all he could think to offer.
Michael nodded silently to him as they walked.
After a slow walk of perhaps half an hour, they had reached the second set of blast doors, this place is incredibly well built, Michael thought, they can section off parts of the base in the event one part is damaged, much like starships can.
Eventually the small group came to a gigantic control centre, the lights from dozens of consoles flickered off the dark walls. This room at least gave Kathryn a warm feeling, this was where she and Rachthausen had shared that tender moment, when he had kissed her. It was then that she knew the sergeant loved her, and, even though she had been fighting it, loved him too.
The accompanying commandoes took up a guarding position at the doors as Logameier peered over the controls, studying them much as he had done in the smaller auxiliary control station. He watched the power levels build up in the spinning collider. Incredible, he mused; that collider is spinning at over twenty thousand revolutions per second. It is spinning so fast, that anything a similar size made by the E.D. F would have spun itself to pieces virtually instantly.
After spending a few moments hopping from console to console, looking over all the controls, he announced. “Right! I think I have it, with the occasional difference here and there; it is similar to the process used to shut down the Solarian power core on the Liberty.”
He eyed one of the consoles intently, the language was based upon Solarian script, he had come to recognise many of the flowing, delicate symbols in his time aboard the Liberty, and was able to equate many of them to their English language counterparts. This was somehow different, altered slightly, the symbols instead of depicting peaceful iconography, like the Talula leaf, which symbolised life or beginning in the Solarian language, were replaced with harsher, jagged, aggressive counterparts.
His finger hovered over one of the controls; doubt began to cloud his mind.
Finally, Lieutenant Johnson Logameier bit the bullet, pressed the button, and held his breath.
The station let forth one final, almighty blast of intense energy, far in excess of any other, bright enough to be seen for miles around. It was so bright and so intense, that it set nearby plant life alight, creating a number of fierce, yet short-lived wild fires.
This last, furious release tore its way through the planets atmosphere with all the force of a high power sniper round tearing through its targets body. This was the eye’s swansong, its final farewell to the galaxy that had created it, and what a swansong it was. It shot past the E.D. F fleet, illuminating every single ship in an intense fiery glow.
“Holy mother of crap!” Kinraid replied from the captain’s chair of the Liberty, as he had to turn away from the viewer to avoid being blinded by the massive flash of light.
The beam continued past the five ships in close orbit, and shot forth through the Auriga system, then out into deep space on an endless journey into the vast starlit void beyond.
Logameier breathed a sigh of relief, he had chosen correctly. The remaining energy stored inside the collider read zero, it had completely discharged all the energy contained within, and could now be shut down safely.
He made his way over to another complex looking console, discharging the built up energy was just the first part, now he had to shut down the collider itself, if he guessed wrong, that enormous spinning structure could very well spin itself into oblivion.
Slowly he traced his finger over a rectangular touch sensitive control, it was lit up in increments, figuring this was the speed setting for the revolutions the collider was spinning at, he traced his finger along it, the green increments slowly winked out as he did so. Johnson had to do this slowly and carefully, too fast or too jerky a movement could seize the entire thing, tearing it to pieces within seconds, and Michael had told him the E.D. F wanted this thing intact, so future scientists could study it and perhaps find a way of using it.
The final increment slowly winked out, and gradually the collider came to a standstill, now all he had to do was lock it down, and the shutdown process was complete. He realised he was sweating, not because he was hot, though it was warm in here, more from an intense, nervous concentration.
The weight of responsibility he had felt throughout this process had been huge, akin to the time when he had first took up his chief engineer responsibilities on the Liberty. There was so much at stake, the entire E.O.C. A was counting on him to have this place secured.
If he didn’t get this right, not only would the E.D. F lose a potentially vital new source of power; entire star systems rested on this one outcome. If the Dracos did manage to capture this facility, like they are intent on doing, and do become as powerful as they once were, not only were the Solarians at risk, but nearby E.O.C. A colony worlds as well, he was damned if the Dracos would stop here, he had to lock this out and he had to do it right.
Taking a breath, he calmed himself, and swallowing his nerves, he walked over to a third console, finding that this was the control panel for four giant magnetic interlocks that clamped onto the side of the collider in order to hold it secure, thus preventing it from being activated, even accidentally. In their haste to abandon this place, the Dracos must have skipped this step all those years ago, just one simple step that could have avoided everything that had happened here.
He punched in the four controls, and slowly four massive twenty metre diameter rectangular clamps, emerged out from the aperture wall toward the smooth circular collider itself. Each one must have weighed twenty tonnes. They were imbued with a heavy magnetic charge, and extended inexorably outward until magnetic attraction took over, and they slammed down on the collider with a resounding, dull thud.
Not one man, one single person uttered a word while Logameier worked, they simply stood watching in silent awe as he went about the process, willing him on, because they knew as much as he did, that so many lives rested upon it.
He eventually stopped and turned towards his captain, “structure is shut down, and locked securely, sir.”
Michael smiled with warm pride at his chief engineer, “good job, lieutenant.”
“Thank you, sir.” Logameier breathed a sigh of relief as he shook Michael’s hand.
“Now let’s get out of here shall we, we still have one last task to perform,” he said as he smiled in Kathryn’s direction.
“Captain, looking at these plans there is a quicker way to the surface, through the emergency hatch,” Logameier suggested.
“We tried looking for it, but couldn’t find it ourselves.” Kathryn replied.
“Can’t hurt to take another look, besides this time we are not running for our lives.”
The team slowly continued along the remainder of the floor, eventually coming to the elevator, which had quickly returned to their level after detecting their approach. They all piled in, and were automatically whisked to the floor above, where they disembarked and immediately began searching for the hatch opening.
“It has to be here somewhere, it’s noted in the plans,” Logameier cursed as he searched the place.
Kathryn tapped the bottom of her cane on the corridor walls, listening for any hint of a hollow, eventually she came across one, “over here!” she shouted to the rest of the group, all busily searching.
Their collective torchlight illuminated a large panel, certainly large enough to crawl through, slowly Nikolai and Michael unfastened the metal panel from the wall and laid it down to one side.
There were small rungs leading up to an incline all the way to the surface, Nikolai took up the rear, closing the panel shut again behind them. The group all crawled single file up these rungs toward the surface. Kathryn had to stop frequently as the constant crawling was difficult on her newly operated on leg, the pain was severe. Nevertheless, she limped onward as best she could, as she knew as well as anyone that there wasn’t enough room to carry people in this dark cramped shaft.
Michael was at the head of the line, and was first to come upon the hatch exit. His torch revealed a small two button control panel, he quickly figured that it was there simply as the means for opening the hatch, and, after pressing one of the controls, found he was correct as the hatch slid noisily open; covering him in a thin mist of dirt and the occasional piece of dead vegetation in the process. Wiping the lenses on his breathing mask in order to see properly, he stepped out onto the harsh windswept surface once again.
He helped Kathryn clamber her way up, who took a break sat upon a nearby rock, as the accumulated pain from the climb had become almost unbearable. Gradually, as she rested, the pain came back down to tolerable levels again.
Nikolai, Logameier, and the rest of the commandoes all followed soon enough, and Nikolai sealed the hatch
