Into the Fire Part I_Requiem of Souls

by Christian Kallias

  Of course, Tar’Lock knew that Ryonna had all the reasons in the world to be mad. Not only at Argos, even though he was now an important ally and one that they probably needed more than any of them was willing to admit. But Ryonna had lost so much already. Her husband and most of her world had been destroyed by Furies. And while Argos had nothing to do with the second attack, he had orchestrated the first one and was responsible for many that had died in that war. No, Tar’Lock had no problem understanding Ryonna’s rage. But putting herself in mortal danger to blow off all her anger she had accumulated lately was still a little out of character, even for Ryonna. She still had Ronan to look after.

  “Why did you do this?” said Tar’Lock.

  “I think I know,” said Keera.

  Tar’Lock turned and looked into her eyes. When it became clear that Tar’Lock wasn’t going to ask a question and was waiting for Keera’s explanation, she continued.

  “I may be wrong, but I think I’m starting to know and understand her well lately. You see, Ryonna has always been a proud warrior. And probably until she met Chase, she never feared anyone nor backed down from any fight, no matter how insanely dangerous the enemy was. She probably, on some level, felt indestructible or close to it. But now we are fighting beings that can snap our necks with a single thought, and destroy cities with millions of inhabitants with powerful energy based attacks that they shoot from their hands.”

  “And your point being? Ryonna is still not afraid of them. I’ve known her longer than you have.”

  “That’s where I think you’re wrong. She is afraid, but she didn’t want to accept it. And I think she needed that fight with the Argos simulation. She needed to know that she could kill him if push came to shove. Or that she would have the courage to die with honor, fighting until the very end.”

  Tar’Lock’s clicking sounds played a sad melody.

  “And did she? Did she defeat him?”

  “Oh yeah, she sure fragged the sucker, alright!”

  Tar’Lock smiled. And while he didn’t think Ryonna was afraid of anything, or anyone, he had to admit that Keera’s explanation made a lot of sense. Hopefully, whatever demon was eating at Ryonna had now been vanquished. Even though he was still mad at her for risking her life that way. But if it made her feel better, then it probably had been worth it. Tar’Lock couldn’t imagine a world without Ryonna in it. It simply wouldn’t be worth living, even though he knew that they were too different ever to have the kind of relationship he dreamt of having with her.

  “Thank you, Keera.”

  She put a compassionate hand on Tar’Lock’s shoulder.

  “She’ll be alright; in a few hours she’ll be right as rain and her usual grumpy self.”

  They both laughed, and that helped dissipate the worry and tension they both felt.

  “Why haven’t we jumped yet?” insisted Chase.

  “Jump engines are not responding,” answered Sarah.

  “A Jump Interdiction Field?”

  “Not according to the Victory’s instrument. But same result.”

  The ship rocked stronger than before.

  “Shields down to seventy percent,” informed a bridge crew member. “And the two Obsidian destroyers have been obliterated.”

  “Dammit! We need to get a visual on those ships.”

  “Chase, you need to go, now.”

  “What’s the point; if our destroyers can’t jump, neither will the shuttle. We’re too far from Erevos to go at sub-light speed. And, I can’t abandon you in the middle of this mess.”

  “Follow me,” said Sarah, gesturing Chase toward the captain’s ready room.

  Once they were both behind closed doors, Sarah’s face hardened.

  “Chase, you can’t do this. You can’t keep trying to protect me at every turn. You’ve assigned me the command of the Victory because you didn’t want me to risk my life on Erevos. Now, you don’t want to go ahead with the mission because I’ll be in trouble here. My mission is to deal with this problem; yours is to go to Erevos, save your father and your aunt. So let me handle this mess.”

  Chase felt a strong urge to argue. But he knew that he had to start trusting that Sarah would get herself out of trouble. How ironic that he had wanted her to stay on board the Victory, a place Chase thought would be infinitely less dangerous on their upcoming mission than Erevos, and even before they had managed to get there, it was the ship and the rapidly decreasing fleet that was in jeopardy.

  “Alright.”

  Sarah’s eyes grew wider for a moment.

  “What?” added Chase.

  “Nothing…I didn’t expect you to agree with me this fast.”

  “You’re right; I need to trust you. I’ve put you in charge of the Victory, so I guess you’ll have to deal with this unknown force. But your number one priority is to protect the ship and all the souls on board, yours included. That’s a direct order. Are we clear? So, if you have to find a way to escape and flee to survive, that’s what you will do.”

  She saluted him with a smirk. “Absolutely, Admiral.”

  Chase rolled his eyes.

  “Chase…What about you? How will you get to Erevos?”

  “I guess we don’t exactly have a choice now, do we? I’ll have to teleport the team there.”

  “Will you have the energy to do so?”

  “Well, the distance to Erevos is now much shorter than from Asgard, so I’m hoping it won’t take too much of my energy.”

  Chase was interrupted when the ship rocked once more.

  “I’d better let you get back to the bridge,” added Chase. “The moment you have dealt with this threat, have someone send the transport we were going to use to Erevos, so we have a way to get out of there if we need to. And, if you can make contact with the Emperor, have him send more ships to rejoin you as soon as possible.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to risk too many ships.”

