Rise of the Ultra Fury (Universe in Flames Book 5)

by Christian Kallias

  Hades landed nearby and walked towards Chase, who could barely move a muscle.

  “And you thought you’d beat me easily. I guess you still have a lot to learn.”

  How can he be so powerful? I thought Furies were more powerful than Olympians. I expected Zeus to maybe match them, but this guy is something else.

  Chase had to use most of his energy just to get back to his feet. He adopted a defensive stance but he was trembling.

  “You can’t hope to fight in your current state. You should rest and, if you feel like it, you can have another go at me tomorrow.”

  “No! Let’s fight now.”

  Hades shook his head. “Impetuous.”

  Before Chase could blink, he received a deadly blow to the back of his head. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the onyx ground coming at him.

  * * *

  On board the Silver Arrow, Apollo’s ship, Argos paced on the bridge.

  Ares saw Apollo’s look. “What is it, brother?”

  “So let me get this straight. This guy killed you, and now he’s going to help you?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, but basically yes.”

  “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “We don’t have any choice. We need him to defeat Menoitios.”

  “If he’s powerful enough, which remains to be seen.”

  Argos stopped pacing and looked at the Olympians. “Don’t worry, I’ll defeat your Titan for you.”

  “I’d like to see that,” said Apollo. “Menoitios has never been defeated in combat. Aside from Zeus, I don’t think anyone else can destroy him.”

  “Well, if we are to save Chase I need to destroy him, so there isn’t really any choice now, is there?”

  Apollo looked at his brother. Ares answered with a shrug.

  Interesting words Argos had chosen. He genuinely didn’t want his brother to die. Perhaps there was hope for him yet.

  “You!” said Argos, pointing a finger at Ares. “Don’t you go misinterpreting my words. I’m only doing this because it suits my long term plans which, by the way, also include eradicating your entire race.”

  “Charming fellow,” said Apollo.

  Argos crossed his arms against his chest and looked through the viewport.

  “Tell me about it. We’ll soon arrive near the Tartarus system. Any idea where we go next?” asked Ares.

  Apollo looked at the projected holo-starmap and pointed towards the farthest planet from the twin-star system.

  “There, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m pretty sure. Like I told you, I haven’t been here in a few thousand years.”

  Argos grunted. It annoyed Apollo enough that he rose from his chair.

  “Look, Argos, we get it. You hate us. But let me be absolutely clear, the feeling is mutual, and I’m looking forward to shutting your mouth on the battlefield the first chance I get. So if you want to destroy us, you’re welcome to try.”

  “Easy there, brother.”

  Argos laughed and turned around. “Empty threats. If you were really looking forward to killing me you wouldn’t need my help with your crazed pet now, would you? But I recognize that usual Olympian arrogance. You share that in common with your brother. He too was taunting me before I turned him into a blob of interstellar energy.”

  Apollo’s anger grew quickly, as did his bright blue aura.

  Argos responded in kind and his bright red aura cast red light all around him.

  “Ha ha ha, you want to teach me a lesson now? I could use the warm-up, so bring it on, old man.”

  Ares stood as well and positioned himself between Argos and Apollo, extending his arms on both sides. “Stop it! Now is not the time.” He looked at Argos. “Perhaps you’d like to get some rest before we reach our destination? You’ll need all your strength.” He looked at his brother next. “You too. You may need to help Argos fight Menoitios.”

  “Fight alongside a Fury? Have you lost your mind? I’m showing you where to go. That’s where my duties end in regard to this mission of yours, brother. I’d rather die than ally myself with a being intent on killing us all the first chance he gets.”

  “I don’t need nor want your help. If you’re anything like Ares, you’ll just slow me down anyway. You two stay out of my way when we reach our destination,” said Argos as he left the bridge.

  “I want to kill that insolent asshole,” said Apollo through clenched teeth.

  “And perhaps one day you’ll get your chance, but for now don’t let him push your buttons. He enjoys conflict too much. In fact, I think he thrives on it. We’ll deal with Argos when the time comes. Though I’m not entirely sure he’s an enemy anymore.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Have you been sleeping while he spoke? He said he’s looking forward to wiping us out.”

  “Yes I heard, but I also entered his mind when he was about to kill Chase on Droxia.”

  “And?”

  “And I think that even if I hadn’t nudged him towards a non-lethal blow, he might actually have done it on his own. As much as he hates his brother, I can’t help feeling that something has changed in him. He could have easily destroyed the Iron Fire right after we delivered Aphroditis, but he went out of his way to let us escape, and he paid dearly for it.”

  “Not nearly enough if you ask me.”

  “Perhaps, but if there’s only the slightest chance that he could be turned, I have to take it. He could be a powerful ally.”

  “Says one of his victims. Boy, I don’t know if this is the non-corporeal thing or something else, but the more I spend time with you the more I think you’ve lost it. Especially if you think you can play with fire and not get burned.”

  “Look, Apollo, I’m aware of the risks and I can understand how it looks from your perspective. Don’t get me wrong. I really appreciate your council on this matter, but I can’t ignore my gut feelings.”

