Eye of the Dracos ec-3

by Ian. J. Smethurst

  Michael gnashed his teeth in defiance, “well if they want a fight, then by god they are going to get one!”

  The Dracos ships, Blade of Rhovanion and Vengeance of Kelmarroth advanced upon the tiny E.D. F cruiser, at over four times its size each, the Dracos commanders on both ships figured this was going to be a short battle indeed.

  “Ready all weapons and defensive systems, order our escort to do the same.” Senergid, the commander of the Blade of Rhovanion ordered, the flagship of the entire Dracos fleet was not about to be embarrassed by this little upstart pipsqueak.

  “Dracos ships continue to close, they’ll be in weapons range in ten seconds,” Logan informed.

  “Eldathar, send the ship into a spinning barrel roll on my mark.”

  “Sir?”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Err…aye, sir.”

  The dark predatory hulls of the alien craft continued to loom ever larger in the display, suddenly a burst of bright flashes erupted from their torpedo batteries.

  “We have incoming!” Logan shouted in alarm.

  “Eldathar, now!” Michael shouted as he clung onto his seat.

  The Liberty corkscrewed toward the alien craft in a whirling blur of black hull and blue light, the crew onboard fought to hang on as artificial gravity systems struggled to keep up with the frenetic rate at which the ship was spinning.

  “Multiple torpedoes, fire!” Michael shouted, as he clung onto his seat.

  Half a dozen high energy torpedoes shot forth from the spinning Liberties own launchers looking like a circle of bright light, as the warheads streaked toward their targets.

  Some collided with the approaching Dracos torpedoes, resulting in gigantic, bright explosions that wreathed large areas of space in flame as the Liberty spun past towards its attackers. The other warheads, raced toward the Dracos ships themselves, arcing toward their targets and smashing home with incredible force, a bright green energy haze formed around the dark crescent shaped hulls of the alien craft. The Liberty itself shot between the two giant alien vessels.

  Aboard the Blade of Rhovanion, Dracos warriors and crew alike were flung to the ground, as Senergid clung onto his seat for dear life, showers of sparks burst forth from damaged and overloaded circuitry. He couldn’t believe it, whatever that thing was, it was no ordinary ship, it hit with all the force of a Dracos prowler beast.

  “Damage report.”

  “Shields at sixty percent, minor damage to port thrusters.”

  The tiny Liberty had shot past both ships, and was now heading toward the planet itself.

  “Follow that thing!” Senergid shouted to his men.

  The Liberty continued onward toward the planet. “Okay, you can level us out now,” Michael said.

  Eldathar did so, much to the relief of the crew, who had been clinging for all they were worth to their stations and chairs, many of which now had a healthy dose of motion sickness.

  “Enemy ship status?” Michael asked.

  Kinraid studied his display, “both ‘ave suffered minor damage, they’re coming around to intercept. ‘Ya sure gave them a right sucker punch there eh!”

  “Let’s just hope they don’t give us one in return,” Michael replied. His lips pressed into a thin whisper. He was outnumbered and outgunned, the only advantage he had was the Liberties speed and manoeuvrability, on top of all that, he had to get Nikolai’s troops onto the surface in one piece.

  “Head for the planet maximum possible speed,” he said, “shut down the forward graviton emitters, and shunt the remaining power to the rear.” That should help, he thought. Though he had no idea how long the graviton shields would stand up to a pounding from those two ships, he figured he would find out soon enough.

  The two Dracos cruisers finished coming about and resumed their chase of the Liberty. “If he thinks he has escaped us, he is sorely mistaken,” Senergid said, almost to himself. “Ready laser lances and dark matter torpedoes, destroy that thing!”

  The two craft opened fire on the Liberty now out-pacing them, Eldathar did his best to evade the withering fusillade of fire, torpedoes raced out toward them, multiple violet flashes from deadly laser lances lit up the space the tiny ship was flying through. Though even with the Solarians skilful flying, the weight of fire was just too great; several torpedo and lance hits slammed into the Liberty, causing it to shudder violently under the impacts, several crewmembers were launched from their consoles, and Eldathar was having a tough time keeping the ship under control.

