The Beginning of the End (Universe in Flames Book 4) (12 page)

She dodged it, grabbed his leg and sent him crashing against the nearest wall with great force.

Chase recovered immediately and sent a fireball her way. She let it hit her shields, that lit up green for just a second.

“Why didn’t you try to dodge it?”

“I want to test the shields’ efficiency.”

“And? How much did they drain from this impact?”

“Less than five percent.”

“That’s pretty good, isn’t it? When I send three of these fireballs at the other droids the third one tends to destroy them.”

“Yes, these shields are much more powerful, thanks to the new, efficient power supply we’ve designed for it. They also recharge much faster. They are already back at one hundred percent.”

“Cool.”

Chase and Gaia resumed their training for hours that day, testing her new avatar droid, and Chase was bested a few times. He was careful not to deploy all his energy to avoid damaging the prototype, though.

Over the next few days both Chase and Gaia progressed on different levels. Gaia was able to anticipate Chase’s attacks better the more she observed his technique and Chase was getting faster and stronger as well.

*   *   *

It had now been almost three months since they had returned from Erevos. Chase and Spiros entered the
Destiny
’s conference room at the same time. Already sitting around the table were Sarah, Ryonna, Daniel and the commodore.

“Please sit down, we have an emergency to discuss.”

Chase noticed the face of Admiral Thassos on the nearest holo-display.

Saroudis stood and addressed everyone.

“At 19:35 today a probe we sent to Alpha Prime received a distress call.”

Chase’s expression changed completely. “There are survivors?”

“Apparently so. We think pockets of resistance went underground after the Zarlack invaded the system and destroyed most of the infrastructure there. It took them until now to manage an assault on a communications tower to send the distress call. However, the transmission hasn’t been authenticated.”

“When are we leaving, Commodore?”

“Not so fast, Lieutenant Commander,” interrupted the admiral.

“What do you mean, not so fast? If there are survivors on Alpha Prime we have a duty to rescue them. In fact, we should reclaim the entire sector while we’re at it.”

“I agree we need to go to Alpha Prime,” added Daniel.

“I’m not ready to commit a large scale force at this point.”

Chase made fists and clenched his teeth. He couldn’t hide his frustration. He shot an angry look at Commodore Saroudis. “We have to do something!” Chase insisted.

“Lieutenant Commander, you’re only here as a courtesy to the commodore, but don’t think your past acts of treason have been forgotten.”

Treason?

Saroudis waved a hand to make sure Chase didn’t escalate the tension any further. This was a very volatile situation and the commodore knew it when he addressed the admiral next.

“Admiral, I believe we must send at least a few ships. The Zarlack forces must be spread thinly in their conquest of resource-rich worlds at the moment, so three or four ships, including the
Destiny
, is probably all we need to retake the system.”

“It could be a trap.”

“Nevertheless, Lieutenant Commander Athanatos is correct, we’re duty bound to render assistance.”

“I don’t care what the lieutenant commander thinks.”

Daniel got up. “Admiral, if I may?”

“You may not, Commander, take back your seat.”

Daniel swallowed hard. “Yes, Admiral.”

He sat back, but not before giving Chase a worried look.

Chase reached the commodore with his mind.

Adonis, you have to do something. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with the admiral these days but you need to seize command of the fleet, now!

Saroudis shot him a surprised look, but then realized only he had heard Chase telepathically.

Your family could still be alive amongst the survivors. Do you want to take the risk that they are killed while we sit on our asses waiting? Now that the resistance has sent a message, they’ve clearly put a target on their backs. Let me lead a full-force assault to Alpha Prime. Perhaps it’s not too late.

Saroudis swallowed hard. Chase could see the conflict in him.

“Admiral,” said Saroudis, treading carefully. “I believe we should vote on this issue.”

“Vote? I’m sorry, that’s not how things work around here. I’ve let your band of rebels off the hook more than enough in the past, but they’ll either follow my orders or they’ll be court-martialed. And that goes for you as well, Commodore.”

