Armageddon Unleashed (Universe in Flames Book 7)

by Christian Kallias

  “I have considerable experience in force fields. Perhaps I could assist you.”

  “Gladly. Take a seat.”

  19

  Chase looked at a row of reserve StarFuries in the launch bays. He put his hand on the armor of one of them and let his hand slide over the cold metal surface. His little taste of that earlier in Gaia 2’s matrix had reminded him just how much he enjoyed being at the command of a StarFury.

  “Chase!” exclaimed Daniel. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m going to borrow a few StarFuries and help Yanis figure out how to counter the new weapon.”

  “And how exactly will you do that?”

  “I’ll bring one on board for study.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “No, but we’re doing it anyway. Today we can’t afford to play it safe.”

  “When have we ever played it safe since the Star Alliance fell?”

  Chase chuckled. “Touché. Time to go.”

  “Why don’t you just remote-control them?”

  “I will, but I’d rather be on board one of them. My plan hinges on me being in space anyway.”

  “Do I even want to know what’s on your mind right now?”

  “Nah, you’d try to argue against it, and we both know this would be a waste of time.”

  “Anything else I can do? I don’t like being grounded here while the battle unfolds outside.”

  “Go back to your StarFury. You’ll need to get back out soon enough, if my plan goes well.”

  “Okay, I’d tell you to be careful, but . . .”

  Chase smiled and climbed aboard the nearest StarFury. He was done with the preflight checks within a few seconds, and soon his fighter was in space, with two pilotless ones following.

  Cedric punched the console in front of him in frustration. The nanites were restoring multiple systems all over the planet’s surface, but he was still way short of the power requirements for firing up the shield.

  “I need more power! How do I get more power?” he said out loud.

  An idea struck him. If he could modify one of the shield emitters to store energy instead of sending it in orbit . . .

  He brought up the schematics of the emitters and quickly analyzed its design. His augmented mental functions, due to Gaia 2’s implants, made his thinking much more efficient. It was intoxicating, and he wondered how he would feel when the time came to have them removed.

  Yet he couldn’t envision looking the way he did, a deformed cyborg, for the remainder of his life. He would see if he could augment himself as Spiros had. That would have to wait. They needed to survive this day first.

  He found something promising in the blueprints of the emitter. It had been designed by Gaia and was very functional, elegant and, more importantly, modular in design. All he needed to do was send a bunch of nanites to one of the emitters currently in the right position relative to the battle unfolding in orbit.

  It was easier said than done, but Cedric was confident the nanites could rewire the emitter to receive a specific amount of energy and have it channeled back into the power capacitor of the planetary shield.

  Of course, if he miscalculated, he could overload the entire power grid and kiss his chances of re-activating them goodbye.

  “I thrive under pressure,” he said to reassure himself, as he ordered the nanites in the area to make his design changes.

  An incoming transmission came from the Hope. Chase accepted the channel and Sarah’s face filled the StarFury’s holo-screen.

  “Hey, what can I do for you?”

  “Weren’t you supposed to get to the Furies’ destroyer? What the hell are you doing in space?”

  “I still have a few minutes to try something that could help Yanis counter these new death spheres.”

  “Death spheres?”

  “It’s as good a name as any.”

  “Well, I sure hope you know what you’re doing. I would think the Fury destroyer was more of a threat than these.”

  “It is, but this threat is immediate. The Furies . . . Well, like I said, I still have a few minutes.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “I promise I’ll be back home for dinner, love.”

  “Riiiiight. I’ve got that feeling I get when you’re about to do something really reckless. And I don’t like it. Please be careful.”

  “I will be.”

  And, obviously, you know me very well ’cause this is borderline insane, even for me.

  Chase had the StarFury he’d used earlier to get to Earth undetected join the trio of ships he had taken with him. The moment the four ships were in a tight formation, he micro-jumped them towards one of Gaia 2’s destroyers at the outer edge of the battle.

  Now, let’s see if I can get her attention.

  He unleashed all four StarFuries’ lasers and a complement of torpedoes towards the destroyer, which didn’t take long to return fire by sending four of the dreaded weapons towards his small wing of starfighters.

  He redistributed the StarFuries’ power systems to boost their engines to the maximum, but even at full burn the death spheres were gaining on him. He activated all four StarFuries’ tractor beams to lock onto one of the spheres and fired them simultaneously.

  They managed to get a lock, but the sphere accelerated dangerously. Chase split his wing into two pairs of fighters. Each pair broke to port and starboard in a precisely timed maneuver. When he was at the optimal position, with all four tractor beams still locked on, he tried stopping and stabilizing one of the spheres in space.

  The other three spheres didn’t anticipate the move and overshot the quadruplet of StarFuries. But they were already adjusting course. Fortunately, their maneuverability was quite restrained, probably by design. This was a ramming weapon. It only needed to touch its target once to take it out.

  The ships moaned. They wouldn’t last very long under this much pressure. Chase didn’t have much time left anyway. In a handful of seconds the other three death spheres would finish their arching manoeuver towards his position.

