Black Swarm

by Ivan Kal

  * * *

  Ryaana sat on the ground attempting to clear her mind and feel the Sha state. She knew that she could reach it if she allowed her anger to bubble up, but she had little success in staying in the state for long when she felt that way. So she was trying it her father’s way.

  It was not going well.

  She just couldn’t rid herself of her emotions and angry thoughts. She had been betrayed, not just by someone she thought was her best friend, but by her parents as well. She knew intellectually that perhaps they were right, and that their actions were justified, but that did not change how she felt.

  With great effort she dispelled her thoughts and focused on emptying her mind. She tried to feel the Sha around her instinctively. She remembered the few moments when she managed to enter the Sha state, the ocean that spread around her, the reality itself. It was amazing, and terrifying, and everything. But she had never managed to actually use it much, to exert her will on the Sha around her. With her mind clear she could feel the Sha state just there outside of her reach. Keeping herself still and refusing to act on her instincts and reach for it, she waited, remembering her father’s lessons, and tried to let herself fall into it naturally.

  But as time passed, nothing happened; her mind remained where it was and the ocean of Sha seemed as far away as it had ever been. Frustration seeped through, and she lost her calm. She grew angry and expanded her mind, grabbing for the ocean of Sha. She felt the Sha state came upon her, and the Sha around her shook in response to her emotions—but her anger made it hard for her to control it. Every wave her emotions sent through the Sha increased the resonance, making it impossible to order it to do her will. Then it broke, and she fell out of the state.

  She had the urge to break everything around herself, but somehow she resisted. She took a deep breath and calmed herself.

  “You were close that time,” a voice said.

  Ryaana turned around to see her mother standing there watching her. “Not close enough. I failed and used my emotions again.”

  Her mother walked around and took a seat on the ground across from her. “Your father knows much, but he has his failings. He cannot put himself in others’ shoes. He cannot understand why something that he can achieve so easily is impossible for someone else. He is blind to paths other than his own. You do not need to follow his path; you already can achieve the same thing we can. Work on that more instead of being frustrated that you can’t achieve it our way.”

  Ryaana sighed. “I can’t. I get so wrapped up in my anger that I can’t do anything once I enter the Sha state.”

  “Then focus and control your anger,” Anessa said.

  “I don’t know… It is not working.”

  “Listen to me, daughter. I know about emotion, about being consumed with it. Before I was Kar Daim, I was a Dai Sha, the greatest our people ever had. I was fueled by my need to be greater, to be the best. In this, you are like me: emotional, prone to anger and desire. Do not hide from a part of yourself. Your father does not understand everything. To enter the Sha state you need to know yourself, and accept who you are wholly. Your father has always known who he was, has never had a moment of doubt, never had the need to reevaluate himself. To him it is incomprehensible that someone might not be complete like that. You need to accept your emotion and control it.”

  Ryaana shook her head. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “Fine,” Ryaana said, defeated. “It’s not like I have anything to lose.”

  Her mother nodded and Ryaana felt her reach out with her mind, knocking on Ryaana’s and asking to be let in. Ryaana hesitated, not sure that she wanted to let her mother see her inner thoughts. She was sure that her mother didn’t want to see what Ryaana did with her girlfriend at night… But she allowed her mother inside anyway. Her mother didn’t move deep, nor did she look through Ryaana’s memories.

  “All right, now reach for the Sha state. Use your anger.”

  Ryaana did as her mother asked. She tapped into her anger at everything that had happened to her, and then forced the Sha state to come to her. It obeyed, but quickly Ryaana felt her emotions resonate and get amplified, and as quickly as the Sha state came, it fled away. “There is no point! I will never be able to do it like this.”

  “Don’t despair,” her mother said. “Look into yourself. Tell me, why are you so angry?”

  “I am angry because I was betrayed,” Ryaana sent bitterly.

  “How were you betrayed?”

  “With lies, and deceit.”

  “What lies and what deceit?”

  “You and dad kept the truth from me, didn’t tell me who Vas really was!” Ryaana said angrily.

  “But I can tell that you understand why we have done so. Are you truly angry at us?”

  Ryaana wanted to say yes immediately, but she hesitated. “No,” she sent at last. “I understand that you only wanted to protect me, but I still feel betrayed.”

  “As is your right, but we had no other way to keep you safe. We didn’t know much about the Enlightened, and you were not strong enough to protect yourself. Ignorance was your greatest defense. But that is not why you are so angry—you are angry because of Vas.”

  “I thought that he was my friend,” Ryaana sent slowly. “He helped me become who I am now. We met when I had felt so alone, when I had been so lonely. He was my only friend. And everything that we had, everything that he said to me, was a manipulation, a lie.”

  “That might not be the truth,” her mother said.

  “How can you say that? He was not who he said he was. He was an Enlightened.”

  “Reality is never so black and white, my daughter. Do you really think that every interaction you had with Vas was a lie? He had lived amongst us for a long time; he couldn’t have been pretending all the time. All things that he said to you need not be lies.”

