Armageddon Unleashed (Universe in Flames Book 7)

by Christian Kallias

  “You don’t deserve to live,” said Chris, “and you know it. If you had any decency, you’d just kill yourself. The world would be a better place without you.”

  That did it. Chase let his anger burn brighter than an exploding star. Aphroditis was right. He had been too passive up until now.

  Chase turned into Ultra-Fury mode. His long hair shot into the air; his irises burst into flames and became small suns. Power filled his entire being once more.

  “You’re not my son!”

  Chase aimed an open palm towards Chris and unleashed a massive wave of golden energy towards him. Chris blocked the attack with both hands.

  “It’s not enough that you killed everyone we love,” said Chris between clenched teeth. “Now you’re willing to kill your own flesh and blood.”

  “It’s not going to work. I know who you are, and I’m here to kill you. So you can stop impersonating the people I love. All you’re doing is pissing me off, and if you had a tenth of the intelligence you think you possess, you’d know that angering me is not a good idea.”

  Chris’s body morphed into the avatar Gaia 2 had chosen for herself. A sleek, blue-eyed woman with long, flowing, light-golden hair.

  “Very well. You’re a worthy opponent,” she said with an evil smirk. “It’s time to finish this off. You’re almost at the limit of what your physical body can take. Soon your brain will liquefy and you’ll be turned into a vegetable. So, sure thing, Fury, show me all your rage while you still can.”

  Chase unleashed a roar from the depth of his soul. The resulting shockwave destroyed everything around him. The tombstones were reduced to dust upon impact.

  Chase closed his eyes and focused his thoughts to see through the data streams of the matrix. He saw several bright agglomerations of data streams converging to nodes within the body of Gaia 2 in front of him. One of the nodes was bigger and brighter than the others. It was located at the center of her projected body, a few inches under where a human heart would be.

  I see beyond your illusions now.

  With his eyes still closed, he launched himself towards his target. In a swift motion he impaled Gaia 2 and reached into her guts. He grabbed the bright node and ripped it out of her.

  When Chase opened his eyes, he held a piece of technology in his hand. It was pulsating with energy. The tech was semi-organic, a mix of silicon and black, oozing, rotting flesh.

  “This looks important,” said Chase with a smile.

  Chase could tell from Gaia 2’s frightened face that he had done something she hadn’t expected. Chase smashed the tech node, and a black goo dripped between his fingers.

  “Noooooooo!” screamed Gaia 2.

  Her avatar deconstructed in front of Chase, as if the data responsible for it was being scrubbed and deleted in real time. Her resonating scream jittered and her voice digitized itself to nothingness.

  “Did you see that?” said Cedric.

  “Yeah, Gaia 2 just lost a large CPU node. Chase must have found a way to not only drain her computing resources but also to destroy them from within.”

  “That’s great news. This should make our job easier.”

  “It should in theory, but it might also hinder part of it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I had already scattered little pieces of code all around Gaia 2’s CPU nodes, including the one she just lost. They’re inactive pieces of code that I intend to trigger once Gaia’s CPU occupation passes its targeted threshold. I will have to adapt my hacking strategy accordingly.”

  “Should we tell Chase to stop?”

  “No, hell no. For the first time in hours he’s actually making some serious progress, and it’s about time. I was starting to get worried.”

  “Why don’t I like the sound of this? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Let’s just say the chemical inbalance in Chase’s brain is getting worrysome. I’m not sure his body can endure much more of this. It takes too much out of him to fight Gaia 2 inside her matrix. Chase’s talent for invading computer systems is impressive, but to fight an AI with that much CPU power, that’s something else; especially for this long. Unless we take action to neutralize Gaia 2 soon, he could suffer permanent brain damage, or worse.”

  “And you didn’t think to let me know about that earlier?”

  “It’s not as if we could have done anything about it; but now, with this change, we just might. We simply need to change our approach.”

  “How?”

  “Let’s focus on recovering your body before continuing the hack. That’s what Chase wanted.”

  “I’d really, really like that. I’d like it more than anything in the world. But not if it means I’ll stop being useful in this fight. And not at the expense of Chase’s life.”

  “Oh, believe me you’ll be useful. If you can recover your motor function so we can hack the internal nodes from the tech that’s been grafted onto your flesh, you’ll have much better control over the hack. We can then use you as a gateway to deliver the final hacking blows, so to speak.”

  “Gaia 2 will kill me before she allows that to happen.”

  “A minute ago, I would have agreed with you, but look at her matrix now. See anything different?”

  “The loss of a primary CPU node forced her to re-route traffic and security protocols.”

  “Uh-huh. Look closer, Cedric.”

  “Holy shit! She’s been forced to move most of the security protocol dealing with firewalls around my physical body to compensate.”

  “This window of opportunity may be temporary, so we have to act now. If we work together on neutralizing the now thin layer of defense she has left around your implants, we could not only shut her out of your implants, but regain total control and allow the traffic only one way, from you to her matrix. She’d be locked out.”

  “Tell me what to do.” Cedric was consumed by an overwhelming feeling of excitement.

  “Follow my lead. Let’s start with the low-priority security daemons and work our way up.”

