Into the Fire Part I_Requiem of Souls

by Christian Kallias

  “Understood, Sarah. Athena out.”

  Sarah’s brows knitted into a frown as she opened a channel to engineering.

  “Yanis, tell me you’ve got that pulse ready; we need to get out of here.”

  There was no answer.

  “Yanis, come in,” she insisted. Sarah realized something must have gone wrong in engineering.

  “Send two security detachments to engineering.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” said her security officer. “We’ve just lost sensors on the engineering deck. Request permission to join my security teams, Captain.”

  Sarah felt a powerful vibe that whatever was happening required her presence. Sarah rose to her feet and started running toward the turbo-lift.

  “Denied. Lieutenant Commander, you have the conn.”

  Once in the turbo-lift, she opened a channel to Daniel’s StarFury.

  “What’s our progress, Sarah? We’re sitting ducks out here.”

  “Come back to the barn on the double; once you’re back onboard Destiny, assume command of the bridge.”

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think we have intruders on board.”

  “Hell no! This can’t be real,” said Yanis, as his blood froze and he felt paralyzed by fear.

  The mechanical spider was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen. It moved its eight razor-sharp legs with great agility. Three of them were covered in blood, which Yanis assumed where from whichever crewmen it had come in contact with.

  Yanis pressed his wrist communicator.

  “Captain, we have big ass metal spiders on board; request immediate security assistance be sent to engineering.”

  But all he got back was static.

  Dammit; that thing must be jamming our comms.

  “Cedric, we need to sound the general alarm. Cedric?”

  Yanis turned his head toward Cedric’s station, only to see an empty chair.

  Where did he go?

  The nerve-racking noise of metallic spider footsteps resumed, and Yanis saw that the creature was advancing inside engineering, looking around.

  Doesn’t that thing see me?

  When Yanis slowly tiptoed backward, he accidentally bumped his chair. The spider reacted instantly and quickly reoriented itself to face him.

  It must be using some sort of sonar to navigate.

  The beast’s multiple yellow LED eyes flashed, and a fast-scanning red laser beam shot from them and scanned Yanis from head to toe.

  Uh-Oh!

  The metallic spider opened its mouth, which was bigger than Yanis’ worst nightmare could have imagined; revealing row after row of bloodied sharp chrome teeth, as well as some shredded body parts stuck between them. The spider unleashed an ear-piercing screech.

  “Screw that; it knows I’m here now. I’m next on the menu.”

  Yanis’ heart started pounding hard. He grabbed the chair he had almost tripped over and threw it across his console toward the spider. The spider leaped forward, caught the chair in its mouth and reduced it to shreds as its rows of teeth started rotating. Each row alternated rotation, making the mouth of the mechanical spider a very efficient and deadly blender.

  “Cedric!! Where the hell are you?” said Yanis as he ran as fast as he could to the opposite side of the room.

  He could hear the fast and horrible metallic clangs of the spider crawling after him, but he was too scared to even dare look behind him. With Cedric away, he needed to find something better than a chair to throw at the monster.

  Yanis darted toward the latest R&D anti-Fury pulse rifle he had been trying to perfect. The large and powerful weapon was hovering over an altar that served as both a magnetic force field and charging station.

  He snatched the weapon and turned around in one fluid motion, effectively skidding backward on the slippery engineering floor. The spider was gaining on him as he charged the rifle and lined up his shot.

  Please, gods, let my technological prowess get me out of this mess.

  Yanis waited until he was sure he wouldn’t miss the spider and depressed the trigger. An intense shock wave hit the spider straight on, making it tumble backward for yards until it crashed with a satisfying cascade of metallic clangs.

  “Take that, stupid bug!” shouted Yanis victoriously.

  The metallic spider was on its back, all eight legs flailing upward.

  Yanis cocked the rifle’s secondary firing mode to load up a quadrinium grenade into its chamber.

  The spider realized it wouldn’t be able to get its legs back on the ground, so it bent its legs backward enabling it to reposition itself with its head now upside down.

