The Beginning of the End (Universe in Flames Book 4) (20 page)

“Tell that to Yanis.”

“Put yourself in his place. He must be devastated. In time he’ll forgive you. For now he needs to process his grief.”

“That’s putting it mildly, I’m afraid. I don’t know about him ever forgiving me, but you’re right. I should let him grieve for now.”

“I’m really sorry, Chase. I know she was your friend, but she was also an officer in the Earth Alliance. Like everyone else, she knew the risks. It was her choice to be here with us.”

Sarah was right, of course, except she was more than just a friend at one point in his life. Chase decided that now was not the time to speak about that. Would it ever be the time? And did it really matter, under the circumstances?

“Thank you, Sarah.”

“Have you told Daniel yet?”

“He’s leading the
Destiny
’s away team in their search of survivors.”

“He’s your best friend. The longer you wait to tell him the more difficult it will be. He might even resent you for it.”

“I know. Perhaps I could send him a message telepathically.”

“That’s a no-no! That’s like breaking with a girlfriend with a text. This requires your presence, and for you to look him in the eyes.”

Chase dreaded that moment. He’d rather fight Argos once more than face his best friend in the whole world and tell him he couldn’t save the woman he fell in love with.

Like an answer from the heavens, the bridge was illuminated with a golden tinge as Ares appeared in front of them.

Ryonna ran towards them in anticipation.

“We’ve got to go to Droxia now!” exclaimed Ares.

“Ares,” said Ryonna. “Any news of my son?”

“He’s one of the only survivors aboard the
Phoenix
, but the ship has set a collision course towards the planet. They’re trying to take one of the Furies out of the equation. I need Chase to take care of the other one, who just decimated an entire battalion of battle droids. I had to leave the Gaia droid alone, so let’s go now. Perhaps she will still be operational and you can use her help in your fight with the Fury, but we must hurry!”

“I’m coming with you,” said Ryonna in a tone not open for discussion.

“No, it’s too dangerous. Only Chase should come with me.”

“Chase!” insisted Ryonna.

“Ares, take her with us. She has the right to go, no matter how dangerous it is.”

“Very well. We’ve lost enough time as it is. Now, come close and join hands.”

Chase looked back at Sarah as he took Ryonna’s left hand. “You have the bridge, Commander, please be careful.”

He sent another message but this time telepathically.
Looks like you’ll have to tell Daniel about Fillio. I have no idea when I will be back. Please convey how terribly sorry I am and that I did everything I could. I love you.

She nodded back at him and he read, “I love you too,” on her lips.

Ares put one of his energy-based hand on each of their shoulders and they vanished from the bridge.

*   *   *

It took a fraction of a second for Miseo’s brain to interpret the image his eyes sent to it.

A Droxian destroyer, with an insane amount of damage, and flames spewing from every deck, was on a collision course with . . . him.

The scene seemed surreal.

He brought all his energy to bear and freed himself from the energy bounds. The resulting shockwave killed everyone around him as they exploded at the cellular level.

Miseo extended both his arms upward, even though he knew he was too late.

As he fired the most impressive column of energy in an attempt to vaporize the incoming ship, it impacted with him and the ground.

The resulting explosion, amplified by the explosion of the ship’s engine, sent such a powerful blast of energy on all sides that half the nearby city was incinerated almost instantly. The glass exploded in the rest of the buildings from the shockwave. Buildings collapsed atop one another, and the once beautiful Droxian city was transformed into a burning graveyard in a matter of seconds.

*   *   *

Gaia adopted a defensive stance the moment Arkoolis launched himself towards her. He unleashed a series of powerful blows but she managed to dodge them in the nick of time. But then the Fury started attacking her at increased speed. He landed a powerful uppercut that sent Gaia flying upwards into the air. Before she had time to recover, Arkoolis was already upon her and he hammered her back towards the ground. Gaia managed to recover a few milliseconds before impact, but she had lost visual contact with the Fury.