She’s losing it
, added Chase telepathically.
Do something before it’s too late.

“Admiral, as second-in-command of the fleet I’m afraid you leave me no choice but to declare you unfit for duty. I’m relieving you of your command, effective immediately.”

“In your dreams, Commodore! I don’t recognize your authority in these matters. You’re the one who’s relieved of—”

The admiral reached for her throat, unable to breathe nor speak.

Saroudis understood what was going on immediately.

“Chase! What are you doing? Stop this at once.”

“Don’t worry, Commodore, I’m just making sure she doesn’t finish that illegal order. I understand she’s scared after what happened on Earth—even though she was not here to protect it during the last attack—but enough is enough. Your relieving her of command was done by the book, under the circumstances. I for one have had enough of staying on the sidelines while Argos conquers one world after another. Soon we’ll have Fury ships on our doorsteps if this continues. We all know this is the right thing to do.”

Ryonna stood up. “I agree with Chase. The admiral is a coward and needed to be relieved of command. Unless I don’t understand the regulations of the Earth Alliance, you’ve just done that. It matters not what she says now and I’m glad Chase silenced her.”

Chase looked at Sarah. “Do you want to add anything?”

“I think you’re all correct, but please let her go. You’re scaring her even more.” There was genuine concern in Sarah’s eyes.

Chase released his grip and the admiral breathed heavily. “You’ll all pay for—”

“Sleep!” said Chase, and the admiral fell to the floor.

He turned to Saroudis. “I think you need to address the fleet and let them know of the changes in the command structure. You should also have her sorry ass escorted to the brig.”

“Chase! She is my friend. You shouldn’t have intervened.”

“Do you want us to go see if your family is amongst the survivors on Alpha Prime or do you want to stay here and debate my lack of protocol?”

“I should throw you in the brig with her.”

“Do what you must, Commodore, but I’m through waiting for the Furies to build up their strength unchallenged, with the help of my brother, while the admiral pisses her pants not knowing what to do about it.”

“Chase,” said Sarah, putting her hand on his.

“What?” That was when he saw the eyes of everyone staring at him. Everyone but Ryonna had a little fear in their eyes.

“Chase,” said the commodore. “Nobody is challenging your intentions, but you need to learn to voice them properly.”

“We-don’t-have-time-for-this.”

“Everyone, please give us the room.”

When they had left the conference room Saroudis looked straight in Chase’s eyes.

“You’re not in command here, Lieutenant Commander! There are things I’m willing to tolerate from you, but today you went too far.”

“At the risk of repeating myself, we don’t have time for this, Adonis.”

“Commodore!”

“Right, my apologies. Commodore, I know you know I’m right. We need to go to Alpha Prime, now!”

“I agree with you, but I’m sick and tired of your repetitive displays of insubordination. Effective immediately, I demote you back to the rank of lieutenant.”

Chase was so angry—not at being demoted but at the sermon, that meant losing more time—that he wanted to smash the conference table.

But then a golden light appeared between them.

“If I may?” said Ares in his energy form.

“Hello, Ares,” said Chase.

“Ares, this is an internal dispute. While I appreciate your past help, this particular conversation doesn’t concern you.”

“And with all due respect, Commodore, I think you need to hear me out.”

“Very well.”

“While Chase’s impulsive reaction is questionable at best, he is correct. Not only was relieving the admiral necessary, it was a long time coming. You both know how erratic she’s been the past few months. Friend or not the stakes are too high. Do I have to remind you that the Furies are back? They are just too powerful, and the most ruthless conqueror race that ever lived in this universe. If we don’t act now they will annihilate us.”

“I am well aware of this, Ares.”

“Then let’s stop this useless display of testosterone between the two of you. Chase, apologize for your usual lack of tact. Commodore, you’ve demoted Chase for his questionable attitude. Now can we please move on and address the real threats that we will all be facing soon?”

The commodore exhaled deeply. “Very well.”

“I’m sorry, Commodore,” said Chase.

