The Beginning of the End (Universe in Flames Book 4)

by Christian Kallias

  Arknon had internal bleeding and it was a miracle he was still breathing, even if ever-so faintly. The temperature inside the pod was rising fast due to the proximity of the furnace outside, more so since the pod had been opened. Ronan had to act fast. He grabbed Arknon and put him on his shoulder.

  “Hang on, my friend, I’m getting you out of here.”

  Moving him this way was highly risky, but better than letting him cook inside the pod.

  Ronan climbed out of the pod as carefully as he could. He put distance between them and the nearby towering inferno until the temperature was more bearable.

  He laid Arknon’s body in the grass, went for the first-aid kit in his backpack and bandaged Arknon’s visible wounds.

  When he ran out of bandages, Ronan removed Arknon’s boots, put them back on his own feet and quickly ran back to the pod to get the other first-aid kit. When he was about to climb out again he heard the comms on the pod activate.

  “R-nan. Do --- hear? --ease respond.”

  Ronan thought he recognized his mother’s voice but it couldn’t be her. She was too far away. Perhaps Keera had managed to patch her through.

  He climbed back inside the pod and tried clearing the signal.

  “This is Ronan. Is it you, Keera?”

  “Thank the prophets you’re alive, son. I’m on board the Valken with Keera. We’re on our way. We should be there shortly.”

  “It’s good to hear your voice, Mom. Weren’t you supposed to be on Alpha Prime? How did you get back here so fast?”

  “It’s a long story, Ronan. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Alright. Please hurry up. Commander Arknon is badly hurt. He needs urgent medical attention.”

  “See you soon, son. Stay near the pod.”

  “I’ll be a few hundred yards east of it. It’s too hot here. Plus I need to watch over Arknon.”

  “Very well, son, see you shortly. Take a portable comms with you so we can contact you; and please be careful.”

  “Right. See you soon.”

  He looked around the pod for an earpiece communicator, put it in and activated it.

  “Checking comms. Do you hear me, Mom?”

  “Five by five, son. Our ETA is four minutes.”

  Ronan ran back towards Arknon when a nearby explosion made him lose his balance and fall to the ground. When he got back on his feet he looked in the direction of the blast and what he saw made his blood freeze.

  There stood a man in the middle of the fire, with his arms slightly extended to the sides, while pieces of burning ship and tons of soil and stones were sent flying all around him. A piece of the Phoenix rebounded only a few yards from him.

  This is not possible. He can’t be alive!

  But there stood the Fury, his skin burned to a crisp. His eyes shone red, giving him a demonic look. He levitated. While in the air he curled into a ball and suddenly extended his limbs, unleashing a powerful shockwave that extinguished most of the fire around him. He unleashed the most ear-piercing, powerful and animalistic roar Ronan had ever heard. A bright red aura engulfed his entire body and his burns quickly healed.

  What kind of monster is this?

  After a few seconds the Fury’s skin was smooth, and he looked in perfect health.

  Ronan was terrified. His brain simply could not interpret what he had just witnessed. He had to get back to Arknon but his limbs simply refused to move as fear enveloped him from head to toe. He couldn’t help looking at the Fury. Then their gazes met. The look on the Fury’s face intensified and he flew towards Ronan.

  That sent the biggest jolt of adrenaline throughout his body and his legs started moving. He ran as fast as he could towards Arknon, but before traveling half the distance, the Fury landed in front of him with a look of murder in his glowing eyes.

  “You! Are you responsible for this?” asked the Fury as he pointed towards whatever was left of the Phoenix.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m gonna kill you anyway, but if you’re the one responsible, I might actually take my time and enjoy myself.”

  Ronan swallowed hard. He had never felt so afraid in his entire life, but his Droxian pride wouldn’t let him show it.

  “I really thought that would kill you, asshole.”

  Miseo’s teeth clenched.

  “Someone had to do something. You were destroying my world one city at the time.”

  “As it should be, and I’m glad you told me the truth.”

  Ronan didn’t wait. He sent a powerful right hook towards Miseo. When his fist impacted with the Fury’s face, not only did it not budge, but Ronan felt a horrible pain as the bones in his hand cracked upon impact. It felt as if he had just punched a twenty-inch-thick wall made of quadrinium-reinforced alloy.

  “A destroyer didn’t take me out and you think you can hit me with your fist? Your kind is so pathetically stupid; we’re actually doing the universe a favor by wiping you out.”

  Ronan held his broken hand in the other, his face deformed from the pain. He was not sure what had been wounded more, though, his hand or his pride.

  Miseo smirked and shook his head from side to side.

  “Proving my point. Now for some real pain.”

  He extended his index finger towards Ronan and started levitating him upwards.

  Ronan’s ear-comm activated. “Hang on, Ronan, we’re near.”

  “You’d better hurry up,” said Ronan out loud.

  Miseo, who thought Ronan was talking to him, smiled. “You’re courageous for a boy your age, I’ll grant you that, but I’m going to enjoy taking my time with you.”