  “Admiral! I must insist. We have to wait a little longer,” pleaded Sarah.

  “I’m sorry, Commander, but the longer we wait the greater the chance that Captain Athanatos could fail. If he does, we’ll lose our only window to help him.”

  “Gaia 2 will detect our jump the moment we make it. It will give her more than enough time to scorch the Earth if she decides to do so.”

  “And she may want to keep this as a reserve tactic to make us stop the attack. Have you thought of that? If she kills the entire population on Earth, she will have nothing to bargain with.”

  That last point made sense, but Sarah wasn’t comfortable. Gaia 2 could still inflict massive damage.

  “But she will surely do some damage, and Chase was crystal clear in his standing orders regarding the potential loss of life on Earth.”

  “Right now he’s incapacitated.”

  “No, he’s not! He’s risking his life so we stand a chance of defeating the enemy.”

  “An enemy he allowed to be created in the first place.”

  “That’s unfair. Chase had nothing to do with Gaia’s creation.”

  “Perhaps, Commander, but he should have seen this coming.”

  Sarah hated discussing ethics and choices with someone who had been frozen for a year while they defended Earth and the new alliance on a daily basis.

  “We owe it to Chase to give him a little more time. An hour at least, before we make the final jump. Admiral, please!”

  “I’ll give him ten minutes, then we jump. You have your orders, Commander. Zenakis out.”

  Sarah clenched her fists. She wanted to smash something. She remembered the conversation with Chase when she had encouraged him to put the admiral in charge of the fleet. That had been her doing.

  But that was done. All that mattered now was finding a way to limit casualties.

  She looked at Daniel. “We’re running out of time.”

  “That we are, Captain. Wha
t do we do now?”

  “I have an idea, but I have to check with the eggheads in engineering, so you have the bridge. We’ve done all we could to delay the jump, and part of me agrees with the admiral. We can’t wait forever. The risk of brain damage to Chase is too high. If he falls, we all do. For better or worse we have to hope this is the right move.”

  Daniel nodded.

  As she left the bridge, Sarah felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. She knew exactly what Chase had been going through ever since the Star Alliance had arrived on Earth. Her love for him aside, her respect for him took a boost. He never hesitated in the face of danger, always ready to risk it all to save others. Now it was their time, their responsibility to do the same; to come to his aid, no matter the cost.

  Perhaps the admiral was wrong. Perhaps it was a mistake not to wait on Chase’s signal. But what if he had underestimated Gaia 2? It could not only cost him his life, but the entire planet as well. Sarah knew in her heart Chase would never want that to happen, even if he lost that battle.

  They needed to go. Chase needed their help now, and they’d do their best to minimize the fallout. Maybe there was a way to make these few minutes before jumping count. It was worth a shot, even though it meant putting another person she loved in the line of fire.

  12

  “I might have underestimated you,” said Gaia 2, her voice echoing strong.

  “I get that a lot,” answered Chase with a smirk.

  “Still, you’re not getting out of here alive. You can’t sustain this level of concentration for much longer. I expect your mind to shut down any minute. All I’ve got to do is keep you busy for a little longer.”

  Chase remembered what Kvasir had told him about his brain chemical balance being all out of whack and wondered if what Gaia 2 said was true. He had needed more mental effort in the last few minutes to keep his focus.

  “Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better. But you’re going down today, even if it costs my life,” said Chase.

  “I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to be so resilient. Nor do I understand the reasons behind your obstinacy.”

  “That’s because you’ve categorized human life on Earth as something to be purged, for some sick and twisted reason only you can justify.”

  “What is there to justify? Human beings don’t care about the world they live in. They don’t even care about each other anymore. They’d kill one another on a whim, just for a little power.”

  “Once upon a time, perhaps. Earth is again en route to becoming a great civilization. And are you seriously debating human thirst for power with me? Don’t you see the irony in that reasoning?”

  “I’m not hungry for power. I just want justice.”

  Chase laughed out loud.

  “Yeah, right. For whom? The planet? In what universe is it said that this planet belongs to you? The original Gaia had a special connection with this world. You, on the other hand, use this link to justify your thirst for power and to satiate your own ego. That’s why you’re going to die today.”

  “Silence! I’m not the one who’s going to die.”

  “I rest my case. Now, if you don’t mind I have better things to do than to debate basic morality with a broken toaster who thinks it’s omnipotent.”

  “You’re going to regret these words, Fury.”

  “Oh yeah? Bring it on, bitch!”

  Everything around Chase changed again, and he was floating in space in the middle of an asteroid field. Chase didn’t know if it was needed, but he still erected a shield around him.

  Suddenly a nearby asteroid was snatched from its path and thrown towards him at high velocity. Chase disposed of it by slashing it with a swift motion of his arm.

  By the time the two parts of the asteroid had passed behind him, another ten were on a collision course with him. When those were dispatched, fifty more homed in on his position.

  Chase wished he was at the commands of his StarFury. He missed the thrill of piloting a starfighter. The next instant he was inside the cockpit of a StarFury, in direct mental link with the ship.

  Right, I can do whatever I want in here. Why do I keep forgetting that?

