Ryonna's Wrath: Universe in Flames 1.5 - A Novella

by Christian Kallias

  Ryonna dodged, blocked and countered each of his punches and kicks with perfect timing, either repelling him against the wall or inflicting damage of her own. She could finish the fight at any moment, but the fact that she still had some time made her enjoy the fight. For Jax, for Alix and for all the children whose lives this piece of garbage had either ruined or taken. He would pay here and now. Her only regret was that she probably didn’t have much time left to toy with and hurt the man.

  As if in answer to her thinking, noises and commotion rose from the level below. The clock to her arrest was now ticking.

  The next punch he threw at her she not only blocked, but she grabbed his wrist and punched his lights out with a well-placed elbow. Blood flew from his mouth as his head was thrown backwards. She applied strong pressure to his wrist and he opened his hand. She took his fingers one by one and broke them without hesitating. He screamed in agony with each new broken bone. He fell to his knees and implored her to stop.

  But she couldn’t hear him anymore. She broke his wrist on the same hand, then proceeded to crush his humorous with a powerful thrust of her knee. The bone broke in two and was exposed to the air as blood flowed from the wound.

  She then proceeded to his other arm, dislocating his shoulder with a very satisfying crunch. She no longer heard his screams. She was in revenge mode, making sure he would suffer every last second of his pathetic life. She owed that to Jax, Jonas and Alix.

  When she stopped, Atrak was crying and begging for mercy, both arms rendered totally useless, blood flowing from many wounds. Even if she stopped there he would die shortly. But she wasn’t done. Laser fire hit the force fields preventing people from entering the office. Ryonna saw half a dozen guards firing their weapons. The force field blinked but seemed to be holding. Nevertheless, she needed to make sure Atrak drew his last breath shortly.

  “Get up, you piece of shit!”

  “I can’t. You broke both my arms. I can’t move a single muscle.”

  “Let me help you out.”

  When their gazes met, Ryonna saw utter terror in his eyes. The man knew she was about to finish him.

  With one hand she grabbed the light-blade and with the other she lifted Atrak to his feet by his hair.

  “This is for Jax.”

  She brought the light-blade to life near Atrak’s groin. The blade shot between his legs, hovering less than an inch from his testicles.

  “No! Don’t do this, plea— Aaaaaaarg,” was the last thing Atrak ever said.

  Ryonna cut through him slowly, taking her time, splitting his genitals in two before splitting the rest of his body all the way to the top. A foul odor of charred flesh emanated from his body as the light-blade cut him slowly in half, cauterizing his wound and releasing smoke. By the time she was at neck level, Atrak was already long dead. She then released his hair and, with a swift motion, finished her movement to split his face in half, in a perfectly vertical line. His body split in two and fell to the ground. She turned the light-blade off and threw it on the ground.

  “Vengeance has been served. Thank you, Jonas,” said Ryonna, knowing he could hear her.

  The force field was about to give in, so she dropped to her knees and put both hands behind her back.

  Soon the security guards stormed the office, restraining and arresting her.

  Because she had killed so many people, Ryonna had been deemed too great a security risk for a public trial. Instead a judge came to see her in her detention room, where she was chained to the wall by every limb, four laser-guided turrets covering her from every direction.

  The woman judge entered her cell and shot her a cold stare.

  “I have half a mind to ask an exception be made so we can execute you, miss.”

  “I thought Hathan didn’t believe in capital punishment.”

  “Acts like these make me think we should make exceptions.”

  “Atrak was a piece of garbage. He needed to be put down.”

  “Watch your mouth. I knew Atrak personally. You’re the piece of garbage here.”

  “Then you didn’t know him as well as you thought.”

  “And why should I listen to the words of a criminal responsible for the deaths of no less than eleven people?”

  “Look, lady, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you believe, but that asshole killed my husband and exploited young Droxian children.”

  “What do you mean ‘exploited’?”

  “Do I really have to spell it out?”

  She didn’t. It was clear the judge was aware of such activity on her planet.

  “I refuse to believe it.”

  “Like I said, I don’t give a shit what you believe. He will no longer hurt anyone.”

  “Even if what you say is true—and believe me I will get to the bottom of this—the way you sought retribution was wrong. You will be sentenced to life in the worst prison in this sector. Hellstar.”

  Ryonna smiled.

  “Do you find it funny, miss?”

  “No. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

  The judge shook her head. “I therefore sentence you to life on Hellstar. Do you understand your sentence, Ryonna Isch’ys?”

  “I do, thank you judge.”

  “May gods have mercy on your soul.”

  “Save it for someone who believes in them, judge, but thanks for the pep talk.”

  The judge left her cell and the temporarily disabled turrets came back to life, casting their red laser pointers on Ryonna’s chest. She was still smiling.

  Ryonna looked at the stars passing by. She was in the transport that would bring her to her final destination. She was ready for what came next. Her thoughts went to Jonas. She had wished for a chance to talk with him once more, if only to say goodbye in case she didn’t make it out of Hellstar alive. But mostly she thought of Ronan. Soon she would be reunited with her son, and together they’d escape the unescapable prison.

  Hold on, my son, I’m coming for you.

  THE END

  (Full resolution of the storyline in book 2: Fury to the Stars)

  AFTERWORD

  Publishing your first books is an extraordinary but difficult challenge. If you reached this point, I guess you liked my work. Please help me support the book and leave a review and/or a rating on Amazon. You’ll also be helping new readers find books they want to read.

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  ALSO BY CHRISTIAN KALLIAS

  Universe in Flames book 1: Earth Last Sanctuary (Free)

  Universe in Flames novella 1.5: Ryonna’s Wrath (Free)

  Universe in Flames book 2: Fury to the Stars

  Universe in Flames book 3: Destination Oblivion

  Universe in Flames book 4: The Beginning of the End

  Universe in Flames book 5: Rise of the Ultra Fury

  Universe in Flames book 6: Shadows of Olympus

  Universe in Flames book 7: Armageddon Unleashed

  Rewind 717

  Thank you for buying my book, here is an exclusive freebie for you. Get the DAMOCLES FALL book here:

  PART I

  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 three chapters.

  Earth – Last Sanctuary will soon be available as an Audiobook (ETA: Beginning of 2017). You can check out the first chapter here.

  1

  ELS: CHAPTER 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, occasionally 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 we
re 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.