Nemesis

by Christian Kallias

  Nyx turned, but it was too late. The spider monster, having recovered from her attack, fired five energy nets in a wide spread. Nyx tried to dodge them, but got caught by three of the nets. She fell back to the sand like a stone. As she collided with the ground, the three-legged spider creature fired a red bolt of lightning at Nyx. She felt like hundreds of thousands of volts course through her body, resulting in agonizing pain. She quickly lost consciousness.

  A power conduit in the bridge of the Bellerophon exploded near Urgon, sending the Droxian crashing into the bulkhead. Talon’s first officer passed out on impact.

  “Medic to the bridge!” shouted Tar’Lock.

  “Tar’Lock,” Talon said, “you’re the acting first officer now; assume Urgon’s station.”

  Tar’Lock clicked with frustration. The last thing the Gorgar wanted right now was more responsibility. He obeyed his captain nonetheless. A nearby crewman took a fire extinguisher and dealt with the burning power conduit.

  “Secondary power failing!” shouted Tar’Lock.

  “We’re almost there,” said the captain, his tone more to reassure himself than to convey confidence to his crew.

  “That’s not going to do us any good if we can’t maintain life support let alone shields to protect us from the cluster’s radiation,” barked Tar’Lock.

  Captain Epizon caressed the armrest of his chair. “She’ll hold. I know she will.”

  Tar’Lock wanted to argue that last point, but he was too busy trying to keep the ship in one piece and adjust the sensors in order to obtain a solid lock on the spider ship. He also had been tempted, more than once, to send a subspace distress call to the Earth Alliance, but his allegiance to Talon was strong, and he knew that he would not be forgiven if he went behind the captain’s back.

  The ship rocked as another salvo of plasma screamed near enough the shields to light them up.

  Only once in his life had Tar’Lock seen such epic flying. And, right now, he wished that Chase were here to help them deal with this threat.

  “Tar’Lock,” said Talon, “how are we coming with that sensor lock?”

  Tar’Lock’s holo-console sparked, and he lost his holo-screen. He kicked the shit out of his console, and the holo-image returned, albeit slightly fuzzier.

  “Like the rest of this ship, Captain…not looking good.”

  He could tell that it wasn’t the answer Captain Talon Epizon was looking for.

  “ETA to the nebula cluster?”

  “Five minutes at present velocity.”

  “Can we boost the engines?”

  “It’s a miracle they’re still working, I wouldn’t try it.”

  “Then we’ll need a diversion before we enter the nebula; prepare to jettison a third of our quadrinium crates.”

  Tar’Lock knew what his captain was up to. By detonating quadrinium, it would create a massive explosion, one that could damage the spider ship or at the very least blind their sensors long enough for the Bellerophon to enter the nebula cluster, hopefully disappearing from the enemy’s sensor in the process. There was only one problem with that plan. And it was about to be voiced.

  “You’re not suggesting we blow up tens of thousands of credits worth of cargo for a diversion, are you?” barked the weapon’s officer, Heath McCormack.

  “Not now, Heath!” said the captain.

  “Yes, now! It’s our wages you’re bargaining wit—”

  But Heath never finished his sentence. Tar’Lock ran to Heath, knocked him unconscious, and returned to his own station in the blink of an eye. Gorgars were fast in general, but Tar’Lock was in a league of his own. To most humanoids, when he moved at his maximum velocity, it looked like teleportation for the observer.

  “Thank you, my insectoid friend,” said Talon.

  “Ready to jettison the quadrinium, Captain,” answered Tar’Lock.

  Unlike the rest of the captain’s ragtag crew, the Gorgar was not aboard the Bellerophon to make a profit but more to get away from Earth and the feelings and memories he had decided to leave behind.

  Tar’Lock heard another two crewmen whisper their discontent about the captain’s plan. With any luck, they’d survive the next few minutes, and then they could deal with them. If the crew staged a mutiny now, they’d all die during the attempt. Hopefully, they understood the only thing keeping them alive at the moment was the exceptional flying skills of their captain.

