Universe in Flames 3: Destination Oblivion
Read Universe in Flames 3: Destination Oblivion Online
Authors: Christian Kallias
UNIVERSE IN FLAMES
Volume III
Destination Oblivion
By Christian Kallias
Copyright © 2015 by Christian Kallias
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or
used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Printing, 2015
Cover artwork by Christian Kallias
Christian Kallias
[email protected]
www.christiankallias.com
www.facebook.com/ChristianKallias
www.twitter.com/kalliasx
H A P T E R
I
Chase swiped his
index finger under his nose and looked at the blood. He rubbed the blood
between his index and thumb and got back up.
He looked at the
tall Droxian standing in front of him. A mix of cheers and boos came from the
crowd outside the laser-illuminated arena. Some of the public were waving and
flailing their arms; others gave him the thumbs down sign.
The Droxian launched
himself at Chase with a powerful right kick. Chase dodged the blow, caught the
leg on his right shoulder and locked it in place. With empty eyes he crushed
the leg at knee level with a quick wave of his left hand.
The Droxian shrieked
in agony as the blow dislocated his knee cap. Chase then threw the leg back at
him. He fell to the ground with a loud thud as the crowd cheered
uncontrollably.
“Chase! Chase!
Chase!” they chanted now.
He took no
pleasure from this, none at all. But he needed to feel the pain these fights
brought. At least when he was letting himself be beaten to a pulp, which wasn’t
the case much tonight. This was his fourth and last opponent for the evening,
and while he let himself get injured on purpose and for the show, patience
wasn’t a welcome guest in his thoughts today.
The Droxian was
on the ground, holding his leg, clearly regretting landing the previous blow
that had made Chase’s nose bleed.
This is
utterly useless
, thought Chase.
His opponent wasn’t
in a position to cause Chase the physical pain he craved lately. But in his
soul he knew that no amount of pain from these fights would cover that within
his heart. A tear escaped his left eye but he quickly wiped it away.
“Finish him!”
demanded the crowd.
Chase took two
steps towards the Droxian, still on the ground, and the anticipation from the
crowd intensified. He hated this, but this was how the fights had to be
conducted on board the Obsidian station Ponos One. To the death.
He didn’t know
what made the Droxian react—adrenaline and impending death, probably—but he was
glad he did. He punched his own knee back into place with a painful, cracking
noise and then stood mostly on his good leg, resuming a fighting stance.
Why did it
have to be a Droxian?
thought Chase.
Of all the
scum roaming these rings
. It had to remind him of his past, a past he
wanted to forget at all cost. But there was no brushing away the weight and
pain of these memories as they rushed back into Chase’s mind, reigniting the
deepest scars within his soul. He could obliterate his opponent with a thought;
there was no challenge . . . But Chase wasn’t looking for challenge,
only pain.
He ran toward the
Droxian, who thrust his elbow towards Chase’s head. The impact threw him to the
ground, sending a cloud of sand around him. Chase launched himself feet first
towards the Droxian’s jaw. The impact sent the Droxian flying high in the air.
Chase performed a somersault in midair and landed back on his feet before the
Droxian fell heavily to the floor a second later.
The crowd went
crazy. They were loving this shit. Sometimes Chase would feel like letting his
Fury rage get the better of him and destroy everything and everyone around him,
but there was already too much blood on his hands. Too many innocents had died.
It took a good
minute for his opponent to muster the strength to rise to his feet. Chase
looked at the holographic, real-time gambling screen. His odds had started at
two to one on, but they had soared to fifteen now. He turned back to the Droxian.
He looked deep into his eyes. He could see fear in them, and that sent him back
in time. To that moment when he had the chance to kill his brother Argos but
didn’t. The single, most excruciating mistake of his entire life. The one with
the most painful consequences.
He looked towards
the bar, deep in the back of the hall in which the fights were taking place,
past another three fighting cages—in one of which a Gorgar was beating the shit
out of a Brin at lightning speeds. His look settled on an interstellar newscast
by the bar. He closed his eyes and projected his mind there.
“The Earth
Alliance has been reported winning yet another battle against the Zarlack
Consortium around the ringed planet Zarthos Seven. This only three weeks after
the Obsidian Empire officially broke their alliance with the Zarlack forces. In
other news, the Obsidian Emperor has officially opened negotiations to join the
Earth Alliance,” said the presenter with a smile.
At least Chase
could take a small—very small—amount of comfort with each announcement of
Argos’ forces’ new defeats. It had been three months now since his fight with
Argos on Damocles-3. Three months that felt like an eternity. In that time,
five major battles had been won by the Alliance and only one lost.
It no longer mattered
to Chase who won the war. The only thing that mattered was to cross paths with
his brother Argos, and unleash all the hate and anger he had bottled up deep
within himself. That day would come, sooner or later and, when it did, this
time he would finish the job once and for all.
Chase’s train of
thoughts was interrupted when a powerful knuckle hit his face and made him lose
balance. Perhaps he should get his head into this fight for the time being.
There would be enough time to plan his revenge later. He had to finish this to
get paid. That or die; but that wasn’t happening until after Argos’ heart
stopped beating.
He dodged a
poorly executed uppercut, grabbed the Droxian’s arm and used the momentum of
the punch to slam him against the ground with the painful sound of multiple
ribs breaking. This fight was getting boring. He dragged the Droxian back to
his feet and decided to end it. He launched a lightning-fast, fivefold series of
punches. He was so fast that, to the naked eye, it seemed the impacts on the
Droxian’s body happened before Chase was upon him, and again the crowd cheered
and chanted his name. The Droxian’s heart had stopped, but by a miracle he was
still standing, a look of terror still locked into his eyes.
