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

by Christian Kallias

  Life as he knew it was most likely over. Leonidis had his standing orders and would execute them for the good of the Star Alliance, even though he questioned their relevance at this point. Being unable to make contact with any of the Star Alliance vessels or bases in the system told him that whatever attack the Obsidian had mounted against them today, it was a surgical and synchronized assault to end the war in one fell swoop.

  Leonidis buried his head in his hands, grabbed his dark-gray hair and pulled it in frustration. The beginning of tears burned the corners of his eyes. Everything he knew, everyone he loved, were probably already gone.

  He had joined the Star Alliance to make a difference; to make sure he could protect his family. But there was nothing he could do for them from here, and no way to escape the inevitable conflict that would likely be his last action in this world.

  An incoming communication broke his train of thought. He wiped his eyes, took a deep breath and answered it.

  “The enemy is about to enter firing range, Commander,” said his second-in-command and tactical officer. “I thought you’d like to be in the command center when that happens.”

  “I’ll be right there. Thank you, Michalis.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  Leonidis’ index finger touched the holo-control to end the communication. He then looked at the holo-picture frame of his family resting on his desk. They all looked happy in that picture. It was taken on a day out in the woods around their small town of Kifissia on Alpha Prime. The town was inhabited by mostly Star Alliance officers. He missed the place. It had been three months since his last leave. He had spent nearly four days with them.

  While the time had been mostly great, there had also been tension with Zoe. She had implored him to resign his commission. She couldn’t stand for them to live apart any longer. An argument had ensued, and they had left things in a way that stung Leonidis’ heart now. Their last words had been heated, spat out in anger and frustration.

  Leonidis was proud to be a part of the Star Alliance and to have been given a position of authority. He had responsibilities, and it gave his life meaning. Him considering breaking his oath to the Star Alliance was ludicrous. But now, at the precipice of this uncertain battle, he regretted both his stubbornness and insistence on duty and honor. At least slightly. He would never have given up his command, but he could at least have tried to listen to Zoe’s point of view. It mattered not anymore. The time to act or at least consider it had passed.

  A tear traveled down his cheek. He gently kissed his fingers and passed them through the holo-picture.

  I’m so sorry. I love you both so much. May we meet again in the afterlife.

  He got up from his chair, wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, sniffled once and went back to the command center through the sliding door in his ready room.

  “Status,” he said before sitting in his command chair. He brought up a tactical holo-map on his personal controls.

  “The Zarlack ships, if that’s what they are, will be in firing range in twenty seconds. Their shields are up, and they’ve powered their weapons,” said Lieutenant Commander Maniatis.

  “Any attempt to hail us?”

  “No, and they haven’t answered our hails either.”

  “Then we have no option but to defend ourselves. Lock every weapon on a single ship, the closest one. Don’t wait for them to fire first. As soon as they’re in range, just open fire with everything we’ve got.”

  “Target acquired. Firing in ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

  5

  Spiros finished loading everything he needed in his brain implant, just as Tassos had finished reprogramming the holo-pad.

  “Chief Malayianis! We really need to go, sir, now!” insisted the major.

  “We’re good to go. Tell us what to do.”

  “We’ll escort you to the Phoenix. From there, we’ll try to escape undetected and provide protection for the rest of your trip.”

  That part Spiros believed they could do. The last upgrade he had tested on the Phoenix was a cloaking field. It wasn’t yet very stable, but it worked well for a few minutes before overloading the power nodes. His design used the Damocles’ shield frequency to allow the Phoenix to leave the station without lowering the shields, which they’d have to do the moment Leonidis started firing at the incoming fleet. Once free of the station’s shields, the Phoenix would jump into hyperspace.

  Spiros and Tassos followed the soldiers into the corridors of the station, making their way toward cargo bay six. It would take at least ten minutes to reach the ship, so Spiros had that time to make sure he could recover the rest of his research data and merge it back into the crystal.

  He wondered where they could go from there, though. If the Obsidian had attacked every known Star Alliance base and planet, where could they hide? Perhaps they could jump near the Ismara Nebula. They stood a better chance at establishing contact with the Faith at short range. They would need a destroyer or carrier ship of some kind since the Phoenix’s range, and resources were limited.

  He wished he had more time to think of alternate plans, but right now he needed to focus on getting the rest of the data into the Phoenix’s memory banks. He also needed an on-the-fly scrubber program to erase the data from the encrypted subnet where he had temporarily stored it.

  Thankfully, his brain implant allowed him to do all that on the move. Spiros quickly located a scrubbing program on the station’s main computer and copied it within the encrypted subnet. He then set the program to scrub the data automatically the moment he had finished copying it to the Phoenix’s memory banks.

  Suddenly, the station shook heavily, sending Spiros crashing to the floor with the rest of the men.

  “The attack has begun,” said Spiros to Tassos. “You know what to do.”

  Spiros saw the fear in his friend’s eyes, but Tassos grabbed his fallen holo-pad, got back up to his feet and started entering commands.

