Nemesis

by Christian Kallias

  “Very well, Ares…You win. Do your thing, fast.”

  20

  Everyone on the Iron Fire’s bridge anxiously waited for the ship to jump out of hyperspace.

  “You mentioned something about a blockade defense?” asked Chase.

  “The coordinates I’ve entered into your system will bypass it,” said Ka’Rij. “But there could be a couple of ships in orbit. From time to time they send a few to replenish their resources.”

  “What I don’t understand is why they keep attacking you if most of your world’s resources have either been mined or destroyed? What is there to fight for on New Kyria?” asked Argos.

  “We suspect they’re after something residing inside the planet’s core. An ore of some kind,” said Ka’Rij.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter why they stay on the planet,” said Chase. “It only matters that we help Ka’Rij get rid of them by any means necessary.”

  Not that I don’t enjoy the new, improved Chase, said Argos telepathically, but we know nothing about these people, who’s to say the Dragonmen of Kyria aren’t the ones that started this war?

  My gut tells me Ka’Rij is telling the truth.

  We don’t have time to second-guess ourselves, added Chris. Chase is correct, I spent enough time with Ka’Rij to tell you he’s not trying to deceive us. To him, we’re the saviors his race has been waiting for, and for fuck’s sake, we wouldn’t even be here arguing about it if it weren’t for him. So, even if we don’t know the whole truth, the way I see it, we still owe him our lives. Not to mention he said he could help save my mother. I don’t care who started this war, for her sake I’m ending it today, with or without your help.

  Easy there, tiger, said Argos.

  Chris is right. We owe it to him and Sarah to help the Dragonmen.

  “You’re doing it again,” protested Daniel.

  “Doing what?” asked Chase.

  “You know very well what, having a Fury walkie-talkie mind conversation.”

  Chase smiled. “We’re done. ETA on our return to normal space?”

  Daniel fixed his gaze on his friend for a second before looking down to gather the requested info from his holo-controls. Of course, Chase knew the ETA. His mind could directly connect with the ship’s computer, but this gave Daniel something to do, and it would give the rest of the crew the info at the same time.

  “We’re a minute away from jumping out,” said Daniel.

  “What about our sensors? Are they now able to detect any energy signature?”

  “No, either there’s nothing there, or we’re being jammed.”

  “Ka’Rij,” asked Chase. “Which do you think it is?”

  “As I told your son, my people haven’t used technology in a long time. We’re fighting with our own devices, and I really couldn’t tell you if the enemy is using technology to disrupt your sensors. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, Ka’Rij, I guess we’re about to find out.”

  The bridge was silent for the last ten seconds of the jump, and tension rose as the blue-purple light tunnel outside the Iron Fire’s main viewport appeared as if it collapsed into itself, revealing stars, a sizeable dark-red planet, and something else—a fleet of five large ships standing in between the Iron Fire and New Kyria.

  “I guess we can safely say they were jamming us,” said Argos.

  Altair stopped in front of their quarters and peered down at the engagement ring he purchased for Ryonna. He didn’t know if he was doing this right. After all, Droxian tradition didn’t involve the same union rituals as humans. Neither did the Obsidian ones he was accustomed to. But living on Earth for about a year, they had had plenty of time to get acquainted with their customs.

  Altair was surprised how anxious he felt thinking of the moment he would finally pop the question. Their relationship was still mostly a secret affair to the rest of the world, and he had no doubt that if Ryonna accepted his marriage proposal, they would still keep it secret until she had a chance to talk with Ronan about it.

  He closed the ring box and hid it in the inside pocket of his official Earth Alliance uniform before entering their quarters. He was surprised not finding Ryonna home at such a late hour. An LED holo-message indicator blinked on the smart wall. He approached and pressed it.

  Ryonna’s face filled the holo-screen.

  “Hello, love. I’m sorry to have left without letting you know, but I thought it was time for me to go to Droxia and let Ronan know about us, in person. I felt this was not the kind of news I could deliver over a subspace holo-transmission. I won’t be gone too long.”

  Altair smiled and wondered if Ryonna had felt his intentions. Even though he wished he could have hugged her before she left, it filled his heart with happiness that she took the initiative to move forward in their relationship.

  The day had been long, with a lot of paperwork and problems to fix in regard to the construction of the Alkyonidon Space Station. However, the core of the station, which would act as the command center of the station, would be operational in the next few days. Altair removed his uniform jacket and threw it on the bed before letting himself crash onto the soft satin sheets.

  The station was still several weeks away from completion, but as soon as the command center would be up and running, they could send a crew to oversee the rest of the construction.

  Altair still didn’t have a commanding officer for the station. Daniel seemed interested in the position but since he left with Chase to the unknown regions, there was no way of knowing when he would return.

  The station needed a commanding officer soon, but since Altair still had a few weeks, he decided not to worry too much about it for the time being.

  With a lingering smile on his face, Altair closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.

  “Do it, Ares,” said Nyx, “before I change my mind.”

  “You’ll need to let go. If you fight me, it won’t work,” warned Ares. “Do you think you can do that?”

