Ian. Smethurst - Eye of the Dracos

Drax cautiously made his way down the metallic flight of steps and descended into the gloom, one by one, his men followed.

Rachthausen and Kalschacht studied the three dimensional display in the control room again, this time in closer detail. They studied each corridor, panning around the entire facility, what they uncovered worried them immensely. They had found the escape hatch on the plan, and it led to a completely separate wing, or so they thought. As they continued to study the plan they realised that the ‘dead ends’ they had been coming to, were not dead ends at all.

They were enormous blast doors, designed to protect the base should the collider at its heart malfunction and explode. On the first and third floors, these were connected to giant semi-circular corridors that linked the other wing to this one.

Worst of all, they found that the control room they were standing in, was just an auxiliary. There was a far larger main one on the other wing, which also looked suspiciously like a military wing, consisting of military store houses, mess rooms, barracks, and engineering workshops.

Great, Rachthausen thought, not only have they found an alternative way into the base, they now have the resources of a fully operational military complex with which to attack us from, this is going from bad to worse.

They did have one stroke of luck however, there was a maintenance room, probably used to make quick repairs to this side of the facility. It was also on this floor; whatever it took, they had to seal those blast doors. He hoped he could find something inside with which to either brace the doors, or even better, weld them shut.

The sergeant made his way back towards the assembled scientists and other soldiers to tell them the news.

“Here’s what we are going to do,” Rachthausen said as he studied their grim, worried faces. “I want two groups of three to guard the blast doors at the end of each corridor. They are not dead ends as we thought, if the enemy break through, they can very quickly overwhelm us.”

Naturally his Sicarian guards were the first to volunteer, “Okay Johnson, Maxwell, Lindberg, you have the first floor. Anderson, Laveaux, Thorsson, you have this floor. Do whatever you need to do, but in no circumstances should they come through those blast doors, keep in contact at all times.”

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.