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

by Christian Kallias

  Argos heard Ares in his head. What do we do now? We don’t have time for this fight.

  I know, but he’s in my way. Just take the snake out of here and come get me afterwards.

  Sounds good. It will only take a few minutes.

  I’m not worried. I can hold this guy off for as long as needed but, like you said, we have other things to do, especially now that my only hope of regaining stature within the Fury ranks has been flushed down the toilet, thanks to you.

  Then perhaps it’s time to defect.

  Get going, old man. Now is not the time to have this conversation.

  Argos grew his aura to the maximum and Zath’ron did the same.

  Before long the two Furies were pounding one another, destroying everything around them inside the base.

  * * *

  When Ryonna opened her eyes she was in a regen tank. It was ending its cycle so the green liquid was being syphoned from the pod. The first breath of air back into the lungs was always painful. It triggered a gag reflex to expel the liquid from the lungs and throat, which was both very uncomfortable and a little irritating. But at least it only lasted a second or two.

  When the light inside her pod turned green she opened the door and stepped out.

  Keera was unconscious on a medical bed on the other side of the room. The other regen tank was occupied by Jonas, his cycle still running. She wasn’t surprised; his wounds were clearly the worst of the three. Ryonna noticed the sentry hovering not far from her position. She froze, thinking perhaps it hadn’t seen her, but there was no way its sensors could have missed her, unless it was defective. She took another step, aware that she might have to jump out of the bot’s line of fire should it register her movements. When it didn’t she deemed it not to be a threat and ran towards Keera.

  The moment she arrived in front of the bed a hologram appeared behind it, startling Ryonna.

  “Please do not touch the patient.”

  One of those.

  Well, as there were only two regen tanks in the medbay, Ryonna was happy to see another holo-doc. It probably saved Keera’s life.

  “I have repaired her injuries and she is now resting. I have provided her with a sedative, and have flushed out the cocktail of drugs with which she had erroneously injected herself.”

  Ryonna wondered what that was all about. She would have to ask Keera later.

  “How long until she can be woken up?”

  “Thirty-seven minutes and forty seconds . . . thirty-nine seconds . . . thirty-eight seconds.”

  “Alright, alright! I get it. Does she require additional medical help at the moment?”

  “Negative.”

  “Then please shut the hell off.”

  The holo-doc complied.

  “I really can’t stand these . . . things’ bedside manners. Come to think of it, can’t stand them period.” She sat next to Keera, holding her small hand in hers.

  * * *

  Miseo was called to the Crimson Shadow bridge.

  “Report!”

  “Master, we’ve detected a fleet of Brin ships in the area.”

  “Good, I was hoping we would have some target practice along the way. I’ve been itching to test the capability of this ship. Order the Zarlack fleet to stay in hyperspace towards Earth. We’ll take care of this fleet on our own.”

  “There are at least seven destroyers, Master. Perhaps we should take a couple of destroyers with us?”

  “That won’t be necessary. Leave the strategy to me. Drop us out of hyperspace and engage the enemy.”

  “Dropping out of hyperspace.”

  The Fury destroyer was a massive starship. It looked like a cross between a giant spider and a dragonfruit, its matte black paint masking a large portion of the stars and nebulas behind it.

  The Brin fleet’s admiral tried hailing the Crimson Shadow but Miseo had nothing to say to them. He only wanted to test the capabilities of his new flagship. It would also be good training for the Fury crew, who hadn’t fought a space battle for so long. Miseo ordered the Crimson Shadow to fire all laser batteries the minute they entered firing range. The firepower of that first salvo was a sight to be seen. The thousands of batteries lit up the darkness of space with a barrage that looked like red rain falling upon their targets.

  The Brin fleet replied in kind, sending their own streams of yellow laser fire back at the Crimson Shadow’s shield, which had no problem holding off the incoming fire. The seven Brin ships combined barely provided equal firepower.

  “How are our shields holding up?”

  “They are holding strong at ninety-seven percent.”

  “Very well, let’s thin the herd, shall we? Lock a full volley of torpedoes towards one of the ships and have main weapons target another.”

  Fifty torpedoes were launched from the Crimson Shadow in sync. From afar it looked as if the spidery ship had spat a load of web threads to catch its enemies with. But the multiple detonations told another story. The first Brin destroyer was obliterated long before the last torpedo had found its target. The resulting shockwave effectively drained parts of the shields of three of the nearest ships.

  A second later a massive column of crimson energy shot from the tip of the Crimson Shadow towards the second targeted Brin ship. It pierced its target, overloading whatever shields it had left in just a few milliseconds. There was no time for the crew of that ship to abandon it as it blew out of existence only a second later.

  The remaining five ships all launched fighters. Full squadrons of starfighters converged towards the Crimson Shadow, which looked as massive as a moon.

  “Launch just two squadrons of fighters. Let’s see how they deal with them; but provide battery cover for them.”

  “That will put them at a twenty-to-one disadvantage, Master. The Crimson Shadow has twenty-five squadrons. Why only use two?” asked the weapon’s officer.

