E.D.F Chronicles - E.D.F resurgent

by Ian. J. Smethurst

  It was prudent of the E.D.F to arm their transport crews, especially since the spate of Krenaran attacks on E.D.F transports in the last month, attempting to disrupt E.D.F supply lines. However, this time it allowed an assassin of the calibre of Lathiel to gain the upper hand.

  The Krenaran agent weighed up the weapons, he had learned that the heavy machine guns were more powerful and had a faster rate of fire. However the pulse rifle was more accurate at range, he picked up a pulse rifle and grabbed two combat knives.

  Lathiel had no idea whether he would actually use the pulse rifle or not as he was a master of close quarters fighting and could use those twin knives to devastating effect anyway.

  After retrieving the weapons, he left the armoury as quietly as he entered and headed for the bridge.

  After making it back to the elevator, he keyed in deck 1 for the bridge and was soon on the spartan looking command centre of the entire transport. He could blow the docking latches and launch the ship right now if he wanted, however a renegade ship like that would attract far too much attention and peregrine fighters would be swarming over his bow within minutes, better to wait until the transport gets under way officially.

  As he looked over this dingy excuse for a command centre he noted the different stations, there was the rudimentary ships pilots console, the operations station, and the rather worn captains chair. Around the walls of this rectangular room were some small displays, there was a door to the side of the bridge that read ‘captains quarters’.

  He tried to open the door, however it had been locked out, instead he tried the pilots console, Lathiel needed to know where this ship was going. Hopefully the pilot had already plotted a flight plan into his console.

  Lathiel accessed the console and found that indeed he had, this transport was heading to Barnards star to pick up medical supplies from a small facility there, and would be departing delta base at 09:00 hours tomorrow morning. It’s a shame it will never make it there, he thought with an evil smile.

  The Liberty was hurtling toward Earth at plasma factor 6.5, the ships maximum speed was plasma factor 7, however Kinraid had advised Michael that if they attempted that speed, the Liberties already weakened hull could start to give way.

  “So, how does this morphos x drug work?” Michael asked Dalvosh.

  “It is the result of several years of research in perfecting the ultimate assassin. It is secreted by a gland contained within Lathiels rib cage, it causes him extreme pain whenever it is used, but allows him to assume any humanoid form at will.”

  “So he could walk right into this command centre and change into any one of us.”

  “Yes, however he would have to have some form of physical contact first.”

  “Like what?”

  “A pat on the back, a handshake, that sort of thing,” Dalvosh replied. “However he does have one weakness.”

  “Which is?” Vargev asked after listening in to the conversation.

  “His basic D.N.A structure remains Krenaran, and it can be picked up by any scanner capable of scanning D.N.A sequences.”

  “Like a Solarian scanner,” Eldathar cut in.

  “Exactly, that was why the Solarians present at Perseus picked him up,” Dalvosh said nodding.

  “Lucky for us we ‘ave a few of those Solarian scanners aboard,” Kinraid said.

  “What’s our status?” Michael asked.

  “The ship’s still in a bad way, te’ damage we took getting into orbit will have to be repaired before we set down on Earth otherwise we will simply burn up in te’ atmosphere,” Kinraid replied.

  “We’ll have to make repairs on-route, we don’t have time to stop at a repair facility.” Michael said as he pressed a control on his wrist comm. “Alexander to Logameier.”

  “Logameier here captain, I’m a little busy right now, what’s up?” replied the chief engineer, who was busily strengthening the weakened bulkheads around the destroyed torpedo launcher.

  “Can you re-configure some Solarian scanners to be usable by humans?”

  “I’ll have a couple of the Solarian technicians take a look at them. Might I ask what for?” Logameier asked rubbing sweat from his brow, it was still warm in here from the heat build up after leaving the atmosphere. He really didn’t need more tasks right now, it was taking every last minute of his time keeping the Liberty from falling apart.

  “It’s going to help us hunt some assassin,” Michael smiled.

  “I like the sound of that captain, I’ll get some Solarian techs right on it.”

