E.D.F Chronicles : Eye of the Dracos Read online

  The six men saluted, “yes, sergeant.” Before getting their kit together ready to take up position.

  Rachthausen reinforced the motto of the sixty ninth, “fight hard, fight well!”

  The men silently nodded, before heading out.

  “Okay, Kalschacht, Gomez, Broadhurst, let’s see if we can find something to shore up those blast doors.”

  The four men left the confines of the briefing hall and headed towards the maintenance store they had seen on the map. Fortunately for them it was only a short walk away.

  The metal doors slid open and quickly allowed them access, to what could only be described as a giant rabbit warren of shelves, spare parts and strange tools, all of which were alien in nature.

  They searched disheveled shelf upon disheveled shelf, rack upon rack, until at last Broadhurst shouted over from a corner of the room, “over here, I think I found something!”

  He was holding a small handheld device, it bore a striking resemblance to an old earth plasma torch, there was a small yet sharp point at one end, and a trigger on the handle itself. They each inspected the device and found it had an intricate battery like power source in its handle, however the ‘battery’ had lost its charge over the centuries it had been abandoned.

  “See if you can find another power supply for that thing,” Rachthausen said. The anticipation in his voice was palpable, they needed a bit of luck right now, and this just might be it.

  Kalschacht was intrigued by a device affixed to one of the walls of the room. It possessed a small control panel, all in alien text. Its small lights blinked, lighting up the nearby shelving in an amber glow. He had a hunch that this was some sort of charging station for the tools, he searched around for another of those ‘batteries’ to test, eventually coming across one. Cautiously, he slotted the end of it into one of the narrow groove like bays, half closing his eyes as he did so. It clicked into position, suddenly the amber light changed into a solid green. Dieter Kalschacht breathed a sigh of relief, within the space of a couple of minutes it had changed back to flashing amber again.

  “Here, try this.” He slotted the newly charged ‘battery’ into the handle and the alien tool came to life, a series of buttons lit up on the side of the small device.

  Broadhurst walked over to an empty patch of wall in order to test it, and as he pressed the trigger, a bright beam of laser energy shot out from its tip and began to melt the metal, sending out a shower of sparks in the process.

  “It’s a laser welder!” He shouted in elation.

  “Let’s get it to the blast doors, before the charge runs out,” Rachthausen replied.

  Kathryn was sat on one of the dark chairs in the briefing room, a forlorn sense of sadness had come over her.

  “Are you okay?” Mira asked.

  “Not really,” Kathryn replied flatly, brushing an errant strand of hair from her worn and tired face, “this was my mission, and look at the mess I’ve gotten us all into.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  “Isn’t it? If I hadn’t requested a landing party to explore this place, we wouldn’t have accidentally activated it. The Copernicus wouldn’t be in a million pieces, and we wouldn’t be down here fighting for our lives, and all for the cause of science.”

  “We’ll get out of this, and when we do, you’ll be credited with the most important discovery in the history of E.O.C.A.”

  Kathryn smiled wanly at this, “or we’ll all die, and all this will amount to is a forgotten chapter in history.”

  “We won’t die, Rachthausen will see to that.”

  Rachthausen, Kathryn thought; that gentle giant of a sergeant, at first she had hardly known him. He was just another block head soldier from the troop division. However, he had a gentleness to him, a kindness that she had to admit was enticing. When he was showing her how to use her sidearm, and their hands accidentally touched, she knew a spark had passed between them, was she attracted to the sergeant? Kathryn banished the thought as soon as it had emerged, she was a senior officer and had to set an example.

  Rachthausen and the other scientists eventually made it to the blast doors, Broadhurst began to weld the giant doors together with his small handheld device, sparks lit up the poorly lit corridor. He was unsure it would work given the size of the doors, but it might just buy the others some more time, so he kept at it anyway.

