Shadows of Olympus (Universe in Flames Book 6)

by Christian Kallias

  Saroudis looked down. “Almost all of it,” he said absently, still digesting the revelation. “I think I understand what you mean.”

  * * *

  Sarah brought about the Hope to open fire on the Zarlack destroyer.

  “Lock onto that destroyer and fire our main guns,” she ordered.

  “It’s accelerating at maximum sub-light thrust, which means we only have time for one shot. It’s not gonna be enough to bring their shields down unless we use the maximum firing mode, but that will leave us dead in the water for sixty seconds.”

  Sarah knew all that, and time was of the essence. If they fired the super-charged shot of their Damocles canon, they would end up too exposed.

  “I can’t take that chance, Daniel. Fire the main weapons at nominal charge as well as all the torpedoes currently loaded in their tubes. Perhaps it will get the Zarlacks to change course.”

  “Firing now, Captain.”

  The Hope fired its devastating, high-powered plasma beam at the Zarlack destroyer just within firing range. It drained their shields more than Daniel thought it would and brought them down to thirty percent. The torpedoes were much slower, even if their range was better. It would take thirty seconds for them to reach their target.

  “Something’s happening,” said Daniel.

  “What is it?”

  “They’re deploying fighters, vectoring towards our torpedoes.”

  “They’re sacrificing them to make sure they don’t get destroyed.”

  “That would be my guess as well, Sarah.”

  Sarah swore.

  She wanted nothing more than to follow them and kill the Fury that almost cost Chase’s life. She couldn’t risk the ship or their lives. But what if the Furies wanted to broker an alliance with the Asgardians too? Or, worse, decimate them?

  Yet, that didn’t make sense. They’d only sent one ship. So it meant they were after something specific. Whatever it was, it must have been important if they sent Miseo to supervise this mission.

  The Zarlack destroyer was hit by more yellow energy but it didn’t bring their shields down. The destroyer positioned itself to cover its fighters from the incoming freezing weapon.

  “Torpedoes locking on targets,” said Daniel.

  The fighters managed to shoot down half the torpedoes while others exploded against remaining fighters. Some took fire from the unknown energy beam and were enclosed in the resin-like material, just like Chris’ StarFury.

  Only a single torpedo found its intended target and brought the Zarlack ship’s shields down another seven percent.

  “They’re out of range now,” said Daniel.

  “Dammit,” exclaimed Sarah.

  Should Sarah have fired the supercharged primary weapon? No need to blame herself now. It was done and she couldn’t change the past.

  “For what’s it worth,” said Daniel, “I’m glad you haven’t tried firing the main guns at supercharge power, Captain. Sixty seconds is a long time to be defenseless when there’s an unknown enemy out there that can turn us into resin statues for all eternity.”

  Daniel’s words eased her conscience somewhat, but she still worried that what the Furies were after could be very important. They might have missed their window of opportunity for getting their hands on it.

  She opened a channel to engineering.

  “Yanis, please tell me—”

  He cut her short. “I’ve got sensor data of the impact of the unknown weapon on the Zarlack shields. We’re already working on analyzing the data to see if we can replicate their tech and modify the Hope’s shields to also be impervious to that weapon, Captain.”

  Of course he was. Yanis was always one step ahead of his captain’s demands. He knew what was at stake better than anyone and, since his sister had passed, he had redoubled his efforts to find new technologies to give the Alliance an advantage in this war. Sarah knew that deep down he was doing that to avenge her death. She could understand that.

  “Thanks, Yanis. Keep us posted of your progress.”

  “Will do. Yanis out.”

  C H A P T E R

  XIII

  Zeus frowned his silvery eyebrows when Chase reached towards his face. He instinctively pulled away.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you, Zeus, I give you my word. But for me to show you my memories, I need physical contact.”

  Chase saw he was considering it.

  “Very well, but not here” said Zeus after a moment. “Follow me.”

  Chase followed Zeus out of the main temple’s chambers into a corridor that lead to another smaller room. It was as luxurious as the rest of the temple. Chase recognized a statue in one of the corners of the room. It was Aphroditis. It made Chase’s heart sting.

  “You can show me now,” said Zeus.

  Chase put two fingers on Zeus’ forehead. Zeus closed his eyes. Chase sent him as many relevant memories as he had of Aphroditis. Her plea to have him help Earth, her willingness to enter the machine that brought back the Furies from their eternal prison. Even her last vision when she made him swear he wouldn’t attempt to get her out of the machine.

  When Zeus’ eyes opened, they were watery.

  Chase’s voice was warm but determined. “I take full responsibility for my mistakes, and I’m so sorry about the torment your daughter is suffering because of me. I can’t change that, but I promise to try to get her out of there. But we need to defeat the Furies. I have given her my word and I intend to keep that promise.”

  “And you think if we ally ourselves with you, we can destroy the Furies once and for all?”

  Chase nodded. “Yes. I’m sure you have a lot of technology that could help us as well.”

  “Our technology is advanced, but it is also old, Fury.”

  Chase cringed at Zeus calling him Fury. While he knew very well that he was one, he shared very little with their kind. It was derogatory, but for the sake of diplomacy, Chase decided to ignore it.