  “Good man,” with that, Michael ended the transmission.

  “Anything else I need to know about?” Michael asked, his hopes buoyed a little now that they had a way to track this little chameleon.

  “Apart from the fact that Lathiel is lethal with both close combat and ranged weapons, and can melt into the background virtually anywhere, I can’t think of a thing,” Dalvosh replied with a hint of sarcasm, he knew the humans were out of their league in dealing with Lathiel right now.

  “Riiight, nothing to worry about then,” Michael replied, his hopes cruelly dashed again.

  Vargev restrained a slight chuckle, he was actually beginning to like this Dalvosh. However on second thought, nope, he hated all Krenarans equally.

  “Can’t this thing go any bloody faster?” Michael asked, wanting to vent his frustration at something.

  “Sorry captain, not without further damage to the ship,” Eldathar replied from the pilot’s chair.

  The Liberty continued hurtling through the star-lit blackness of deep space.

  Next morning Lathiel awoke early, he had stowed away in a dark disused area of the cargo hold, between some unknown crates. This frail Terran body ached from sleeping on the cold, hard floor. He slowly got to his feet, his eyes had developed a kind of crusty, powdery deposit in the corners either side of his Terran ‘nose’. He had no idea what it was but knew that it irritated him, and so he rubbed at them with his finger, at once this annoying deposit had cleared.

  He felt lethargic, and shook his head to release the fuzzy feeling, gradually feeling a little better and slightly more alert.

  Making his way out of the cargo hold, he found that the ships crew or prey as he liked to think of them, had returned as they nonchalantly strode down the corridor past him completely oblivious to the danger he represented. Although his appearance altering drug caused him immense pain, he liked being able to pass unnoticed, being able to slip through virtually any net, all he had to do was kill someone, something which came very easily to him.

  11. The mystery of transport blue-177.

  Lathiel knew there would be problems, with such a small crew everyone knew everyone, so he had to keep to himself as much as possible. Since everyone was busily getting the ship ready for departure, he decided that he would hole up in a cramped, confined, gloomy maintenance access corridor on deck six for the time being.

  “Hey Siccio!” One of the crewmen shouted.

  Crewman Siccio walked over to him, “whassup Frankie?”

  “You seen a weird looking guy walking around here lately?” crewman mike ‘Frankie’ Franklin asked.

  “Nope, not a thing, why do you ask?”

  “I saw a guy before, coming from the cargo hold. Never saw him before in my life.”

  “It’s probably one of the loaders from the station, you know how people get moved about in this dumbass war, besides I heard something earlier about some new guy transferring over, might be him.”

  “Yeah, your probably right prettyboy.”

  Prettyboy was Siccio’s nickname, ever since the crew used to make fun of how long he spent in the mirror, Siccio was the ships pilot and sometime helper, he modelled himself on the classic brylcreem boys of the 1950’s and was vain to a fault.

  Siccio left the cargo hold and headed back in the direction of the station, while ‘Frankie’ made his way towards the command centre. Once there he met up with the transports commanding officer, Lieutenant Pryce.


  “What’s our status?” he asked.

  “All supplies have been stowed onboard, everyone is accounted for, Siccio has just popped over to the station to get his flightplan approved, then we should be all set.”

  “Good, as soon as Siccio returns I want to get underway,” Pryce said nodding.

  “Understood.”

  Half an hour later Siccio had returned, and the transport began to get underway.

  “Contact Delta base control and request permission to depart,” Pryce said as he settled in his cracked and worn command chair, letting out a small yawn, he had done this a thousand times, the monotony was unending.

  “Delta base confirms,” Frankie replied after a few seconds.

  “Release docking hatch and back us away from the station, ten percent reverse thrust.”

  The crew complied and the comparatively tiny transport began to back away from the gargantuan station, navigation lights and the light from observation platforms played gently across the outer hull of the small vessel, its twin forward thrusters shot out streams of super heated hydrogen, forcing the vast bulk of the transport into reverse.