  A thin, red laser beam shot from Miseo’s finger and pierced Ronan’s shoulder. The burning sensation radiated around the point of entry.

  For a moment Ronan thought he would pass out.

  * * *

  Sarah went to see Yanis in engineering but he wasn’t there. She tried his quarters, but there was no answer. She tried getting him on the comms.

  “Sarah Kepler to Yanis, please come in.”

  Still no answer. She had no doubt he was in no mood to answer right now, but the Hope’s internal power distribution was a mess. The engineering crew were doing their best to repair the broken conduits but they could use Yanis’ expertise. He had designed the ship, after all. Sarah knew how cruel it was for her to ask him to get back to work in a moment like this, but she also wanted to see how he was doing.

  She resorted to asking the computer for his current position. He was inside a bulkhead tube near one of the damaged power conduits. After climbing three flights of ladder and crawling through the access tunnel, she was exhausted. Not really easy in her condition. Little Chris was really starting to show on her. In fact, she had no doubt that both Chase and the doc would reprimand her if they knew she was putting herself in such uncomfortable positions.

  She felt a little worried about her pregnancy. Not only had she never really envisioned having kids, but Chris was going to be something else altogether. Reviving dead people, protecting her with in-womb shields and god knows what else. What human mother wouldn’t be terrified of what was growing inside her under these circumstances?

  She saw Yanis with his head between his knees, sobbing, and it stung her heart just looking at him.

  “Yanis, mind if I talk with you a little?”

  Her voice startled him and he quickly wiped his tears. His voice trembled a little. “Sure thing, Cap.”

  She sat next to him and put her hand around his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Yanis.”

  “Thank you. I still can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “I know. You want to talk about it?”

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, Sarah, but I’d rather be alone right now.”

  “I understand, but perhaps it’s better if you have someone to talk to.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sarah. You know I like you, but right now you just remind me of Chase, and that’s not a good thing.”


  “You do realize he did everything he could to save her?”

  “So he says. But if he wasn’t coming up with one ludicrous tactic after another, she’d still be alive.”

  “I think you’ve got it backwards, Yanis. If Chase wasn’t doing what he does, I think we’d all be dead ten times over by now. But I can understand how you feel at the moment. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll let you be alone now.”

  He embraced her and started crying on her shoulder.

  She felt so sad for him. Fillio was all that was left of his family. He must have felt terribly alone right now.

  “We’ll always be here for you,” she said as she patted his back softly. “I know you hate Chase’s guts right now, but trust me, he feels like crap as well.”

  “I keep thinking this is a nightmare and I’m gonna wake up soon. I really thought he would get her back.”

  “I know.”

  Yanis released his hug and looked down. His eyes were red. “I said horrible things to him. Not only that, but I might have been partly responsible for her death as well.”

  “What are you talking about? You did nothing wrong.”

  “When Chase put her on the ground in front of me, I saw the multiple electrical burns all over her body. I think I caused this trying to improve the StarFury. I’m sure Chase told you that the new revisions could overload?”

  “He did.”

  “Well, it’s a design flaw I thought wouldn’t happen often. But when three Zarlack destroyers sacrifice themselves to take an entire fleet, that incommensurable burst of energy certainly overloaded her fighter’s power conduits, and the electrical burns on her body before he healed them were proof of that. So you see, in fact I might have killed my own sister.”

  “No, this war killed her. Neither you nor Chase are responsible. You both did what you thought was best. When you feel better you can tell him you didn’t really mean it.”

  “I guess so. I was never too keen on him at first. I really hated that he dated her back at the academy.”

  “He did what now?”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. They were pretty close once.”

  Sarah felt a little jealous for just a moment, and then realized she had nothing to be jealous about. So what if they had dated before he met her? She had dated other men as well. Chase went through hell and back to rescue her, and even though she was still a little mad at the consequences, she couldn’t blame him for it. In fact, she was fully aware there was no bigger proof of love, and yet she had given him so much grief for it. Nah, it really didn’t matter that he dated Fillio in the past.

  “She never really recovered when he ended it.”

  “Why did he?”

  “Mostly because I asked him to. In fact, they had both been assigned to the Cronos, but after our talk he agreed to take his commission on the smaller Destiny with me, to make it simpler and use that as a reason to distance himself from her.”

  “That’s quite a bro move, right there.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I wasn’t even being such a good friend to him until then. But he saw how important it was for me, and he backed off. That’s why I feel so bad telling him I hated him earlier on. But I still can’t fathom she’s gone and I’m still angry. I’m not so sure that I’m angry at him. He just was an easy target, being there when it happened.”

  “I understand, Yanis, and so will Chase. Don’t worry about that right now and take all the time you need to grieve. I came here to tell you that whenever you need to talk to anyone, you can come see me.”

  “Thank you, Sarah. You and Chase are the best friends a man could ever ask for.”

  She patted his shoulder affectionately and started walking back towards the access shaft.

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes, Yanis?”

  “Was that all you wanted to say?”

  “No, but it doesn’t matter. You need your alone time and I respect that.”