When Chase
couldn’t take hearing his name being chanted anymore, he impaled the already
dead Droxian through his ribcage, grabbed his heart and tore it out. The
lifeless body fell to the ground like a flat board, and Chase held the purple-blooded,
engorged heart high above his head. He squeezed it and heard the familiar
winning sound played over the sound system.
“Chase wins!”
added a theatrical voice as the cheers intensified.
Then everything
changed. Darkness filled Chase’s vision.
“What have you
become?” said Aphroditis, standing in front of him in the dark.
“What you made
me.”
“No, what you are
now is your own doing!”
“And if you were
in front of me in the flesh, you’d get the same treatment.”
Tears flowed down
Aphroditis’ face.
“This isn’t gonna
work. I don’t want anything to do with you or Ares anymore. Please leave me
be.”
She faded into
the darkness with sadness in her eyes; then the darkness faded back into
reality.
Chase collected
his winnings and went to the bar. He ordered a Jur’Ran’s Blackhole. That drink
packed the punch he needed to get his mind away from tonight’s fights and
unpleasant memories. The drink was appropriately named, a dark-red base liquid with
a hovering black pill in the center that seemed to syphon the color out of the
drink towards it.
As he took a sip
a woman came and sat next to him. He looked at her briefly. She had beautiful,
long green hair, blue eyes—humanoid. With a pretty, round face and adorable
smile.
“You fight well,”
she said. “Mind if I join you?”
“Sure, just don’t
expect fun company.”
“Alright, fair
enough I guess.” She turned to the barman and ordered a drink, before adding,
“What I have trouble understanding is why you let your opponents think they
have a chance.”
“Look, I don’t
want to annoy you or anything, but I can tell you are letting them hit you. Or
am I wrong?”
“You aren’t. I
need the pain, but no matter how tough they are, they can’t deliver enough of
it.”
“What was her
name?”
Chase took
another sip of his drink.
“I don’t want to
talk about it.”
“It’s still too
fresh. I get it. Like everything else, you’ll get over it in time, but I know
how painful it can be to lose someone we love.”
“I
really
don’t want to talk about this. I should go.”
She put her hand
on his shoulder. Her palm was soft, and it reminded him of Sarah.
“I’m sorry, Chase.
I didn’t want to bring back old demons. Please don’t go on my account.”
Chase finished up
his drink and ordered another.
“That’s okay,” he
said, after a couple of sips from his second drink.
“May I ask why
you’re fighting, though? You clearly don’t enjoy yourself, unless I read it all
wrong.”
“Well, for one I
need the pain; but lately it’s to correct a mistake I made. You see I need to
. . .” He stopped himself for a moment and decided to rephrase it. “I
have something to do but I need a ship, and I lost mine, stupidly.”
“How did you lose
your ship? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Gambling,” said
Chase, looking down.
She playfully
pushed his shoulder. “Hey, don’t get yourself down. It happens to the best of
us.”
“I can’t believe
I did this, you know. I never gambled before, but I got the bug really bad. And
one night, I bit off more than I could chew.”
“I understand. So
you fight to buy your ship back?”
“Yeah, except the
player I lost to said he would only play the ship back, not allow me to buy it
back. That puts me in a shitty position, since I need a lot of credits to even
enter that game.”
Chase felt really
silly. How could he have done this? Not only had he lost the StarFury he stole
from his friends when he decided to leave everything behind. But he also
allowed this advanced technology to potentially fall into the wrong hands.
“Look, you need
your ship. I understand. What if I could help you?”
Chase raised an
eyebrow.
“Why would you
help me? You don’t even know me.”
“Look, in my line
of work, I’ve been in similar situations and I recognize a broken heart when I
see one.”
“What is it you
do?”
“I’m a bounty
hunter.”
“Really? I never
met a bounty hunter before and I must admit I had a completely different mental
image. Not in a million years could I have guessed that’s what you do.”
“That’s because
you are down at the moment. Take a closer look,” she said, pivoting on her
chair and changing her posture.
She was wearing a
really tight, leather, black outfit. A closer look revealed interweaves in the
fabric, perhaps some sort of ultra-thin body armor. He saw the holster on her
left hip, and soon noticed different places in her attire where she could be
holding blades or knives.
“So?” she said.
“Yeah, now that I
look at you, I see someone ready for anything.”
“But don’t sweat
it. My physical appearance is often the first thing people see. In this
business it’s an edge. Many people don’t see me coming until it’s too late.”
Chase nodded and
took another sip of his drink, slowly feeling the effects of the alcohol. He
didn’t know if it was his Fury genes, but he would need a lot of Jur’Ran’s
Blackholes to get seriously inebriated.
“So, why would a
bounty hunter help me?”
“It’s not a
selfless act. I propose more of an exchange of services here. I help you; you
help me in return. Who has your ship?”
“A card player
named Tron’Tak.”
“I know him quite
well. He most probably played you.”
“What do you
mean?”
“Let me guess.
You played a few nights together and won almost every time, then, all of a
sudden, you lost it all in one night.”
Chase’s
expression darkened. “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.”
“He played you.
When an experienced card player smells a rookie—no offense—that’s how they prey
on them. They give you a sense of confidence so that once you start losing, you
actually don’t realize what’s happening and you think it’s just bad luck; until
your luck is actually so bad you lost it all trying to shake the bad streak.”
“So he cheated?”
asked Chase, pissed off.
“Well, he might
have; but he might just have played badly on purpose, and then played well when
he knew you would go all the way.”
Chase exhaled
deeply, frustrated at being taken for a fool.
“Lighten up,
Chase. You’re not the first or last who will fall for such a tactic.”