Into the Fire Part II: To End All Wars (Universe in Flames Book 10)

by Christian Kallias

  Tar’Sian swiftly positioned her katana under Ryonna’s throat.

  “You drop it or she di—”

  But Tar’Sian never finished her sentence, as Altair burned a fist-sized hole in her head where a trail of smoke rose up as the life faded away from her eyes.

  Ryonna lost consciousness with a smile on her face.

  “Ryonna!!” shouted Altair.

  Spiros painfully opened his eyes.

  “Hey, welcome back,” said Gaia.

  “Am I dreaming?”

  “No, silly; we’re back on board Keera’s ship. We’ll soon be home. Just hang on, will you?”

  “Morgor?”

  “Dead, and we’ve blown up his ship, too.”

  “The biomaterial?”

  “Lost. But we’ve informed Argos, and he said he had enough left to repair your body. We’ll have to put you in suspended animation for most of the trip. But I wanted to see you first.”

  Spiros didn’t know if this was truly happening or if he was imagining it. His thoughts were foggy at best.

  “Oh…that’s kind of you.”

  “Spiros. I love you.”

  The words sent adrenaline rushing through him and then he felt wide awake. Spiros’ eyes shot open.

  “What did you just say?”

  Tears filled Gaia’s eyes. “I said I love you. I’m back.”

  “But your matrix— it was corrupted.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you; it must have corrected itself. When I thought Morgor killed you, my basic AI was flooded with all my memories and emotions. I can only surmise my matrix self-repaired.”

  Spiros’ eyes filled with tears. “I love you, too.”

  Gaia smiled before kissing him passionately.

  “If this is a dream, I don’t want to ever wake up. But if it’s real, I don’t want to go back to sleep.”

  “You’ll have to. Your body is failing. But we’ll see each other soon, I promise.”

  “Can I have one more kiss before I sleep?”

  She smiled. “You can have as many as you want.”

  They kissed for what felt like forever.

  Chase woke up in the Underworld.

  “Oh, crap!”

  “You’re not dead,” said Zeus’ voice from behind him. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Chase turned around.

  “Why am I here then?”

  “I needed to talk to you. And your body’s condition was weak enough that I could call your soul to me.”

  “I see.”

  “There’s someone else that wants to talk with you.”

  Aphroditis materialized next to Zeus.

  “What’s going on?”

  “My daughter tells me you are refusing to let her die.”

  “I promised Ares I would save her life. Just as I promised her I would save hers.”

  “Seems to me she doesn’t want to be saved. You should respect her wishes, Chase.”

  “Please, Chase. I’m tired,” pleaded Aphroditis.

  Chase took his head in his hands and pulled at his hair.

  “I can bring you back; all I have to do is find Asclepios. He can concoct the same elixir that brought me back.”

  “That would be true if his soul hadn’t moved on to Elysium already. He was on Olympus when it exploded,” said Zeus. “So, the secret of his elixir died with him.”

  Give me a fucking break.

  “How do you know this?”

  “Well, we arrived down here together for one, with many of my people.”

  Aphroditis was crying. Chase’s heart ached. He didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, he knew he had no right to keep his aunt alive against her wishes, but he had just told Ares he wouldn’t let her die.

  “I’m sorry, Aphroditis. Please understand that you may be feeling this way because of the mental and physical torture you’ve been through.”

  “I’m tired, Chase. I’ve seen too much. I don’t want to be the conduit of eternal bad news. There’s still so much darkness on the horizon…”

  Chase did not like the sound of that, not one bit.

  “What do you mean? What have you seen?”

  But Aphroditis faded away.

  “Wait!”

  “Let her go, Chase,” said Zeus. “And I don’t just mean now.”

  “I thought you’d be happy that I’m trying to save another one of your daughters.”

  “Aphroditis and I made our peace. I respect her choice, and so should you.”

  “What about Ares’ choice?”

  “It’s her life, not his. Plus, you owe me.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Alright, maybe you don’t. But can’t you grant your grandfather’s wish?”

  “The same grandfather that not long ago made me feel responsible for the death of Oryn even though I did everything in my power to save her? Are we talking about that guy? You know what, Zeus, screw you, and screw these mind games that your kind seems to love to play.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me right! I’ve been doing your daughter’s bidding for as long as I’ve known her. She told me to save Earth, and I did. Ever since, I’ve been fighting for my life and losing my friends because I listened to her and did what she asked me to. And whether or not you agree, I’ve paid my dues to her and anyone else a dozen times over. Promises are a sacred thing to me, and I’m sorry if that’s an inconvenience right now, but that’s who I am. I promised I would rid the universe of the Furies, and right now, that’s what I’m going to do. I also promised Aphroditis I would save her life. Once she’s back on her feet, she’s welcome to put a laser through her brain if she wants to, I won’t stop her. But you guys have to stop dumping all this emotional blackmail on my shoulders at every turn. Especially now, gods damn it! In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve got a fucking war to finish!”

  Zeus’ eyes were locked open wide, and, for a moment, Chase thought he would have a stroke if that were possible for someone already dead.

  “What?” said Chase.

  Zeus shook his head and smiled.