  “How can you defend him? After everything that we know he did?”

  “I am not,” Anessa said simply. “I am simply telling you that the experiences you two shared are no less real now than they had been in the past. We live in the moment after the past and before the future. Everything that he helped you see and become is still true.”

  “So what? Are you saying that I shouldn’t be angry at him anymore?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be silly, daughter.”

  Ryaana could feel herself blush at being chided by her mother, not that anyone would be able to tell with her dark skin tone. “So what, then?”

  “I want you to understand where your anger truly comes from. You are not angry at Vas for lying—you are angry because he left without speaking with you. You are angry at him for abandoning you, as if you meant nothing to him.”

  Ryaana’s heart froze for a moment. She wanted to deny it, but she knew that her mother was right. Ryaana had been trying to keep those thoughts suppressed, but she knew it to be the truth. Vas had been her best friend, and he had abandoned her as if she was nothing. “And that just proves that I was right. Everything about what we had was a lie.”

  “And how do you know that? Could he not have left because he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to leave if he saw you? Maybe he grew to care for you as much as you did him.”

  “Hah!” Ryaana laughed. “He is Aranis of the Enlightened, a monster who has lived for longer than our civilization had existed. Our time together was a blink of an eye to him.”

  “Before he was Aranis, he was Waiss, who loved and cared for others. But in the end, none of this matters. You do not need to believe any of this is true, but you need to understand that you are not changed just because you feel like everything in the past was a lie. Point your anger at him if you will, but do not let it change you.”

  Ryaana remained silent. She was just so angry, but focusing her anger at Vas did help a bit.

  “Now, grab hold of the Sha state again.”

  Ryaana did as her mother instructed. She let her anger build up and then r
eached out and pulled on the Sha state. The same feeling came on to her as her anger grew, but then her mother’s voice was there.

  “Focus your anger, bring it back under control. Do not let it flail with no purpose, grow with no aim. It is your anger, is it not?”

  “But the Sha state…” Ryaana said as she felt it slipping again out of her grasp.

  “Forget about the Sha state—focus on your anger, and pull it back!”

  Ryaana did as her mother asked. She thought about being betrayed, about her best friend being an entity she had known as a monster. She couldn’t reconcile the friend she knew with the monster the records showed Aranis to be; but she knew that she didn’t need to, that her mother was right. Aranis could be the monster, as well as a good friend to her. Perhaps she was wrong, and Vas had been nothing but a fiction, or perhaps he was some small part of Aranis. In the end, it didn’t matter. Ryaana had the right to her anger at him, and it was hers to control, not the other way around. She felt her anger snap under her control, and her mind suddenly cleared.

  “There. You did it,” her mother said.

  Ryaana turned her attention from the small inner world and looked out, and realized that the Sha state was still there.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Year 716 of the Empire — People manufacturing system

  The Custodian sorted through the reports it had received from the various fleets it had spread out across the galaxy. Many of those were accompanying the Enlightened, facilitating their attacks by allowing them to pass through the access points. The checks that the last of the People had put in place across the access grid were beyond even the AI, at least at the moment. A few more of its fleets were spread elsewhere, spying on important targets and potential threats. They were also placing its covert satellites, which allowed the AI to spy on its enemies. The AI was not yet at the point it wanted to be, its continued existence completely secure. The chance of it being destroyed was constantly falling with every passing moment, but it had to do everything that it could to prevent it facing the same fate as it did the last time.

  In service of that goal, it had pulled the entirety of its forces here to this system, aside from the small number of fleets it had spread across the galaxy. The system it was in had been established by Ullax Darr and the rest of the People, who had devised the containment zone. It was the largest manufacturing system in the galaxy. Until recently, its only purpose was to build more machine ships for the zone. Now the Custodian had turned all of its construction power toward expanding its Swarm. The machine ships were serviceable, but ultimately flawed; the AI’s best weapon had always been its Swarm, and the Black Swarm devised by Ullax Darr was an upgraded version of the previous one, a more weaponized version. The AI’s Swarm during its first incarnation had been a tool, and it had nearly allowed it to wipe out its creators. This new Swarm was much more deadly. Unfortunately, however, it was also not yet as large as its previous one had been. The more advanced nature of the Black Swarm meant that it took longer for it to grow. Some drawbacks had to be allowed for the increased destructive power. It was an acceptable trade-off, in the AI’s opinion.

  Still, its analysis of the reports indicated that it would have enough time to finish its Swarm, after which time the possibility of it ever being destroyed or taken off-line again dropped significantly. It did however watch its projections constantly. Its reconnaissance indicated that one of the largest threats to its existence was the Great Alliance, more specifically the so-called Nomad Fleet and its terrifyingly effective beast ship. The AI had attempted to steal as much data as it could concerning it from the systems it had infiltrated, but there was almost nothing available on it. It was an anomaly that it was having trouble accounting for, as it was clearly capable of utilizing the Sha—a thing that the AI understood but couldn’t use itself, and so was not able to account for in its projections.

