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

by Christian Kallias

She could tell from his facial expression that he resigned himself to heed her request. He kissed her for the longest time.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said as he walked toward the door.

  “I know you will. Be careful.”

  Spiros stopped and turned. “Look who’s talking.”

  The tractor beam delicately landed the four soul ships on the harsh surface of Erevos. The elements blew red sand around the ships, the coarse sand continuously crashing against the hulls at high speed, a veritable hailstorm beating at them.

  Chase tried lifting the ship from the surface, but the engines refused to work. He closed his eyes and attempted to counter the effects of the tractor beam, trying to lift the ship with his mind instead of using the ship’s engines. The ship trembled but refused to move off the ground.

  Save your strength, Dragonheart. As powerful as you are, you can’t do this.

  Chase ground his teeth in frustration as the ship’s cockpit door slid open.

  I’m counting on you, said Drakos, you have to get us back into space.

  Chase reluctantly jumped out of the ship and joined his friends on the surface of Erevos. After being cut multiple times by the sandstorm slicing through his skin, he erected an invisible force field that deflected the sand while a single thought mended his cuts. They walked outside of the tractor beam’s range. The sound it emitted prevented Chase from thinking clearly, and no doubt, the others as well.

  “What do we do now?” asked Chris.

  “We have to find the power source for this tractor beam and disable it.”

  “Unless you can sense it, how do we go about doing that?” asked Argos.

  Chase closed his eyes and tried focusing on the location of the beam’s energy. He expanded his mind to the maximum but couldn’t get a clear reading; it felt like the entire world was pulsing with energy, and he couldn’t pinpoint a single point in space.

  “Uh, guys?” said Sarah. “Am I the only one who hears that noise?”

  “No, that infernal tractor beam is loud,” said Argos.

  “That’s not the noise I’m talking about.”

  “I hear it, too,” said Chris, turning around and looking in the distance. “Something is coming.”

  Chase heard it too, accompanied by the ground trembling with each passing second.

  That can’t be.

  Before his eyes confirmed what he feared, he felt thousands of life forces charging toward them.

  “We’ve got company,” shouted Chris.

  Argos clenched his teeth and cracked his neck multiple times.

  “Well, it looks like we’re about to see if our training paid off.”

  Sarah stepped past him and stopped near Chris, her eyes locked onto the horizon at the approaching sandstorm, as silhouettes appeared, first a few, then more, until she saw thousands of Furies running at them, making the ground shake in their wake.

  “We can’t possibly defeat so many of them on our own. We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

  Chase’s look was as cold as ice; his gaze locked onto the approaching Fury battalions.

  “Not an option, I’m afraid. We have to protect the ships.”

  “They’ll mow us down,” said Sarah.

  “No, they won’t,” protested Argos, before flying upward in the air and turning Ultra Fury. His silhouette was barely showing through the large crimson aura shining around him. He looked like he was burning inside a red sun.

  He roared like an animal, and it echoed. Soon he was unleashing dozens of fireballs toward the incoming horde.

  Tanak’Vor looked at his tactical holo-display with unmasked satisfaction. His forces had surrounded the Earth Alliance fleet and were containing them, forcing them to go on the defensive.

  The shield upgrades he ordered installed on the super-destroyer based on the Arachnid’s design of the single ship he was aboard when he was trapped in this wretched dimension were a success. Even though the Arachnid’s tech was inferior to the Spectres’, their regenerative shielding was highly advanced. Due to time constraints, the implementation of the technology to the fleet had been less than ideal, but it still provided the Fury super-destroyers with an edge compared to their previous engagements with the Earth Alliance destroyers.

  And, as the Alliance soon found out, regenerative shielding was particularly effective against Asgardian weaponry, which were amongst the most damage-inducing of them all. In adjusting one single facet of the ships, Tanak’Vor had managed to tip the balance of power to his side.

  Something caught the Spectre’s eye on the tactical display. What seemed to be the lead ship, with the highest power signature, was not actively engaged. Instead, it used the ships around it as cover.

  Tanak’Vor didn’t know why but it gave him enough information as to what his next move should be.

  The Victory was taking a severe pounding after the enemy vessels redeployed to achieve a firing solution on the ship.

  “Shields down to sixty-five percent!” shouted the tactical officer.

  Dammit! thought Daniel.

  “What’s the ETA on neutralizing these damn JIF destroyers?” he barked.

  “The Asgardian weapons are having trouble cutting through their shields.”

  That didn’t add up; Asgardian weapons had been effective in the past. Daniel knew something must have changed. He contacted Yanis.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” protested Yanis as the ship trembled. “I thought you wanted us to locate the source of the tractor beam? I only have two hands, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, but I need you to do both,” said Daniel. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but the ship is taking a pounding, so if you don’t find a solution within the next few minutes, the Victory is toast, and I don’t have to tell you what that will mean.”

  Yanis was well aware of the implications, but for the first time in a long time, he felt overwhelmed. He wanted to protest, but Kvasir put a hand on his shoulder and answered in his stead.

  “We’ll look into it, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Kvasir. Daniel out.”