  “Nothing; you sure are Athena’s son.”

  “Why, were there any doubts about that?”

  “Just that when push comes to shove, you have a similar bullheaded personality and have a temper that runs in our family.”

  “I’m just tired of it all, Zeus. Tired of losing loved ones, and frankly, I’m tired of fighting. I just want this to be over; I want to take a nice long and fully deserved vacation with Sarah and Chris. But before that can happen, I have a war to win, and right now I can’t deal with one more problem. My plate is literally full.”

  “I can understand— respect that.”

  Rays of light grew from Chase’s arms, and he felt like he was being pulled upward.

  “What’s that? What’s going on?”

  “Your brother and son are healing you. You have to go now.”

  “Are we okay?”

  Zeus sighed. “I’m still mad about my daughter’s death, but I have had enough time to think about it, and she was also a bullheaded one.”

  “Yeah, you can say that again.”

  “Blaming you for her stubbornness was not fair, I see that now.”

  “Thank you, Zeus.”

  “Before you go. Since you’re good at keeping your promises…”

  “Yeah, okay. I promise I’ll avenge her death. I give you my word.”

  Zeus’ eyes watered. “Thank you, Chase.”

  Chase vanished from the Underworld.

  “He’s coming to,” said Chris.

  “You scared the shit out of us,” said Sarah.

  Chase blinked a few times; looked at Chris and then his brother.

  “Thanks for the assist; I didn’t feel like I had exhausted that much energy, though.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Argos. “And from the looks of it, you were running on fumes. I’m surprised you didn’t feel it.”

  “Perhaps it was ill-advised to try this without bei
ng back at full power. I expended a lot of energy on board the soul ships.”

  “Didn’t you go into the regen tank last night?”

  Chase rose to his feet and scratched the back of his head with an attempt at an apologetic smile.

  “I wanted to, but I fell asleep in the observation lounge.”

  Sarah punched his shoulder.

  “You dumbass! You should have let us know and postponed this until you were back to one hundred percent.”

  “I’m with Mom on this one,” said Chris. “At least we could have powered you up before you created the anomaly.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would take so much out of me. I was much less powerful when I last did this. I thought I could handle it without breaking a sweat.”

  “Let’s give him a break; that’s why we are here, and now we may have the means to train efficiently,” remarked Argos.

  Chase thanked his brother telepathically as Sarah’s eyebrows furrowed.

  “To the regen tank,” ordered Sarah, pointing her finger toward the cargo bay doors. “Now!”

  “Shouldn’t we test the time room first?”

  “What part of now don’t you understand?”

  Chase looked at Yanis, who was grimacing.

  “You should go rest,” said Kvasir, his tattoos pulsating in a soothing rhythm, which was a nice change of pace. “I need to run more tests before we allow anyone to enter. We still need to calibrate the time dilation effect and run more simulations anyway.”

  “Alright then, I guess I’ll see you all in a few hours.”

  Altair approached the regen tank where an unconscious Ryonna was floating.

  “How is she doing, doc?”

  “I don’t know, Emperor. The truth of the matter is, she should be dead. But by some miracle, she’s been holding on for dear life. The amount of internal bleeding, broken bones, and bruising on her body is more than I have ever seen in anyone, let alone someone still breathing. How she stayed alive while being tortured that brutally, frankly, is beyond me.”

  “She’s a tough person. Will she make it?”

  “We’ve done everything we can. We’ve regenerated her organs, stopped all her internal bleeding, and repaired all her broken bones. But, whether or not she wakes up, that I can’t guarantee. The regen tank finished its cycle an hour ago, but I thought I’d leave her inside for a few more hours, just to be sure.”

  “Thanks, doc. I’d like a moment alone with her if you don’t mind.”

  “Absolutely, Emperor. Just call me if you see any sign of her waking up.”

  “Will do.”

  The doctor left the med-bay.

  “I’m sorry, Ryonna. I shouldn’t have sent you to the planet without backup. Please come back to us. My poor decision making from the past has cost too many people their lives; I’ll be damned if it costs yours. So don’t you die…And, yes, that’s an order.”

  Altair took a long, deep breath and forced a smile.

  “You’ll be happy to know, though, that after killing the Gorgar queen, I found a similar mind-controlling device on her, and I used it to complete the mission. The Gorgar have, though not exactly out of their own free will, joined the Earth Alliance. So, congratulations on accomplishing your mission, soldier.”

  Emperor Altair paced around the regen tank as he talked.

  “They’re already starting to build ships and StarFuries for us. They’re also building a network of defense satellites around their world to transform it into a fortress. That should deter the Furies or anyone else that wants to claim the world. Both Chase and I are a little uneasy on that one, though. These weapons they’ll have at their disposal are based on our technology, and we’ll build fail-safes into them just in case when we give them their freedom back they decide we’re their enemy. If their queen thought we were, it’s possible someone else will, too.

  “We’ve also allocated a part of the Gorgar workforce to work on the jump gate network. We’ve already deployed fifteen gates since the project started, but now we’re looking at having hundreds of them built in the next few months. Soon, every space-faring world will have one, and it should open new trade routes and faster travel time between systems. We still need to decide who will be allowed to use them, though. We don’t want pirates and raiders to take advantage of the technology.

