“I’ve got the same report here, Commodore. But we really don’t have a choice.”
“Very well. In case this doesn’t go well…” He paused. “It’s been an honor serving with you, Chase.”
“The honor was mine. Athanatos out.”
Sarah locked her beautiful green eyes on Chase, shining, but full of fear.
“Well, so much for protecting you by ordering you to stay put.”
Sarah didn’t know how to answer. She just raised her shoulders in response.
Chase commed Yanis.
“Listening, Cap.”
“I need the main weapon at full charge. Extract any ounce of juice you can siphon off of and anything else too, any other systems, including life support if you have to.”
“Chase, we’ve discussed this. It will disable us for at least a minute, perhaps more. If I tax the systems that much we’ll be sitting ducks, and it could even disable the ship for good.”
“Right. But if we don’t do it, everyone in the fleet will die.”
Yanis didn’t immediately answer, but was audibly breathing heavier. “I can give you a hundred and twenty percent power. You’ll have it in one minute.”
“Make it twenty seconds.”
“You’re impossible… and it was nice knowing you.”
“Likewise,” Chase replied with a grave tone.
For the next fifteen seconds, the entire bridge was pervaded by a deadly calm. Everyone abruptly understood the emerging reality; that this could very well be the last minute of their lives. Chase checked the holo-display. The rest of the fleet had assembled at the outskirts of the shield boundary, ready to enter full, sub-light power the moment the shields should fall. If.
“I’m ready, Chase. You may fire anytime.”
Chase took the neuronal devices from Sarah’s temple, kissing her passionately as he did so. He wished he could make that kiss last forever. It was powerful, but all too short. A tear ran down her cheek.
“I thought you wanted me to fly the StarFury?”
“No. I’ll do it... I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He put the neuronal link to his temple and accessed the Hope’s main weapons. He selected full-firing mode and fired at his target with everything he had.
Every light in the bridge started to flicker. Systems dimmed fast.
The EAD Hope fired a gigantic, pulsating ray of light towards its target. It impacted with shields and started draining them, slowly but surely. Simultaneously, Chase vectored the StarFury near the stream. He flew only a few feet away from it, accelerating to maximum velocity. He redistributed all the power he could to the ship’s engine, and when it was about to collide with the generator’s shields, he made his StarFury jump. The ship exploded feet away from its target, overloading its dual quadrinium chambers. The surge took out the rest of the shields, just in time for the remaining main weapon blasts, already lessening in intensity, to tear through the shield generator like paper. It exploded, just as every system on the EAD Hope shut down cold. No more life support, no shields, nothing.
They were dead in the water now. Sitting ducks.
The explosion shook every ship in the fleet. The shields protecting the shipyards blinked for a couple of seconds before dissipating. The commodore gave the order to the fleet to exit the nebula at maximum thrust.
He examined his telemetry. The Hope had only fifty seconds before all the Zarlack ships’ engines would go critical, and take down the shipyard. With the shields disabled, an explosion this size would probably ignite the nebula itself, potentially vaporizing everything within as it did so.
There was a deep, dark pit in Saroudis’ stomach. He’d long thought of Chase as a hotheaded, borderline-insubordinate officer, but also admired his courage and tactics under pressure. Tears started forming around the commodore’s eyes. He wiped them and addressed the fleet.
“The second you are out of the nebula, jump to these coordinates.”
All ships confirmed the order. In twenty seconds they would be out of the nebula. The Hope would inevitably be vaporized soon after.
“Goodbye, Chase,” whispered Saroudis at the screen.
Chase got up from the captain’s chair and took Sarah by the hand. He walked towards the glass for one last moment together, life flashing before his eyes. Suddenly his dreams were interrupted: he noticed that the emperor was no longer on the bridge. He’d normally have been deeply upset by this casual betrayal, but under the circumstances he couldn’t blame him for trying to save his own hide. There was nowhere to hide, anyway.
“We could have tried making a run for it with my F-147. It’s still in the launching bays.”
“We could have... but I doubt its shields would survive this whole nebula imploding.”
“I guess not... How long now?”
“It’s a matter of seconds, Sarah. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad to be next to you at least,” she said, and took him in her arms.
Chase closed his eyes. He found himself wondering why Aphroditis hadn’t tried giving him any sort of warning or advice, but then remembered how much interference this nebula generated… It probably affected Olympian technology just as much as theirs. So this is it, he thought.
Oh no it’s not! He heard a familiar voice from within his mind. A voice that sent a cold shiver down his spine.
It was Argos’ voice! No doubts about it.
Open your eyes, fool! And hang on to something!
Chase opened his eyes to witness a succession of massive detonations. The ships were blowing, one by one. Surrounding parts of the nebula were already igniting, a wash of colors. The spectacle, while utterly terrifying, was almost beautiful in its utterly chaotic rendering.
