Ian. Smethurst - Eye of the Dracos

“I agree lieutenant, space is wondrous in its vastness.” Michael said as he swung the shuttle around, lining up to fly the craft in the channel between the vast bulk of the Eisenhower and the Arizona again, thereby revealing the dirty beige colour of the planet below in all its horrible glory once more.

“ You know, I think I’m going to miss this world,” Vargev said from behind them.

“You have got to be joking!” Kathryn retorted, finding the colonel’s remark in mildly poor taste, after what she experienced on the surface.

“Actually; I am, I hate the place, its cold, windy, there’s no breathable air. I have to admit, apart from the muddy, rain soaked battlefields of Gamma IV, this has to rank as one of the worst places I’ve ever been assigned, the place is one utter shit hole.”

“Ditto,” Michael replied simply, as he took the craft into a dive as it neared the planets atmosphere. The hull began to heat up quickly, flames and super-heated plasma began trailing across its bullet-like hull. A thick contrail of smoke followed the craft as it plunged ever deeper.

Inside, the occupants were jostled in their seats as the craft rocked and shook from the effects of atmospheric entry.

Once the shuttle glided through the thick methane cloud cover, Michael set the craft to atmospheric flight mode, and the ubiquitous delta wings emerged from underneath the main fuselage once again, the small winglets slid out from either side of the cockpit, the twin tails lifted up and the shuttle gently flew on course for the Eye of the Dracos.

Another beam of intensely bright orange energy surged skyward heralding another release from the Dracos installation, it burst through the cloud cover with ease and careered off into space. The brightness of the energy burst almost blinding the occupants of the approaching shuttle.

The E.D. F craft gently set down a few minutes later, near to the remnants of the devastated Dracos assault landers, its small landing lights illuminating the ragged twisted black metal of the downed craft.

While the shuttle was on the surface, the four Dracos imprisoned within the Eisenhower’s brig had plans of their own in mind. Their suits only had another twenty four hours worth of power left in them, and they did not wish to waste it being confined to this primitive vessel’s detention area.

They had lost their uplink to the Blade of Rhovanion when it departed the system, so they were alone, and although the E.D. F guards had removed their eviscerator rifles, wrist blades, and silencers. They were not altogether unarmed, one of them looked up, seeing a small grille supplying fresh air into each of the cells. Using the still functioning magnetic properties of their suits they slowly, quietly crawled their way to this grille, and, taking the greatest of care not to make a sound, opened it. The lone guard hearing nothing untoward, continued to stand with his back to them.

The four Kallan silently crept out from their cell, and made their way along this tiny air duct, barely large enough for them to crawl inside.

There was an opening to the main walkway of the ship’s brig, where the guard, still unknowing, stood below them, weapon in hand.

The Dracos though, had more than just wrist blades, as the guard would soon learn to his cost, one of the warriors flicked out two small, yet incredibly sharp blades from the front of his boots. The warrior waited for the perfect opportunity, as the guard scanned the walkway and corridor beyond, for just the instant when the hapless soldier would look away. Eventually he did so, and immediately the Dracos warrior sprang into action, bursting from the grate in a blur of black bodysuit, he swung from it with both hands, before launching himself, and slamming his feet hard into the startled soldiers chest. The blades bit deep, the victim hardly had time to even blink as he fell backwards in a spray of blood from the impact.

He took the troopers weapon, sidearm and passkey, while the unfortunate soldier was still convulsing and gurgling on his own blood, much to the delight of his assailant. With a gentle whisper of “shush now,” the Kallan placed both hands either side of the man’s head and twisted sharply, the sickening crunch of neck snapping rang out loudly, the victim lay silent, and the Dracos had found a new hunting ground.

Michael, Nikolai, and Kathryn emerged from the just landed shuttle, donning full breathing apparatus and flanked by the four E.D. F commandoes accompanying them.

They made it rather quickly to the now blasted hatch, the wind howled around the giant focusing pylons, the one on the far side of the aperture partially blotted out the sun, casting them all into shadow. Michael could feel the cold wind through his combat fatigues, he shivered and wondered why in the world would the Dracos build such an important facility on such a blatantly inhospitable world, probably just down to desperate measures, he guessed. The thought intrigued him as he pressed on, following the others down the dark flight of steps and into the bowels of the facility once more.

“Okay comrades, nows the time to remain focused,” Nikolai said, speaking into a tiny microphone inside his breathing gear.

The lights were all still out, and the illumination from their torches cast strange shadows along the length of the dark shaft, just as they did when they first ventured down.

“Kathryn, are you okay?” Michael asked with genuine concern.

“I’m fine.” She lied, as she continued to descend, helped in part by Nikolai. No-one wanted her to aggravate the injury to her leg. With each new step she took, she shuddered just a little more. Not from the cold winds blowing in from the surface, but from fear, she was descending back into her nightmare. Both Michael and Nikolai were worried for her, and neither had really wanted her to do this, but she was the only one who knew the location of that main control room.

“We have to keep descending, it’s on the third floor,” she said, her voice betraying only a little of her pent up emotions.

“We’re right behind you Kathryn, lead on, we are with you every step of the way.”

The going was painfully slow as they descended the long dark steps built into the now defunct lift shaft. After another half hour later, they came upon an opening which signified the first of the three floors. Pressing on slowly, they passed the entrance to the second floor.

“It’s only about twenty rungs to the third floor now.” Kathryn announced, her left leg felt painful from the constant stresses and strains the descent placed on her newly operated on muscles and tendons.

Eventually the small group found the entrance to the third and final floor, the howling winds gave off a type of eerie groan to the place, and each footfall seemed to echo into the darkness beyond.

The pain was beginning to get too much to bear for Kathryn, “I have to rest a moment.”

“No problem, take all the time you need.” Michael smiled through the darkness at her.

Nikolai signalled to his commandoes to fan out, forming a half sphere of protection to those within, while the Russian himself took out a small plastic canteen of water, offered it to Kathryn, who gingerly took a few sips, then to the others, before guzzling some himself.

Logameier was perusing the control panels of the security station, as well as the hieroglyphs adorning the walls, “you know for three hundred year old technology, this is remarkably advanced.”

“That’s what Kalschacht and Gomez thought.” Kathryn replied between gasps of pain.

“I bet in their day, these guys where a real rival to the Solarians. No wonder their attempted coup scared the bejesus out of them, and they went on to chase them out of their territory.”

“What I don’t get is; if these Dracos were so powerful. Why didn’t they just create their own empire?” Nikolai asked.