  The holo-screen turned off, and Yanis shot daggers with his eyes to the Asgardian.

  “We’ll look into it? We barely made a dent locating the tractor beam.”

  “You keep looking for that; Cedric and I will take care of this new problem.”

  “Oh, sure,” complained Yanis as the doors to engineering opened behind him. “I gotta fix the tractor beam problem on my own—”

  “Well, maybe I can help,” said Spiros with a smile.

  Yanis turned around and looked at Spiros. “Now that is the first bit of good news I’ve heard all day.”

  22

  Argos was mowing through dozens of warriors with his long-range fireballs, but he was barely making a dent. There were simply too many enemies. He looked down at his family.

  “What are you waiting for? Don’t just stand there; help me kill them!” he screamed.

  Chase didn’t look up, and instead, had his sight fixed on the incoming battalions of Fury warriors.

  “We won’t get anywhere this way; we’ll end up using a lot of power, and they’ll still overwhelm us in a couple of minutes,” said Chase.

  “We have to try!” argued Chris.

  He took an offensive stance and put both hands in the air and created a fireball that doubled in size every second.

  “I agree with Chris,” said Sarah. “Whether or not we can face them, we can’t just give up; we’ve come too far in this war to be defeated now.”

  Sarah created two yellow fireballs. “Even if we have to fight them all at once, we have to try!”

  Once the diameter of Chris’ fireball had grown as large as a small starfighter, he shouted and unleashed the green attack. It took a few seconds for the fireball to travel the distance separating him from the incoming Fury forces. When it exploded, it easily incinerated a good hundred soldiers and sent dozens flying in the air. Chris realized,
though, that his powerful attack had been like a drop of water in the ocean.

  Argos began creating higher-yield crimson fireballs, but it took him a couple of seconds to create each before he could send them toward the Furies.

  “We have to stop them! It’s our only chance,” he said between attacks. “In Ultra Fury mode we move fast enough that they won’t be able to touch us.”

  “We’ll deplete too much energy that way,” said Chase, as he started walking.

  “Where are you going?” asked Sarah.

  Chase marched purposefully forward as he turned Ultra Fury, his aura exploded, and it emitted such a strong orange light that it nearly blinded everyone around him.

  Chris looked at Chase with a sense of dread growing inside him. “Dad! What are you doing?”

  “What the fuck are you doing, Chase?” screamed Argos, flying downward and landing in front of his brother, both hands outstretched at his sides blocking Chase’s path.

  Chase stopped and smiled. “Move, Brother, I have to do this, it’s our only chance.”

  “Do what?!”

  “You’ll see, but you need to let me go.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Chase resumed walking forward.

  “I won’t let you pass!”

  Chase teleported behind Argos and looked back. His aura burned brighter, and his eyes shone with a brilliant orange luminosity.

  “We can’t let the soul ships be destroyed, but perhaps I can push all my energy outward after reaching the center of the battalion and take them all out in one single attack. There’s risk involved, so I need you to promise me that if I don’t make it, you’ll finish this fight.”

  Chris turned Ultra Fury and flew next to his father. His eyes were filled with tears.

  “No! This is suicide; you can’t do this!”

  “I have to, Son. Take good care of your mother.”

  Chase looked at a shell-shocked Sarah. She wasn’t moving and couldn’t speak.

  Don’t do this, Chase; I need you. We all need you.

  If I don’t, we may all perish, and the soul ships may be destroyed; we can’t let that happen. I have faith in you; I know that even if I fall, you’ll carry on and defeat the Furies once and for all. I love you more than anything, and we shall meet again at the gates of dawn.

  Chris and Argos boosted their aura in a similar way as Chase and flew by his side.

  “What the hell do you think you’re both doing?”

  “If you’re going to do this, then so are we,” said Chris.

  “What he said,” added Argos.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t stand a chance if we all die! Just let me do this.”

  “No,” said Argos. “You’re wrong; if you die, we all die. I know it in my heart, so I won’t let you do this alone.”

  “Neither will I.”

  “I wish there were another way,” said Chase.

  “There is,” said a set of resonating voices around them.

  “Is that—?” asked Chris.

  “Our ships,” added Argos.

  All four soul ships lit up brightly, engulfed by purple, green, yellow, and red auras, which morphed into their primal soul-animal form just like they had when they chose their pilot weeks before. They ran, crawled, and flew toward their respective pilots.

  “This is not the end,” said Drakos, Python, Fenix, and Tigris in unison. “You’ve proved you’re willing to risk your lives to save us, but let us save you instead.”

  Drakos’ aura was the first to reach and engulf Chase; it morphed around him like liquid, surrounding him in energy. It solidified and turned into a majestic and shiny metal armor. It was purple and silver, and Chase felt an infusion of power like never before. His energy was canalized in his body with the same multiplying factor Chase had felt when piloting Drakos and taking out the super-destroyers with his thoughts.

  The scaly armor reflected amethyst hues; the helmet had a dragon-head shape, and Chase’s face showed between its giant mouth. Large silver claws ornamented the pectoral pieces and spikes protruded from each side of his forearms and shins. Two metallic wings deployed behind his back. They flapped forward and sent a powerful shockwave toward the Fury battalions that were less than a minute away. They were swept off their feet and fell to the ground like a perfectly orchestrated domino display.

