Fury to the Stars (Universe in Flames Book 2)

by Christian Kallias

  He located a stabilizing foam gun and managed to twist just enough to shoot the foam into the open stab wound, and the fizzling pink foam quickly stopped the bleeding. He could feel the nanites starting to heal the surrounding tissues, and was enormously glad. Yet he instinctively knew he’d reached the limits of his endurance, and that moving would be a liability in this state. He decided to stay down temporarily and replenish some trace of his strength, lying on his back. He knew that anyone could enter at any moment, but also that most of the Zarlacks had left the base. What were the odds? It was high time that he get some lucky breaks.

  Ten minutes passed. Now or never, he had to implement the next phase of the plan, before more Zarlacks came looking for him. As if on cue, an alarm sounded in the hallway. No doubt they had discovered his previous victim. Spiros lifted himself on his good leg to the nearest terminal, solemnly attaching his gas mask. He redirected command controls to the medical bay’s terminal, looking for his backdoor and hidden subroutine in the ventilation system. After entering a few more commands, the canisters of poison began opening, disseminating all over the station. He queued in a few more commands and had the noisy alarm bells canceled as well, before finally letting his tired body sink back to the ground.

  He figured he would wait about five minutes time, then it would be safe for him to move freely around the station, knowing that he’d be the last life form standing.

  But as the doors of the infirmary slid quietly open, Spiros’ heart skipped a beat. He could hear heavy panting from someone standing in the room, but couldn’t see them from his angle. There was no way he was in shape for another fight, so what was first fear quickly turned to terror. Spiros’ heart started pounding louder and louder inside his ribcage, as if trying to escape to save itself. He heard irregular footsteps coming his way.

  He was absolutely paralyzed by fear and helplessness. Finally, one horrible foot loomed into sight around a counter, followed by the terrible image that Spiros wished he would never see again. The huge reptilian loomed over the counter, looking like any prehistoric giant predator ready to devour him. He noted that the Zarlack’s respiration was labored, but took little reassurance from it because he had absolutely no idea how long it would take for poison to kill it. They were known to be formidably resistant, resilient creatures.

  Spiros stared into the eyes of the creature: dark red with orange specks and yellow patches, a thin, vertical dark line for a pupil. The Zarlack opened his mouth to reveal row after row of sharp, yellow teeth. Then he looked at Spiros, who instinctively closed his eyes and played dead.

  Then began the most horrifying seconds of Spiros’ entire life. The beast roared an incomprehensible sound. Perhaps he would just leave? Focusing on not trembling, he dreamed of easy, simple solutions.

  Spiros suddenly realized how futile closing his eyes was, since he was wearing a standard, Star Alliance gas mask with tinted-glass viewports. So he opened his eyes again. The horror of the image almost forced him to close them back on the spot. The creature had leaned towards him, sniffing the air. His face was right in front of his, sharp teeth bristling out. Spit drooled from the Zarlack’s opened mouth and fell on the lenses of the gas mask, partially obscuring the terrifying view.

  That’s it, thought Spiros, this is how I die.

  The Zarlack pulled up slightly, deciding to check if he was still alive by hitting Spiros lightly with the back of his hand on the side of his ribs. He tried to not make a sound or react, but part of his body jerked nonetheless. The Zarlack saw through the ruse, raised his body and unleashed the most horrifying scream Spiros had ever heard. Another jolt of adrenaline surged through him, and he knew he had to attempt the stupidest thing imaginable. He had to crawl away from this monster, the one with a look of pure hate and murderous intent in his eyes.

  He slid on the ground a few mere feet before the Zarlack closed the distance, screaming again with his right arm raised to strike. Sharpened claws popped out of every one of his four fingers, and he only closed his wicked mouth to ready himself for the kill.