  ***

  Drax had reached the bottom of the escape hatch and came upon a metal panel barring his way. With a forceful kick the offending panel slowly gave way, a second kick saw it collapse to the floor with a loud ‘clang.’ He and his men quickly filtered out, their weapons trained on anything that might surprise them.

  He found the corridor was sufficiently lit, and therefore reverted back to normal vision mode. To his left lay an elevator tube, to his right the remainder of the corridor continued on into the distance.

  The Dracos commander, split his men up into two groups, one would take the elevator to the floor below, while his own group would continue on through this floor. A silent nod saw the two groups part ways.

  Drax’s team continued down their appointed corridor, carefully searching for any signs of traps or hidden explosives, there were none. He passed a sumptuous looking office with plush comfortable chairs and black granite desk. How his ancestors must have lived, he thought with pride. For him, it was like walking through history, he hoped his people could recreate those heady days when they were in their prime.

  His men passed by a giant mess area, an armoury, and a military barracks, he wondered what the Kallan must have been like three hundred years ago, and how they had changed in that time.

  Eventually he came upon a giant set of blast doors, he quickly reverted back to his thermal imaging mode in order to see if there was anyone waiting on the other side. To his chagrin, there wasn’t.

  He signalled to one of his men to open the door, the warrior keyed in a series of controls that unlocked the giant metal barrier. Another key press and it swung open slowly with a dull whine as heavy duty motors hummed into life, revealing a long curved tunnel illuminated by dull strip lights positioned about a foot from the ceiling, and situated in even spaces.

  This was one of two main corridors to the other side of the facility, which skirted the 5 metre thick Toralinium wall of the central aperture. Toralinium was their own private wonder metal, only slightly heavier than titanium, yet stronger, and it had a special property that dissipated any known form of scan across its surface, meaning that enemy ships would know that a ship made of this substance was there, but not what it was comprised of, weapons, crew complement, power systems, shield generators, or any internal system. It acted as a kind of shroud, making it a very useful material to build ships and bases from.

  Drax and his men ventured forth down this long curved corridor for well over half an hour, making occasional thermal scans with their helmets as they went, still there was nothing. Then as they continued walking, the first colours of body heat began to appear, starting as a faint, deep green highlighting the shape of bipedal aliens like themselves. Then as they neared the colours started changing, cycling through to red, and then yellow highlights. There were three distinct shapes, roughly the same size as a typical Dracos, except slightly bulkier in body and shorter in the leg, the shapes weren’t moving, it looked as if they were standing guard. They were armed, and lightly armoured, things like helmets and strange clothing were made apparent to them as they approach the other side of the blast door.

  Drax ordered two of his men to cover either side of the door. He, using the magnetic qualities of his suit, crawled up along the wall. A few others did likewise, more crawled up onto the ceiling. His men were eager, excited at the battle to come, at the blood they would shed.

  ***

  Private Samuel Johnson, Johnathan Maxwell, and Lance Corporal Anthony Lindberg, gave their customary all clear report to sergeant Rachthausen on deck three. They were beginning t
o tire of this waiting around, were the enemy even going to attack? Spineless wannabees.

  Then the blast doors opened of their own accord, someone had opened them, but it wasn’t any of the soldiers stood there. In the twilight gloom it looked as though the walls had suddenly come alive with shifting black forms, it took a split second to realise what they were seeing, which was all the time the Dracos needed.

  Eviscerator rifles opened fire with razor sharp discs of metal, they emitted a high pitch whistling sound as they shot through the air. These lethal projectiles whipped through the air as fast as any bullet, slicing deep into Maxwell’s legs and arm. He screamed in pain as the incredibly powerful flouro-antimonic acid the disc was coated with burned its way into his flesh, the Dracos were in ecstasy.

  Drax himself fired his silencer, the tiny, yet deadly metal spike pierced Lindberg’s neck, and jutted out the opposite side in a welter of blood, the vicious barbs contained within the bullet flicked out a split-second later, embedding in the man’s flesh. Lindberg choked and coughed up a fountain of blood from his pierced trachea. Yet he still managed to open fire, his pulse rifle lit up the gloomy corridor and caught one of the Kallan in the chest. The shots slammed into the chest plate of the Dracos warrior, tearing apart the carbon fibre protection of the aliens environment suit and blasting several bloody, ragged holes in the aliens body, it collapsed convulsing on the floor of the corridor.

