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

by Christian Kallias

  “Well, technically it is, but it’s real nonetheless.”

  “Right. Chase is fighting Furies on Droxia right this moment?”

  “He’s fighting one of them at the moment, yes.”

  “And you’re going to send some of your life energy to him?”

  “That’s correct. But we must hurry. Soon you’ll wake up. Please remember what I said and just breathe deeply and trust me. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry, just breathe.”

  The scene in front of her eyes changed and morphed back into the familiar bulkheads and viewport from her quarters. Except everything was tainted with a golden light now.

  She closed her eyes.

  Relax, everything will be okay . . .

  She took deep, long breaths and forced herself to calm down.

  That’s when it happened. She felt the skin on her belly burn for just a second and all the previous discomfort faded away.

  When she opened her eyes a golden sphere of energy pulsated a few inches above her. The radiant glow enveloped her with warmth from head to toe and she felt as light as a feather.

  Thanks, Mom, she heard in her thoughts.

  The sphere of energy started shaking uncontrollably and soon it collapsed into nothingness before her eyes.

  * * *

  When Arkoolis unleashed three series of side kicks, exchanging feet as he pivoted on himself in between each attack, Chase blocked the incoming blows with his forearms, but soon the speed of the general’s attack increased tremendously and three successive kicks hit Chase respectively on the right leg, torso and finally on his head, sending him down.

  Arkoolis created a big red fireball and threw it at Chase before he could recover. The explosion launched him into the air. Arkoolis went for the kill with a flaming uppercut, but Chase spun in midair and countered the attack by erecting a shield, successfully blocking the incoming punch.

  Chase spun multiple times in the air before landing on the ground, skidding a few yards backwards as he did.

  He unleashed a series of blue fireballs towards the general, who deflected them with his hands. The deflected fireballs exploded all around them, sending soil, stones and grass into the air.

  The fight was well balanced up till now, but then the ground shook briefly. Chase felt a tremendous amount of power at that exact moment.

  Crap, that has to be Miseo.

  Chase realized what it meant. Soon there would be two Furies to fight and that would make things much more difficult. While he had no doubt the other Fury had survived the impact with the Phoenix, he had hoped he would have more time to finish this fight.

  He knew all along that the general was a formidable warrior, but expected his training to have been enough to enable him to defeat him any time he felt like it. Up till now neither had any serious advantage over the other, and it was not for a lack of trying on Chase’s part.

  Perhaps it’s time I gave you a hand, said Gaia in his mind.

  Chase remembered she could actually hear his thoughts now.

  Yeah, okay. We need to dispatch him before Miseo arrives.

  Agreed.

  Feel free to intervene whenever you feel like it.

  Keep attacking him. I will surprise him, and then you can finish him off.

  Chase was not keen on that tactic as he felt it wasn’t an honorable way to fight, but he went with it anyway.

  The general made the first move and attacked Chase with all his might. He was fast, even for Chase. Even after his 10 G training he had to use all his energy to keep up. But he dodged the first three combos Arkoolis threw at him.

  Then Gaia made her move. Her avatar droid sent its knee towards the general’s chin. He didn’t expect it and he was sent flying upwards. A little blood was expelled from his mouth.

  Chase took advantage of Gaia’s attack and sent two dozen small fireballs towards the general. They all found their target and he was thrown left and right, each new explosion inflicting more and more damage.

  But then Chase stopped.

  What are you doing, Chase? Finish him off while you can!

  I can’t. This is not how I want to win this fight.

  Chase, only the result matters! He killed millions of Droxians today.

  Why am I not surprised an AI would say that? An incomplete one at that. I’m sorry, Gaia, I will avenge the Droxian people by defeating these two Furies, but I need to win this fight on my own terms.

  Very well. I can sense you won’t budge on this, so I’ll finish him off myself.

  I don’t think you stand a chance; you should really stand down, Gaia.

  But Gaia didn’t answer. She was already flying upwards, both fists extended, and hit the general in the back as he crashed back down towards the ground, still not having recovered from the brunt of Chase’s repeated attacks.

  Chase felt a little annoyed. But then it all went south really fast.

  Gaia landed a series of powerful combos and bruised the general’s face, but then she missed with three of her punches and Arkoolis grabbed her droid arm.

  “You shouldn’t have intervened in this fight, tin can,” said Arkoolis, just before ripping Gaia’s arm off the rest of her body.

  He threw the robotic limb to the ground. Sparks flew and oil squirted from the droid’s now armless shoulder.

  “You’re done,” said Arkoolis, extending his open right palm in front of him.

  From it shot a powerful column of red energy that impaled the Gaia droid and left a basketball-sized hole in the droid’s chest. Arkoolis then flew towards it and decapitated it with a powerful, flying kick.

  Gaia’s droid head rolled and landed not far from Chase. Its eyes blinked madly for a second and then faded to nothingness.

  Chase felt sorry for the Gaia droid, but he had been adamant about not winning the fight this way.

  Sorry, Gaia.

  Arkoolis concentrated his aura and healed his wounds.

  “Now, where were we?”

