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

  Volume IV: Requiem of Souls

  Chase struggles with the loss of both Zeus and Olympus. He feels responsible for allowing the manipulation of the Earth Alliance by Arakan, who used a decoy attack on Asgard, thus arriving unchallenged, to kill Zeus and destroy Olympus in one swift move. Chase’s friends push him to get to Erevos and get Menelas and Aphroditis out of their respective predicaments, and while Chase wants nothing more, he second-guesses himself. What if it’s another ploy from the supreme commander; what if it’s a trap? Eventually, Chase prepares what he thinks will be a successful mission to Erevos. Meanwhile, Spiros risks his life to try and bring Gaia back. When he loses valuable supplies, he is forced to bring a very basic version of the Gaia AI online to replenish the resources that he needs to complete his task. But things don’t go as planned, and both he and Gaia get captured by a ruthless smuggler. Ryonna, Keera, and Tar’Lock work with Emperor Altair to convince the Gorgars to help them build ships, but they quickly realize that many things have changed on the surface of the planet since their last visit. They barely escape with their lives. Chase and his friends go to Erevos. On the way, an invisible ship intercepts them; one like nothing they have encountered before. Chase teleports his away team to Erevos while Sarah and Daniel deal with the new threat. After much difficulty, they manage to send the spider ship on the run. The team successfully recovers Aphroditis, who is at death’s door and just a shadow of her former self. Chase has no other choice but to put her in suspended animation, hoping to find a way to revive her later, despite the goddess’ wish to be allowed to die in peace. Chase, Argos, and Oryn rescue Menelas from his cell, but Oryn, too determined to get revenge for the death of her parents, goes on her own to face Arakan. Reluctantly joining forces with Poseidon, and against all odds, she exacts her revenge and kills the man that she once called her father. But her victory is short-lived, and the Spectre that followed Arakan like a shadow, takes control of Arakan’s corpse and rips Oryn’s soul from her body, acquiring her powers as a result. Chase and the rest of his team engage the Spectre, but they nearly get wiped out by this new foe, who is more powerful than anyone they have ever faced before. They are forced to flee but not before incurring some serious wounds. Back on the Victory, Menelas reveals that the soul ships are hidden on Earth, in the center of the planet’s core.

  And now the continuation...

  Prologue

  “The soul ships are on Earth?” inquired Sarah.

  “Yes, but hidden inside the planet’s core, where no one would have thought to look.”

  It made sense when Chase thought about it; he had always wondered why Aphroditis had been so adamant that he protect Earth at all costs. And, while it had played a major role up until now, Chase always thought that its importance might have been a little oversold by the Olympian goddess. Now it was crystal clear, and it all made sense.

  “That was the general idea behind choosing such a hiding place,” commented Menelas.

  “How do we get the ships out of there, though?” said Sarah.

  “Once we’re in orbit around Earth, a passcode, transmitted over a certain frequency, will activate a transport sequence.”

  “I take it that’s why Arakan had you imprisoned? Did he know about the soul ships?” asked Chase.

  “I don’t think he knew the details of what I was withholding, just that I was hiding something. He could feel it, and it drove him mad. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of breaking, no matter how hard and long he tortured me.”

  Chase could feel Sarah’s emotional reaction at the mention of being tortured. Argos hadn’t gone easy on her, and he had been even worse with her clone. And, while her clone had suffered the most, Sarah held those memories, too.

  “I'm sorry you had to go through that,” empathized Chase to his father. “At least Arakan is gone.”

  “Thank you, Chase, but we both know that the thing that took his place is infinitely worse. I’d rather Arakan were still alive. The amount of power this being has managed to display by using Arakan’s body is troubling.”

  Chase was well aware of that. In fact, that was the single thought at the center of his mind since they had attempted to fight the Spectre and had utterly failed. Chase felt even more unprepared to face off against this new foe than he had been when he first battled Argos on Hellstar. Back then, Argos had not used all his powers but was, in fact, toying with Chase and his friends in order to deploy Sarah’s clone as a spy. Even using his Ultra Fury powers, Chase felt the Spectre was indestructible.

  “It is troubling, and we’ll need to be better prepared if we’re to engage that thing in future combat.”

  Menelas raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see what we can do.”

  “I do have an idea. We need to train extensively and at least try to lower the power gap between the Spectre and us, as a unit. But, for the time being, we have to get going.”

  “Earth as a first stop?” proposed Sarah, preemptively.

  Chase nodded. “Yeah, let’s get the soul ships. Without an Asgardian ship to open up a super-fast hyperspace corridor, this will be a long jump.”

  “Shouldn’t we simply ask Thor to send another ship?” said Sarah. “Having them jump here and then to Earth with us would still shave off at least a day of travel.”

  Chase thought about it. Even though he wanted nothing more than to return to Erevos with the soul ships and end this war once and for all, his instincts told him that if he did that without training, there would be more casualties, and Oryn’s death was already eating at his soul.

  “No, we actually need that time,” said Chase.

  That is, if Cedric managed to make progress on his upgrade.