  “I sure hope you guys are ready with the force field,” said Chase over the radio.

  “We’re ready. Well, kind of. Cargo bay three if you please, Captain,” said Kvasir.

  Chase wanted to query that last remark, but time was no longer a currency he had. Chase teleported into space, erected a force field around him and flew near the immobilized sphere.

  Up close and personal the weapon was even more impressive. Several sharply dentated rings rotated too quickly for a normal human to see. But Chase was no human. His Fury power allowed him to see the mechanism in detail.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” said Chase.

  Chase used all his energy to counter the spinning force of the rings. He could sense the other three spheres on their way. The moment the last of the rings stopped spinning, Chase touched the sphere and teleported himself with it into cargo bay three.

  He sent a mental command with some of his old and trusty pre-programmed macros for all four StarFuries to take evasive action.

  Three of the StarFuries avoided collision but one of them was not fast enough and was shred to pieces.

  Chase was still holding the death sphere with kinetic energy when he arrived in cargo bay three.

  “I’m here. Try to focus the field to be at the exact edges of the sphere. I’m pretty sure that will prevent it from resuming rotation.”

  “Give us a few seconds to make the necessary changes,” said Kvasir.

  “Hurry up. I really need to get moving.”

  “We’re good; deploying the field in three . . . two . . . one.”

  Chase teleported away and watched as the force field formed around the sphere. It was still a good yard away from the edge of the five-foot-high sphere.

  “I said, on the edge of the sphere.”

  “Sorry about that. Recalibrating.”

  The force field shrank and was now holding the sphere all around its edges. Chase released his kineti
c hold on the weapon progressively to ensure it wouldn’t start rotating at its usual speed and break out of containment.

  “Chase,” he heard from his comm unit.

  It was Sarah’s voice.

  “The Fury destroyer will be in firing range in less than two minutes.”

  “Thanks for the head’s up. I’m on my way.”

  Chase released his kinetic hold more quickly. The metal-teethed rings on the death sphere rotated slowly but were mostly contained by the field. Chase calculated that they were accelerating, albeit slowly, but it could become a problem.

  “Kvasir, you’re seeing that, right?”

  “We are. We’ll try to adjust for it.”

  “Well if you don’t do it in ten minutes maximum, you’ll have a problem.”

  “Yeah, we know. Hopefully we can either compensate or find what we’re looking for before then.”

  “If necessary, use Yanis’ modified beaming routine he got from Cedric to get that thing outside the ship again.”

  “Will do. Kvasir out.”

  Chase had less than a minute to get to the Fury super-destroyer before it entered firing range. Hopefully he could prevent Miseo from firing on the Earth Alliance ships.

  “We’re mad for even attempting this. You know that, right?” said Yanis.

  “Perhaps. But it’s not like we decided to do this. Both the idea and delivery came from our captain,” said Kvasir.

  “Oh, give it a rest already! Call him Chase like everyone else, will you?”

  “I’m sorry. On my homeworld, we address superiors by their ranks, Chief.”

  “Well, you’re not on your homeworld anymore, are you? In fact, you haven’t been there for a very long time. And Chase—yeah, well, okay technically he is your superior. That part’s correct. Still, as you’ll see, he’s a cool boss. His ideas are borderline mad, but at least he’s fun to work with.”

  “I can see that. Can’t you?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, crazy or not, the cap—” Kvasir corrected himself “—Chase was right in bringing us that thing for closer inspection. We’ve learned more from it in less than a minute than we did since Gaia 2 started shooting them at our starfighters. Look at the sensor data we’re getting from it. And now compare it to what we had before from the external sensor array.”

  “What are you mumbling?” Yanis’ eyes lit up. “Jackpot! Is that what I think it is?” He pointed to the center of the sphere on Kvasir’s holo-screen.

  “Subspace transmitter, yep yep.”

  “If we can hack it—”

  “Already on it.”

  “Will you let me finish a sentence, already?”

  “I’m sorry, Chief.”

  “That’s okay. I’m just not used to working with someone as fast as you. I’m usually the one that has to slow down for the rest of my team.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Yanis threw up his arms. “How else would you take it?”

  “I don’t want to brag, but while you were incessantly chit-chatting, I’ve reverse-engineered most of it already. If we can isolate the cypher used by the transmitter, here . . .” said Kvasir, pointing at the center of a blow-up display of the subspace transmitter.

  “We could disable the suckers.”

  “Now who’s not letting the other finish his sentences?”

  Yanis raised an eyebrow.

  “We can do better than disabling them, Chief.”

  “Stop calling me chief. Right. We could issue a return to sender. I like that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, don’t get too cocky. You’ll still need my help with that.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Kvasir absently, while his hands rapidly ran over the holo-controls.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, Chief. Would you please take a look at the cypher while I finish reprogramming this unit’s targeting system? We’re on the clock here.”

  Yanis scratched his head and shot Kvasir a slightly annoyed look, but soon they were both working hard at their respective holo-consoles.

  Yanis snorted. “I’m still the chief around here.”

  “Whatever you say, Yanis,” said Kvasir with a cheeky smile.