  Lindberg staggered back also, just as Drax pressed a control to retract the barb lodged through the lance corporal’s throat, which the device duly did, at an incredibly fast rate. Ripping the small projectile back through the mans neck, the outstretched barbs tore the front of the man’s throat open in a spray of deep crimson. Lindberg collapsed onto the floor, suffocating on his own blood, and slowly, painfully, bleeding to death.

  Samuel Johnson, the last man to survive tried to make a break for it, discs of razor sharp metal skittered off the ground all around him as he ran, he frantically pressed his wrist comm. “sergeant, they’ve broken thr……”

  One of the Kallan crawling overhead had swung his wrist blades and decapitated the dark skinned American in one swift flowing sweep. His headless body collapsed onto the floor, the neatly severed head came rolling to a standstill a few feet away from his body.

  The badly wounded private Maxwell was trying to shuffle into a small store room containing scientific laboratory equipment. The slices in his leg from the lethally sharp metal discs, and the intense burning from their acidic coating was excruciating. The acid slowly burned deep into the flesh of his thigh, the cotton of his fatigues slowly breaking down and searing into his leg.

  One of the black suited horrors moved to finish him off, and he silently wished he would, wished he would rid him of the agony of his wounds. The alien warrior levelled his weapon, he stared down the horizontal slit of the barrel as he pressed it towards his face.

  Another took hold of the weapon, and thrust it aside, denying the warrior his kill. Maxwell was scrabbling around on the floor, the pain from his burning flesh was unbearable.

  The alien gradually removed his helmet, revealing his pale, mottled complexion, his dark malevolent almond shaped eyes. He regarded him with a kind of sickening amusement, as though the agony he was going through was a source of entertainment; sick bastard.

  “I am Drax, the commander of these people, do you understand?”

  Maxwell nodded a struggling yes, while trying hard not to grip his burning leg, he knew that if he did, he would simply end up burning his hand also.

  “My people are called the Dracos, you are interlopers, why are you here?”

  The private gasped, his mind a fog of agony, “I’m not telling you a goddamn thing.” He spat in the Dracos commanders face, Drax recoiled a little.

  Wiping the spittle from his cheek, the Dracos commander seemed to pace, as if he grew pensive. Then in a blur, he whirled around and slammed the end of the seized rifle into Maxwells sliced and badly burned thigh.

  The young private screamed in absolute excruciating pain, his mind reeled and he became woozy, threatening to pass out.

  Drax leaned in, twisting the rifle barrel inside Maxwell’s leg, blood poured from the wound. “Let me make this clear to you,” he said as he twisted again, Maxwell gasped in intense agony, flailing to protect his injured limb, but to no avail. The other Dracos warriors laughed, and nodded appreciatively at the brutality their commander was showing.

  “You will tell me who you are, and how many others are here.”

  The private, struggling to prevent himself lapsing into unconsciousness managed a weak, “fuck you!”

  “Unfortunate,” Drax ripped the barrel from out of the private’s leg, aimed it straight at Maxwell’s face and fired. Blood and thick gobbets of brain matter exploded across the nearby walls and equipment.

  He searched the bloodied body, finding a pair of dog tags. Stamped on the back were the words. Sixty-ninth Sicarian guards, E.D.F troop division, and the motto Fight hard, fight well underneath.

  “Now at least we know whom we are fighting,” Drax said to his men, as he reattached his helmet.

  ***

  Rachthausen sprinted towards the elevator with three of his men following rapidly behind. The contraption was still on this floor, good, he thought. If the aliens took the elevator and made it down here, they were done for. He could not let that happen.

