his back. One of the Dracos behind him took a swipe, the blade bit deep into the flesh of the sergeant’s upper arm; he winced and flinched under the pain, almost dropping Kathryn. Whirling around, he held the flare aloft, blinding the alien warrior. Rachthausen fled down the corridor with the still protesting Kathryn, the red light illuminating his path as he went.
The briefing room had been turned into a scene from hell, a gore streaked bloodbath, bodies of dead and dying scientists lay scattered across the floor; their groans, like a sweet symphony to the Dracos commander, who stood in the centre proudly.
Severed limbs and body parts lay like bloody, grisly trophies around the smooth floor, their inferior blood tainted this place, Drax thought. One of the scientists was giving a spirited effort in trying to crawl away to safety. The primitive environment suit that he was wearing was sopping wet with blood seeping out through a long, deep slice to his back, he whimpered pitifully with each and every movement due to the excruciating pain the laceration was causing him.
The Dracos commander decided to have a little fun, and with a wide grin, deftly picked his way over the fallen corpses to where this strange creature crawled in a desperate bid to escape the slaughterhouse.
He nonchalantly kicked the scientist in the ribs, unimpressed. The body sprawled across the floor, a loud whimper made the Dracos smile, now this was entertainment, he thought. He allowed the creature to continue on its hopeless bid for safety, before viciously kicking it a second time, a weak but nevertheless audible gasp of pain, emerged from its lips, Drax laughed in delight.
“Such pitiful creatures, they are squidgy, and die easily.”
He picked up the struggling scientist by the open wound slashed across its back, causing him to scream out in intense pain, almost losing consciousness altogether. This sent waves of delight through the Dracos commander. Before he placed the barrel of his eviscerator pistol against the scientists dark haired head, and calmly pressed the trigger. A resounding crack echoed through the now silent room, as the disc sliced through Dieter Kalschacht’s skull, then flung the blood soaked body aside indifferently.
“See, easily killed.”
The other remaining Kallan warriors stood and watched appreciatively at a master at work, before Drax turned his weapon on them, and gunned all three of them down in cold blood also, their bodies gently slumped to the floor just ahead of him.
Two of the prey creatures had escaped, and he was going to be the one to finish this hunt personally.
Rachthausen and Kathryn fled toward the blast doors, once there though, they had realised their mistake. In their hurry to escape the butchery, they had forgotten that private Anderson had earlier welded the doors shut, if they could not find a way though, those alien warriors would catch them for sure.
“Shit! we’re trapped down here.” The built up desperation and frustration plainly evident in Rachthausens voice.
“There has to be something we can do?” Kathryn panted as she tried to regain her breath, she risked a look back and was reassured that nothing was following them, at least nothing she could see anyway.
There was one last thing Rachthausen could try, he pulled out the final grenade from his webbing and with some insulation tape attached it to the blast door itself, right over the scorch marks of the weld that Anderson had made. The blast of the grenade might just be enough to crack the weld and get the doors to open, it was a long shot, but the only one they had.
“Get ready to run,” he said as he pulled the pin from the affixed grenade.
“Run!” he shouted as he sprinted away from the door, Kathryn ran with him, they had just four seconds before the grenade went off. There was an almighty explosion as the explosive detonated. Echoing down the entire length of the dark corridor, Drax heard the faint blast even from where he was standing.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he whispered maniacally, as he clambered back inside the air ducting, he was much smarter than to risk the wide open corridor.
Sergeant Rachthausen checked over the weld line in the light given off by the flare, luckily for them Anderson was a far better soldier than a welder, and it had cracked under the immense pressure of the exploding grenade.
Kathryn desperately pressed at the door control, just wanting to get out of there, get out of this nightmare, although she felt guilty about leaving the others behind. She had understood Rachthausen’s decision in the end, if they stayed, they would have wound up dead too. Finally the door opened, and the two of them made their way through, pressing the control to close the giant doors behind them. They were free from Drax’s clutches for now.
Michael was studying a computer enhanced representation of the ship that attacked the Copernicus, it definitely bore more than a passing resemblance to a Solarian ship, although the Solarian ships looked sleeker, modern, and ultra-sophisticated. This too looked sleek and sophisticated, but not quite as modern, almost as if it was a throwback to an outdated design, a precursor to what the Solarians now have. He supposed that being constantly attacked, always on the move, then effectively disappearing for three hundred years. The Dracos no longer had the resources or the access to technology that the Solarians enjoy. He also wondered whether just plain jealousy was a part of the enmity the Dracos showed toward the Solarians. He contemplated just how old the Dracos ships really were, and how they had managed to survive for so long, alone, isolated from the rest of the galaxy.
Saying that; humanity was the same up until five years ago, blissful in ignorance, not knowing who or what surrounded them; the Krenaran war had changed all that. Changed humanities view of themselves, instead of being this one race carving out a small part of the galaxy to call their own, master of all they surveyed. They learned that they were, in fact, just one of many doing the exact same thing, a small backwater people just trying to get along. This more than anything finally broke through mankind’s arrogance, and as a people, they had come to appreciate just how humble they really were.
“One weird lookin’ ship eh, cap’n.” Commander Quinn Kinraid said as he stood over him.
“It has some design similarities with conventional Solarian shipping, but that’s about it.”
“You’ve bin’ staring at’ tat picture fur’ five minutes, is everythin’ alright?” Kinraid asked with a hint of concern to his voice.
“Everything is fine, commander, I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.”
“Well don’t you go givin’ yerself a hernia now Michael,” the Irishman said with a mischievous smile.
“I wonder Quinn, if E.O.C. A ever had a civil war, and the E.D. F was forced to fight itself, would we be able to survive it like the Solarians did?”
“Pray it’ll never happen, sir.”
“I hope so Quinn.”
“Asteroid field coming up ahead, captain.” Eldathar announced from his position.
Michael returned to his chair, “drop us out of plasma drive, slow to sub-light speed.”
“Slow to sub-light, aye.” The Solarian pilot confirmed.
A gigantic bright white flash of light opened up in the darkness of space, heralding the Liberties exit from plasma drive, the ship slowly glided at sub-light velocity.
“We’re approachin’ the outer dust clouds,” Kinraid announced.
“Slow to one half sub-light speed, and put it up on the viewer.”
The viewscreen shimmered into life, displaying the wide asteroid field ahead of them. It was some three light years across and two wide, one of the biggest in the sector.
“This is the Van Aiken belt,” Michael knew without even looking, the Krenarans famously used it as a hidden staging post, before going on to devastate the Malthus colony during the war.
“Can’t we go around it?” Logan Jones asked.
“If we do, we’ll have to detour another seven light years to skirt it, the scientists may not have that long,” Michael replied.
They had no choice but to go through it, the thing is, Michael thought. There were rumours that the Krenarans had mined this field.
“Cut all power, except for minimal power to the thrusters and main engine, activate the graviton shields, and take us in; slowly.”
