by Ivan Kal
“Don’t tell me more,” she said at last. “But Tomas needs to know about your plans. We are attempting to form an assault fleet to aid the attacked nations across the galaxy. We need to know these things.”
“You cannot tell him. We know that the AI can monitor communications, and I suspect more. I don’t know if it can actually listen in through other devices, but it is better if we assume that it can. I need you to convince Tomas that I am acting in our best interests, and that he can’t ask questions. If the AI learns that I am searching for it, it will move and we might not be able to find it again.”
Laura sighed and shook her head. “So what do you want us to do? Just ignore the Enlightened?”
“I doubt that they will allow you to really hurt them. If the AI is monitoring our comms and relaying our movements to the Enlightened, you will not be able to catch any significant portion of their force. Even if you do, my analysis—based on both your and my data—is that only one of the Enlightened is a part of these attacks, and even then they are not accompanying every assault. We should be far more worried about the fact that two of them are missing.” Adrian shook his head. “In any case, we can’t leave the AI alone to build up even more of its forces, or to expand its Swarm. You can’t understand the devastation that it will be capable of if it is allowed time to expand uninterrupted. Even more than the Enlightened, the AI needs to be stopped now.”
“I trust you, Adrian, but Tomas…” She sighed. “I’ll try to convince him.”
“That is all that I ask.”
CHAPTER SIX
Adrian sat on the throne inside Moirai, his mind expanded as he entered the Sha state and connected with her. He was attempting to teach the great beast how to enter it herself.
It was not going well.
“DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Moirai said inside his mind.
“You can feel the Sha around you?” Adrian asked.
“YES.”
“Now, try to imagine yourself as a part of it all, as if you are floating inside a vast ocean.”
Moirai grumbled unintelligibly, then Adrian felt her mind try to do as he asked. She hadn’t tried for more than a few moments before he felt her emotions flare.
“STUPID, DON’T WANT TO!” she sent to him, along with her feelings of frustration at him forcing her to do something that she thought unnecessary.
Adrian sighed, and relented. He wasn’t really so set on teaching her; it wasn’t like she really needed it with the amount of energy she could draw on. But after failing to teach Ryaana, he had wanted to try again with someone else. It was as Moirai said: stupid.
“Fine. I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Adrian sent to her.
“GOOD, DON’T BOTHER AGAIN! STUPID!” With that, she pulled away from him and sulked a bit. Adrian sighed and pulled himself out of the Sha state.
“I take it that it did not go well?” Iris asked as she floated in front of him.
“No, it did not,” Adrian said.
“I told you so.” Iris grinned at him. “She doesn’t understand. To her, power is power, and she has more than enough of it.”
“I know, I was just… It was stupid, as she said.”
“What is it really, Adrian?”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then after a long minute opened them and saw Iris still patiently waiting for an answer. “I feel… I don’t know how to explain it. Detached, I guess.”
“From what?”
“Everything, really. The Enlightened are ignoring me, running away every time my fleet enters the system they are in. They know that with Moirai I am a threat, and they are denying me the chance to fight them!” Adrian finished angrily. He was growing increasingly frustrated at the Enlightened. He had imagined some great battle, fighting against them, proving that he was better, stronger. He was certain that he hadn’t seen everything that the Enlightened were capable of. Yet they didn’t even want to fight him! It was infuriating. The only reason he was now searching for the AI was to learn the Enlightened’s plans so that he could force them to face him.
And the problem was that he was aware of what he was doing. He was lying to everyone around him—not about his intentions, but his motives. He didn’t care about the danger the AI posed to the galaxy, of what its Swarm could unleash. He fully intended to fight it and destroy it as he recovered the information it had about the Enlightened, but it was not because he wanted to protect the galaxy. Adrian’s blood burned with the desire to meet the Enlightened in battle again. He couldn’t help himself; he had gotten a taste, and now he wanted more.
“It is more than that. I know you, Adrian, better than anyone else,” Iris said.
“I know. And yes, you are right. It is more. I see these people around me, I see them call me by my name and I see the image they have of who that person is inside of their heads. And I don’t recognized it in myself. The Adrian they know is not who I am. I want things that they can’t imagine, things that they think are terrible and immoral. And I can’t even explain my views and beliefs to them because I know that they will see only a monster.”
“It has always been this way. What has changed now?”
“I…I don’t know. It is just a feeling that I have. I can’t yet explain it.”
“Well then,” Iris said, “let me know once you do. I am sure that it will be interesting to hear.”
Adrian nodded. He knew that Iris was not mocking him, that she was truly interested. Adrian remained sitting on the throne deep inside Moirai as Iris disappeared. He reflected on his thoughts, and tried to figure out what had changed. He had always been different than other people. He didn’t care about protecting his “people”; he never had. He had always cared about becoming stronger and overcoming greater and greater challenges.