  Taking a small length of steel wire from his webbing, and some insulation tape, he attached a grenade, and, using a small pair of pliers, fastened the steel wire around the pin of the explosive, uncurling just enough wire to cover the door of the elevator. With some tape he attached one end of the wire to the elevator door, and carefully taped the grenade to the other. When the doors opened, the pin would be pulled, and blow them all to hell in the process, that was what he hoped anyway.

  “This will give them something to think about,” he smiled at the others, as they slowly stepped back from the elevator itself.

  A light lit up, and the crudely booby trapped elevator began its rapid ascent, quickly stopping on Drax’s floor. Two of his best men awaited it, before the Dracos commander could even shout a warning, the doors opened, ripping the pin from the grenade. The two men stood, looking at this strange alien device attached to the doors, completely oblivious to the danger it represented.

  The grenade detonated, blasting the elevator apart in a giant fireball that hurled the two Kallan several feet back down the corridor. Their mangled bodies slamming heavily onto the floor, their environment suits ripped apart by the razor sharp shrapnel that tore through the corridor. Two other Kallan suffered injuries to their upper arms, from flying fragments.

  The corridor quickly filled with smoke, and took on a new brighter amber glow from the flames of the wrecked elevator.

  The destroyed elevator itself fell back down the shaft, smashing into the bottom, Rachthausen and his men dived backwards to avoid being showered with flaming debris fragments.

  Drax looked on at the carnage wrought amongst his men and muttered a curse under pressed twisted lips, “our enemy is a resourceful one.”

  In one fell swoop they had just taken out two of his best men, and prevented him from getting to the floors below, he would have to find another way.

  Consulting the layout plan still displayed by his A.R. uplink, he searched the nearby rooms for any way to access the other floors, he motioned for his remaining men to do likewise.

  ***

  The second squad of Kallan warriors had now approached the other set of blast doors and was readying for their own attack, although this squad had a different strategy in mind. They hid as many men as they could around the lip of the blast door, it was a tight squeeze, yet had managed to hide six men around the semi-circular two foot wide lip. Others clung to walls and ceilings waiting for their moment to strike. Only one person stood upright on the actual corridor floor.

  The three E.D.F guards posted to defend the blast doors on the third floor could
hear nothing, though they remained cautious, nervous, they knew something was about to happen, it was just a matter of when. They all heard the screams of the other team over their comm. links, and certainly did not want to end up the same way.

  Finally, one of the Dracos bit the bullet and pressed the small keypad to open the giant blast doors, a familiar dull whine reverberated around the silent corridor as the same powerful motors strained to move the twenty tonne doors, there was a strain, a groaning noise, the creaking of metal, and eventually a loud crack as Broadhurst’s flimsy weld finally gave way.

  The giant doors slowly parted, showing the faint black silhouettes of three Dracos warriors, the E.D.F troops, now much more alert to the danger, and also warned by the noise of the doors separating were quickest, they let loose the firepower of their pulse rifles. Before the alien warriors even had a chance to react Thorsson and Anderson had gunned two of their number down, their bodies fell from the ceiling, slamming into the hard floor with a resounding crunch.

  The lone standing Dracos, returned fire with his own weapon, lethally sharp eviscerator discs whistled through the air, he was a poor shot as those he had fired missed their target. Except one that nicked Laveaux on his left shoulder, the Frenchman ignored the wound.

  The remaining Dracos warriors pressed their attack with a speed and grace unheard of by human standards. They charged along the walls and ceiling as though it had suddenly come alive with alien bodies.

  Thorsson and Anderson dived into the auxiliary control room near to the blast doors, in order to mount a better defence from there. Laveaux however, was temporarily distracted by the increasing burning sensation in his shoulder. Suddenly he screamed as the acid from the disc that had nicked him began to bubble and dissolve his very flesh. The distraction was all that the Kallan needed, as two more discs tore into his chest and abdomen. He sank to his knees, blood spurted out from his wounds. Already the acid was taking its effect, burning its way into his exposed skin.