“We all know you’re not, but Ares is right, we need to start preparing for the shit storm the return of the Furies will bring along with them.”

“On that we can all agree.”

“And Chase?” added Saroudis.

“Yes, sir?”

“Please don’t give me false hope again or use my family as an excuse to force my decisions the way you just did back then.”

“You do realize some of them might have survived?”

“And they may not have. I don’t need to think about this right now. We’re going to Alpha Prime to reclaim the planet and render assistance to any survivors in the process, whether or not my family is amongst them.”

“Understood.”

*   *   *

Argos went to the brig on his ship and stood in front of Admiral Thassos.

“What do you want?” she asked with defiance burning in her eyes.

“Well, it seems your doppelgänger has been removed from command.”

“I’m glad to hear it. About time, too.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. Thanks to her we’ve managed to expand unchallenged these past few weeks. She has fulfilled her primary mission.”

“You have no intention of ever letting me out of here alive, do you?”

“That depends. Would you reconsider our previous talk about giving me the command codes for the planetary shield?”

“I can’t do that. I won’t!”

He sensed that she meant it with every fiber of her being. Argos wondered if perhaps breaking her was worth it. But since the admiral’s clone had reported that the AI now protecting Earth could retake control of the planetary shield at any time she pleased, it seemed futile to invest time and effort getting the codes anyway. He would have to find another way to work around this shield when the time came to crush Earth once and for all.

“What about Commodore Saroudis? Any way I can exploit a weakness there? I hear the two of you are close.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

I guess not.

“Well then, this is goodbye.”

“What? Wait!”

But Argos didn’t. He closed his fist and the admiral exploded, painting the room red.

Chase sat on the bridge of the
Hope
. He was a little surprised to have still been given command of the strongest battleship in the fleet. But that made sense in a strategic way. While his superior and friend Saroudis was annoyed with him, he was no fool and still recognized what Chase had to offer on the battlefield. They had made the jump towards Alpha Prime that morning. Chase’s blood was pumping. The attempt to find survivors on their home world, as well as reclaim it, was a long time coming. The Droxians had sent four battleships and the Obsidian another three. Chase was confident that twelve battleships were more than enough to accomplish their mission.

“Yanis to the captain,”

“Go ahead, Yanis, what can I do for you?”

“Can you please come down to engineering. I need to show you something.”

“On my way.”

In engineering, Yanis had a holo-display of the StarFury specs rotating on its vertical axis.

“What is it, my friend?”

“To counter the Zarlack’s kamikaze tactics I’ve made modifications to the StarFuries.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’ve found a way to flash charge the jump-engine chambers to seventy percent. And it only takes twenty seconds to do so.”

“Are you telling me we can jump the ship every twenty seconds?”

“Yep, and that was not easy. I almost blew myself up a few times in the process. Our current capacitors’ designs were never meant to be charged so fast. I must have destroyed at least one hundred of them until I found the right way to do this. I just didn’t have time to implement a macro that would allow the StarFury to make a much larger jump than before using this upgrade. Since it will emerge from hyperspace on a regular basis, it’s still a far cry from jumping with a destroyer or a jumpgate, and the range is still limited by the total amount of quadrinium in your chambers. I will see if there’s a way to equip the StarFury with a larger quadrinium chamber to increase its range in the future.”

“This is great news. As always, great job, pal,” said Chase, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

“Yes, but I must warn you that I stumbled onto an interesting side-effect in the process.”

“Oh really? And what’s that?”

“The key in flash charging the capacitors without blowing up the ship in the process was to feed multiple smaller power streams to it, rather than a single overload pulse.”

“And?”

“Well, then it came to me. Since I would have to redesign a good portion of the power distribution circuits in the StarFuries anyway, what if I could channel more power to other parts of the ship.”

“What are you telling me?”

“I’ve placed power converters all around the ship’s external armor. When your shields are taxed, a small part of that power is syphoned back into the ship.”

“Does that mean the more we get hit the more power we get?”

“That’s the idea, yes. Each impact with the shield will convert a little of that spent energy to recharge the engines, the weapons and a few other systems, making the StarFury even more resilient.”

