by Ivan Kal
But even through all that fire, six ships—two super battleships and four battleships—limped close enough to the planet and fired their missiles at the stations and platforms in orbit. Shuttles left their ships on the way to the planet.
Olympus Mons’s defenses activated. All around the mountain, turrets lifted out of the ground and started taking down missiles and shuttles. Nevertheless, out of hundreds of shuttles, one managed to pass through the fire and crash land on Olympus Mons, just as the last super battleship died in orbit. Adrian commed Aileen to take care of the intruders—if any had survived the crash—as he focused on the remaining two Legions that had just escaped his trap.
***
Aileen ran through the corridors of Olympus Mons as her armor closed around her. She had spent the battle in the command hub watching as Adrian commanded. Now they had Shara Daim troops on the ground and inside the complex. They had managed to crash their shuttle through the ‘front door,’ so to speak. Atlas had reported nine hostiles, and Aileen knew that if they had even half the strength of their former prisoner, they could make a lot of trouble. Behind her ran a ten-man team of Warpath warrior adepts dressed in combat armor and carrying plasma rifles.
“Atlas, where are they?” Aileen asked the Olympus Mons AI over the comms.
“Second level, they are just passing the elevators.”
Aileen nodded and took a turn left, entering the stairs that led down. “What about our people?” Aileen asked.
“Our people are following your advice and are engaging from afar, and retreating before the enemy can close the distance. Their weapons don’t appear to do any damage to their armor,” Atlas said as her HUD split and a small window appeared with a direct link from the cameras on level two.
The Shara Daim wore the same kind of armor as Anessa, which seemed resistant to the weapons that the adepts engaging them used. But thankfully Aileen carried weapons that she knew could get through their armor.
Aileen and her team arrived just as the Shara Daim closed on the nine soldiers. One of the Warpath adepts was lifted off the ground and a bolt of white hit him right in the chest, throwing him against a wall.
Aileen raised her weapon and opened fire across the room; a moment later, people behind her did the same. They caught the Shara Daim in the open, plasma bolts hitting them on their armor. The Shara Daim were obviously aware of the danger, as they tried to evade and fire from their forearm-mounted weapons.
Aileen felt a buildup of Sha from one of the Shara Daim, and immediately ordered everyone to focus fire on him, using her own Sha to disrupt whatever the enemy attempted. She grabbed his legs telekinetically and held him for barely a moment, but in that time more than fifteen plasma bolts hit his armor and burned through, killing him. Suddenly she felt three others build up the Sha, and she yelled for everyone to get clear. Her team jumped towards the adepts, where they were hiding behind a short wall.
The enemy kept firing at them, holding them pinned behind the wall. Aileen felt one of them try and grab one of her people from behind the wall with the Sha, and she peeked over and threw the strongest kinetic strike she could at them, disrupting whatever they were trying to do. It also dropped her to half of her reserves. She had nowhere near the level of skill and power that Adrian had, and was probably even inferior to her enemy.
From her HUD, she noticed that reinforcements were coming as she detected their imps, but it would take them at least two minutes. Olympus Mons was a large facility, and they had moved many people to Jupiter or to the fleets prior to them leaving for Ra’a’zani space.
Then she felt a wave of something through the Sha, and heard thumps from the positions of the Shara Daim. She stood up and looked over, seeing the Shara Daim writhing on the floor. Behind them stood ten Sowir, walking slowly towards them.
“You need to stun them; we can’t hold them for much longer,” a voice said in her head, and Aileen immediately jumped over the wall and started giving out orders.
“Thank you,” she sent to the Sowir. Her people moved towards the Shara Daim, beating them unconscious with their weapons and binding them. Aileen sent a request for the devices to drain their power. She sent an all-clear to Adrian and assembled a team to go and secure the crashed shuttle, and formed a few others to check the surroundings in case any other shuttles managed to drop down.
