Fury to the Stars (Universe in Flames Book 2) (31 page)

Was it the future he just saw in those millisecond
flashes? And if it was, what did they mean and whose StarFury would get
destroyed? Perhaps the StarFury was a flashback from losing his own ship a few
seconds ago…?

“Captain?!” said the crewman, even more alarmed now.

Chase’s breathing became a little more constant,
breath by breath.

“No, thank you, Ensign Boldaris. I’m fine... I
think.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

*   *   *

As Daniel and Sarah approached the shields of the
Damocles Station, he hailed it.

“This is Commander Tharaleos. I’m coming to get you
out of the station. Can you please open a portion of the shields around docking
bay three?”

“Give me a sec... There you go, you’re clear to
land. I’m in the command center on deck one.”

“Roger that. Hang tight, we won’t be long.”

Daniel was the first to touchdown on the floor of
the docking station, followed immediately by Sarah. They exited their
respective StarFuries, both drawing out their weapons. For Daniel, it was his
service blaster pistol. For Sarah, the weapon she’d acquired on Hathan Prime.

Then, without exchanging a word between them, they
began running for the nearest lift.

*   *   *

Argos was onboard the cloaked
Dark Star
when
the shields were briefly lowered around one of the docking stations. He positioned
his ship right behind the two StarFuries and waited for his moment of
opportunity, hovering silently until they exited the bay on foot. Then he
landed the
Dark Star
and got out of the ship. Since he was seeing
everything Sarah was seeing, it wasn’t difficult for him to follow their steps.

When they took a lift to the top level deck, he
pushed a mental command so Sarah would send the lift back to him undetected.
When it arrived, he stepped inside and selected deck one as well.

After three minutes of sprinting, both Sarah and
Daniel arrived at the command center and were greeted by Spiros, who was in a
sparkling good mood.

“Is this a reunion?” he asked. “Weren’t you also one
of my students at the academy?”

“That’s right,” said Daniel with a smile. “How are
you, Professor?”

“Better now, and please, call me Spiros.”

“Alright, do you have the data containing your
research?”

Spiros held up a translucent, blue, hexagonal data
crystal pinched between two of his fingers. “Right here. We’re good to go.”

A loud voice boomed suddenly behind them.

“Nobody is going anywhere.”

Daniel’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Argos
enter the room. He raised his blaster and fired three shots but the man stopped
them with a simple wave of his hand.

“Really?” He cocked his head mockingly. “You think a
gun will bring me down?”

Daniel opened a channel to Chase. “Chase, Arg—” But
before he could finish his sentence, Argos had appeared in front of him and
punched him in the guts so hard that he lost consciousness on the spot.

“Daniel, I didn't get your last transmission. What’s
your status?”

Chase’s voice echoed over the comm as Argos caught
Daniel’s body before he could fall all the way to the ground. He looked up at
Spiros and saw pure terror in the man’s eyes.

“I’ll take this, if you please.” He snatched the
crystal disk out of Spiros’ hand with his mind.

Spiros was startled to see the disk fly from his
hand to Argos’ as if by magic.

“It’s useless if you don’t know how to open the
files.”

“That’s the last of my worries right now, old man.”
Argos smiled.

Spiros turned in desperation to Sarah, but saw her
just standing there. “Why aren’t you trying to get the disk back?” he wailed.
“What’s wrong with you?”

She launched at Spiros and clocked his head with her
elbow, smashing his head down on a nearby console before he collapsed to the
ground with a thud.

Argos didn’t even look up. “Thank you, dear. Now
open a channel to the
Hope
.”

She pushed Spiros’ unconscious body out of the way
and entered a few commands. The next second, a nervous looking Chase appeared
on the screen.

“What is it, Sarah?”

Argos grabbed Daniel by his hair and held him up as
he stepped into view next to Sarah.

Chase’s blood froze.

“Friend of yours?” Argos asked curiously. “His head
seems so fragile.”

“If you hurt him...”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be
threatening me right now. I have both your friend and your beloved Sarah here.
Oh, and this.” He held up the crystal with the other hand.

Chase ground his teeth together and tried to stay
calm. “What do you want?”

“Come and get me,” Argos said directly. “You have
three minutes or this one dies.”

As the communication ended, Chase had to use
everything he had learned from Ares not to let his rage literally rip the
galaxy in half. In a dead sprint, he ran to the door.