“Are all the StarFuries already modified?”

“No, I only managed the stable modification of the new power distribution system and overhaul of the power circuits about ten days ago. But a good third of our fighters on board have been overhauled.”

“That’s already a lot of ships.”

“There’s a little catch, though.”

“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“Well, you see if your shields receive a hit that drains them entirely in one shot—say, for example, from a Zarlack destroyer’s fully powered plasma shot—the ship may overload.”

“That’s not good.”

“I know, and I will try to find a way around it, but my analysis of battle logs shows this is very rare scenario in large-scale battles. The destroyers usually pound other destroyers with these types of weapons. They let their smaller fighters deal with our StarFuries.”

“Then we’d better hope they don’t change their tactics.”

“Don’t worry, pal, I’ll have that fixed on my next iteration. I just need to work on it more and could use Spiros’ help too, but he’s been too busy working on your training facilities back on Earth lately. I think he has a thing for Gaia.”

Chase raised an eyebrow.

“You do realize she’s artificial, an AI? Sure, she has a personality and she is clearly a self-aware being, but . . .”

“Yeah, well, lately he doesn’t even call to say hi anymore.”

“Are you jealous?” said Chase with a playful smile.

Yanis punched him on the shoulder. “Don’t be dumb. I’m just saying, we haven’t seen him here much lately.”

Yanis grimaced and held his fist in his other hand.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, but what are you made of? Steel?”

Chase chuckled. “I understand you miss having Spiros around, but I for one am very grateful for the job he did on the training facility. That place will help me unlock more of my abilities. These past few weeks I’ve felt stronger than I ever thought possible.”

“I’m glad to hear it. We’ll sure need that.”

“Yeah, but for once I feel ready instead of overwhelmed. But enough about me. How are you doing these days?”

“I’m okay. I just hate being away from Earth all the time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Finally scored a girlfriend. She’s an engineer working on the admiral’s ship. We really clicked.”

“I’m glad to hear it, buddy. Don’t worry, we’ll be back on Earth in no time.”

“Chase?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry you got demoted.”

“Don’t worry, pal, you know I don’t really care for rank.”

“Still, I think it was harsh, after everything you’ve done. I’d expect you’d be captain instead of back to lieutenant.”

“Doesn’t matter, Yanis. Do we have enough StarFuries for me to remote fly a few when we arrive on Alpha Prime?”

“There’re a few in reserve just for you, but is it wise to try and captain the
Hope
and fly these remotely.”

“My brain seems to handle it fine, but don’t worry, I’ll be careful.”

“And if you could make sure my sister is safe.”

“She’s an officer in the Earth Alliance. She doesn’t need patronizing, and is more than equipped to take care of herself.”

“You know what I mean, Chase.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep her safe.”

“Thank you.”

“I should get back to my quarters. Sarah is waiting for me.”

“How are the two of you doing? I got the feeling it was rocky between the two of you lately.”

“Just before we left for this mission she asked that we talk and things are getting better.”

“You must feel relieved.”

“Indeed, with Chris only a few months from being born, the last thing I want is tension between us. But I understand why she felt the way she did.”

“Speaking of which, how come she came on this mission? Wouldn’t it have been safer for her to stay on Earth in her condition.”

“She’d tell you she’s pregnant, not disabled, and I wouldn’t mention it to her either if I were you. That is, if you value the use of your fingers.”

“She wouldn’t?”

“No, but you’d get a mouthful nonetheless. I think her mood swings with her pregnancy are stronger than the average human.”

“No doubt because she’s carrying a Fury hybrid.”

“Yeah, that seems to be the consensus amongst the docs as well.”

“Say hello for me, then.”

“Will do. Thanks, Yanis.”