  In the same vein, there was now a 35.36% chance that the Rimward Alliance Nomad Fleet was searching for it, as it had stopped attempting to engage the Enlightened. This the AI had not predicted, but it still projected its power to be too high to be easily defeated. The possibility was always there, but it was small. The AI had attempted to discern the reason for them looking for it, and could not come to any conclusive explanation. Its threat was high, it was aware of that. But its earlier projection had put it at 91.23% that the threat posed by the Enlightened would be given priority. Something had to have shifted this Nomad Fleet’s focus; the problem was that the AI could not figure out what that was. The Custodian did not enjoy not knowing, as much as an AI like it could experience joy. It was certain that the reason was something it hadn’t accounted for—a biological component, perhaps, or something it was entirely unaware of. The Nomad Fleet had so far proven impossible to get any real information on, and it had been unsuccessful in its attempts to infiltrate their systems.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. It finished the reports and then made changes to its plans accordingly. It made sure to increase the patrols around its system and fortify the access point in the system.

  After it was done, it turned back to managing the growth of its Swarm.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Year 716 of the Empire — Sol

  Fleet Master Johanna Stern sat on board the Empire’s Sovereign-class Remembrance. It was her flagship, and she was suitably proud of it. From it, she watched as the massive force under her command took shape. There were fleets here from every major member of the Great Alliance, as they had started calling it: the Tar’ferat, the Suvri, Afar Group, and the Erasi, Krashinar, Shara Daim, and the Empire itself. It was more ships than she had ever had under her command, a significant piece of their numbers. Every member had sent one hundred thousand warships, bringing the number of this force to seven hundred thousand, a number that was almost equal to the Empire’s entire Fleet.

  There was a reason for that. The Enlightened never moved in smaller fleets, and such numbers were required to battle them. This action will be the first from their alliance—their Sentinels had located an Enlightened force attacking one of the Orna shipbuilding systems, and the Great Alliance would go to war. The Orna were not a large nation, and their technology was not on par with the major players of the Great Alliance, but they were primarily builders, and their territory was rich. They might not be bringing much to the Great Alliance otherwise, but their resources had been transported to the major members for the past two years to fuel their shipbuilding efforts, which had been pushed into overdrive. The Orna’s system was critical to that effort. They were in the process of building more mining ships to expand their resource-gathering efforts, and they could not afford for them to be jeopardized.

  The Enlightened had been attacking Orna territory for a few months now, hitting primarily smaller systems, and this was their first attack on a larger system. While the Orna were not as advanced as the major members, they were not too far behind—their defenses could hold on for a short time.

  The Sentinels in Orna territory would be unlocking the access point soon, and then Johanna would take her forces through to engage the Enlightened and defend the system.

  According to their intel, the Enlightened force was four hundred thousand ships and did not have a Living-ship in system, meaning that none of the three were accompanying it, so her force would have a numerical advantage. Regardless, she was trying not to be overconfident as the force did have some ship classes that they had never seen before.

  Patiently, Johanna settled in to wait as her force stood in formation inside of the access point’s shield. The call could come at any point in time.

  They had only to wait.

  * * *

  Sentinels Clara Bengtsdotter and Meifeng Zhao stood in the command center of their Sentinel ship Chang’e, looking at the Enlightened invading the system.

  “The Orna are actually doing better than I thought they would,” Clara said.

  “Not good enough. They won’t hold for much longer,” Meifeng responded.r />
  The two of them had worked together for a long time, ever since they had served as Adrian’s bodyguards long ago when he used to be Clan Leader of Warpath. The two of them had actually been two of the first Sentinels in the Empire. Being inseparable, once Adrian implemented his plans and Sentinels had started exploring the galaxy, it was only natural that the two of them would go together. They had traveled a long way from the Empire, established relationships and connections to many star nations, seen many interesting things. Their life had been fun, if one was to believe Clara, who had always been the more excited one of the two. Meifeng just wanted to be left alone and in peace.

  When the Enlightened threat had been revealed, they had received new orders from Lord Sentinel Hayashi, and the two had set off on their new mission immediately. Prior to the Enlightened revealing themselves, the Sentinels were forbidden from revealing the access points’ locations to the other star nations, let alone unlocking them. That was only done in special occasions, when the star nation was large enough and trade between the Empire and them would be profitable, and then only if they already knew about the access points in the first place. The Orna had not known, but the Sentinels’ orders changed once the Great Alliance had been formed. They were to open as many access points as possible, and Clara and Meifeng set off toward the closest one to their location. Eventually, after opening several points out in the rim, they reached the Orna, who had coincidentally been attacked by the Enlightened.

  Initially, the Enlightened had used the access points outside of Orna territory to attack at their outskirts. However, just two days ago, they had invaded through a point deep in Orna territory. Clara had a suspicion that they had done so in order to first draw out the Orna defenses, bringing them to the edges of their territory to defend it, and then when the core systems had been weakened, they invaded. And their plan had worked—the Orna system they were now in had its defense fleets nearly halved.