Twilight of the Gods (Universe in Flames Book 8)

by Christian Kallias

  When Zeus didn’t say anything for a few minutes, she decided to open the conversation.

  “I thought you wanted to talk to me.”

  “I do. I’m just not sure where to start, and you seem to be enjoying your surroundings. I didn’t want to interrupt that.”

  “It is a beautiful place. In fact, I don’t remember seeing anything quite like it, not even on holo-vids of worlds to be conquered.”

  “Life teems in harmony here. There are no dangers, no evil; just the elements, balance and love.”

  Oryn flinched at the mention of love. It wasn’t an emotion she was accustomed to. She remembered it from when her mother was still alive, even though she was just a toddler. Back then she felt loved. But growing up with Arakan had been a tough experience.

  She didn’t want to disappoint him, so she’d trained twice as hard as any other child, climbed the Fury ranks with honor and tried to make him proud. Now that she knew the truth about Arakan torturing and murdering her mother, she felt sick inside by the realization she’d spent her life so far fighting for all the wrong reasons. Now, more than ever before, she was driven by a thirst for revenge upon those who had been responsible for the death of her mother. Never in a million years would she have guessed her so-called Father was the real enemy.

  “Are you alright, dear?” said Zeus. “I sense your thoughts are troubled all of a sudden.”

  Oryn took a deep breath, trying to put aside her wrath for now. “Tell me about my mother.”

  “She was the most beautiful living creature in the universe. Her heart was pure and her soul radiated like a thousand suns. I miss her dearly,” said Zeus unable to prevent a tear from rolling down his cheek.

  “I only have a few memories of her. She was kind and lovable to me. That much I remember.”

  “You were just a small infant, I’m so sorry you never had the chance to truly know how wonderful your mother was.”

  “But then she was married to that monster.”

  “You know as well as I do that Furies mating and wedding rituals don’t always have anything to do with love.”

  “Yeah, we match ourselves on genetic attributes and power levels, so that the next generation of Furies will be more powerful still. I’ve always been led to believe this was smart. But now—”

  “A world without love means nothing. And Furies have forsaken the emotion early in their development. Their thirst for power and conquest took over quickly. Which is why we had to stop them.”

  “Yet, you didn’t kill them when you had the chance.”

  “I couldn’t risk you being a casualty of that war. You’re the last thing I have from Zalara. I would give my life to make sure you live.”

  Oryn felt uncomfortable hearing the words. She wasn’t used to displays of affection. She had been taught that to have compassion is to be weak. And while she saw the world with different eyes now, she still had perfect control over her own feelings, like every good elite Fury soldier. Emotions were the enemy, or so they had been trained.

  Oryn attempted to smile but it fell flat.

  “Would you tell me how the two of you met?”

  “Of course.”

  Zeus recounted the tale of his meeting with Zalara during the first Fury War while they kept walking farther and farther away from the temple.

  DANIEL SAW the three missiles leave the nearest Fury starfighter and approach his position. He tried pressing on his controls but nothing worked. His ship was dead in the water. Even the ejection control was dead.

  I can’t believe this! If I survive this, I’ll kick Yanis’ ass so bad he won’t be able to sit for an entire year.

  Members of his wing redeployed around him when they understood something was wrong. Since the comms were down, he couldn’t hear them or dispatch orders. They took down the first volley of missiles and engaged the bogies.

  Thank you, guys.

  All alone in his cockpit, without any light except from the explosions and laser fire outside, Daniel felt alone in the universe. A sensation of tremendous abandonment reminded him of what he had lost.

  Saroudis came to mind for a brief instant, but was soon replaced by a memory of a smiling Fillio. She had always been dark and sad at the core, and while she had smiled from time to time, Daniel always wondered if these smiles were genuine, or a defense mechanism she had unconsciously created to deal with her own grief.

  Daniel was ripped from his reveries when three laser shots impacted the side of his StarFury’s canopy. The last one slightly cracking part of the reinforced glass.

  “Fuck!”

  Daniel could see three more missile trails in the distance and the bogies vectoring on his disabled starfighter.

  Chase or Ares! If either of you can hear me, now would be a really good time to get me the hell out of here!

  Two of the three missiles were promptly destroyed by members of Alpha team, but the third one escaped the barrage of defensive laser fire the squadron unleashed in order to protect their wing commander.

  Daniel felt his heart rapidly beating inside his chest. With shields down, his StarFury wouldn’t survive the impact of a single missile. He felt as if time crawled down to a near stop as he had a good visual on the missile approaching his position. In a few seconds, it would all be over.

  He wondered if he should close his eyes for his last moments but felt compelled to watch the missile as it approached. Another laser hit his StarFury, making the whole ship rock. Daniel thought it was the end but the missile was still a few hundred yards away.

  Time seemed to resume its normal pace and he mentally braced himself for impact when a StarFury passed in front of his field of view and intercepted the missile that would have claimed his life.

  Daniel exhaled deeply. Thanks, guys.

  The StarFury that got hit spun wildly and eventually recovered, but smoke trailed from one of its engines.

