That should give us just enough time to get a single shot away, before we exit the atmosphere, Michael thought. The Dracos were about to get a very nasty surprise, the thought made his lips curl into an evil grin.
Several laser lance shots slammed into the ship, the rippling transparent graviton field deflected the worst of the energy, still the impacts themselves violently shook the vessel, it felt like the ship was being pitched about amid stormy seas. Michael held on as the vessel buffeted and shuddered under the withering barrage of fire from the three Dracos ships, slowly beginning to come into view ahead of it.
“Fusion cannon ready,” Logan announced.
“Target the closest ship; fire!”
The weapon roared its fury and an incandescent bright blue beam of utter destruction shot through what remained of the upper atmosphere, tearing into the Dracos ship beyond with such force, it spun the ship almost ninety degrees. Its shields flared violently under the sheer power of the impact; however it could not withstand the awesome fury of the Liberties fusion cannon for long. The shields withered and died as the beam ripped through the Vengeance of Kelmarroth’s command section, blasting it completely clear of its main hull. The ship listed, almost inverted, as though it were a boxer taking a knockout uppercut. Explosions ripped through the vessel's outer hull as gravity dragged it awkwardly down toward the atmosphere itself. Caught helplessly in the pull of the planet, several escape pods were visible jettisoning from the ship. Within the planet's upper atmosphere, its hull began to heat up to an intense fiery glow, before the entire vessel tore itself apart in a gigantic fireball.
Senergid watched the destruction of the Vengeance in stunned silence, as the tiny Liberty shot past once again.
“Head for one of the moons,” Michael said.
“They’ll only chase us again, so t’ey will.” Kinraid replied.
“This time, I’m counting on it,” Michael replied with a wide smile.
“Slingshot manoeuvre?”
“Exactly.”
10. The storming of the eye
The chattering sounds of the commandoes weapons fire rang out in the darkening dusk sky. Bravo team were taking cover around the wreckage of the destroyed Dracos shuttles.
“Keep your fire trained on them!” Razor shouted over the comm. link to his men as he took aim and opened fire again with his Armschlager, the heavy machine gun bucked and swayed in his hands as the high calibre rounds peppered the onrushing Dracos Kallan warriors, their reputation for being nimble fighters was well deserved, in fact, it was hard enough just to get a bead on them.
Nikolai’s team was pinned down by Dracos positions firing flurries of eviscerator discs at them.
“Tomahawk, Rapier, use you slingshots, see if you can get some fire on those Dracos pinning down alpha team.”
“You got it sarge!” came the response.
The rest of the team gave covering fire as the two heavy weapons specialists hefted their rocket launchers and lined up their shots. Tracer fire lit up the whole area as the two men fired their slingshot missile launchers almost simultaneously, the rockets roared through the air far faster than the eye could see, all that was visible was the briefest of faint white contrails from the dead aim missiles, as they shot past the closest Dracos warriors and detonated in two loud, powerful explosions that for an instant lit up the entire battlefield. A plume of smoke and earth was thrown up, and three Kallan were blasted high into the air, landing heavily in bloodied heaps nearby. Sensibly, the other Dracos kept their heads down.
“That’s the signal! Move it!” Vargev shouted as he, and the rest of alpha team broke cover and sprinted headlong toward the giant blade-like pylons of the facility itself.
Three eviscerator rounds sliced into Santiago, sending him toppling to the ground. Though not dead, his screams as the acid tipped discs began to dissolve his flesh was horrifying to hear.
“Keep moving!” the colonel shouted to his men, there was no time to go back for him and risk more men ending up the same way.
A Dracos warrior leapt from behind a small boulder as the commandoes sprinted past, performed a perfect overhead somersault in mid-air, and brought his wrist blades hard down, slicing straight through the neck of one of the sprinting commandoes, who flopped motionless to the ground. Nikolai returned the favour as he gunned down the Kallan warrior with a burst from his Armschlager, the muzzle flash lit up the Russians breathing mask in a fiery glow.
