by Ivan Kal
“We cannot know the minds of beings as ancient as them. Nor can we make assumptions about their power.”
“Old age does not mean that they are wise and beyond us. And we have seen the recordings of their fighting—the feats that they had accomplished suggest that they too can draw on the Sha like we can,” Adrian argued.
“Even if their power does come from the Sha state, and even if we have achieved it like them, they are older, Adrian. They know more, they have used this power for longer. They still might be stronger.” Anessa knew that the Sha state was a great equalizer, as the amount of energy one’s body could hold no longer matters in that state. The evolutionary aids that allowed for the use of Sha abilities didn’t matter. In the Sha state, all were capable of everything that the Sha was capable of. They had no limits of the body—only of the mind.
“And that is why I have Moirai,” Adrian told her.
Anessa grimaced. “I am still not comfortable with that monster of yours.”
“And you don’t need to be.” Adrian turned to stare at her with an intense look in his eyes. “I am certain that with Moirai by my side I can be more than a match for a single Enlightened.”
“I know of the power that you have shared with that beast. Still, it is a risky path. She has her own mind and desires. If she ever turns on you…” Lurker of the Depths sent, along his feelings, making all of them understand exactly what his fears were.
“Moirai’s goals are my goals. She will never turn on me.”
Anessa sighed, already tired of their debate. “Let us hope so, Adrian. We will need all the help we can get.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Year 711 of the Empire — Coreward Empire border
Tomas stood in the command center of the Sovereign-class Remembrance and watched the holo tank in the middle of the room. On the holo he could see four fleets, each five thousand ships strong, soon to begin the two-year trip to the core of the galaxy.
The four fleets belonged to the Shara Daim, the Krashinar, the Empire, and the Erasi, each fleet carrying a leader or a representative of its nation. The Old Scar had went with his fleet as he was the Krashinar representative. The Erasi were the latest addition to their alliance, and while there were still problems there, the Erasi had changed significantly. Their government had changed into something resembling democracy, with the former O’fa Vorash pushing for giving more power to the people. From his new position as the Viceroy of the Erasi, his goals were much easier to achieve than when he had held the title of O’fa.
And while their alliance had the same goals, Tomas had insisted on all of them coming as separate entities. This was in part because he did not want to antagonize the core power even more by presenting an unified front—together, the four coreward star-nations could rival any in the core, and in Tomas’s opinion perhaps even several of them. The other reason was that Tomas did not like the idea of entering the lion’s den alone. There would be many star-nations there, some of which had alliances of their own, and Tomas wanted backup—he did not want to allow them to bully him.
Aside from the Shara Daim and the Empire, the other two had somewhat different fleet compositions than was regular, with the Krashinar packs being far larger than several fleets put together. But Levisomaerni had made it a condition that any who were attending the summit could bring only a single fleet numbering no more than five thousand ships. Both the Shara Daim and the Empire brought five of their latest generation Sovereigns, the Krashinar had several great beasts that had been spawned after the war with the Erasi, of whom some were even larger than Araxi had been at the time of that war. The Erasi, on the other hand, brought five of their eight newest Devastator-class warships, which were much more like the Sovereigns. These ships had been designed and built jointly by the Shara Daim, the Empire, and the Erasi in the spirit of good relations and future cooperation.
Tomas wondered what the core powers were going to think when they saw them. As far as he was aware, most of the core powers dismissed the rumors about the coreward powers’ Fleet Killer warships.
A door to the command center opened and a tall blond woman entered, walking briskly to stand at his side.
“Emperor,” Fleet Master Johanna Stern greeted him.
“Fleet Master,” Tomas returned. Johanna Stern was one of the oldest fleet commanders in the Empire’s Fleet. And also one of the best, on par with Adrian. She was the only choice to command the fleet.
“I wish that we could bring more ships,” Johanna said so only he could hear.
“Our ally made the rules. If we are the ones to break them, it will only serve to antagonize the others against us—the exact opposite of what we want to accomplish.”
“I know, but there are too many things that can go wrong. And I never liked fighting when I am outnumbered.”
“Not all of those attending will be allied. If something does go wrong, we would not be facing all of them together,” Tomas said.
“I still don’t think that you should be the one to go,” Johanna said. They had known each other for a long time, lifetimes. She was one of the few people whose council he valued.
“It needs to be me. I doubt that the core powers would respect anyone else.”
Then an alert flashed on the holo and Tomas smiled. “And should something go wrong, we will have them nearby.”
Johanna turned her eyes back to the holo. “They’re here.”
“Yes, and they are…”
“Impressive,” Johanna finished for him, as the Nomad Fleet started dropping out of hyperspace.