He did not think that he was truly a monster, as he could care for others. He knew love, and respect. He loved Bethany, and he had grieved when she died. That love had not been a deep love, it was a love unfulfilled, love not given the chance to bloom. He loved Anessa, for accepting him for who he was, for not being afraid of his true self. He loved her strength, and he respected her as a warrior in her own right. He loved Laura, his adoptive mother, as the person who had given him the means to become who he was today. He loved his children, as he saw pieces of himself in them. All three of them were driven and strong, even if they didn’t share his beliefs. Ryaana was the closest one to him in that she wanted to become stronger, but she was far more emotional. She identified herself as both Shara Daim and Human, and she cared for others in a way he did not—she had a need to protect them.
Adrian did not. To him, only those who had the power to stand on their own deserved respect and consideration. He didn’t hate them; he was just indifferent. Perhaps that came from being so far beyond most of them that he could no longer identify with them. He could no longer imagine what it was like to be weak, to be reliant on others to protect him.
He was aware of his failings, or at least what others thought his failings were. The truth was that he did not share the same morality as most of them. In his mind it did not make him a monster, only different. But he knew that true monsters existed, those who relished in the suffering of others. Adrian had been very careful in his self examination as he did not want to become like them. He had seen Garash of the Erasi, known his arrogance and disregard toward life. Garash had killed many simply because he could. The same could be said of Valanaru, the Weaver of the Erasi, another of his past opponents and the one who had named him Heart of the Mountain. She had been drunk on her own power, had turned into a monster that cared nothing for the lives of others and used them as she wished.
Adrian had never considered himself like them. To him, there was a massive difference between being indifferent to other people and actively looking down on them. Adrian did not pity those who were weaker than him, he did not hate them or look down on them. He didn’t care about them at all. He would never kill them callously, as he had no need to. They did not impact hi
s life, and every one of them had the potential to reach his own level of power, the potential to become his peer. To a being such as Adrian, who relished a true challenge, that was all that mattered.
Knowing how easily his power could turn him into a monster that killed for no reason, he was very careful in making sure that his actions never strayed in such a direction. Causing death in war and battle was one thing; killing for killing’s sake was quite another.
A ping brought him out of his introspection and he glanced at the screen next to him. Lurker of the Depths had arrived in system.
Adrian stood and started walking toward his shuttles, already sending a message to the old Sowir telling him to meet him down on the planet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Year 716 of the Empire — Sanctuary
Tomas sat in his living quarters alone, thinking. Laura had returned from her visit with Adrian, but she had little to tell him. She had, however, tried to convince him to let Adrian do as he willed. Tomas was certain that she knew what Adrian was doing, yet she urged him not to force her to tell him. That told him a few things; Tomas had not ruled for so long by not being able to see through the lines. The fact that Laura, who was in charge of the Empire’s Fleet, had agreed to let Adrian do as he willed, even with her knowing the foe they were facing, meant that it was important—and the fact that neither she nor Adrian were willing to talk about it indicated that they did not want anyone knowing what he was planning.
The only reason why Adrian would not tell him would be if he was worried that someone who shouldn’t know would find out. Tomas tried to think about what that indicated. The most obvious answer was that Adrian thought that they had a spy in their midst, but he immediately dismissed that. The Hand of the Empire kept a very close eye on everyone in power in the Empire. The other possibility was that somehow information could be recovered from their systems. Ever since they’ve found out that the AI had been interfering with Levisomaerni’s mission, Tomas had been worried about it accessing the Empire’s systems, but there had never been any indication of it being able to do so.
As they were now the part of the galactic alliance, however, there were other races who were in the know. Tomas could not hold information from them and retain their trust, and their systems had been shown as vulnerable.
Tomas took a deep breath. There were too many things happening all at once. His new alliance was struggling to strike back at the Enlightened, the Josanti League was fighting the Enlightened alone and screaming to all that could hear that this new alliance was in league with the enemy… Tomas could still barely believe that such stupidity existed, but he had accepted it.
Even if he was willing to entertain Adrian’s need for secrecy, they still needed to act against the Enlightened. While Laura had not told him anything about what Adrian was planning, she had told him about his suspicion that the AI was either listening in on their communications or outright anticipating the movements of their fleets and then relaying them back to the Enlightened. It would explain why they had been unable to get into a prolonged engagement with them.
The Enlightened were attacking dozens of systems across the galaxy at any point in time. On the galactic level, that was nothing; but still, the combined forces they were using in these attacks had been estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of five million ships, which included classes that they had never seen before. They still didn’t have much data on them, as the ships they had gone up against weren’t advanced enough to actually push them to their limits.
That was yet another baffling thing about the situation: the Enlightened were attacking mostly weaker star nations, with the exception of the Josanti League. They entered a system through an access point, proceeded to wreck it entirely, and then just pulled back. They didn’t invade planets, nor kill their inhabitants. They did not follow the same pattern they had before, where they would feed their armies on the biological matter of the worlds they invaded.
With the exception of the Josanti League. There, they had started sieging systems all over their territory and actually invading planets. Tomas didn’t know much because the Josanti League refused to communicate, and they were keeping the information under wraps. The Suvri had some stealth ships in their territories, though, and the Empire’s Sentinels in the territories of the Josanti League’s allies had reported that they had called in their allies to help.