“Looking for me?” Said the Fury from behind her.

Her shield activated, but almost immediately failed. A powerful burst of red energy shot through the chest of her avatar body. Arkoolis’ foot hit her back and her avatar body was sent flying forward, ending its course face first in the dust.

When she got up she saw a fist-sized hole in the left side of the droid’s chest. She activated repair nanobots immediately, and the hole started mending itself.

But Arkoolis didn’t wait. He launched himself towards her once more. His speed had increased tremendously in the last few minutes and she was no longer able to block all his blows. While the force of most of his punches and kicks was deflected by her shields, he was landing too many and her shields were draining quickly. The repeated attack patterns made their usual, super-quick recharge cycle almost useless now. In the middle of a combo she flew upwards into the air and made a run for it in order to recharge them.

“Not so fast.”

The Fury was already on her tail, flying faster than her, gaining on her with every passing second.

She redistributed her internal power to boost the efficiency of her right arm to four hundred percent and she stopped short in midair, pivoted on herself and smashed Arkoolis with a terrible blow to the face. He was taken by surprise and flew backwards, splashing into a nearby body of water, sending tons of water upwards upon entry.

Gaia’s shields were back up to one hundred percent and her nanobots were finishing repairing the hole and damaged circuitry inside her avatar’s chest.

By the time Arkoolis had recovered from the attack, her systems were back to one hundred percent. She redirected most of her power to the engines in order to increase her speed, even if that meant lowering her shields and disabling her offensive plasma energy weapons. She needed to buy as much time as possible until Ares returned with Chase.

Daniel’s away team had arrived at the source of the distress call they had received but there was nobody in the communications tower. They had encountered only a few Zarlacks until now, but each encounter had involved a long and difficult battle. Their thick skin provided them extra protection from blaster fire. The fact that the
Destiny
had left orbit was a little worrisome, though. No doubt the battle on the other side of the planet was still raging and Chase needed the added firepower of the newly upgraded weapons on board
Destiny
.

Daniel wondered how Fillio was doing and hoped she was fine. They had been really close in the past few weeks and he couldn’t help but worry about her well-being. Even though she seemed to feel better since they had started going out together, on many occasions her spirits were down. Sometimes out of the blue, and while he made every effort to comfort her, he felt something darker brewing inside her. That worried him the most.

He brushed the thought away. She was a seasoned pilot, probably even better than him, so there was no logic in worrying. And now was hardly the time to be distracted.

Daniel and a few ground troops arrived at the top of the communications tower. He rested his blaster rifle against the nearest console and started browsing logs.

Most of the logs had been erased except the one containing the distress call, and the file wasn’t properly signed.

That raised a red flag.

Had the distress call been planted? If so, for what purpose? Or perhaps the people who sent it weren’t of military background and did their best, not knowing the Star Alliance protocols. But then the question as to why the rest of the logs were absent remained.

“Commander,” said one of his away team.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been getting some strange readings ever since we entered the tower.”

“What kind of readings?”

“Some unusual power fluctuations on every level of the facility.”

“I’ll check it with the internal sensors. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Very well, sir.”

Daniel brought up the schematics of the tower on the holo-display of a nearby console. He looked for power fluctuations and detected some, but the readings seemed erratic. This station had seen better days, and perhaps there was a glitch in power distribution. But his instinct told him to dig further.

He re-calibrated the sensors to look for different types of parameters, like energy waves, modulation and frequency. One of the scans displayed something that froze his blood.

The tower showed five different red dots that blinked on his holo-display.

“These,” he said, pointing towards one of them. “They aren’t part of the schematics.”

“Could they be . . .?” said the lieutenant

“Bombs. We should get out of here.”

“What if we’ve armed them on our way up? That would explain why I got more and more readings as we progressed.”

“Smart observation, Lieutenant. You’re probably right. We’d better not try to get out until we either get more info on these devices or find another way out of here.”

“We could rappel down the outside of the building.”