  Chase grew his aura and took an offensive posture.

  The general rocketed into the air. Chase went in pursuit but couldn’t fly as fast as his Fury opponent. When he had gained enough of a head start, Arkoolis stopped and grew a gigantic fireball above him. It was almost a mile in diameter. When Chase caught up with him, Arkoolis launched it towards the south. It slowly advancing towards the nearest city.

  Bastard!

  “That’s for letting that piece of metal intervene in our fight. To each action there are consequences.”

  Chase’s reaction was instantaneous. He flew as fast as he could towards the slowly advancing fireball. He was by its side pretty quickly and fired two powerful columns of blue energy into it, trying to detonate it in the air. But it had no effect. He flew in front of it, positioning himself between it and the city, hovering about two miles above the surface. He launched a huge column of blue energy towards the fiery inferno that approached relentlessly.

  When Chase’s attack impacted with the general’s fireball it slowed its descent a little, but it kept coming towards him and the city. The resulting shockwave traveled all around him and shattered most of the nearby skyscraper windows into millions of pieces. Chase increased the power of his energy stream, which further slowed down the incoming attack, but soon it was upon Chase. He stopped firing and tried blocking the fireball with both his hands extended before him.

  The amount of energy was such that Chase couldn’t slow its descent fast enough, and soon he was descending as well, being pushed little by little towards the city with the giant ball of fiery energy.

  “You fool! You can’t stop this attack with your bare hands,” shouted Arkoolis from afar.

  I have to! I can’t let more millions of live perish here today. Whatever it takes I will stop this monstrosity from hitting the city.

  Soon he was approaching the top of the highest skyscrapers and everything shook for miles around. More windows e
xploded and the temperature rose to dangerous levels. Chase could sense the panic from the Droxians below. He could hear the screams of people witnessing the scene unfold.

  When his back touched the nearest building he went through the concrete and metal and the fireball started consuming the skyscraper little by little.

  Chase intensified his aura to the maximum and all his muscles doubled in size. He pushed with all his might.

  I can do it! I have to! he kept repeating to himself.

  Then he felt an energy added to his own. The energy was loaded with love and warmth. It gave him a much-needed boost in power.

  Chase pushed the gigantic ball of fire back as blue waves of energy emanated from his hands. The gigantic ball of energy soon turned blue. Chase repelled the attack, and he soon cleared the city’s skyscraper area.

  “Careful, Dad, he’s coming at you. Push hard, NOW!”

  Chase pushed as hard as he could and the sphere of energy shot into the heavens at tremendous speed. A fraction of second later, he sensed Arkoolis approaching him from the left and dodged his flying kick at the last possible instant. Losing no time he grabbed the leg of the general and whirled around. Soon he whirled so fast he looked like a miniature cyclone. He released the general’s leg and sent him crashing miles away into the dirt. When the general impacted with the ground at such high velocity he skidded for miles, destroying everything in his path and leaving a deep trail.

  C H A P T E R

  XVI

  On board the last remaining Zarlack destroyer still in the fight, Argos had now to contend with the four remaining Alliance destroyers still battle worthy. Their combined firepower in their current state wasn’t enough to drain his shields completely, but he often needed to use evasive action and retreat away from the theater of battle in order to let them recharge.

  Suddenly a gigantic ball of blue energy grazed his ship and illuminated his entire ready room with a blue tinge, for just half a second. The ship rocked and he was thrown away from his throne and unceremoniously dumped on the ground. Sparks flew from power conduits nearby and a large crack appeared in his viewport window.

  What the hell was that?

  He rushed back to his throne to check his instruments.

  His destroyer’s shields were now offline. The ship rocked several more times as the enemy fleet started pounding its armor with battery fire and whatever torpedoes they still possessed.

  A violent explosion on the bridge sent flames through to his ready room, obliterating the door that separated the rooms in the process.

  Looks like it’s time to go.

  Argos erected a force field around himself and levitated a few feet from the deck. He then flew downwards at incredible speed, punching through the different decks on his way to the landing bay, where his ship awaited him. He left a trail of red-hot burned metal as he traveled through his ship. Everything around him exploded and the Zarlack destroyer was only seconds from blowing up entirely.

  He reached the Dark Star, sat in his pilot’s chair and boosted the engines to the maximum. He saw a Droxian destroyer on a collision course with his destroyer and lost no time activating his jump engines the second he was off the landing-bay deck. He micro-jumped away only a few thousand miles and activated the Dark Star’s cloak.

  “This day isn’t going as well as I had hoped, but the general and Miseo have destroyed most of the planet already. It’s time to scoop them up.”

  Or is it?

  Argos pondered if perhaps he should leave them down there in the hope that Chase would dispatch them both, but there was so little chance of that happening that he quickly resigned himself to entering the atmosphere and vectoring the Dark Star towards Miseo’s last known coordinates. If any of them survived and he ran, he would be executed by the supreme commander. Of that he had no doubts whatsoever.

  * * *

  Miseo still held Ronan in the air and was about to send another of his piercing laser attacks, when he was suddenly hit by an invisible object traveling at an extremely high velocity.