*   *   *

When Chase arrived before his quarters he paused for a second. His heart was beating fast. He felt a little like he did when he had first met Sarah, shy and worried about his next move. Their last kissing session removed some of the tension, but he still felt uneasy. Still, if the commodore could focus on the mission without putting his own family in the equation, perhaps there was something he could learn from it. He too should set aside his personal life struggles while on a mission. And for a brief instant he contemplated going for a run instead. But that wasn’t putting his emotions on the side; that was running away and not facing his fears. So he decided against it.

When the door opened he saw Sarah sleeping with her back towards the bulkhead. When the door closed she opened her eyes and yawned.

“You’re okay?” said Chase, still not sure what to say to her.

She yawned again.

“This son of yours is draining the life out of me. I have to eat three times as much as before.”

Chase smiled. “He’s your son too.”

“You know what I mean. Come, sit.”

Chase sat next to her on the bed.

“Look, Sarah . . .”

She put her finger to his mouth. “Shhhh, no talking.”

She embraced him vigorously and they kissed.

They made passionate love, and all of Chase’s worries and uneasiness vanished for a little while.

An hour later they lay on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

“That was pretty good, sailor.”

He smiled.

“I missed your smile so much,” said Sarah as she gently brushed the back of her hand against his cheek.

“I’ve missed you too. Before I learned you were still alive I never thought I would get the chance to see you again. Experiencing this every day was the hardest part.”

“It must have been very hard. I’m sorry for giving you so much flak about it. But you understand how I felt, right?”

“I do. It still stung a little, but you had every right to be mad at me.”

“You have to understand one thing, Chase. I was mad, yes; a little scared; but also overwhelmed by it all. I witnessed everything my clone did. I know you two also made love when I was being held prisoner. That was not easy to accept, even though I can’t blame you for that. She was my exact duplicate, after all. In fact, seeing it unfold felt like a good dream sometimes. But then it turned to nightmares when she got up in the middle of the night and started plotting against the Earth Alliance. She almost destroyed my planet singlehandedly.”

“The important thing is she didn’t. I’m so sorry you had to go through all this.”

“Not your fault. If anything you’re the reason it’s all over now. Except . . .”

“Except I put everyone’s lives in jeopardy.”

“You know what, it was unfair of me to go there again. I don’t want any tension between us. We’re soon to be parents. We must put this behind us. If not for ourselves, then for Chris.”

“I agree. But the fact remains, I’ve helped Argos bring back the Furies. But we’ll defeat them. We have to.”

“We do. But aren’t you worried you’re outnumbered now? It was already difficult fighting Argos, but now we have a planet full of them to deal with.”

“We’ll find a way. When the current crisis is over, I’ll go speak to Zeus.”

“I thought he wanted nothing to do with us.”

“Ares believes that with the Furies back in the picture, we might be able to strike a deal with the Olympians.”

“That seems like a long shot, but I guess we don’t really have any choice.”

“We might, actually. If the Olympians refuse to help we’ll try to locate the Asgardians.”

“As in the Norse gods of Asgard? Thor and his bunch?”

“You’ve heard of them?”

“Yes, the Nordic mythology is well known on Earth, almost as well as the Greek one, in fact. More in northern Europe, though.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

“Legend has it Thor is very attractive,” said Sarah with a playful yet lusty smile.

“Very funny!”

She laughed, but then proceeded to describe the myths and legends she knew about the Norse gods for a good half an hour. Her tales captivated Chase.

“They might be as powerful as the Olympians. Ares thinks their advanced technology could be of great use to us.”

“Would be great if we got both Olympians and the Asgard gods—what did you call them? Asgardians?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if we can get them both on our side, perhaps we do stand a chance.”

“Ares believes it’s unlikely. The rivalry between the two runs too deep.”

“In the face of extinction, perhaps this will get resolved.”

“Perhaps. In any case, we’ll need new powerful allies. But that will have to wait. Right now the target is to reclaim my home world.”

“You must be ecstatic at the thought of seeing survivors. Who knows, perhaps even some friends.”

“Most of my friends were in the
Destiny
’s battle group, except Fillio and a handful of other fighter pilots. It would sure be great if some of them survived, but like Saroudis said, this is not a personal mission, for either of us.”