and he needed a few seconds to adjust to his new surroundings.

  Instead of the Liberties ultra-modern, highly advanced Solarian derive
d systems, the Eisenhower was a relic in comparison. Clunky, utilitarian and heavy, instead of the customisable touch screen displays the Liberty possessed, the Eisenhower had keypads and strange monitors that jutted out from the walls at odd angles. This was all very strange to Michael, almost as though he was stepping into the past, into his time aboard the Ulysses.

  A female officer approached him, escorted by two other junior officers, judging by the rank insignia’s on their epaulettes, he quickly found that one held the rank of lieutenant, the other a more senior lieutenant commander. The woman leading them was slim, in her early thirties, and had a gorgeous mane of auburn hair, tied neatly in a bun, she was not altogether unattractive, and bore the rank of commander. They all saluted Michael appropriately.

  “Welcome aboard the Eisenhower, captain. I am Commander Erica Fontain, commanding officer of this vessel,” she motioned with her hand to introduce her accompanying officers, “This is Lieutenant Commander Ben Maddox, my executive officer, and this is Liu Chung my senior sensory officer. Both ourselves and the Arizona, have made shuttles ready for dispatch to get everyone off the surface quickly should the Dracos return in greater numbers. I trust you wish to begin the evacuation immediately?”

  “Of course,” Michael replied. He was a little surprised to find merely a commander in charge of such a ship. Nevertheless, he had found in his experience, it was not always prudent to question the orders of the admiralty.

  “If you would like to follow me, I’ll escort you to our hangar bay.”

  Michael fell into step behind the entourage, which led him down a long, slightly cramped corridor, festooned with all manner of pipes and conduits overhead. The interior of the Eisenhower was painted in a traditional military olive green. This instantly signified to Michael that this was, in fact, an old ship. The engineering services stopped painting these ships that colour fifteen years ago, in favour of the more familiar battleship grey of today.

  As they walked, commander Fontain spoke up, “it has been a great honour and a privilege for us, it’s not every day we get to walk with such a living icon as yourself. The Liberty, its crew, and your exploits throughout the Krenaran war are legendary to us.”

  Michael was a little uncomfortable with the hero worship, “just doing what we had to do,” he replied meekly, sometimes he hated being the most decorated captain in the navy.

  “I wish I could have been there with you, and experienced what you had experienced, the Eisenhower was mostly assigned to the defence of Charlie base at sigma XI, prior to gamma IV, far away from the fighting.”

  Michael lost his cool a little at this, “do you know what we experienced; do you? It was brutal at times, bloody, ships being torn apart and people dying all around us. Whenever I go to sleep it haunts my dreams, I get no rest, no solitude from it; ever. Nobody should have to experience what we experienced.”

  Fontaine stared at Michael in shock, “forgive me, I meant no offence.”

  “None taken,” Michael replied calming himself once again, “but these heroes, this larger than life captain you depict. We are not those people, we did what we had to do to survive, nothing more.”

  “I understand.”

  Eventually they came upon the wide hangar bay, it was home to a dozen short range shuttles in two rows of six, one side facing the other. Their elongated bullet shaped fuselages and downward curved cockpits, made the place look like the interior of some gigantic rifle magazine.

  The ceiling of the hangar bay was high, a good fifty or sixty feet above them.

  “Two shuttles are launching from here, and another two from the Arizona,” Fontaine informed him.

  “Good, then let’s get moving shall we,” Michael did not want to waste any time in getting the survivors and Nikolai’s men out of that hellhole.

  “Understood, lieutenant commander Maddox, and lieutenant Chung will be piloting the second shuttle, I will be overseeing things from up here.”

  “Thank you commander,” the two officers saluted.

  Michael silently nodded his understanding. Fontaine was in command after all, and while he had no doubt she would have loved to accompany him, her first duty was to her ship. If he was in her position he would have most likely done exactly the same thing, he would be piloting the first shuttle alone.

  Commander Fontaine curtly turned on her heel, left the hangar bay, and the men to begin their flight.

  Michael and the other crew members all pressed the door release at almost the exact same time, the small hatches at the rear of the craft both opened outwards in unison. They all climbed onboard the shuttles and the hatch doors slowly closed back down automatically, re-sealing themselves.

  He began the start up sequence, it had been a while since he had taken a ride in one of these shuttles. As he worked, he could feel the old techniques coming back, the rust coming away. Controls flickered on and panels lit up across the pilot’s instrumentation, attitude sensors came online, short and long range communication systems came to life, and main power began to build up to full charge.