It told him that they were being pushed hard. It begged the question: What was different about the Josanti League? Why were the Enlightened moving into their territory with full power, while they just raided others across the galaxy in a series of hit and runs? There was so much about their tactics that did not make sense.
Tomas shook his head. They had waited for too long already. They needed to strike, even if just in the rim. The fact that the Enlightened had yet to hit any of the territory of the Rimward Alliance was eroding their image. They needed to get into the war—now.
Tomas used his imp to send a message to the Representatives of his allies here on Sanctuary, calling for another meeting. He would call for the mobilization of their forces.
Even without Adrian, they could wait no longer.
* * *
Tomas entered his quarters after a long meeting. They had agreed on assembling a force and sending it in the rim to aid one of the larger star nations called Orna. It was located about 45,000 light years anti-spinward from Sol in the Perseus galactic arm, and had been one of the star nations that the Empire’s Sentinels had contacted a while ago. They still had a Sentinel presence there, which was how they knew that the Enlightened had attacked them. The Empire was allied with the nations between their own territory and that of the Orna, meaning that they could use their relays to have a much faster line of communications with their people, allowing them to coordinate effectively.
The plan was to launch an attack through Sol. The Sentinels would coordinate with the Orna and then unlock the access point so that the allied force could enter the system behind the Enlightened.
As Tomas took a seat in his favorite chair, Seo-yun entered the room and smiled at him.
“A long day?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh.
She walked over and sat in his lap, giving him a quick kiss.
“I know that you don’t have the time to rest, not now. But you need to find some way to relieve this stress. It will not do you good.”
“I know. I just don’t have the time for it.”
Seo-yun didn’t press him. She knew that there was no point, and she understood that the Empire had need of him.
“I received a message from Jacob,” Seo-yun said with a small smile.
Tomas expression brightened at hearing that—it had been a while since he had heard from their son.
“He is still on Shara Radum. They say that they’ve made some big discovery. He seemed excited about it.”
Tomas couldn’t help but smile. His son was a grown man by now, one that had no interest in ruling like his father. Jacob was still technically the heir of the Empire, but with Tomas not aging, that was not such a concern. Instead, his son had become a scholar and an archaeologist, specializing in old civilizations. He was currently on Shara Radum looking into the past of the other race that had evolved on the planet, the one which the Shara Daim had wiped out long ago.
To his son, the war did not really exist. He was safe, as most of the other citizens of his Empire were. It was why Tomas worked so hard—to keep them all from harm. He was glad that the ordinary citizen did not have to think about the Enlightened, about war.
He only feared what would happen when that war came to their systems, when the Enlightened finally decide to attack them. Tomas had no doubt that they would. At least his son was in one of the most defended systems; Shara Radum was as fortified as Sol or Sanctuary.
“You should go and visit him,” Tomas said.
Seo-yun shook her head sadly. “There is too much to do here. I feel like I am close to figuring thi
ngs out.”
Tomas didn’t respond. He knew that Seo-yun had been studying the Sha and its connection to everything. Tomas didn’t understand much, but he knew that somehow the borders of their universe were slowly failing, allowing dimensions that occupied the same space as their own universe to seep through. He didn’t know what that all implied, but he knew that the Enlightened wanted to fix it. Only, in their minds, to accomplish that they needed to end all life in the universe. Seo-yun was attempting to figure out why they thought that that would help things.
He pulled Seo-yun in tighter, and the couple took comfort in each other. They stayed that way for a long while.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Year 716 of the Empire — Josanti League territory
Doranis of the Enlightened sat on board his Living-ship Devourer, his mind connected to the ship’s amplifier as he watched the battle on the planet. He was assaulting one of the core powers, the Josanti League. The fools had refused to join the alliance against the Enlightened and, because of that, were isolated. They were powerful, that much Doranis gave them, but they were fools. The system was a large shipbuilding center, and a prime target.
Their plan was simple: they needed to create as much chaos as possible while their Overseers put the relays into position, and to take all the attention on to them to allow Aranis to get the Conduit to the center of the galaxy. But that did not mean that they could ignore high-value targets, and the Josanti League’s shipbuilding capabilities were one of the greatest in the galaxy, according to the data from the AI.
Doranis was still not sure how he felt about the AI and it joining their cause, but it had been beneficial thus far. This did not mean that Doranis was not wary of the machine; he remembered the history of the people and what it had done the last time it slipped its bounds.
He turned his attention back to the battle. The entire system was engaged—his forces had entered the system through an access point inside the star led by ten of his Juggernauts. The massive vessels, approaching the size of Living-ships, had been their greatest weapons in the war against the People. Now Doranis knew that there were races out there that had similar creations, including the children of Axull Darr. Their Juggernauts, or Sovereigns as they were called, were smaller than the Living-ships at about a third of the size, but they were powerful still. Then there were the Titans which were even smaller yet held the same power as the Sovereigns. Enlightened Juggernauts were grown to be unstoppable, and thankfully the Josanti League had no ship class even close to their size.