  Spiros looked left and right, desperately trying to spot some means of survival. Panic flooded his soul: there was nothing of use nearby. He crawled some more and instinctively clambered behind a wheeled table just within reach. He jerked it as strongly as he could while the Zarlack thrust forward sharp claws. The chariot impacted the beast’s legs with enough force to make him lose balance, and he crashed right next to Spiros. With their heads right next to each other, the beast’s huge, gaping mouth represented Spiros’ entire horizon. It sneezed while writhing in pain, and some gooey liquid that seemed like nasal snot mixed with thick blood obstructed the gas mask viewport even more. Spiros tried to rise but slipped on the wet floor, impacting again with a crack.

  The Zarlack too struggled to get back on his feet. Just when Spiros thought that all hope was lost, the creature abruptly collapsed on the floor again with a horrible respiratory rattling sound that resonated around the room. His tree-trunk of an arm pinned Spiros to the ground, and the sharp pain that followed made it seem that Spiros had likely broken one or two of his ribs.

  The Zarlack stopped breathing. But alive or dead, Spiros’ torso was being crushed by what felt like a ton and a half of corpse weight. He could barely breathe. He tried to wedge his way out, but the body wouldn’t budge. Freshly awash in pain from the broken ribs, Spiros started to choke; he needed to get free. The room had begun to spin.

  But then he saw it. Next to him were most of the tools from the wheeled table he’d thrown forward at his attacker. He lifted his head and felt another jolt of pain from a pinched nerve, that forced Spiros to blink his eyes to see straight. At arm’s length he saw the unmistakable outline of laser scalpel. He extended his arm as far as he could to reach the tip of the small tool with his blood-splattered fingers, an audible crack accompanying each lunge. It took a few tries until he managed to get a good grab, but he got it and immediately turned the scalpel on. A brightly lit blue blade hissed to life and flickered with a low-pitched humming sound. It was time to cut the Zarlack’s massive arm, time to be free. It took much longer than he expected. The scales on the Zarlacks were almost metallic; it probably took a full minute to melt them all. But eventually the arm was separated from the lifeless body.

  Spiros threw the scalpel blade aside and used both arms to heave the severed limb off his chest and aside. At last he could finally breathe! He slowly regained composure and strength, enough to rise up and survey the wreckage. He almost slipped on the huge, wet mess all across the tiles. Dumfounded, he spent a moment planted on his ass, contemplating the dead Zarlack on the ground, wondering at his own survival.

  Finally he grabbed a medical scanner from the ground and performed a quick self-check. While he’d sustained injuries, it seemed none of them were life threatening at present. Now was as good a moment as any… So he leaned his back on the nearest wall and took a well-deserved nap.

  He awoke, and immediately verified at the terminal that the poison canisters had fully emptied. He then started ventilating and recycling oxygen for the entire station. It took a few minutes until the station’s computer gave the green light for air quality, and chirped confirmation that the poison contaminants had been fully flushed. He waited another few minutes to be sure, and then removed the mask from his face.

  Sweat poured from his face, finally free from the steamy mask. He got up as best as he could, though it took an incredible amount of effort and energy. He limped over to the nearest regeneration chamber, on the other side of the infirmary.

  When he arrived he waved his hand in front of the door control with an exhausted yawn, and it sprung open from the middle. He climbed in the chamber, toggling the control from inside to close the door, and the green control that would activate the regeneration sequence.

  Liquid filled the pod and entered his lungs. He’d never liked how the regen liquid felt. Though it provided the body with oxygen, it always felt weird and unnatural. But in his curren
t state he had no other choice; he needed to be back on his feet. As the light within the pod turned on and the machine started to hum, Spiros knew that he no longer needed to stay conscious. The machine would awaken him once it had finished healing his body, so he closed his eyes and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Sitting comfortably at his desk, Cedric lit the joint he’d just spent several carefree minutes rolling. While he knew being high could be detrimental to his productivity, he sometimes uncovered a new perspective when he was faced with difficult problems to solve.

  He took a long drag. His brain stretched and tumbled, finally reaching that familiar and peaceful place in his consciousness where daily problems faded away and possibilities opened up to him at the speed of light.

