“Magnetise the hatch, and pressurise the corridor once connected,” Michael whispered as he anxiously oversaw the complicated operation.
Eldathar silently worked at the controls again, and the flimsy temporary corridor suddenly latched hard onto the landers own hatch with a resounding ‘clunk’.
The corridor stiffened noticeably as air was pumped into it to pressurise it, making it safe for those on the lander to cross. Although it lacked the sophisticated artificial gravity systems that the Liberty and the lander enjoyed, it would serve its purpose.
“Pressurisation complete captain, we can now begin transferring the troops aboard,” the Solarian said with barely contained relief.
“Fantastic work, Eldathar,” being a pilot himself, Michael knew just how tricky that manoeuvre was to accomplish. “Open the port hatch, and let them through,” Michael turned toward Kinraid. “Send them the all clear, commander.”
“Aye cap’n,” Kinraid replied. “Message sent; and received.”
Michael smiled down at Eldathar manning the pilots chair quietly, still concentrating hard on maintaining the equidistance and speed vital to a successful crew transfer. If the lander accidentally increased its speed by even a fraction, it could tear the delicate temporary corridor right off the hull of the Liberty, causing a devastating explosive decompression across the entire deck. If the lander slowed or the Liberty accelerated, the Liberties hull could collide with the lander’s, destroying it and potentially crippling the Liberty as well.
One by one, the commandoes all carrying their gear and full breathing apparatus for the mission ahead, began to float weightlessly across this small, cramped, cold corridor. Michael watched from the viewscreen as their tiny bodies floated across to the Liberty. With their camouflaged combat fatigues, helmets, black boots, their packs and heavy weaponry, they looked oddly conspicuous amongst the royal blue naval uniforms and Solarian uniforms the crew of the Liberty wore. It was as if they didn’t really belong in space; these were E.D. F commandoes, the most highly trained fighting force humanity possessed, and armed to the teeth. They had but one purpose, to fight and to win, on whichever planet they were assigned.
9. The landing
Once all the commandoes were safely aboard, the link separated from the lander and retracted back inside the Liberties own hull where it resealed itself, an armoured hull panel gently slid over it, in order to hide the weak point and maintain the warship’s stealth capabilities.
The tiny lander banked slowly away from the Liberty, as the dark, angular, wedge shaped craft powered up its main engines and glided gently away from the small craft.
“Set course for the Auriga system, bearing zero-one-seven degrees, elevation twelve.”
“Understood, captain” Eldathar replied as he worked the controls again to manoeuvre the Liberty into position, the ship banked left slightly, the intense electric blue of its main engines and thrusters flared bright in the blackness of space, as the ship swung quickly around.
“Maximum plasma drive.”
The Liberties main engine flashed brightly as the ship rapidly accelerated to maximum sub-light speed before activating its plasma drive engine, shooting forth an incandescent blue beam of plasma, which collided in an intense flash of bright white energy, and slowly coalescing into the swirling plasma wake. The Liberty leapt through it at full speed, and onwards toward its ultimate destination.
Michael prayed they were not too late.
Nikolai Vargev strode onto the familiar looking bridge of the Liberty, a place he had not visited for five years. It had changed little in that time, the last he set foot here, he was involved in the mission to prevent an assassination plot at the hands of the rogue Krenaran agent, Lathiel. That all seemed like a long time ago now, he still bore the scar from the knife wound on his arm inflicted by that Krenaran son of a bitch. While Michael was forty years old, Nikolai was almost ten years his senior, a forty nine year old commando; despite his advancing years, the big Russian could still mix it with the best of them, he strode over to an old friend sat in the centre seat.
“Hello comrade, pleased to see me?”
Michael swivelled in his chair, unaware of the approach of the giant colonel, “Nikolai Vargev!” Michael announced with a broad grin, his old friend was with him again. “How are ya’ buddy?” he said as he almost leapt out of his seat to give the big Russian a tight hug.
“Not too bad, yourself?”
“Oh you know how it is; come we have much to discuss.” Michael said, beckoning the colonel to follow him to his personal quarters, just off to the left of the command centre itself, “Kinraid you have the bridge.”
“Understood, Cap’n,” Kinraid replied from his station.
The two men made their way across the busy command centre of the Liberty, and through a set of sliding doors that led into Michael’s personal quarters.
He sat at his glass-topped desk, strewn with the usual maintenance reports that always seemed to filter through here; Nikolai sat opposite.
“Coffee?”
“Thanks.”
Michael walked over to a small personal drinks synthesiser, and keyed in a command for two lattes.
“I guess this mission must have come as quite a shock?” He asked as the machine did its work.
“Kind of, we have been training in simulated hostage rescue missions for the last three months on Gamma Aurigulon, but we didn’t expect to go into a real one. They only told me the gist of what happened, nothing more.”
“That’s because to be honest, they don’t know. All E.D. F command really knows is that the Copernicus; a small survey ship, doing a routine mapping mission in the Auriga system had found some unusual alien structure on the third planet. A team was sent down to investigate, and the station somehow re-activated itself. Within a couple of hours, boom! The Copernicus was blasted into space dust by some unknown alien ship, which bears more than a passing resemblance to a Solarian battlecruiser.”
“So the science team are still on the surface?”
“As far as we know, yes.”
“How many?”
“Sixteen, although when I looked at the timestamp on the logs, it showed the information to be three days old now.”
“So, we could well go in there to find them already dead,” Nikolai stroked his dark moustache in thought.
“Quite possibly, Kathryn Jacobs was the one leading the science team on the surface.”
Nikolai remembered Kathryn fondly, a flicker of a smile appeared across his lips, he first encountered her at Delta base during the Krenaran war, rescuing her from the besieged and battered station, she was out of her mind with fear. They crossed paths again when he and Michael fought the Krenaran commander, Alax together. Kathryn had patched him up after that, both men knew that they would never stand idly by and let Kathryn die on that forlorn alien world, no matter what problems she had in the past, they knew they had to get her and the others out of there.
“These aliens, any other info?”
“I spoke with Eldathar about that, it turns out these aliens call themselves, the Dracos.”
“Huh, nice name.” Nikolai grunted skeptically.
“It gets better, these Dracos were once a part of the Solarians, in fact they are Solarians, they were a radical sect promoting violence, extreme pain, and torture. The Solarians, kicked them off their homeworld, and systematically hunted them down like dogs, throughout their space.”
“A little harsh for the Solarians,” Nikolai interjected, “they must have really pissed them off.”
“From what I have been able to gather, three hundred years ago they attempted a coup of the Solarian government, when it was defeated, they chased them away.”
“Well, that’ll do it alright.” Nikolai shrugged.