Chapter Eighteen
Olympus Mons
The two remaining Shara Daim forces punched through the wall of defense platforms. They were severely crippled; both of the Legions were down to perhaps half of their strength, with a combined number of 2389 ships. Most of their larger classes showed signs of damage, although few of the two Legions’ battleships and super battleships had actually been destroyed. But there were only a few ships of their smaller classes remaining. The Third Legion had been in the center of the attack, and had taken on the brunt of Sol’s defenses.
Adrian saw that Anessa’s ship was having trouble keeping its shields up, and there were a few scorch marks on its hull from the fire it took to shield the smaller ships. The force was speeding towards the hyperspace barrier in the opposite direction of Mars. Adrian sighed. He had sacrificed a lot of drones and new defense platforms to make a point, and now it was time for him to ram it through in such a way that even a Shara Daim could understand it.
Adrian disengaged the Watchtower interface and opened his eyes, seeing the holo in front of him showing the Shara Daim ships, and people working around him. He keyed his comms and opened a channel to a ship hiding behind Jupiter.
A hologram of Johanna Stern, Fleet Commander of the Second Fleet, appeared in front of him.
“It’s time,” Adrian said.
Johanna only nodded, and closed the comm. For several minutes, nothing happened, and then new signatures started appearing around the Shara Daim ships. Five of the Empire’s fleets exited their skims from their positions at the edges of the Sol system where they had been hiding behind planets or the Sun. Ten thousand warships kept pace with the running Shara Daim ships, outside the range of their energy weapons. No shield was raised, no weapon was powered; there were no threatening moves. Three fleets took positions around the Shara Daim’s sides, and the other two at the front and the back.
Adrian waited for a while, letting it sink in, and then he had his Communications Handler point a transmission at one of the Shara Daim ships.
***
Dai Sha Anessa of the First Legion watched the holo in disbelief as ships started appearing around her and Garaam’s Legions. She recognized some of the designs from what the Erasi had provided and what she had seen during her captivity, but the majority of their number were the same unmanned ships as those that had just dealt with Narrasak. And there were five ships that were larger than any that Anessa had ever seen. Her comms chimed and she answered immediately.
Garaam appeared, her eyes wide. “Anessa, we need to close the formation. We can get through if—”
“They don’t want to fight us,” Anessa interrupted through her teeth, barely keeping her voice level. She had realized what all this was about. Garaam stopped and looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Anessa glanced at the holo, then back to Garaam. “Their ships are outside the range of our energy weapons, and their shields are down.”
“It could be a trick,” Garaam said.
“Garaam, they could’ve brought these ships to the battle at any point; why did they do it now?” Anessa asked, seemingly uninterested in the answer.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly, then asked, “Anessa, what is this about?”
Anessa opened her mouth to answer when her Do Sun spoke. “Dai Sha! We have an incoming communication request from the enemy; it’s directed at Bloodbringer.”
Anessa turned to Garaam. “We are about to find out,” she answered Garaam’s question.
“Open the channel,” Anessa said. Garaam’s hologram moved to the side, and another appeared in front of Anessa. Adrian sat in a chair very similar to Anessa’s. To h
is left stood a Nel with his tail bent and moving up and down to his side—Gotu, she believed he was called—and to his right sat the two beasts that always followed him. She heard a few gasps from those around her; they were aware of the Humans, but none had known about the Nel. Anessa had told that only to her higher-ranking people and the two other Dai Sha. Adrian looked directly at her; he couldn’t see anything else on her ship, only what she allowed. Garaam could see and hear everything.
“Anessa,” he said with a slow dip of his head, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Adrian,” she said slowly, and then without consciously doing it, her head dipped as well. She could see Garaam’s shock at that small gesture of respect she had allowed her enemy, but Anessa didn’t react.
“Do you remember the last thing I told you, that night when I showed you Earth?” Adrian said in her tongue, ensuring that all who were listening would understand his words.
