There were none, the sergeant had given a pretty thorough demonstration of how to use the gun. All the scientist had managed to clip in the laser pods with little difficulty, and pressed the priming button.
Thank God for small mercies at least, Rachthausen thought as he watched the assembled scientists all ready their weapons successfully.
“Okay, we don’t know how many of them there are out there, and we have no idea what they are capable of. So everyone needs to be extra careful, myself and the guards will try to draw most of their fire. If you do have to use your weapon, try to make your shots count, once these are used up we only have five spare laser pods for the pistols.”
Drax and his Kallan warriors approached the main hatch. As they looked upon it, they saw a small illuminated panel. They keyed in the control to enter the facility, and were greeted with a loud scraping of metal and some small jerking movements. The doors wanted to open, but something on the other side was blocking them.
Locked themselves in, Drax thought. A shame really, they are only delaying the inevitable. He took a few steps back from the hatch and pressed a tiny control, secretly embedded on a unit around his right wrist.
“Drax to the Flame of Celthris.”
“Kaeleth here, sir.”
“I want a full layout of this facility, search the ships main database, and then transmit it to my suits augmented reality uplink.”
“Understood, I’ll do the search now.”
The communication ended, Drax could feel the ground shaking from beneath him, it wasn’t violent, just a gentle rhythmic thrumming, although increasing in its intensity. The wind was blowing but not to this degree.
He eventually realised what it was, and screamed with all the urgency he could muster, “Everyone down, now!”
No sooner had the Kallan flattened to the ground, than the station released a second massive burst of energy through the atmosphere, the whole facility briefly turned a bright shade of orange, as the intensely bright stream of pure power, shot skywards and out into space once again.
“Recover!” Drax shouted out to his men.
The immense beam of energy shot passed the Flame of Celthris, briefly silhouetting the dark shape of the ship in its intense orange light, before hurtling onward into the depths of space once again.
After several minutes of searching for Dracos structures built on Auriga III, the ships computer finally found something that matched. A layout of a giant energy installation known simply as the eye of the Dracos, Kaeleth was fascinated. Although Dracos technology had evolved over the three hundred years the base was abandoned, nothing they built today even approached the scale of the eye.
He contacted Drax, “I have the plans, transmitting now.”
From inside Drax’s helmet a tiny lens displayed the layout of the station over his left eye, he studied it intently, and after a few seconds of silently searching, smiled. The facility did indeed have another way in after all.
“Follow me,” Drax called out to his men.
5. The nightmare begins
Rachthausen turned towards Kalschacht and Gomez, “when you saw the layout of the station, did you see any other means of access, an escape hatch, emergency exit or anything?”
“I’m not sure,” they both replied in unison.
Rachthausen pressed them, “think; this is important.”
“I don’t think so, not from what I remember.” Gomez replied, his brow furrowed in thought.
“Are you absolutely sure.”
Gomez nodded, his dreadlocks swaying gently.
“Okay,” Rachthausen turned to address his other guards.
“Wait!” Kalschacht called out, “there is another exit.”
Rachthausen froze, his worst fears confirmed, “shit.” was all he could say.
“There is a small emergency escape corridor; it’s on the far side of the facility.”
Drax and his men forced their way onward through the howling winds blowing across the surface, finally making it to the central focusing pylons of the facility, he loved the design of classic Dracos architecture, it looked so bold, so grand, like four giant claws reaching up from the ground ready to drag those unwary enough to get caught in its clutches deep down into the planets surface. Those grand old days were long lost to his people now, or so he had thought.
Once he has recaptured this base, it will re-energise his people, give them the boost they desperately need to once again become the scourge they were all those years ago. His people given the power of the old ones once again, the thought filled him with excitement and made him smile with anticipation.
He peered down the gigantic aperture, which the focusing pylons ringed, and switched to his thermal view once again. He could just make out the huge spinning collider at the bottom. It still showed up white-hot from the energy release earlier. No-one would know that the collider was buried a kilometre into the planets crust, built over one of the largest geothermal vents on the entire surface.
There were many other vents, but the others were nowhere near as big as this, in-fact it was all the vents and the geothermal activity that spewed out the methane and other gases, which created the clouds which swirl about this planet. Auriga III was a fascinating, yet deadly place for the unwary.
With a wave of his hand, he motioned for his men to continue towards the emergency evacuation hatch that had been transmitted to his A.R. uplink. It was tough going, even for the Kallan, the winds were making every step an effort and they could feel the biting cold through their carbon fibre environment suits. However, the thought of hunting down and hearing the screams of these interlopers, banished any negative thoughts from them. Once they got inside the fun could begin, and oh would they have such fun.
After about an hour of trudging through the windswept surface, they came upon a tiny hatch sunk into the ground, and half covered with wild bushes and shrubs.
Drax and a few of his men began clearing back the vegetation in earnest, eager to get to those inside. They found the hatch was only big enough for one man at a time to enter single file.
There was a small dirt encrusted panel next to the hatch, the other Kallan trained their eviscerator rifles on the hatch doors, ready in-case there was a guard stationed on the other side or some kind of booby trap.
Drax pressed a control on the panel. With a faint hiss of escaping air, the hatch slid open, gripping his pistol the Dracos commander cautiously ventured inside the escape tunnel.
It wasn’t lit, however that posed no problem, as he switched his helmet onto night-vision mode. Gradually the interior was revealed to him. It was a smooth cylindrical shaft descending into the base at an angle of about forty degrees, it was steep, yet at the floor of the shaft was a series of metal steps that ran down its length.
Drax cautiously made his way down the metallic flight of steps and descended into the gloom, one by one, his men followed.
Rachthausen and Kalschacht studied the three dimensional display in the control room again, this time in closer detail. They studied each corridor, panning around the entire facility, what they uncovered worried them immensely. They had found the escape hatch on the plan, and it led to a completely separate wing, or so they thought. As they continued to study the plan they realised that the ‘dead ends’ they had been coming to, were not dead ends at all.
They were enormous blast doors, designed to protect the base should the collider at its heart malfunction and explode. On the first and third floors, these were connected to giant semi-circular corridors that linked the other wing to this one.
Worst of all, they found that the control room they were standing in, was just an auxiliary. There was a far larger main one on the other wing, which also looked suspiciously like a military wing, consisting of military store houses, mess rooms, barracks, and engineering workshops.