“Jesus Christ! They’re quick!” another commando said to Nikolai.
“Yeah, and we’re all dead unless we get into cover, and fast, so keep moving!”
The battle was proving to be a tightly contested affair, between the most highly trained troops the E.D. F possessed, and the lethal Dracos elite guard. The bright red glow emanating from the eye lenses of the Dracos battlehelms was deeply unnerving to the E.D. F troops, as all they could see were red eyes looking at them in the darkness.
The sun had all but set over the horizon, and nightfall was fast approaching, the E.D. F troops grew nervous, as they knew from the intelligence they had received, that these Dracos were exceptional fighters at night, and nigh on impossible to spot.
Razor’s bravo team was taking heavy fire ensconced in the smouldering ruins of the alien shuttles, two of his men were already dead, riddled with the incredibly sharp disc like ammunition, the stench of the acid consuming their flesh was nauseating, even through the filters of his breathing gear.
Another missile smashed into the Dracos positions, briefly lighting up the kill zone once again, a cloud of white smoke from Tomahawk’s position betrayed the firer. Razor himself, and his remaining men continued to pour fire into the Dracos, spent casings clattered to the ground from their Armschlagers, multiple muzzle flashes lit up in an almost strobe like effect in the gloom, though with their forms barely visible in the darkness, the commandoes were having a hard time finding actual targets.
Razor knelt beside a bent, twisted, blackened panel amongst the wreckage of the Dracos landers. Several eviscerator rounds carved tiny furrows into it as they skittered off the other side, he dug deep inside a pouch on his webbing as the rest of the squad all continued to rake the Dracos with heavy calibre slugs.
He pulled out a flare gun, popped a flare canister into it, pointed the device skywards, and pulled the trigger, just as an eviscerator round whistled through the air and sliced his hand off at the wrist. His severed hand simply plummeted gently to the floor, still grasping the flare gun.
Razor, in shock simply stared at the bloody stump that had been his right hand, blood spurted out from the wound, running freely down his arm, then he screamed out in acute agony as the acid set to its work, searing its way through his flesh.
The flare had cast the Dracos into shadow, making them much easier to see, and instantly began causing immense pain to their delicate eyesight. E.D. F troops from both teams pressed their attack, a cacophony of machine gun fire rang out even louder than before, as dozens of the dark Kallan warriors were scythed down by the merciless gunfire, mixed with the occasional grenade tossed at them for good measure, blasting apart in great plumes of earth and smoke. The E.D. F troops had them in their sights now.
The Dracos themselves, now taking heavy losses, abandoned their defence of the facility and fell back towards the safety of the pylons themselves, and straight into the gun sights of Nikolai’s team; who tore through them ruthlessly. The high calibre rounds punched great holes into the Dracos’s black armour, hurling them to the floor, where they lay convulsing for a short time, before laying still.
Although the Dracos defenders were now being cut to ribbons by the commandoes rapid, unceasing heavy gunfire, they were still making a good fist of trying to fight back, despite the pain the bright light of the flare was inflicting upon them. Casualties amongst the outnumbered commandoes were mounting too. Particularly amongst Nikolai’s exposed team, six of which now lay in bloodied heaps upon the ground their bodies torn and shredded by the lethally s
harp eviscerator discs, alongside dozens of Dracos corpses, riddled with fist sized bullet holes.
Nikolai and his few remaining men had finally made it to the safety of the giant pylons and took cover amongst them. Mentally the big Russian cursed, if he’d known it was going to this fierce, he’d have brought more men, he thought as another eviscerator disc rattled off the pylon he was taking cover behind.
The gunfire had gradually lessened, the remaining Dracos finally surrendered, only four remained out of forty, they had fought almost to the death to protect this place. Their comrade’s torn; bullet-ridden bodies littered the whole area. Smoke hung like a pall in the cool night air from the blast craters caused by missile impacts and grenade explosions, as well as the still smouldering wreckage of the Dracos landers.
