Spiros grinned. “I have a sure fire way for you to not receive any more damage: get the fuck out of my space!”
“Your space?” Argos laughed. “Alright, let’s just say it is your space for the moment. But that won’t last long and you know it.”
“Try me, asshole!”
“I’ll forgo the name calling for now, as I have a proposition for you.”
“Not interested.”
“Very well, it’s your funeral.”
The communications turned off and one of the biggest ships in the armada fired a very powerful shot at the station. The shields held but the entire station shook.
“I know where you are now,” Spiros called out loud. “See if you like my funeral arrangements.”
He targeted the behemoth Zarlack ship and fired everything he had. After a minute of firing main weapons, and turret laser fire, and even a few torpedoes, he saw that the impact on its shields had been only twenty percent, while the station had lost more than that in the same amount of time.
“Alright, not the right target to focus my limited energy on… obviously.”
He changed his targeting priorities and resumed attacking smaller ships in order of the more damaged to the less, now completely ignoring the massive ship which had already almost recovered its shields to full capacity.
“You’re lucky I didn’t have the time to install my new guns,” Spiros said defiantly, clearly unaware he was speaking to himself. But he couldn’t help but worry about the Alliance and the fact that his shields were already down to fifty percent.
But as if to answer his wishes, multiple ships jumped out of hyperspace just behind Argos’ armada. They lost no time engaging them, reducing the amount of firepower Damocles-3 had to deal with. The newly arrived fleet contained several Alliance ships, including one which he was unfamiliar with, but, from the sensor data he was receiving, seemed to be the most powerful of them all, and by a large margin.
The EAD Hope. That figures why it was Chase who had picked up the call.
Spiros recognized the Destiny amongst the other ships and wondered if it was still being captained by his friend and pupil Adonis Saroudis, a resident star from his years teaching at the academy. He was a smart and studious kid, one Spiros never doubted, even back then, would be given his own command. Attentive and always asking the right questions. Mind snapping back to the present, he then saw that the fleet also had Droxian ships and they were fighting alongside the Alliance.
“I never thought the Droxians would ally with anybody, but these are desperate times, I guess.”
He sank into the nearest chair, right after setting firing controls to fully automatic, making sure the Droxians were treated as allies, and exhaled deeply, his stress level lowering on the spot.
“Reinforcements are here. Now it’s time to enjoy the show and be ready for pick up any time soon.”
* * *
Chase addressed the fleet as soon as they exited hyperspace.
“Listen up, everyone, we need to deal with the Zarlack fleet, but most importantly, we need to get a hold of the schematics and rescue scientist Spiros Malayianis from the Damocles-3 station. This is a top priority, so we cannot let the station fall until that part of the mission is accomplished. Protect the station with your ships and lives if you have to.”
He opened a channel to Daniel.
“Dan, you and Sarah need to head to the station and locate Spiros. Make sure you have his research and come back onboard the Hope when you’re done.”
“Acknowledged. How do we board?”
“Contact Spiros once you’re near the shields so he can drop them around the landing bays long enough for you two to land on Damocles.”
“Sounds like a plan, Chase. Will report once the mission is accomplished.”
“Be careful.”
“Same to you, Captain,” Daniel said cheerfully, enjoying his friend’s acting title.
Chase didn’t like the idea of sitting this one out, but it was vital for him to command this fleet and make sure he did everything he needed to prevent the Damocles Station from being destroyed before they got their hand on Spiros and his precious data.
With most of his crew now back on their feet and the forces at play rightly balanced, he could, however, take the time to test a F-147. He itched to see what the craft could do, and he was confident he could still command the fleet and dogfight at the same time. So without a shadow of hesitation, he stuck the neuronal interface devices to his temple and powered up a StarFury in reserve onboard the Destiny.
The StarFury was mind-blowing, it flew like a dream, and he enjoyed his first engagement with a Zarlack fighter—even though it didn’t end up lasting very long after he deployed his drones. The tactical advantages were undeniable. He blew his first prey out of the sky with such ease he almost missed the thrill of the challenge. Then he brought his fighter about and decided to see what the StarFury could do against an entire enemy squadron.
Let’s even the odds a little, shall we?
He hit his afterburners and destroyed his first targeted enemy on the first pass, letting them pursue on purpose. He flew evasively, but not too much. He wanted to test the shields next. After a few seconds of letting them pound his aft shields down to forty percent, he punched in his favorite command for such a situation, Theta-4. The ship killed the engines and engaged reverse thrusters to maximum while seven Zarlack ships flew in front of him like shooting stars.
He lined up his first target and rained deadly laser fire on its aft shields just long enough to enjoy the moment before it exploded in a fiery display. He then engaged the next two targets—dispatching one with two missiles up its tail pipe, and finishing off the second with precise and relentless laser fire.
The thrill was coming back, and oh boy it felt good to pilot a starfighter again.
Sure he loved the manual feel of the stick, but he didn’t miss the old days. He always had the simulator for that anyway. Nothing could beat the high this perfectly synced neuronal interface was bringing. He acquired the last enemy craft in this squadron and picked them off, one by one, by perfectly lining laser fire and anticipating their every move. Once the last one exploded, he looked at his radar and located another incoming squadron.