  “You do realize that you don’t have guts anymore?”

  * * *

  When the transport ship arrived at RavenShire, Ryonna made a face at the view. More than half the starport had been destroyed.

  “I take it that’s not the good news you were hoping for?” said Keera.

  “We’ll have to see. As I remember, most of the detained ships are on the north side, which seems less damaged than the rest of the complex at first glance.”

  “Do you mind if I ask what we’re looking for?”

  “My old ship. At one point, after my husband died, I had a larger, more powerful smuggling ship. But when they came for us, I needed cash fast and I had nothing to trade but my ship. So I sold it to the port in a hurry. A friend among the starport crew helped me get a deal so I could recover my ship one day.”

  “How so?”

  “I sold it for half its value in exchange for parking rights here. I could buy it back for a fee if I came to claim it in the future.”

  “You think it’s still here?”

  “It’s anybody’s guess. If it hasn’t been moved or destroyed in the rubble, then perhaps it is. We’ll know soon enough. Please land over there,” said Ryonna, pointing at the platform to the north, the only one still standing.

  “But will they let you take it back without the credits?”

  “From the looks of it, we should be able to get inside and just take it.”

  Keera raised an eyebrow.

  “Desperate measures, Keera, desperate measures.”

  “Right.”

  They exited the transport in a hurry. Ryonna checked the charge on her blaster, set it on maximum stun and holstered it.

  “Just a precaution. I’m hoping we won’t need it, but if my ship is here, we need to get it back. It’s our best bet to reach Jonas before anyone else.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “It’s probably the fastest hyperdrive engine in the universe. One of a kind, really.”

  “If that’s the case, you’d t
hink someone would have either bought or stolen it.”

  “It’s ancient tech and doesn’t register on scans, so when I left the ship in exchange for a generous credit loan, I made sure they categorized it as a standard engine, classified as pretty slow.”

  “I take it your friend helped you with that.”

  Ryonna nodded. “I wonder if he’s still alive.”

  “Want us to look for him?”

  “No, we really need to hurry. Right now the priority is getting to Jonas’ last known coordinates.”

  After a few minutes, Ryonna and Keera found a way inside the starport through the debris blocking most of the entrances.

  The place looked abandoned. Once inside Ryonna interfaced with the first console they met. Its holo-projector lens was cracked and the image flickered, which made inputting commands and reading the screen a chore. But after a few minutes she found what she was looking for.

  “The ship is on level seven, bay eleven.”

  She brought up the map of the starport and studied it. “That way.” She pointed to their left.

  They ran for a few minutes until they arrived on level seven. This part of the complex was barely holding together. Small tremors shook sands and rocks from cracks in the ceiling. As Ryonna approached the nearest console, she saw a hand sticking out from a pile of rubble nearby.

  She ran to it and dropped to one knee. She tried to find a pulse. Then she saw a familiar ring on one of his fingers. She frowned.

  “Rhaklin.”

  “What’s a rhaklin?”

  “That was the friend I told you about. This,” said Ryonna as she removed the ring and showed it to Keera, “is his wedding ring.”

  “I didn’t know Droxians used rings. I thought this was no longer in practice except in very low technology races, most of them not space faring.”

  “You know your galactic history very well, Keera. Indeed, Droxians usually don’t wear rings. But Rhaklin’s family was following the ancient ways.”

  “Seeing as you don’t have a ring, I take it that you didn’t.”

  “Partly true. I didn’t really care for trinkets, but my husband Jax also liked the old ways.”

  She rose and took a chain from under her armor. On it dangled two identical rings. Black, with faintly pulsating golden runes.

  “So you see, I do have a ring. I just don’t wear it on my finger.”

  The ground shook a little stronger than the previous smaller tremors.

  “I’m sorry about your friend, Ryonna, but I don’t think this place is very stable. Let’s get your ship and get the hell out of here.”

  “Agreed.”

  Ryonna went to the nearest console, a few steps away from where Rhaklin lay. She entered a few commands on the holo-display. The entire holo-user interface flashed red, and a holo-palm-reader floated on the right side of the interface.

  “Dammit!”

  “What is it, Ryonna?”

  “I can’t unlock the docking clamps on the bay where my ship is. It requires biometric authentication.”

  “Any way around it?”

  She kept entering commands in an attempt to bypass the security features but it repeatedly ended with the interface flashing red.

  Another tremor shook the starport and part of the ceiling of level seven collapsed nearby. An alarm wailed, accompanied by a vocal warning. “Coolant leak in section seven, evacuate immediately! This is not a drill.”

  “This is not good,” said Keera.

  “You think? Dammit, we need to hurry.”

  Her mind raced, and then she went back towards Rhaklin’s arm. She took a deep breath and kicked the forearm at the base where it disappeared into the rubble. The bone-shattering noise made Keera flinch.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What needs to be done.” She turned towards where she estimated Rhaklin’s head would be, even though she was actually looking at concrete debris. “I’m so sorry, old friend.”

