Drax retracted the silencer as he jumped and clung back onto the ceiling. The wire shot back with such force it threatened to tear Kathryn’s arm from its socket, she screamed aloud in pain as she was forcibly hurled to the floor, landing heavily.
Rachthausen was still dazed from the blow he received to his chest.
Drax hissed his anger at the pair who had eluded him; the device uncurled from Kathryn’s arm and affixed itself back into his weapon.
Rachthausen got to his feet and drew his combat knife, he knew he was hopelessly outmatched by Drax. Nevertheless, he might buy just enough time for Kathryn to escape.
“Kathryn, get out of here!” He shouted more forcefully than he intended.
She got back to her feet again, hobbling from a bruised hip suffered from the fall, “what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, just run!”
Kathryn turned to leave, watching the sergeant square up to the vicious black suited alien ahead of him, the red eyes shone menacingly in the darkness.
“Kathryn, I will always love you.” Rachthausen said softly.
Sorrow welled up from deep within her, a tear ran down her gentle cheek as she realised that Rachthausen was sacrificing himself so that she may live. She was torn asunder as the two combatants stabbed and sliced at one another. Her love, the single person she really, truly loved was destined to die for her, at that point, that very second she wanted to die too.
“Get out of here!” Rachthausen repeated as he grappled with Drax.
Kathryn could say nothing but whisper a faint, almost imperceptible, “I’ll always love you,” before running headlong down the corridor, away from her nightmare.
Rachthausen was the stronger of the two, yet significantly less agile than Drax, the sergeant managed to hurl the Dracos commander to the floor, he landed heavily in a crumpled heap. Rachthausen followed up his attack by trying to stab the Dracos warrior.
Drax however was far quicker and deftly swept the sergeants legs from under him. The heavy, burly sergeant toppled backwards over the granite desk himself.
Drax hissed again, pure hate in his voice as he advanced, slowly, purposefully toward the sergeant, who struggled to get back to his feet. The maddened Dracos commander slashed his wristblades at him with such speed they could scarcely be seen, though Rachthausen managed to parry the frenzied attack with his own blade. The sheer force of the clash of blades sent them both staggering backwards.
Drax swiped his blades at him again, hacking and slashing in a whirlwind of deadly blade strikes, he launched himself acrobatically into the air, latching onto walls and ceilings to launch yet more blows. Rachthausen was putting up a brave defence, he had managed to parry the worst of the onslaught, though Drax was fighting like a madman, a rabid wolf, launching attack after attack, ultimately however a few slashes had made it through the sergeants desperate guard, he was bleeding from several nicks to his chest and arms, and was gradually weakening.
The Dracos aimed a vicious roundhouse kick, catching the sergeant square in the chest again, and sent him tumbling to the ground, his fatigues now stained and torn in several places from the cuts he had sustained.
“This is too easy,” the Dracos commander jeered, “this is no sport.”
Rachthausen; panting heavily staggered back to his feet, through the haze of pain filling his mind, he hoped he had bought enough time for Kathryn.
Drax kicked him hard in the ribs, sending him sprawling across the ground once again, tumbling over and over. A pain like fire spread through his side, then another kick landed, and another, a deadly torrent of blows rained down on the badly weakened sergeant, and Drax threatened to kick him to death. Blood streaked down Rachthausen’s face from a nasty cut on his forehead, the pain in his side was agonising, and he feared that several ribs were broken. Yet still fixed the Dracos commander with a defiant stare, even though he was beating him to a bloody pulp, the longer he was taking to finish him, the more time he was buying for Kathryn.
Drax kicked him hard again, and the sergeant let out a small whimper of pain, a sound that delighted the Dracos warrior, “this is starting to be amusing after all.”
He kicked him one last time, causing the sergeant to gasp as he crawled along the floor in an effort to get back to his feet; and, dropping his guard for just a second. Drax took full advantage and slammed his fist into the sergeants injured arm, Rachthausen screamed in agony.
Drax smiled, delighted to hear the scream of his enemies torment and anguish, this was his time now, this was one of the things he loved about being a Dracos commander, it made him feel alive to hear his enemies screams, just as it did his ancestors.
Finally the kicks and torture stopped, Rachthausen was a bloody mess lying in a foetal position on the floor, his combat fatigues sodden with blood, the floor slippery. Drax gripped the sergeants matted hair, pulled his head back exposing his neck, and whispered, “playtimes over.” Before slicing open the sergeants throat with his wickedly sharp wristblades, and shoving the body to the ground.
He left the office with a maniacal laugh, as Rachthausen’s corpse slowly bled to death across the office floor.
“We are entering the Auriga system,” Eldathar pointed out, after studying the real-time data from the star map laid out in the console just in front of him.
“Understood, prepare to drop out of plasma drive on my mark, we need to get as close as possible, before we re-enter normal space.”
The Solarian pilot silently nodded his understanding, a tense few seconds passed as Michael waited to give the order.
“Now!”
A blindingly bright flash of energy heralded the re-emergence of the Liberty into normal space once again. The deep beige coloured sphere that was Auriga III was clearly visible ahead of them, together with its twin moons.
“Excellent work,” Michael smiled with praise for the crew, at least now he hoped they wouldn’t be blasted into space dust before they even reached the planet.
“I’ve got some bad news for ya’ cap’n!” Kinraid said as he studied his sensory console, “we ‘ave ‘tree unknown alien ships orbiting the planet, so we ‘ave. Not just the one; and they all match the one ‘tat destroyed the Copernicus.”
So Nikolai was right, there were more of them out there, “any chance they have detected us?”
“Two of them are breakin’ orbit, heading straight for us, the other is maintaining its orbit.”
Damn, it looks like they can see through the stealth abilities of the hull, Michael thought as his features screwed up into a slight wince. “Looks like we are going to have to fight our way through this one.”
“I would advise caution,” Eldathar replied from the pilot’s chair, “even though those ships are based on old Solarian technology. They are still powerful, and it looks like they have been doing a few upgrades of their own over the years.”
“Enemy ships ‘ave now broken orbit, and ‘r’ changing course ‘t’ intercept.”
“Full alert status, full power to main engines and thrusters, charge main fusion cannon, and activate the high energy launchers. Initiate graviton shielding system.” Michael barked out his orders with customary ease, he had been in this situation many times before.
“Aye sir,” Logan Jones replied as he frantically worked at the tactical console, the bridge darkened noticeably, and red alert lights reflected off the various darkened consoles, bathing the entire command centre in a deep ruddy glow.
“Fusion cannon is powering up, torpedoes are standing by, main engines and thrusters are at full power, graviton shields are charging.” Logan informed Michael, who watched the dark shapes of the enemy craft approach intently. Their command sections swept forward, sharp and angular like a serpent poised to strike.
Michael gnashed his teeth in defiance, “well if they want a fight, then by god they are going to get one!”