From the corner of his eye, over Sarah’s shoulder, Chase noted that the behemoth Zarlack destroyer had broken through its construction structure and was heading towards them at maximum speed. A red beam impacted with the Hope. As it passed by, the Hope was tractored away with an enormous lurch. Everyone on the bridge but Chase flew off their chairs; some of them crashed into the walls. He held onto Sarah with everything he had, and she was fine, if stunned a bit. And surrounded in an apocalyptic thunder of explosions and raining fire, the Zarlack ship jumped, with the Hope in tow.
On board the Kollassi, Argos witnessed the Black Death manage to capture the Hope in a tractor beam, pulling her prey out of the nebula just in the nick of time.
He inhaled in a clipped breath, hands clenched at the railing. He opened a channel to his science officer. Before he could say anything, however, Argos’ eyes blinked red. The officer exploded on the spot, sending body parts, blood and flesh all over the bridge.
“May that be a reminder to all of you of what happens when you do not perform as expected!”
He snapped off the channel.
Chase was safe, meanwhile, and for the time being that was all that mattered. But he had given his brother a piece of information, which he would never have wanted him to have. He couldn’t kill him! Not yet.
Argos lashed out at a table nearby and broke it like it was made of dust. His fists were clenched so hard, nails cut through his own skin. A small, red river formed from his forgotten blood, snaking lazily across the floor. The red in his eyes shined brighter still.
26
Tar’Lock arrived at the power plant, but almost crashed the shuttle in a very rough landing. He jumped out of it and summarily surveyed the damage, embarrassed. No time! Within seconds, he’d broken into the facility, and was peering down the long corridors. He consulted Cedric’s smartphone and memorized the best path with which to reach the third underground floor, where a red dot was blinking. He couldn’t help but notice that on the top right corner of the screen, a timer display indicated only twenty minutes remaining. Suffice it to say, he moved quickly. It took him one minute to reach the blip, but when he arrived he found a reinforced door, controlled by an access pad with numbers on its digital screen.
He commed Ce
dric.
“I have a problem.”
“Join the club!”
“No really, I can’t enter the room where the device is located. There’s a keypad lock!”
“Crap! Hold your phone next to the door’s lock, please.”
“Done.”
“It should be noted I really don’t have time for this,” said Cedric with a clear tone of annoyance in his voice.
Tar’Lock sighed deeply.
But before he could say anything, Cedric began to swear noisily.
“For the love of...”
“What is it?”
“It’s got military-grade encryption! Give me a few seconds while I access the fleet’s computing power. And... that should do it.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Enter the following code. 7117947057. Then press enter.”
Tar’Lock entered the combination in a split second, and the panel turned green. He opened the door and spent some time searching before he located the device hidden behind a series of pipes.
He looked at his phone. The interface had changed like Cedric said it would, with a predominant green scan button in the middle of the interface. Tar’Lock quickly pressed it.
A bar started filling on the interface.
“I’ve initiated scanning.”
“I see that. Thank you, Tar’Lock.”
“How are we looking?”
“I’ve managed to reprogram my teleportation subroutine and optimized it to drain just the right amount of power so that the Earth’s power grid doesn’t collapse completely during our transfer. So hopefully it should work.”
“Should?”
“Look, pal, this isn’t exactly a walk in the park. I never worked at this speed before. Let’s hope I don’t suffer from an aneurysm before I manage to beam these bombs off of the planet.”
“Is the ship ready to receive them?”
“Yes, it’s empty and ready. As soon as I have the frequency and feed it into my code, I should be able to send this ship far, far away from Earth.”
“Please avoid sending it to my home world.”
“Is it within a five minute jump from here?”
“Point taken. I was just trying to break the ice.”
“Good job!”
Tar’Lock looked at the phone and saw that the scan was about ninety percent done, when he noticed a blinking red icon on the top right of the screen.
“Cedric.”
“Not now!”
“Yes now. There is a blinking red icon on that smartphone you gave me.”
“For the love of god, don’t tell me you’re running out of batteries... Let me che—Oh, fuck me! Alright, let’s hope the battery holds. The scan should be done in five seconds. The moment that transfer button appears on your screen, click it immediately. And then pray to whichever gods you believe in… On second thought, just start praying now.”
Tar’Lock made a noise crossing between a snort and a growl.
The scan bar completed and blinked, then a second blue button labeled Transfer appeared.
Tar’Lock pressed it, and the phone turned black.
“Please tell me you got it?” Cedric yelled.
“It turned off,” Tar’Lock exclaimed, examining the phone.
“We’re doomed. The one thing that will kill this planet is a crappy, old-gen phone battery…”
“You could have charged the phone.”
“Yea and that helps us how right now!?”
“Tell me what to do, Cedric, NOW!!”
“Okay… let me guide you towards the main control room. We’ll just hope one of the guys there has a USB cable.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s on the first floor, to the east of your position. How fast can you run?”
Tar’Lock didn’t even bother to answer. He flew over corridors and stairs to reach the first floor, and when he saw a wall panel indicating “main control room,” he ran there as fast as he could.
“I’m almost there. How much time do we have left?”
“I’d say a minute or two for me to have enough time to input, to receive the data, and then beam the bombs off.”