He checked the status of the fight and saw that the Hope was doing well on his automatic scripted commands. It had destroyed one Zarlack destroyer and was giving another one hell. He had programmed it to alert him whenever the Hope’s shields reached fifty percent, but from his brief analysis of the sensor data, he could see that this was unlikely to happen for the time being.
He could try something different now with the next incoming squadron. He decided to use one of his drones as a shielded torpedo and sent it in the center of the tightly formed squadron, detonating it without a thought. The resulting explosion vaporized the entire squadron on the spot. He knew full well that this was wasting ordnance, but he couldn’t help himself. He needed to know if that would work and it did beyond his expectations.
One check on his scope told him that Daniel and Sarah, covered by the rest of both Destiny’s and Hope’s Alpha Squadrons, were arriving at destination and soon they would board the Damocles Station.
But despite the all-around good news, he wondered what Argos would think of next. He had to have something planned. He had beaten them at every turn and Chase saw no reason why this time would be any different.
A salvo of laser fire on his starboard as well as the buzz of a missile lock brought Chase’s mind back to the fight. A Zarlack frigate had decided that he was doing too much damage to their starfighter wings.
Chase reconfigured his remaining drones for maximum firepower and a spinning pattern, then he engaged the frigate and fired at max power, redistributing the power on the fly each and every other second, lowering his shield to achieve maximum firepower on the frigate’s shields and boosting them back up when the incoming fire was becoming too focused and more difficult to evade. Readjusting power levels
with his mind really opened new options and definitely boosted efficiency.
Once the frigate’s frontal shield reached twenty percent, he locked two missiles and a torpedo and fired them all at once. The faster missiles drained the shields completely as the torpedo tore through and exploded in front of the ship. It stopped firing, its weapons disabled. Another ten seconds of pounding laser fire from both his ship and drones did the job and the vessel exploded out in space with a bright flash and a resounding bang that shook the StarFury at its close range.
Then Chase’s ship blew up.
The broken link shook Chase to the core and he opened his eyes, clearly disoriented from losing the neuronal link with his StarFury.
“What happened?” he asked his crew.
“It looks like the behemoth ship fired a single, concentrated shot of plasma on your remote fighter; it was destroyed from the direct hit.”
“Son of a...” swore Chase.
He had been too cocky, not paying attention and feeling indestructible, and Argos had taught him a lesson. That meant only one thing though: he had felt that Chase wasn’t physically present on the ship. He could sense his vital energy somehow. Chase closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on Argos. If his brother could do it, perhaps so could he. He tried to expand his mind and quiet down every external stimuli emanating from the bridge, but instead of calming himself, his mind got agitated, his thoughts went all over the place beyond his control until chaos ensued. He then received three quick flashes in his mind.
He saw Daniel and Sarah meet with Spiros. Then he saw himself fighting Argos onboard the station. And finally, he saw a StarFury explode in space.
The power of the images cut the wind from his lungs and he felt a terrible sense of dread and anxiety invade his mind and permeate throughout his body. It was as if someone had stepped on his grave, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.
“Captain! Are you alright? Should I call a medic?”
What the hell was that?
Was it the future he just saw in those millisecond flashes? And if it was, what did they mean and whose StarFury would get destroyed? Perhaps the StarFury was a flashback from losing his own ship a few seconds ago…?
“Captain?!” said the crewman, even more alarmed now.
Chase’s breathing became a little more constant, breath by breath.
“No, thank you, Ensign Boldaris. I’m fine... I think.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
* * *
As Daniel and Sarah approached the shields of the Damocles Station, he hailed it.
“This is Commander Tharaleos. I’m coming to get you out of the station. Can you please open a portion of the shields around docking bay three?”
“Give me a sec... There you go, you’re clear to land. I’m in the command center on deck one.”
“Roger that. Hang tight, we won’t be long.”
Daniel was the first to touchdown on the floor of the docking station, followed immediately by Sarah. They exited their respective StarFuries, both drawing out their weapons. For Daniel, it was his service blaster pistol. For Sarah, the weapon she’d acquired on Hathan Prime.
Then, without exchanging a word between them, they began running for the nearest lift.
* * *
Argos was onboard the cloaked Dark Star when the shields were briefly lowered around one of the docking stations. He positioned his ship right behind the two StarFuries and waited for his moment of opportunity, hovering silently until they exited the bay on foot. Then he landed the Dark Star and got out of the ship. Since he was seeing everything Sarah was seeing, it wasn’t difficult for him to follow their steps.
When they took a lift to the top level deck, he pushed a mental command so Sarah would send the lift back to him undetected. When it arrived, he stepped inside and selected deck one as well.
C H A P T E R
XXIX
After three minutes of sprinting, both Sarah and Daniel arrived at the command center and were greeted by Spiros, who was in a sparkling good mood.
“Is this a reunion?” he asked. “Weren’t you also one of my students at the academy?”
“That’s right,” said Daniel with a smile. “How are you, Professor?”