  “Aren’t you the ones who designed the device?”

  “It was a team effort, between many races, some of which are now extinct. The Asgar—” Zeus paused. “The Asgardians also participated. In fact, it was one of their most progressive inventors that helped design the final parts to make the machine work as intended, against his government’s wishes, I might add.”

  “The Asgardians didn’t want the machine to work?”

  “Not exactly. They wanted the machine to destroy the parallel universe to which the machine would send the Furies. I didn’t want that to happen.”

  “I can understand that. Who knows how many more civilizations you could have destroyed in the process?”

  “You give me too much credit, Fury. My reasons were much more selfish. I simply didn’t want all Furies to die.”

  “That’s still a noble sentiment.”

  Zeus shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “Nobody knows this, and I’m not sure anyone should.”

  “And yet it seems to be eating at you. Perhaps if you unburdened yourself you’d feel better.”

  Zeus turned his back on Chase for a moment and stayed silent. Chase didn’t know what to do. He had finally managed to make Zeus talk. His initial view of Zeus as a childish, immature ruler was slowly fading away. There seemed to be a heavy weight on the Olympian’s shoulders. Chase didn’t know what it was, but he recognized the pain and strain. Whatever secret Zeus was keeping to himself it was eating at him.

  “If it makes any difference, I can promise not to share what you tell me with anyone.”

  Zeus turned around. A tear had traveled down his face. “I . . . I loved a Fury female. In fact, my love affair with Arakan’s wife is the reason the first Fury war escalated as it did.”

  Chase’s jaw dropped. “I’m having difficulty believing that your love for a Fury woman made things the way they are now.”

  “And yet we had managed to negotiate a cease-fire. I had been invited personally to m
eet with Arakan on a neutral world. The Furies’ thirst for power was already very strong, but our alliance was stronger in numbers, even if the Fury technology was superior to our own. When they had lost more than half their fleet in less than a year and when most of our engagements resulted in their defeat, they were open to a peaceful, if only temporary, resolution.

  “That’s when I met her. She took my breath away. I had no idea she was the supreme commander’s wife. All I saw was her incredible beauty and a soul burning with passion and fire. Before I realized what I had done, she was pregnant with my child.”

  Chase swallowed, trying to digest the enormity of Zeus’ confession.

  “I knew very well that the Furies were using the cease-fire just to buy time to rebuild their fleet. They are a race bred for war. They only thrive through conflict and, no matter how much they have tried in the past, they can’t contain the eternal rage that consumes their souls. It’s in their blood, the need to fight, the need to kill.”

  That resonated heavily with Chase. When he first discovered his powers he was scared of how much hatred was burning inside his soul. Was that due to his blood heritage? Would this always be the case, no matter how far he had come? He could control this rage now, use its destructive power to do good. But, ultimately, could that rage one day overcome his control and, if so, could he become the very evil he was trying to stop?

  The thought sent a cascade of shivers down his spine.

  “I . . . I think I know what you’re saying. I have felt this anger myself. First-hand. Your daughter Aphroditis and your son Ares helped me gain control of this power and use it in a good way. Perhaps if I can, other Furies can too.”

  “I honestly don’t care if Furies can become better. Back then I just didn’t want to kill the woman I still love to this day, nor her daughter. Since I failed in rescuing her, our daughter is all I have left of her.”

  “I don’t follow?”

  “When Arakan learned of his wife’s affair with me years later, he had her tortured and killed. He sent her back to me one piece at a time. That’s when the cease-fire faltered. It sent me into a mad quest for revenge, one that I fear I’m not yet fully done with.”

  More tears appeared on Zeus’ face.

  “Is that why you reacted the way you did when we arrived?”

  “Understand something, Chase. Any Fury reminds me of what I have lost, as well as what my actions brought this universe to. When the Asgardians told me they had found a way to send them into an alternate dimension and then destroy that dimension, I considered it. I liked the idea of hiding my failure under a rug along the way. But I was not ready to get rid of the one thing I had left from Zalara.”

  “Zalara. That would be Arakan’s . . .” Chase didn’t have the heart to add the word wife at the end of his sentence.

  “Yes. She may have been his wife, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t also everything to me. You see, I’ve had many lovers and many children with both mortal and immortal beings. I’ve never really been a one-woman guy. But Zalara, she was different. She was the one. She understood me like no one else ever had. When I lost her, I lost the better part of my own soul.”

  Chase felt deeply saddened for Zeus. He had this love for Sarah. He could feel it in every molecule of his body. She was the one. And when he had thought he had lost her, by his own hand at that, it had consumed him. Just as Zeus was being consumed by his own loss, still suffering the consequences ten thousand years later.

  Was that what Chase had to look forward to? After all, Sarah was a mortal. Both of them risked their lives on a daily basis. And even if they managed to defeat the Furies once and for all, one day she would simply die. Chase, on the other hand, unless he was mortally wounded, would probably live forever.

  Chase put his hand on Zeus’ shoulder. “I’m sorry for your pain.”

  “I don’t need your pity, Chase. No matter what happens now, the damage is done. I would give anything to have her in my arms once more. If only Ares . . .”

