by Ivan Kal
“Of course we know,” Adrian responded. “It is the price we need to pay in order to achieve our goals.”
“Do you really believe that we can make a difference against the numbers the Erasi possess?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
“We can,” Adrian said confidently. “Our ships are better; our skim drives give us an enormous advantage, and we do have a few things that can level the playing field if used effectively. And another six fleets should arrive from the Empire by the end of the month.”
“Skim missiles are a great advantage, I agree; we just don’t have enough of them. As we don’t have enough fleets.”
“Every month that passes gives us more time to build ships. We have been completely focused on building warships for the past three years. Our shipbuilding efforts have just hit their stride. Counting the fleets that are here, the Empire has sixteen fleets, and we produce a new one every three months. The more time the Erasi give us, the better.”
“They will still have the advantage in numbers, Adrian. I know that you are used to fighting at a disadvantage, but for all we know, those reinforcements could be just a small token of their true numbers,” Lurker of the Depths sent. “I know you, Adrian, I understand you. I know what you are planning, and I don’t think that it will work here. The Erasi cannot afford to be seen as weak, their entire system depends on their ability to enforce their contracts, that their people know that the Erasi are the strongest and can fight off any outsider. In a way, they are far more like the Shara Daim than they are like us; they take care of any potential threat to their empire before it can have a chance to threaten them. The Shara Daim did it by force, the Erasi use guile, tricks, and manipulations, and as we can see now, when those fail, they have enough force to deal with anything. They will not come at us head on; they will try to get any advantage that they can.”
“You are right, but even for them, there must be a point where it will be too costly for them to continue fighting us,” Adrian sent.
“You cannot apply your logic and honor to them, Adrian. If you hadn’t showed us our error, my people would’ve never have stopped fighting you, no matter the cost,” Lurker of the Depths sent.
“Then all I need to do is show them that they are wrong and that we can coexist in peace.”
“I hope that you manage it.”
“I hope so too,” Adrian said, as the two left the training room.
They walked together through the newly constructed base on the moon of the seventh planet in the Shara Radum system. The base construction had been quick and easy; the Empire had long ago started using modules for all of its constructions, both military and civilian. They would build ‘boxes’ that had different purposes, from those that had living quarters to those that housed generators or training rooms. The only thing that was required was for them to be placed on the ground and connected to each other in whatever order they needed them to be. There were several different shapes and sizes, from smaller boxes that were cubes of 10 meters across, to far larger cuboids that could be up to 200 meters long. The modules could be attached to each other on any side, and were quick and easy to assemble. Anessa had already told him that she was impressed with the speed at which they had assembled the base.
“When are we leaving?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
“In a week. I tried to convince Anessa to wait until the rest of our fleets arrive, but she is stubborn. She doesn’t want to wait any longer; she is readying her Legions to retake their hub systems before the Erasi reinforcements can arrive,” Adrian answered.
“How will the Shara Daim react once they see my people? Or do you still plan on keeping most of us on our ships at all times?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
Adrian sighed. “You will be by my side most of the time. If anyone has a problem with that, they will deal with me.”
“And you believe that your presence is enough to stop any hostility?” Lurker of the Depths asked.
Adrian snorted out loud. “Nope, the Shara Daim are stubborn and their Dai Sha set in their ways. I spoke with Anessa and she agrees that they need to be brought down a bit; they need to realize that being Shara Daim doesn’t automatically make them superior to any other race,” Adrian sent, and turned to look at Lurker of the Depths. “If anyone tries to do something, just drop them to the floor.”
“If I have no choice,” Lurker of the Depths sent with a small undercurrent of amusement beneath his words.
Adrian smiled. He couldn’t wait to see a few of the Dai Sha try to intimidate his former teacher.
Chapter Seven
June; Year 58 of the Empire — Sanctuary
Tomas sat in his office and reviewed the latest report from Tarabat and Shara Radum, forwarded from Sol. Sentinel Aileen was having trouble with getting the Erasi to agree to anything, and given that they had a massive fleet assembled, they probably didn’t even want peace. Tomas grimaced as he remembered the Erasi reinforcements; he was doubtful that any aid from the Empire could actually help the Shara Daim against those numbers, but Adrian believed otherwise. And Tomas trusted Adrian’s judgment.
But the fact that the Erasi were capable of fielding such numbers made him anxious. With the last six fleets that he had sent to Adrian, the Empire was left with only four fleets to defend itself. Of course, there were the system guards, which consisted of drones and old class warships, but against a modern fleet they would have trouble, except for Warpath’s guard fleet, which was based on their Vanguard ships. And there was also the fact that his four fleets were spread apart across the Empire’s territory. One fleet was always at Sanctuary, but the other three patrolled the other five sectors of the Empire. And while the Empire’s shipyards were extremely advanced and could produce new fleets incredibly quickly, it was still not enough. An empire like the Erasi had far more resources and manpower.