“Better now, and please, call me Spiros.”
“Alright, do you have the data containing your research?”
Spiros held up a translucent, blue, hexagonal data crystal pinched between two of his fingers. “Right here. We’re good to go.”
A loud voice boomed suddenly behind them.
“Nobody is going anywhere.”
Daniel’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Argos enter the room. He raised his blaster and fired three shots but the man stopped them with a simple wave of his hand.
“Really?” He cocked his head mockingly. “You think a gun will bring me down?”
Daniel opened a channel to Chase. “Chase, Arg—” But before he could finish his sentence, Argos had appeared in front of him and punched him in the guts so hard that he lost consciousness on the spot.
“Daniel, I didn't get your last transmission. What’s your status?”
Chase’s voice echoed over the comm as Argos caught Daniel’s body before he could fall all the way to the ground. He looked up at Spiros and saw pure terror in the man’s eyes.
“I’ll take this, if you please.” He snatched the crystal disk out of Spiros’ hand with his mind.
Spiros was startled to see the disk fly from his hand to Argos’ as if by magic.
“It’s useless if you don’t know how to open the files.”
“That’s the last of my worries right now, old man.” Argos smiled.
Spiros turned in desperation to Sarah, but saw her just standing there. “Why aren’t you trying to get the disk back?” he wailed. “What’s wrong with you?”
She launched at Spiros and clocked his head with her elbow, smashing his head down on a nearby console before he collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Argos didn’t even look up. “Thank you, dear. Now open a channel to the Hope.”
She pushed Spiros’ unconscious body out of the way and entered a few commands. The next second, a nervous looking Chase appeared on the screen.
“What is it, Sarah?”
Argos grabbed Daniel by his hair and held him up as he stepped into view next to Sarah.
Chase’s blood froze.
“Friend of yours?” Argos asked curiously. “His head seems so fragile.”
“If you hurt him...”
“I don’t think you’re in any position to be threatening me right now. I have both your friend and your beloved Sarah here. Oh, and this.” He held up the crystal with the other hand.
Chase ground his teeth together and tried to stay calm. “What do you want?”
“Come and get me,” Argos said directly. “You have three minutes or this one dies.”
As the communication ended, Chase had to use everything he had learned from Ares not to let his rage literally rip the galaxy in half. In a dead sprint, he ran to the door.
“Captain, where are you going?” inquired Sergeant Sparton.
“You have the bridge,” Chase called back as he bolted to the launch bays. He arrived just a second later, but to his great dismay, there was no ship. He commed Yanis immediately, glancing up at the clock in terror.
“Yanis’ genius hotline. How may I help you today?”
“Don’t we have a shuttlecraft of any kind or a reserve ship?”
“There should be a shuttle, why?”
“I need to go onboard Damocles-3, NOW!”
Yanis sobered up at once. “Lemme check… The logs show it departed while we were still inside the Gatos Nebula. Why don’t you recall one of the StarFury or Omega fighters?”
“I don’t think I have time anymore,” Chase panted. “Gotta go, thanks.”
“Sure, any—”
Chase turned off the comm. It must have been the craft the emperor to
ok when he left the ship. “Think, Chase...Think!” he said to himself, trying to make his brain run faster.
Then an idea popped into his head. Crazy? Sure. But did he have a choice? No.
He quickly accessed his inner pool of energy and made a shield all around him. The blue energy coursed effortlessly back and forth as he tested it, making sure it would hold. When he was satisfied, he took a deep breath, said a silent prayer, and dove headfirst off the ship.
The second he was out in space, he tucked his limbs against his body like a bullet, leaving a small shockwave behind him as he accelerated towards the Damocles Station. In no time at all, he was travelling at a speed faster than a starfighter. He almost collided with a StarFury on his way and could sense it was Fillio’s. He even heard her train of thought in his mind as he passed only a few feet from her craft. “Holy shit… What the fuck was that?!”
He was almost upon the station when he remembered about the shields. He extended his hands in front of him and made a diamond shape, linking both his index fingers and thumbs together. A fraction of a second before impact, he unleashed a bright ray of light that made the shields flicker and created a small hole, just big enough for him to fly through. A few seconds later, he entered the launching bays where he saw two StarFuries as well as the black ship that had taken Sarah hostage in his first encounter with Argos in space around Earth.
He brushed the thought of destroying the ship away, knowing full well he was running out of time and Argos could kill both Daniel and Sarah if he did. Instead, he flew towards the nearest lift, blew the doors open with a fireball, and flew up the empty shaft. Less than three seconds later, he reached the end of the tube where the lift stood and blocked his way out.
With a great mental push, he flattened the lift’s cage to a third of its original size like it was made of carton. Sparks flew all over the place as he flew through the now accessible external doors, tearing them to shreds as he finally arrived in the corridor on deck one. The sheer velocity and trajectory of his flight path made him rebound a couple of times from nearby walls, until he managed to readjust his trajectory for the final stretch towards the command center. Upon impact with the closed doors at the end of the corridor he obliterated them and flew in like they weren’t there.
Fury to the Stars (Universe in Flames Book 2) Page 29
