Fury to the Stars (Universe in Flames Book 2)

by Christian Kallias

  “I already feel overwhelmed.”

  “I know. But before I let you return to your previous activity—”

  “I’m listening…”

  “The attack you made: if you ever use something that powerful, be mindful of what is around you, who you can hurt, what you can destroy.”

  “Well, I’ll try, but what if I fight Argos again? I’ll need my A-game to even make a dent if he’s half the warrior you say he is.”

  “Yes and you will need to make every shot count. They’ll need to be concentrated, but you’ll have to summon them using the technique you’ve just learned today, one you must train on as much as you can. But unlike our practice, you won’t have seconds, let alone minutes to cast your attacks; you must learn to cast them in fractions of seconds, milliseconds even.”

  “Seriously? Milliseconds?”

  “The more you practice, the easier it will become. Don’t worry about that right now. Whatever you’ve integrated here today will get assimilated within a few hours. The next time you try, you’ll be amazed how easily you manage to summon this power. But with power comes responsibility—be mindful of that at all times.”

  “Yeah, I will.” Chase threw up his hands. “I’m already quite mindful of the fact that you’ve just given me the tools to destroy everything and everyone I love.”

  “Or to save them. It all depends on your point of view.”

  Chase couldn’t tell if the ex-god was messing with him. In the end, he just shook his head again with a little smile. “I wonder if I will ever sleep again…”

  “Of course you will. Don’t obsess over this now. You have other things to do. Just remember to practice and not get anyone killed while doing so.”

  Chase rolled his eyes. “What do you mean, I have other things to do?”

  “Well, you know, testing your new battleship, finding what happened yesterday… Your daily life doesn’t stop just because you can obliterate a solar system with the wave of your hand.” Ares had an almost sadistic smile.

  “Very funny.”

  “Chill.” His eyes flashed with another grin. “I’d say you’ll age faster if you don’t relax a little, but somehow I don’t feel like you’re aging at all.”

  “About that,” Chase piped up quickly. “How come Argos seems older than me if we’re twins? Shouldn’t we age at the same speed?”

  Ares rubbed his chin. “I can only theorize here.”

  “Theorize away.”

  “Either you have different sets of powers, which is more than likely—after all your aura is blue, his is red.”

  “Or?”

  “Or you possess something different, something that replenishes your cells day after day, like it does to us. Although that would mean you’re the only non-Olympian I know who possesses that power.”

  “Other species live longer, don’t they?”

  “Yes, but only Olympians, and a few other older races, have unlimited lifespan, barring injury of course.”

  “I see...”

  Ares shrugged. “I wouldn't worry too much about it.”

  “Yeah, I bet you wouldn’t, but put yourself in my shoes.”

  “I understand, but this is a gift. You must use it to do good. Which leads me to my final warning for the day.”

  Chase sighed deeply and braced himself.

  “Power is dangerous, Chase, it can consume you. I know that from experience.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve held the name ‘God of War’ for countless centuries, remember?”

  “Yeah. You don’t really live up to your reputation,” Chase replied with a chuckle.

  Ares smiled back. “Perhaps, and believe me it’s a good thing. I got consumed with my powers. I thought I could do anything and everything I wanted. I seeded quite some troubles in the universe for a long time.”

  “What made you stop?”

  Ares’ face turned uncharacteristically stoic. “The realization of the countless lives my power games have consumed, the countless civilizations I’ve destroyed in a quest for more.”

  “I see...” Chase said softly, not really knowing what to think.

  “It could happen to you as well. It’s clearly happened to your brother, Argos. He’s being consumed by his thirst for power, and unless he sees the error in his ways, he can become way more dangerous than I ever was.”

  “Nightmares, here we come...”

  “I’m glad you have a sense of humor about it.”

  Chase stayed silent for a while.

  “Or not,” Ares corrected with a small smile. “So how about it, Fury? Any last questions?”

  “Yes, one actually.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Can I use my powers in space?”

  Ares paused. “Well, theoretically nothing is stopping you doing so, but I advise strongly against it.”

  “How come?”

  “You are part of that universe, so when you use these powers, you drain some of it from within but also the universe itself—as much as it allows you, as much as your pool allows. But since yours is very strong, you could actually tear the fabric of space if you tried.”

  “As opposed to when I’m on solid ground? What’s the difference?”

  “Think of it as a spider web.”

  “A spider web?” Chase felt genuinely puzzled at the comparison.

  “Where two strings meet on a web, the hold there is stronger. It’s a fixed point of matter, stronger than the single string. The more intersection, the stronger the whole web. If the universe is a web, then planets are the intersections. Their place in the universe is anchored more strongly than the vacuum of space. If you pop an intersection, the web still holds… But if you unleash fire in the web, you risk its entire collapse.”

  “Okay...” Chase’s head was spinning. “I’m not gonna even pretend I understand exactly what you meant right there, but I get the message. I should avoid using my powers when I’m flying a ship.”