  “I take back what I said earlier, this is what’s going to give me nightmares until the day I die,” said Yanis, swallowing hard.

  He pressed the rifle stock on his shoulder to make sure he wouldn’t miss. He lined up his shot and fired.

  At the same time, the spider jumped upward toward the tall ceiling as the quadrinium grenade impacted with the wall, creating an intense explosion. The resulting heat and shock wave knocked Yanis off his feet, and he painfully crashed on his back a couple of yards away.

  From that vantage point, he saw that the spider was still on the ceiling and walking toward him.

  “And, again, I’ve spoken too soon.”

  In a matter of seconds, the spider was almost on top of him, despite Yanis’ best effort to crawl backward.

  “ANYBODY! Please help!” he screamed in a high-pitched and desperate voice.

  Ryonna quickly scanned the landscape around them as more laser fire converged upon what little was left of their cover. She noticed a large formation of rock that should prove more defendable than their current position as she set her blaster to high-rate stun shots.

  “Get ready to run over there,” she yelled, pointing toward the area she had chosen.

  “That’s too far; they’ll cut us to pieces,” said Keera.

  “You forget that Tar’Lock can run extremely fast. Tar’Lock, zigzag as you get Keera to cover. Once there, Keera, provide fire cover so I can join you guys.”

  “But,” said Tar’Lock with a series of nervous clicks.

  “Now, Tar’Lock!”

  Tar’Lock took a deep breath, quickly nodded as he grabbed Keera, and started running.

  Ryonna grabbed a couple of smart grenades from her belt. She set the first one to smoke shield and the second one to sonic shock wave mode. She threw the first one as far as she could, nearly reaching the position of the incoming Gorgar soldiers. She then rose from cover and fired a stun barrage toward the enemy with impressive accuracy as she retreated walking backward to her friends.

  Shortly after reaching cover, Keera began taking out targets of her own with rifle fire.

  Soldiers started to emerge from the heavy smoke created by Ryonna’s first explosion as she activated the sonic pulse grenade. She fixed on the area where she wanted to deliver the grenade for maximum damage and sprung into action. In the middle of her throw, a couple of laser blasts impacted her, one on her throwing bicep and the other on her left leg. The first shot made her lose her grasp, and the grenade fell nearby, with Ryonna well in range of its detonation radius. The second shot made her lose balance and fall to the ground.

  “Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!” she barked.

  “Ryonna!” she heard Tar’Lock’s voice in the distance.

  Ryonna tried crawling backward, but she wasn’t moving fast enough because of her leg wound.

  Of all the ways to die, this one isn’t going to be pleasant, she thought, knowing full well she couldn’t get clear of the grenade’s killing radius.

  She shouted something loud in Droxian; imploring Ranak, a deity’s name to the entrance of the afterlife, when she felt a strong wind blow her hair forward. Tar’Lock darted past her like a bullet and kicked the sonic grenade with all his might.

  The grenade flew at an impressive speed and exploded in the front lines of the incoming Gorgar
battalion. The first three-dozen soldiers were shredded to pieces from the sonic detonation. The resulting shock wave flattened another sixty or so soldiers to the ground.

  For a few seconds, while the Gorgar tried to understand what had happened, the laser fire had stopped.

  Tar’Lock returned to Ryonna.

  “Are you alright?” he said, his voice trembling with worry.

  “I thought you didn’t want to kill innocent Gorgar.”

  Tar’Lock clicked a sad short song. “I still don’t. But the thought of losing you was unbearable. Let me get you to safety.”

  Laser fire started resuming.

  “Drag me there; I need to provide us cover.”

  Tar’Lock nodded as he grabbed the back of Ryonna’s body armor and started running in a sinusoidal path. Ryonna lined up her blaster with a smile at the corner of her mouth and started downing Gorgars with every shot. Soon, they were behind their new cover. Ryonna handed her remaining two grenades to Keera, both set in sonic shock wave pulse mode.

  “I’m gonna need you to throw these for me.”