  “Now he calls me by name.”

  Cedric was done with his shield-emitter modification. He checked on the power build-up from his secondary holo-screen and saw it was still climbing at snail speed.

  He grimaced and returned to his simulation, which he ran three times to make sure he wouldn’t blow up the very shields he was trying to get back up. Everything looked good.

  He double checked the modifications the nanites had made to the power conduits on that one emitter, and also made sure that they were easily reversible with the run of a simple macro, should he need to.

  The planetary shield had been built with redundancy in mind. So, taking one of the emitters out of the equation while turning it into a receptor wouldn’t prevent it from deploying. It would simply require slightly more juice to the other emitters to compensate.

  That was a problem, but if he could channel outside energy from orbit, that would easily compensate for the slight side-effect. Now the big question remained: could any of the ships up there position themselves to precisely fire on the emitter? A less than perfect shot would most likely obliterate it.

  It was time to ask the Hope to make that shot.

  Chase teleported into a corridor aboard the Eternal Wrath, closed his eyes and focused on Miseo’s and Oryn’s lifeforce.

  He located both of them not far from his position, but Oryn’s energy seemed uncharacteristically low. He was only a few hundred yards away from them, so he decided not to teleport but to make an entrance.

  He flew through to the ship’s bridge, melting the metal doors on the way.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” said Miseo, his back still turned.

  Chase scanned the room to find Oryn. Perhaps she was waiting to ambush him. She was the real threat. Startled, he spotted her unconscious on the floor behind a nearby console, next to the bulkhead.

  What’s going on here?

  “Well, I’m here. I didn’t think you’d want a rematch after your bitter defeat last time we met.”

  Miseo turned around and Chase was surprised by the unbridled rage in Miseo’s eyes. He didn’t look at all like Chase remembered him. This Miseo wasn’t cocky or overconfident. He looked utterly mad and highly determined. His fiery eyes sent wave after wave of pure hatred Chase’s way.

  “What happened to Oryn? Brother-sister spat? Then again, you two are only half-siblings.”

  “So it’s true. She’s Zeus’ daughter. That would explain why I never felt connected to her my entire life. It will make killing her all the easier.”

  You’re not killing her!

  “I’m surprised someone as weak as you managed to put her out of commission, though.”

  “Who said I was weak?”

  “I think I just did.”

  “Before, perhaps. Today I am strong. Stronger than her. Stronger than you. Today is the day I kill the Ultra Fury.”

  Chase took a defensive stance. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  Miseo laughed so hard and so deeply that Chase could feel the reverberation through his feet.

  “I’m going to enjoy this,” said Miseo.

  Chase didn’t wait for Miseo to make the first move. He launched himself at maximum speed, unleashed a highly powerful jab towards Miseo’s face and was utterly surprised when his fist was stopped by Miseo’s hand with little to no effort.

  He’s much faster than before.

  Before Chase could retract his fist, Miseo closed his fingers around it with bone-crushing pressure. So much pressure, in fact, that it forced Chase onto one knee. Chase heard his bones snap. He gritted his teeth from the pain.

  I’ve got to get out of his grasp, now!

  Chase somersaulted and kicked Miseo’s chin with his knee i
n the process. At the end of his somersault, Chase healed his broken hand.

  This is not going to be the easy fight I imagined. I’d better be careful.

  Miseo was still looking up from Chase’s blow for a couple of seconds, then he slowly lowered his unscathed face and locked gazes with Chase once more.

  “Did you just hit me? I didn’t feel a thing,” said Miseo.

  “I’ll make sure you feel the next—”

  Chase teleported in front of Miseo before finishing his sentence and thrust his elbow right into the middle of Miseo’s thorax.

  Miseo lowered his gaze. He seemed unaffected.

  This is not good!

  “My turn,” said Miseo, before planting his own elbow on top of Chase’s skull. The blow flattened Chase with such force that the floor cracked all around them. Before Chase could react he felt the strong wind that preceded Miseo’s foot, which hit him straight across the face with the force of a quadrinium-reinforced hammer.

  Chase flew halfway across the bridge before regaining control in midair and stabilizing himself. He hovered a few feet above the floor. He felt a buildup of sticky liquid in his throat and spat a large quantity of blood onto the floor.

  20

  “You want me to do what?” said Sarah.

  “I need you to fire on Earth’s shield emitter number sixteen. And be precise about it.”

  “Have you completely lost your mind, Cedric?”

  “Look, we need to get the shield back up. Gaia 2 could decide to turn her ships towards the planet, and if the shields are still down because I’m lacking power, I don’t have to tell you what’s going to happen.”

  “We’re kind of in the middle of a battle for our lives here. How am I supposed to do that? And won’t it draw Gaia 2’s attention towards the planet? If her sensors tell her you’re powering up, what do you think her next move will be?”

  “I know, it’s a risk.”

  “Sounds like too much of a risk, if you ask me.”

  “Sarah, please trust me on this. I need power, and not just a little. A full blast of the Hope’s main Damocles canon at least.”