Into the Fire Part I_Requiem of Souls

by Christian Kallias

  “Commander,” continued the Lieutenant Commander. “I’m picking up similar distress calls from all over the sector.”

  What in the gods’ name is happening?

  “Set condition red throughout the base,” said Leonidis.

  Chief of Research & Development Spiros Malayianis punched his console with frustration, and half a second later the lights in his lab flashed red.

  “What now?” he said out loud.

  The station had set condition red. Spiros was in a foul mood, and the last thing he needed was another battle-readiness drill interrupting his work. The last twenty simulations trying to stabilize the power flow in his shield generator upgrade had all been a disaster. Sometimes the shields fluctuated to the point of becoming utterly inefficient, while in other cases the power capacitors overloaded and the simulation failed catastrophically. The emitters blew up, in some scenarios even taking the station with them.

  Spiros had carte blanche with his research and didn’t need to worry about drills, though he usually got an advanced warning from the command center when drills were running, which oddly hadn’t been the case this time.

  He checked his holo-screen and brought up the station’s status alert. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that this was no drill. A real condition red had been issued.

  “What the hell?” he exclaimed, even though he was presently alone in the lab.

  Before he had time to open a channel to Commander Leonidis, an incoming call arrived.

  “Commander, what the hell is going on?”

  “We’ve detected a fleet of massive ships coming our way. They’re not answering hails, and we’ve also intercepted multiple distress calls all over the sector. The Star Alliance is under attack, everywhere.”

  It took a second for Spiros’ brain to assimilate Leonidis’ words.

  “What do you mean everywhere?”

  “Even Alpha Prime. We can’t establish a channel to the home world. Whatever the Obsidian are doing, this is a systemic, Alliance-wide attack. They’re wiping us out.”

  “The Obsidian don’t have that kind of power, Commander! We’ve been at war for decades. Our forces are evenly matched.”

  “It looks like today is the day this stalemate ends, Chief. And I think these unknown ships are the reason. Many of the distress calls mentioned them before they were abruptly cut off.”

  “Do we know anything about them?”

  “Something looks familiar to me. I just can’t recall where I’ve seen them before. Perhaps you can run them through our database and get more information. But that’s not the reason for my call.”

  Spiros knew what was coming next. This station was the primary center for every new weapons upgrade being developed for the entire Star Alliance. The information it held could not fall into the hands of the enemy.

  “You have ten minutes to wipe out your research.”

  “But Commander—”

  “Chief! This is a standard procedure we’ve put in place. We can’t take any chances. I’m sending two security teams to accompany you to the Phoenix prototype vessel you’ve been working on. It’s jump-capable at this point, right?”

  “It is, but, sir—”

  “Not now, Spiros! Listen carefully. You have to survive this attack. You can always recreate your research somewhere else. Your data is expendable; you, however, are not. Do I make myself clear?”

  “I must object—”

  “You have your orders, Chief! And so do I for contingencies like this one. I don’t have time to discuss or debate this with you right now. Let’s hope your last batch of modifications to our shields and weaponry will be effective against this threat. But we can’t take the chance, so I’m ordering you to erase all your databases now and prepare to flee this station and board the Phoenix. Be ready to go in ten minutes.”

  2

  “Tassos, where the hell are you? Come back to the lab at once,” yelled Spiros.

  “On my way,” answered Tassos, his primary lab assistant, over the comm-link.

  Spiros’ heart was racing. He felt a panic he had never experienced before. He wasn’t ready to delete his research, but he had been given a direct order. If he erased his entire research, it would take years to rebuild it from the ground up. This could be fatal if the Star Alliance were to survive this day.

  He wasn’t prepared to give up on his advancements. Time was running out, so he needed to act fast. He grabbed his latest pet project, a multi-phasic-encryption, high-capacity data crystal, and started moving all his research into it.

  Spiros then ran the database search to try to identify the ships that were coming their way.

  While his research transferred to the data crystal, and the computer ran a program matching power signatures to the incoming ships, Spiros tried opening a channel to the home world. He couldn’t acquire a channel, not even on the golden priority network he was privy to.

  He thought of Takis, his nephew back on the home world. The boy had already lost his parents to the war with the Obsidian, and Spiros was the last family he had. The death of Spiros’ brother and sister-in-law had been hard. Spiros had taken years to get over it, and now perhaps Takis was lost as well.

  This is not happening!

  The computer bleeped and dragged Spiros out of his thoughts. The computer had found a partial match for the ships. Spiros had to read the results three times to accept them.