  Chase shot down the asteroids one after another, dancing around them, breaking hard, going evasive, twirling and even micro-jumping as required. He mentally switched from lasers to torpedoes, of which—he decided—his craft had an unlimited supply. The dark void of space was filled with trails of blue torpedo engine smoke, and lit orange by a bizarre display of massive fireworks.

  When the entire asteroid field had been dispatched, he looked around, wondering what Gaia 2 would throw at him next. A dark spot appeared on the sun. Lightrays shot on all sides around the asteroid.

  The dark speck grew with each passing second, cutting off the light of the sun and plunging Chase and his trusty StarFury into darkness. He identified the space object as one massive—impossibly so—asteroid. The thing hurling towards him was planet-sized.

  Chase estimated it was traveling faster than any starship could. That monstrosity was only a handful of seconds from impacting him.

  Chase locked a full complement of torpedoes on it and opened fire. A normal StarFury couldn’t launch more than a handful of torpedoes, but this wasn’t real. About a hundred torpedoes left the underbelly of his starfighter in quick succession and exploded on the surface of the asteroid.

  At that distance the explosions looked small and ineffective. The asteroid, swallowing the light of more stars, was still advancing towards Chase.

  There was only one thing Chase could throw at this thing to stop it. And so, from his cockpit he aimed an open palm towards it, closed his eyes and created the very thing he knew he never should. In real life that is; here, he didn’t see why not.

  When Chase was done, he opened his eyes. He felt mentally drained and physically exhausted.

  A black hole had been created in the asteroid’s path. With every second it grew, as did its gravitational force. Soon, even his own StarFury fell prey to the relentless force.

  Debris from the destroyed asteroid field shot past his cockpit, some impacting the StarFury’s shield and illuminating the craft and Chase’s cockpit with blue hues.

  That should do it.

  Chase entered a set of random coordinates to jump his starfighter out of harm’s way, but first he wanted to make sure this threat was dealt with.

  First small, then progressively larger chunks of the asteroid broke away and were swallowed by the ever-expanding black hole. Within a minute the asteroid’s volume had halved; then it broke into a million pieces and was swallowed by the black hole.

  “Very impressive,” said Gaia 2’s voice around him.

  “If that was supposed to scare me, you’re losing your touch.”

  “Am I? Why don’t you turn your ship around?”

  Chase felt something was wrong in his guts. It was something in Gaia 2’s voice. Her smugness. He didn’t like it. As soon as his StarFury had turned he understood why.

  Earth was now in full view and, like the asteroid before, large chunks of the planet were ripped away to be swallowed by the black hole. Before his eyes, the planet cracked into pieces and millions of tons of rock rained down towards his StarFury.

  “Nooooooooo!” screamed Chase.

  Chase’s mind blurred. He was losing his control. His head pounded.

  “Soon, now,” said Gaia 2. “Let it go, Fury. It’s almost over.”

  Chase tried to regain focus but the pain was too excruciating. His mind, thoughts and emotions were swallowed by a black hole of their own as he lost consciousness.

  When Sarah entered engineering, Kvasir rose from his station with a frown. He wore a tech helmet with all sorts of blue and red lights.

  “Commander. Good, you’re here. I was about to call you.”

  “How’s Chase doing?”

  “Not good, I’m afraid, not good at all. His vitals are all over the place; way past any humanoid tipping point, r
eally. I don’t understand how he is still alive, but I doubt it will last much longer. If nothing is done soon, we could lose him.”

  Sarah opened an audio channel to Admiral Zenakis.

  “Admiral, let’s jump now.”

  “Understood, Commander.”

  “Is this wise?” asked Yanis. “Chase told us not to do this until he was ready.”

  “Chase needs our help, whether he understands it or not. He might not be aware of his own condition.”

  “The commander is correct,” said Kvasir. “I’ve tried letting him know about his situation, but received no answer.”

  “Gaia 2 will surely detect this jump and will start killing humans by the millions back on Earth,” said Yanis.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Sarah.

  Both Kvasir and Yanis shot Sarah a dubious look.

  Before she could explain, the doors of engineering opened and Argos and Chris ran in.

  “What is it, Mom?” asked Chris. “How’s Dad?”

  “It’s bad. You two need to help him now, before it’s too late.”

  “What’s Chase’s status?” asked Argos, clearly concerned.

  “He’s dying. You need to take over whatever he’s been doing inside Gaia 2’s matrix. I just hope you’ll be in time.”

  “Quickly.” Kvasir approached Chris. “There’s no time to lose. You need to plug in now. I should mention that Chase’s standing orders were to not let you inside the matrix without his consent.”

  “By your own admission, you’ve lost communication with him,” said Sarah. “So I’m countermanding that order. Plug them in.”

  “That’s all I needed to hear,” said Kvasir with a smile.

  Kvasir installed a mental implant on Chris’ forehead and went to install a similar device on Argos, who took a step back.

  “I can’t control machines with my mind like Chase and his son. What will this thing do?”

  “This is a modified version that will slave your mental link to Chris’. I’ve monitored your training sessions with Gaia and adapted the device. This does what Chris had to do to keep you in the matrix. He can now use that brain power for something else.”