  “Very well,” conceded Sarah. “Set a course for Earth; looks like we're going home.”

  The Victory’s quad core engines hummed to life and soon the ship entered hyperspace.

  Chase dreaded going to the Underworld, but he couldn’t avoid it. He had to tell his grandfather what had happened to Oryn. And even though Chase had insisted that she not engage Arakan on her own, he was forced to admit that she had managed to bring the Supreme Commander of the Furies down, with Poseidon’s help. Something Chase didn’t think she would be able to do.

  Chase tried taking some comfort in that fact. And, in her last moments, she had at least achieved what she set out to do, which was to avenge the death of her parents. Even if that achievement was short-lived. None of them could have anticipated what followed. Though, Chase now wondered if his hesitation to go to Erevos in the first place wasn’t simply his instincts telling him that a larger threat loomed there.

  It mattered not, anymore. Oryn was dead, and the Spectre had swallowed her soul, and in doing so, he had inherited all her powers. That’s what scared Chase the most about their new foe; this ability could potentially make the enemy stronger with every kill he made.

  But more than ever, Chase vowed to himself that he wouldn’t let anymore of his friends die in this war. They had lost too many good people. He needed to come up with a way to defeat both the Furies and the Spectre without losing another member of his team.

  Chase took a deep breath. He still couldn’t believe Oryn was gone. He wondered if she would be in the Underworld, but he had seen the Spectre grab and assimilate her soul, so he doubted it. Her last words haunted him. “Thank you for your friendship,” she had said. Chase didn’t think letting her die made him a good friend at all.

  No, Chase didn’t want to go to the Underworld and tell his grandfather that he had let her die. But there was no way around it, and he needed to get other things moving fast, so he had to deal with it now, no matter that he’d rather teleport to the other side of the universe and crawl into a deep black hole instead.

  Chase closed his eyes and teleported to the Underworld.

  Zeus appeared shortly after he arrived in the cold, dark place. After having been here several times, Chase still felt that the place was uninviting. No surprise Hades wanted to get
the hell out, especially after having spent tens of thousands of years here. Chase didn’t like how the Underworld made him feel after only a few minutes of being there.

  “Hello, Chase,” greeted Zeus. “I take it that Oryn still didn’t want to come and see me?”

  The sadness in Zeus’ tone tore at Chase’s heart. How was he to tell him that his daughter might never come here? Perhaps if Chase killed the Spectre, it would release her soul, but he had no way of knowing that at the moment.

  When Chase pressed his lips together and couldn’t articulate even a single word, Zeus’ entire face dropped.

  “What— what happened?”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  “Tell me anyway, though I can sense that it has something to do with my Oryn. Is she mortally wounded like Poseidon was?”

  If only, thought Chase. A tear ran down Chase’s cheek.

  “She— she’s gone, Zeus; I’m so sorry. I tried to prevent it but. . .”

  “What? No! That’s not possible. If she had died, I would have seen her soul. You must be mistaken.”

  “I'm afraid I’m not. I take full responsibility.”

  For a second, Chase thought he saw hatred in his grandfather’s eyes, which made his heart bleed. Chase was mad at himself, as the last thing he wanted was to lose yet another comrade, and while Oryn had been insufferable and disobedient before her passing, she was still someone he considered a friend. The anger in Zeus’ eyes was quickly replaced by sadness and sorrow as the leader of the Olympian people fell to his knees.

  “Tell me this isn’t true. Tell me I’m just having a nightmare.”

  Chase knelt next to his grandfather and laid his hand on Zeus’ shoulder.

  “I wish that too, every minute since it happened.”

  “Is Arakan dead?”

  That’s when it occurred to Chase that Arakan’s soul hadn’t come to the Underworld either. If Zeus hadn’t seen the supreme commander’s soul, it meant whatever had happened to Oryn must have happened to Arakan as well. The Spectre probably had hijacked both his body and his soul.

  “Not exactly.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Chase. What the hell happened?”

  Chase told his grandfather everything that had occurred in as much detail as he could.

  “But she did kill Arakan,” said Chase, “before the end.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better, Chase?”

  The resentment in Zeus’ voice was hard to miss, and Chase accepted it. In his heart, he knew very well she had been in an unstable frame of mind, and he shouldn’t have taken her with them on the mission. Once more, Chase had not listened to his instincts, and someone had died because of it.

  Zeus shook his head and turned his back on Chase.

  “I'm sorry,” attempted Chase.

  Zeus swiftly raised a hand.

  “Don’t— please, Chase, I— I need to process this. You should get out of here before I say something I might regret.”

  Chase frowned but respected his grandfather’s wishes and left the Underworld.

  1

  “What can I do for you, boss?” Yanis cheerily asked.

  “I need you to help Cedric with his project.”

  When Yanis grimaced, Chase could feel his chief engineer and friend was at a loss.

  “We have so many balls in the air right now; you’ll have to be more specific.”

  “The training facility. Has he told you about it?”

  “Just in passing; he’s consulted with Spiros on the matter, I think. Something about reversing polarity in a black hole to achieve a contained white hole or something. Truth be told, Chase, this seems so far-fetched and so dangerous to even try that I didn’t give it a second thought.”