  The Valken had just rammed Miseo. The collision lit up its shields and sent the Fury tumbling to the ground hundreds of yards away. At the moment Miseo’s grasp on Ronan loosened he fell to the ground.

  “Are you alright, son?” asked Ronan over the comms.

  “Thanks. I’m okay, I guess.”

  The Valken phased back into view as the cloaking field was turned off.

  The back ramp of the ship was already lowering as it approached Ronan’s position. He got back up and jumped inside the ship.

  “We should go,” said Ryonna.

  “We need to get Arknon first. He’s over there.” Ronan pointed towards his unconscious friend.

  The ship hovered over Arknon’s unconscious body and Ronan brought him on board. A fireball came from Miseo, but Keera saw it coming and dodged it at the last second.

  The rocking of the ship sent both Ryonna and Ronan crashing against the wall.

  “Hang one, everyone, we need to get out of here fast.”

  The Valken’s ramp closed and Keera and started her ascent. She still needed a minute to activate the cloaking device that needed to recharge. But then three fireballs impacted with the ship’s shields. The first two drained the shields and the third one damaged the ship’s engine.

  Keera lost control of the craft and it plummeted back towards the surface of the planet.

  * * *

  Daniel had left the Saroudis’ cabin and been in the woods for half an hour when he thought he heard footsteps trailing him. He turned around to check it out but couldn’t see anything.

  “Anyone there?”

  When no one answered he put the steps down to his imagination. He had been through quite a trauma, and it was entirely possible he had imagined it.

  It took him almost two hours to reach the destroyed tower in his condition. He looked around the wreckage for any tech he could use to contact the Destiny but found nothing useful. He found his pocket communicator near the tree he’d fallen from but it had been damaged beyond repair.

  “Just great.”

  He retraced the steps his now defunct team had taken to arrive at the tower and soon reached the shuttle. He heard the recognizable sound of a tree branch cracking behind him. He took the blaster that Alexandra had kindly given him for the journey and pointed it at the trees.

  “Alright, you’d better show yourself before I start shooting.”

  “Don’t shoot, Daniel!”

  It was Sendra’s voice.

  “What the hell are you doing here? Does your mom know you followed me?”

  “She thinks I went to get mushrooms for tonight’s meal.”

  “You shouldn’t have come along. What if a Zarlack patrol or a battle droid had found us?”

  “Then Reaper would have protected us.”

  The pet wolfen walked from behind the tree where she had been hiding. He barked.

  “That seems like a very courageous animal, but Zarlacks are incredibly tough to kill.”

  “And yet he has killed his fair share. They have a weak spot in the back of their necks where their scales aren’t as tough as the rest of their bodies. Reaper has killed many that way.”

  “Impressive. I didn’t know about that weak spot.”

  “Neither did we until Reaper killed his first prey. Later, when we had to fend off a couple of their attacks, it became clear that sniping them in the back of their neck would kill them with a single shot.”

  “Good to know, but we shouldn’t stay here in the open. Let’s climb into the shuttle and try to contact your father.”

  “My father? He is alive?” Tears filled Sendra’s eyes.

  Daniel realized that Alexandra must not have shared the talk he had with her. It also explained why she had sent her away prior to it.

  “I thought your mom told you.”

  “She is bitter lately; she blames him for everything that happened to us.”

  “But you don’t?”


  “Why would I? He would never abandon us on purpose. But my mom never liked that he went for a career in the military. Ever since the war with the Obsidian escalated on all fronts, my mother had a real tough time dealing with the long tours he had to do.”

  “That’s war for you.”

  “And is it still ongoing? My mom often tells me that the war must be over by now.”

  “Let’s just say things have changed. But I think it’s best you talk with her about it or with your dad. Now come, let’s try to call him from the shuttle.”

  She joined him and Reaper shadowed her.

  Daniel opened a channel.

  “Commodore Saroudis? Do you hear me?”

  There was a little silence and Daniel grew worried for a moment.

  “Commander, it’s good to hear your voice. We’re on our way to your position. When you missed your scheduled contact time we worried something happened to you.”

  “It did. I lost my whole team, Commodore.”

  “I see. Did you manage to find out who sent the communication?”

  “I’m afraid not. The communications tower was booby-trapped and I was lucky to escape it with my life.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “I’ll live, thanks to someone who would like to talk with you.”

  “What? Who?”

  Daniel waved for Sendra to join him on the co-pilot’s chair. She had stayed quiet until now, probably still in shock at hearing her father’s voice.

  “Talk with him.”

  “Dad?”

  “Sendra?” The commodore’s voice was trembling. “Is it really you?”

  “It’s me, Daddy.” Tears flowed like rivers on her cheeks.

  “Thank the gods. Are your mother and brothers with you?”

  “Mom is well, but . . .”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “I’m so happy to hear your voice, munchkin. You’ll tell me more about it soon when we get off this planet.”

  “I don’t think Mom wants us to leave.”

  “Let’s not worry about that right now, baby. For now I’m just so happy to hear your voice.”