Into the Fire Part I: Requiem of Souls (Universe in Flames Book 9)

by Christian Kallias

  “Okay, Spiros.”

  Spiros left sickbay quickly, but halfway through the corridor, he stopped for a second.

  I wonder why she is asking these kinds of questions. Her basic matrix shouldn’t care what she is made of. I’ll have to run a full diagnostic scan of her matrix and scan her brain when we get back to the lab.

  Another bleep indicated that the ship was now less than a minute away and took Spiros out of his train of thought as he sprinted the rest of the way through.

  THE VICTORY EXITED hyperspace a few hundred-thousand klicks from Erevos.

  “How many ships are around the planet?” inquired Sarah.

  “Strange,” said Daniel from a chair next to hers. “Only one; probably the ship Arakan took to Olympus.”

  She turned her head toward him and smiled.

  “Anything on your mind, Captain?” beamed Daniel.

  “Yes, I was thinking that this has been a long and stressful day. So, let’s just micro-jump into orbit and obliterate that ship so that we can take a well-deserved break for the rest of the day.”

  Daniel grinned. “That sounds like an excellent idea, if I may say so myself.”

  The Victory jumped into orbit of Erevos.

  “Daniel, please make that ship go away. Weapons at the maximum; fire everything and I mean everything we’ve got. Let’s see how quickly the Victory can destroy a single Fury super-destroyer.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain; with pleasure.”

  The Fury ship began firing both lasers and torpedoes at the Victory just a few seconds before the latest and newest Earth Alliance destroyer opened fire. Hundreds of turrets fired simultaneously, and waves of dozens of torpedoes quickly followed, making short change of the Fury’s shields. The Victory quad quadrinium cores needed twenty seconds for its main weapon, the super-charged plasma cannon, to come online. Upon firing, it split the Fury destroyer in half before what was left of the enemy ship exploded in a succession of rapid-fire bursts, vaporizing it to nothingness.

  Sarah grinned. “The Victory is one hell of a ship, isn’t it?”

  “And then some,” added Daniel.

  “Let’s open a channel to the surface and try to reach our away team; let’s see if they need a lift.”

  “Opening a channel.”

  27

  “He seems pissed,” offered Poseidon.

  “That’s exactly what I wanted from him,” said Oryn with a smile. “I know him well. When he’s angered, he exerts poor judgment. Like spending more than a third of his pool of energy throwing an attack that we easily dispatched; managing to deal most of the damage to himself at a very low energy cost for us.”

  “Speak for yourself; I can’t fire from my bionic arm anymore, so it did have a cost.”

  “You know what I mean, Poseidon. That new gadget of yours has fulfilled its role today; you still have nearly your entire pool of energy to draw from, and guess what, we’ll need it very soon.”

  Poseidon smiled. “I’m listening.”

  “Arakan is putting most of his energy in his next attack. I can see it in his eyes. He thinks that by powering up to his maximum, he will crush us with one blow.”

  “His current amount of deployed energy does seem to be superior to anything we can muster.”

  “On our own, perhaps, but if we combine our power to counter his next attack, I know we can take him down. I just need you to hit him with the most powerful water-based attack you can throw, and don’t hesitate to put all your energy into that one attack. I’ll do the rest and finish him off.”

  He grinned. “I have just the thing you need.”

  Oryn put a hand on Poseidon’s cold metallic shoulder and offered him a smile.

  “Thank you for helping me do this…uncle.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Arakan roared louder than before, and his muscle mass doubled.

  Now we finish him, thought Oryn.

  Arakan’s body was now massive and as he ran, each of his footsteps resonated inside the throne room.

  “Now!” shouted Oryn.

  Poseidon raised his Trident in the air and let his aura grow to the paroxysm of his abilities. His aura split into multiple dancing dragons around him as the energy beasts turned into water.

  Oryn was in awe at the display of controlled power her uncle mastered.