  After a few minutes, unorthodox thinking patterns and ideas started materializing a bit, so he went back to the encryption on the laptop to try anew. He had spent every single moment trying to crack it, but he had never seen something so strong. He was losing patience, and losing hope of ever decrypting the data on that machine. He needed something new, some kind of break.

  Then suddenly something happened. Cedric wasn’t sure what it was, but he saw a crack in the chain, something he could finally exploit. He typed on the keyboard at a furious pace, and spliced in stretches of code needed to run his new exploit. In less than five minutes he had assembled the full code sequence, compiled it, and finally ran it against the encrypted content.

  “Eureka!” he shouted out loud. At last, the familiar fruits of his own genius.

  The file started decoding, but since there seemed to be a sizeable quantity of data, he estimated that it would take him about twenty minutes to get all the data decrypted and ready to be checked. So he stretched and placed a cocky call to Ryonna, informing her of the good news and requesting she come by to check out the data.

  He took another drag on his joint and relaxed a little more, satisfied with a job well done. He had at the very least a few moments to celebrate victory, until Ryonna came to his office. But as he puffed away into the quiet computer glow, a rogue thought started to grow in the corner of his mind. This had been too easy. He’d been at it for hours with absolutely no results, nor even a hint that he was going the right direction, but then suddenly… But another long drag on the joint dulled any residual worry to rest, and settled the paranoia that was rising. He needed to remember to lighten up. He worked on enjoying the simple fact that he was just that brilliant in the first place. But soon the high crescendoed and his head rolled forward, and without realizing he fell asleep.

  When Ryonna shook him, he jumped clear out of the chair. It took a moment to get out of his foggy state.

  “Damn, I shouldn’t have smoke it that fast,” he said out loud.

  “What did you smoke? Why are your eyes so red? Should I call for medical assistance?” Ryonna asked with genuine concern in her voice.

  “No, no. No. I’m fine. I just didn’t expect to fall asleep. I’m sorry, my brain just needs a few moments to reboot.”

  Ryonna raised an eyebrow at the comment. Tar’Lock stood behind her with a dubious expression, sniffing repeatedly and peering around and trying to identify the source of the overwhelming smell.

  “Can we please look at what you have uncovered?” Ryonna interrupted the spectacle with some impatience.

  “Right,” said Cedric. He slapped his cheeks a couple of times to straighten his thought process, and mentally move back up to speed.

  Circling the glowing laptop screen, they all watched a small text box announcing that decryption was complete. Cedric quickly put a few lines of code in place to make sure that if the file contained malicious code, it would be quarantined within a memory sandbox. He also restricted write access to the file’s folder, to make sure the file would not self-delete upon access. A minute later he was sure that he’d taken all the basic security measures, and he finally opened the file.

  Two things jumped open, and sent a cold shiver down his spine. First, the name of the window that the opening of the file had generated—“Project Armageddon”—was scary enough by itself. But the most worrying part, the thing that truly made him change color—was the timer. A small visual on the right of the screen, it had quietly started counting down from sixty minutes the moment they’d begun.

  Seeing the alarmed expression on Cedric’s face, Ryonna interjected, “What? What is it?”

  “We may have a serious problem. If I’m reading this right, and I think I am, this file is not only schematics but also serves as a trigger for something else: something very nefarious.”

  “Could you be more specific? We’re dealing with acts of terrorism an awful lot lately. I’m sure their end game involves doing some sort of damage eventually,” proposed Tar’Lock, who had stayed silent until now.

  “You can say that again! I’m afraid the damage could be global. Give me a few more seconds.”

  He sifted through the schematics, piecing together an impromptu analysis. But the more he looked at them, the more he felt a sense of dread and urgency. Soon, the fear turned to utter terror.

