“Surely you don’t believe that, Cole.”
“Me, personally? No. Of course not. I think we should be free and decide our own destiny. I’m just not sure people are ready for it in this world. We’ve gotten too complaisant as a species; we like whatever comfort we acquire. Still, the people of New Geneva will have to adapt to a new world now. The changes they’ll face in the morning will be drastic.”
I keep looking at the dark city below. The wind blows through my hair and Eleanor’s. I don’t really have time to take in the view but I feel in my heart that I need to. I need to fully be in that moment right now. For a few fleeting moments, nothing else matters, not the past, or the future . . . but to be here and now, free at last. The feeling warms my heart and uplifts my soul, and Tanya, as if knowing I need this, stays silent.
Eventually, minutes later, she speaks.
“Cole, if we want to be at the Rewind facility in time, we should probably go now.”
By “in time” she means “before it’s too late” to transfer my consciousness and hers as well. That’s something that needs to happen and it will, no matter what I need to do.
“I guess we have to.”
“What are you going to do when we get there?”
“It’s best not to think about it. But let’s say those who try to stop me probably won’t see the sunrise tomorrow.”
“And after that?”
“I don’t want to make plans for the future any more, Tanya. This brings nothing but pain and anxiety. Now all I want is to live every minute like it’s the last one and make sure I never ever again let any system, tyrant or liar tell me how my life should be. From now on, all I want from life is to be free to make my own choices, for better or for worse.”
THE END
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More from this author
The Universe in Flames saga (ongoing)
SciFi Space Opera series with Fantasy & Mythology elements
Book 1: Earth – Last Sanctuary (FREE)
Book 2: Fury to the Stars
Book 3: Destination Oblivion
Book 4: The Beginning of the End
Book 5: Rise of the Ultra Fury
A Novella: Ryonna’s Wrath
Every books in the saga except the first one (free) are exclusive Amazon, which means you can read them for FREE with Amazon Unlimited.
Earth – Last Sanctuary
“Forces of evil gather, empires are enslaved and alliances broken... One planet, one man, stands tall against the void, unwilling to let the universe be swallowed by darkness.“
EARTH – LAST SANCTUARY
Synopsis: When the evil Obsidian Empire delivers a deathblow against the Star Alliance, fighter pilot Lieutenant Chase Athanatos leads a band of scattered survivors to the farthest reaches of the known universe, to a little planet called Earth. But Earth is in trouble. The Obsidian Empire is hot on their trail, and unless they find a way to stop them, what’s left of the Alliance and the entire planet are doomed to extinction.
With the help of the beautiful Commander Sarah Kepler and under the guidance of the goddess of love Aphroditis, Chase races against time to find a way to save the planet from total annihilation.
Unbeknownst to him, something dormant is coursing through Chase's blood.
But does it hold the key to changing their destiny?
* * *
What to expect: Epic space battles & dogfights, large fleet battles, alien first contact, alien invasion, galactic empires, alien worlds, action, adventure, mythology, supernatural powers, friendship, survival, suspense and romance.
In the next pages you can read the book’s first two chapters.
UNIVERSE IN FLAMES
Volume I
Earth - Last Sanctuary
By Christian Kallias
Available on Amazon Kindle here
C H A P T E R
I
Chase looked at the display with unmasked satisfaction as the last red dot disappeared from his radar. The remaining pieces of the fighter he had just blown out of space came burning against his frontal shields, illuminating the cockpit with radiant blue light for a brief instant. He took the opportunity to make a quick systems check. His shields were still in the green, standing strong at eighty percent and recharging. He had only exhausted half of his missiles against the eleven kills he had made in the last twenty minutes of combat.
Not bad, he thought. Not bad at all...
The thought quickly died as the ship’s computer broke the triumphant silence. The computer spoke with a soft, sexy, female voice—probably way too sexy for a star fighter navicomputer designed mainly for dogfights. But this was an old Manticore Mark II model, which was equipped with outdated software. Chase had to admit, when it came to the voice, there were times when he didn’t mind.
“Multiple enemy targets on approach vector,” said AINI, the Artificially Intelligent Navicomputer Interface. The radar let out four successive, high-pitched beeps as each of the targets progressively appeared on the scope. They were flying in a standard square formation, one pair of fighters covering for the other.
The grin slowly faded from Chase’s face. A dogfight against four enemies with no wingman was not to be taken lightly, not if one wanted to live long enough to talk about the encounter. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to face such odds, but each time he had, it had cost him and his ship dearly. And here he’d hoped to bring the fighter back to bay with as few scratches as possible. Wishful thinking.
