days. The rations wouldn’t have lasted that long anyway, food was already becoming scarce, if they didn’t think of something soon, they would all starve to death down here.
Kathryn was still tending to the injured Thorsson as best she could under the circumstances, and as for poor Corporal Jankov, without his sight he was effectively a walking dead man. Broadhurst and Gomez continued to scan the dark, wide corridor that extended into the gloom as far as they could see in either direction.
Broadhurst thought he could sense the faint shuffling of feet, a paralysing fear came over him, his skin ran cold and clammy, his nerves set on edge. The gentle hairs on the back of his neck began to rise.
He swung his weapon in the direction of the sound, “what’s that?” he whispered nervously.
“What’s what?” Gomez whispered back.
“I thought I heard something, I’m going to check it out, stay here.” Broadhurst crept through the darkness.
“Get back here!” Gomez shouted after him, but it was no use, he had already disappeared into the darkness.
Broadhurst ventured through the gloom alone, the flashlight from his pistol illuminating the various dark foreboding panels, casting deep shadows along their edges. He nervously crept further and further away from the briefing hall doors, his weapon shook gently in his hands as he mentally tried to calm his jangled nerves. The shuffling sound was getting steadily louder, there was definitely something down here, and close. He risked a quick glance back over his shoulder, and could still see the faint glow given off from Gomez’s flashlight; it reassured him a little.
He stopped at the entrance to the next room, the environmental systems monitoring station that had been damaged earlier in the fighting. He tentatively shined his torch inside, almost afraid of what he might see, his heart pounded in his chest; there was nothing. He breathed a huge sigh of relief, perhaps he had just imagined it? After all, tiredness and extreme stress can do strange things to a man.
Wait a second, there it was again, a faint, almost imperceptible shuffling, now he knew he was not imagining it, his nerves set on edge again, the pounding returned, cold fear reasserted itself with a vengeance, as slowly, nervously he peered closer, his breathing quick and shallow, straining to hear the noise again. Drawing level with the door itself, he looked around at the interior of the room, there was nothing but smashed consoles. A few were working, their lights shining brightly in the surrounding darkness, coating the nearby panels in flickering red, green, and yellow colours. The shuffling had stopped, and so did Broadhurst, standing absolutely still, barely daring to breathe in order to pick up the faintest of sounds. A cold sweat trickled down his temples to the sides of his neck; his whole body shook in a cold fear and his hands felt clammy as he tightened the grip on his pistol, eyes constantly flickering around the room, alert to the slightest hint of movement.
There was a whoosh of displaced air as in an instant a black arm whipped around and slammed into his throat, Broadhurst felt a searing agonising pain, coughing and spluttering he realised he couldn’t breathe. Stumbling backwards, his neck felt warm and wet. The arm festooned with a series of razor sharp, shark fin like blades, coated with a thick smear of blood retreated back behind the other side of the wall. Broadhurst dropped the weapon and clutched at his throat, his vision began to get spotty, cloudy, he was weakening, slumping to his knees he coughed and gurgled on his own blood, before slowly collapsing onto the floor. The slash of the Dracos wrist blades had torn his throat wide open. The last thing Matthew Broadhurst saw were the forms of the two Dracos warriors rushing past him in the reflected torchlight, the bright scarlet of their vision slits permanently etched onto his slowly dying mind, as he lay still in a slowly growing pool of his own blood.
The two Kallan sprinted into the corridor, zigzagging and crossing paths wildly so as not to afford Gomez a clear shot. He heard footfalls racing toward him and instantly levelled his weapon, the flashlight illuminated the on- rushing black figures. He pressed the trigger and opened fire, the muzzle flashed brightly in the darkness as the flurry of pulse pistol shots echoed aloud. He managed to clip one of them in the upper arm as he charged, sending the alien stumbling off balance into the wall of the corridor, before quickly leaping to its feet again.
