Black Swarm

by Ivan Kal

  Of the major members, each had reinforced the original forces they had sent by another one hundred thousand ships, bringing her fleet’s numbers to fourteen hundred thousand. After the arrival of the ships from the other members, that number had risen to eighteen. There were Josanti League forces, too, in Sol, but they remained somewhat aloof.

  Johanna knew that they had lost a significant part of their fleets when they had attacked the Enlightened and lost. She had studied their records of that battle extensively, and she was worried about the Enlightened’s impact on the battle. She knew that they had incredible abilities, that they were capable of inflicting incredible amounts of power just by themselves—and with the Nomad Fleet gone missing, they would not be having their best weapon against them.

  Rumors were already spreading through the Great Alliance about what had happened, from the ones saying that the Nomad Fleet had been destroyed to the ones saying that they had joined the side of the Enlightened. The truth was perhaps simpler. Johanna had been told by the Emperor only a small part of it: that Adrian had asked for the Great Alliance to attack the AI, and that the Emperor refused. She knew that he had come to her fleet to speak with the Old Scar and then gone with him. For their part, the Krashinar were not being very cooperative with answering questions about where they were. In truth, Johanna had never been comfortable with them. They were just…too alien.

  They said only that the Old Scar and Adrian had left the fleet and traveled to Krashinar territory, but refused to say anything else. Now, with the Nomad Fleet leaving through the Nelus access point and disappearing at the worst possible moment, they had a problem.

  Fighting the Enlightened without Adrian, Anessa, and Lurker of the Depths would be harder, she knew, but not impossible. The Empire had been preparing to fight them for a long time, and had devised tactics for that fight before Adrian achieved power that equaled them. They had Sowir Sentinels on every ship, at least in their Rimward Alliance. With their amplifiers they could reach out and attack with their telepathy, but they would also be able to give some protection from the Enlightened. They would not stop one of them from destroying a ship if they really decided to, but they would soften the blows of area-of-effect attacks, or at least ones that were directly targeting the ships.

  The other nations had their own Sha users on their ships, following the Rimward Alliance’s suggestions, but some races didn’t have powerful Sha users, and sadly they would be left on their own.

  They had no choice.

  Seeing the go-ahead signal from Sol Defense, Johanna gave out the order for the force to move. In an orderly fashion the massive force began moving toward the star. The access point’s shields were massive, and could probably hold their entire force if they were packed in tight formations, but there was no need for it now. They would not be going directly to the Enlightened-held system, as they did not have that access point unlocked. Instead, they would go to the newly opened one in Josanti League territory, and from there would travel through hyperspace to reach their destination. It would take them a few months to move across such distances through hyperspace, but there was no changing that.

  Johanna took a deep breath and watched as her Sovereign entered the access point.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Year 718 of the Empire — Fordring system

  Ryaana was floating inside a pool on Lurker of the Depth’s Titan, Dark Waters. The Sowir were a race that had evolved in oceans, and they preferred them even though they could survive on the surface. She was completely submerged in one of the training rooms, and Lurker of the Depths loomed close to her. They were training Ryaana to take energy from the Sha while in the state, instead of relying on her body. It was going well so far, although it was weird to not be breathing.

  Or at least it had been going well, until Lurker of the Depths started attacking her mind.

  “Your defenses are weak. If I had truly tried, I could’ve already broken your mind,” Lurker of the Depths sent to her.

  Ryaana grimaced as he felt his telepathic tendrils lean on her mental defenses. She had the urge to tell him to go and shove it, but she resisted. He was the most powerful telepath in the galaxy, barring the Enlightened—it was not like she could ever come close to his strength.

  “Power is an illusion. So long as you think that you could never be as strong as I, you never will be,” Lurker of the Depths said.

  “How could I ever become so strong?” Ryaana managed to send as she repaired a hole that one of his tentacles had created.

  “In the Sha state, will alone reigns supreme. Your mind’s physical strength matters, yes, in how much strain you can take, but those things improve with time, as it does with any other muscle. What makes the difference in power in the Sha state is knowledge and willpower.”

  “And how does one train willpower?” Ryaana asked.

  “In different ways. Your mother is stubborn; her mind doesn’t change easily, and so when she wills something into being, it becomes so rather than trying to fight it. I have faith; I believe that Sha will obey me.”

  “And Dad?”

  Lurker of the Depths didn’t respond immediately, but instead increased his attacks on her mind, making her scramble to defend herself. It was a losing battle, and eventually Lurker of the Depths pushed through. As soon as his tendrils broke her mind shield, they retreated, leaving her mind alone. Ryaana struggled not to lose the Sha state, and fought the need to take a breath.

  “Your father knows. He is confident in his strength, in his power, and prideful, too. Driven and greedy. In his mind there are no questions of, “How could I ever become so strong?” There are only questions of, “When will I become so strong?” He does not ask if he can do a thing, he knows that he can.”

  Ryaana thought about that for a while. It only made her feel a bit inadequate. She had always second-guessed herself, had always been insecure. Yet intellectually she knew that she had no need to be—she had achieved something that only a handful of people in the galaxy had.