  “You know what, Sarah, I could use a distraction, so if there’s something I can help you with? Perhaps it will help me think about something else.”

  “In that case, we really need to repair power distribution. In fact, I thought that’s what you came here to do.”

  “I did initially . . . until I broke down.”

  “Well, take all the time you need, okay?”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Sure thing, buddy. I need to go back to the bridge now. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  * * *

  Saroudis was sitting on his captain’s chair on board the Destiny. The moment the last Zarlack destroyer had been dispatched, he had coordinated multiple search and rescue teams in their attempt to find survivors in the debris field that was once their battleground. A couple of ships had been disabled, so these received shuttles with engineers on board to help with repairs of their main systems. These could still be salvaged. But locating survivor pilots in their disabled starfighters, or other crewmen within severed parts of the capital ships, took a long time.

  “Any news from the away team?” he asked his communications officer.

  “I’m afraid no answer from Alpha Team. I dispatched Beta to look for them an hour ago,” answered Lieutenant Brents.

  “I don’t like it. It’s not like Commander Tharaleos to miss a scheduled report.”

  “There might simply be too much interference from the debris field.”

  Saroudis didn’t buy it. Something was definitely amiss.

  It had been a very hard day, and Saroudis hated the fact that they couldn’t travel back to Droxia right away. He really hoped Chase could defeat the opposition there, but he hated not being there as backup. Commodore Saroudis rose from his chair as the rest of the bridge crew looked at him.

  “Major Bradis, you have the bridge. Commander Philis, you’re with me. We’re going to the planet’s surface to help Beta Team locate Daniel and his team.”

  Twenty minutes later Saroudis, Philis and three more armed soldiers were doing flybys on the surface of their now derelict homeworld.

  “Would you look at the damage?” said the commodore.

  “Yes, Commodore, it’s hard to believe anyone might have survived down there.”

  “I sure hope you’re wrong. I haven’t lost hope my family could have survived.”

  “I’m sorry, Commodore, I didn’t mean anything by it. The way you talked about them in the past, I didn’t know they were on Alpha Prime. I thought they had been killed earlier in the war.”

  “That’s alright, Commander, I should never have talked about them in the past tense. It sent the wrong message. At least not before I was sure. But the fall of the Star Alliance had been so fast and brutal I didn’t really think there was a shadow of hope in that regard. Think nothing of it, Commander.”

  The commander looked at his controls. He clearly didn’t know what else to say. “I’m picking up some readings one hundred miles southwest of our current position.”

  “We should have a look at it. Adjust our course, Commander, and punch it.”

  “Course adjusted, Commodore.”

  They soon saw the column of smoke rising from their target destination.

  “Seems something went wrong over there,” said the commander.

  “Let’s check it out.”

  * * *

  When Sarah arrived at her quarters she felt dizzy. Something was happening inside her belly. She felt a warmth build up within her.

  I can’t be due already. It’s too early! What the hell is this?

  She managed to crawl onto her bed and rested on her back, trying to calm herself down with deeper breaths. She was petrified by what was happening. Chris was very agitated. She could feel him moving inside her as if he wanted to get out.

  When she lifted her shirt she saw her belly glowing: it did nothing to reassure her. When she was about to call a medical emergency, something happened.

  She was no longer in her quarters but, instead, she stood on an alien world. From th
e description Ryonna had given of her homeworld, she sensed it was Droxia. The planet was in ruins. Cities had been leveled and fires burned as far as her eyes could see.

  “Hello, Mom,” said a voice behind her.

  Startled, she turned around and saw a fully grown young man, looking at her with a big smile on his face. He was an awesome young man. His face reminded her of Chase somehow, but also bore some of her own traits as well as her father’s. He had flaming-red, long hair like hers, and had one green eye and one purple one.

  “What . . . what did you call me?”

  “It’s me, Mom, Chris.”

  “This cannot be. I must be delirious from the pain and you’re just a figment of my imagination.”

  “I’ve brought you here to calm you down. I sensed your fears and wanted to let you know everything will be alright.”

  She shook her head. “This is not happening. It can’t. You haven’t been born yet. How can I stand here speaking with you?”

  “Listen carefully, Mom, Dad is in serious trouble, and I will need to send some of my own life-force to him help fight our enemies.”

  “Is that what’s happening with my glowing belly?”

  “Yes, but fear not. You won’t be harmed, but I’m afraid some discomfort cannot be prevented.”

  “How can you help your father? We’re gazillions of miles apart!”

  “You shouldn’t worry about that, Mom. I just want you to breathe deeply and trust that I won’t hurt you. Only then can I send some of my energy to Droxia. As long as you’re agitated and afraid I can’t do it without hurting you in the process.”

  She was so shocked that she had practically forgotten where she stood. “Is this how things are at the moment on the planet?”

  “Yes, but Dad is fighting with all his might to make it stop. There are still hundreds of millions of souls that can be saved on Droxia today. He knows that and right now he needs a little help.”

  “Let’s say for one second that I am indeed talking to you and this isn’t just in my head.”