She made to leave the barracks, and that was when Drax pounced, he fell upon her with such speed that the gun flew out of her hand, skittering across the smooth floor. She screamed out in a combination of abject terror and utter desperation as she kicked, thrashed and bit in a desperate attempt to get her assailant off of her, she managed to just about scrabble free.
She felt the sharp pain of something just nick the outside of her calf as she ran, Drax’s silencer had wrapped itself around her right leg, and he quickly pressed the retraction control. The device whipped the steel monofilament line back with such speed and such force that when it tightened, it cut deeply into her shin and calf, upending her and hurling her to the floor, she landed heavily screaming out in wild agony. A scream that was like a symphony to Drax, blood ran down her leg and pooled at her foot, she could feel the horrid warm, wetness of it.
She clawed and scrabbled in desperation along the smooth floor in a last ditch attempt to reach her weapon, the silencer still tethered to her leg retracted a little more, tightening its grip ever further, the tiny monofilament wire bit deeper into her now blood sodden limb, pulling her away from the weapon with a whimper of pain and defeat.
In her desperation she lashed out again, trying to kick the Dracos warrior away from her. Drax though, easily swatted aside the clumsy kick.
“Now my dear, we are going to have a little fun!” Drax hissed menacingly.
“Fuck you!” Kathryn spat back with all the hate, all the malice, all the pain that this evil being had brought out from her.
Drax nonchalantly backhanded her, sending Kathryn sprawling to the floor in a whimper, a thin smear of blood trickled down her lip.
The Dracos commander smiled at her hopeless predicament, “you couldn’t leave well enough alone could you, you had to go interfering, just had to re-activate this place. A facility that does not even belong to you, this is our station, built upon our world, now your interfering has cost you dearly.”
Kathryn silently nodded, her mind a haze of excruciating pain, she needed time to come up with some sort of plan to free herself, to get the hell away from this maniac.
“It’s cost your little band their very lives, and it is just what they deserved for tainting our facility, your presence here disgusts me; get up!” He snapped.
Without a word, Kathryn did as she was told, the wire from the device was still biting into her leg, the pain was excruciating. She felt faint from blood loss, shock, and exhaustion. The blood still flowed profusely from the wound, though by now her adrenaline had effectively taken the worst of the pain away.
“You are a pitiful species, weak, easily killed. Not a single one of you can hold a candle to the raw prowess of the Kallan.” He lifted his arm, ready to bring his wristblades down upon her, to take his final kill.
“Hey asshole!” A deep, rasping Russian sounding voice came from behind him.
Drax had made one critical error. In focusing so intently on finishing the hunt, in his manic devotion to perform the final kill, capture the final glory. He had not noticed Colonel Nikolai Vargev step through the door behind him.
The Dracos commander whirled around to face the colonel, who grinned widely before pressing the trigger of his Armschlager pointed directly at Drax’s chest. High power rounds tore through the Dracos’s body at point blank range, three slugs ripped through his chest and stomach, hurling him through the air, before slamming him down onto the smooth hard floor.
An accompanying commando stepped forward and produced a pair of wire cutters, and quickly managed to extricate Kathryn’s badly injured leg from the device.
“Are you okay?” Nikolai asked.
“I am now,” she almost fainted, a wave of exhaustion washed over her.
“We’ll get that leg seen to straight away, any other survivors?”
“Err…no, only me.”
“Jesus, out of sixteen, you were the only one to make it?”
Kathryn hobbled over and gently hugged Nikolai, the big Russian towered over her, as he looked down and regarded her badly weakened form with concern.
“Thank you Nikolai.” She whispered softly, a mixture of relief and profound sadness welled up inside her. Her ordeal was finally over, the nightmare was now gone.
She had lost so many colleagues, friends, people she had come to admire, and in particular the loss of Sergeant Rachthausen, the person she wanted so desperately to love.
Tears flowed onto Nikolai’s camouflaged combat fatigues, a slight damp patch formed just below his thick barrel like chest.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
11. The battle for Auriga III
The Liberty had shot passed the Dracos craft that had been attacking it, and continued on toward one of the moons of Auriga III, the two remaining Dracos ships, the flagship Blade of Rhovanion and the warcruiser flame of Celthris slowly began to break orbit, power up their engines and give chase.
Senergid, a hero of the Dracos people himself, and commander of the entire Dracos fleet was still amazed that this little ship had withstood attacks from three of his best ships, and even gone on to destroy the Vengeance of Kelmarroth, sure their foe was quick and nimble, but it was nowhere near the size and power of the warcruisers. The destruction of the Vengeance should never have happened.
The fight to reclaim the lost halo world was proving to be a costly one, if they could not recapture the planet, Senergid was going to abandon it, there was no way he was going to risk an empire to capture a planet, no matter how important the Eye of the Dracos was to his people.
The small enemy ship had gained quite a headstart, his larger warcruisers were much slower to turn, though now they had successfully broken orbit and were chasing after this annoying little vessel.
“Reinforce the aft shields, take the forward graviton generators offline, and shunt the extra power to the rear ones, just as before.” Michael said as he turned from addressing Logan to the viewscreen ahead, the moon was becoming slowly larger as they neared, the peaks and troughs of its cratered surface more detailed.
The destruction of the Dracos ship had buoyed the crew up immensely, their weapons could, in fact, hurt these Dracos vessels; they could be destroyed. Although they were not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, there were still two more of them out there, and coming in from behind where the Liberty was weaponless.
However if Michael’s plan was to succeed, they would need to take a little pain for a lot of gain.
“Incoming!” Logan shouted.
Torpedoes raced towards the small warship, as Eldathar swung the ship from port to starboard to evade the worst of the onslaught, two of the warheads flashed past the Liberty overshooting their target, the contrails clearly visible on the viewer as they sailed by.
Two others however slammed hard into the Liberties reinforced aft shields, pitching several of its crew, including Michael forward. The Liberty captain braced his fall by landing on his outstretched palms, the deck plating thrummed gently to the touch, as the Solarian derived Ionic engine worked at full capacity, catapulting the ship forward in an effort to get some distance between the Liberty and the chasing Dracos ships, the plates were also cool, a reassuring feeling as Michael scrabbled quickly back to his seat.
“Shields at eighty three percent.”
The Liberty continued to hurtle headlong through space towards the safety of the moon, the tiny ship’s flight path criss-crossed with deep violet laser lance blasts from the Dracos cruisers chasing it, several slammed into the Liberties aft shields, weakening them further.
“Shields are down to fifty one percent, we won’t be able to withstand this kind of pounding for much longer!” Logan Jones replied.
The ship rocked violently under the withering onslaught; a console shorted out, exploding in a shower of sparks and shattered glass flying across the bridge.
“Hold your course Eldathar!” Michael shouted over the din of explosions and violent shaking.