“Captain, where are you going?” inquired Sergeant
Sparton.

“You have the bridge,” Chase called back as he
bolted to the launch bays. He arrived just a second later, but to his great
dismay, there was no ship. He commed Yanis immediately, glancing up at the
clock in terror.

“Yanis’ genius hotline. How may I help you today?”

“Don’t we have a shuttlecraft of any kind or a
reserve ship?”

“There should be a shuttle, why?”

“I need to go onboard Damocles-3, NOW!”

Yanis sobered up at once. “Lemme check… The logs
show it departed while we were still inside the Gatos Nebula. Why don’t you
recall one of the StarFury or Omega fighters?”

“I don’t think I have time anymore,” Chase panted.
“Gotta go, thanks.”

“Sure, any—”

Chase turned off the comm. It must have been the
craft the emperor took when he left the ship. “Think, Chase...
Think!
” he
said to himself, trying to make his brain run faster.

Then an idea popped into his head. Crazy? Sure. But
did he have a choice? No.

 He quickly accessed his inner pool of energy
and made a shield all around him. The blue energy coursed effortlessly back and
forth as he tested it, making sure it would hold. When he was satisfied, he
took a deep breath, said a silent prayer, and dove headfirst off the ship.

The second he was out in space, he tucked his limbs
against his body like a bullet, leaving a small shockwave behind him as he
accelerated towards the Damocles Station. In no time at all, he was travelling
at a speed faster than a starfighter. He almost collided with a StarFury on his
way and could sense it was Fillio’s. He even heard her train of thought in his
mind as he passed only a few feet from her craft. “Holy
shit
… What the
fuck
was that?!”

He was almost upon the station when he remembered
about the shields. He extended his hands in front of him and made a diamond
shape, linking both his index fingers and thumbs together. A fraction of a
second before impact, he unleashed a bright ray of light that made the shields
flicker and created a small hole, just big enough for him to fly through. A few
seconds later, he entered the launching bays where he saw two StarFuries as
well as the black ship that had taken Sarah hostage in his first encounter with
Argos in space around Earth.

He brushed the thought of destroying the ship away,
knowing full well he was running out of time and Argos could kill both Daniel
and Sarah if he did. Instead, he flew towards the nearest lift, blew the doors
open with a fireball, and flew up the empty shaft. Less than three seconds
later, he reached the end of the tube where the lift stood and blocked his way
out.

With a great mental push, he flattened the lift’s
cage to a third of its original size like it was made of carton. Sparks flew
all over the place as he flew through the now accessible external doors,
tearing them to shreds as he finally arrived in the corridor on deck one. The
sheer velocity and trajectory of his flight path made him rebound a couple of
times from nearby walls, until he managed to readjust his trajectory for the
final stretch towards the command center. Upon impact with the closed doors at
the end of the corridor he obliterated them and flew in like they weren’t
there.

Argos and Sarah jumped back in shock. But Chase
wasn’t nearly finished. He landed just a few feet from Argos, who was still
holding Daniel, his eyes glowing purple with rage.

“This is between you and me. Put him down,
gently
,”
he ordered.

Argos laughed cruelly but looked genuinely
surprised. “You’ve made some impressive progress, brother. Did you just fly
over here?”

“
Put... him... down
,” Chase repeated.

“What if I don—”

But before Argos could finish his sentence, Chase
flew over and snatched Daniel’s body away. He lowered it gently to the floor a
few yards away, checked for a pulse, and then got up to face his brother.

“I told you… this is between us.”

“Impressive speed. But you can’t hope to defeat me.”

Chase ignored him and looked at Sarah. She seemed
unnervingly calm and silent under the circumstances. A faint unease tugged at
his stomach, but he nodded in her direction.

“You good, love?”

She nodded yes and Chase stared back at Argos with
confident eyes.

Argos threw back his head and laughed out loud. “
Love
,”
he repeated, “would you be so kind and take this.” He threw the crystal disk and
she caught it robotically. “Take it away from here. I suggest you avoid the
ships outside by using your StarFury’s cloaking ability.”

Chase turned to her in slow motion and her eyes
flashed red.

It hit him like a battering ram to the heart. A
million little questions were finally answered. A million little pieces
suddenly clicked into place.

The sleepwalking, confusion, dizziness, eerie calm.
She’d been under his influence all along.
She
was the spy. Unwillingly,
of course. But the spy nonetheless.