  “Jettison the cargo now, and keep an active lock on the payload,” ordered Talon.

  “Quadrinium away,” answered Tar’Lock.

  Captain Epizon redirected as much power from life support as he could and injected it to the thrusters. Tar’Lock held his breath hoping the Bellerophon could get enough distance from the deadly payload. Igniting quadrinium would create a massive explosion, one that could easily vaporize them, and the shields of the ship were barely holding as they were.

  “Here goes nothing,” said Talon. “Fire!”

  Tar’Lock swallowed hard as he activated the firing holo-control.

  10

  On the Iron Fire’s bridge, Daniel sat beside Chase as the ship exited hyperspace. A short time later, Argos joined them.

  “Commander,” said Chase. “Please scan the area for any habitable world.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” answered the female officer.

  Argos went to stand beside the captain’s chair. He folded his arms across his chest.

  How’s Chris? asked Chase telepathically.

  You’ll have to ask him that directly. Though, it’s probably best to give him some space right now.

  Chase wanted nothing more than to talk, but he could sense that rebuilding a bridge with his son would not be an easy task. Even though he knew he had to try.

  Thanks, Argos.

  Anytime, brother.

  “Some of us can’t speak with our minds,” Daniel protested. “Don’t think I don’t know when the two of you are exchanging thoughts telepathically. It results in long and awkward silences while your faces change expressions.”

  Chase smiled. “Sorry, and duly noted.”

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” Daniel asked.

  “Anything really. Signs of life, contact with other space-faring species. Anything to help us locate medicine or technology that could help Sarah.”

  “That’s kind of a long shot, isn’t it?”

  “Well, we gotta start somewhere. We’re going into uncharted territory for a reason: hoping to find something there that we can use,” said Chase.

  “Fair enough. Let’s hope the locals, should we meet any, are friendly.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” commented Argos. “If they aren’t, Chase, Chris, and I will happily deal with them.”

  “That’s if they aren’t more powerful than Furies,” said Daniel.

  Argos shot Daniel a dubious look.

  “Besides Spectres, I doubt many races can hold up in a fight against us Furies.”

  Chase twitched. “That’s the thing, Argos. We don’t know what we’re going to find out there. For all we know, we could be relegated to the bottom of the food chain.”

  “That’s a scary thought,” said Daniel.

  “Come on, you can’t be seriou—” but a series of beeps coming from a nearby holo-console interrupted Argos.

  “Admiral!” exclaimed the commander. “Long-range scanners have located an inhabitable planet with signs of technological advancement.”

  “Analysis. What level of technology are we talking about? Space-faring?”

  “Since the sensors have detected the world at the outer limits of their range, we’re only getting partial data. Looks like an industrialized world; we detect energy signatures of all sorts as well as subspace signals. We’ll need to get a lot closer to acquire more accurate information, though.”

  “As first encounters go, this sounds promising,” said Daniel. “We’re looking for signs of life, and well, we’ve found just that.”

  “Agreed,” said Argos.
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  Chase didn’t need the input, even if he welcomed it. He could already feel it in his bones that they needed to go there.

  “Then let’s have a closer look, shall we?” Chase turned toward the helm’s officer. “Set a course for the planet and engage the jump engi—”

  “Hyperspace window opening in front of us,” the navigation officer interrupted. “Energy signature is massive!”

  “On screen,” said Daniel and Chase in unison.

  The bridge holo-screen filled with a terrifying image.

  Argos uncrossed his arms, his eyes growing wide. “What the hell is that?”

  A massive creature at least five times the size of the Iron Fire exited a hyperspace window and headed their way. Its multiple heads looked like dragons, and it floated through space like an eel glides through the water.

  “Is that a…hydra?” asked Daniel. “In space?”

  “How can anything that massive live and breathe in that type of atmosphere?” said Argos.