  “What I wanted was a clean in and out mission, preferably stealthy, but with the Victory and a handful of ships as a backup if something went wrong. Since the shit already hit the fan, even before the mission started, and that the enemy knows we’re here, they might send reinforcements, and if they do, I want us to have some of our own. Have at least two-dozen destroyers dispatched. Ask Odin to send one more Asgardian destroyer along so it can open a faster hyperspace corridor for the rest of the ships. That way the reinforcements can arrive here faster.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Survive, at all costs.”

  “You said that one already.”

  “I know. But I want to make sure you heard me, so I’m saying it again.”

  Chase took Sarah in his arms and embraced her tightly. She squeezed him back even more.

  “Go Chase; get your father and Aphroditis out of there, and come back to me soon. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Chase reluctantly released Sarah and took a step back. Sarah nodded solemnly, and Chase teleported away without saying another word.

  “I love you,” she said out loud to an empty room.

  13

  Once Spiros had patched his cut, he started pacing back and forth around Gaia’s clone pod.

  “What should I do?” he asked her, not expecting any answer. “If I go alone on this mission, there’s a good chance I won’t return, and we’ll both perish. I could, of course, try and fix your code with the time my body has left, but I think that would result in me perishing shortly after, and you’ll resent me, or worse, hate me for doing so.

  “If only you could come with me; with the battle training you have from helping Chase, then you could—”

  And then it hit Spiros. The part of Gaia’s matrix code that had been scrambled and was deteriorating had to do with her emotional sub-routines. If he could activate her basic AI functions as well as her battle commands, she could come with him on the mission, and even protect the both of them more efficiently than he ever could on his own. It would still be risky, but at least if they perishe
d, they would perish together.

  Spiros brought his neuronal interface online and displayed the currently running repair algorithm trying to patch Gaia’s matrix. There were still multiple zones that needed work, but a close inspection of her function codes allowed him to isolate what would work in her current state if reactivated.

  The main cognitive functions, as well as technical and combat skills, were all in the green and ready to be activated. But Spiros dreaded activating Gaia and having to deal with barely more than a battle droid, or just a simple machine that would take orders from him without thinking or weighing them against her own conscience. And if he reactivated her like this, she wouldn’t have either a conscience nor a spark of personality. She’d be a blank slate AI. Her learning functions also appeared to be working nominally, which meant she would learn from experience. But in order to not confuse her later on when he finally managed to get her full matrix back to a healthy state, he would need to either flush or at least separate the new experiences she would learn from her own memories and old consciousness. That meant sandboxing that part of her matrix for the data to be easily separated from the rest of her storage.

  “Should I do this?” he asked her. “Should I reactivate you in that state?”

  But what choice did he have? He had looked at their predicament from every possible angle. They needed that biomaterial. And while they went to get it, they could let the Alliance know of their current situation. That way perhaps Chase could help them return the first chance he got. Cedric had mentioned a daring mission to Erevos was in preparation on their last debrief. Spiros hated to ask Chase for a favor if it could be avoided, but hopefully, by the time Spiros and Gaia reached their destination, Chase would be done with his own mission and in a position to help. And, if not, well, at least they would have a chance at survival by acquiring the biomaterial.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” said Spiros, pointing a finger toward the inanimate Gaia clone, “I hate having to do this. But what choice do we have?”

  After a few seconds, he continued. “I’ll take your silence as an agreement that we don’t have any.”

  Spiros brought advanced debug functions from his repair program inside his neuronal chip and selected the still corrupted part of Gaia’s matrix and froze all the corrupted functions. He installed a stabilizing program that would revert any change with every cycle of Gaia’s cycles using a simple code. While that wouldn’t help his recovery efforts, it would freeze the damaged section of her code in place, at least until he could resume his efforts in unscrambling them.

  When he was satisfied with his safeguards, he grabbed the ancient spherical device. He kissed the sphere, but almost immediately regretted it, as the metal taste it left on his lips was both cold and gross.

  For luck.

  Spiros placed the sphere inside the transfer chamber next to the pod and activated the function he had pre-programmed into the cloning pod. It would allow a large bunch of nanites to perform the very delicate operation of installing the sphere inside the clone’s head. He activated the start command and turned away. He couldn’t bear to look. He would monitor the status of the procedure via his neuronal implant. Seeing an incision and blood could turn his stomach. Watching a bunch of 0’s and 1’s on a holographic neuronal interface, that he could deal with any day of the week.

  The moment Chase was back in the cargo bay, a flurry of questions were asked in a cacophony of voices.

  “Please— let me talk. We’re being attacked by an invisible ship or fleet. There’s no way to know right now.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” asked Argos.

  “Nothing. We’ll adjust the way we get to Erevos, that’s all.”

  “Is that wise?” responded Ares.

  The last thing Chase needed right now was someone to echo his own doubts and feed his own fears. It was painful enough leaving the Victory, Sarah, Daniel and hundreds of other crewmen behind in a time like this; but he knew very well that the window for their own mission was closing with every passing minute.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it now, and I’m sure Sarah will find a way to deal with this threat.”