“Depending on the range of the devices—if they are bombs—that could have the same result as retracing our steps.”

“But by that same logic we can’t really make a visual check. That could trigger them.”

“Let me bring video streams into these areas.”

Daniel entered a few commands on his console and was rewarded with “access denied.”

“That’s odd. I should have access to the videos. My credentials worked for accessing the sensors.”

Then every light and terminal shut down and they were plunged into darkness. Daniel heard a nearby door open and then metallic steps.

Two orange lights blinked into existence and their small light revealed the shape a combat droid’s face. Then all hell broke loose.

“Take cover!” shouted Daniel as the droid opened fire.

Daniel jumped and rolled to avoid blaster fire. He then grabbed his own rifle and returned fire, but the droid was shielded.

By the time he had taken cover and grabbed the night-vision goggles from his backpack, the droid had killed every member of his away team except the lieutenant, who had also found cover.

“Lieutenant, tell me you have grenades.”

He flashed him a thumbs up.

“On my mark. Three . . . two . . . one . . . NOW, Lieutenant!”

Daniel left cover and showered the droid with blaster fire in order to provide a distraction while the lieutenant sent two grenades towards their foe.

Daniel shot one of the grenades which exploded right before impacting the droid’s shield and made them blink just long enough for the second grenade to pass through the shields and detonate. But not before Daniel received a laser blast on his shoulder. He dropped his rifle. He crawled back towards cover just as the second grenade exploded. Some metallic shrapnel lodged in the wall nearby.

After a few seconds he looked out from behind cover and saw the top half of the droid body on the ground. But then its hands started moving and the droid began crawling towards his position.

He ignored the throbbing pain in his shoulder, took his sidearm and fired a few shots at the crawling droid, but they were deflected by its strong armor. Sparks from the severed trunk of the droid played havoc with his night-vision glasses and burned his eyes, so he removed them. That didn’t help much. He could barely tell where the droid was based on the few sparks emitted by it.

“More grenades, Lieutenant?”

“I’m out, and I’ve dropped my rifle.”

Swell.

Daniel put his night-vision goggles back on and looked for the nearest downed member of his away team. He ran to the other side of the room and searched the body of his deceased teammate for another grenade.

“We’ve got to get out of here, Commander!”

Daniel could still hear the metallic arms of the droid crawling its way towards him.

“Stand fast. If we run down the stairs we might trigger the bombs.”

“And if we stay here that droid will kill us.”

Daniel was well aware of that fact, but wasn’t ready to give up just yet. He didn’t find grenades on the body he was searching, but when the droids unnerving, metallic crawling grew closer he had an idea. He set the power source of his blaster to overload and faced his incoming foe.

When the intensifying, high-pitched noise of his blaster’s power source indicated it would soon explode, he threw it at the droid. The droid caught the pistol with one of its arms, and its creepy, orange, blinking eyes looked at it just before it exploded. The concussion cracked and disabled his night-vision goggles.

*   *   *

When Ronan regained consciousness he felt waves of tremendous pain radiating all over his body.

What had happened? The last thing he remembered was getting up to run towards the escape pods, but then something had exploded nearby.

He opened his eyes and saw he was inside one of the escape pods. He tried to move but was rewarded with sharp pain that told him he had broken a few bones.

He tried to get his bearings inside the pod. He was upside down, the windshield of the pod was cracked and all he could see was parts of the sky covered by humongous clouds of dark, gray smoke.

It took all his energy to just reach the controls. He activated the comms.

“Arknon, come in? Are you there, buddy? Arknon, please respond!”

But there was only silence. He set the comms to the widest band possible.

“Ronan to any Droxian soldier in the area, please respond.”

Again no answer on the comms. Perhaps they were damaged in the rough landing.

Some of the walls inside the pod were deformed and Ronan wondered how he’d even survived the trip.