  “Graviton shields are taking a hammering!” Logan shouted over the din of explosions and weapons fire.

  Another hit slammed into the ship, sending more crewmen flying from their seats.

  “Hold your course, Eldathar!” Michael shouted over the din and explosions of battle.

  The Solarian strained to keep the bucking ship steady under the intense barrage.

  “Shield status!” Michael shouted as another impact threatened to hurl him from his seat.

  “Graviton shields at forty percent and weakening, they won’t be able to last much longer before they have to shut down to vent off excess energy,” Logan replied.

  Another barrage hammered into the Liberty, sending sparks flying out from a ruptured console, smoke billowed out from fried circuitry.

  “Twen’y seconds until we hit the atmosphere!” Kinraid announced.

  Just a little bit longer, Michael willed his ship on through clenched teeth, “ready two torpedoes, set them to timed detonation, five seconds each.”

  “What for?” Kinraid asked.

  “Mines,” Michael replied, “fire!”

  Logan pressed the fire control on his tactical console, “torpedoes away.”

  Two dumbfire torpedoes were launched lazily from the Liberties launchers, their engines did not ignite, and the ship hurtled straight past them, leaving them directly in the path of the pursuing Dracos ships.

  Michael silently began a countdown, three, two, one.

  Both torpedoes detonated in a massive explosion, throwing up the familiar green haze around the dark enemy cruisers, and rocking the Liberty itself in its violence.

  “Both ships have taken damage to their forward shields, they are backing away, though still pursuing.”

  That should give us some breathing space at least, Michael thought as he watched the deep beige of the planet fill the viewer.

  “Atmospheric entry in five, four, three, two,” Kinraid counted down as he watched the fast approaching atmosphere on the viewer.

  The Liberties hull began to rapidly heat up as the ship entered the upper atmosphere of the planet, it was a familiar sight to Michael. He felt almost like he was reliving the great battle of Gamma IV during the Krenaran war, where his ship crash landed on the planet surface; enemy ships had chased them then too.

  A violet energy flash shot past the Liberty and snapped him immediately out of his reverie, the shot coated the ship in a bright purple hue, it was so close. It blasted apart a pocket of methane gas in the planet’s atmosphere, the heat of the laser instantly igniting the dangerously flammable gas in an almighty explosion that ripped through the upper atmosphere, temporarily blinding the bridge crew in its intensity, a gigantic shockwave raced out toward the ship.

  Michael strained to see in the brightness, watching in horror as the massive wall of flame surged towards them, unable to do anything except shout.

  “Brace for impact!”

  The massive shockwave slammed hard into the ship, with all the force of a tidal wave crashing headlong into a beachhead.

  Crewmen were thrown completely clear of their stations, landing hard onto the unforgiving deck-plating, conduits ruptured in the intense impact, sparks and glass showered the crew, and fires broke out in a number of areas.

  Smoke filled the bridge as Michael slowly picked himself back up amidst the debris of collapsed supports, broken girders and crackling power conduits. A combination of sweat and soot lined his features, he coughed a hack
ing, dry cough, the smoke had made his voice hoarse.

  The Liberty itself was hurtling out of control; it had been thrown into a vertical spin as it careered through the atmosphere, pulled along by the planet’s own gravity.

  Kinraid gradually re-took his seat and studied his own flickering, partially working console, “hull temperature exceedin’ maximum tolerances, if we don’t get the ship under control quickly, we’ll burn up.”

  Eldathar strained for all he was worth against the controls, trying desperately to regain attitude control, “come on!” he shouted as he clenched his alien teeth.

  The ship’s wild careering through the atmosphere began to slowly stabilise, as the Solarian fought against the controls.

  “Looks like we’re through the worst of it, hull temperature’s returning to normal,” Kinraid announced.

  Thank god for that, Michael thought letting loose a relieved sigh, together with the entire bridge crew. “Great work, Eldathar.”

  The Solarian risked a quick glance back at his captain, and smiled.

  “Status report?” Michael asked.