  “Oh, and you’ll be pleased to learn that Tar’Lock and Keera have been successful in locating Spiros and Gaia. Though Spiros is in bad shape. I’ve already informed Argos of the situation, and he’s sure he can repair his clone body. He even said something about the fact that they might have plenty of time to do so soon. He didn’t elaborate beyond that, but I thought that you’d like to hear about that. They’re on their way back to the ship.”

  Altair put his palm on the glass of the regen tank and let it rest there for a while.

  11

  A low-ranking Fury entered the room and timidly approached Spectre Arakan’s throne. Tanak’Vor wasn’t in the best of moods as he had failed to establish communication with the fleet on Thanos Five.

  “You’d better have a good reason for barging in here,” he said, his tone dripping with ice.

  The Fury swallowed hard as he bowed.

  “I have, Master. We’ve received long-range telemetry of Thanos Five.”

  Tanak’Vor adjusted his position on the throne.

  “And?”

  “The fleet has been destroyed.”

  Spectre Arakan growled, and his eyes glowed crimson. The Fury couldn’t help but tremble. Arakan’s temper was legendary, and he would easily lash out at his subordinates. Something Tanak’Vor felt like doing upon hearing the news, but he knew that it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  “By whom? The Earth Alliance?”

  “We’re unsure. It only took four starfighter-class ships to wipe out our fleet. Their energy signature is like nothing we’ve seen before. In both scale and origin.”

  A new race? That can’t be.

  “I’m having trouble grasping what you’re saying,” said Tanak’Vor. “Four starfighters took out three of my super-destroyers?”

  “Yes, Master. Preliminary reports also seem to indicate the battle lasted mere minutes.”

  “Do we have any idea where the ships went after they destroyed the fleet? Or where they came from in the first place.”

  “There was too much post-battle interference to determine a solid exit vector, I’m afraid. And because the ships use an unknown hyperspace tunnel technology, we’ve also had trouble calculating an exact source vector. From their approach vector on the fleet, there is one planet that they could have potentially jumped from. But this is mere speculation, not absolute certainty.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “That planet is Earth.”

  Of course, it is.

  “Did we get any visuals on the ships that attacked the fleet?”

  “We recovered very little video footage, but we’ve managed to get a few seconds of what seems to be one of the enemy ships. The footage was pulled from one of the disabled ships around Thanos Five. I must warn you, Master, that the footage is disturbing. I’ve sent it to your throne chair holo-console.”

  “Thank you; you’re dismissed.”

  “You’re welcome, Master.”

  The Fury bowed and quickly left the throne room, which suggested he was still afraid for his life. Tanak’Vor was angry, and his subordinate probably picked up on that.

  That played in Tanak’Vor’s favor, though. If everyone around were deathly afraid of him, they wouldn’t ask too many questions about the physical changes that had manifested. While Tanak’Vor looked and sounded like Arakan, he now had a black, smoky aura surrounding his body as well as in his eyes.

  Tanak’Vor accessed the holo-footage and zoomed the projector so the image would fill a bigger portion of the room around him. It showed a starship that looked as much organic as it did a machine. A colossal purple-aura dragon engulfed the small-sized vessel before t
he mouth of the dragon tore through and devoured one of the destroyers.

  This sent a cold shiver down Tanak’Vor’s borrowed body. While he couldn’t be sure, he had a strange, unexplained feeling that the pilot inside the ship was the Ultra Fury Chase.

  I bet this is what Menelas was hiding from that fool Arakan. I should have interrogated him myself.

  A weapon of such massive destruction would explain why Menelas would rather die than tell his former master about its existence, no matter how long and hard he had tortured him. A weapon that could very well destroy the Furies. Something Tanak’Vor couldn’t let happen.

  He would have to adjust his strategy. He had secretly amassed massive fleets at all corners of the universe while Arakan stupidly wasted his own; it seemed that the Earth Alliance now had a weapon that could counter them.

  There was no way to predict when the Spectre would be ready to open a rift to send reinforcements, which would make Tanak’Vor’s work even more difficult in the future. For all their power in their own dimensions, the Fury technology was infantile compared to those of the Spectres. Tanak’Vor got up from his throne and walked through the 3D image of the paused holo-projected soul ship as he headed toward the Furies’ archives.

  Gaia’s eyes watered as she looked at Spiros inside the suspended animation pod. She felt so much love for him that she wasn’t surprised her matrix overloaded when he first told her he loved her.

  She approached the pod and caressed the glass where his serene face was.

  “Hang in there, love. We’ll get you back on your feet soon, and then the two of us will get as far away as we can from all of this. We’ll find a quiet planet where we can spend the rest of our lives together.”

  But then she thought of Earth. Could she just abandon her place of birth? The connection and unconditional love she had for the planet was strong. But lately, it had been overshadowed by the feelings she had for Spiros.

  Perhaps once the war was over, and the Furies were no longer a daily threat to the security of the beautiful blue planet, then it would be easier for her to make that decision.

  Gaia contemplated Spiros for a long time before heading to the cockpit.