E.D.F Chronicles : Eye of the Dracos Page 8

  “Thank you,” she said earnestly, and tenderly embraced the sergeant, she was scared and feeling those giant arms wrap around her, she felt protected, like nothing on earth could hurt her. They gently parted from the embrace, her eyes searched the sergeant’s features, he smiled warmly.

  “Wait a second,” Kalschacht exclaimed, sitting bolt upright as though hit with a cattle prod.

  “What is it?” Kathryn asked.

  “I’ve got it!” He shouted in elation as he walked towards them, “they have blinded us right? by shutting off the lights.”

  “Yes,” Rachthausen replied, wondering just what the physicist was getting at.

  “So why don’t we blind them.”

  “With what?” the sergeant replied, intrigued, but not quite understanding how it could be done.

  “With the flares we brought down from the shuttle, we have a box of 6 here.”

  “Show me,” Rachthausen said, now he knew the physicist was onto something.

  “Even when the lights are on, they only ever give off a twilight glow, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “So they must be sensitive to bright light, they have shut the lights off specifically because it benefits them. They can see us easily, but we struggle to see them. When we let off a flare, the reverse happens, suddenly we are much more tolerant to bright light than they are, it will be they who are blinded.”

  “Kalschacht, you are a genius.”

  He let out a loud chuckle, “just Newton’s law in action, every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. “

  Rachthausen took the box, quickly stuffing three of the flares into a pouch on his webbing. “Anderson, take these, if you hear the slightest hint of movement. Let one off.” He passed the box to him.

  “Gotcha.”

  The sergeant then turned to the small haul of weapons captured during the fighting, these things had been butchering his men, he studied them closely, observing their shape, the short barrel ended in an almost slit like opening. It had a small magazine, which appeared to look like a pronounced bump on the top of the weapon about three quarters the way toward the stock. With an effort he managed to unclip it by locating a securing latch just below.

  The magazine itself stank of acid, he had to hold his nose away from the pungent fumes, the acid despite being devastating to organic tissue, was not eating into the ammunition, or any part of the weapon.

  He figured that the weapon itself must be constructed of some unknown acid resistant metal, he found that the weapon was actually very simple compared to the ubiquitous E.D.F pulse rifle. The magazine was a simple gravity feed, although the ammunition was barely thicker than a human hair, how it didn’t just shatter upon hitting something, the sergeant had no idea.

  The ammunition itself seemed to be dropped into a kind of guide rail within the firing chamber. A locating pin poked through a tiny hole in the centre of the lethally sharp, disc shaped projectile.

  When Rachthausen pressed the trigger, he noticed that this pin spun incredibly fast, and then shot forward along a central groove in the chamber, the groove itself was deeper at the end that the beginning, allowing the locating pin, to disappear within it. The pin shot forward so fast, and spun so quickly, that Rachthausen barely even saw it once it fired.

  He could only applaud the engineering of this thing, the guide rails were so smooth, and so slippery, it was as if they were Teflon coated, it offered no resistance to the ammunition travelling along it at all. The tolerances were so exact that it offered very little extraneous movement for the disc, so that it flew perfectly straight, and perfectly true, every time.

  What’s more, that little ammunition pod could carry hundreds of these metal slivers inside, due to their hair like width. The only sound it made was the gentle click of the trigger, followed by a slight hum of the pin spinning inside, and then the whistle of the disc as it cut through the air.

  It truly was a marvel of engineering simplicity, there were very few moving parts to go wrong, used very little power, and could carry a massive amount of ammunition, and hardly ever jammed to boot. Fortunately for them, it could be used against their enemies just as easily. He immediately called for Anderson to use this weapon against them, rather than their own.

  ***

  Drax and his remaining men continued to scurry through the ventilation system, a gentle breeze flowed unceasingly through the cramped pipework, from the series of vacuum pumps above them through to the giant oxygen storage tanks located far below, and out through the rest of the complex.

  A silent communication was coming through, audible only to him.