  Kinraid studied his instruments, “Graviton shields ‘r’ down, we ‘ave some minor hull fractures, there ‘r’ some injuries amongst the crew. If it wasn’t for those new fangled shields, we’d all be toast; beggin’ ya’ pardon cap’n.”

  “I know; those graviton shields have definitely proved their worth, what about those Dracos ships?” Michael asked as he wiped his brow with the sleeve of his uniform, leaving a dark grimy smear across his forehead.

  “They’ve both backed off, resumed orbit. Guess they didn’t wanna’ be on te’ receivin’ end ‘o’ that explosion.”

  “I guess so,” Michael replied as he shook off his debris littered uniform, and brushed down his seat with his hand. The environmental control systems had kicked in and removed the smoke, small jets of carbon dioxide extinguished the remaining fires. Things slowly returned to normal as he surveyed the extent of the damage to his bridge.

  Several consoles had completely exploded, leaving blackened twisted remains along the bridge perimeter, dark scorch marks lined the walls. Others, like Kinraid’s were barely functioning, their flickering and buzzing a constant distraction. The snap and hiss of flailing, damaged circuits from the roof hung limp, adding to the scene of desolation.

  “There is nothing stopping them simply bombarding our position from orbit, should we ever land,” Michael said.

  “Not if we land close enough to the facility, I doubt they would risk firing on their own base,” Eldathar suggested.

  “Good idea,” Michael smiled, “head for the base.”

  The Liberty flew over a windswept jagged mountain range, through a forest of strange alien looking trees, like enormous hyacinths their petals instead were leaves.

  “With a carbon dioxide atmosphere like this, I guess photosynthesis must work backwards here,” Kinraid said as he perused the viewscreen from his position, “instead of producing oxygen as a by-product, these plants must produce carbon dioxide instead.”

  The dark warship glided over a flat land, with what appeared to be a river meandering its way through it, the silvery sheen of the water reflected the sunlight at them as they glided past.

  “Well now I know why the Dracos chose this planet, ample water supply.”

  “Yea’ but for all we know, tat could be the only river for a t’ousand miles,” Kinraid replied.

  The sharp inwardly curving pylons of the Dracos structure became clearly visible on the horizon as the Liberty gently glided towards it.

  “My god, the thing is gigantic, those pylons must be a good thousand metres tall,” Michael gasped.

  Indeed they were, and visible for miles around, an enormous set of four focusing pylons, gently curving toward one another, exactly like a giant set of claws had sprouted out from the ground and was reaching up to pull the sky down. The sun was slowly setting on the horizon, bathing these mighty monoliths in stark shadow.

  Michael touched a communications terminal on the arm of his chair, “Michael to Nikolai; have your men ready, we’ll be touching down in around one minute.”

  “Understood,” Nikolai said as he spoke into his helmet mic.

  Colonel Vargev spoke to his arrayed commandoes one last time before the fighting commenced. “Okay, as per the briefing, we’ll be splitting up into two teams of ten men each. I’ll be leading alpha team who will go in and storm the complex, bravo team will be providing close fire support. Razor, you’re in command of Bravo team.”

  “Sir, yes sir,” the powerfully built Robert Jansen, A.K. A Razor replied.

  “This is what we’ve trained for people, remember, don’t let the enemy get too close. Intel says they may have a lot of bladed weapons, and love to slice and dice, don’t give them the opportunity. We all have motion scanners, and we have night vision attached to our breathing gear, so we should be able to see them just as well as they see us. Watch yourselves out there.”

  “Yes colonel,” they all shouted in unison.

  “Let’s show these bastards, who they are really messing with.” Vargev grinned.

  “Ooragh!” was the loud reply.

