Maxwell nodded a struggling yes, while trying hard not to grip his burning leg, he knew that if he did, he would simply end up burning his hand also.
“My people are called the Dracos, you are interlopers, why are you here?”
The private gasped, his mind a fog of agony, “I’m not telling you a goddamn thing.” He spat in the Dracos commanders face, Drax recoiled a little.
Wiping the spittle from his cheek, the Dracos commander seemed to pace, as if he grew pensive. Then in a blur, he whirled around and slammed the end of the seized rifle into Maxwells sliced and badly burned thigh.
The young private screamed in absolute excruciating pain, his mind reeled and he became woozy, threatening to pass out.
Drax leaned in, twisting the rifle barrel inside Maxwell’s leg, blood poured from the wound. “Let me make this clear to you,” he said as he twisted again, Maxwell gasped in intense agony, flailing to protect his injured limb, but to no avail. The other Dracos warriors laughed, and nodded appreciatively at the brutality their commander was showing.
“You will tell me who you are, and how many others are here.”
The private, struggling to prevent himself lapsing into unconsciousness managed a weak, “fuck you!”
“Unfortunate,” Drax ripped the barrel from out of the private’s leg, aimed it straight at Maxwell’s face and fired. Blood and thick gobbets of brain matter exploded across the nearby walls and equipment.
He searched the bloodied body, finding a pair of dog tags. Stamped on the back were the words. Sixty-ninth Sicarian guards, E.D. F troop division, and the motto Fight hard, fight well underneath.
“Now at least we know whom we are fighting,” Drax said to his men, as he reattached his helmet.
Rachthausen sprinted towards the elevator with three of his men following rapidly behind. The contraption was still on this floor, good, he thought. If the aliens took the elevator and made it down here, they were done for. He could not let that happen.
Taking a small length of steel wire from his webbing, and some insulation tape, he attached a grenade, and, using a small pair of pliers, fastened the steel wire around the pin of the explosive, uncurling just enough wire to cover the door of the elevator. With some tape he attached one end of the wire to the elevator door, and carefully taped the grenade to the other. When the doors opened, the pin would be pulled, and blow them all to hell in the process, that was what he hoped anyway.
“This will give them something to think about,” he smiled at the others, as they slowly stepped back from the elevator itself.
A light lit up, and the crudely booby trapped elevator began its rapid ascent, quickly stopping on Drax’s floor. Two of his best men awaited it, before the Dracos commander could even shout a warning, the doors opened, ripping the pin from the grenade. The two men stood, looking at this strange alien device attached to the doors, completely oblivious to the danger it represented.
The grenade detonated, blasting the elevator apart in a giant fireball that hurled the two Kallan several feet back down the corridor. Their mangled bodies slamming heavily onto the floor, their environment suits ripped apart by the razor sharp shrapnel that tore through the corridor. Two other Kallan suffered injuries to their upper arms, from flying fragments.
The corridor quickly filled with smoke, and took on a new brighter amber glow from the flames of the wrecked elevator.
The destroyed elevator itself fell back down the shaft, smashing into the bottom, Rachthausen and his men dived backwards to avoid being showered with flaming debris fragments.
Drax looked on at the carnage wrought amongst his men and muttered a curse under pressed twisted lips, “our enemy is a resourceful one.”
In one fell swoop they had just taken out two of his best men, and prevented him from getting to the floors below, he would have to find another way.
Consulting the layout plan still displayed by his A.R. uplink, he searched the nearby rooms for any way to access the other floors, he motioned for his remaining men to do likewise.
The second squad of Kallan warriors had now approached the other set of blast doors and was readying for their own attack, although this squad had a different strategy in mind. They hid as many men as they could around the lip of the blast door, it was a tight squeeze, yet had managed to hide six men around the semi-circular two foot wide lip. Others clung to walls and ceilings waiting for their moment to strike. Only one person stood upright on the actual corridor floor.
The three E.D. F guards posted to defend the blast doors on the third floor could hear nothing, though they remained cautious, nervous, they knew something was about to happen, it was just a matter of when. They all heard the screams of the other team over their comm. links, and certainly did not want to end up the same way.
Finally, one of the Dracos bit the bullet and pressed the small keypad to open the giant blast doors, a familiar dull whine reverberated around the silent corridor as the same powerful motors strained to move the twenty tonne doors, there was a strain, a groaning noise, the creaking of metal, and eventually a loud crack as Broadhurst’s flimsy weld finally gave way.
The giant doors slowly parted, showing the faint black silhouettes of three Dracos warriors, the E.D. F troops, now much more alert to the danger, and also warned by the noise of the doors separating were quickest, they let loose the firepower of their pulse rifles. Before the alien warriors even had a chance to react Thorsson and Anderson had gunned two of their number down, their bodies fell from the ceiling, slamming into the hard floor with a resounding crunch.
The lone standing Dracos, returned fire with his own weapon, lethally sharp eviscerator discs whistled through the air, he was a poor shot as those he had fired missed their target. Except one that nicked Laveaux on his left shoulder, the Frenchman ignored the wound.
The remaining Dracos warriors pressed their attack with a speed and grace unheard of by human standards. They charged along the walls and ceiling as though it had suddenly come alive with alien bodies.
Thorsson and Anderson dived into the auxiliary control room near to the blast doors, in order to mount a better defence from there. Laveaux however, was temporarily distracted by the increasing burning sensation in his shoulder. Suddenly he screamed as the acid from the disc that had nicked him began to bubble and dissolve his very flesh. The distraction was all that the Kallan needed, as two more discs tore into his chest and abdomen. He sank to his knees, blood spurted out from his wounds. Already the acid was taking its effect, burning its way into his exposed skin.
In that brief instant however, he felt no pain, perhaps he was well beyond pain. He looked up at the black figures crawling their way along the corridor walls to either side and above him with a sense of incredulity, his mind could not comprehend what he was witnessing.
He could hear the muffled shouts of his fellow guardsmen calling out to him in desperation, they were muted as though he had cotton wool in his ears as he grew weaker. Then his head jerked sharply to the side as it was pierced by what felt like a bullet. The spike pierced straight through his neck and lodged through the other side, the wickedly sharp barbs pierced his skin.
He tried to breath, yet couldn’t for some strange reason, gasping and spluttering for breath, trying to look at who had done this to him. On the wall a single alien warrior remained, the scarlet glow from the vision slits in his battlehelm regarded him with what he could only describe as an evil delight. His arm was outstretched revealing the tiny line attached to the device, the wire extended out through Laveaux’s neck.
Gurgling, coughing, spluttering for breath and bleeding profusely, the private nevertheless made one last vain attempt to bring his weapon to bear, to summon the strength to kill his adversary. The strength was gone, the pulse rifle clattered noisily to the ground.
The black alien, its knees and lower legs still attached to the wall made a single, silent gesture as it watched the slowly dying human. He put his finger to his lips and whispered a “shhh….” then retracted the silencer. The spike ripped back through Laveaux’s throat with such speed and such force it tore his ruined trachea clean away in a spray of crimson froth, the French private silently collapsed into a pool of his own blood.
Thorsson and Andersson were putting up an immense fight themselves, having taken cover either side of the doors to the auxiliary control room, they were outnumbered, outgunned, and couldn’t get to Laveaux. Flashes of