  The A.R. uplink came to life again over his left eye, it was Raleon, one of the more inexperienced members of squad two.

  “Commander,” Raleon said nervously, “we are falling back, we have taken eighty percent casualties, and have encountered heavy resistance on the third floor.”

  “Calm yourself, Raleon. Your men have no doubt fought bravely, worthy of the Kallan name.”

  “Err…..yes, sir.”

  Drax had already lost three of his own men so far, but to lose eight like that was inexcusable, he made a mental note to have them both executed for gross incompetence, once the hunt was over.

  “Join up with us, we are on the second floor, science wing.”

  “Yes sir,” Raleon said with renewed vigour.

  With that the communication ceased, “young bloods,” Drax murmured to himself with distain as he continued to creep forward through the narrow pitch black tunnels, using his helmets nightvision mode to see.

  He briefly switched to thermal view, there was nothing showing up within range, however they would have to search the floor anyway. These interlopers were cunning, as he had already found out.

  ***

  Two more Dracos warcruisers had dropped out of plasma drive on the fringes of the Auriga system, they had picked up on the communication the Flame of Celthris had sent earlier. Their sleek, black, crescent shaped forms powered up as they inexorably ventured further into the system. Past the tiny, barren, frozen ice world of Auriga VII, the enormous gas giants of Auriga V and VI, Auriga VI being a grey-white in colour due to the vast amounts of dry ice that swirled amongst its kilometres thick gaseous soup.

  Auriga IV was a runaway greenhouse world, its thick carbon dioxide atmosphere trapped heat given off by the Aurigan sun over millennia down on the surface, where over millions of years, the planet steadily increased in temperature. Today it had a mean surface temperature of one thousand, five hundred degrees Fahrenheit, volcanoes are constantly active on its surface, throwing out great clouds of dust and debris, and the incredibly hot searing winds can reach up to three hundred kilometres per hour. The whole planet was a hot house, a death trap to life.

  Eventually as they explored further into the system, they found the orbiting form of the Flame of Celthris.

  “Two ships approaching, sir, they are Dracos, identified as the Blade of Rhovanion, and the Vengeance of Kelmarroth.”

  “Understood Halloth,” Kaelleth nodded toward his junior sensory officer, working at the sensory station within a recessed pulpit to his right.

  So they brought the Blade of Rhovanion herself, this must be big news to attract the flagship of the Dracos fleet.

  Another massive blast of bright orange energy shot past the two approaching warcruisers, bathing their dark, brooding forms in a gentle orange glow as they neared the Flame of Celthris. Their dark crescent shaped silhouettes and bladed fins along their flanks, almost made it look like some meeting between giant black spiders was taking place.

  “Incoming communication,” Halloth announced.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  The features of a slightly aged Dracos filled the screen, his eyes black as jet, his skin pale, yet the figure possessed an aura of power, and a strict sternness that belied his withered appearance. It was Calvaris Senergid, the commander of the Blade of Rhovanion, and commander of the entire Dracos fleet.
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  Kaelleth visibly stiffened, it wasn’t every day he got to speak to a man with as legendary a name as Senergid. He was one of the very few, who could still remember the great betrayal three centuries ago, and travelling across the stars to a new future, eventually settling on the Dracos homeworld, Corvandris.

  “Where is Drax?” Senergid asked.

  “He has travelled to the surface with an assault team to clear out some interlopers that had infested the purity of the station, lord.” Kaeleth replied with considerable deference to the man who far outranked him.

  “You are to be congratulated, the eye of the Dracos is one of the highest prized of all the halo worlds, it was this world that supplied the majority of the power needs for the fledgling Dracos empire three hundred years ago.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Kaeleth replied, nodding respectfully once again, “If I may sir, why did our people abandon it?”

