Ian. Smethurst - Eye of the Dracos

Michael took her place as Nikolai consoled her, “and now we commit this brave and noble soul to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, may you rest in peace.”

Kathryn placed her hand softly on his personal copy of the holy bible, and rested it onto the chest of the body, “goodbye, my love.” She whispered under tear stained cheeks.

They all worked together to cover the sergeants body with the earth they dug out earlier, and then to lay the assortment of rocks, in a simple but fitting tribute to a great man.

Nikolai took out a small piece of chalk, and drew a large white crucifix on the glittering headstone, before placing the blood spattered helmet atop it, Logameier took out a tube of high strength adhesive, and carefully attached the chin strap onto the rock face so that it would not blow away in the wind.

Finally, Kathryn placed his sergeant’s stripes in the centre of the crucifix, and taking great care not to get any on the fabric itself, Logameier attached them in the same way.

The entire group took a minutes silence, heads bowed low, before stepping two paces backward.

“Present arms!” Nikolai called out.

Snapping into action, the commandoes immediately held their weapons aloft, the muzzles pointing skyward.

“On my mark, three rounds… fire!”

A blast of armschlager fire rang out loudly amongst the desolate, empty surroundings.

“Fire!”

A second blast of gunfire, tore through the silence.

“Fire!”

The third and final blast of gunfire seemed to echo even louder than the previous two over the windswept flatlands, the sound travelled for miles around. The three gun salute to a brave soldier was complete, the arrayed commandoes all stood silently to attention, clasped their weapons to their sides, brought their hands up and gave a long silent salute.

Nikolai, Kathryn, Michael, and Johnson all did likewise, it was a simple, but fitting tribute to such a kind, gentle and brave man, who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that Kathryn now lived.

Taneth, Kallos, and the other two Kallan warriors, now fully armed, left the armoury as quickly and as quietly as they entered. One of the group gently shut the metal grate behind them, as they skulked through the air ventilation ducting towards the elevator stop within the Jefferson class heavy cruiser Eisenhower.

They grinned at the naval officers and soldiers running to and fro in a vain attempt to find them, little realising they were passing by right above their heads.

Kallos and Taneth both knew that the third phase of their plan was by far the riskier. They had to make their way, silently and unnoticed, to the ships command centre, a full twenty decks above, which they planned to take over then fly this crude contraption through the atmosphere and transport them to the surface, so they could once and for all finish this hunt.

Making it back to a room very close to the elevator itself, they dropped back down inside, surprising a technician in the process, the panicked crewman went to bring up his sidearm, though a casual swipe from Taneth’s wristblade silenced the man forever, as a great arc of blood shot forth from the man’s neck, the young crewman’s body fell to the floor, quickly followed by his severed head.

There was a slight, nervous pause, as the four Dracos readied themselves for the inevitable dash toward the elevator.

“Go, go, go!” Kallos shouted, and in one swift movement, all four Kallan sprinted full pelt, out of the room, and into the open corridor.

Their sheer speed surprised two naval officers who were in the process of searching for them nearby. Kallos let loose with his eviscerator pistol as he ran, firing half a dozen of the razor sharp discs at the hesitant crewmen trying to bring their weapons to bear.

Three hit home, slashing one of the men’s cheek, another embedded itself deep into his chest, and a third tore open his stomach, exposing his flailing bloody innards. He fell in a wet crump to the floor, screaming in agony as the intensely strong acid began to take its effect slowly melting through his face, and eating into his chest and stomach.

The disparate screams were awful to hear, but unfortunately loud. His partner died quickly as a larger eviscerator disc, fired from a rifle whipped through the air, and slammed into his forehead, there was little blood, just the nauseating stench of flouro-antimonic acid slowly dissolving his brain matter.

The four warriors dived into the elevator; others would come quickly, attracted by the dying man’s screams, they had to get off this deck.

“Command centre!” Kallos barked out his order.

“Destination confirmed.” The elevator replied as the doors closed painfully slowly to the sight of three E.D. F soldiers sprinting around the corner of the corridor. Quickly seeing the dead naval officers, and then running towards the Kallan, their weapons rising, the doors fully closed, and the elevator rocketed the inhabitants at over three hundred miles per hour, to their destination.

“Reports of weapons fire; deck twenty one, two casualties near the elevator stop,” Maddox announced turning to Fontain; the commander looked worried.

“They’re going for the bridge, have all troops converge upon this room, arm yourselves.” Fontaine said, nervously brushing an errant strand of auburn hair from her gentle features.

“Already done, but it’s too late, the elevator has already reached this deck.”

Fontaine cursed under her breath, sometimes improvements in technology were not such an improvement after all.

The elevator doors opened out revealing three E.D. F troopers, weapons ready and at close range. The Dracos were far quicker, leaping gracefully through the air, somersaulting over the heads of the dumbfounded soldiers who desperately tried to track their movements with their weapons. Pulse rifle blasts tore into the walls and ceiling in a neat line following the Dracos’s leap. As the Kallan landed, they brought their wristblades down hard on their victims, cleaving through necks, and severing arteries with sickening ease, blood spurted out from the bodies. A vicious kick sent another careering to the ground before Kallos unleashed his silencer, the tiny metallic spike lodged perfectly into the doomed soldier’s throat, before the Kallan warrior casually retracted it, tearing the unfortunate victim’s neck to shreds within a split second.

They made it to the main entrance of the bridge, but found it sealed shut. Two more troopers came charging down the corridor towards them, quickly followed by others behind.

Two of the Dracos took up defensive positions, cornering either side of the ‘T’ junction that separated the bridge from the rest of the deck, and began laying down bursts of suppressive fire, causing the E.D. F troops attempting to overrun them to dive into cover themselves.

Kallos and Taneth both searched frantically for an air duct, maintenance hatch, anything they could use, as weapons fire began to pepper the walls all around them, they would be dead within minutes if they stayed here.

Finally, they found something, they were in luck, it was the opening to a small maintenance crawl space which ran directly to the bridge itself. If it wasn’t for Kallos switching to thermal view, and picking up the heat generated by a small bulkhead light on the other side of the concealed panel, they might never have found it.

Quickly they prised open the panel and dove inside, pulse rifle fire had torn deep blackened gouges into the wall around them. The other two Dracos continued to pour fire into the E.D. F troopers. Three of the soldiers lay dead in the centre of the corridor, riddled with eviscerator discs.

As these last two Dracos neared the entrance to the crawlspace under a withering hail of fire, one of them took a hit in the arm. The force of the impact flung him hard against the scorch marked wall; three more shots followed it up, two of which slammed straight into his chest armour, shattering the carbon fibre plate in a spray of black shards, the second tore straight into his stomach. The Dracos warrior fell clutching his weapon as he slowly passed away, propped against the corridor wall in a sitting position. Sightless eyes within his battlehelm looking upon his assailants, as they gradually began to break from cover.