bright blue pulse rifle fire lit up the end of the corridor, another alien was blasted off the wall from the main corridor opposite them.
Sparks sprayed out as the Dracos returned fire, their lethally sharp discs lodging themselves into the door surrounds, already two dozen were jutting out from the small expanse of metallic wall.
“Thorsson to Rachthausen, we are in deep shit here sarge, the aliens have breached the doors, we are pinned down, taking heavy fire, Laveaux is already dead, we need reinforcing right now!” He shouted into his comm. unit over the din of the battle raging ahead of him.
“Shit!” Rachthausen shouted as he heard the message, “we’re on our way.” He immediately readied his weapon and sprinted towards the other end of the floor, at least there was some good fortune in this, his men had stayed alive this time; though if they got to Kathryn and the scientists before he did, he would never forgive himself.
6. Darkness descending
While his other unit were busily engaging the interlopers, Drax had found a new way to access the other floors. The lift shaft may have been destroyed, but the air circulation system wasn’t. Studying the plans once again, he found that the air circulation system was an elaborate network of tunnels to keep those underground breathing clean air, without the need to fill oxygen tanks from the surface.
It was remarkable how it worked, two giant vacuum pumps sucked in vast quantities of carbon dioxide from the planets atmosphere, and then chemically separated the carbon molecules from the oxygen ones, then pumped the oxygen into two gigantic storage vessels, located deep inside the facility. One provided oxygen for the science wing and the other provided it for the military wing. There was also a built in failsafe; that, in the event of one of the vacuum pumps failing for any reason, a series of valves could be opened along an emergency re-supply line, so that a single pump could supply oxygen to both tanks. The beauty of the system was that it was entirely computer controlled, it would have been revolutionary for its time, Drax thought.
However, if all else failed, and he could not eliminate the interlopers, he could simply shut down the air supply and let them all suffocate to death. He was not above this as a last resort, even if it denied him his ‘fun’.
He crawled up the wall and along the ceiling of the security check-in station for the floor, every level had one. Security was tight here; no wonder considering what the base produced, how important this place once was, and all the military resources contained within.
There was a notice etched into the wall, it informed the occupants that anyone arriving from the surface must first submit to a series of security checks. He shuddered to think what those ‘security checks’ might entail. The Dracos of three hundred years ago were a violent, angry race. Hunted throughout the galaxy and forced to live in underground cities like this one, hunted to damn near extinction. The ancestors built facilities like these on remote worlds, hoping to one day empower the Dracos race once again. These became known as the Halo worlds, and finding them was of the utmost importance to his people.
It was a shame the ancestors never quite realised their grand plan, Drax thought. Things would have been different. The Dracos were still a violent angry race, although now this violence and anger had been tempered into a love of torture, a delight in hearing the screams of any who dared to oppose us. We still lived in subterranean cities, and still longed for the glory days when we would burst forth into the galaxy once more, and dance to the screams of our enemies.
Drax had to admit though, that in reality the Dracos had become a tiny scared little people, so afraid of repeating the catastrophic events of the past that they rarely even stepped out from the safety of their under-cities. The ships of the Dracos fleet, while few in number were mainly concentrated in a region of space known only as ‘the veil’, a giant nebula full of gas and dust and strange cosmic interference that disrupted the strongest of navigational sensor systems, so that ships crossing the veil were effectively flying blind. They were easy prey for the Dracos ships, although Dracos vessels themselves almost never left the veil, for fear they would be detected and attacked.
The only reason his own ship had left, was to investigate the Aurigan system for potential halo worlds and then head straight back to the safety of the veil again. However, upon encountering that energy release, and realising it was Dracos in origin, as well as finding the strange alien vessel in orbit. His mission had suddenly changed, now here he was, hunting down these interlopers, these E.D. F whoever they were. He was confident that the planet would come under Dracos control once again. After all, this planet was now too important to ignore, the Dracos in the past had used concealment as their weapon of choice, and become so good at it that the galaxy had forgotten about them. Perhaps it was time to remind the galaxy the Dracos do still exist.
With a warm smile, he pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind and motioned for the rest of his unit to follow him into the air duct, situated in the centre of the security station’s ceiling.
Rachthausen, and the E.D. F troops with him raced down the corridor, the lights suddenly went out, pitching them all into pitch blackness once again. “Shit!” he cursed again, before re-lighting the flashlight still attached to the underside of his pulse rifle. Then he realised the scientists might not have flashlights attached to their weapons. He knew Kathryn did, but he wasn’t so sure about the others.
The four of them reached the raging firefight at the blast doors. It was obvious as Rachthausen cast his torch over the immediate area, the corridor walls were scorched with the impacts of pulse rifle fire.
The sergeant inadvertently kicked something, it squelched as his foot made contact with whatever it was. Casting his torch down to look at it, the sight made him sick to his stomach. It was the gore soaked, shredded body of private Silvain Laveaux, Laveaux was the youngest in his squad, barely eighteen years of age, he had been a private only three months after enlisting at a recruitment post on the colony world of Eidolon II, such a waste.
He heard movement close by, sweeping his weapon around to locate the source, he could see nothing, yet he could definitely hear something. A skittering noise, like that which rats made along the floor, but bigger, and heavier.
His heart rate began to quicken, pounding in his chest, where the hell were they. He heard another sound, “psst!”
The whistle of something shooting past his ear alarmed him, he swung his weapon around for a closer look. Just as three metallic discs slammed home into one of his men, one jutted out of his chest, the other sliced open his upper leg, and the third and final shot tore open the front of the man’s skull.
The trooper staggered back apace, the metal disc jutting out from his forehead, blood pouring down his ruined face. His eyes glazed over. A reactionary impulse made the dead on his feet trooper, depress the trigger on his weapon, which promptly opened fire. Bright blue flashes of light, illuminated their surroundings. Silhouetting the dark shapes that moved silently, unseen amongst them.
One of the Dracos warriors slumped to the floor with a dull thud, as the trooper miraculously managed to hit him, the flash of laser energy tore through his carbon fibre environment suit, and blasted open the aliens chest. The dead on his feet trooper also collapsed as his legs finally gave way from under him. He fell to the floor at the same time as the alien. His forehead and deep lacerations hissing and bubbling as the powerful acid went to work.
“Bastards!” Rachthausen roared as he opened fire upon the dark moving shapes, the other troopers did likewise, and suddenly the whole corridor was ablaze with the vivid flashes of weapons fire.
Three of the Dracos warriors fell, their bodies crumpled to the ground.
“Over here!” Thorsson yelled over the whirling firefight going on just ahead of him, he levelled his weapon and blasted apart the head of a Dracos just about to pounce on the sergeant.
With a swiftness that belied his size, Rachthausen scooped up the weapon from the fallen Dracos in front of him and dived into the auxiliary control room.
The other troopers though were caught out in the open, both Thorsson and Anderson were giving covering fire, one of the exposed men managed to dive inside the room to join them. Rachthausen was fighting like a man possessed, his pulse rifle in one hand, and a Dracos eviscerator rifle in the other. He had no idea how the thing worked, he simply pointed it and kept on shooting. Two more of the brutal aliens fell to the withering hail of weapons fire.