  When the transport was clear, the rear thrusters briefly fired to kill the reverse motion, and then the rear port and front starboard thrusters fired simultaneously to gradually turn the transport away from the facility.

  Once a safe distance away, its much more powerful inter-system engines blazed into life and accelerated the transport away from the station.

  Lathiel crouched motionless in the maintenance corridor, he could feel the ship accelerate through the gentle vibrations in the deck plating under his feet. He knew his time had almost come, they would soon enter into plasma drive; and then he would act.

  The transport continued on its course away from the station, until what was a gigantic near spherical structure with its outer defence perimeter surrounding it like an enormous halo, was just a tiny metallic gleam, glinting far in the distance.

  Finally, Pryce gave the command with all of the tiny amount of enthusiasm he could muster, “activate plasma drive.”

  Siccio keyed in the controls and a single incandescent beam of bright blue energy shot forth from the transports plasma emitter and opened the familiar swirling energy of the plasma wake directly ahead of the transport.

  “Enter plasma drive,” Pryce said.

  The ships inter-system engines roared once more, and it gradually disappeared inside the wake, the energy quickly collapsing behind it.

  “Now it’s this all the way to Barnards star.” Pryce said, slouching in his command chair.

  Lieutenant Pryce was a full blooded E.D.F naval officer, or that was what he thought, he should be serving on one of the huge and powerful warships of the fleet patrolling the front lines, getting in on the action.

  Instead, he commanded this flying rust bucket, it was degrading. Truth be known, Lieutenant Samuel Pryce wasn’t nearly as clever as he thought he was, poor results at the academy meant that he wasn’t chosen to be a serving officer in the fleet, and when war broke out he was posted to this transport vessel, dashing his dreams of front line action overnight.

  Only when the elderly former commander Ben Howard died four months ago, was he even placed in command of the ship.

  As soon as the transport had leapt into plasma drive Lathiel acted, he cautiously made his way along the tight confines of the maintenance corridor, stopping at the hatch at the end, gently pressing his ear against its cold steel. He could hear nothing, so he took a calculated risk and quietly forced the hatch open. The corridor was clear.

  Replacing the hatch, he continued to cautiously advance down a larger, more brightly lit corridor. He could hear footsteps approaching, looking around the corridor, he noticed a door was ajar. Diving into a smelly, dimly lit room, he silently unsheathed his stolen knives. The room happened to be a communal toilet block, he entered a cubicle and closed the door behind him.

  “Man I gotta pee,” a voice said as its owner noisily burst into the room, the sound of footsteps went past the cubicle and stopped. The familiar sound of a zipper being undone and then liquid splashing against a hard surface gave Lathiel all the clues he needed.

  While the man was busily relieving himself, Lathiel silently and very gently opened the cubicle door. The man had his back to him, taking great care Lathiel silently stalked the man.

  His target, completely unaware of his impending doom went to zip himself back up, when he felt a sharp, agonizing, searing pain in his lower back, as though something had bitten into him. His hand went to feel the source of the pain, and it returned slick with blood.

  He staggered around, and to his incredulity saw another E.D.F officer, smiling, and brandishing a combat knife, coated in blood.

  As the mans vision began to fade, he spluttered. “you?.....who the hell are…..you.” The victim gave up his struggle for consciousness and flopped face first onto Lathiel, who picked up the man in a firemans lift and seated the body on the toilet.

  “Death,” Lathiel replied with a sadistic grin, gently brushing his hand on the man’s pale cheek as he activated his crodes gland. With a roar of agonizing pain, slowly but surely took on the form of the man he had just murdered in cold blood.

  He took the I.D. card from the corpse and learned that the mans name was Bryan Fletcher, and was another engineering assistant. Lathiel gently closed the cubicle door on the corpse of the real Bryan Fletcher.

  The Krenaran assassin washed his bloodstained knife in the toilet sink, hid them back inside his uniform, and left the toilet. One down, eleven to go, he thought as he headed to engineering, eager not to arouse any undue suspicion.