  “I would, yes. You could most likely destroy an entire fleet with a wave of your hand, but you take the risk of creating black holes and other tears and anomalies in space and time. Trust me, you don’t want that.”

  “You did it yourself, didn’t you?”

  Ares’ jaw tightened and he broke eye contact. Chase was quick to move on.

  “Alright, I guess I still need to blow up ships the old fashioned way.”

  “You wouldn’t know it, but you’ve probably already used your powers instinctively to dogfight. They give you an edge—reaction time, precision, inventiveness…”

  “That would explain a few things.”

  “It would, wouldn’t it?” Ares smiled.

  “Yeah...” Chase let the word hang.

  “Well then, bye for now.” Ares waved two fingers away from his temples as if to enhance his goodbye, and disappeared into nothingness.

  A moment later, Chase opened his eyes to find himself back in the cemetery. The world around him was drenched in rain and he was still holding Sarah’s hand. As a delayed shiver ran through his body at everything he’d just been told, he squeezed it a little tighter.

  C H A P T E R

  XVII

  Argos was resting in his spacious quarters when the annoying buzz of an incoming message jolted him out of his current reverie.

  He waved a hand to answer the incoming message, audio only.

  “What is it? I thought I had made myself clear when I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “I know, Master, I apologize,” came the crackling voice. “But there has been a new communication matching the signature you asked us to look for.”

  Argos jumped out of his bed in a fluid motion. “I’m on my way to the bridge.”

  Finally, he thought as he exited his quarters in a hurry. Finally some good news.

  The return of the Fifth Star Alliance Fleet had thwarted the plan he had for Droxia. He knew very well that the Droxians wouldn’t be easy to defeat, but still, had the damn Star Allian
ce and his brother not intervened, the forces sent could have taken care of the defenses around their main world.

  He jumped into the lift the moment its splitting doors opened and said, “Bridge.”

  He had analyzed the logs of that battle very carefully and had noticed that the ships from the Fifth Fleet seemed more resilient, with heavier weaponry and some sort of short range cloaked fighters to boot. That would make the next engagements more difficult, but much more interesting at the same time.

  The doors opened a second later to reveal the bridge of the Zarlack ship Kollassi, Argos’ newly finished battleship. It was a similar class vessel as the Dragon’s Claw, but now that the emperor was gone, either dead or taken prisoner, he had appointed a new acting emperor whose first order had been to have a new behemoth-class destroyer constructed.

  Argos stepped purposefully onto the bridge of his new ship. All the officers rose and saluted him before getting back to their previous activity. He walked towards the communications officer, a rather small lizard man for a Zarlack, but Argos knew better than to judge someone based on their appearance. Commander Tsur’lan was a wizard when it came to digital communications, encryption, and hacking.

  “Report,” he demanded.

  Tsur’lan turned. “We received a transmission that seemed to last only a few moments. The proximity of the sensor we’ve installed on the subject allowed us to get a very clear signal; she must have been close to him when he received it.”

  “Good. As I suspected, she may prove more useful to us this way.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Can you interpret the message?”

  “That’s where it gets tricky. It’s clearly a sort of holographic video projection. That much I can figure out. But it’s garbled or, most likely, encrypted with an algorithm I’ve never heard of before.”

  Argos’ eyes narrowed in an icy glare. “I thought you were the best when it came to deciphering any sort of encryption.”

  “I’m flattered, Master, and I am very skilled in such matters, which may not be good news in this case. While it is still early, I am unable to even crack the surface. And from the looks of that data stream, it has a multi-layered, adaptable, and phasing encryption. Cracking it, if even possible in the first place, will be a long and tedious process.”

  “What can I do to help you?” Argos asked practically. “Do you require more calculation power? Feel free to network with the entire fleet and use as much CPU as you require.”

  “Thank you, Master, surely that will help somehow, but still… I’m afraid a full decode is less than likely, especially in a short time frame.”

  “What are we looking at here? A day? A week?”

  “While I need to run more tests on the data stream, I’d say unless we find the nature and access codes for these ciphers, more like one or more years.”

  Argos made a noise that made everyone on the bridge very uncomfortable. A flash of fear streaked through his communications officer’s eyes, but the man didn’t back down. He was simply telling the truth.

  “I... I believe however, Master, that if we could enlist some help, and the more signal we intercept as well, we could, perhaps, at least try and get some of these signals’ properties within a shorter timeframe. Much shorter.”

  “You want me to hire Datalight Thieves?”

  “It would help.”

  Argos thought about it; he didn’t like the idea. DTs were known to be the most skilled hackers of any sort of digital system in all of the universe, but they were also a scum organization—one that couldn’t be trusted. And if there was one thing that Argos didn’t want, it was to be hacked by DTs. He had too many secrets that needed to stay secrets.

  “I won’t have any of these data junkies onboard any of my ships...”

  The communications officer bowed his head. “I understand, Master.”