  Poseidon grabbed his Trident with both hands and held it vertically in front of him. The water dragons grew in numbers, size and speed as they floated around him. His eyes shone brighter than ever as he took an offensive stance, letting go of his Trident, which levitated near him on its own. On the Trident’s blade, a green-blue gem pulsated faster and faster. The weapon had its own aura, which linked with Poseidon’s energy.

  Meanwhile, Arakan had traveled half of the distance separating them. Each new step he took resonated stronger and made the room shake. His eyes burned like the flames of hell.

  Oryn jumped high and levitated a few yards above her uncle. She let her aura explode as she reached maximum power in less than a few seconds. Multiple freezing-cold currents danced around her as electrons would around an atom.

  Poseidon growled. “By the power of the seven seas, I unleash the wrath of a thousand crushing waves!”

  The water dragons all shot forward at the incoming Supreme Commander of the Furies. It looked as if Poseidon had sent an entire ocean tumbling toward his enemy.

  Arakan punched through the incoming dragons and unleashed a large column of crimson energy to counter the water-based attack, but the water dragons danced around his attack and kept approaching.

  Oryn screamed, and multiple red lightning bolts punched through the ceiling and hit her dead center, each of them bolstering her energy allowing her aura to intensify beyond anything she ever thought possible.

  This one is for you, Mother!

  She aimed and fired an absolute zero column of freezing energy inside the core of Poseidon’s attack. The crashing water dragons started to solidify. The water that was being deflected around Arakan multiplied into even more dragons that danced around his body before flash freezing. A second later, Arakan had been trapped inside a giant statue of ice, made out of thousands of growling dragons.

  Oryn landed on the column of frozen energy that entombed Arakan and ran on it as fast as she could, a look of pure hatred and murder in her eyes.

  Arakan intensified his aura from within his icy prison, and the ice started to crack.

  You’re not getting out of there alive!

  Oryn focused all the lightning bolt energy she had within her into her right fist. It shone brighter than a supernova.

  And this one’s for you, Father.

  Arakan’s icy prison exploded at the exact time as Oryn jumped toward the heavens, unleashing multiple arcs of paralyzing lightning bolts that struck the supreme commander in the chest. Oryn kept the bolts alive as she completed her acrobatic jump, landing behind her foe.

  “And now you die, motherfucker!” she screamed as she thrust her still lightning-bolt infused fist into Arakan’s back.

  ARAKAN FELT something burst through his ribcage and instantly felt dizzy and light headed.

  He looked down and saw Oryn’s arm protruding from his chest. Hundreds of small blue lightning bolts traveled from the bottom of her forearm all the way down to her fingers, which held a still beating heart.

  “I told you I would rip your heart out. If you knew anything about me, you’d know that my word is my bond,” whispered Oryn right into Arakan’s ear.

  This is not happening, thought Arakan.

  I wanna say “I told you so,” but somehow, it just doesn’t cut it, does it? mocked Tanak’Vor. If it’s any consolation, I would have killed you myself eventually. But thankfully, now that you’re dying, I can just take over your body and do what you have failed to achieve time and time again. Kill the Ultra Furies and destroy the Earth Alliance. My people thank you for your service, even though you’ve been quite the disappointment.

  What? What pe
ople? There are more of it?

  A sense of intense dread filled Arakan’s dying mind and soul.

  He tried to speak, but large quantities of black blood oozed from his mouth instead. So he reached Oryn’s mind telepathically.

  Oryn, listen to me!

  “I won’t!” she shouted. “Watch your heart turn to ice like the monster you are.”

  She intensified her cold aura and a wave of frozen energy traveled inside of Arakan’s chest on her forearm. It reached the tip of her fingers and Arakan’s still barely beating heart flash-froze in place. Oryn then closed her hand, and Arakan’s heart exploded into a million tiny icicles.

  Darkness took over the Supreme Commander of the Furies, his madness, his thirst for power; it was all swallowed into oblivion. But one last emotion Arakan didn’t even know he had in him shone for just a fleeting moment. Compassion. Before the end, he managed to send three more words to his daughter and executioner.