As the fighters approached, his mind raced over the different tactics that applied to such a situation. The academic ones as well as the crazy ones—those that most dogfight instructors would consider not only insane, but also directly against practically all the rules in the flight book. Standard by-the-book tactics would dictate prudence by trying to reduce the number of enemies from the first pass, allowing the pilot to concentrate on killing the next target while avoiding only a pair of bogies. A feat which in itself was far from easy. Chase’s main instructor and war hero, Admiral Tharowni, would say that a couple of missiles locked and fired at the exact moment bogies entered firing range had a ninety percent chance of scoring a kill, reducing the odds to three against one. Again, not easy, but statistically preferable to trying to engage in a dogfight while being pursued by three enemy vessels.
But Chase never fought thinking about the statistics or the odds. While he respected the wisdom in such a course of action, losing two out of his three remaining missiles so early in the fight was not something he was prepared to do, at least not today.
“Enemy craft entering firing range,” AINI purred with all the charm programmed into her vocal subroutines.
Time to make a decision. In only a few seconds, Chase’s fighter would be in a shower of enemy laser fire. He needed a plan.
“Let’s try something new, shall we?” he said aloud. This rhetorical banter was rather routine for him and his sensual computer. One-sided, but routine.
Three seconds later, heavy laser fire started to fall around his fighter’s canopy like red rain, oc
casionally igniting the shields. Pulling hard on the stick, the fighter effectively rolled and dodged, avoiding most of the damage. But his enemies were still closing on him at high velocity, firing all the while.
“Missile lock!” AINI sounded as alarmed as she could, humming with the familiar buzz that warned of imminent danger.
A slow smile spread up the side of Chase’s face. Time seemed to slow, then for a split second, it stopped altogether.
Now!
He released countermeasures and his fighter veered sharply and made a tight break to the right, still not firing a single shot. The incoming missile fell for it. The port shields received part of the incoming laser fire while the internal structure of the fighter moaned in disagreement over its rough handling. Clearly not designed to be subjected to a brutal ninety-degree break while at full afterburner speed, the ship made warning noises and lit a red LED light across the primary alarm panel. The ship’s inertial dampeners were clearly not made for this kind of abuse. As always, the dangerous creaking and flashing was accompanied by the silky vocal explanations of AINI.
“Structural integrity failure imminent,” she warned.
Unfortunately for the ship, in Chase’s mind “imminent” still meant that he had a couple more seconds. That was, coincidentally, all the time he needed. Once he pulled out of his break, the primary alarm LED turned from red to yellow. Automatic systems were redirecting power to structural integrity to compensate for the ship’s mistreatment. Soon, it would turn green as power would be siphoned off other systems like shields, guiding systems, weapons, and even life support.
A quick glance at the radar showed Chase that his maneuver had gone exactly as planned, forcing the quartet of ships to break hard left to follow him and take position at his six o’clock. He could almost see his instructors holding their heads in their hands; such a display would most certainly be defined as “reckless flying.” He brushed the thought away and shook his head to clear it. He would need perfect concentration if he intended to leave this dogfight as something more than a floating pile of space rubble.
Streaks of laser fire passed by his canopy again, but this time from behind and, while many of the hits reduced the aft shields, he still thought that this tactic, however highly dangerous, would pay off. He squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. He was about to find out.
“AINI, prepare to execute maneuver Theta-4 on my mark.”
“Loaded and ready,” she answered almost instantly.
“NOW!”
The next instant, AINI killed the afterburners and engaged the reverse thrusters while simultaneously boosting their power by redirecting ninety percent of every other system’s power into them, leaving the ship with minimal shielding for just a few milliseconds. Chase sucked in a deep breath. If the enemy had anticipated such a maneuver, those milliseconds would no doubt mean the end of him. But sure enough, the fighters were caught completely off guard and sailed past him like shooting stars into the quiet night.
Once AINI’s sensors detected that the targets had passed by, she automatically re-balanced the power, redistributing it equally between two main systems: forward engines and weapons. The Theta-4 maneuver was programmed to stay in this distributed power scheme for ten seconds. More than enough time for Chase to rain deadly supercharged firepower upon his foes, effectively draining their aft shields while they undoubtedly tried to understand what had just happened to them. After a few seconds of showering a full spread of laser fire, he quickly selected the two enemy fighters that had lost more than half their shields and locked onto them with a missile each. When AINI acknowledged the locks, he simultaneously fired the missiles and turned quickly on the third craft’s vector, the one which had its aft shield at the minimum. Chase aligned his vessel perfectly to his foe, not letting it breathe. Each of its attempts to dodge were carefully anticipated and compensated for. There was no escape. Its structural integrity started to decrease rapidly and most of his laser shots were now scoring holes in its metal armor, leaving a trail of sparks and chunks of metal in its wake. A few seconds later, it finally exploded in a bright fireball.
One down, thought Chase.