Anessa did remember. I will change your mind, he had said. I will show you who we are, and I will prove it to you that your people are wrong in thinking they can just roll over us. Her mind supplied the memory, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
Adrian smiled. “I see that you do. Did I succeed?” he asked in a whisper.
Anessa’s expression hardened. She wanted to tell him no, to tell him that she was still right, that they were weak. But she couldn’t. The Shara Daim had never lost a full Legion, not in the two thousand years they had been in space. Now he had done it, all to convince her that she was wrong.
“Yes,” Anessa said finally.
Adrian kept his eyes locked on hers for a minute without responding.
Anessa was the first to break the silence. “And what happens now?”
He tilted his head. “Now, I ask you to come to Mars to speak with me before you and your ships leave Sol.”
“And if I refuse?” Anessa asked. She wasn’t really enamored with the idea of becoming a prisoner again, but Adrian had kept his promise to her once before.
“Then I order my fleets to destroy you all,” Adiran said simply. Anessa felt the anger in the room around her; she knew that they could not understand this. Shara Daim did not surrender, and they did not negotiate with their enemies.
Anessa closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at him. “I accept,” she said, and closed the link. She was met with outrage and shock from her own people and Garaam, who had watched the entire thing.
“Anessa, we don’t surrender,” Garaam said harshly.
“What do you want to do? To fight? We could, and we would lose. They defeated us with only unmanned ships and defense platforms, Garaam. Narrasak is dead, just like his entire Legion,” Anessa said.
“That’s why we must fight them! They killed a Dai Sha!” Garaam yelled.
“We would die a pointless death, not doing anything to further the Shara Daim!” Anessa yelled in return. “Narasak’s death was his own fault, he lost his mind at the first show of something he couldn’t handle easily! He died a pointless death, without even killing one enemy.” At her words, Garaam snapped back in shock. That had gotten through to her. To die a pointless death was the worst fate a Shara Daim could suffer.
“We don’t surrender, Anessa,” she said again, now more controlled.
“Then it’s good that we are not surrendering,” Anessa said.
Garaam looked her strangely. “You have a plan?”
“Yes, to do exactly what he asked of me.”
“But—” Garaam started, but Anessa interrupted.
“He didn’t ask for us to surrender, he asked to speak with me before we leave the system. And I want you with me when we go to meet with him,” Anessa said.
Garaam narrowed her eyes and glared at her, but then Anessa saw her relax. “Very well. I will do as you say, Anessa,” she said, and closed the connection. Anessa knew that if it had been any Dai Sha other than Garaam, they might not have agreed to follow Anessa’s lead, just as she knew that if she hadn’t chosen to come with the Legions, all who had entered this system would’ve now been dead.
Chapter Nineteen
Anessa and Garaam sat in the shuttle, an armored variant designed for troop transport, and waited as the shuttle dropped down to Adrian’s base. She knew that the armor of the shuttle would do little to prevent them from being destroyed should Adrian wish it; the base’s defenses were still active and tracking as the shuttle slowly lowered itself through the thin atmosphere of the planet. Anessa and Garaam had reached the planet on their super battleships, which had their shields lowered and weapons powered down, escorted by ten Empire ships.
Her Do Sun, Arisak, had tried to convince her that they should fight, that her going to the planet was a trick of their enemy to get her back as a prisoner. But Arisak didn’t know Adrian. If he had wanted to destroy the remainder of the Legions, he would’ve done it by now. And he didn’t need her as a prisoner. Anessa knew that there was only one thing that Adrian was interested in, and that was peace between the Shara Daim and his Empire.
The shuttle reached the surface and they followed the instructions, entering a large hangar that had opened in the side of the mountain.
“Remember what I told you,” Anessa said to Garaam. “Don’t use the Sha on them at all, and don’t threaten them. We are only here to talk.”
“And if they threaten us?” Garaam asked.
“They won’t, but if something like that happens, let me handle it.”
