Ian. Smethurst - Eye of the Dracos

With no time to seal the cramped, dingy, confined crawl space shut. The three remaining Kallan warriors shuffled along as fast as they physically could to the other end.

The E.D. F troops all swarmed towards the other open end of the tiny crawlspace, yet none dared venture inside for fear of being sliced to ribbons by the Kallan’s weapons.

Another panel blocked the exit from the crawlspace, which in total was no more than forty feet long, hampering Kallos’s access to the bridge itself. A heavy, swift kick soon removed the obstacle, causing it to fall away to one side with a loud clatter. He launched himself out of the tiny hatch, much to the astonishment of the bridge crew who believed their command centre was sealed.

To all intents and purposes, it was, except to the Dracos the tiniest crawlspace was a means of access.

Taneth was quickest off the mark, leaping over Kallos, and high into the air in an acrobatic flip, his wristblades outstretched, swinging his arm so fast it was barely visible as he quickly decapitated one of the bridge crew.

Kallos himself sprinted towards a console as the third Dracos warrior peppered the exposed crewmen with razor sharp eviscerator discs, three more fell clutching at bloodied ruined throats, torso’s torn apart, legs severed, making them easy pickings for the other two.

In total there were a dozen bridge crew, and they had accounted for four of them at a stroke, there were now eight left, it would be a tall order, but not impossible.

Kallos traded fire with a youngish looking male barking out incomprehensible orders to those around him. Taneth landed from his acrobatics neatly onto his feet, and followed this up by with a quick forearm strike to another. The lethally sharp blades sliced deep into the man’s face, he fell back screaming, before the Kallan warrior leapt into the air again, adopting a textbook Dracos close combat technique.

Kallos finally dispatched his opponent with a series of well placed shots from his eviscerator pistol, two in the shoulder and a third in the forehead ensured he would travel the hereafter.

The third and final Dracos warrior was darting from smashed console to smashed console, trying to get behind the now pinned crewmen in order to set up a triangular killing field with the other two.

A red haired female was firing back from cover, she was a surprisingly good shot, and one slammed into Kallos’s shoulder, blasting apart a fair sized chunk of carbon fibre plate, his pale arm was now exposed and bleeding, the warrior cursed vehemently in his native tongue as he skulked behind cover.

Taneth landed gracefully near the far corner of the circular bridge at Kallos’s right, calmly he put two eviscerator rounds into the back of the head of a male, before taking cover himself.

“Taneth, diversion leap,” Kallos spoke into a communicator built into the side of his battlehelm, a silent nod confirmed he had understood the order, then popped up to spray the surviving naval officers with a burst of eviscerator rounds.

There were now five left, all in a cluster, defending their captain directly ahead of Kallos’s position. The diversion leap was a risky, yet necessary Dracos technique, used to get in close amongst small clusters of enemy troops like this. One would leap high through the air, all the while firing upon their enemy in order to get them to keep their heads down, while at virtually the exact same time a second Dracos would leap into the air straight at them. The resulting melee was often brief and bloody. It was an incredibly hard manoeuvre to pull off successfully though, requiring exact timing, this was why it was one of the most advanced of all combat techniques taught to the Kallan.

“Go!”

Taneth bounded into the air with an immense jump, almost hitting the ceiling. He began pumping fire into the small group as he passed by overhead, catching one in the chest and sending him staggering back crashing into the ships viewscreen. Kallos then leapt straight for the beleaguered group, his and Taneth’s bodies missed one another by mere inches, as he landed neatly in-amongst them, sending one sprawling across the ground as his feet slammed into him.

The two who had been knocked out of the cluster were now right in the firing line of the third Dracos, who gunned them both down mercilessly.

The resulting combat was over in seconds as Kallos tore open the throat of one, while simultaneously spin kicking another.

The female captain broke free, running headlong toward a still intact console smeared with the blood of a crewmate. She frantically stabbed at a control and spoke into the console, all she managed to say was, “all hands, this is Fontaine, abandon shi….”

Three eviscerator discs sliced through her neck, Commander Erica Fontaine’s head gradually separated from her body and bounced off the console she was using, her body collapsed onto the hard deck plating in a spray of deep crimson blood.

The Eisenhower was theirs, just four Dracos warriors had taken over control of an entire E.D. F heavy cruiser. The moans of the dying and the screams of agony were a delight to hear, as Taneth and the other Dracos kicked away the weapons of those who still attempted some desperate form of resistance, despite the intense pain of deep eviscerator slashes and the acid now slowly melting its way into their bodies. Oh, to hear their glorious tortured screams that little bit longer, and to revel in the chaos and bloodletting they had caused, they were Dracos, this was their victory.

One by one, the bridge crew slowly expired from their injuries, leaving the room awash with blood, and yet eerily silent, this filled Kallos with a sense of sadness and he very quickly longed to hear those screams once again, such was the life of a Dracos Kallan warrior.

The slaughter had taken a little over three minutes, Kallos approached this third Dracos warrior who had accompanied them all this time, never actually knowing his name, he had fought well, worthy of recognition; as all of them had.

“Kallan! What is your name?”

“I am Aelthris, fourth daughter of Tamrath.”

“A female?” he asked almost quizzically, taken aback. Very few females survived for long in the ranks of the Kallan, the vast majority stayed on Corvandris, where they were highly prized, since the Dracos race depended upon them for propagation.

“You have fought well Aelthris, daughter of Tamrath; worthy of recognition in the annals of the Kallan.”

“I fight only to serve the Dracos, and to hear the screams of my enemy.”

“That you have, and there will be more before we are finished. We must continue the hunt, our prey is still on the surface, and continues to taint our world.”

All Dracos females had a first name beginning with the letter ‘A’, it was customary, to honour the first Dracos woman to ever set foot on Corvandris, Alarieth, the sister of blood. She was one of those behind the original coup attempt against the Solarian empire. When it failed, she fled to Corvandris and was never found by the Solarians. She goes by the name of the all-mother now, her age is so advanced many do not believe she has many years left. It was surprising the all-mother would let one of her children into the Kallan, Kallos thought.

Although commander Fontaine’s warning to the crew of the Eisenhower was cut short, enough of it was heard to start a rush for the escape pods, which began to jettison from the outer hull of the ship in a series of small flurries.

Taneth was sat at the ships pilot’s position, the Eisenhower, being an E.D. F ship lacked the sophisticated piloting chairs of the Liberty, Solarian craft or even Dracos cruisers, and instead relied upon the slow and ungainly method of using a console instead. Several stray eviscerator rounds were lodged into the side of the display, and more than once the Dracos warrior came close to being nicked by his own ammunition; an occupational hazard for a Kallan, and an extremely painful one.