  Michael pressed a few controls on the console in front of him, opening up a communications channel with the Arizona, “Arizona this is Michael Alexander in shuttle Eisenhower alpha-six, preparing to get underway.”

  “Confirmed Arizona, shuttles are clear and have left hangar bay, awaiting rendezvous.”

  Damn they’re quick, Michael thought, “understood Arizona, getting underway now.”

  He keyed in the gravitic engine start up sequence, and powered up the main boosters. The engines themselves roared into life as the solid fuel contained within ignited, slowly filling the giant hangar bay with steam and exhaust gases, keeping the thrust to the boosters at a lowly ten percent, he instead used the gravitic engines to manoeuvre slowly within the hangar bay.

  The small shuttle gently inched forward, slowly picking up speed as it began to taxi out into the wide launch bay, Michael saw his own shuttle slowly pass the other in his peripheral vision.

  The hangar bay doors opened with a blast of escaping oxygen, and the rush of exhaust gases venting out into space.

  “Well, here goes.” Michael said to himself as he increased thrust to the main boosters, the nozzles on the twin directed thrust booster engines opened fully as Michael eased the throttle to maximum. The roar of the engines echoed loudly throughout the entire hangar bay as the shuttle rapidly accelerated, shooting past the hangar bay doors and out into the blackness of deep space.

  The stars shone brightly through the cockpit glass. He could just make out the swirling emerald green clouds of a distant nebula, and the bright glow of the second moon of Auriga III, as the light from the system’s sun reflected of its rocky, cratered surface.

  Michael had always loved the serene quietness of space, it was one of the reasons why he had joined up to serve as a naval officer in the first place. It was calm and contemplative, immense yet also giving a sense of freedom to those who travelled through that vastness. There was no better view than up close through the simple cockpit glass of a shuttle, sure the Liberty with all its technological wizardry could depict a one hundred and eighty degree, high definition depiction of surrounding space on its viewscreen. It still could not match actually being here, witnessing the spectacle for yourself.

  He sighed contentedly as he looked down at his sensors, telling him that the other two shuttles were holding position between the Eisenhower and the Arizona, he keyed in a few controls to release a short burst of thrust from his port thrusters, to bring the tiny craft around. Using its forward momentum, the shuttle deftly flew around the relatively huge primary inter-system boosters of the Eisenhower, each one over three times the length of the shuttle itself. They still gently glowed with the intense heat produced when they manoeuvred the ship into orbit after cornering that last Dracos cruiser.

  The Eisenhower and the Arizona, at five hundred and seventy four, and five hundred and fourteen metres respectively, dominated everything around them. The Arizona in particular,
being a Jefferson class heavy destroyer, a class which had garnered the nick-name of ‘the mini-monty,’ due to the classes resemblance to the much larger Montgomery class carrier.

  As the shuttle flew past the raised crew blocks, dozens of portholes shone out towards him. The Jefferson was designed as a heavier, more survivable alternative to the ubiquitous Gandhi class destroyer, one of which was holding position to the other side of the Arizona out of sight of Michael in the shuttle. The Jefferson was almost twice the size of the Gandhi, and possessed twice the firepower too, in addition it sported a tough reinforced ablative armour hull. Designed during the height of the Krenaran war to make it that bit more survivable when in combat against Krenaran forces. It had mixed success however, many had still bought the farm, despite this improvement.

  Michael could see the tiny shapes of the awaiting shuttles, silhouetted against the deep beige backdrop of the planet itself. His craft flew past the various gently raised panels of the Arizona’s reinforced hull, passed its command structure with its tall whip-like communications and sensor antennae, and past the four turreted high power laser batteries adorning the ships gently sloping wedge shaped hull; its primary armament.

  Gently manoeuvring the shuttle into position, he joined up with the small formation waiting for him, within a few seconds the other shuttle from the Eisenhower which had been tailing him, had also joined them.

  “Glad you could make it; stopping by for a little sightseeing on the way were we, captain?”

  Michael recognised that voice, it was one he hadn’t heard for over twenty years, “Ruiz, is that you?”

  “In the flesh.”

  James Ruiz was one of the cadets who studied in the same pilot training school as Dylan Marcos and himself. For several years, Ruiz and Michael were rivals, not only as pilots, but love rivals also, though time, age and duty had tempered the rivalry between them.