  Run, Oryn, Run!

  Oryn swiftly removed her hand from an already dead Arakan. He fell forward to the ground and made a satisfying thumping noise. Oryn spat on Arakan’s dead corpse.

  Mother…Father, I’ve finally avenged you.

  She let herself fall on her knees and burst into tears.

  CHASE STOPPED RUNNING, as did everyone else.

  “What is it?” asked Thor.

  “Have you felt it?” Chase asked Argos.

  “Felt what?” said Thor, looking around him.

  “It can’t be,” said Argos.

  “What’s going on?” insisted Thor. “Will somebody please tell me what they are talking about?”

  “Arakan is dead,” said Chris, almost not believing his own words as he ushered them out, as they felt so surreal.

  “Are you serious?” asked Thor.

  “He is,” confirmed Chase.

  “Well, that’s great news, then, isn’t it? I guess we don’t need to hurry to the throne room anymore,” said Thor with a big smile.

  Except, Chase felt that danger was still looming. His instincts were on full alert like they had been so many times before when something was about to go terribly wrong.

  “I’m feeling it, too,” said Argos before Chase could vocalize the way he was feeling.

  “You do?” said Chase with surprise in his voice.

  “I don’t know if it’s because I reached Ultra Fury levels of power or if I just picked it up from you. But when you have a bad feeling, shit usually hits the fan, and fast.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, now?” said Thor, crossing both his arms against his chest.

  “My gut tells me that I can’t afford to teleport you guys with me, but I must go to the throne room right now. All of you! Please, hurry to the throne room on your own. See you soon, and please, be careful.”

  Chase teleported away.

  Argos and Chris jumped and flew as fast as they could, not even bothering following the corridors but instead blasting through walls into a straight line.

  “Are we supposed to follow them?” inquired Thor.

  But Menelas had already levitated off the floor, and he flew forward, trying to catch up to his son and grandson.

  Thor’s facial tattoos’ intensity lowered to a faint glimmer. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

  Thor invoked Mjölnir and started spinning the hammer so fast that it blurred and resembled a propeller. He then pointed his trusty weapon forward and let its momentum carry him as he flew in the same direction as the rest of the group.

  ORYN HEARD words in her mind. The voice sounded like a genuinely worried Arakan; the last words of a man that needed to die today.

  Run, Oryn, Run!

  From what? Oryn didn’t give much attention to the delirious words of a dying man. She had accomplished what she set out to do, and she had now opened the way for the Earth Alliance to finish the war. The Furies would be thrown into chaos without their leader. And while she did not doubt that an ambitious power-hungry Fury would take Arakan’s place eventually, it would be too late. Chase and his friends could now deliver the final blow.

  “That was mighty impressive,” said Poseidon.

  “Thank you,” she said with a smile. “As much as it pains me to admit it, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “I’m glad and also grateful that you’ve let me contribute to the death of this mad tyrant. Zeus is probably celebrating in the Underworld right now. I just wished he had let me die and saved himself. Not only did we lose our planet and most of our population following Arakan’s cowardly attack on our world, but we lost our leader.”

  “I’ve been complaining about losing a father I barely knew, not even stopping for a moment to think how much you, his own brother, would be impacted by his death. I’ve been selfish.”

  “Revenge will do that to you; it will blind you to everything but the thirst of retribution.”

  “That doesn’t exactly make it right now, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t, but the heart wants what the heart wants. And sometimes, it just wants blood.”

  A clapping sound repeated every couple of seconds.

  “Well said,” congratulated a bodiless voice.

  Oryn jumped back into a defensive stance, and Poseidon followed suit.

  “Show yourself!” ordered Oryn.