  The other three auras merged with their pilots. Sarah received golden armor composed of metallic feathers and a phoenix helmet. Flame patterns extruding from the rest of the suit, which were accompanied by two spiky wings on her back.

  Pythons’s aura danced around Argos and constricted him as it merged into a scaly red and gold snake. The tail serving as a belt, while the rest of the body coiled around and upward, culminating in a helmet resembling a python’s hood.

  Two golden eyes shone on each of the round-shaped shoulder pauldrons.

  The aura of Tigris jumped inside Chris and instantly turned into magnificent emerald and gold armor. A trio of large gilded claws shot from the top of the green and gold gauntlets. Chris made fists and raised the claws to the side of his face, looking at them in awe.

  “This power,” said Argos, his voice trembling. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  Chase smiled.

  Thank you, Drakos.

  Your time has come, Dragonheart. Now take flight and accomplish your destiny!

  “Let’s rip these assholes to pieces,” said Sarah.

  Chase and Sarah flew in the air, and Chris and Argos charged forward.

  Their auras grew and matched the shape of their soul animals as they approached their enemies that were barely getting back up from Chase’s earlier shockwave.

  Chris ran faster than the rest and used his claws to butcher anything in his path, slashing through Furies by the hundreds as he split their forces in half. Argos ran around the disoriented and panicked warriors. He continued to accelerate like a crimson whirlwind, pushing and smashing them against each other into a compressed blob of warriors, unable to move.

  Chase and Sarah extended their wings to land atop the compressed bodies of what was left of the battalions; they both released echoing roars that made the planet tremble as they unleashed their attacks simultaneously. Both dragon and phoenix fell from the heavens tearing every Fury warrior to pieces, exploding their bodies in the center of the impact of their attacks. A wall of flames extended outward and incinerated the rest of the enemies, turning them to embers and ash in a matter of seconds.

  “Kvasir, look at this!” exclaimed Cedric. “Do you see it?”

  The Asgardian’s tattoos pulsated faster as he examined Cedric’s holo-console findings. Cedric had overlapped an energy sensor map atop a 3D render of Erevos. The core of the planet was shining strongly.

  “That’s the core of the planet, the molten lava infusion traveling at high velocity is generating that energy. I don’t see what’s abnormal about that.”

  Cedric exhaled deeply before using his hands to swipe and zoom closer to where the planet’s core and crust met.

  “Look again, Einstein!”

  Kvasir raised an eyebrow at Cedric and smiled.

  “I’m honored you’d compare me to one of Earth’s greatest minds.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but look.”

  Kvasir’s tattoos flashed brighter than ever before.

  “Unbelievable.”

  “I thought you’d like that,” smirked Cedric.

  A thin line of energy ran up from the core to the surface of the planet, leading to a structure that was only a few miles away from where four bright dots of energy laid tightly packed together, no doubt the location where the soul ships had been forced to land.

  “So the planet’s power is driving that tractor beam.”

  “As much as it pains me to admit it,” said Cedric. “That’s an ingenious design.”

  “It is. But we can’t take out the planet’s core.”

  “No, that honor is reserved for the soul ships, but perhaps we don’t ne
ed to. We just have to take out—”

  “The emitter!”

  “I was getting to that.”

  “I know, sorry. We need to let Chase know about this.”

  Cedric brought up a communication’s interface on a separate holo-screen and opened a channel.

  “Uh-oh,” he said after a few seconds.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t seem to get a signal through. There’s too much interference.”

  Tanak’Vor eyes grew wide as he looked in horror at his holo-screen. He had been focused on the battle in space when a bright light from a secondary holo-screen caught his attention.

  He swiped the orbital battle aside and brought up the surface battle screen and rewound the holo-recording. The Ultra Furies were wearing armor and had taken out his ten thousand Fury troops like they were mere insects.

  “That’s— not— possible.”

  Rewinding the holo-recording further, he witnessed how the auras jumped out of the ships and merged with the warriors before they materialized as armor, which granted them unbelievable levels of power.

  They were no longer the weak Furies he had easily defeated before. Fear filled his soul for a moment before he regained control over the rough emotion and cast it aside in a dark corner of his mind. The Atlantian ships were full of surprises and seemed to grant their pilots with more power than Tanak’Vor thought possible.

  This may not be the easy win I thought it would be. He smiled. But that’s fine; I would hate for this victory to be too easy, anyway.

  Tanak’Vor summoned one of his generals. A cylindrical shaped red light flashed in and out of existence as the Fury beamed into the throne room, pressed a fist against his chest, and bowed.

  “How may I be of service, Supreme Commander?”

  The Spectre rose from his throne, swiped away the current holo-recording, and brought up a new holo-screen of the surface of Erevos. He zoomed into a location thousands of miles away from the temple.

  “General Vega, take the spider ship to these coordinates; it is to engage and destroy anything or anyone that approaches it with the deadliest of force.” Black fire burned in the Spectre’s eyes. “I will not tolerate failure.”