  But then Zeus stopped mid-sentence.

  “What? What did Ares do?”

  “I had tasked him to infiltrate the Fury homeworld and get Zalara out of there and bring her back to me on Olympus before Oryn was born.”

  “He never told me that.”

  “I erased a good portion of my son’s memories. After he failed his mission.”

  “Is that the real reason behind his banishment?”

  Zeus nodded.

  “Are you responsible for his current state? He’s no longer able to control his powers and he loses energy at an alarming rate. Me and my son have been boosting his levels, but over time we won’t be able to keep up with his energy requirements.”

  “Yes. I’ve never forgiven my son for failing his mission. Not only did he fail, but he sent someone else in his stead. So when I felt his presence in my temple not long ago, it awoke all that pain inside me that I thought was long gone.”

  “Had you told him who Zalara was?”

  “No.”

  “Then, I’m sorry, but while you can blame him for failing his objective, you can’t blame him for not knowing what was at stake. If he had known how important the mission was for you, he would not have sent someone else to do the job.”

  Zeus gave a deep frown. Chase thought he would get mad again, but soon the sorrow returned to Zeus’ face.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I don’t mean any disrespect,” said Chase, “but I think you’ve been holding grudges and suffering from this for far too long. It has clouded your judgment. This anger, this rage you seem to harbor with the entire outside world . . . You must know by now that most of it is actually directed towards yourself.”

  Chase knew this was a risky proposition. But having come this far and finally opened a dialogue he felt it was necessary for Zeus to break the abscess that was paralyzing his thoughts and clouding his judgment. Perhaps his unwillingness to deal with his own demons was why he didn’t want to hear of an alliance.

  Chase understood that Zeus didn’t want the rest of the world to know about his private business. In fact, he was surprised that Zeus had told him any of it. Perhaps seeing Aphroditis suffer horribly had brought enough of his own pain and memories to the surface for him to start dealing with it. Chase could only hope this would turn in their favor.

  As much as Chase could empathize with Zeus’ pain, the fact remained that Zeus was responsible for most of what had unfolded up until now. He would not tell him directly, as he feared that would send Zeus into another fit of rage, but they needed to find a way to fix this mess.

  “Tell me more about the broken alliance back then.”

  “I managed to convince Kvasir, the Asgardians’ craziest but quite ingenious inventor, to modify the machine to make sure that the dimension in which the Furies were sent didn’t collapse on its own. Instead they were mostly trapped in time. There was a side effect, though. Even though time seemed to advance much more slowly in the other dimension, the Furies were trapped inside their own minds and felt the passing of the centuries just the same.”

  “And where can we find this Kvasir now?”

  “He was banished from the Asgardian homeworld to a colony not very far from the center of this galaxy.”

  “Are Asgardians immortal too?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long has he been there?”

  “Since the last Fury war.”

  “Can’t he simply escape, if he is such a talented inventor?”

  “The Asgardians have protected the area where his planetoid prison is located with a terrible weapon. Any vessel that approaches the area is automatically shot upon and frozen in space and time for all eternity.”

  “Frozen?”

  “The weapon uses a frequency that stops all atomic movement. It’s a kind of absolute-zero cannon.”

  “And the Asgardians have this technology?”

  “They do, but they decided long ago not to use it, except to keep Kvasir from escaping his b
anishment.”

  “Why? They could have annihilated the Furies with that weapon, couldn’t they?”

  “Maybe. The power requirements are off the scale, though, and the technology had some issues. Many vessels equipped with the portable version of the cannon were lost. After that the Asgardians discontinued its use.”

  “Can I have the coordinates to Kvasir’s planetoid, please?”

  Zeus nodded.

  “Can you please also stop what you’re doing to Ares? I’m sure if you told him the truth, as you have told me, he would understand better why you hate him. You two could mend fences.”

  “No. You’ve promised to keep your word.”

  “And I will keep my promise. Now, can we discuss an alliance?”

  “You have to understand something, Chase. I’m still unwilling to kill my daughter.”

  “What if we got her for you? Would you then join our Alliance and destroy the Furies once and for all?”

  “Keep talking.”

  “I’m sure I can get to her. Perhaps she will be easily convinced. Does she know she’s your daughter?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “Are you giving me permission to divulge only that part of the story to her? Perhaps if she knew Arakan killed her mother because of her love for you, she might become an ally.”

  Zeus pondered Chase’s words. “Very well. We have a deal.”

  * * *

  Ryonna stood on top of Argos’ Zarlack commander, one foot on his rib cage, while her gun was squarely pointed at his head, her hand slightly trembling. Blood from her many injuries spilled on the floor as though from a broken faucet.

  “Next time your superior gives you an order via an encrypted, genuine holo-message, you’d better follow it,” she barked.

  What the guard she had interrogated earlier had failed to mention was that one of the commander’s guard was a Fury. It took Ryonna and the soldiers their coordinated effort to bring him down. At great sacrifice. More than seven soldiers had lost their lives and the battle bots had been damaged beyond repair.

  Ryonna stood with a murderous look burning in her eyes. She had to force herself not to blow a fist-sized blaster hole between the Zarlack commander’s eyes.