  Nikolai had armed his men heavily, and they all carried the ubiquitous, high-powered forty-four calibre armschlager heavy machine gun. A weapon which had proven to be so devastating to Krenaran troops during the war. In addition to this however, he had ordered his men to wear the new apex body armour, consisting of ultra tough carbon fibre plates hidden under their traditional camouflaged flak jacket. Each man had half a dozen grenades, a pulse pistol sidearm, and two men of bravo team also carried the slingshot, a portable rocket launcher equipped with deadly new dead aim missiles. A missile that’s guidance system was so accurate, so finely tuned, it could lock onto and track a target, purely from its body heat. To save them being blown to pieces by their own missile, all commandoes wore a tiny microchip concealed deep within their chest armour, which allowed the missile to identify between friend and foe, the missile was not to be used where civilians would be present, as it could just as easily kill them, but on an open battlefield, was a formidable weapon.

  “Commandoes, form up by the port access hatch.”

  “Yes, colonel!” The troops all shouted in unison, and as one the body of twenty men all marched their way through the confines of the ship, passing blown, smashed consoles and damaged circuitry. The glass littering the deck plates crunched under their heavy military boots.

  The Liberty swooped in fast, Michael saw the six Dracos assault landers all arrayed near the structure, it was one headache he could do without. “Logan, target those landed ships, fire at will.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Liberty dived low and opened fire with its devastating fusion cannon, the raw power of the beam slammed into the first of the landers, tearing it to pieces in a fountain of twisted blackened debris, the bright incandescent blue beam raked the area tearing into the other craft just as easily as the first. Bright plumes of flame, smoke and explosions lit up the dusk sunset as onboard power cells and munitions ruptured, before the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere quickly quelled the blazing inferno of the wrecked craft. The wreckage however, still smouldered and continued to send out plumes of thick smoke into the darkening sky.

  Michael could just faintly see the tiny black specks of Dracos warriors scurrying about on the surface below them.

  A powerful blast rocked the Liberty, Eldathar fought to keep the ship stable, “the Dracos ships in orbit, are resuming their bloody firin’ on us!” Kinraid shouted, stating the obvious.

  “Quickly Eldathar, set us down near the landers, get us as close as possible to the structure.” Michael said, a plan formed in his mind, he was going to use the smoke billowing out from the destroyed craft as cover for the landing.

  “Lowering landing legs, gravitic engines to maximum, main engine thrust at five percent,” Eldathar exclaimed.

  The Liberty slowed to a virtual hover, its shadow domina
ting the wreckage of the landers, powerful gravitic engines kicked up great plumes of dirt and dust.

  “Open the port hatch.”

  Kinraid pressed the port hatch release control on his console. The hatch depressurised, and then gradually opened.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Nikolai shouted to his men, all of which had donned their breathing apparatus ready for the assault.

  The twenty commandoes surged out from the port side of the Liberty, sprinting across the narrow stretch of open ground towards the smouldering wreckage.

  The ground near to the landed ship erupted with a deafening explosion as a torpedo fired from orbit, ripped into it.

  “Close the hatch, and get us airborne again, quickly!” Michael shouted his urgency, if they stayed too long on the ground they were a sitting duck for those shooting from orbit, and he didn’t feel like dying today.

  The Liberty quickly picked up speed as it took off once again, kicking up another great cloud of dirt, dead foliage and various detritus, before climbing and racing through the atmosphere.

  Weapons fire from the three ships orbiting above poured down towards it. Eldathar constantly jinked the ship in a zig-zag fashion to avoid the fusillade of laser lance fire and torpedoes streaking down toward the tiny ship.

  “Eldathar, give it everything you’ve got!” Michael shouted as the viewscreen became littered with violet slashes of weapons fire, and the occasional blinding flash of a torpedo explosion.

  “Logan, how are the shields?”

  “Just about finished recharging after venting off the excess energy of that last pounding we took.”

  “Shunt everything you can get your hands on to the shields, take it from non-essential systems, even environmental support if you have to!”

  “Gotcha, captain” Logan worked furiously at his console, as he tried to divert every last scrap of energy he could muster into the shields.

  The Liberty continued on its race through the atmosphere, scything towards its assailants, who were still busily pouring fire towards the small, but nimble warship.

  “Is the main fusion cannon charged?”

  “We’ll have full power back in fifteen seconds, captain.” Logan replied as he studied the power readout for the weapon from his console.