  “Ship is an eighty-five-percent match for Zarlacks,” said the message on his holo-screen.

  That’s not possible.

  The Zarlacks had been defeated. They were a dead race. After the Fury War and the Furies’ defeat nearly ten thousand years ago, the Zarlacks, one of their allies, had fled the known universe. A few thousand years later, the coalition of worlds that had defeated the Furies had tracked them down and wiped them out on distant worlds. Or so they had thought.

  Spiros analyzed the power signatures himself, looked at the few schematics they had in their database and was forced to accept that the resemblance in both design and power signatures was too high to ignore. Which meant the Zarlacks had not been wiped out, and now they were working in concert with the Obsidian to annihilate the Star Alliance.

  The Alliance had been created long after the Fury War, to protect emerging worlds from potential enemies and to police this sector of the universe against any other threats. A few hundred years ago, the Obsidian Empire was created and had opposed the Star Alliance. A multi-generational war had ensued that continued to this day.

  Spiros’ entire career and research had been dedicated to developing new weapons and defenses to give the Alliance an edge in that long and tiring war that had claimed many of the people Spiros had loved and cared for. From his parents to his brother, and even his wife, twenty years earlier.

  Even though he was a scientist and detested violence, every cell in his body wanted nothing more than the fall of the Obsidian Empire; an enemy whose cruelty and thirst for power had brought so much grief to his life and the lives of so many others.

  Spiros opened a channel to the command center.

  “They’re Zarlacks, Commander.”

  “That’s impossible, Chief. Zarlacks were wiped out a long time ago.”

  “I’m afraid all evidence is to the contrary. These ships coming toward us, even though I share your disbelief—they’re Zarlacks for sure.”

  “Then may the gods of Olympus help us all. Are you done wiping your data?”

  “It’s progressing well. By the time the soldiers you sent arrive, it will be done.”

  Spiros hated lying to his commanding officer, someone he had the deepest respect for and even considered a friend. But Leonidis was a soldier, and soldiers obeyed their orders without questions. Spiros saw the bigger picture and knew his research could help in the long run.

  “Get your ass on board the Phoenix and get the hell out of here. Try to reconnect with whatever survivors you can find. They’ll need your technical expertise and engineering talent i
f the Star Alliance is to survive.”

  “What about you, Theo?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll fight them off and buy you the necessary time to escape. Your life and your brilliant mind are more important. It’s been an honor knowing you, my friend.”

  Spiros wanted to shout his frustration, but that would accomplish nothing.

  “Likewise, my friend.”

  The communication turned off, and the computer informed Spiros that a technical issue had prevented the database from continuing to dump data into the crystal.

  Spiros tried to resume the transfer, but an irrecoverable error kept occurring. He had only a few minutes before the jarheads with orders to get him away from here arrived in his lab.

  “Fuck! Now is not the time.”

  He had futzed around with his processor’s architecture and network redundancy the day before, trying to get more juice for running concurrent and parallel simulations in order to validate his latest shields’ design. Obviously, he had altered a piece of code that was now preventing the full data-dump of his research onto the crystal.

  Spiros sweated profusely. He did not like working under pressure, especially with such sensitive material. One false move and he could corrupt everything he had worked on for decades. That would be ironic since that would pretty much render it unusable, which was in line with the order he had received.

  But Spiros couldn’t reconcile himself to the idea of having his life work erased, so it was time for plan B. Though he didn’t like the idea, he had no choice. He sent the remainder of the data into an encrypted demilitarized subnet, using the data crystal hash as the decryption key. That way he could try to access the data with his brain implant on the way to the ship. Or, at the very least, recover the data from inside the Phoenix before departing the station. The Phoenix contained state-of-the-art processing power and network capabilities that would help him achieve that quickly.

  That would give him another ten minutes or so to try to get the data back, and perhaps another few seconds once the ship launched. But as soon as it entered hyperspace, the link would be severed. The clock was ticking, and he needed to make this work, one way or another.

  3

  When Tassos entered the lab, Spiros was so focused on his task that he jumped while sitting behind his holo-console.

  “Great Zeus’ bolt! It’s you.”

  “Who else would it be? You told me to haul ass back here. What the hell is going on? The entire station is in a state of panic.”

  “We’re about to be attacked. In fact, the entire Star Alliance is under attack, and we may not survive this day.”

  “Why isn’t the commander evacuating the crew? We shouldn’t stay here. We’re researchers, not military.”

  “We’re getting off this station, but the rest will stay. The SAD Faith is unreachable, and we have no ship to load the crew and escape to but the Phoenix.”