  “Not to mention travel through hyperspace,” said Chase, his gaze locked onto the monster filling the holo-screen. “Right now, though, I think we should leave these questions for later and get the hell out of here. Commander set a course for the planet and engage jump engines.”

  “Hyperspace engines won’t engage, Admiral,” said the commander.

  “What?! Why?”

  “The creature is emitting a Jump Interdiction Field (JIF) of some sort. Doesn’t seem technological in nature but more a function of its biology. It has the same effect as a JIF though, so I’m afraid we can’t jump.”

  “You gotta be shitting me,” said Chase. “Lock weapons to the target.”

  “Is that wise?” Daniel asked. “We know nothing of these creatures, they may not wish us any harm. Maybe we shouldn’t appear threaten—”

  Before Daniel could finish his sentence, one of the monster’s heads opened wide and fired a bolt of plasma at the ship.

  “I stand corrected,” said Daniel.

  “Shields up!” screamed Chase.

  The plasma bolt slammed into the Iron Fire’s shields a fraction of a second after they were fully raised, rocking the ship hard.

  “Shields down to eighty percent,” said the tactical officer.

  He opened a channel to engineering. “Guys, we’re going to need you to find a way for us to get to hyperspace.”

  “Already working on it, Chase,” answered Yanis. “But it may take a while.”

  They better find a solution fast, or we could lose the ship in our first encounter.

  If Chase pondered that thought any longer, he would go down a rabbit hole he really didn’t want to visit. He needed to trust that no matter what happened, not facing dangers alone was a good thing.

  Upon closing the channel, Chase turned to his tactical officer. “Do we have a lock on the creature?”

  “Negative. Systems won’t engage, the creature’s energy signature is in constant flux, and it’s playing havoc with our targeting systems. We’ll only be able to fire manually.”

  “Perhaps Daniel was onto something,” said Argos. “As much as I hate turning tail, fighting this thing head-on might not be the wisest thing to do right now. Not if we can avoid it.”

  Chase thought about it briefly while a second bolt of plasma rocked the ship, lowering the shields another fifteen percent. Though the creature seemed hostile, perhaps it was reacting to their presence the only way it knew how. Protecting itself from what it perceived was a threat.

  “Admiral,” insisted the tactical officer. “Should I return fire?”

  “No, set a course to five by six by three, engage sub-light engines, maximum burn. Let’s see if we can lose it.”

  “Course set, engines at maximum,” said the helm’s officer.

  The ship rocked as sub-light engines engaged and the Iron Fire changed course.

  “Report?” asked Chase.

  “Creature is matching our new vector and is in pursuit,” the commander said gravely.

  Of course, it is.

  “Should I go out in space and blast that thing to smithereens?” asked Argos.

  While the idea had already crossed Chase’s mind, using their powers in space had a high probability of creating space-time anomalies like black holes. If they still had the soul ships, they could have used them, but unfortunately, the soul ships had sacrificed themselves to take out Erevos in the final minutes of the Fury War.

  “We can’t take the chance of disrupting this part of space. The last thing we want is to appear hostile in any way.”

  “Doesn’t seem to bother our hydra friend out there,” said Argos.

  “Yes, but technically we’re the strangers here, it may just be defending its territory or home for all we know. We may very well be looking like invaders or even predators to the creature. And if we start creating black holes by using our powers in space, I’m not sure we’ll receive a warm welcome from other races.”

  Argos growled slightly in mild frustration. “Fair enough. But right now the Iron Fire looks very much like lunch to this creature unless we find a way to get away or destroy it.”

  Chase looked at the integrated holo-screen on his captain’s chair. The creature had adjusted to their new heading fairly quickly and was gaining on them. Argos was right, unless they found a solution, and fast, they were all in jeopardy. There might come a time when they would need to step out and annihilate the creature as a mere survival tactic.

  It sure seems motivated to catch us. I wonder why.