The battle had lasted just forty minutes, a short yet bloody affair, nine of the twenty E.D. F commandoes were either wounded or killed, almost fifty percent casualties. The Dracos Kallan warriors had indeed earned their fearsome reputation in the eyes of their enemies who had fought against them that day.
“Bravo team form up on me,” Nikolai said into the mic. attachment inside his breathing gear, as he and the depleted troops of alpha team, searched the surface of the gigantic installation.
Eventually they found the main entry hatch, and studied it for a moment, Vargev managed to uncover a small dirt encrusted access panel. He pressed what looked like the hatch release control to no avail, the colonel harrumphed as he squatted near to the hatch.
“Looks like it’s sealed,” one of the younger, more junior commandoes accompanying him said.
“Thank you for pointing out the perfectly fucking obvious!”
“Sorry, sir.”
Nikolai rummaged through one of the larger pouches within his webbing, near to his hip, and eventually produced a small, cigarette box sized bar of semtex. He unwrapped the plastic explosive, before pulling off a thumb sized amount, rolled it between his fingers into a thick sausage shape, and pressed it hard against the centre of the hatch. He took out a small pen-like radio blasting cap from inside the packet and stuffed it deep inside the explosive, then held the thumb trigger detonator in his hand.
“Back up a few feet!” he said as took a few steps backward.
The rest of his squad complied and slowly backed away a short distance, just as the remainder of bravo team, complete with their wounded squad leader; Razor, joined them. His severed hand covered in bloodied bandages. Nikolai pressed the trigger, instantly a deafening explosion tore the hatch completely apart in a cloud of billowing white smoke.
Drax heard the almighty explosion from the far side of the facility as a faint ‘thud,’ he wondered if it was the other Dracos, come to storm the facility. Still he could not let things distract him from his final, ultimate kill. He would take his time with this one, have a little fun with it, before killing it slowly. He switched his battlehelm to thermal imaging mode, picking up the bright colours of his quarries body heat thirty metres away. It was time to end the hunt, he would be, at last, victorious.
The outline of her body showed her to be female, lacking the physical strength that the males of this strange species possessed; it would make for a poor finale to the hunt. Perhaps he had already experienced the great climax, in combat with that tall male earlier, he was strong and had proven to be a stern test, yet in the end, as in all things, he had overcome him.
Drax silently, carefully pursued his prey through the dark passageways of the facility, she had stopped to rest in an old barrack room, a room in which his ancestors had once slept and trained, now she defiled it with her presence. It would make a fitting place for the final kill.
Knowing full well that his enemy was still armed, Drax used the magnetics within his suit to climb up through a nearby ventilation shaft once more. Slowly, silently he stalked his prey, giving away almost no noise whatsoever as he edged closer. The sense of that final moment, the final kill, was almost upon him. The moment he had waited for so long, a sense of nervous exhilaration filled him.
Kathryn had stopped to catch her breath, desperately tired and weak after having barely slept for three days of this hellish nightmare. She knew though, that it was not over yet, that psychotic alien madman was still out there, the maniac who had killed the one person she had truly cared about besides Michael, the one person she could have loved. She allowed herself time to release the pent up emotion she was feeling, and began to cry softly to herself. It was not fair, where was the justice in this? The tears stung her eyes and began to fall down her cheeks.
Unbeknownst to Kathryn as she sat sobbing between two abandoned beds, a small vent was slowly, silently opening in the ceiling to her right. The dark figure of the Dracos commander crept silently through, inching toward his prey.
Kathryn wiped her eyes with a sleeve blotched with the dried blood of Thorsson, the man she had worked to help heal his ravaged knee. None of that mattered now, as him and all the rest were dead, she was the only one left alive.