  SPIROS SAT in the pilot’s chair just moments before the fly-by. He had pre-programmed the beaming sub-routine and was now working on targeting the cargo. He had to beam out most of the crates already in the cargo bay to make space for his heist. To make sure he got the right materials on the first fly-by and to avoid having to deal with the near certain consequences from that maneuver, he dumped more than ninety percent of the ship’s original freight.

  Spiros knew he would end up with a bunch of additional crap he wouldn’t need, but since he didn’t intend to have to rob someone a second time around, he preferred making sure the beaming radius around the biomaterial was big enough.

  He had already preprogrammed the ship to activate the fairly decent stealth tech the ship was equipped with the moment the cargo was on board and then fly into low orbit and initiate the jump engines to return to the lab.

  This mission certainly had started on the wrong foot, but things were back on track. Five seconds to target. The ship’s transporter activated and the cargo was beamed aboard.

  An alarm sounded a few seconds later, indicating that surface defense systems were targeting the ship, but his macro activated the stealth mode, and the turrets lost their lock.

  “Nice going, Spiros,” he cooed with unmasked satisfaction. “We’ll soon be back home. I’ll clone myself a new body before this one craps out on me and finally finish my work on Gaia.”

  The ship was exiting the planet’s atmosphere when suddenly all systems in the cockpit turned off, and the ship veered off course.

  “What the hell? What’s going on?”

  Did I mess up my macro? I’d better double-check.

  Spiros tried connecting with the ship’s computer but was unable to do so.

  That’s peculiar.

  Spiros looked outside the viewport and saw that the ship was heading toward a dreadnought-class vessel.

  The holo-screen turned on in the dark, and the face of an angry, red-skinned man with yellow teeth took Spiros by surprise.

  “Nobody steals ships and cargo from Morgor and lives,” said the man, his growling voice sure to give Spiros future nightmares.

  Morgor slid his snake-like purple-tinged tongue on the top row of his filthy teeth. He then gave Spiros a sadistic smile. “I’m looking forward to breaking every bone in your frail body myself and giving what’s left of it to my pet Kryon.”

  The holo-screen turned off, and Spiros felt his stomach sink into his feet.

  He had no idea what a Kryon was, but he knew for sure he’d rather not find out.

  “Oh, shit…what have I just done?”

  28

  “Who’s there?” asked Oryn, “Show your
self!”

  “Open your eyes and feast on what you’re about to see; it’s rare enough, so you should pay attention,” said Tanak’Vor.

  “Who is speaking?” Poseidon asked Oryn.

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think it’s the being Arakan was talking to when I thought he had lost his mind. Back when I still thought he was my father, in fact.”

  “I take it that he didn’t imagine it, then?”

  “Well, until now, I wasn’t really sure of that.”

  Tanak’Vor decloaked not too far from Arakan’s dead body.

  “I’m the reason your Trident didn’t kill Arakan on Olympus, and I guess by association, why your planet and brother were swallowed into a black hole.”

  Poseidon clenched both his teeth and fists in anger.

  “Then, you’ll also die here, today!” he shouted.

  “Ha-ha-ha, I don’t think so, Olympian.”

  Tanak’Vor pointed a finger toward Poseidon and fired the most powerful shock wave that Oryn had ever witnessed. Upon impact, his chest plate body armor exploded into dust and Poseidon was catapulted at near light speed against the wall behind him. A look of shock locked into his eyes before he lost consciousness; his body still deeply rooted inside the wall.

  “Poseidon!” screamed Oryn.

  “Don’t worry; you’re next.”

  Oryn took three steps back, her heartbeat pounding heavily. Fear permeated her entire being. She had never felt such power.

  Chase, get me the hell out of here!

  Tanak’Vor laughed. “He can’t hear you, I’m afraid. We Spectres can prevent telepathic communications at a rather respectable range.”

  Oryn knew that even under her best form she wouldn’t be a match for this new, unexpected enemy. But having exhausted almost every ounce of power, she didn’t stand a chance at blocking a single attack from the Spectre.

  So, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she did what Arakan had suggested earlier, she ran.