He glanced at the rest of the ships just in time to see the first missile reach its target, effectively tearing a port wing to shreds and sending the craft into a twirl before it detonated brightly. Chase couldn’t help but crack a smile.
Bold maneuvers. Worked every time.
The second missile-locked fighter launched a decoy and the missile fell for it, but its late deployment still weakened its shields and caused enough damage to effectively remove it from the fight for a few moments as the pilot broke off to recharge. Glancing at the radar to find the fourth fighter, Chase was rewarded with a spread of fire on his port-side shield. He pulled hard on the stick while cutting its velocity by half, allowing the enemy to pass him by and using the momentum of this last attack to reposition his fighter back into the hunter’s position.
“Port shields failing,” AINI advised.
“Dammit!” he swore. One more hit on this side of his craft and he was history.
He quickly checked the status of the damaged fighter only to swear again as he realized that it was already back on course. Two to one, and he was in bad shape. He had to act fast. The only good news was that his maneuver to place himself behind the only undamaged fighter had been a success. He started showering it with all the laser fire he could, hitting it many times on its aft shield. But it wasn’t enough to get it out of the sky before the second ship would reach him.
An almost Zen-like state came over Chase as he considered his options. He had still one missile left, but he knew that firing it meant using his final ace. As he deliberated, he saw the vessel in front of him effectively spinning around, avoiding his lasers and keeping its shields up despite being in the red. Chase had no doubt that the pilot had redirected every ounce of energy to keep his shields up, probably even cutting life support. A risky strategy, but it had worked; it bought him enough time for his wingman to rejoin the fight.
The situation was beginning to grow dire. Chase wondered if the standard by-the-book tactics wouldn’t have been wiser, but he quickly disregarded the thought. He’d made his decision, now he had to blow up two fighters. Such was life.
“Missile lock!” AINI cooed, displaying two missiles advancing quickly on his position.
“Looks like this guy doesn’t want to see if I have any more tricks up my sleeve, now does he?”
Sometimes Chase wished AINI’s programming extended to sarcasm. In moments like this, her silence twisted his stomach.
“Launch countermeasures on my mark.” He pushed his stick to the left, a little more, and a little more, before shouting “Mark!” as he performed a hundred-and-eighty-degree spin. Then he double clicked his afterburner, activating a fifty-percent power boost transfer from other systems. One of the missiles scored the decoys and, as Chase had predicted, his spin took him far enough away to avoid any critical damage from the blast. However, he no longer had any side shields, as the starboard ones had failed upon the missile’s detonation.
Nervously glancing at the radar for the last missile’s position and trajectory, he suddenly smiled as he saw that he still had a few seconds to complete his plan. With quick fingers, he soothed his lasers from rapid fire to concentrated beams. He only had one shot at this, and it had to be enough. His instincts took over as he aligned himself perfectly behind his foe’s engines and fired. The concentrated beams scored multiple hits, knocking out the remaining vessel’s aft shields and disabling one of its engines. As it struggled to recover, Chase passed quickly by and broke hard on the right. The last missile still on his back adjusted course only to find Chase’s crippled foe right in its trajectory. With a screeching rip, it tore through metal like paper and the ship exploded in a million pieces.
“Three down, one more to go!” Chase shouted in triumph.
And one missile left. Perfect. Just like he’d planned.
With a fierce concentration that came from years of fighting, Chase locked on the last enemy craft with his final missile and fired away. At the same time, he continued blasting away with his lasers, delivering a concentrated burst of fire at the precise moment the missile made contact. A blazing explosion sent it straight to hell, leaving pieces of debris and a sudden silence in its wake.
“Phew, that was too close a call…” Chase murmured to himself, glancing at his ship’s status. But he couldn’t help but be proud.
He had succeeded in eliminating all four enemy craft without compromising his own ship’s armor. The only damage was to the shields and they were already recharging. He clicked a few buttons and looked at the fight’s statistical display: a more than satisfactory sixty-seven percent laser hit ratio and a total fight time of two minutes forty-two seconds. That had to be a new record for this kind of fight.
“Hey AINI,” he smirked, “looks like we just made heist—”
“Multiple inbound system jumps detected.”
The words echoed in Chase’s mind but, before he had time to process them, there was more.
“Enemy vessels on approach vector.”
“You have GOT to be kidding me!”
A series of high-pitched beeps answered back from the radar. No less than six foes, two of which were highly shielded corvettes. Way too much firepower for a ship even twice as solid as his was now. His beauty had seen better days, and that was before dispatching fifteen enemy vessels.
He quickly glanced at a map readout and keyed jump coordinates as fast as he could, only to be rewarded by another vocal alarm.
Rewind 717: The Adventures of Time Traveler Anti-Terrorist Agent Cole Seeker Page 21