“No pressure, surely.” Tar’Lock gasped and kept moving.
He stormed the central control room. The three people present in the room jumped out of their chair in horror. A fourth man emerging from another side of the room with cups of hot coffee in his hands simply lost consciousness at the sight of Tar’Lock.
“Don’t panic, everyone, I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t want to stress you out either. But if you don’t provide me with a USB cable to charge this phone,” he said, showing them the smartphone, “a bomb on this power plant will explode, and probably destroy the entire planet.”
“Funny guy,” snorted one of the techs.
Tar’Lock’s eyes thinned. He screamed at top volume. “DOES IT LOOK LIKE I’M JOKING?! GIVE ME A GODDAMN CHARGING CABLE!”
The faces of the three techs lost all color.
They started looking through their belongings as fast as they could, but none could find anything.
“John! Where’s the power bank you borrowed from me, quick!”
“It’s in the passenger seat of my car in the parking lot.” He turned towards Tar’Lock. “It’s the blue Mistubishi Galant in front of the main door, here take the k−”
But before he could get his keys out of his pocket Tar’Lock was already gone. The three guys looked at each other, not knowing what to say or how to react.
“Did he say how long we had to live, if he can’t charge his phone?”
“From the speed at which he took off, I’d say not long.”
“John, I think it’s a little too late to tell you this… I love you, man.”
“What the fuck, Richard? You’re married!”
“I know… terrible timing. But it’s true.”
The third guy started laughing.
“What’s so funny, Tony?”
“Well, I just thought that if we survive this, the next hour should be interesting.”
Tar’Lock arrived at the parking lot in front of the building and there were three blue cars parked in a row. He swore something in his own tongue, expressing frustration in a very clicky and annoyed way.
Only one read “Mitsubishi” on its back so he ran in a blur to the right side of the car. He caught a glimpse of a black brick on the bucket seat, with a cable splitting into many connector ends. He tried opening the door but it wouldn’t budge. He punched the window and felt excruciating pain from the impact, but it only made a small crack on the window.
“How are we doing? Time is running out!” he heard Cedric on his comm.
“How do I open a car that is locked?”
“Surely you have the strength to break that glass?”
“Normally I would, but I only cracked it…” he said, panting heavily. “I’ve been running at two hundred miles per hour for the better part of the last twenty minutes. I’m running out of juice, Cedric, and I... I’m moments away from passing out.”
“Please don’t, please, please, please...”
“CEDRIC!”
“Right, if the glass is cracked its structural integrity is compromised now. Try and vibrate your hand very fast on its surface, okay?”
Tar’Lock put his hand on the glass and made his hand tremble as fast as he could, using every bit of energy he had left. After a second the glass shattered. He grabbed the power brick, looked at the four different ends, looked at the hole in the phone and put the cable that matched the geometrical shape.
“Cable is in, but nothing is happening.”
“Give it a second.”
“It’s been five seconds.”
“Alright, something is wrong. Describe what you’re doing.”
“I’ve connected a cable to what I can only surmise is a portable power source.”
“A power bank, okay. Is there a button on it?”
Tar’Lock turned the power bank a
nd saw a small, metallic button protruding from the box, which he pressed fervently.
“Still nothing. Is it out of juice?”
“Try pressing it and holding it, perhaps a second or two.”
A blue light flashed across the screen, then the phone turned on with a white default logo on a black background, with a cheesy, musical ditty playing.
“I see something on the phone.”
“Boy this is going to be close, Tar’Lock. We need to wait while the smartphone boots up, but—”
“How long will that take?”
“Another twenty seconds.”
Tar’Lock started to feel really light headed. “I’m... I’m not feeling well.”
“Dude, DO NOT pass out on me now! You still need to press the transfer button when the phone finishes booting.”
Tar’Lock’s vision started to blur as the phone display re-appeared. He could no longer read the font from his current exhaustion. But he could still see the familiar blue button. He pressed it, and swooned, and collapsed to the ground.
“Good job, Tar’Lock, I’m receiving the signature. You okay, buddy? Tar’Lock? Oh dear...”
Ryonna was waiting in the office of Cedric’s coworker, a beautiful, young, blond lady named Johanna. She was still analyzing the tablet file.
“How are we doing?” she demanded for the millionth time, long out of patience.
“Not exactly the kind of data I’m used to working on, but I think I’ve managed to locate something of use.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“While I can’t pinpoint the exact IP where this file was created, I did manage to access the subsystems’ history, like GPS and the onboard camera. I have the recent GPS locations listed here. It looks like a copy of this file traveled to about thirty locations all around the planet in the last few days.”
“Yeah, that is consistent with the thirty bombs we’re trying to beam off-planet.”
Johanna swallowed heavily.
“Did you say bombs?”
“Yes, bombs. So keep working. If Cedric doesn’t manage to beam them out in the next few minutes, we’ll all be long dead anyway… So there’s no need to panic.”
Universe in Flames – Ultimate 10 Book Box Set: An Epic Space Opera Adventure Page 74