  The major came to Spiros and offered his hand. “Are you alright, sir?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “We’ve got to get to the Phoenix right away. Let’s pick up the pace.”

  “Unlike you, Major, I’m an old man. You can’t expect me to be able to run like all you young soldiers.”

  “We either start running now, or we may not reach the Phoenix in time. Do the best you can, sir. You’ll be setting our pace.”

  Spiros had other implants, including in his legs, that would allow him to keep up, but he didn’t want the major to know since he was trying to buy himself some time to recover his research data.

  “I’ll do my best. Lead the way.”

  Spiros ran at a pace he felt comfortable with in order to still have enough time to achieve his objective. Tassos was right behind him, with two more soldiers closing the march and guarding their six.

  He located the Phoenix’s subsystems and accessed them with his personal credentials. It displayed an overlaid HUD on his field of view from which he could control most of the ship with his mind. He started a remote pre-flight check sequence to shave several seconds off their departure time and then accessed the Phoenix’s main computer core. He created, then mounted an encrypted partition, and started the data transfer.

  Something wasn’t going well, though.

  “Damn!” he whispered.

  “What is it?” Tassos whispered back.

  “The transfer is too slow. The data won’t make it in time.”

  Tassos looked around before answering. “What are we going to do?”

  An idea struck Spiros. It was risky, but they didn’t have much choice.

  “I’m going to use my brain implant to cache the data.”

  “Isn’t the network bandwidth throughput the same whether you send it to the Phoenix or your implant?”

  “Not if I over-clock my implant.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous? Doesn’t over-clocking generate more heat?”

  Now it was Spiros who lo
oked around, but the soldiers weren’t paying attention to their conversation. “It does, but I don’t think we have a choice.”

  The station was hit once more and rocked heavily, but this time only a couple of them fell to the floor. Spiros was near the wall of the corridor and used it to keep his balance. Tassos did the same.

  “This is all well and good, but it won’t matter if we get incinerated before we reach the Phoenix.”

  “Tassos, I designed the shields of this station. Even though the fleet outside is large, I’m pretty sure the shields will hold as long as they need to.”

  “I sure hope you’re right.”

  6

  “Status report!” screamed Leonidis.

  “Our weapons are not making a dent on their shields, Commander,” answered Lieutenant Commander Maniatis.

  “Can we boost their power output?”

  “I’ve already redirected half the power from life support and hydroponics to the weapons. Still not enough.”

  “Squeeze every bit of juice you can spare. Boost the output of these guns past their limit by ten percent. They should hold.”

  “This is risky, Commander. If we overload the generators, the station could blow up.”

  “And if we do nothing, we’re dead anyway. Do as I say.”

  “Understood.”

  Whatever Spiros Malayianis had built would hold even if pushed beyond safe limits. At least for the time needed to make sure he left on the Phoenix. Then it wouldn’t matter. There was no way they would win this battle.

  A full salvo of enemy torpedoes rocked Damocles-3, and a couple of officers were thrown from their station. Sparks flew from a console near Leonidis’ command chair.

  The main lighting in the command center turned off and was replaced by the secondary power reserve, casting a low-light red hue.

  “How many reserve Manticore fighters do we hold?”

  “Only a couple dozen fighters, Commander. They won’t make the slightest difference out there.”

  “Still, that would give the enemy something else to shoot at and could save us precious seconds. Have the reserve pilots board their fighters at once and launch on the double.”

  Leonidis’ second-in-command sent him a sharp look, but then he nodded, even though he obviously didn’t like that order. The commander knew he was sending these people to their deaths, but be it inside the station or outside, there was a good chance everyone would die today. As long as Spiros Malayianis survived, that was all that mattered.

  While the military fabric of his personality had taken over, the human part of him didn’t believe that. In truth, he wanted nothing more than to hold his wife and son in his arms. But that was a fantasy, and the harsh reality was knocking on their shields relentlessly.

  “Can we use the tractor beams?”

  “What for, sir?”

  “On one of these ships.”

  “What good will that do, Commander?”

  “Let me worry about that. I’m painting the target. On its next pass, deploy the tractor beams. Have tubes ten to thirty-six loaded with the prototype scatter torpedoes.”

  “I thought they weren’t ready for deployment.”

  Leonidis wasn’t happy that his first officer was questioning his orders, but he couldn’t blame him. He was, after all, proposing ludicrous ideas in a time of crisis. But using desperate and crazy tactics had a better chance at causing some damage than their current by-the-book strategy.

  The scatter torpedoes Spiros had been working on had only worked half the time during tests. They were a wide-spread, multi-part weapon that split into six different smaller explosive charges loaded with quadrinium-enhanced spherical flak. In theory, they should cause way more damage against any known shield.

  Since they were quadrinium-enhanced, impact with shields would make these smaller objects explode, thus generating an even bigger energy drain. During weapons testing, many of the torpedoes failed to release their payload. But even if some of them acted this way, they would still inflict more damage than standard ordnance. Or at least that was the gamble Leonidis was willing to make.