If Ronan made it alive in an escape pod, no matter how badly he was hurt, that could only mean Arknon had thrown him into one. The fact that he wasn’t strapped in told him there had not been enough time to do so. But what did that mean for Arknon? Had he had time to eject in another pod?

Ronan used his right foot to kick open the cupboard with the first aid logo printed on it. After repeatedly kicking the damn thing, it finally opened and the first aid kit fell on his face.

Ronan located the strongest painkiller and injected himself with it. He needed to move and get out of this pod and start looking for his friend. But until the medicine kicked in, which took a few minutes, Ronan watched the sky fill with more and more dark smoke, no doubt resulting from the impact of the destroyer on the surface. Hopefully killing that Fury in the process.

When he felt numb enough to move without aching everywhere at once, Ronan got up inside the pod and grabbed the survival backpack. He then punched the opening sequence on the pad and the engine of the door moaned, but nothing happened.

Ronan activated the emergency release, which sent the door flying in the air.

He crawled backwards out of the pod and let himself fall on the ground. That was when he realized he didn’t have any shoes on.

Where are my boots?

It made sense to assume Arknon had taken them in order to walk with more ease while the ship entered the atmosphere, since Ronan had been wearing gravity boots. It must have been one hell of a bumpy ride.

Ronan looked ahead.

The view of the nearby giant furnace, no doubt a result of the ship’s impact, and the apparent damage to the city beyond, grabbed at Ronan’s heart.

So much destruction. Jonas, I really hope you weren’t there when it happened.

He looked inside the backpack and found a portable scanner. He scanned the area for a power signature. He saw a faint one in the area that, from where he sat, looked like a furnace. He climbed back inside the pod and grabbed an extinguisher, forced it into the backpack and started walking towards the blinking dot on his scanner.

*   *   *

Arkoolis rose from the water and flew back towards Gaia.

“You keep surprising me, but I think it’s time to end this little dance of ours. This has been a fun distraction but I’ve lost enough time.”

“You keep saying that, and yet I still stand.”

“A robot with personality. These thousands of years trapped in another dimension sure have brought up the most peculiar things.”

“You should have stayed there. No one wants you back in this reality.”

The general laughed hard. “Do you think we care what you and these insects want? This universe is ours now. Now that we’re back we’ll cleanse it from all impurity.”

“You’re the impurity,” said Gaia defiantly.

“I’m gonna make you swallow these words.”

“Let me see you try.”

“Do you really think you stand a chance? I have barely deployed twenty percent of my abilities up till now.”

The planet rocked for a moment and a distant explosion resounded.

“You hear that? It seems my partner is ripping this world apart.”

“What makes you think he’s not the one getting ripped apart?”

“Miseo is one of the most powerful Furies there is. None of you stand a chance of defeating him. Not that you ever stood a chance defeating me either.”

“Ah, the Fury pride. It will be your downfall.”

“Speaking of downfall, time to send your body parts back to your creator.”

“I’m my own creator, and this is but one body. You’ll never be done with me.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Arkoolis moved so quickly he was on Gaia’s back before she could react. He planted his elbow deep into her avatar’s back, and began pounding her metallic body with more blows than she could count. Her shields quickly failed and each new blow deformed her armor. The end of that avatar body was near but there was nothing she could do about it.

But then something happened.

Arkoolis received a blue fireball right in the face and was thrown hundreds of yards away, crashing unceremoniously into the dirt, face first.

When Gaia looked towards the source of the attack, she saw Chase with his arm extended.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous! This is just a piece of technology. But thanks, nonetheless. I have been badly damaged but I can still help you in your fight.”

“That’s alright. I’ll deal with this Fury on my own.”

“Don’t let your pride blind you, Chase, he is more powerful than you are.”

Gaia saw a Droxian in the distance.

“What is
she
doing here?”

“Ryonna . . . She’s looking for her son.”

“If he was in any of the cities that were destroyed, she is too late.”

“According to Ares, Ronan was in the ship that crashed not long ago in the southern hemisphere, taking out the other Fury in the process.”