Nemesis

by Christian Kallias

  His eyes intensified to red as his dark aura grew.

  This isn’t possible, thought Athena. How can this monster regenerate this way? The lance of justice is my strongest attack.

  The Spectre’s muscles doubled in size, and he growled between gritted teeth as he applied more force to the energy-based attack. Eventually, Athena’s lance broke and exploded into a million white-energy particles, which started swirling around him resembling a tornado. Little by little the energy bits were sucked inside Ergon’Kar and the more particles entering his body, the quicker his wound healed.

  His injury was half its size by the time all of Athena’s attack energy was siphoned. Black tendrils of dark goo shot in between the edges of the wound, recreating organs, muscles, and then skin, until Ergon’Kar looked as healthy as he had been at the beginning of the fight.

  “I have to hand it to you. You’re a much more formidable warrior than I thought you’d be. I guess that explains why your son managed to kill my master’s brother.”

  So the Asrak’Vor he mentioned earlier is the brother of the one who killed Menelas. Tanak’Vor, the Spectre who also took out Olympus, my father, most of my race.

  “And I’ll take great pleasure in helping my sons kill your master as well. We defeated the Furies, and we’ll beat you, too.”

  Ergon’Kar’s laugh resonated around the engine room of the Prometheus.

  “The Furies were unguided children with parlor tricks disguised as power. Look at what it took to defeat just one of us; what will you do when my entire race comes here to eradicate you like the bugs you are?”

  So that’s their plan, an invasion of this dimension. But how would they get here? The Pandora device that opened portals between dimensions was destroyed.

  “We will stop you, no matter the cost. However, right now, I’m sick of looking at you,” spat Athena. “Time for you to join Tanak’Vor.”

  Ergon’Kar smirked. “I don’t think so.”

  Athena powered up and brought every ounce of power she could to bear and burned her aura to its absolute paroxysm. It shifted from blue to a gold tint. She made fists and raised both her hands to belt level.

  Her blonde hair flew upward, resembling a golden flame caught in the wind as her aura turned into a whirlwind around her like ten thousand angels dancing.

  “Don’t waste what little energy you have left, Athena, this battle is over.”

  Athena’s eyes glowed gold. “It’s over when I say it’s over!”

  “I thought you said there wouldn’t be any ships here in orbit?” asked Chase.

  “I did not expect any to be. I’m sorry, Dragonheart,” said Ka’Rij.

  “Commander Aniotis, status report on the fleet? Can we take them on with the Iron Fire alone?”

  “Initial scans are inconclusive, while they seem to have lower firepower than us, their shield technology is very different. There’s no way to know how well our weaponry will be able to penetrate it. Admiral, we’re being hailed.”

  Chase briefly looked at Argos and Chris then took a step forward. “On screen.”

  The Iron Fire’s holo-screen filled with a green-skinned humanoid the likes of which Chase had never seen. The man’s nose was non-existent and in its place was three thin black lines where air could get in and out. The man’s eyes were a lilac-purple with deep black pupils. When he blinked, two sets of his eyelids came into play, first one horizontally, like most humanoids, then one vertically.

  He had no hair and half a dozen yellow horns adorned his forehead.

  The first few words from the creature were incomprehensible until the computer analyzed the language and translated.

  “I’m High Commander Xertan of the Hellion Empire. You’re trespassing on sovereign territory. Turn your ship back, leave, and never return, or we’ll be forced to destroy you.”

  “Hello to you too, Commander Xertan, is it?” said Chase. “I’m Admiral Chase Athanatos from the Earth Alliance. I’m afraid we can’t comply with your wishes. You’re occupying the world of a friend of ours, and I’m afraid that we’re the ones who request that you stand down or be obliterated. . .” Chase’s look turned ice cold, “at once.”

  The high commander’s eyes morphed into thin lines. “You’re outnumbered five to one, and we can call reinforcements. You don’t stand a chance, Admiral.”

  Ka’Rij, asked Chase telepathically. Are you able to take care of a couple of these ships in your full-size dragon form?

  That shouldn’t be a problem, but I would not be able to take on all five.

  You won’t have to.

  “Last chance, High Commander,” said Chase. “I don’t have all day and will require your answer now?”

  The high commander growled, punched something in front of him, and the holo-communication ended.

  “I think we can safely say that means no,” said Argos. “Now what?”

  “Admiral!” exclaimed Commander Aniotis. “All ships are targeting us and powering their weapons.”

  “Shields to maximum. Battle stations, everyone,” said Chase before turning to Ka’Rij. “Let’s first take care of this fleet, then we’ll help you clean up forces on the surface. Any chance you can call some of your people to join us?”

  “They’ll be shot down by ships before they have time to transform fully. The enemy knows that about our weakness. It takes us between twenty to thirty seconds to transform, during that time we’re highly vulnerable to attack. There are only two of my men left who can reach orbit and transform. I’m not sure we can take the risk.”

  “We’ll cover them, you have my word, and maybe we won’t need their help, but have them ready to join this fight if the need arises and we need reinforcements.”