The second came on relentlessly though; the dark suited alien launched itself like an arrow through the air, wrist blades outstretched. The lethally sharp blades sliced right through the exposed neck of Gomez. His body seemed to freeze for a split second, and, just as the Kallan warrior executed a neat forward roll upon landing. The scientists head, slowly, wetly separated from his body, before both collapsed into a bloodied heap.
The gunfire outside instantly alerted those sheltering within the briefing hall, they rushed to grab their weapons. There was shouting, screaming, and widespread panic at the horror they had witnessed at Gomez’s decapitation.
The two Kallan who had just slaughtered Gomez and Broadhurst, now took up positions either side of the doorway, effectively laying siege to the room, they released their eviscerator rifles magnetically attached to their backs.
Rachthausen hefted his own captured Dracos eviscerator in response, and quickly took cover amongst a small row of chairs.
The other scientists were all trading fire with the two Dracos looming either side of the doorway. Though not as highly trained as an E.D. F soldier they were poor shots, many simply blasting away in their fright. The energy blasts slammed into the walls surrounding the door, and the far side of the corridor beyond. Sparks showered from the small impact craters, the wall was quickly becoming pock marked as the untrained scientists blasted away.
Corporal Jankov, unable to see due to the intensely bright energy release that had scorched his eyes, attempted to shout over the din, “what’s happening!”
Anderson was also busily blasting away at the two attackers who had them pinned inside the room, completely oblivious to the small air circulation vent opening behind him, one of the Dracos warriors slowly emerged out of his hiding place and crept along the ceiling.
“Shit, there are more of them!” Thorsson shouted at the top of his voice, although he couldn’t move due to his ravaged knee, he could see perfectly well what was happening. Quickly gripping his pulse rifle next to where he was propped, he levelled it and opened fire. Several laser energy pulses blasted open the chest armour of the Dracos’s environment suit, while the last one tore away half of its head, the warrior fell from the ceiling with a dull, sickeningly wet crack next to Anderson. Who spun around to be confronted with yet more Dracos emerging from their hiding place. Just as he brought his weapon up to bear, an eviscerator disc fired from those still at the doors, sliced deep into the back of his head with a spray of blood and bone matter. He began frothing at the mouth, his grip slowly relaxed, and his weapon clattered to the ground, before slumping face first onto the smooth, deep grey floor himself.
“Bastards!” Thorsson screamed out at the top of his voice at the loss of his friend, opening fire again and managing to dislodge another of the black suited monstrosities from the ceiling, the laser pulses blasted its head apart in a great gout of blood, brain matter and black helmet fragments, the Dracos toppled lazily to the floor, gore oozing out from the headless corpse.
Two lethally sharp eviscerator discs sliced into the abdomen, and upper chest of the immobile Thorsson, his entire body shuddered under the impacts of the two simultaneous strikes, then laid still, a thin dribble of blood spewed forth from his mouth, and small crimson patches began to form through his ragged and torn fatigues. Cold sightless eyes looked upon the dark form of two Dracos warriors dropping from the ceiling onto their prey.
Drax and the other surviving Kallan warrior were amongst them now, and the whirlwind of bloodshed began in earnest, with acrobatic leaps and bounds wrist blades whipped and slashed out, eviscerator discs sliced through flesh and bone. The Kallan whooped and revelled in the gore fest, this was what they had been looking forward to.
“We have to get out of here!” Rachthausen shouted to a terrified Kathryn, caught up in the bloodletting.
“I can’t just leave them to die!”
There was no time to argue, the burly sergeant leapt over the chairs, barely missing a swipe from a passing Dracos wrist blade. Hefted Kathryn over his shoulder, and with his free arm lit one of the flares, bathing the room in an intensely bright red light.
Drax and the other Kallan in the room flinched and recoiled under the onslaught of the light burning at their sensitive eyes, he dived into a shadow provided by a bank of chairs further up the incline.
Holding the flare aloft Rachthausen sprinted through the room, over the torn and shredded bodies of scientists, soldiers and Dracos alike. The two at the doorway shuddered and retreated away from the intensity of the light as the sergeant forced his way through carrying Kathryn, his stolen eviscerator rifle swung loosely across