  “At the time, we were reeling from the great betrayal, and were being hunted down and driven from planet-to-planet. The enemy were merciless, they would capture and destroy our fleets, blast our planets from orbit. We teetered on the edge of being wiped from the face of the galaxy.” Senergid’s face gave the expression that he relived those horrible times from when he was a child, whenever he spoke of the betrayal. “It was during one of these attacks when we were forced to abandon the planet. The facility was shut down, and the few remaining Dracos ships passed through the veil and found Corvandris. Wherever since, we have been quietly biding our time and rebuilding our strength.” Senergid paused to inhale a raspy, wheezing breath. “Until now myself, and the few Dracos still living who can remember back to those days had simply forgotten the planet, lost in the fog of everyday survival. We did not wish to reclaim a new world so soon anyway, as we were a badly depleted people, and if we left the safety of the veil to re-occupy the planet, we might alert our enemies to our presence. It was deemed too great a risk, until it violently reactivated two days ago.”

  “Do you think that we are strong enough to occupy the planet now?” Kaeleth asked.

  “I believe that the time has come upon us to re-claim the halo worlds, yes.”

  That reply sent a shudder of excitement through Kaeleth.

  7. A call from afar

  Captain Michael Alexander was busily overseeing the final testing phase of the new graviton shielding system only recently fitted to the Liberty, while the process was ongoing the former Krenaran stealth ship had been temporarily taken out of active service.

  In truth, the graviton shielding system was an experiment, a collaboration between Solarian scientists and the E.D.F research division. It worked via a series of powerful gravitic generators placed at key points around the ships hull. When these generators were all activated simultaneously, they produced a powerful gravitational field around the ship, thereby deflecting most types of weapons fire. Well that was how it was explained to him anyway, though to Michael it had looked like the Liberty had grown a few ‘pimples’.

  His crew were due back in the morning, they had all been given extended leave while the upgrade work was being completed. Michael had come back a few days earlier as usual, to inspect his pride and joy.

  Sat in a small restaurant, and overlooking the tiny dockyard where several ships were berthed. Today, he could only make out three E.D.F ships and two Solarian battlecruisers, the Solarians often used the dockyard as a re-supply point while patrolling the borders of their territory as the facility was close to Solarian space. He envied their clean, graceful, flowing design instead of the sharp rectangular shaped hulls of so many E.D.F ships. In comparison the Solarian ships looked positively majestic, their shining silvery crescent shaped hulls, and raised, sharp, beak-like command structure betrayed a love of technology far beyond the rugged utilitarian nature of E.D.F shipping, but also an aesthetic quality together with the wildly advanced technology that he doubted the E.D.F would ever possess.

  Despite being a predominantly peaceful people, the Solarians possessed some of the most advanced and powerful fighting ships he had ever seen. The irony of that was not lost on him.

  “Admiring the view?” Commodore Solomon Valente asked as he motioned to sit with the Liberty captain, a motion that was readily accepted with a smile and a nod. Valente was the commander of this facility named Charlie Gamma base, a tiny experimental research post and sub-orbital dockyard orbiting the Malthus colony on Malthus IV. It had been re-built after the Krenarans devastated the colony during the war, and only completed barely three years ago.

  “I was just thinking about those Solarian ships,” Michael said as he turned from looking at the commodore, to glancing over the vessels one last time.

  “I know, magnificent aren’t they? Wondrous machines, and damned fast too.”

  Michael smiled and nodded, he probably had more experience of their capabilities than the commodore had. Especially since the Liberty had fought alongside them practically throughout the Krenaran war.

  “Do you know about the Valley forge project?” Valente asked enthusiastically.

  “I know it’s a design for a new type of experimental ship,” Michael replied, his brow furrowed slightly in thought. He hadn’t really heard a great deal on the subject, it was supposed to be top secret, senior admiralty only. It made him wonder how the commodore knew, but in all things, word eventually gets around in the navy.

  “It’s more than that, the Valley forge is going to be the future replacement for the Danitza class battleships.”

  Michael remembered back to his time aboard the Ulysses, a Danitza class battleship itself. It was immense, glorious, packed with firepower and the latest advances in technology. Unfortunately, none of that did it any good, as the Krenarans blew it to smithereens at the outset of the war. “The Danitza’s are powerful ships, some of them are amongst the most devastating ships in the fleet, why replace them?”