“Yes.” Tomas studied the newly arrived fleet. Thirty thousand warships strong, the fleet was the size of six regular fleets, but held the firepower of much more with their Titan-class ships. Tomas felt a flash of fear and quickly surprised it. He had already decided to put his trust in Adrian, and fearing the power that he now wielded independent of the Empire would do him no good. Tomas knew that Adrian’s goals were not his, but so far Adrian had been steered in a direction where his actions benefited the Empire. Back on Earth, they might’ve called him a sociopath, but that wasn’t really true. Adrian was…different, but Tomas still knew that he was their best chance of winning against the Enlightened. And so he had made the decision to let Adrian and his Nomad Fleet leave the Empire—officially, at least. He still had ways of keeping a leash on them; he was not foolish enough to let Adrian and his people run unchecked across the galaxy.
And then there was the fact that one of the Enlightened was even now somewhere in that fleet. When Adrian and Anessa had first told him, Tomas had completely lost his cool. He had been angry that Adrian had dared to hide something like that from the Empire.
But he had calmed down since then. Adrian’s reasons for doing what he had done were wrong, but they had yet again aligned with the good of the people around him. It always made Tomas crazy when he thought about it. Adrian never acted for the good of the people, yet somehow he always managed to act in their service.
It was why Tomas had allowed him so much room—that and the fact that, aside from Tomas, Adrian was one of the most popular figures in the Empire. To the common people he and Anessa were royalty, even now that she had stepped down from the throne of the Shara Daim. And no matter how bad Anessa was, Tomas was grateful that she was at Adrian’s side, providing temperance and guiding him to more…moral paths. At least Anessa cared about her people, and even though she had initially cared only for her own people, that care had extended to the people of the Empire as well. After all, her children were half human.
“Signal them to join our fleets in formation. We should get going as soon as possible. We have a lot of ground to cover,” Tomas ordered.
This moment was the fulfillment of their destiny—the first step in fulfilling the task Axull Darr created them for so long ago.
CHAPTER NINE
Year 712 of the Empire — the Nomad Fleet — en route to Suvri border
Adrian sat in the chair and looked out through the windo
w of one of the Bastion’s many observation decks. There was no one else in the room, and that allowed him the time to focus on what was just outside the ship: the bright and always changing lights of hyperspace, mostly in shades of blue, but there were flashes of white here and there. It was beautiful, although most had lost their curiosity and wonder long ago, Adrian among them. Hyperspace was another dimension, one that occupied almost the same space as their universe, or so the scientists claimed. It did not matter much to Adrian, although he supposed that to the people who had come before him, traveling through another dimension would seem like something completely insane. Now it was just another reality.
A person walked in and then over to him and took a seat next to Adrian. For a few moments they remained silent and watched the hyperspace together.
“I have not seen this often,” the other man said, promoting Adrian to turn and look at him.
The man next to him was not a man at all, although he looked like a human. He was a completely life-like android, not a strange sight in the Empire. Some AIs liked to use android bodies to move around among the organics, some even in order to have more private relations with their “significant others”. Relationships between the organics and the AI were not really common, but they did happen.
So it was not a strange thing to see one around, especially on a ship that was basically a city…but this android was not like the rest.
“What do you mean?” Adrian asked him.
“We never really used hyperspace or trans-space. They did not exist at our height; there was only the skim. And after, well… We had the access points, and there was no need.”
Adrian nodded in understanding. “So what do you think?”
“This is a good plan if Tomas manages to pull it off, and the Enlightened in your midst does not decide to go on a rampage—or call his brethren,” Axull Darr, the ultimate ancestor of the Nel, Shara Daim, and Human races said. His android body was a new one, modified to look nothing like his former self. While there were very few people that had ever seen the hologram of Axull Darr and could recognize him, the true threat was the Enlightened. They did not want Vas to know.
“I can match him, or her, whichever one of them Vas is.”
“The ability that your Lurker in the Depths has found is a great asset. It is the missing piece that we did not have, which explains how the Enlightened got so powerful. But they have more secrets; it is foolish to think that you are their equal without knowing the true breadth of their power,” Axull Darr warned.
“The same can be said of me—they do not know me or my power. And with Moirai… I refuse to believe that they could have power beyond what the two of us can achieve together.”
“Be very careful, Adrian. Closing yourself to that possibility is dangerous. But I do agree that what you had done was inspired. With Moirai, you might be able to match the greatest feats we have ever seen them accomplish. And it is something that they will not expect. Their bioships had always been the domain they alone held. You were lucky that I had enough data to reverse engineer what they had done, as otherwise Moirai would’ve never been what she is.”
Adrian nodded. A large part of Moirai’s genetics had been engineered by Axull Darr himself. Adrian had passed off the data as belonging to a private genetic firm, but in truth Moirai’s true power would’ve never been possible without Axull Darr. “Of course; I understand all of that. Still, it is my belief that thinking that we have no chance is the surest way to guarantee that we will never win.”
“I only offer council. I created you all because I was not enough. My ideas, my plans did not work. I have put my trust in you, my children. This is my last gamble.”
They lapsed into silence, with both of them gazing out of the window.
Then, after a while, Adrian spoke again. “Any progress? Have you managed to identify which one it is?”
Axull Darr shook his head. “There are no mannerisms that betray any of them. I fear that it is a pointless effort.”