  “I need to decide who I want to be,” Ryaana said at last.

  “Knowing yourself and who you want to be, having a goal that defines you, matters. The Sha holds the secrets of the universe, of everything. If you do not know yourself, how can you ever attempt to learn its secrets?”

  Ryaana was about to answer when her imp chimed in with a message.

  “Dad is here,” she sent.

  “Come, let us go to Bastion. He will want to meet there,” Lurker of the Depths said as he swam toward the surface of the pool. After a moment, Ryaana followed behind him.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe this,” Ryaana whispered as she stood in the Bastion’s command center with her mother and Lurker of the Depths, watching the holo. Krashinar beasts were coming in system, and at their head were Moirai and Araxi. Already hundreds of thousands of beasts had flown out of the star, and more were still coming.

  Her mother leaned in, studying the holo. “I don’t know how he convinced the Krashinar to help if Tomas disagreed. The Krashinar do not break their word, and they had agreed to follow his lead.”

  Lurker of the Depths arm moved and zoomed in at the beasts. “I do not think that these are the same beasts that they sent to the Great Alliance. I have never seen these shapes before. You can see there are no great beasts that are as large as our Sovereigns.”

  Ryaana frowned. “You are right.”

  “And look here,” Lurker of the Depths said as he changed the holo. “These beasts here are all different.”

  “That is strange. I’ve never heard of the Krashinar having anything like that in the Great Packs,” her mother said.

  Ryaana was looking at the few beasts that were moving close to Moirai. There was something about them that she just couldn’t put her finger on—and then she noticed something. “There, do you see these two beasts?”

  “Yes,” her mother said as she glanced at where Ryaana was looking.

  “You see the scars on their
hides?” Ryaana asked.

  Her mother frowned. “Those beasts look—”

  “Old,” Lurker of the Depths interjected.

  “Yes, that is exactly right,” Ryaana said as it clicked in place. Their hides looked somehow worn, different than that of Araxi.

  “Well,” her mother said as she shook her head. “Let’s wait for Adrian to come and explain himself. I’m sure that it will at least be interesting.”

  * * *

  “So, we should refer to you now as the Seventh?” Anessa asked.

  “Yes,” the Krashinar with a scar running the length of its body answered, sending to the room.

  “And this means that you now lead the Krashinar?” Anessa asked again.

  “I am one of the Seven. We lead the Krashinar together.”

  “I congratulate you on your ascension, Seventh,” Lurker of the Depths said.

  “Thank you, Lurker of the Depths.”

  “Well, now that that is out of the way, we have a lot of planning to do.” Adrian said.

  Ryaana crossed her arms over her chest and looked at her father. “So we are attacking the AI?”

  “We are,” Adrian asked.

  Anessa took a deep breath. “You’ve brought a large force, Adrian. A lot more than I thought you could get. But the AI has more.”

  “I know.” Adrian nodded. “But the machine fleets are not as skilled as the Krashinar beasts, and they are completely outclassed by our Titans and nanoships. The greatest threat to us will be the Swarm.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Anessa asked.

  “I was thinking that we could take some time to hammer out a plan of attack. No one knows where we are, so I doubt the AI will see us coming. My initial thought is that we split our force into three task forces—have two attack and draw the machine ships, perhaps even the Swarm, away from the AI’s core, and then send in the last one to the core and have Iris hack into it.”

  “The entire system is covered in the skim nullifiers. You will never get to the core,” Anessa said.

  Adrian smiled. “That would be true only if we were planning on using the skim.”

  “What do you mean?” Ryaana asked.

  Adrian glanced at Lurker of the Depths. “We will be using something else. The same thing that makes the access points work.”

  “I do not think that we are powerful enough to transport entire fleets, Adrian. Access points need the power of a star to accomplish such a feat,” Lurker of the Depths said.

  Anessa turned to look at them. “You are speaking about that ability you have learned—bending space?”

  Adrian nodded. “The Enlightened could do it, and we have figured out how. It is the same thing that the access points do. Yes, Lurker of the Depths is correct in that we could not use it to transport an entire fleet, but I think that with Moirai we could move a few ships. If we teach you and Ryaana how to do it, and all four of us attempt it while we are connected with Moirai, I think that we can get even more through. We would take Moirai, a few Titans, and maybe a few great beasts.”

  “That is a lot of ifs, Adrian,” Anessa said.

  “I know, but we can test it out here before we head for the AI,” Adrian said, “and I think that it would be good if we split the Nomad Fleet between the Eternal Hunters and the Old Hunters. The Krashinar beasts are powerful, but having Titans there to protect them would make them safer.”

  “It is a good start to a plan, Adrian,” Lurker of the Depths sent, “but it is far from being finished.”

  “I know, that is why I want to begin planning and training immediately,” Adrian responded.

  “You know…” Anessa started slowly. “This might be the best possible force to take on the AI.”

  Adrian frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Anessa turned to look at the Seventh, who had stood and watch their discussion quietly. “The AI is powerful, but its biggest strength is its electronic warfare. It will not be able to use its best weapon at all against the Krashinar beasts.”