  “However...”— he paused and the lizard looked surprise— “use our base of communications in the Zeta Sector. Invite them there. But before you do, backup all data with quadruple encryption and send it to the fleet. Then wipe the data there except for just the bare minimum you need to work on decoding this message. This is a priority mission. You’re now in charge of it; do not disappoint me.”

  “Thank you, Master. Please understand the best I think can be achieved is to either get you the source of the message, or, at the very least, get the encapsulation method and perhaps, if we get lucky, some of the data. I wouldn’t count on full holographic data streams, but perhaps some audio.”

  Argos smiled, an incredibly rare event.

  “If you manage to get some audio and the encapsulation method for this message, you’ll be promoted on the spot; if you get me the source location of the message, I’ll give you whatever your heart desires. If you fail at both, I will wipe you out of existence, understood?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  While Argos didn’t need threats or even really like using them, he noticed that with small-minded creatures, it was a very efficient motivator. While he wouldn’t want to lose such a skilled communications officer, he had trust that he would deliver something of use at the very least. And he definitely didn’t trust anyone else to shield him from these damn DTs.

  “Keep me informed as soon as you have anything to report.”

  “The second I have something, you’ll know.”

  Argos nodded in agreement. “Oh, and one more thing.”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “Once you’re done with the DTs help, make sure none of them survive.”

  “Understood.”

  Argos then proceeded to leave the bridge of the Kollassi.

  * * *

  It was Chase’s first ever funeral. Well, his first ever Earth funeral. The Alliance didn’t put dead bodies in the ground; they jettisoned them in a militaristic fashion to the nearest star. So to say that it had been an enlightening day—between the ceremony and Ares—was putting it mildly. As he and Sarah walked around the wake that followed, he learned that “funerals” in the human sense were more a celebration of life than anything else. It was actually a rather beautiful way to gain some kind of closure, and as Sarah mingled with family and friends she hadn’t seen in a long time—introducing Chase all the while—he hoped it was working.

  Everything was going smoothly until his comm made a noise. He quickly exited the little house and went outside to take the call.

  “Lieutenant Commander Athanatos.”

  “Lieutenant Commander, I need you on the Destiny,” Commodore Saroudis said with no other preamble.

  “Can it wait, Commodore? Kind of in the middle of something at the moment.”

  “It would be best if you came onboard ASAP. We had another attempt, this time on the shipyard. Fortunately we diffused the situation, but I thought you’d like to be here for the interrogation of the suspect.”

  They’d found a suspect?

  Chase bit his lower lip. He indeed wanted to know who was responsible and why these terrorist acts were happening, but he didn’t want to abandon Sarah in a time of need.

  “I’ll do my best to get to the Destiny as soon as possible, Commodore.”

  “Very well. If you’re not here within the hour, we’ll start the interrogation without you. In the meantime, I’ve sent a team to investigate the nature of the explosive and a sweeping team to make sure there aren’t any other surprises left on our brand new battleship.”

  “Thanks, Commodore, see you soon. Chase out.”

  The transmission ended, and as if on cue the door opened and Sarah joined him outside.

  “Everything okay?” she asked with a touch of concern. “Do you feel uncomfortable being here?”

  “Not at all,” he reassured her quickly. “The commodore called, something happened...”

  “Another explosion?”

  “Fortunately this time the attempt was thwarted, but Saroudis would like me to be there when we interrogate the perpetrator.”

  “You should go, Chase.�
�

  “No, I said I would come and be here with you today. This is more important.”

  She cast him a beaming smile. “No it’s not, Chase, and you know it. Besides, you are here. You came, the funeral is almost over, and I have all my family here. So really, I insist, go take care of business.”

  He took her in his arms and held her tightly against his chest.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered. “Thank you for being here for me.”

  Chase’s heart ached at the thought of leaving her.

  “I love you too, and I’ll get back to you as soon as humanly possible.”

  “I know you will.”

  She kissed him softly on the lips and returned inside as he used his comm to call a shuttle.

  * * *

  On board the Destiny, Chase hurried off the shuttle then rushed to meet the commodore on the bridge. Upon arrival, he was surprised to see Tar’Lock and Ryonna were there as well.

  “Hey, guys, what are you doing here?”

  The commodore answered. “I thought it could be beneficial to have a Droxian at the interrogation. They are imposing by nature, and perhaps she could be of use.”

  “I can be very persuasive if need be,” Ryonna said gravely.

  “And I had nothing better to do, so I came along,” Tar’Lock added cheerfully.

  Chase smiled at the remark. “So tell me more. What happened?”

  Captain Saroudis selected a view from the holo-display that showed the new battleship, the EAD Hope. He pointed to a blinking red dot.

  “A worker on the new battleship planted a bomb near the quadrinium chamber, here. If it had detonated, not only would that have destroyed the ship, but it might have seriously damaged multiple cities in the once United States of America from the fallout debris.”

  “Has he talked?”

  Ryonna shook her head. “No. She doesn’t seem like she will be easily intimidated either.”

  “She?” Chase was surprised. “Who talked with her until now?”