  Ares nodded, though Chase could tell he was concerned about Chase’s decision.

  Are we really abandoning mom here alone? asked a concerned Chris mentally.

  Your mother can defend herself, as you know.

  Perhaps I should stay with her?

  Chase had considered that possibility, but his instinct told him he would need all the firepower he could get.

  She’ll be fine; besides, I need you on this mission with me. If I sense something is wrong, I’ll come back for her.

  We may be too occupied like we were on Asgard when…

  Chris let the words hang. But Chase knew what his son meant. While on Asgard, Chase hadn’t felt that Zeus was in danger. He wished he had so he could have dealt with Arakan himself, and save his grandfather in the process.

  Or gotten yourself killed, added Argos. We’ll kill Arakan in due time, like you said, together as a unit.

  Chase realized he must have been broadcasting his thoughts loud enough for his brother to intercept them. But he felt grateful to have Argos’ full support now. He knew how lucky he was to have so many amazing people around him, willing to do whatever it took to put an end to this terrible war. But right now they needed to get going, even though it felt wrong leaving Sarah in this present condition. So, he cast these troubling thoughts to a dark and cold corner of his mind.

  The entire ship shook as another salvo impacted with it.

  “Alright, everyone. It looks like I’m going to have to teleport you to Erevos on my own…” said Chase, looking at Ares.

  Ares shook his head from side to side, signaling to Chase that he couldn’t teleport anyone while being in a cloned body. That would have made things easier, but it didn’t look like easy was an item on the menu for the day.

  “I don’t know if I can teleport all of you at the same time; we’ll probably have to make a couple of trips. Alpha team, you’re up.”

  Half of the away team, Chris included, approached Chase.

  “You know the drill; physical contact is needed for me to teleport you,” Chase added.

  Chase extended his right arm forward, and they grabbed it. Chase teleported the first group of his friends to Erevos.

  “What are we waiting for?” protested Daniel. “Shouldn’t we launch our squadrons already?”

  “I’m not sure Daniel; we can’t seem to locate the enemy. I don’t want to send you on a suicide mission,” answered Sarah.

  “Well, we’re dead anyway if we don’t find a solution. I’d rather be out there trying to figure out a way to get to them rather than wait and be a sitting duck on the Victory, no offense.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “Very well,” said a resigned Sarah. “Be careful.”

  “You too, Captain. Light a fire under Yanis’ ass too; he works well under pressure.”

  “Roger that.”

  Daniel did his final pre-flight check from the neuronal holographic HUD. He was good to go. Now was probably a good time to address his pilots.

  “Listen up everyone; we’re about to go against an unknown enemy. They’re not showing on radar and apparently not showing visually either. Unlike our cloaked ships, they seem to have the ability to fire upon us. We have no idea if we’re dealing with a single ship or multiple ones. Hopefully, we can get a better feel once we’re airborne and perhaps find a way to locate them. We don’t know if we’ll encounter fighter-sized craft or just capital ones.”

  “That’s a lot of unknown parameters, Wing Commander,” replied Alpha Three. “How are we supposed to do our job in these conditions?”

  Daniel was well aware of that. In fact, part of him wasn’t completely convinced when he argued with Sarah that they needed to be out there. But the fact of the matter was, as fighter pilots, they had a better chance of affecting the outcome of this b
attle in space than they did from the inside of the ship.

  “I realize that Alpha Three, but we have to try and divert the attention away from the fleet at the moment and see if we can perhaps locate the ship visually. I’m hoping if we get closer to them, perhaps our scanners might pick up something or that the ships might give a visual hint to their location, somehow. I know these are far from ideal conditions, but we’re at war, and the enemy won’t throw us a bone to make our lives easier.”

  “Understood Wing Commander; we’ll give them hell.”

  Hopefully, thought Daniel.

  A minute later Alpha squadron was in formation. A dark pit formed inside Daniel’s stomach as incoming fire appeared out of nowhere. The Victory would triangulate these shots and fire upon their position, but it didn’t seem to ever hit anything. Either the vessels were quite small, or they possessed the ability to move at high sub-light speed. Higher than any destroyer Daniel had witnessed.

  “Okay, let’s split into wings; right now our main objective is to try and find a way to locate them. I suggest rapid lower power firing of laser weapons, and as we do so, we can try and light them up. That way we also mitigate damage from accidental friendly fire, which may be unavoidable if we want to cover a large firing zone as fast as possible.”

  When Alpha Seven exploded without even revealing a visual hint of impact to a shield or incoming fire, Daniel’s stress levels shot up exponentially.

  “No, no, no, and NO! We’re going at this all wrong,” protested Yanis.

  “I’m not sure why you have requested my assistance if all you do is complain about my ideas,” protested the Asgardian scientist known as Rak’nar.

  His facial tattoos blinked so fast Yanis tried avoiding direct eye contact as much as he could.

  “Look, your assistance is appreciated, but I think our best bet is trying to get the turrets on an algorithm that will attempt pre-programmed vectoring solutions based on any impact we do to the enemy.”

  “And I believe that is pointless since we haven’t impacted anything at all until now.”