  “This is schematics for a quadrinium-enhanced, portable bomb. Alone, it would probably destroy half a block if used in a city. There seem to be thirty such devices located all over the world. All located near either nuclear- or quadrinium-powered plants. If these devices blow, it could very well render this world uninhabitable for thousands of years. That is, if the sheer combined force of these synchronized detonations doesn’t set off a chain reaction. One that could very possibly destroy the entire planet.”

  “Well, it sure is a good thing you managed to decode this file first! Right?”

  “Except there’s a timer. And it’s ticking...” He pointed.

  “What? How long do we have?!”

  “Fifty-seven minutes and thirty-five seconds.”

  “And you’re sure opening the file triggered those particular devices?”

  “Let me double check.”

  The impending planetary doom sent a jolt of adrenaline through Cedric’s body. It was like nothing he ever felt before in his life. Whatever hazy high was left in his mind was obliterated by racing thoughts. He sifted lines of code and logs from within the sandbox.

  “I did put fail-safes around the file. I’m checking to see if they’ve succeeded in restricting communication with the outside world. After a few tense moments, a slight relief at a taskbar notification: All network communications had been stopped by the sandbox. Cedric permitted a slight exhale, seeing no data had been sent to the Internet.

  He did, however, curse himself for not simply disabling any of the devices such as wifi and Ethernet. He quickly sent the terminal commands to promptly do so. He also checked at the hardware level, to make sure they hadn’t been accessed at a lower level.

  That’s when his heart skipped another beat. An unknown device was listed under networking, and it was active and transmitting. He tried shutting it down but none of the commands were working. Moreover, he intuited that even had he managed to do so, the start of the timer was probably tied to the signal being initially sent.

  “We’re fucked!”

  “What? Explain!”

  “Even with my safeguards in place, I think we’ve triggered the timer on the devices. In fifty-five minutes, Earth might be obliterated.”

  “Why would the terrorists give us a one hour delay?”

  “Perhaps so whomever is responsible for this would have time to get off world. I doubt we’re dealing with suicidal maniacs... More like a vicious mind.”

  Cedric swallowed heavily. “It’s all my fault.”

  “Why would it be your fault?”

  “The encryption was way too strong to start with. All of a sudden I found an exploit, almost miraculously, but I now realize it must have been put there so we would trigger the program. If I hadn’t...” Cedric let the suspended sentence hover in the air. He didn’t have the strength to say the words. He was too ashamed that he’d b
een too high at a crucial moment, and that all the gravity of sensitive IT security matters might have been completely lost on him for that reason alone.

  “If you hadn’t what? Speak!”

  “It doesn’t matter why. We need to find a way to stop it. And/or, evacuate the planet!”

  Ryonna did not wait any longer. She immediately opened a channel to Admiral Thassos and appraised her of the situation. Cedric didn’t wait to hear how the conversation went; he had to try and think of a way to stop this.

  “I need access to the admiral’s ship computer, preferably the entire computational power of the fleet,” he begged Ryonna, who transmitted the request along.

  “She says you’ve got access via sub space channel seven, whatever that means.”

  “Thanks.”

  Cedric sprung away from his chair, opened a drawer in his desk and took out two circular devices which he placed at his temples.

  “What are you doing?” asked Tar’Lock.

  “No time to explain. These devices from R&D will allow me to work faster, as fast as I can think in fact. Pilots use them to pilot their ships. I’ve asked a pair to be modified so I could control my gear the same way, but just like 3D movies when they came out, they tend to give me a headache after a while. But I guess it won’t matter. If I’m not successful we’re doomed.” There was an awkward silence.

  “I see. Could you at least explain the basics of what you’re doing?”

  “Sure. I need to find a way to beam these explosive devices off Earth, NOW.” He turned to Ryonna, interrupting her conversation with the admiral with a crazy expression. “Tell her I also need a ship, like a frigate with a jump engine. It needs to be fully evacuated, and just as soon as possible.”

  He slowly turned to Tar’Lock, with a grave expression on his face.

  “What is it?” The insectoid tilted his head slightly.

  “I need you to do me a favor. It… might get you killed.”