  More enemy ships converged toward Daniel’s position and Beta Squadron engaged them furiously. Daniel knew they wouldn’t be able to sustain this for much longer, especially since their main target was to protect him. The ship that had saved his life was the first to get destroyed, causing dread to grow in the pit of his stomach.

  “Get the hell out of here, fight the enemy, but don’t all die here to save me! That’s an order, dammit!”

  But no one could hear him. Daniel’s frustration got interrupted when lights on his StarFury came back to life, quickly followed by the roar of his engines. The next thing that came back online was his mental HUD. Daniel punched it and started moving it again.

  “This is Kvasir. I think I’ve managed to restore your system, Commander. Can you confirm you’re okay?”

  “About fucking time!” screamed Daniel. He realized that his outburst was insensitive. “Sorry about that, Kvasir; thanks for saving my hide. Tell Yanis I’m going to kick his ass royally when I make it back to the Hope.”

  ON BOARD the bridge of the Droxian battle destroyer Manticora, Ronan got catapulted away from his weapon’s console and crashed to the ground as a volley of Fury torpedoes hit the ship hard.

  After his promotion, he had been transferred to the ship as a weapon’s officer after his former ship, the Phoenix, had been destroyed in the attempt to kill Miseo the first time the Furies attacked Droxia.

  A nearby officer came and kneeled next to him.

  “Commander Isch’ys, are you alright?”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, just check on the captain.”

  The Droxian lieutenant commander rose back to his feet and looked toward the captain’s chair when horror filled his face.

  Ronan was still in the process of getting back up when he saw his colleague’s expression, before the Droxian’s head got briefly engulfed in flames and then exploded. Brain parts and purple blood spilled all over Ronan’s face. He instinctively swiped them off.

  Before Ronan could look around he heard many of the bridge crew shout and scream. Adrenaline rushed inside his body and he in
tuitively rolled to the side to take cover behind his console. He peeked through and that’s when he saw her.

  A single Fury warrior had boarded and she was killing the crew one by one. The captain was lying on the ground, unconscious.

  Dammit!

  Ronan’s first instinct was to go for his sidearm but it wasn’t there. He looked around and saw the pistol laser a few yards away from where he was. Droxians were trained to face any foe dead on, but some of the most experienced officers had already been incinerated by this Fury. She had long dark blue hair, and her eyes glowed a bright red.

  His heartbeat accelerated to the maximum. This was no time for heroics. If he disclosed his location, she would just kill him with one of her fireballs.

  Damn these fucking Furies! What a dishonorable and cowardly race!

  But that didn’t mean that Ronan would lie down and wait for death. His mother had raised him better than this, but she had also taught him to use his head in any situation. That was what made a great warrior, she had told him: to know how to use any situation to one’s own advantage.

  Two more crew members rushed to try and neutralize the Fury. The first one, a strong tall female with similar red braided hair to Ronan’s mother, ended up with a head-sized hole in the middle of her chest before falling dead on the cold hard floor, smoke rising from her carcass.

  Rage coursed through Ronan’s veins. He wanted the head of that warrior, but he knew that without some kind of advantage, or at least the element of surprise, he would end up dead just like his colleagues.

  The second Droxian warrior rolled to the side to dodge the Fury’s next fireball attack and managed to leap into the air and strike a deadly knee strike to the Fury’s face. Her dark blue hair got thrown backward from the impact, but her face didn’t budge.

  Her eyes glowed stronger and she catapulted the Droxian warrior with a powerful shockwave. Before the Droxian hit the floor, the Fury warrior joined both her fists at wrist level and quickly slashed open her palms forward. The resulting invisible attack was deadly beyond anything Ronan thought it could be. The Droxian still in mid-air got spliced in two.

  A great sense of dread invaded Ronan. He would go down fighting, but he had to come up with a plan, and find an opportunity to get out of the bridge first.

  Perhaps a distraction.

  He started looking inside his pockets for something to throw in the opposite direction, and hopefully outrun the Fury. There was nothing in his pants pockets, nor did he find anything in his upper uniform jacket, but when he removed his hand from the second inner pocket, he felt his pendant on the inside of his hand.

  Of course!

  He took the pendant from under his shirt and looked at it. It was the subspace transmitter his mother wanted him to wear at all times. He activated it. He had no idea if Ryonna was anywhere near to make a difference, but if her friend Chase was, he could definitely help. At this juncture, it was not like Ronan had anything to lose anyway.

  WHEN RYONNA’S wrist started vibrating she jumped out of her bunk bed with such volition, it scared the shit out of Tar’Lock who fell from the upper bunk bed and clicked nervously before regaining his balance and landing on his feet.

  “What is it?”

  “Ronan is in trouble!”

  “I thought he wasn’t in this part of space.”

  “So did I, obviously I was wrong. We need to go help him.”

  “Sure, but first we must locate him.”

  Ryonna rushed toward their rooms console and linked her wrist computer with the holo-console. After a few seconds, a 3D projected holo-map of the battle filled most of their quarters.

  She pointed toward an orange blinking Droxian destroyer, “There! That’s where he is.”

  “Let’s call Chase,” said Tar’Lock.

  Ryonna nodded and opened a channel to the bridge.

