Ian. Smethurst - Eye of the Dracos

Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Jacobs stared out from the viewport of the Copernicus; a civilian survey vessel chartered by the E.D. F research division to investigate the Auriga system for potential new colony worlds.

Auriga was, by and large, an unremarkable system. Situated in the far south west of the Bryant sector, right on the edge of E.O.C. A territory, and about eight light years from the nearest E.D. F facility at Gamma Aurigulon, which happened to be Charlie Echo base, a tiny research facility conducting experiments into a new higher definition space telescope.

Five years had passed since the great Krenaran war, five long years, hard years, where humanity had toiled and dug itself out of the ashes that were the war-torn outer colonies. It was now 2076, and humanity had set to repairing the damage done during that colossal war admirably. Some of those devastated colonies were now thriving trade and commerce centres, while many others were still being re-built, such was the ferocity of the fighting.

Like a great many people, Kathryn harboured an intense distrust, bordering on hatred of the Krenaran race for what they had done. For the damage they had inflicted on humanity, and for the scale of wanton slaughter visited upon them. She tried to forget about those times, of the time when she barricaded herself inside the medical bay of Delta base, scared half mad by the horror of what she had witnessed. That was, until a man by the name of Michael Alexander came and rescued her, held his hand out in friendship when many thought her insane. She tried to forget about the evil Krenarans and their empire, however, the scars ran deep.

Michael was now a decorated war hero, and captain of the E.D.F. S Liberty, Kathryn however, was one of the few that really knew how he felt inside, his pain had almost destroyed him.

She brushed her long brunette locks, now streaked with the rare hint of an occasional grey strand, she was only twenty three and a fresh faced ensign when Michael had rescued her. Now she was twenty eight, a lieutenant commander, she never forgot that episode and still often thought of him.

Lieutenant Ayella approached her. “Commander, you are wanted on the bridge.”

“Understood, lieutenant.”

She pushed her wayward thoughts to the back of her mind for the time being, duty called.

Although originally a nurse, Kathryn re-trained shortly after the war. The horrors she faced on the triage table on so many embattled worlds eventually proved too much for her. She did however, discover a love of planetary geology, and so joined the E.D. F research division as a geologist. She never quite understood how this interest manifested itself, suspected it was a kind of defence mechanism as her mind tried to blot out the memory of those soldiers and naval personnel blasted apart by Krenaran weaponry, which she had to patch back up.

Captain Akimbe was a middle aged man of African descent, a noted geologist himself, although he was mostly known as one of the foremost minds on interstellar phenomena anywhere in E.O.C.A. Kathryn regarded him as a quiet, gentle, thoughtful man, whom she had come to regard highly over the years.

She strode onto the busy bridge, and took her usual position at one of the myriad science stations dotted liberally around the command centre.

“We are approaching the Auriga system, captain.” A male voice announced behind her.

“Understood, drop her out of plasma drive gently ensign, the old girl is not as spritely as she used to be.”

“Yes, captain.”

The Copernicus was an old Trojan class frigate, once the mainstay of the E.D. F fleet, before the faster and more advanced Mandela class superseded it. The Trojan class was over twenty years old, and was one of the first frigate sized vessels built by the E.D. F when it had first formed in 2054.

The Copernicus was the last of these old warhorses still operating, its sister ships long since decommissioned after the Mandela class light cruisers replaced them. The ship was originally named the Achilles during its tenure as a warship, it too was briefly decommissioned.

However, after spending years floating in a gigantic starship scrapyard in a wilderness area of space between the Levius and Sicarius systems, the Achilles was re-commissioned after the research division put out a petition calling for new science and survey vessels to replace its own ageing fleet.

The Achilles was stripped of its weapon systems, targeting arrays and military hardware, and was instead packed full of the latest, most powerful sensor suites available. New ultra high definition scanners were installed, and it had a completely re-designed computer system, doubling the amount of data its computers could process. Eventually, after all the work was finished, they re-commissioned the ship the E.D.F. S Copernicus, after the great explorer.

For the past four years it had served as home for Kathryn, there was an air of quaint nostalgia about the place, as though the ship was like an old friend, a completely different feeling from the ultra modern, high-tech, yet dark and brooding interior of the Liberty.

The ship shuddered gently; the deckplates began to vibrate and creak as the vessel dropped out of plasma drive, a bright flash lit up its sloped forward section, studded with delicate sensor antennae, its elongated rectangular hull with its giant triangular shaped sensor boom raised above from fifty-metre pylons jutting outward from the aft dorsal section of the ship, and chock full with all manner of sophisticated sensor systems.

Two giant inter-system booster engines blazed into life, shooting out a trail of super heated gas which slowly began to propel the ship on its long journey further into the Auriga system.

As the small vessel left the giant swirling plasma wake it had just emerged from, the wake collapsed in on itself in another blindingly bright flash that lit up the silhouette of the vessel once again.

The first planet it passed was the barren, frozen ice world of Auriga VII, the farthest planet out in the system, a routine scan of the small planetoid had revealed that the surface was far too cold at minus one hundred and fifty seven degrees, and the atmosphere too thin to support human life. It was removed as a suitable candidate for habitation rather quickly.

The ship passed close to the blue-green noxious soup of the gas giant Auriga V, noting the violent storms constantly whipped up across its surface for further study later.

They travelled further into the system, towards their ultimate objective Auriga III, the planet was located in this system’s ‘habitable zone.’ Far enough away from the Auriga star so that it would not be too hot, yet close enough that it would not be too cold. Several hours later and the ship reached its destination. Taking up a geo-stationary orbit above the deep beige coloured planet, and began taking detailed scans.

“ It looks like the rocks on the surface are made up of silicon carbides and molybdenum, scans of the core show an unusually hot molybdenum-tungsten mix. It points toward the planet may have once been very close to the Aurigan star, some kind of spacial incident may have forced its orbit further away.” Kathryn said as she turned towards Akimbe.

The captain considered this, stroking his grey stubbled chin thoughtfully, “try a full geological scan of the surface, see if we can find any craters, or evidence to explain why the planet was pulled so far out.”

“Solar flare?” Lieutenant Pryor suggested.

“Could be, though there would be some scorching on the surface, I’m not picking up anything.” Kathryn replied, “something has pushed it out this far, and the planet has settled into a new orbit.” She studied her screen intently, Kathryn loved little scientific mysteries like these, it allowed her to play detective.