Eye of the Dracos ec-3

by Ian. J. Smethurst

  The elevator stopped on deck four, and opened out into a long corridor that ran the entire length of the ship, wiring and delicate circuitry for the myriad of the Liberties systems were all secreted away in overhead trunking, that, in some sections almost half covered the ceiling.

  The floors were white, and the walls a very light grey, giving the corridor a clean almost hospital like appearance. Fully customizable displays lined the walls in even intersections, where the corridor didn’t branch off into separate sub-sections.

  The displays were all powered down for now though in order to conserve power. The corridor itself had a series of bulkheads every fifteen metres or so, that created a kind of octagonal archway. This proved to be a nuisance, because if one didn’t mind their head, they could quickly be incapacitated by running into one of the armoured bulkhead surrounds, as several of his crew had already found out to their cost. Lillian had at least one concussion per week to treat. The idea was sound though, in the event of a fire or decompression, the entire area could be sealed off until repairs could be made.

  Michael made his way halfway along this main corridor, eyeing the bulkhead arches with a kind of grim suspicion, he didn’t feel like a trip to the stations sickbay tonight, thank you very much.

  He then hung a right, turning into a much narrower corridor with only small displays and many more doors leading into several ships departments, crew quarters, maintenance access corridors, supply rooms, the ships main computer core was located on this deck although that was on the starboard side of the ship, towards the aft of the deck lay the power plant for the ships primary sub-light engine. The Solarian negative Ion propulsion drive, as they called it. He loved the engines on this ship, it was what turned the ship from an ordinary cruiser, into a hot rod. Able to fly at a speed, dive and jink to avoid attacks, that left other ships simply in its wake, and able to get out of danger quickly if the action became too hot.

  This ship was unique, there was nothing else like it in the entire E.D. F, and Michael loved its uniqueness, which was why he was a little hurt when he heard of the E.D. F’s plans to reverse engineer some of its technology. Suddenly, the Liberty was not so unique anymore, although he understood the decision, he didn’t have to like it.

  Nearing the hatch, which was attached to a small temporary berthing corridor, a relatively recent addition to the ship that allowed it to dock with stations and other ships more easily, this small corridor led onto the main structure of the facility. At least here were signs of human life, a few dozen E.D. F engineers were strolling past, carrying equipment to perform some routine repairs to a couple of freighters having just recently arrived. They had already offloaded their cargo, and were just going through some minor repair work, before heading off out into space again.

  Michael made his way over to the nearest elevator and said “command deck,” into the speaker.

  The elevator merrily chirped its response and sped him onto his destination, although Charlie Gamma base was only a small substation under the command of the E.D. F research division, it was still quite a sizeable installation in its own right. Made up of thirty six decks and over eight hundred E.D. F engineers and research personnel worked there, its small, but advanced dockyards could service anything from a single seat Peregrine fighter all the way up to a Washington class heavy cruiser. Though not the Danitza class, or main carrier classes, as they were simply too large for the station to handle, they needed the services of a major facility like Alpha, Delta or Echo base, as those were the only facilities large enough to accommodate those metal goliaths.

  After a few seconds had elapsed, the elevator stopped at the command deck of the station, and cheerily beeped again to let him know of the fact. Michael stepped out onto the command deck of the base and was immediately shocked. For the size of the station, the command deck was tiny, the bridge of a Montgomery class carrier was bigger than this. Around twenty officers were sat manning stations, a central walkway ran toward the commodore’s office. Either side of this walkway a small flight of four steps descended into a pair of sunken semi-circular work areas lined with complex displays, five men worked within each section.

  To Michael’s left and right, another flight of ten steps led to an overhead gantry, lined with yet more displays, here another ten men worked. He spied the commodore’s office ahead and just to the left of him. In the wall directly ahead was a giant viewer, partially obscured by this overhead gantry. It was currently showing the forms of the two Lincoln class supply ships which had docked earlier.

  Michael could see the commodore waving from his office to enter, so he hurried along the central platform toward the side room, the frosted glass doors opened automatically.

  Valente had guessed Michael’s surprise, “not what you were expecting?”

  Michael had to admit, “not really, with a station of this size, I was expecting something a little larger.”

  “That’s what surprised me too when I took command here three years ago, you would expect for a station that essentially oversees all operations in the Malthus system and for several light years beyond, to have quite a sizeable command and control centre, but not Charlie Gamma base,” Valente said shaking his head. “Please, take a seat.”

  Michael sat down in a comfortable leatherette chair next to the commodore’s desk, as he did so a small monitor rose from the surface.

  “As you are no doubt aware, the Jefferson class heavy cruiser, Eisenhower picked up a distress buoy from the Copernicus, which was conducting a survey of the Auriga system. From the logs and sensor data downloaded into the buoy we can confirm the Copernicus has been destroyed in orbit of the third planet in the system.”

  Michael stared, his eyebrows raised in shock, fearing for the life of his former medical officer; his friend.

  “However it is what destroyed the Copernicus, and the events leading up to it that has everyone talking.”