  “No problem,” answered Keera. “But these won’t hold them for long.”

  “Then we’ll die with honor in the midst of battle,” said Ryonna.

  “Screw that!” protested Keera before activating the comms on her wrist device.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “The only person who can help us out right now.”

  20

  Oryn’s obsession to try and lower the temperature made Argos’ ability to raise his own aura all the more difficult.

  Dammit, Oryn!

  Stop it, he implored her one more time. You’re gonna get us both killed.

  I can get us out of this mess, complained Oryn.

  You don’t have the necessary focus to reach near absolute zero temperatures, and you know it.

  And you have what it takes to grow your aura? You’re suffering from the same effects I am, so it’s to the one who reaches his, or her, potential first.

  No, it’s not! Every time you lower the temperature, you also lower my ability to get us out of this mess.

  Sorry if I don’t trust your measly abilities to get us out of here.

  Argos’ anger rose, which gave him more power, but not enough to unleash a powerful shock wave. So he focused on Oryn’s mind instead with all his might, and sent a telepathic order.

  SLEEP!

  Unprepared for such a telepathic command, Oryn immediately succumbed to his mental order and lost consciousness. The temperature rapidly rose again in the room and Argos could continue raising his aura, now at an exponential rate.

  Arakan’s face continued to smirk on the holo-screen.

  “A small mind and average Fury warrior like you cannot escape from this field, Argos; you shouldn’t lose what little energy you have left. Wait for me to come back to Erevos in a few minutes, then I can do what I should have done the moment we came back from the alternate dimension. And that is to kill you! But first, I’ll give a visit to Menelas and his son and kill them both. That way I can see the look in your eyes when I bring you their heads.”

  That did it. All of Argos’ hatred exploded inside his psyche like a thousand supernovas. His aura turned orange along with his eyes and a powerful shock wave not only destroyed the emitter in the room but also destroyed the walls inside their cell as if they were made of glass.

  What’s happening to me?

  “This can’t be! You can’t also have Ultra Fury powers!” shouted Arakan’s holo-screen before the image wavered and the communication died off.

  Ultra Fury powers?

  Argos looked at his hands and was surprised by the color of his aura. It shone the same bright orange tone as his brother’s when he entered Ultra Fury mode. The level of power flowing through his body was both unbelievable and intoxicating at the same time.

  Nearby, Oryn woke up and shook her head when she looked toward Argos.

  “Chase?”

  “No, but we’d better get to him fast.”

  “Wait, I thought the Fury legend mentioned a unique Ultra Fury; how is this possible?”

  Argos’ voice was now deeper.

  “I guess not all legends are true. Now get your frozen bitch’s butt back up before I go against my better judgment and bury you here.” Argos pointed an accusing finger at her. “Which is exactly what will happen if you ever pull something like that again!”

  The metallic spider was now on top of Yanis, who felt compelled to scream as loud as he could as the beast let itself fall toward him. The creature’s nightmare-inducing, razor-sharp rotating rows of deadly teeth was all Yanis could focus on.

  Adrenaline flooded Yanis’ bloodstream and gave him enough energy and courage to roll out of the beast’s path. He jumped back to his feet and switched the rifle back to sonic shock wave mode and fired at the metallic spider.

  The spider took the shot head on and, unlike before, it wasn’t knocked off its eight legs. Instead, it used its sharp tips to stop skidding backward, generating an ear-piercing and shiver-inducing scratching noise as it carved inch-deep lines into the floor.

  “Shit!” said Yanis looking at his nearly useless rifle.

  Its yellow eyes flashed stronger as it flexed all eight legs and jumped forward.

  “Fuck me—”

  The spider was almost upon him when he closed his eyes, not willing to see his own blood and guts splattered all over the place.

  But instead of intense pain, Yanis heard a loud clang and a series of metallic noises accompanied by a spider screech that sounded more like agony than a war cry.

  He tentatively opened one of his eyes, and to his surprise, a man inside a supersuit stood in front of him while the spider had crashed into a far-off wall, cracking it in the process.