  “Define let go?”

  “You need to willingly surrender your body and mind to me. Once that happens, and for a little while, I’ll have full control over who you are. Your consciousness will be silenced.”

  “The more you open your clap-trap, the less it makes me wanna do this. So shut up and do what you gotta do.”

  His energy form nodded. “Close your eyes and try to empty your mind. We don’t have much time, so don’t resist when you feel something invading you. I give you my word you have nothing to fear from me.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Nyx as she reluctantly closed her eyes.

  Trusting others wasn’t Nyx’s forte. However, she accepted that desperate times called for desperate measures, like letting a filthy Olympian enter her very body and soul. The thought froze her to the core.

  I must be out of my damn mind!

  “Nyx, what part of empty your mind didn’t you understand,” insisted Ares.

  “Don’t push it, I’m trying!”

  “I suggest you try harder, any minute now warriors are going to burst into this room and kill us. Well, kill you. We need to learn all we can before that happens.”

  “Not exactly helping, Ares.”

  “Please, Nyx, just try. Take some deep breaths first.”

  Nyx did as instructed and tried her best to not think about anything. It took a few moments to calm her mind to the point where she could lower her current stress levels.

  Ares’ golden energy form floated toward Nyx and tried entering her body. A couple lightning bolts shot from Nyx’s skin toward Ares.

  “You’re resisting me.”

  “This is never going to work.”

  “It has to, or you’ll die here and so will the remaining Furies in our dimension. Surely, that’s not what you want.”

  That thought didn’t exactly help her stress but was a good motivator. There were still Furies out there, and perhaps even more than Ares was aware of. Her people weren’t extinct, and she knew she was duty-bound to do everythi
ng in her power to make sure that never happened.

  Slowly, she could feel another consciousness inside her mind and felt like hers was being erased. Fear kicked in and the result registered intense pain throughout her body.

  Let go, said Ares in her head.

  Nyx took another deep breath, and for the first time in her life, she released control. Soon darkness took over, and her consciousness vanished into oblivion.

  Ares was now fully in control of Nyx’s body with enough access to her conscious mind that when he looked at the schematics on the holo-console, it started to make sense.

  He understood that things were way worse than he ever could imagine. The Spectres’ had been working on this machine for a long time in order to achieve an inter-dimensional jump. Fortunately, all the ships that had attempted it in the past had been destroyed. Scanning the files at light-speed indicated to Ares that the Spectres accomplished a recent breakthrough. When Zeus ordered the Furies to be sent into the Spectres dimension, not knowing that this was what the ancient tech would do, they gave the Spectres all they needed to replicate the technology.

  The repercussions of this threatened to overtake Ares’ sanity. In ridding themselves of the Fury threat, Zeus had potentially opened a door to a stronger, viler enemy to step into their universe and wipe out every living being.

  Ares didn’t allow his mind to wander into that dark place too long. He kept reading as much as he could about the inter-dimensional engine and other Spectre technologies much to the dismay of Nyx’s incomplete understanding of their complex language.

  Having lived for tens of thousands of years, his own understanding of languages allowed him to fill the gaps that Nyx’s mind couldn’t.

  He knew full well that time was running out, and he needed to get out of her mind soon. If arachnoids stormed this place, there was no way he could use her body as efficiently as she could to repel them.

  Ares extended his mind to try and estimate the amount of time he had to gather further information. The God of War knew he needed to bring back as much intel as he could so the Earth Alliance could prepare for an upcoming battle, one with the potential of making the Fury War look like a walk in the park.

  He didn’t sense any life forms in the immediate vicinity but could feel many warriors scrambling around the ship. It was a massive ship, probably even bigger than the largest one the Earth Alliance created, but in this case, its size played in their favor.

  Ares checked their ships’ capabilities, their stealth technology, their weaponry, their power requirements and how they generated it, and any information he could find about both the Spectres and the arachnoids.

  He got lost in his reading, to the point where the more he read, the more he forgot to check their surroundings for incoming enemies. More time passed when his gaze fell on something strange—a holo-file about the Furies.

  It seemed like the Spectres had accumulated a massive amount of data research about their physiology. That explained why they valued Nyx so highly, after all, she was most likely the only breathing Fury in this dimension and therefore their only gateway to continue their experiments. But why were they so interested in Fury physiology?

  The door of the lab suddenly opened, and Ares knew his time inside Nyx was up.

  “Do you think your friends will get your distress call?” asked Talon.

  “I don’t know. If someone is listening, I’m sure they’ll come. I only hope they do before the spider ship finds us.”

  “I don’t like depending on others for survival, my insectoid friend.”

  “Aye, Captain, neither do I. But what other choice do we have? If we fire up the engines, we’d surely be detected. Without jump engines, what are we supposed to do if we’re discovered?”

  “We could make a run for the jump gate.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it. If the enemy failed to detect us, surely they’ll backtrack to the gate and wait for us there.”

  “We can’t just drift in space hoping someone answers our call for help either. As far as we know, the enemy may have jammed the probe or worse, destroyed it, in which case it never reached anyone inside the Earth Alliance.”