  “The Phoenix is barely bigger than a cargo shuttle!”

  “Which is why only the two of us and a few soldiers are going to board it.”

  “You can’t be serious! What about the rest of the teams? We can’t let them die here!”

  Spiros growled in frustration. “You think I don’t know that? You’re not grasping the big picture here. We have to save my research in the hope it can help defeat our enemies.”

  “I’m surprised the commander gave that order, especially since the first thing they made us write when we came here was a wiping algorithm to make sure our research never fell into enemy hands.”

  “That’s the order I’ve received, but that’s not what we’re going to do.”

  “Are you insane? If the commander says ‘erase the data and leave,’ that’s what we should do!”

  “No!” screamed Spiros. “This research could be the Star Alliance’s only hope. So I need you to help me get it out of here, intact. Any time now, a battle will start outside the station, so I want you to get as much sensor data as you can. It’s vital I get actionable data on these Zarlack ships.”

  “Did you just say Zarlack?”

  Fear crept behind Tassos’ eyes. Spiros grabbed his colleague and friend by the shoulders.

  “I know this is a lot to take in, Tassos. And I know you are scared. I am too. But if we are to survive and give the Star Alliance a fighting chance, you need to be clear on what we must do. Are you going to help me now? If not, then please leave, but I could really use your help, my friend.”

  “I want to help but don’t know how I feel about disobeying orders—”

  “You’re not, Tassos. I am. As far as you’re concerned, I’m giving you orders, and you’re only obeying your superior.”

  “That’s a technicality, and a gray one, at that.”

  “Look, after the repeat drinking problems you’ve had, nobody in the research community was willing to give you a break. I gave you a job, got you back on your feet, and I even trusted you with my sensitive research, despite your past addiction—”

  Tassos looked down.

  “Please? Help me save my research,” pleaded Spiros.

  Tassos looked back up and nodded. “Very well; tell me what to do.”

  Spiros let out a long sigh of relief.

  “Record everything you can regarding the battle about to start outside the station. Focus on energy signatures, shield frequencies and laser modulation of both allies and enemies. We need to know how much we currently affect the enemy with our weapons, how much they affect us and how to develop both shields and lasers to counter their specific technology. You’ll have a few minutes at best. Unfortunately, we’ll shortly be escorted out of here by soldiers. I’ll run interference to give you enough time to program a portable holo-pad so you can do the job en route. It’s a long walk to the Phoenix, and we can use that time to finish what needs to be done.”

  “I knew I should have installed a brain implant like yours. It gets the job done so much faster.”

  “Well, if we survive this, I’ll design you one just like mine.”

  Spiros regretted the words the moment they escaped his lips.

  Tassos’ face dropped. “If?”

  “I meant when. We’re getting out of here, I promise. Now please, hurry!”

  Tassos attempted a smile and went to work on modifying a holo-pad with the necessary modules.

  Soon enough the door of the research lab opened, and some of their security detachment entered. Men in black boots and full body armor stood before them armed to the teeth.

  “Chief Malayianis, I’m Major Sotis. I’m here to escort you to hangar bay six on the double.”

  “Hello, Major, give me a minute, will you? I’m not done here,” answered Spiros.

  “My orders are to get you there ASAP.”

  “And we will go shortly, Major, but I also have my own orders to destroy my research, and these things take time. The commander was adamant about this being done prior to leaving, so confirm it with him if you have to, but I’m not ready to leave just yet.”

  Major Sotis grimaced. “That’s alright, sir, we’ll wait for you. Please hurry.”

  4

  From the holo-console on the desk of his ready room, Commander Leonidis tried in vain to reach the SAD Faith once more via subspace. Unfortunately, it looked as though they would have to defend the station on their own. Damocles-3 had the most advanced weaponry in the Star Alliance, thanks to Spiros’ research.

  This also meant that once Spiros left on the Phoenix, Leonidis would have to self-destruct the station to make sure the enemy didn’t reverse-engineer his work.

  Of course, that would have to be a last resort, but no matter how powerful the Zarlacks’ weapons and shields were—which at this point was an unknown quantity—they were massive and bigger than any destroyer Leonidis had ever seen. While they couldn’t know how strong their weaponry was before the battle started, taking on so many ships and winning didn’t seem likely.

  And then there was his family back on Alpha Prime. They had lost
communication with the planet about the same time they detected the incoming fleet. Leonidis thought of his wife, Zoe, and ten-year-old son, Angele. Would he ever see them again? Were they still alive?

  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.