  Michael peered at the small video playing on the monitor, he watched the monumental release of energy that shot past, coating the ship in its intense orange glare in the process, and whispered, “what the hell?”

  The video showed the enemy ship, Michael at first mistook it for a Solarian battlecruiser. Yet when he looked closer he picked up the subtle differences, the lower, sleeker, more severely angled command structure. The pronounced weapon arrays on the wingtips, together with the fact that this ship was black in colour and not silver. The dark leviathan began firing on the defenceless Copernicus; the image quickly faded to black.

  Michael had to ask the question, “is that a Solarian ship?”

  “No, the Solarian’s have denied any involvement or even knowledge of the incident, but they are not saying who it is either. They are acting very strangely about the whole thing, and are absolutely adamant they will not get involved. So adamant in fact, that they have threatened to pull their ships out of the area.”

  “That’s not like them, normally they are pretty co-operative with us, they never had a problem sharing information before, so why now?”

  Valente simply shrugged, “beats me, E.D. F command has an inkling that the Solarians do know who is behind it. Or at least they have a very good idea, why they are being so reluctant, nobody knows. The planet isn’t even an E.O.C. A colony world, so there’s no threat of invasion for now at least. Command is monitoring the situation closely and has initiated a temporary alert level three on this, since it is an attack on E.O.C. A property, namely the Copernicus, and it is an incursion into E.O.C. A territory. This is our highest alert level since the Krenaran war captain.”

  Michael was still wondering just what all this had to do with him, but continued to listen to the commodore’s briefing anyway.

  “However, there are still a group of sixteen survivors from the Copernicus who were investigating some alien ruins on the surface, and we need to get them out of there fast. The Liberty is the only ship that can get there fast enough to save them, but you’ll need help,” Valente smiled. “Fortunately for
us, a group of twenty E.D. F commandoes have been training for just this kind of scenario at Bravo Delta base on the colony world of Gamma Aurigulon not too far away. It’s a small military complex used for hostage retrieval training, Colonel Vargev is currently commanding them. They have been scrambled, and are currently on route to the planet in a Stockholm class lander, your mission is to rendezvous with the lander, transfer the troops onboard, and land them on the surface so they can extract the survivors.”

  Michael understood the mission, however a few questions still lingered in the back of his mind, “if I may commodore?”

  “By all means.”

  “Why doesn’t the Liberty simply escort the lander in?”

  “Command are worried that the lander may come under fire, as you know, the Stockholm class lander has no ship-to-ship weaponry, it is purely and simply a means of transporting troops onto the battlefield. Out in space it is highly vulnerable, that’s why we usually have to clear the bad guys out first using the navy, before we can send the landers in. If those commandoes die on-route, the mission is scrubbed and the survivors die as well.”

  “Understood,” Michael replied, it had seemed as though the E.D. F had learned the lessons from all those failed lander missions during the war, so many were simply torn to shreds by stealth ships before ever reaching the surface.

  “The Liberty is still not in active service while we are field testing these new graviton shields, surely there is another ship closer, who can perform the mission just as well?” Michael pleaded, his crew were still not back, and he didn’t want to be put in the position of having to take out the Liberty with a completely green, temporary crew, especially if he was expecting to take her into a fight.

  “The Eisenhower could, but you know as well as I do, the Liberty is more than twice as fast as her, far more heavily armed and much more survivable in an engagement. Yes, the Eisenhower is closer, but the Liberty is faster, in this type of mission it’s a no-contest, we’ll just have to test the new shielding system in combat,” Valente said.

  Just hope to hell they work like they do in the simulations, Michael thought, the power supply to the ships previous reactive hull armour had been removed to stabilise the load on the ships main power core, if those shields failed the Liberty would only be marginally more survivable than any other ship. “My crew have not yet arrived back from their shore leave, the Liberty can’t leave immediately anyway.”

  “We have already contacted your crew and apprised them of the situation, most were on-route anyway, they have been given orders to scramble and should be here in the next couple of hours, no doubt you’ll also brief them personally?”

  “Of course.”

  “Look Michael, I don’t like rushing the Liberty back into service like this anymore than you do, but we both know the best chance for the survival of those scientists is if the Liberty is involved.”

  Michael nodded, he couldn’t argue the point, the Liberty was the fastest ship in the E.D. F anyway.

  “The Eisenhower has been placed on standby should you need her, and a taskforce of four other E.D. F ships have been dispatched from Delta base, they won’t arrive in system for another 2 days, and we are without Solarian help, it appears we are on our own on this one. Do us proud captain.”

  “I’ll try my best, sir.”

  The two officers saluted one another, and commodore Valente gave him a disc for his data navigator containing the specifics of the mission.

  “Good luck out there, captain.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Michael replied before the commodore dismissed him.

  He wasn’t happy with the circumstances, the Liberty wasn’t really ready to be thrown into a combat environment just yet, and the Solarians acting weirdly was totally unlike them. He had a lead he could follow up on however, namely his own pilot, Eldathar, and failing that, ambassador Kerulithar on Solaria itself, the ambassador had helped them out once before when he accompanied them to the Solarian homeworld to enlist his people’s help in the Krenaran war, he was confident he would do so again.