  Tar’Lock clicked his tongue multiple times without realizing it while he was pondering his captain’s words. They were, indeed, in a less than ideal situation, and the Gorgar made sure to not let Talon know how dire the situation actually was.

  With their engines off, running on battery power meant their sensor range was also very low, and there was no way for them to detect the spider ship if it cloaked, which it certainly would be.

  If the enemy found them, they’d dispatch them with ease. They would never see them coming, and they would probably die instantly.

  “I know, Captain. There’s equal risk in both approaches.”

  “Then perhaps we should flip a coin?”

  Tar’lock’s tongue clicking evoked surprise. Should they entrust their lives to chance? The idea was mildly amusing to Tar’Lock under the circumstances. But the more he thought about it, the more his anxiety rose, reminding him they could die at any minute.

  “I guess I can live with a toss,” said Tar’Lock.

  Talon rose from his chair and dug deep inside one of his pockets, taking out a rusty old coin.

  “That surely doesn’t seem current,” said Tar’Lock.

  “It’s a few centuries old. I got it on Earth while you were visiting your friends. I thought it would bring us luck, though not exactly the kind I had in mind.”

  “That really depends on how you look at things, I guess. We’re still alive. So maybe it has fulfilled its purpose.”

  “Hmm, I guess there’s wisdom in looking at it this way. So…what do you say? Heads we stay, and tails we make a run to the jump gate?”

  Tar’Lock had seen plenty of TV shows when he first set foot on Earth to be vaguely familiar with the concept.

  He nodded and clicked furiously.

  Time seemed to stop as the coin spun in the air over and over again. Tar’Lock held his breath even though he didn’t know what outcome he wished for. All he wanted was for the decision to be made for him, and yet he felt compelled to participate beyond just watching it, so he ran and grabbed the coin right before it fell into Talon’s hand.

  Talon took a step back and breathed heavily.

  “You scared the crap out of me! Why did you do that?”

  “I don’t know, Captain. I’m sorry, I just felt I needed to. Let’s do it together.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Talon nodded and extended his hand toward Tar’Lock who looked at it while his heartbeat accelerated. Talon swallowed hard.

  Tar’Lock gently slapped his palm atop the human’s and slowly lifted it.

  “Tails,” he announced.

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “We agreed to let the coin choose, didn’t we?”

  Talon smiled. “We sure did. Then I guess it’s time to rejoin your post, crewman, we’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  21

  “What do you mean you’ve lost them?” barked Asrak’Vor.

  “I’m sorry, Master. We’ve destroyed one of their shuttles, but it’s possible we didn’t get them all.”

  Asrak’Vor’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

  “They’ve entered a nebula cluster, it played havoc with our sensors, but many hours later a smaller ship emerged. We destroyed it with ease; it had multiple life signs on board, perhaps even the entire crew.”

  “Perhaps isn’t going to cut it. We can’t afford to have a single one survive and report what they’ve found about our presence here.” Asrak’Vor’s eyes flashed a dark red. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Master, we’ll keep looking for the main ship.”

  “Do not fail me, you know what the punishment would be.”

  “I know, Master.”

  Asrak’Vor was furious and swiped the holo-communication away with a sharp movemen
t before releasing a growl that got the rest of his bridge crew’s attention.

  “Status on the infiltration of the Olympian ship?” he said coldly.

  “The assassin is aboard the ship, but he hasn’t reported for a while,” said one of the crewmen.

  Asrak’Vor answered with another deep growl that made some equipment on the bridge tremble.

  This day is not going at all as I’d hoped.

  Asrak’Vor knew very well that he couldn’t be in multiple places at once, no matter how much he hoped he could personally influence the outcome of every single mission that was happening simultaneously.

  In a few hours, they’d reach their coordinates, and with the materials they had brought back from Asgard, they would be able to start the next phase of their plan. Hopefully, all these missions and objectives would be finalized before then.

  “What do you mean power up?” asked Athena, unsure if she really wanted to know the answer.

  Still impaled through his chest was the energy lance pulsating a bright-white light that cast ethereal shadows of the Spectre all around him.

  “You see, those pathetically weak attacks of yours, their energy levels are so low that I can easily assimilate them and power up my own pool of energy. That, however,” he said, pointing at the energy lance, “was something unexpected. I had no idea you possessed this kind of strength and resources. I’m almost impressed.”

  “I don’t care what impresses you.”

  “Yes, yes, we’ve established that you only care about killing me. And while this attack never had the ability to do so, I have to admit it came closer than I expected.”

  He grabbed the lance with both hands and arrogantly pulled it out of his chest slowly. Thick black blood oozed down to his feet.

  “There’s no way you can recover from that wound.”

  Ergon’Kar chuckled. “Watch me.”

  With the energy lance out of his body, the Spectre held it from both ends as wide as his arms would let him. The attack was still in effect and kept burning his hands, but the burnt skin particles turning into ash froze in midair and reversed their course back to reattach to Ergon’Kar’s hands, performing an endless cycle of burning skin being reattached to him while he held the weapon.