  Chase could tell that Ka’Rij was still thinking it over, but he nodded in agreement, nonetheless.

  The enemy fleet opened fire with hundreds of laser turrets. After the first few impacts on the Iron Fire’s shields, Chase remote-piloted the ship with his mind and went evasive. He returned fire with the Iron Fire’s laser cannons and sent a volley of torpedoes toward the nearest target.

  The first minute of engagement gave them sensor data as to the capabilities of their enemy’s level of technology. Fortunately, their laser turrets were no match for the Iron Fire’s brand new, multi-phasic shields, which meant the ship could take a serious amount of pounding before it would be in jeopardy. That gave them time to come up with a solid tactic to dispatch the enemy.

  “Argos, Chris, I don’t know about you, but I’m aching to get back inside a cockpit for a change. I’ll remote an entire squadron, but I feel like I need to be on the frontlines of this battle.”

  “I would argue,” said Daniel, “that the place of the ship’s captain in battle is one the bridge. But somehow I think I’d be wasting my breath.”

  Chase smiled. “And deprive you of commanding the ship in my absence? I would never,” he said and then winked at his friend.

  “Yeah, that works too.”

  “I’ll remote control another squadron,” said Chris. “I’ll take Beta Squadron. Uncle? What about you take Gamma?”

  “I’m nowhere near as proficient as the two of you in this exercise, but I’ll assist in any way I can.”

  “We also have real pilots,” protested Daniel.

  “Tell you what,” said Chase. “We’ll have Gamma Squadron with real pilots and Argos will be their wing commander.”

  “Babysitting, that’s just great,” said Argos. “Now I wished I had accepted Chris’ offer on teaching me that skill.”

  Chase smiled at his brother’s remark before looking toward Daniel.

  Take good care of my ship, said Chase telepathically. And yourself while you’re at it.

  Daniel nodded.

  “Very well, be careful out there.”

  “What’s the fun in that?” said Chase as he and the rest of his family ran out of the bridge.

  Nyx felt tremendous pain way before she fully recovered consciousness.

&n
bsp; “What the hell is happening, I can’t see shit!” she exclaimed. “Did you blind me?”

  “I had to extract myself from you in a hurry, your sight will return momentarily. In the meantime, just try to sense the enemy by homing in on their energy signatures.”

  “You’re telling me how to fight now?”

  Three arachnoid warriors lurched toward her, firing plasma weapons. Nyx raised her palm forward and erected a shield to deflect the fire while her sight slowly returned. She tried reaching with her mind to locate the enemies in her surrounding space, but the side effects of Ares forcefully removing his consciousness from hers made it harder for her to concentrate.

  “This is bullshit, Ares! You’re gonna get us killed.”

  “I’ll distract one of them. You’ll feel better soon.”

  “What if soon is too late?”

  “It will return, trust me.”

  “Not gonna happen any time soon!”

  But the more she swore in her head, the more her senses came back to life, at which time two arachnoid warriors were almost upon her. Her vision was still slightly blurry, but she saw well enough to engage one of the warriors, who seemed to struggle, stumble, and fall. No doubt Ares was trying to forcefully invade his body. The diversion was all Nyx needed.

  She immobilized the nearest warrior with a telekinetic grasp and dodged the energy web the third warrior shot from his mouth by somersaulting over him. While she was perfectly inverted above him, she grabbed his head and twisted it with all her might, snapping his neck. By the time she landed, he had collapsed, lifeless, on the lab’s floor.

  She aimed an open palm at the back of the still-immobilized warrior and impaled him with a column of purple energy, blasting flesh, bones, and blood through what was once his ribcage.

  He was dead before his carcass hit the floor. She turned to see the third warrior, still struggling to keep Ares out of his mind and body, trying to reach a control on his forearm’s holo-device.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” she exclaimed.

  Nyx was still far away from the warrior, so she slashed her hand in the air, and an invisible wave of energy cut the creature’s arm. He screeched in agony, and a sound that felt like it came from the depths of hell pierced Nyx’s ears.

  The intensity and high-pitched tone destabilized her and she lost her sense of balance, making it difficult to walk.

  That’s fucking new, she thought as the pain and dizziness grew exponentially.

  There was an easy, albeit rather painful, fix for that. In a swift, penetrating motion, she pierced both her eardrums with her index fingers. The paralyzing screech muffled into oblivion, and once she recovered the rest of her senses, she incinerated the warrior’s head with a well-placed fireball.

  She let herself fall onto her knees, her breathing ragged. She healed her wounds and pierced eardrums with a single thought.

  “You fucking bastard!” she screamed. “You almost got us killed.”

  “Well technically, I can’t die, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have exited your body so quickly. I was hoping we could focus on the almost part of the getting us killed comment and move on.”

  Nyx rose to her feet and dusted herself off. “I’m not amused, Olympian. This is the last time I trust you.”

  “Look, I made a mistake, I got too involved with the data I was sifting through, and by the time I realized my mistake, they were upon us. I panicked and extracted from your body too quickly. It won’t happen again, you have my word.”

  “It won’t happen again, period!”