  “I’m trying to evaluate both the readiness and limits of my ship and crew. Just do as I say.”

  “Squadrons launching.”

  Miseo got up from the captain’s chair and walked towards the giant viewport from which he could see the battle unfold. The remaining destroyers had spread out, making sure that any further explosions wouldn’t damage the others. The Crimson Shadow’s shields were barely being taxed. Miseo wondered what the new races had been doing for thousands of years. Their level of technology was laughable, as were their warfare tactics; or, more accurately, their utterly pathetic lack of anything worth that name.

  The first waves of fighters, which looked like locusts from a distance, entered firing range and the Fury wings engaged them. The Brin’s fighters were no match for their advanced plasma cannons and stronger shields. The Brin tried overwhelming a single Fury starfighter with full squadrons, but even then they couldn’t lower its shields completely. Throughout history the Fury’s technology was unrivalled. Especially their ultrafast recharging shield generators.

  Just as Miseo expected, the two Fury squadrons quickly punched a hole in the ever-increasing incoming waves of Brin starfighters. They cut through their defenses like a hot knife through butter. There was no challenge, but that was not the point of the exercise. Just testing their battle readiness and seeing how thousands-of-years-old tech held against the current, pathetically primitive excuse for weapons of the opposition.

  After punching a sizeable hole in the Brin starfighters’ wings, the Fury starfighters veered and came about for a second pass. Each of the squadrons took on half of the still overwhelming numbers of starfighters. Meanwhile the Brin destroyers stayed just inside long range battery fire and sent volley after volley of torpedoes, very few making it past the barrage of defensive laser fire to finally tickle the superior shielding of the Crimson Shadow.

  They were afraid and they ought to be. With even triple their force they would still not win this fight. Miseo was toying with them. He hoped Earth Alliance vessels would at least provide a little more of a challenge. There was no glory in winning fights
like this. Not that Miseo cared much for glory anyway. Only results mattered.

  “Major,” said Miseo, addressing his tactical officer, “order the starfighter wings to use their secondary weapons. I want to see how efficient they are.”

  “Orders relayed, Master.”

  The Fury wings stopped tearing the Brin’ smaller fighters to bits with their plasma charged weapons and released short-range shockwaves. It looked as if their shields were expanding. They were, in fact, releasing an electromagnetic pulse designed to affect any known tech except Fury’s. The result was deadly. The Fury wings had spread far from one another for maximum efficiency. In less than a minute, ninety percent of the enemy fighters where disabled and floating aimlessly in space, only to be picked off by stray, defensive long-range fire, initially intended to deal with the incoming torpedoes from their carriers. Which none of these pilots would ever set foot on again.

  “Now, have the wings take care of a destroyer each, on their own. Set batteries to only fire at incoming targets.”

  As the still unscathed duo of squadrons made their way towards the nearest Brin destroyers, they split in two and each vectored towards a target. Miseo then ordered a volley of torpedoes to be sent to where the Brin’s disabled starfighters floated in space. Soon they detonated and were incinerated.

  The Fury squadrons were soon under attack by long range fire from their targeted destroyers. Just before entering their own firing range they assumed a semi-spherical formation, with one main fighter in the center while other ships rotated all around it, all firing forward at a high rate. The center fighter released slower, fully charged plasma fireballs every few seconds. From afar the squadron looked like a single cruiser releasing an intense stream of plasma with a flashing, stronger core along its way. The attack pulse looked magnificent.

  But more important was how efficient it was. The faster plasma stream fired in a perfect circle by the rotating fighters drained the target’s shield at a rate normally impossible for starfighter-class ships, but their combined firepower and perfect flying skills made them deadly. The main fighter in the center of that dance sent powerful, plasma-charged fire that would pass through the ship’s weakened shields. They were taxed too much to be efficient any longer, and the plasma shots started to bite off pieces of plating from the destroyers in a satisfying light show of explosions. Entire decks decompressed, spewing metal debris and Brin soldiers into space to their inevitable deaths.

  A minute later and both targeted ships were destroyed by the squadrons, one after the other.

  The remaining destroyers turned tail and fled. There was nothing more they could do.

  “Should we pursue and destroy?” inquired the Crimson Shadow’s tactical officer.

  “No need. We made our point and the exercise was a complete success. Have the squadrons back on board on the double and enter hyperspace the moment they’re back.”

  “Understood, Master.”

  Soon the Crimson Shadow opened the massive hyperspace window and resumed its course towards Earth.

  This once peaceful part of space had been transformed into a creepy graveyard of Brin ships, spewing sparks into the void. And all that destruction had only taken a few minutes.

  * * *

  Onboard the Destiny, Commodore Saroudis was reviewing the defensive capabilities of his fleet when he received a data transmission from one of their long-range probes.

  The information came from the territory of the Brin, a race that had refused to join the Earth Alliance. Their old rivalry with the Droxians, the other major member of the Alliance, had been the reason for their refusal. They had lost heavily in their war against the Droxians, who nearly annihilated them to make an example of them and send a clear message to the other races. The message was simple: the cost of trying to invade Droxian space was high and it would be paid in blood. While the Brin military forces had since then been rebuilt, they were no longer the major power they used to be.

