Eldathar gently leaned forward on the throttle arm as consoles all around the bridge faded slowly to black, all except the emergency running lights winked out, the fusion cannon was powered down, even the ships main engine died down to a shadow of its normal brightness.
Michael prayed that the old re-programmed Krenaran IFF codes, the Solarians changed when they upgraded the Liberty might still be enough to fool the mines into thinking she was on the same side. Although all the extra upgrades she was carrying might prove otherwise, it would be touch and go.
The ship slowly crept forward through the thin veil of dust clouds, it was like a fog made up of all the tiny chips and slivers of rock broken free from the larger asteroids colliding with one another, constantly pulverised over millions of years into a fine dust. Gravity held the cloud in place, so that it formed a kind of long meandering fringe around the edge of the field. The Liberty gradually emerged through the dust cloud blocking the view of the larger and infinitely more dangerous obstacles beyond.
Gigantic asteroids were floating haphazardly with smaller ones, making it difficult for Eldathar to plot a steady course through; still the Solarian persevered.
He deftly guided the ship around a particularly large, crater strewn space rock, it was large enough to be classified as a planetoid. Michael witnessed several scorch marks, and what resembled metallic hull fragments clustered around a small impact area, he guessed the pirates who tried to gain a foothold after the Krenaran war ended, didn’t figure on the mines strewn amongst the asteroids.
The Liberty glided ever deeper inside the field, flying in-between two other space rocks, it was an incredibly tight squeeze, the audio warning of the collision detector blared from Eldathars console in alarm. The Solarian ignored the klaxon wailing at him, knowing the exact dimensions of the ship he was flying to the millimetre. He knew better than anyone else, which places the Liberty could go, and which ones it couldn’t. The experience he had accumulated over the past five years of flying the vessel, and several hundred years of flying other craft, had told him the ship would get through.
What he hadn’t counted on however, was the two mines, heading straight for them.
The Liberty had been lucky so far, it had already glided past half a dozen of them, no doubt fooled by the old Krenaran IFF signature, however these two were not so easily shaken off. The mines had detected the Liberty and were now picking up speed.
“Incoming mines, we ‘ave two of the buggers coming in fast, impact in twenny seconds!” Kinraid shouted out in alarm.
“Ready a salvo of torpedoes, lock onto the mines and fire!” Michael gnashed his teeth, it would be close, Lieutenant Logan Jones mashed the button on his gunnery console.
“Torpedoes away.”
A bright flash erupted from the Liberties twin upper launchers, heralding the launch of the two high energy torpedoes, tracking and now hurtling straight for the incoming mines, their sophisticated targeting systems quickly locked on to the targets, and they raced headlong toward it.
“Impact in three, two, one!”
A gigantic, intensely bright fireball lit up an entire section of the asteroid field, before slowly dying down into darkness again.
Michael figured that the mines sensory nodes had probably malfunctioned, most likely due to lack of maintenance. It had been five years since the last Krenaran ship even thought about passing this way; things can change in that time.
The Liberty cautiously advanced through the remainder of the field, flying under yet another large asteroid and around two more before the command crew got their first glimpses of starlight that lay beyond.
Then disaster struck.
Another mine raced toward the aft engine of the ship, zeroing in on the energy emitted by the powerful Solarian drive systems, the Liberty, defenceless from a rear attack, could do nothing. Eldathar strained at the controls, trying desperately to shake it off their tail within the limited confines of the field itself. However the mine was not to be shaken off this time, it hurtled towards the ship, skipped off its graviton shields evoking a clear wavy ripple from the Liberties shields, not dissimilar to looking through textured glass, then detonated in an almighty explosion.
Those onboard were thrown hard to the ground under the force of the impact, a flurry of sparks burst forth from overloaded circuits, Michael desperately held on to prevent being thrown from his seat. The red alert siren immediately sounded to warn the crew they were under attack.
The whole ship had lurched diagonally forward under the immense force of the explosion, Eldathar fought hard to keep the wayward vessel under control, he knew if he lost stability in this kind of environment they were all done for, as the Liberty would simply crash onto one of those asteroids out there. He barely managed to regain control of the ship, after it came within metres of slamming port side on to a large floating space rock; the Solarian breathed a sigh of relief.
Michael resettled himself in his chair, “well, at least we know the new graviton shields work.” He knew full well that if that was the Liberty of five years ago, they would all be playing harps right about now. “Damage report!”
Kinraid took a moment to understand the data flashing across his console, “Both th’ aft graviton generators ‘r’ down, th’ force o’ th’ explosion overloaded both, it’ll take anot’r minute or so to vent off th’ excess energy from th’ blast. Luckily th’ hull escaped major damage though, some minor ‘lectrikel damage from overloaded circuits, but ‘tat’s about it, and no injuries.”
“Good, have engineering teams repair any damage, and Eldathar, get us the heck out of here!” He shouted over the din of the wailing siren, his face covered in a dark ruddy hue from the red alert lights.
“Aye, sir.”
The Liberty flew under, around and above the few asteroids remaining, and out through the thin veil of dust on the other side, finally the full, starry blackness was revealed to them once again.
“Resume course to rendezvous with the lander, maximum plasma drive.”
“Aye, sir.” Eldathar replied as he punched in the controls to activate the Liberties plasma drive systems again.
The small ship accelerated to full sub-light speed, before firing a burst of bright plasma energy, opening up the plasma wake in an intense burst of multi coloured light, before racing through and disappearing within it. The wake closed as easily as it had opened.
Kathryn and the injured Rachthausen continued to hurry down the long semi-circular corridor, which skirted alongside the main aperture. Again the deep rumbling began to reverberate throughout the facility as the collider geared up for yet another release of energy.
Kathryn needed to tend the sergeants badly bleeding arm, sustained from a slash from one of those evil dark warriors. They both knew they could not stop yet, the enemy commander was right on their tail, and would make mincemeat out of them if he caught them.
They continued running along the pitch dark corridor, trying to put as much distance between them and their pursuer as possible, Rachthausen’s flare was beginning to die down, and so he flung it to the side, replacing it with the torch from Kathryn’s weapon.
Finally, they came upon the second set of blast doors separating the military wing from the science wing.
Not knowing whether there would be an army of Dracos on the other side, Kathryn nervously, hesitantly pressed the control. The great metal doors ahead of them slid slowly open, revealing empty corridor once again. With a gentle sigh of relief, she and Rachthausen stepped through into this new unexplored area of the facility. The lights were still down, and it was still pitch black inside, they were travelling solely by torchlight. The low, deep rumbling of the collider, sounded ominous in the darkness.
They searched for somewhere, anywhere to hide, to give Kathryn time to tend to her companions wound, finally they came to a vast control centre, full of complicated looking consoles, displays and systems, far larger than the one they had previously discovered. Setting Rachthausen down gently, she closed the door behind them, although she had no way of locking it, and no time now to find out how.
Kathryn took a small amount of what water they had left and bathed the wound, the laceration was deep, almost to the bone, Rachthausen flinched as the water ran over the cut. She tore off a strip of plain white cloth