  The transport continued on its journey through the swirling vortex of plasma drive. On the command centre, Siccio was making minor course corrections and Lieutenant Pryce was getting increasingly bored. However down in engineering Lathiel was already planning his next move.

  “At last, glad you could join us, how long does it take to go for a piss,” a dark skinned man said.

  Lathiel guessed the man to be in his forties, he was slightly greying at the sides of his short fuzzy looking hair, and he didn’t like the mans tone. Something he would remedy later, however at this moment in time he was stood in the middle of a wide-open engineering bay and there were witnesses.

  “Listen Fletcher, the main power conduit on deck seven has come loose again, things a pain in the ass. I need you to go help Jackson fix it.”

  “Yes sir,” Lathiel replied.

  “You feeling okay Fletcher?” The man asked.

  “Yes sir, why do you ask?”

  “Because you never call me sir it has always been lieutenant.”

  “Sorry lieutenant,” Lathiel replied, mentally chastising himself.

  With that, he left engineering and headed straight for deck seven, a few minutes later and after a short journey on the elevator, he had arrived.

  Finding that there was no power anywhere on the deck, Lathiel’s Terran eyes found it hard to adjust to the gloom, however he could just about see the beam from Jackson’s torch in the distance.

  Lathiel drew his knife again, and steadily advanced, like a panther stalking its prey, waiting for the exact moment to make the kill.

  Jackson was busy working on the coupling, the conduit had worked its way loose from a vital connection. It was to be expected, he thought. The ship was nearly thirty years old after all.

  He heard movement behind him, in blind panic he whirled around, his heart thumping, sweeping his torch left and right, the surrounding supports and bulkheads threw off a myriad of shadows as the torchlight swept over it, his eyes strained in the dark. There was nothing. Jeez Jackson, get a grip, the sooner this damned power coupling is fixed the sooner the lights come back on, he thought.

  “Hey Fletcher, is that you!” He shouted down the corridor, just in case. There was no answer.

  “Where the hell is that asshole,” Jackson mumbled to himself.

  Lathiel had se
creted himself behind a small support girder a few feet away from Jackson. He gently adjusted his grip on the knives so that the blades pointed inwards following the contours of his forearm, and slowly approached the doomed Terran.

  As Lathiel approached, Jackson spun around to face him. “Jesus, Fletcher don’t creep up on me like that,” he said as his hand clung to his chest.

  He was jumpy, nervous, Lathiel was enjoying this, without another word, the Krenaran assassin swung the concealed knife upwards and outwards in a wide arc, catching and slicing open Jacksons throat.

  He dropped his torch and fell to his knees gurgling, spluttering, and clutching at his ruined throat, to help the man on his way Lathiel gripped the mans neck, and with a sharp twist broke it. Jacksons body fell face first on the floor, motionless.

  Lathiel quietly picked up the torch and scanned the corridor for a door. There was one on his right, about ten metres ahead.

  Dragging the blood soaked body into the room, he found it was a very small sickbay, and was deserted. The entire deck was until they got the power back online down here. Shining his torch around the room, Lathiel could only see a single bed, it would have to do. He hauled the limp body of Jackson onto it, before cleaning his knives again and exiting the room.

  Re-sheathing and hiding the blades back inside his uniform, Lathiel headed back the engineering section, three decks above.

  Once there, the dark skinned man greeted him again, “Hey Fletcher, you fixed that coupling I told you about?”

  “Yes lieutenant,” Lathiel lied.

  “Where’s Jackson?”

  “Oh, he’s just finishing up, getting the tools together,” Lathiel lied again.

  “Couldn’t you have helped him?”

  Lathiel knew this man had a dislike for him from the tone of his voice, and from his posture as the man disrespectfully turned his back on him. He did a quick scan of the room, nobody else was here, it was just the two of them, and time for a little sweet revenge. Lathiel drew one of his knives, and before the man even had a chance to turn around he threw the blade with such force straight at him, the knife whistled through the air.