Adrian grimaced. He had given Axull Darr access to the recordings of Vas, hoping that he might spot something that could identify which of the Enlightened Vas really was. The People had a lot of data on each of the Enlightened, and knowing which one it was would tell them a lot. Each of them had specialized in different things, had a different power set. Knowing would give Adrian an advantage should a fight become inevitable.
“I don’t think that you should stop looking. We are getting closer to the core, and Vas knows why we are holding this summit. He might trip up in the near future.”
“All things are possible. The Enlightened hold great power, but they are not infallible. They’ve made mistakes before, and we’ve had some small victories. I do believe that his staying with the fleet is one such mistake.”
“How so?” Adrian asked.
“The firepower that this fleet holds…it is enough to kill any of them, at least according to what we had observed long ago. They had never put themselves at such risk, choosing to avoid conflict when a great power could be brought against them. I do believe that he could not risk leaving now without tipping his hand and revealing himself.”
“I guess now we only have to wait and see what he does.”
Axull Darr smiled. “I am very much acquainted with waiting. It is not a problem for me.”
Adrian grumbled halfheartedly; he did not like waiting, but he understood that there was nothing else for him to do now. He turned his eyes back to the window and the blue lights flashing out there, while his mind wandered to fighting against the Enlightened. There was nothing else in his life that he wanted as much as to pit his power against theirs—to see which of them was stronger.
CHAPTER TEN
Year 712 of the Empire — the Nomad Fleet
Aranis walked through the streets of the Dragon’s small city. The crews that were not currently on duty walked around him, not paying any attention to him. Everything around him reminded him so much of his past, of the World-ships of the People, only smaller. Yet this was nothing like the ships of his past—this was a ship of war, a ship designed and built to fight Aranis and his kin.
And he had to admit that these ships were powerful. No one knew from where exactly the now-Warmaster Adrian had gotten these ships. They had just appeared one day in Sol and entered the yards to be armed. Adrian said that they had been built in one of the Empire’s secret shipyards, but Aranis was not so easily deceived. Being Ryaana’s second came with a lot of access, and he knew that while the Empire had a great amount of resources and industry, building ten thousand Sovereign-sized warships, let alone ones even more technologically advanced, was not a thing that could be hidden so easily.
Adrian was hiding something.
And it was that which had kept him here for so long. Aranis had long since learned all that he needed about the children of Axull Darr. He could’ve left and rejoined his brethren decades ago—but there was just something that nagged at him constantly. He had never liked not knowing something, had never liked mysteries, and still some remained.
The one foremost in his mind was the Lurker of the Depths. Aranis had borne witness to the Sowir’s power, the same power that only the Enlightened had possessed since their transformation. Now there was another, and Aranis worried that Lurker of the Depths had taught the same to Adrian.
Ryaana had told him that her parents were spending a lot of time on the Sowir homeworld, training, and in Aranis’s mind there was only one thing that they could be training to achieve. Now that they had finally started on their journey, Aranis couldn’t help and wonder if they had achieved the same power as the Lurker of the Depths.
He wasn’t worried that they could become more powerful than him; he was far older, knew much more. Even if they had achieved the full state of Sha ascension, they would not be as capable as he. Still, though, it was worrying.
But it would not remain so for much longer. Aranis had decided that the time for him to leave was near: they were going in the dir
ection of the containment zone, and at the first chance he would leave this fleet and alert his kin to all the threats that the galaxy posed.
“Deep in thought?”
Aranis turned around, startled. He hadn’t noticed anyone approaching. He froze when he saw Adrian walking next to him. The Nomad Fleet was currently stationed at the Suvri border, and last Aranis had heard the Warmaster was on Bastion.
“Ah, yes…” Aranis said slowly. He wondered what Adrian wanted, why he was here. The man had interacted with Aranis—or, rather, Vas—a lot over the years, enough so that Aranis had even at one point suspected that Adrian might know who Vas really was. But his doubts had proved baseless. There was no one insane enough to ignore a threat the size Aranis posed, let alone let such a threat stay near his own daughter. But Aranis had grown close to Ryaana and those around her, as close as someone who was pretending to live another’s life could be, and that included Adrian as well. The strange man had taken a lot of interest in Vas, probably because he was spending so much time with his daughter. But it gave Aranis the opportunity to study the man as well.
“It’s not often that I find you without Ryaana,” Adrian said, raising an eyebrow.
“Ryaana has a date with her girlfriend on Bastion. I don’t think that she needs a shadow for that,” Aranis responded.
Adrian chuckled. “No, I don’t think that she does. So, headed anywhere in particular?” Adrian asked.
“Not really. I was just walking about.”
“Well then, how about we go get a drink?” Adrian asked.
Aranis couldn’t really refuse, so he nodded his head and followed Adrian as he led them to one of the small bars that lined the street. They found a place in a corner, ordered drinks, and then Adrian turned on the cubicle’s privacy screen.
They sat in silence and drank, until Aranis grew impatient. Adrian was not someone who acted without a reason. “I know that you didn’t come all this way just to speak with me,” Aranis said.