  “The Danitza is an ageing design now; it was conceived and built as a deterrent, back in twenty sixty when all we had to deal with was random pirate attacks. Now we have Krenarans, Solarians, and Christ knows what else out there. We need a new advanced ship of the line that can deal with these new threats the galaxy throws at us.”

  “The Solarians are not a threat to us, they are our allies.”

  “I know that, the Krenaran war proved just how vulnerable the Danitza is to the types of energy weapons used against it. Its massive size makes it slow and unwieldy. Besides anyway, the Danitza’s are costly to run.”

  Michael smiled and suppressed a harrumph at this last point, it always came down to money in the end, how much were colonists lives worth nowadays anyway? Since when did the E.D.F go from protecting the people, to savings and cut-backs. He remained silent, not wishing to get into an argument with a superior officer about this.

  “From what I gather, the Valley forge is going to utilise technology reverse engineered from the Liberty. If the new graviton shields work, they are going to be used on the Valley forge.”

  This did surprise Michael, he had not been made aware of any technology from the Liberty being used on any other ship in the fleet, mostly due to compatibility issues. He supposed it was just a matter of time until they got around it, although it would have been nice for command to let him know, especially since he was the ship’s captain and all.

  “It’s the E.D.F’s attempt to merge the fighter carrying capacity of a carrier, with the firepower of a battleship. From what I hear, its primary weapons systems will be not one, but two high power fusion cannons. Each one considerably larger, and with a much larger bore size than the one the Liberty carries. Designs have already been approved by E.D.F command, building has already started.”

  Michael had not even seen this new ship yet, and was already tiring of the commodore’s incessant repartee about it. He knew from experience that the fusion cannon was one heck of a power hungry weapon. The Liberties own fusion cannon was a Solarian designed one and is the most powerful anti-ship weapon currently available. If th
e Valley forge was to use two even larger ones, how the hell were they going to power them?

  “How long until she is ready?” he asked, at least trying to make it look like he was still interested.

  “It’s going to take three years to build the prototype, then you have shakedown and fleet trials. It’ll be a good five years or so until she is with us proper.”

  Jesus, Michael thought. It looks as though the age of the advanced battleship has come upon us, nothing would tempt him away from his beloved Liberty though.

  A young fresh faced lieutenant rather hurriedly approached the two men interrupting their conversation, he was panting from his rush to get to them.

  “Sir, I am sorry to interrupt but I have important news,” the man puffed, a small bead of sweat trickled down his face.

  “Do you know how rude it is to interrupt a senior officer’s conversation!” Valente snapped at the impetuous lieutenant. “Straighten you uniform man! Stand up straight!”

  Michael said nothing, yet chuckled inwardly at the inexperience of the junior officer being given a severe dressing down.

  “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant quickly flattened down his deep navy blue uniform, and stood briskly to attention, attracting a few chuckles from nearby personnel who happened to be passing by.

  “Now that you have most rudely interrupted our conversation, what news do you have?” Valente glared at him, if this turned out to be something trivial, he would have the lieutenant on cleaning detail for a week.

  “The E.D.F.S Eisenhower has just intercepted a sensor buoy, containing a distress signal from the Copernicus.”

  The Eisenhower was a Jefferson class heavy cruiser on routine patrol near the Solarian border. An unremarkable ship by many standards, she had nevertheless earned her battle honours at the battle for Gamma IV, during the closing stages of the Krenaran war.

  The Copernicus, Michael remembered, was the ship Kathryn Jacobs served aboard after resigning her position as chief medical officer on the Liberty. He missed Kathryn, although he had understood why she had made the decision to leave. Eventually the trauma of treating so many wartime dead and dying had affected her badly. It probably did all medical officers in the end, you see your friends and colleagues brought in torn to pieces on the operating table, and it’s your job to sew them back up, and send them right back out there again. It wasn’t a job Michael particularly envied.