  Chase sighed. That’s not what he wanted to hear, especially from Yanis. His friend must have picked up on Chase’s disappointment as he continued.

  “You absolutely need this tech, boss?”

  “More than you can even imagine. In fact, I don’t see how we can win without it.”

  “Huh…then I guess we’ll have to redirect our efforts toward making it happen.”

  “You just said it’s far-fetched.”

  “Yeah, and I was being nice, but if you need it, we’ll make it work. I mean, since when is some of the stuff we do not bat-shit crazy anyway, right? On paper, it seems improbable, but, then again, I only knew about the outline of the project. I’m sure that if Cedric, Kvasir, and myself put our heads together, we can come up with something.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, my friend. I can’t stress enough how important it is that we train in a time-diluted place. There’s no way we can lower the gap in power that exists between us and the Spectre unless we train for months, if not years.”

  “Which obviously you can’t do; that would leave the Furies plenty of time to rebuild and conquer the universe.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But if we secured the Gorgar home world, couldn’t we just overpower the Furies like they overpowered us?”

  “I’ve thought about it, and while I firmly believe that Arakan over-extended himself when he attacked both Droxia and Asgard, who knows what that Spectre will throw at us. Remember he’s been by Arakan’s side for months, if not longer. It’s entirely possible that he’s acquired his own fleet. Not to mention that spider ship, which I’m sure is part of his force.”

  “But there are only one of those ships, and we managed to seriously damage it to the point where it had to flee. I’m sure we can bring it down next time.”

  “And we may need you guys to develop tech that will do just that. Not to mention that even if it was only one ship, the Spectre may have more at his disposal.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that, too. I think the only reason why the spider ship wasn’t damaging the Victory fast enough was because it was cloaked. Once it decloaked and could draw most of its power to use its weapons, it became incredibly dangerous, even with all the kick-ass upgrades the Victory has.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. That if more of these things show up, some could just distract us while cloaked, while one or two others would be more than enough to take on even the Victory.”

  Yanis’ face paled.

  “I’m afraid to admit that this particular scenario would be incredibly bad for us. But that’s why we should try and have the Gorgar home world spew out Warheart class ships by the dozens like they were doing for the Furies before we stopped them.”

  “In his last communication, the Emperor said many things had changed there. In fact, Ryonna and the others barely escaped their visit. They had to retreat, and the fleet has been badly damaged.”

  “Why don’t they just use the mind reprogramming device Argos had created to force them into compliance; I know it’s a gray area, boss, but do we really have a choice right now?”

  Chase hated the idea of enslaving a massive population like the Gorgars to achieve their goals. He couldn’t reconcile the morality of such a choice no matter how he looked at the issue. But, at the end of the day, and with all the new threats they were facing, could they afford to pass up that opportunity?

  “That would make us no different than the Furies.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it, Chase. I’m sorry, but that’s the wrong kind of argument. We wouldn’t enslave these people forever, and while I don’t want to do it either, we have to decide what we’re willing to sacrifice for not getting our hands a little dirty. Do we do what needs to be done, even if we hate doing so, or do we let that Spectre lead the Furies to victory, wiping us all out in the process? And that would include the Gorgar, which I’m sure they simply would either re-enslave at the first opportunity or just wipe them out without a single thought.

  “So, yeah, it sucks, and I don’t like it any more than you do, Chase. But if not doing so brings their downfall, or even worse, brutal enslavement for all eternity, can we truly afford not to use them as a resource in our greatest tim
e of need? This is crunch time, Chase; we win, or we die, so can we afford not to ask ourselves these questions?”

  As much as Chase hated to admit it, his friend was right. It wasn’t a game; the fate of countless trillions of lives was at stake, the Gorgars included, even if they didn’t know it themselves. The Alliance needed an edge, and they needed more ships to counter whatever the Spectre had in store for them.

  “I guess we may have to get our hands dirty.”

  “It’s ridiculous to think we could survive without that, boss.”

  “Alright, thank you for voicing your opinion. The days ahead will be a challenge; we’ll all depend on you, Cedric, and Kvasir.”

  “Let’s not forget Spiros. In a time like this, maybe we need to get him back to the barn.”

  Chase knew Spiros had insisted on doing his own thing, unhindered by the development of the war, and he owed it to both Spiros and Gaia to respect his wishes. Then again, if Spiros could help the rest of the team work on their training needs, Chase would have to prioritize.

  “Have we heard anything from them lately?”

  “No, and that has Cedric rattled; they used to connect from time to time, but it’s been a few days since they last spoke.”

  “Alright, I’ll look into it. The base where he was working isn’t that far from the Emperor’s fleet; I’ll ask him to divert a small team and look for Spiros.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  Argos pushed the gravity to 750Gs inside the training facility despite the blaring alarms from the warning system and the imminent system failure. A pulsating red beacon was his only source of light. Walking in the intense gravity field felt like being punched to oblivion by a Titan. But Argos could and would take the pain. He would train and become stronger. He had to.