The Liberty itself was hurtling out of control; it had been thrown into a vertical spin as it careered through the atmosphere, pulled along by the planet’s own gravity.
Kinraid gradually re-took his seat and studied his own flickering, partially working console, “hull temperature exceedin’ maximum tolerances, if we don’t get the ship under control quickly, we’ll burn up.”
Eldathar strained for all he was worth against the controls, trying desperately to regain attitude control, “come on!” he shouted as he clenched his alien teeth.
The ship’s wild careering through the atmosphere began to slowly stabilise, as the Solarian fought against the controls.
“Looks like we’re through the worst of it, hull temperature’s returning to normal,” Kinraid announced.
Thank god for that, Michael thought letting loose a relieved sigh, together with the entire bridge crew. “Great work, Eldathar.”
The Solarian risked a quick glance back at his captain, and smiled.
“Status report?” Michael asked.
Kinraid studied his instruments, “Graviton shields ‘r’ down, we ‘ave some minor hull fractures, there ‘r’ some injuries amongst the crew. If it wasn’t for those new fangled shields, we’d all be toast; beggin’ ya’ pardon cap’n.”
“I know; those graviton shields have definitely proved their worth, what about those Dracos ships?” Michael asked as he wiped his brow with the sleeve of his uniform, leaving a dark grimy smear across his forehead.
“They’ve both backed off, resumed orbit. Guess they didn’t wanna’ be on te’ receivin’ end ‘o’ that explosion.”
“I guess so,” Michael replied as he shook off his debris littered uniform, and brushed down his seat with his hand. The environmental control systems had kicked in and removed the smoke, small jets of carbon dioxide extinguished the remaining fires. Things slowly returned to normal as he surveyed the extent of the damage to his bridge.
Several consoles had completely exploded, leaving blackened twisted remains along the bridge perimeter, dark scorch marks lined the walls. Others, like Kinraid’s were barely functioning, their flickering and buzzing a constant distraction. The snap and hiss of flailing, damaged circuits from the roof hung limp, adding to the scene of desolation.
“There is nothing stopping them simply bombarding our position from orbit, should we ever land,” Michael said.
“Not if we land close enough to the facility, I doubt they would risk firing on their own base,” Eldathar suggested.
“Good idea,” Michael smiled, “head for the base.”
The Liberty flew over a windswept jagged mountain range, through a forest of strange alien looking trees, like enormous hyacinths their petals instead were leaves.
“With a carbon dioxide atmosphere like this, I guess photosynthesis must work backwards here,” Kinraid said as he perused the viewscreen from his position, “instead of producing oxygen as a by-product, these plants must produce carbon dioxide instead.”
The dark warship glided over a flat land, with what appeared to be a river meandering its way through it, the silvery sheen of the water reflected the sunlight at them as they glided past.
“Well now I know why the Dracos chose this planet, ample water supply.”
“Yea’ but for all we know, tat could be the only river for a t’ousand miles,” Kinraid replied.
The sharp inwardly curving pylons of the Dracos structure became clearly visible on the horizon as the Liberty gently glided towards it.
“My god, the thing is gigantic, those pylons must be a good thousand metres tall,” Michael gasped.
Indeed they were, and visible for miles around, an enormous set of four focusing pylons, gently curving toward one another, exactly like a giant set of claws had sprouted out from the ground and was reaching up to pull the sky down. The sun was slowly setting on the horizon, bathing these mighty monoliths in stark shadow.
Michael touched a communications terminal on the arm of his chair, “Michael to Nikolai; have your men ready, we’ll be touching down in around one minute.”
“Understood,” Nikolai said as he spoke into his helmet mic.
Colonel Vargev spoke to his arrayed commandoes one last time before the fighting commenced. “Okay, as per the briefing, we’ll be splitting up into two teams of ten men each. I’ll be leading alpha team who will go in and storm the complex, bravo team will be providing close fire support. Razor, you’re in command of Bravo team.”
“Sir, yes sir,” the powerfully built Robert Jansen, A.K. A Razor replied.
“This is what we’ve trained for people, remember, don’t let the enemy get too close. Intel says they may have a lot of bladed weapons, and love to slice and dice, don’t give them the opportunity. We all have motion scanners, and we have night vision attached to our breathing gear, so we should be able to see them just as well as they see us. Watch yourselves out there.”
“Yes colonel,” they all shouted in unison.
“Let’s show these bastards, who they are really messing with.” Vargev grinned.
“Ooragh!” was the loud reply.
Nikolai had armed his men heavily, and they all carried the ubiquitous, high-powered forty-four calibre armschlager heavy machine gun. A weapon which had proven to be so devastating to Krenaran troops during the war. In addition to this however, he had ordered his men to wear the new apex body armour, consisting of ultra tough carbon fibre plates hidden under their traditional camouflaged flak jacket. Each man had half a dozen grenades, a pulse pistol sidearm, and two men of bravo team also carried the slingshot, a portable rocket launcher equipped with deadly new dead aim missiles. A missile that’s guidance system was so accurate, so finely tuned, it could lock onto and track a target, purely from its body heat. To save them being blown to pieces by their own missile, all commandoes wore a tiny microchip concealed deep within their chest armour, which allowed the missile to identify between friend and foe, the missile was not to be used where civilians would be present, as it could just as easily kill them, but on an open battlefield, was a formidable weapon.
“Commandoes, form up by the port access hatch.”
“Yes, colonel!” The troops all shouted in unison, and as one the body of twenty men all marched their way through the confines of the ship, passing blown, smashed consoles and damaged circuitry. The glass littering the deck plates crunched under their heavy military boots.
The Liberty swooped in fast, Michael saw the six Dracos assault landers all arrayed near the structure, it was one headache he could do without. “Logan, target those landed ships, fire at will.”
“Aye, sir.”
The Liberty dived low and opened fire with its devastating fusion cannon, the raw power of the beam slammed into the first of the landers, tearing it to pieces in a fountain of twisted blackened debris, the bright incandescent blue beam raked the area tearing into the other craft just as easily as the first. Bright plumes of flame, smoke and explosions lit up the dusk sunset as onboard power cells and munitions ruptured, before the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere quickly quelled the blazing inferno of the wrecked craft. The wreckage however, still smouldered and continued to send out plumes of thick smoke into the darkening sky.
Michael could just faintly see the tiny black specks of Dracos warriors scurrying about on the surface below them.
A powerful blast rocked the Liberty, Eldathar fought to keep the ship stable, “the Dracos ships in orbit, are resuming their bloody firin’ on us!” Kinraid shouted, stating the obvious.
“Quickly Eldathar, set us down near the landers, get us as close as possible to the structure.” Michael said, a plan formed in his mind, he was going to use the smoke billowing out from the destroyed craft as cover for the landing.
“Lowering landing legs, gravitic engines to maximum, main engine thrust at five percent,” Eldathar exclaimed.
The Liberty slowed to a virtual hover, its shadow dominating the wreckage of the landers, powerful gravitic engines kicked up great plumes of dirt and dust.