E.D.F Chronicles : Eye of the Dracos

by Ian. J. Smethurst

  “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.

  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.

  “Full power to the ship’s main engines, head for the atmosphere.” Kallos said, as he took the centre seat once used by the late commander Fontaine.

  After staring puzzlingly at the instruments for a few seconds, Taneth finally came across a shiny metallic ‘T’ shaped handle, and pushed it all the way forward.

  This ignited the Eisenhower’s twin inter-system boosters with a giant roar, the ship began to gradually lurch forward under the thrust of the two gigantic turbines, gaining speed all the time.

  ***

  The Liberty, still connected, was being dragged along forcefully by the much larger craft, the small warship started lurching and rocking violently as it was pulled along, crewmen were thrown to the ground everywhere, Kinraid barely managed to hold onto his seat.

  “What in the name o’ god is goin’ on!” he shouted over the din of violent shaking, the scream of twisting metal, and the shattering of glass.

  “It’s the Eisenhower!” Lieutenant Hicks shouted, the relief sensor officer aboard. “She’s fired up her main boosters! She’s heading straight for the planet!”

  “What in the love o’ Mike for!”

  “No idea, but we are being pulled along with her like a dog on a leash! The stress on the inter-connecting corridor is exceeding design limits! She’s going to tear off the ship any second, and if she does we’ll have explosive decompression across the whole deck!” Hicks shouted over the constant barrage of the ship’s violent jostling, several other naval officers were thrown forcefully from their chairs.

  “Jettison the hatch! Break us free o’ the Eisenhower, and then contact that bloody ship, ask them what the devil do they tink they are doin?”

  “Automated docking clamps are unresponsive, attempting to override.” Hicks said as he tied in the sensory station with the engineering sub-systems monitor of the ship.

  “Alerts are blaring at me all over my screen! That section is close to buckling, it’ll give way any second!” Logan Jones said as he looked toward Hicks in panic.

  “There, I’ve got it!” The lieutenant shouted in triumph as he managed to separate the badly damaged corridor from the Eisenhower, the Liberty floated free as the enormous vessel, five times its size, roared ahead past them.

  The heavy cruiser’s hull began to heat up, turning a shade of bright orange as it neared the atmosphere.

  “Full alert status; follow them!” Kinraid barked.

  “Commander, our hull won’t stand another entry into the planets atmosphere, not with the damage we sustained fighting the Dracos ships.” Hicks said.

  “Godamnit!” Kinraid fumed, but ultimately knew that Hicks was right, with the pounding they had taken, they would simply burn up trying. The graviton shields would not last for long.

  “I’ve tried contacting them, there’s no response, and I’m showing a wave of escape pods jettisoned just prior to her firing her boosters.”

  “What?” Kinraid asked, it was all beginning to make sense now, she’s been taken over, had to be.

  “Lieutenant, what lifesigns are you showing over there?”

  Hicks checked his instruments, “three Dracos lifesigns, that is all….” He gasped as the stark reality of what had happened hit home.

  “Well if we can’t stop ‘em, we’ll make it bloody difficult! Ready fusion cannon, target their engines, fire when ready!” Kinraid said.

  Logan zeroed in on the Eisenhower punching its way ever deeper into the planets atmosphere, its hull blazing orange, and slowly turning to white as heat continued to build up on its outer hull. Flames and super heated plasma trailed off it, making it difficult to get an exact fix. He pressed the button and unleashed the full fury of the Liberties largest and most powerful weapon system.

  The incandescent electric blue beam of raw power shot from the elongated barrel of the weapon, slamming home with such force it tore apart one of the Eisenhower’s boosters, blasting it clean off the ship, a great black cloud of smoke and debris fragments billowed out from the impact, leaving a thick black contrail in its wake.

  The force of the impact was so great that it caused the giant runaway cruiser to veer uncontrollably off-centre. The massive breach on its rear continued to stream out smoke, as the hull of the huge ship heated up irregularly, glowing red-hot as it continued to push deeper.

  Kinraid could only watch the stresses of the ship’s hull grow to such an extreme, as it began to list wildly out of control towards the planet. Halfway along its surface it began to buckle, no longer able to resist the immense force subjected to it. It finally gave way; a panel tore open, then another, and another like paper, the ship was slowly tearing itself apart as it hurtled onwards in its suicidal descent.

  Support struts, cross-beams, and its internal structural lattice work were all painfully visible as the rear half of the ship slowly tore itself away from the front half in a cloud of flame, billowing smoke, and debris. Small explosions flashed across its broken hull like the very fires of hell, swathes of hull fragments were thrown loose as the latter half of the ship gradually tore itself to pieces in a giant plume of flame and red-hot shrapnel, all streaking downward toward the planet surface.

  Amazingly, the front half of the ship was still intact, and glided haphazardly toward the surface. Now through the upper atmosphere, it rushed headlong in its descent, fire blazed out of a myriad of rents and smoke poured from the torn aft section in a thick black trail across the sky. Tiny twisted metal fragments were constantly torn loose from the devastated structure, like a shower of metallic conf
etti, before the entire ship smashed headlong into the planet surface, with such incredible force that it threw up a great cloud of earth and dust over a thousand metres into the air, before settling into a crater almost a kilometre across. Small fires littered the basin where the remains of the devastated ship lay, the thick plume of smoke that heralded its arrival seemed to grow steadily wider, before it too began to disperse.

  The torn hull fragments of the rear half of the ship rained down through the thick pall of methane clouds, like a plethora of dark streamers, before they too slammed into the ground themselves.

  Kinraid simply watched awestruck, as did the entire bridge crew of the Liberty. For minutes afterwards debris continued to fall in little black and grey shoots to the ground, he had never seen anything quite like it, it was as if the planet had just been struck by a meteorite; and to all intents, it had.

  ***

  Michael, Kathryn, Nikolai and the accompanying commandoes all witnessed the gigantic blast created by the crashing Eisenhower, in fact the shockwave from the impact had blown them all completely off their feet. They gradually stood and shook themselves off, looking upon the plume of smoke, earth and dust, rising steadily higher into the atmosphere, they could see the bright fiery streamers of falling debris, looking like a swarm of miniature shooting stars.

  The three surviving Dracos however had lived through the colossal impact, in fact they had jumped clear of the wreckage several seconds before it had slammed into the ground, using their cat-like acrobatics to literally leap from torn outer hull fragment to torn outer hull fragment, eventually landing hard on the ground itself. The strength of their suits protected them from the worst of the landing, the shockwave of course flattened them all, though they had expected this and so kept their bodies as close to the ground as possible, so that the immense blast wave passed reasonably harmlessly over them.

  Once they had returned to full consciousness several minutes later, they found that they could move easily enough, nothing was broken, and other than a few minor cuts and scrapes, were ready to resume the hunt; and that they did, with gusto as they ran the rest of the way straight toward the Dracos facility.