Gradually she willed herself to get back to her feet and take a look around the room; fiddling with her torch, it was beginning to flicker, the power cells were almost drained. She played the faulty light over the arrayed beds and empty storage lockers, there was no movement, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly her heart leapt, she visibly jumped, her pulse pounded in her chest, the failing torchlight cast into shadow a figure in front of her. She brought up her weapon to shoot it. The figure didn’t move, there were no evil red eyes in the dark. Kathryn peered closer, seeking some kind of confirmation that whatever this was, it wasn’t going to hurt her. Her nerves settled after finding that it was only a training dummy, though full of nicks and scratches. No doubt, the Dracos who lived here used it to practice their horrific propensity to stab and slash at their foes also.
Kathryn forced herself to calm again, in a vain effort to steady her already frayed nerves, she realised that she was sweating, a nervous, cold, scared sweat.
She made to leave the barracks, and that was when Drax pounced, he fell upon her with such speed that the gun flew out of her hand, skittering across the smooth floor. She screamed out in a combination of abject terror and utter desperation as she kicked, thrashed and bit in a desperate attempt to get her assailant off of her, she managed to just about scrabble free.
She felt the sharp pain of something just nick the outside of her calf as she ran, Drax’s silencer had wrapped itself around her right leg, and he quickly pressed the retraction control. The device whipped the steel monofilament line back with such speed and such force that when it tightened, it cut deeply into her shin and calf, upending her and hurling her to the floor, she landed heavily screaming out in wild agony. A scream that was like a symphony to Drax, blood ran down her leg and pooled at her foot, she could feel the horrid warm, wetness of it.
She clawed and scrabbled in desperation along the smooth floor in a last ditch attempt to reach her weapon, the silencer still tethered to her leg retracted a little more, tightening its grip ever further, the tiny monofilament wire bit deeper into her now blood sodden limb, pulling her away from the weapon with a whimper of pain and defeat.
In her desperation she lashed out again, trying to kick the Dracos warrior away from her. Drax though, easily swatted aside the clumsy kick.
“Now my dear, we are going to have a little fun!” Drax hissed menacingly.
“Fuck you!” Kathryn spat back with all the hate, all the malice, all the pain that this evil being had brought out from her.
Drax nonchalantly backhanded her, sending Kathryn sprawling to the floor in a whimper, a thin smear of blood trickled down her lip.
The Dracos commander smiled at her hopeless predicament, “you couldn’t leave well enough alone could you, you had to go interfering, just had to re-activate this place. A facility that does not even belong to you, this is our station, built upon our world, now your interfering has cost you dearly.”
Kathryn silently nodded, her mi
nd a haze of excruciating pain, she needed time to come up with some sort of plan to free herself, to get the hell away from this maniac.
“It’s cost your little band their very lives, and it is just what they deserved for tainting our facility, your presence here disgusts me; get up!” He snapped.
Without a word, Kathryn did as she was told, the wire from the device was still biting into her leg, the pain was excruciating. She felt faint from blood loss, shock, and exhaustion. The blood still flowed profusely from the wound, though by now her adrenaline had effectively taken the worst of the pain away.
“You are a pitiful species, weak, easily killed. Not a single one of you can hold a candle to the raw prowess of the Kallan.” He lifted his arm, ready to bring his wristblades down upon her, to take his final kill.
“Hey asshole!” A deep, rasping Russian sounding voice came from behind him.
Drax had made one critical error. In focusing so intently on finishing the hunt, in his manic devotion to perform the final kill, capture the final glory. He had not noticed Colonel Nikolai Vargev step through the door behind him.
The Dracos commander whirled around to face the colonel, who grinned widely before pressing the trigger of his Armschlager pointed directly at Drax’s chest. High power rounds tore through the Dracos’s body at point blank range, three slugs ripped through his chest and stomach, hurling him through the air, before slamming him down onto the smooth hard floor.
An accompanying commando stepped forward and produced a pair of wire cutters, and quickly managed to extricate Kathryn’s badly injured leg from the device.
“Are you okay?” Nikolai asked.
“I am now,” she almost fainted, a wave of exhaustion washed over her.
“We’ll get that leg seen to straight away, any other survivors?”
“Err…no, only me.”
“Jesus, out of sixteen, you were the only one to make it?”
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