  “Alright, calm down, the good news here is that I found out a lot of things about the Spectres’ plans, as painful as that experience was, trust me when I say that it definitely was worth it.”

  “I don’t care about their plans, I just want us to get out of here and rejoin the other Furies.”

  “And the intel I gathered will help us achieve just that, but we need to make sure this reunion isn’t blemished by a full-scale invasion from the Spectres. We’re not ready to face them, yet.”

  Nyx took a deep breath and tried calming her anger. “You’re disillusioned if you think a few Furies can take on the Spectres, no matter the time frame. But, for the time being, I’m listening.”

  22

  Tar’Lock clicked nervously as a holo-control flashed on his console.

  “What’s that, Tar’Lock?” asked Talon.

  “Since we’re back at full power, I recalibrated the sensors so we can detect the spider ship with long-range sensors.”

  “Let me guess, they’ve found us.”

  “They have, indeed.”

  “Well, we knew that was a risk.”

  “I don’t think you understand. They’ll destroy us with ease. Like I said before, we’re no match for them, almost nothing is except perhaps a full-blown Earth Alliance destroyer.”

  “You sent your distress call, so it’s possible that one is on its way.”

  “Or they either jammed us or destroyed the probe before it could complete its subspace transmission.”

  Talon smiled. “What’s with the negativity today, Tar’Lock?”

  “Sorry, I am a little on edge. I guess I had plenty of time to do some soul-searching while we waited inside the nebula cluster, and I kinda came to a conclusion.”

  “Mind enlightening me?”

  “I decided that I don’t want to die before I tell Ryonna how I feel about her.”

  “Don’t you think she knows already?”

  “Probably…maybe…I don’t know.”

  “But there’s that little problem of her being with the Emperor?”

  “Yeah…at least I think she is.” Tar’Lock paused and clicked a couple of times. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ve been a coward, I hid my feelings for so long, and even though it’s probably too late, I owe it to myself to have the guts to face her and tell her how I feel. I know what you’re going to say—that it makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say at all.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think you need to do what you feel is right. If it makes sense to you, who cares what the rest of the universe thinks?”

  Tar’Lock turned his head so he could look directly into Talon’s eyes and smiled at him.

  “That’s better,” said Talon. “Now, you need to keep the faith and let us both do whatever it takes to stack the odds in our favor, so that the universe grants you your wish.”

  “I’m not sure the sentiment will help us defeat the spider ship.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe all you need to do is focus on staying alive and trust that destiny will attend to itself.”

  “As crazy ideas go, I’ve heard worse. Definitely worth a shot.”

  “At this point, what do we have to lose?”

  “Uhh…our lives.”

  “I’ll have none of that, you have a message to deliver. That’s an order, Tar’Lock. In the meantime, what’s your estimation on the spider catching up with us?”

  “About ten minutes before we reach the jump gate ourselves.”

  “At least that means they’ve been looking for us and are not parked in front of the gate, that would have made things much more difficult.”

  “You’re ability to always see the good in any situation is baffling sometimes. Interesting, yeah, but baffling.”

  “You should try it sometimes, Tar’Lock. Life’s easier that way.”

  Whatever’s left of ours anyway, thought Tar’Lock to himself. Even though I’d love to punch your face, Altair, I sure hope you got our distress call, and I may even enjoy seeing you save our butts.

  “Alright, everybody. It’s been a while since we engaged in a good old space battle,” said Chase over the comms. “Stay sharp.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” Argos said with a chuckle.

  Chris stayed silent.

  “I propose we focus all three wings on one target,” said Chase. “Let’s see if the added firepow
er of all the StarFuries is strong enough to take down one of these ships while Daniel engages the rest of the fleet with the Iron Fire.”

  “Lead the way,” said Argos.

  Chase missed the times where he had to rely on pre-programmed macros to fly an entire squadron of fighters, but the ability for his mind to remotely control machines had come a long way, and it allowed for a more dynamic way of fighting the enemy. He could make on the fly changes with so much precision, granting him significantly greater control than his old macros.

  By the time the squadrons entered firing range of their intended targets, the ships had deployed their own defenses; pilotless drone fighters much smaller than StarFuries.

  “We may want to use our own drones to fend them off while we continue a direct run to the tango,” said Chris.

  “I like that tactic,” answered Chase. “Let’s do it.”

  Every StarFury unleashed six automated drones that targeted the incoming drone force and engaged them. The StarFuries didn’t change their heading, and soon incoming laser fire streaked past their respective cockpits, a few hits impacting their shields.

  “Now let’s see if we can make a hole in these shields,” Argos said as he deployed his squadron and ordered them to open fire.

  Chase and Chris followed suit almost perfectly in sync, and the twenty-four StarFuries unleashed a veritable barrage of laser fire toward the enemy shields. As anticipated, they held remarkably well, confirming that their shielding technology was quite advanced, especially their recharging time.

  “I think we need to add missiles to our run,” said Argos. “We won’t bring their shields down with lasers alone.”

  “I concur,” said Chase.

  “Not yet,” said Chris.

  “What do you have in mind, Son?”