  “Ah,” Adrian said, his eyes going wide. “That didn’t even occur to me.”

  “I assumed,” the Seventh spoke with some surprise, “that this was why you came to me? It is why we the Seven agreed to send our beasts with you.”

  Adrian just looked at all of them with a blank expression on his face.

  “I swear, Adrian, you are brilliant in many ways…” Anessa shook her head. “But sometimes you just miss the most obvious things.”

  Their daughter laughed at her father’s expression. “All right, so, when are we starting this training?” Ryaana asked. “I want to learn to teleport.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Year 718 of the Empire — Sanctuary

  Laura walked into the meeting room and took a seat across from the Emperor.

  “Anything?” Tomas asked.

  “No,” Laura answered. “There is no sign of them.”

  Tomas nodded his head, but didn’t otherwise comment. Laura had known him for a long time, and she knew that more had happened between him and Adrian than he was willing to tell her, but she did not think that this was a good time to press. They were both very nervous about the coming assault on the Enlightened-held system. Johanna had already started on her way, and would arrive in their target system any day now.

  And both Tomas and Laura knew that without Adrian they were missing one of their greatest weapons. It was not to say that they believed they had no chance—the Empire had been preparing to fight the Enlightened for a long time. Tactics and strategies had been devised to combat them, and the Sovereigns were weapons specifically designed to fight the three.

  But the fact that they couldn’t find any sign of the Nomad Fleet made Laura a bit nervous nonetheless.

  “You don’t think that he would attack the AI with just his fleet?” Laura asked.

  “The last thing we know is that he went to the Old Scar and that they left Orna territory together… But I do not know if the Krashinar could give him enough ships to do what he wanted to do. They hadn’t pulled any of the packs they have sent to us, and they even sent more when I asked.”

  Laura shook her head, worried. She knew that Adrian could be a bit rash at times, but she didn’t think that he would do something as crazy as going alone. But then again, she had never thought that he would just disappear like this.

  Tomas sighed. “There is no point in wasting time on him. We have more important things to worry about.”

  Laura wanted to disagree, but instead she just nodded and pulled out a small datachip. “Well, we have something that I think you should see.” She put the datachip on his table and a hologram appeared above it, showing a system with Enlightened ships passing through.

  “What is it?” Tomas asked.

  “One of our Sentinels in the Norma galactic arm on the other side of the galactic core encountered this force. They managed to keep their stealth up, and had been too far away for the Enlightened to notice them, so they weren’t detected. They recorded a small Enlightened force passing through.”

  “Any idea where they were headed?” Tomas asked, but Laura could see that he was clearly not all that interested in such a small force.

  “They stopped near a gas giant, probably to refuel, before they skimmed away toward dark space. But what is interesting is that this was clearly an escort force—and they were escorting this.”

  She zoomed in on a single object. It was the size of a moon, with large vine-looking objects infesting its surface—on four of its sides there were long tendrils stretching at least twice its size. The sphere that was its core seemed to be made out of some ceramic or metal material.

  “What is that? A new type of a bioship” Tomas asked, finally getting interested.

  “We have no idea,” Laura said. “It has no weapons systems, and it is terribly slow. We are not even sure that it is a new type of a bioship.”

  “So what do we know?”

  “Nothing, really,” Laura admitted. “Only that
the Enlightened were clearly escorting this through backwater systems, staying away from populated areas. They did not want to be seen. So whatever it is, it must be important.”

  “Hm… We don’t have the time nor the resources to spare looking into this,” Tomas said at last.

  “No, but we can let it be known to the Sentinels that they should keep an eye out for anything like it. Adrian did suggest that the Enlightened have been trying to draw our attention away from something,” Laura said delicately.

  Tomas grimaced at her words. “Fine, but their focus must still remain the access points.”

  “Of course, Tomas,” Laura responded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Year 718 of the Empire — Josanti League territory

  Doranis of the Enlightened watched over the development of his system. Most of the ground work had been finished, and production was slowly ramping up. The defenses were not at one hundred percent, but with the amount of ships he had in system that was not such a big concern. He had recalled a portion of his Juggernauts from the raiding fleets, as their presence had been proven unneeded in the assaults of the systems of the nations he sent them against. None of them had anything similar, and the ones who did, he ignored. It was not the time to get involved in a war with the children of Axull Darr, and if everything went according to plan, then it never would be. Why fight them when he could just wipe them all out of existence without firing a single shot?

  But Doranis knew that life was not so simple, so he was preparing for the inevitable moment when the Universe threw the unexpected at him. Living for as long as he had gave a person an unique way of looking at the Universe—he could almost see what was going to happen. It was not like he could see the future, but if one lived long enough, one learned how people reacted, learned to read the most probable paths.

  Doranis turned his attention to the AI’s ships in his system. He knew that the AI had relocated to the system Ullax had built up for the manufacture of her machine ships. That system used to be a hub for the People, back before they started dying. It was where all of their World-ships had been built.