The shuttle landed, and they stood and walked to the ramp that was already lowering, Anessa taking the lead. The hangar was almost empty; there was no activity anywhere around them. In front of her shuttle stood twelve people in battle armor with their weapons held in their hands and pointed at the floor. A few of them were Nel and others Human, at least based on their shape. On both sides of them stood another twelve aliens that she had never seen, standing taller, with three limbs on their upper body and three strange ‘leg-like’ limbs on which they stood. Anessa’s eyes widened when she felt their minds and realized that they had the Sha.
In front of the soldiers stood three figures. One was a Nel dressed in a normal Empire skin-suit with an over-garment that had a symbol on it; she recognized him both from her captivity and the communication with Adrian from her ship. She had heard him called Gotu; whether that was a title or a name, she didn’t know, but she was sure that he served as something similar to her Do Sun.
The other person wore a set of armor that the Dai Sha had only seen once before, on the day that she had tried to capture Adrian. She couldn’t see the face, but she could tell that it was a female. Whether it was the same one that she fought on that day, she didn’t know, but she stood a step behind on Adrian’s right. Adrian wore the same armor as the person behind him, only his wasn’t deployed.
“Anessa, I’m glad that you accepted my offer,” Adrian said once she was close enough, his eyes somehow soft at seeing her. “And I see you brought a friend.” He quirked his eyebrow in a way she had seen him do a thousand times, but now for some reason it made her smile slightly.
“Yes, this is Dai Sha Garaam of the Fourteenth Legion,” Anessa introduced her friend, and watched Adrian for a reaction.
Adrian bowed his head slightly. “I am Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas of the Empire.”
He didn’t seem at all concerned that Anessa had brought Garaam with her, even though he must have realized how potentially dangerous the two of them were. Together and fighting without restraint, they could do a lot of damage. But Adrian simply gestured for the two of them to follow him. The rest of his people took positions behind them and they walked through the base in silence.
They walked through a part of the base that she wasn’t familiar with, and after a while finally reached their destination. The soldiers, aliens, Gotu, and the female in the armor took positions around the door while Adrian led Anessa and Garaam inside.
Anessa was surprised to see that he had led them into what could only be living quarters. He gestured at the seating fu
rniture in the middle of the room and took a seat across from the two of them. He didn’t speak, he only studied her, casting a glance or two in Garaam’s direction from time to time.
“Why are we here, Adrian?” Anessa asked finally.
Again, Adrian’s eyebrow rose. “I am here because this is my home. I hope that you know why you are here, or do you wander into other people’s systems attacking them at random?”
Garaam frowned, and Anessa sighed. “Don’t play your games now, Adrian, I am not in the mood. We have just lost a lot of our people and are now sitting across from the one responsible.”
Adrian’s expression cleared and settled into his expressionless mask. “Yes, you have lost a lot of people. But I warned you, Anessa, I begged you to go to your Elders and find a way for there to be peace between us. We have never done anything to your people, and yet you decided that we are weak and that you somehow have a right to what is ours. You and your Elders are the only ones that are responsible for the deaths of your people.”
Garaam started to move. Anessa felt her reach for the Sha and quickly put her own hand on hers to stop her. “Don’t,” Anessa sent, and for a moment she thought that Garaam wasn’t going to listen to her, but she pulled back.
“What do you want, Adrian? I told you once that Shara Daim are loyal to our Elders; we won’t change our minds just because you say so, or because we lost people,” Anessa said.
“You told me also that the Empire is weak. Do you think that that is still true?” He asked.
Anessa wanted to say yes, but she knew that she would be lying. “No,” she said. It didn’t mean that she no longer believed in everything she had been taught, though; it only meant that she acknowledged him as a worthy opponent, nothing more.
Adrian nodded and reached with his hand into his over-garment. Anessa felt Garaam stiffen when he pulled his hand back and showed them a spherical object.