  She ripped his arm off with a powerful motion and went back to the console. When she had aligned the hand correctly for the holo-scanner to accept the input the console flashed blue twice, giving access to the ships.

  The smoke resulting from the coolant leak started to permeate the closed atmosphere around them. Keera coughed.

  “Try to breathe as little of that stuff as you can. Too much of it will kill us real fast,” said Ryonna as she dragged the shirt from under her armor and used it as a low-tech filter.

  Keera did the same.

  They ran towards bay eleven and Ryonna saw the nose of her old ship. The automated clamp-release program was just finishing. Something clanked when the clamps had fully retracted, creating another tremor. Another large piece of concrete fell from the ceiling.

  “Watch out!” shouted Ryonna as she jumped out of the way.

  But Keera hadn’t been so lucky. Her scream pierced through the ear-deafening sound the concrete made as it crashed to the ground. When Ryonna had finished her evasive roll she turned and looked for Keera. She was lying on the ground, most of her lower body caught under concrete rubble.

  “Keera!” she yelled as she ran to her side.

  Ryonna feared the worst but was relieved to find a pulse on Keera’s neck. She was unconscious, though. The ground trembled again and some of the rubble on Keera shifted to the side. Only a few pieces of concrete and a large metallic beam pressed onto Keera’s left ankle.

  The next tremor dislodged another piece of concrete from the ceiling, right on top of them. Ryonna acted instinctively, took her blaster and set it to maximum power, and shot the piece of concrete dead center a few feet before it crashed onto them. The concrete split in two and Ryonna used her own body to protect Keera, with both forearms protecting her own head. At the moment of impact she flexed her arms muscles as hard as she could. The concrete parts hit and she felt one of her bones crack. But in the end her quick blaster reflexes and stance succeeded in deflecting the concrete to the sides.

  We need to get out of here, now!

  * * *

  Spiros entered the control room on their new flying facility. The training center had been moved to a jump-capable ship graciously provided by the Earth Alliance. It hadn’t been very difficult to convince them to lend them one. The moment Spiros uttered the words black hole, the Alliance was eager to help. They voiced their concern for the entire enterprise, though, especially now that Chase was deadly wounded, but Spiros was very convincing and told them of the importance of this technology.

  The starboard viewport gave the nicest view of the blue marble, and Spiros got lost in it for a moment.

  “Such a beautiful planet. Even more water than my homeworld.”

  “Are you talking to yourself again?” said Gaia over the speakers.

  “I know you’re always on. The benefit of being artificial. No down time, no need to sleep, no aching bones.”

  “Do I detect a hint of jealousy in your statements, my friend?”

  “You betcha. The more time passes the more difficult it gets. I have augmented so much in my body already. Mostly due to health issues but also in the hope these augments would carry me a little longer than my, how should I put this, vanilla body would ever have.”

  “Most of your augments could be improved, you know.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought of that while we were designing the training bots together. Your grasp of technology is impressive. I’d say decades in advance of the Alliance’s current level.”

  “That must not help your hierarchy sleep better at night if I’m still considered a threat.”

  “Potential threat. I keep insisting on that point during every single report.”

  “And I’m grateful, but let’s not worry about that. We have more important work to do. Still, if you’d like us to work on your augments, I have a few ideas.”

  “I’m sure you do and I look forward to hearing them. Perhaps from time to time in between our work on the artificial black-hole generator, we can have a look a
t them.”

  “As you wish, Spiros.”

  “How many training—” Spiros paused for a second. “How many battle bots are ready?”

  “I don’t remember us renaming the training bots to battle bots.”

  “We both know these are no longer just for training. We’ve armed them to the teeth and loaded them with much more powerful quadrinium power cells than their predecessors. On that note, that’s why I came here early today. I received a subspace transmission just a few minutes ago. It contains a raw data dump of your recovered avatar’s black box. The Hope sent it as-is. They did warn me that one of the storage chips on the black box was heavily damaged, so the data is incomplete. Since it was encrypted, they doubt we’ll be able to make heads or tails of the incomplete data stream.”

  Spiros took a blue data crystal from his pocket and inserted it into the crystal port of his workspace console.

  The door opposite Spiros slid open and Gaia’s new avatar entered the room.

  “I see you kept the old exterior design for your avatar’s body, along with the silver and crimson paint job. May I ask why?”

  “It may look the same but it’s of the same alloy as the new units.”

  “That doesn’t really answer my question now, does it?”

  “I have grown attached to this look.”

  Spiros smiled.

  “What did I say that is funny?”

  “Not funny, just . . . human.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Good, ’cause that’s the spirit in which it was said.”

  “Then thank you, Spiros. I am not yet fully receptive to the whole human emotional spectrum, though. But the more I devote CPU time to that task, the more some emotions seem to take over. In fact, I do find it disturbing to the point of wondering if I should pause or reduce this activity.”

  “Interesting. May I ask which emotion in particular is taking over?”

  “According to my database I’d say that the emotion is anxiety.”

  “This is remarkable.”

  “How so?”