  Still, Leonidis didn’t want to reprimand Michalis in front of the crew, so he erected the comms privacy option Spiros had installed a couple of months back. It informed both parties of the call that an invisible force field had been cast around their station, preventing sound from escaping beyond a two-yard diameter.

  Leonidis saw the icon flash on his holo-console, confirming that they were in private mode. His first officer cast a questioning glance at him.

  “Look, Michalis, I understand some of my orders don’t seem to make much sense, but please trust me and execute them, nonetheless. Can I count on you?”

  “You’re the commander. That goes without saying.”

  “And yet you’ve given me resistance at every turn.”

  “I’m sorry, Theo, I just don’t understand your tactics. They’re so far outside the rulebook; I felt I would be remiss as your first officer to not at least voice my concerns.”

  “Look, I trust you implicitly, and there’s no one I’d rather have by my side in this battle. But, let’s not get our hopes up. It’s way more likely that we will perish today, no matter what we do. I’m just trying to give Spiros a fighting chance to escape. His mind may be the key to developing new weapons to beat our enemy.”

  “Even if I’m willing to accept that, and I’m not saying I do—at least not fully—what can he do? If everyone in the Alliance falls today, who will he build these weapons for and how will he use them to strike back at our enemies?”

  “I wish I had the answers. We have to leave that in the hands of fate. But the Star Alliance has some of the best captains and admirals I’ve ever served with. I have to believe some of them will survive and strike back at our enemy, perhaps even come and rescue us. And with Spiros on their side—”

  “Say no more. I don’t know if we’ll get another chance, so while it’s just the two of us talking, I’ll say it’s been an honor serving by your side.”

  “Thank you. It’s been an honor, as well. May the gods of Olympus light our way.”

  The lieutenant commander glanced at Leonidis and gave him a timid smile.

  “You know me and legends, sir. I’m not really the praying type. But in this case, I truly hope they just heard you loud and clear.”

  7

  Spiros was becoming lightheaded. The extra heat generated by over-clocking his brain implant was interfering with his focus. His sight was blurred, and black spots flashed in front of his eyes.

  A warning message flashed on his implant HUD. “Overheating reaching dangerous levels. Recommend immediate shutdown of the implant to avoid permanent brain damage.”

  Hell no! Not now.

  Spiros selected the admin override and kept his over-clock running.

  “Are you alright?” asked Tassos when he noticed Spiros slowing down.

  “I . . . I don’t know, but I can’t stop now.”

  “If your gear overloads, you’ll lose your transfer. Perhaps you should dial it down, at least a little.”

  Tassos was right, but time was of the essence. He dialed his twenty-percent over-clock back to fifteen percent, and his vision improved slightly.

  The data transfer slowed down proportionally, but Spiros estimated it would still be completed by the time they boarded the Phoenix. His heart rate elevated, and he felt his blood rapidly moving through his body.

  Something exploded in front of them and Spiros, Tassos and the soldiers were thrown back. The corridor was exposed to space, and they were sucked toward the large hole. Three of the soldiers leading the way were incinerated in the explosion while another two were sucked into space before the station’s automated systems erected an emergency force field.

  The moment the field activated, everyone felt the grasp of the artificial gravity and crashed back to the floor. Spiros’ head pounded, and the nearby fire spiraled him rapidly into overdrive. He tried getting back on his fee
t but everything around him spun out of control, and he fell back to the floor.

  “SPIROS!” shouted Tassos, crawling next to his friend.

  “Heat . . . too much heat,” said Spiros before his eyes turned white, and he lost consciousness.

  “Major!” shouted Tassos. “Have your men put out the fire, immediately. I need two of them to help me take Spiros over there.” He pointed toward an air vent above them.

  The major was barely on his feet. He held part of his face that had been burned in the explosion. Blood ran through his fingers.

  “Major!”

  “I heard you.”

  The major ordered his men to take care of the fire and assigned two of them to take Spiros to the air vent.

  Tassos ran toward the nearest wall console and entered a flurry of commands, his instinct taking over as the adrenaline flooded his system.

  The command center had redirected power from life support, and he had to hack into this sector’s ventilation controls to bring enough power to crank up the air conditioning past its maximum setting.

  When the pair of soldiers reached the air vent, Tassos instructed them to open the vent and hold Spiros’ head inside it. They gave him a dubious look.

  “Don’t try to understand what I’m telling you, just do it!”

  They proceeded as instructed. Tassos diverted a small part of his holo-pad’s CPU from outside sensor-monitoring to scanning Spiros’ brain and implant temperatures. The readout was alarming, but soon after they had delicately positioned Spiros’ head inside the vent, the temps lowered quickly.

  Tassos hoped it wasn’t too late. He checked for wireless signals with his pad. The transfer of data had continued despite Spiros’ loss of consciousness.

  Another Zarlack destroyer passed by awfully close, making the area they were in tremble for a couple of seconds. Tassos caught a glimpse of the massive ship as it roared past.