  “You know you scream like a little girl when you’re scared, don’t you?” said Cedric from within the suit.

  Yanis let out a long deep breath of relief.

  “What took you so fucking long!?”

  “On Earth, we say thank you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, thank you for letting me fend for myself alone and almost die in the process.”

  “Stop bitching; you’re still alive aren’t you?”

  “Perhaps, but I’ll need a new pair of underwear.”

  Cedric turned his head toward his friend.

  “Too much information, my friend. Now, make yourself useful and go make sure that we can send the pulse so we can deal with the spider ship. Or they might send waves after waves of these, and while I’m hoping I can deal with this one, I wouldn’t want to have to face more of—”

  The doors of engineering split open, and two more metallic spiders walked in as the first one was getting back on its legs, two of which were bent from the powerful punch Cedric had delivered, but it still managed to compensate as it quickly rejoined its two new friends.

  “I had to jinx it,” said Cedric. “While you’re at it, make sure you lock these fucking doors, too!”

  “Yeah, sounds like a good idea,” said Yanis, jumping to the nearest console and began mag-locking the doors.

  He brought up the pulse radar function they were working on when the first metallic intruder interrupted their work, and he continued interfacing the tech with the power nodes and ship’s shield, making sure he could send the pulse as an expanding shield bubble. That would tax the shield, but he also had an idea how to replenish them.

  He brought up their modulation frequency and encoded a message to send to Athena’s ship.

  Meanwhile, Cedric was running around engineering in his supersuit in an attempt to keep the spiders occupied.

  “Are you done yet? This diversion won’t last very long,” he yelled.

  “Snappy! I’m working as fast as I can.”

  “No matter what happens, we can’t let the spiders get to the quad quadrinium cores.”

  Yanis hadn’t thought of it, but indeed they couldn’t let them damage or destroy them. Not only could the
core blow up and take three quarters of the ship with it, but also they would be burned alive in the process, which Yanis decided was definitely not something he wanted to have happen today.

  “Make sure you keep them far away from the cores, then.”

  “Do I have to do everything around here?” said Cedric as he darted through two of the spiders and managed to deliver a super-speed circling kick that temporarily brought one of the metallic monstrosities down. Cedric took two quadrinium grenades and threw them inside the mouth of the downed spider before somersaulting on top of another one.

  “Well, you’re the one who ran to save your life by entering our only supersuit,” said Yanis.

  The quadrinium grenades exploded inside the downed spider taking it out and turning it into a molten puddle of metal.

  “Are you hearing yourself? That move also happened to save your own soiled ass, I might add. One down by the way; how’s the pulse coming?”

  “Almost there.”

  “About freaking tim—”

  When Cedric didn’t finish his remark, Yanis looked toward him and understood why.

  “Oh dear!”

  Chase dodged the Miseo look-alike’s incoming attack and blocked the next one. Using his momentum, he laced both his palms on the cloned Fury’s chest and unleashed a flurry of fireballs, sending the Fury flying toward the blast door that trapped him alone in this place.

  The Fury somersaulted in the air, landed on the door with both feet and bounced back, flying toward Chase.

  Hey! That’s one of my moves.

  Chase threw a powerful knee strike toward the Fury’s incoming head, but he saw it coming and blocked the attack with both hands. Pure hatred burned in its eyes and Chase realized that the one thing this copy of Miseo wasn’t doing was talking. The Fury hadn’t uttered a single word beyond a couple of screams.

  Chase jumped backward and prepared a powerful orange fireball in one hand, the Miseo look-alike did the same, and they both launched their attack in sync. When they impacted together, a powerful shock wave was unleashed as they canceled each other out, sending both of them skidding backward on the floor.

  Less than three minutes left. Chase needed to end this fight, but the cloned warrior shared a lot with the original Miseo and didn’t seem to be tiring at all while Chase burned more energy that he wanted. He needed to keep most of his pool of energy in case Arakan returned. While he had no intention of taking on the supreme commander, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t be forced to keep him at bay.