Before he could stop her, she turned her back to
both of them and started running down the corridor without even a look behind.

Chase was shaken, anchored to the spot. He felt a
strange tearing in his chest, like she was taking his heart with her, but his
feet were unable to move. As the sound of her footsteps faded away, he turned
slowly back to Argos. A fury building inside his blood like no other.

“Come on now, Laiyos,” Argos taunted, “show me these
new moves of yours. And this time, give me all you’ve got!”

Chase gritted his teeth. “Who’s Laiyos?”

“You are. That’s your birth name, by the way, ’cause
I am sick and tired of calling you Chase!”

In his current frame of mind Chase couldn’t care
less what his birth name was. All he cared about was killing Argos, right here,
right now. And as much as he’d like to savor the moment, he had to do that fast
to make sure they didn’t lose Sarah and the precious disk. Not a single soul in
the Alliance could risk that information falling into the wrong hands.

He instinctively sent a telepathic message to Yanis,
hoping he would get it.

“Yanis, please tell me you can find any StarFury
even if it’s cloaked! You need to make sure you track the one that will exit
the station in a few moments.”

There was a brief silence before the words “On it!”
echoed back in his mind.

Argos was impatient. “Well, since you’re not gonna
make the first move—”

He lifted his hand, but Chase answered with two
ice-blue fireballs that he sent sailing his brother’s way. Argos raised his
palms to deflect them just in time. They crashed into the walls instead,
sending sparks and broken equipment scattering across the floor.

His eyes lit up and he smiled at Chase. “My turn!”

A red fireball shot through the air towards Chase,
who managed to catch it before it ripped a hole in his stomach. The force of it
sent him skidding back several feet across the floor, but with a good deal of
strength, he was able to slowly dissipate it with his hands. Little red
lightning bolts shot up and down his body as he raised his head, his eyes
glowing purple.

“Impressive. You learn fast.”

Then Argos threw himself at Chase with lightning
speed, launching a circular kick towards Chase’s head. Chase parried with his
elbow and sent Argos flying back where he came from by kicking him straight in
the thorax with incredible force. But while that may have been enough to kill a
normal person, Argos was back on his feet in an instant. He leapt upon Chase
again with a left blow that ended up being a feint for a right uppercut and
caught him by surprise, sending him hurtling up towards the ceiling with
tremendous force.

He dented the metal upon impact with an excruciating
thud, and on the way back down, he was greeted with a fireball in front of his
face. He rotated in midair and grabbed Argos’ arm just in time to affect the
attack’s trajectory, as the fireball flew towards a wall nearby, grazing
Chase’s cheek and making a small incision on his skin in the process. The
fireball exploded on the wall, damaging equipment and creating a flurry of sparks
and electrical short circuits around impact. Using his current momentum, Chase
then spun around and slammed Argos against the floor, which promptly cracked
under the shock. Chase then kicked his brother in the face with so much force
he sent him flying and promptly crashing against the nearest window. The glass
slightly cracked under the impact, and Argos spat blood from his mouth.

Argos barely managed to keep his balance, almost
stumbling down, but he somehow managed to stay up. When he rose all the way
back up he wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Well, now I’m pissed,” he hissed between bloody
teeth.

He blinked out of existence and re-appeared behind
Chase, hitting him full force with an elbow below Chase’s shoulder blade. Chase
felt two of his ribs crack and the sharp pain that followed made him miss the
upcoming kick to his face. He flew, spinning in the air, as Argos leapt in
pursuit—both hands joined over his head as he smashed Chase into the ground in
a fluid and incredibly powerful motion.

Chase gasped with pain as he hit the cold floor.
Another rib snapped upon impact, but before he could recover his senses, Argos
grabbed him by the hair and hit him so hard in the face, for a moment he lost
consciousness. Argos threw Chase away against the nearest wall.

“You’re going to want to wake up, brother…”

The words echoed in Chase’s head and made him come
to, a second before he would have crashed into the incoming wall. Instead, he
was able to flip around and push off with his feet, flying back at Argos with
unthinkable speed and clocking him with a powerful blow to the face, followed
by a left hook. Using his momentum while Argos lost balance from the successive
blows, he threw Argos flying upward with a flying uppercut. The sheer velocity
and power of the attack sent Chase on the same path as his prey.