  “I need to speak to Chase,” she said, without waiting to see who would answer her call.

  “Sarah here, what’s wrong Ryonna? Chase is on the surface of the planet with my son and Argos.”

  “Damn! My son’s in trouble, I need to get to his ship now. Is Ares around?”

  “Haven’t seen him but I think he is on the ship, yes.”

  “Can you contact him with your Fury genes?”

  “I can try. Hang on—”

  The next few seconds were excruciatingly long and felt like an eternity to Ryonna. Her heart banged against her chest so hard that she thought it would burst through her ribcage and be set free.

  A golden glow appeared.

  “Not sure if that did it,” said Sarah. “But I tried to—”

  “It worked,” said Ryonna not letting Sarah finish her sentence. “Thanks Sarah, I owe you one.”

  “No, you don’t. Go help your son. Would you like me to send backup with you?”

  Ryonna thought about it, but human soldiers would only slow her down.

  “Nope, let’s keep them as a backup if needed, but I could use some weapons.”

  “Take anything you need. And Ryonna?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be careful, will you?”

  “No promises.”

  Ares materialized in front of Ryonna and Tar’Lock.

  “Need a lift?”

  “Yes, but first we need to make a quick stop at the armory.” She looked at her insectoid friend, “Tar’Lock, wake Keera up; she’s coming with us.”

  6

  Argos got back up and wiped some blood from his face onto the back of his hand. “Bastard! This asshole is mine,” he said pointing a finger at Chase. “Understood?”

  “We should focus on finding a way to negate their invisibility shield—”

  But Argos wasn’t listening; he was too pissed off for having tasted dust so early in the fight.

  “You do that, and I’ll bring them down.”

  Chase shook his head but could not help but smile. At least he was on their side now, and Chase would take these odd quirks any day over the old evil-driven Argos.

  “Chris, if you need to locate the Furies, you can try closing your eyes and sensing their energy. It might take you a while to get used to it, but it’s actually good training to be able to fight without depending too much on your sight. Eventually, it will become second nature, and you can do it with your eyes open too.”

  Chris flashed Chase a thumbs up. “I’ve already tried that technique a little bit in the training room, focusing on finding the battle bots’ energy signature and fighting them blindly. Shouldn’t be much different.”

  It gave Chase immense pride seeing how Chris was developing into a very capable fighter mostly on his own. He wished he had more time so they could do father and son training sessions but the universe seldom provided them time for any of this lately. One day though…perhaps they would be able to train together side by side whenever they wanted to.

  Chase got out of his mental reverie when he felt four fireballs home in on his position from behind. He focused on all four and detonated them in mid-air with a single thought.

  Show off, said Chris in his mind.

  That too is a good exercise to practice, but I’d rather you didn’t do it today but in the training room first.

  Understood.

  Chase’s mind locked onto the Fury’s signature as his enemy stealthily approached. Or so he thought. He teleported in his wake and landed a powerful knee strike in the Fury’s stomach. He pushed his element of surprise and unleashed twenty small fireballs on his foe to test a theory.

  As they impacted with the Fury warrior, the stealth shield kept fluctuating, and Chase focused on isolating the piece of hardware on the armor of their enemies. By the tenth impact he located the energy signature of the hardware responsible for the stealth shield and reached to it with his mind.

  He had to teleport away to dodge another attack from a different Fury. Once he was out of range from that second warrior, he pushed with his mind to overload the stealth generator on his first target.

  A
small explosion happened yards away and the stealth shield dropped, to the surprise of the Fury warrior, now fully visible. Argos didn’t wait and launched himself toward Chase’s prey.

  How did you do that? asked Argos telepathically.

  I have an affinity with machines, as you know. I focused on finding its energy source on the Furies’ armor, which is on their belts by the way, and overloaded it.

  Impressive. Keep doing that for the others, and I’ll take care of sending them straight to hell.

  Their energy signatures are pretty strong, be careful.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you actually care about me.

  Chase smiled. While he wouldn’t admit to it out loud, he did care about Argos, more than he thought he ever would, in fact. It felt good to be fighting with his brother side by side.

  Argos engaged the Fury and unleashed a series of combos and fireballs toward the warrior, who responded in kind. They were evenly matched and Chase decided to focus on the other warriors. It was time to rob them of their visual advantage.

  Chris, cover me while I get rid of these stealth shields on their armor.

  Gladly, answered Chris cheerfully.

  Chris flew next to Chase and closed his eyes trying to locate incoming attacks. He blocked a series of fireballs and managed to deflect some away from Chase, while Argos was slowly but surely getting the upper hand in his one on one fight with the visible Fury.

  Chase’s mind expanded far enough to locate all three other devices.

  Gotcha!

  A wide smile spread across his face as he opened his eyes again and overloaded all three power sources for the stealth shields simultaneously.

  ATHENA DISPATCHED orders to the Earth Alliance vessels to flank the Fury fleet. Chase had indicated his wish to try and have the Furies engage the Asgardians. If they entered the fight, it would be dealt with much faster thanks to their advanced weaponry. She also sensed that he wanted them to openly join the Alliance, but that was a safe bet.