  The video feed revealed a fleet of Brin destroyers being torn to pieces by a single, massive, black vessel with a design Saroudis hadn’t seen before. He knew what that meant, but he asked his onboard computer for confirmation nonetheless.

  “The closest match in the database is to a Fury wraith-class destroyer,” said the Destiny’s computer.

  “They’re coming,” he said to himself before closing his eyes for a brief moment.

  He checked all the probe’s logs, only to detect multiple Zarlack signatures on a hyperspace vector towards Earth. They would reach Earth within a few hours.

  The ease with which that ship had destroyed an entire fleet only made things worse. He transmitted all the data from that fight to Engineering and tasked Chief Engineer Yanis Tixichos to analyze them in the hope that he would be able to find a crack in their seemingly impenetrable shields.

  He ordered an emergency meeting of all commanding officers in the fleet on board Destiny in an hour in order to discuss their upcoming battle strategy. Then he returned to his quarters.

  “What is it, Adonis?” asked his wife.

  “Listen, I want you to board a cruiser that is heading towards Droxia.”

  “What? Why?”

  “There’s a fleet of ships on their way here, and I want you out of the line of fire on this one.”

  “You’ve survived fine until now. Why should this be any different?”

  “This time the Furies are coming, and I’ve just received intelligence showing how destructive their ships are. There will be heavy casualties, and I don’t want to take any chances.”

  There was another reason he wanted his wife and daughter off the ship, but he didn’t want them to know about it.

  “I don’t like this, Adonis. Why don’t you come with us to Droxia?”

  “I wish I could, Alexandra, but I’m the commander of this fleet. My place is here, where the battle is to be fought.”

  “Our place is by your side. We’re not going to be separated again. After all these years we’re finally a family once more.”

  “I beg you, please start packing. Where’s Sendra?”

  “I don’t know. I think she’s flirting with someone from your crew.”

  Not what Saroudis wanted to hear.

  “Have her come back here and help you pack.”

  “No! We’re staying here.”

  Saroudis was getting restless. If necessary, he would remove them from the Destiny with force, but he really wanted to avoid taking such measures with his own family.

  “My love, please try to understand. I promise I’ll pick you up myself the moment this is over. But I won’t be able to do my job properly if my focus is split between the battle and worrying for your well-being. I never thought I’d see you again, but now that I have you back, I can’t afford to lose you again. Can you at least understand that?”

  Her eyes were watery. “I’m not happy about this.”

  “Neither am I, believe me.”

  Alexandra sighed. “Very well, I’ll start packing, but you’d better not take too long to come back for us. Sendra only just started getting used to being on board this ship. I can tell you she won’t be happy.”

  Saroudis took his wife in his arms and hugged her with passion. “I know. I’ll come to get you the minute it’s all over.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful?”

  As much as he wanted to be sincere in his answer, Saroudis knew that it was a promise he couldn’t make with absolute certainty.

  “I will. I promise.”

  C H A P T E R

  XVI

  Chase was getting used to fighting without his sight. The more time passed, the more he managed to dodge or parry his doppelganger’s attacks. He felt the blows coming at him with such clarity sometimes, that it was like seeing them with his mind, as clearly as with his eyes.

  When the attack stopped, Chase opened his eyes again.

  Dark Chase was nowhere to be seen.

  “How did I . . .? Where did he go?”

&nbs
p; Hades came next to Chase. “His job is over. You only needed to realize your own potential. The instant you did, he no longer needed to fight with you.”

  “Was he really a copy of me? I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

  “No need. I could say he was your subconscious mind made physical in this place, but I doubt that would make it any clearer.”

  “No you’re right, it doesn’t. I’m just surprised how fast it’s been.”

  “Remember, time means nothing here. You’ve been practicing with him so much longer than you realize.”

  “Running to catch you seemed much longer.”

  “And perhaps it was, mostly because you were not focused on what needed to be done, at least at first. Now that your mind is free of that cancerous self-doubt that’s been eating you alive, things have been progressing much faster. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Chase knew what Hades meant. For the first time since he’d discovered his powers, he no longer doubted his abilities. But not because he was stronger or faster, or even smarter. For the first time he knew that there was only one thing that needed to be done. He needed to fight for what he believed in, and he needed to trust himself in the process. But Chase also needed all of his friends, together, as a unit; as a family, even. Together they would find their way towards victory. There was no other choice, and once Chase realized it, his doubts faded away. The path was clear. He only needed to walk it, no matter where it led.

  “I do. I’ve never felt so liberated. I feel like I know what to do now. And I don’t think it’s pride or bravado or just ignorance and self-confidence. I genuinely believe there’s only one thing left to do, and that is to find a way to rid the universe of the Furies once and for all. I know how difficult that task will be. I don’t even know if I’ll survive it. But I know it must be done and, finally, in no small part thanks to you, I know I’m not alone.”

  “Give yourself some credit, Chase. It’s been before your eyes the whole time. You just needed to open them.”