  Chase could have asked his crew to do this next part, but linking his mind with the Iron Fire’s computer was bound to be faster and give him greater control over the ship.

  He accessed the power distribution subsystems and redirected a significant portion of the weapons as well as secondary power reserves to the sub-light engines. The move increased the engines efficiency to one hundred and twenty percent.

  Chase could feel the creature still following them, matching the Iron Fire’s speed. He expanded his senses toward the creature and felt a strong emotion. Rage. Chase focused on the hydra and asked a question.

  Why are you firing on us? We mean you no harm.

  The answer was more feeling than language itself. But if Chase had to put a word to it, it would be ‘destroy’. Clearly, the creature wasn’t interested in why the Iron Fire was here or its intention, it only wanted them gone, no matter what.

  Ares flinched as he saw Nyx lose consciousness. As far as he could tell, the arachnoids hadn’t detected his presence. It helped to be made of pure energy and only appear in a semi-physical form whenever he chose to.

  The female Fury sure knew how to fight, but despite her impressive skills, she had been captured. Ares wondered how she had survived Erevos’ destruction in the first place. Hopefully, she would live long enough to tell him. As it stood, she might be his only hope of understanding what was going on in this dimension, so when the ship landed, and the arachnoids grabbed Nyx, Ares stayed with them.

  Several hours later, Nyx was slowly regaining consciousness in a cell aboard the larger spider ship in orbit of the planet. Ares waited, making sure she regained some strength and grounded herself in the moment before making his first contact.

  When Nyx opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the agonizing and deep pain she felt in every one of her bones. As if a massive animal had trampled her.

  It took a moment for her wits to return, and when they did, she quickly recognized the place she was in. Her old cell.

  “Dammit!”

  I can’t believe I’m back here. . .again.

  Nyx felt a mixture of sadness and desperation at the idea of being back to square one. Especially after the amount of effort it had taken her to escape the lab in the first place. For weeks she’d been the subject of multiple experiments conducted by Zarna. Most of them of the unpleasant kind. Some of them; however, seemed to have focused her mind and gave her a boost in power and energy. A boost she had promptly pu
t to good use the first chance she got.

  You fought well, said a voice in her mind.

  She jumped from the dirty bunk bed and frantically looked around.

  “Who is this? Show yourself!”

  My name is Ares.

  “So, I’m not going nuts and hearing voices?”

  Well, you hear my voice, but that’s only because I decided to speak to you. And I think it would be best if you spoke to me telepathically if you have the ability to do so. Just in case your cell is under surveillance.

  Nyx wondered if she was truly awake or having a nightmare. The bodiless voice didn’t add up. Perhaps it was all part of Zarna’s plan, and in the form of one more experiment. In which case, the Fury wondered what the best course of action would be. Should she interact with the voice? Or ignore it?

  I can help you escape, added Ares. But first, I have a few questions.

  After a brief pause, while she considered Ares’ words, Nyx answered, using telepathy. Ask away.

  Are you a Fury? And, if so, how did you survive the destruction of your planet?

  Not that either is any of your business, but yes, I’m a Fury. I wasn’t on Erevos when it was destroyed. Though days like these I wish I had perished with my world.

  Thank you for your honesty. And no, believe me, you wouldn’t want to have been on Erevos when it exploded. I can tell you that much.

  At least I wouldn’t have been turned into nothing more than a Zargon (Fury pet) by these damn arachnoids.

  Nyx genuinely hated that race with every fiber of her being. If given a chance she would see them burn, every single one of them.

  Alright. I could use a Fury. I’ve worked with your kind before.

  Have you now? What are you?

  There was an uncomfortably long silence.

  I’m an Olympian.

  Rage filled Nyx’s already dark soul.

  Please tell me your kidding? You’re responsible for everything that went wrong with my race from the start, and you want me to help you? You must be out of your damn mind!

  That’s a narrow view and not a fair one. We just opposed your kind in a time when you needed to be stopped.