  He decided however, that the best course of action was to speak to Eldathar when he arrived back from his shore leave. With that, he left the confines of the command centre and headed back to the Liberty with more questions than answers.

  Poring over the mission requirements, as well as accessing the stations primary computer archives from the terminal in his quarters, he wanted to be absolutely sure of the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the Copernicus. He was also worried about Kathryn, he found that according to the ships logs she was indeed leading a small science team to the planets surface to check out some alien structure.

  So, she was on the surface after all, at least she might still be alive. This alleviated Michael’s fears somewhat, although he knew he had to get her out of there, no doubt the ship that destroyed the Copernicus would quickly find the remains themselves. Things could get very ugly, very fast.

  A couple of hours later, and the first of the shuttles containing his crew had just arrived. Commander Quinn Kinraid, the tall, goatee bearded, long haired, red headed first officer of the Liberty stepped out onto the hangar bay and stretched his arms wide, it had been a long journey. He was followed by his shorter, dark haired, clean shaven companion Johnson Logameier, the Liberties chief engineer.

  “Well ‘tis is all fine an’ dandy now isn’t it.” Kinraid quipped in his customary deep Celtic twang.

  Logameier simply nodded in agreement, the hangar bay they had been directed to was small and cramped, festooned with all manner of manned and un-manned repair vehicles, as well as a few smaller shuttles in various states of repair.

  They had hitched a ride on the civilian deep space cruiser, la Rochelle transporting eager holidaymakers to the glorious sights of the crystal cities on the Solarian homeworld. Now that the war was over, and interstellar travel was relatively safe again, the crystal cities had become a popular holiday destination, much to the chagrin of overworked Solarian officials trying to manage the constant morass of shipping going to and from the immensely busy world.

  The two men gradually made their way through the corridors and confines of the station, passing a long walkway that offered views out to the dockyard and the ships contained within. There, nestled between two Solarian cruisers was the Liberty, their home away from home, looking as dark, as brooding and as menacing as ever. Both men noticed the newly acquired ‘bumps’ that adorned the ships outer hull. Even though the old warhorse had changed slightly it was still the Liberty, still the most famous and instantly recognisable ship in the E.D. F fleet, and still like a friend to those who served aboard her.

  Since the end of the Krenaran war, the E.D. F didn’t have much use for a former captured Krenaran stealth ship, turned into one of the most advanced and deadly ships in the fleet, though they still retained her services.

  During the early stages of the re-building of the devastated outer colonies shortly after the war, her immense speed and hitting power had made her an excellent anti-pirate patrol ship, although over the past couple of years the navy slowly recouped their massive losses and gradually re-asserted control over E.O.C. A space again. As a result, pirate activity died down once more to pre-war levels. This unfortunately left the Liberty virtually surplus to requirements amongst the more multi-role ships of the navy nowadays.

  The two men made their way aboard the berthed ship to stow their gear, as they had done a thousand times in the past.

  “Smells just like home,” Johnson said as he stepped aboard.

  Kinraid nodded in agreement, “That it does, that it does.”

  The two officers headed to their separate quarters to change into their full naval uniforms, Logameier headed to engineering to check if things were okay down there, while Kinraid headed to Michael’s quarters to hear about this new emergency that had everyone flapping.

  “Ah Quinn, welcome back, have a good time away?”

  “Yeah thanks cap’n, although the c
rew are not appreciatin’ having ta’ hurry back like this, what’s goin’ on?”

  “We have new orders Quinn, the Copernicus has been destroyed.”

  “That’s little Kathryn’s ship!” Quinn said in alarm.

  “I know.”

  “When’s the briefin.’”

  “As soon as everyone is back aboard.”

  “Whatta’ you think cap’n?”

  Michael hesitated for a moment, contemplating his answer, “I think we owe it to Kathryn to go in, find out what happened, and get those still on the surface out of there.”

  “There ‘r’ people still on the surface?”

  “Yes commander, and they don’t have much time, it will all be in the briefing.”

  “I understand,” Kinraid nodded respectfully.

  Michael rubbed his chin in thought, “my gut tells me this won’t be easy Quinn.”

  “Is anythin’ we ever do easy cap’n,” Kinraid replied smiling.

  “I guess not.”

  Less than an hour later, a small Lincoln class supply ship dropped off the remainder of the Liberties crew, they all hurried aboard to get their equipment stowed and begin to make the ship ready for departure. Eldathar, the tall Solarian pilot, returning from his stay on the Solarian homeworld itself, was last to arrive. Kinraid had informed the crew there was to be an immediate briefing as soon as everyone was aboard.

  They all assembled on the ships bridge, it was a tight squeeze, but the crew of forty one just about managed to fit into the oval shaped room.

  “First of all, I’d like to apologise for making everyone rush back like this,” Michael began, “however this is a unique situation, if there was any other way, we wouldn’t have done it.”

  The crew all silently nodded their understanding.