Tomas had been trying to find another way for them to end the Erasi conflict other than with force; he had even offered to give them the Empire’s skim tech, and still they didn’t agree. They had played around the offer, showing interest but not really agreeing to anything. He knew now that they were stalling, but he had still believed that the skim technology was a good enough offer for them to give up from war. And yet they were still set on that path; all their public actions gave an impression that they were dealing in good faith, but he could see that they would not abort their plans.
Tomas rubbed his eyes and sighed, raising his head to look at the ceiling. He needed to give Adrian the tools to help the Shara Daim and end the conflict with the Erasi, but the Empire simply didn’t have an industry capable of matching their opponent. He knew that they could close the gap, given time. They had superior tech, and in a decade or maybe two, the Empire could match the Erasi. The problem was that they didn’t have time. His thoughts strayed to project Sovereign. He was certain that if those four ships were ready, they would have a much easier time against the Erasi, not simply because of their firepower, but also because they could travel between Nelus, Sol, and Shara Radum almost instantly. They could transport ships, personnel, defense platforms, or simply materials incredibly fast. But Isani had convinced him that that was impossible, that the project was too far away from completion.
For a moment, Tomas had even toyed with the idea of sending the Enduring, the ship left by Axull Darr. But he knew that that would be a bad idea; the consequences would be far larger. That ship could probably deal with the Erasi fleets, but it was still only one ship, that could be only in one place at a time, and Erasi had who knew how many more ships available. Not to mention what showing that ship would mean both for the Empire and all who learned of it. He’d decided against it, trusting that his people would find a way.
They needed this, to struggle, to fight. They couldn’t rely on tech that they didn’t understand, hadn’t mastered. To do that was to go down the path that would ultimately lead to them growing complacent and weak. And Tomas had vowed long ago that his people would never again be weak.
***
“If the enemy is so powerful, how are their machine armies keeping them contained?” Seo-yun asked the floating shape in the middle of the room. The hologram of Axull Darr floated and looked in her eyes with no expression on his face. Before his death, Axull Darr, the ultimate ancestor of humans, Nel, and Shara Daim, had made an image of his mind, a copy of his memories and everything else that made him a person, and put it in three spheres that contained all the knowledge of the People, the first intelligent race in the galaxy. Two of the spheres had been lost, and the third was on a pedestal in front of Seo-yun.
“Attrition,” the ‘shadow’ of Axull Darr responded.
“What do you mean by that? You said that they were more advanced than you. Your machine armies couldn’t be advanced enough to battle them,” Seo-yun pressed. She was inquisitive by nature, a scientist that had learned many fields and would learn many more now that she would never age. She just couldn’t let it be; she needed to know.
“Machines are built far faster and easier; it takes a while for the enemy to renew their numbers. Each of their soldiers and ships must be grown using life and biomass. They are better than the machines, but they also take a long time to make. The machine army and the AIs guiding it simply throw ships and machine soldiers at them as fast as they make them. And the People had extremely fast building capabilities,” Axull Darr responded.
“I still don’t understand how they are keeping them contained so much. That is an enormous area of space that they need to keep under their control in order to keep them contained. Ten thousand lightyears in every direction. If they are keeping them surrounded, that is hundreds of thousands of square lightyears.”
“The enemy doesn’t expand like how you think. They move into an area a couple hundred systems large and devour it, then they move to a new cluster, abandoning the first. Their territory is moving constantly. The area that they are protecting is smaller than what you are imagining, and it is a perfect sphere, with most of the fighting happening on the edges of that sphere. We do not know what is happening deeper in their territory, but the fact that the enemy has advanced means that the containment is a temporary measure,” Axull Darr said.
“How have the machines not defeated them? Built a force strong enough to overwhelm them?” Seo-yun asked.
“The enemy is not grabbing new territory with its full strength. They are moving slowly, at their own pace. Amassing a large force has been tried before, but each time Ullax tried to build more forces away from the front, the enemy would send more ships threatening to overwhelm the border, forcing them to pull back the resources to the front.”
“Ullax? That’s an anagram of your name,” Seo-yun said curious.
“Yes, our names are anagrams of each other. Ullax is my twin sister; she came up with the idea for the containment.”
“Oh. Is she still alive?” Seo-yun asked.
“Possibly, but I don’t know. Our—or rather, Axull’s and her parting was not on best terms. As far as my memories go, they did not speak after they parted.”
“What could have been so bad that they didn’t speak afterwards?”
Axull Darr was silent for a time before answering. “Axull had doubts about the motives for her decision.”
“Motives?”
“I will not speak more on this.”
Seo-yun was tempted to push, but she managed to control the urge. Instead, she steered the conversation back at the previous topic. “You said that the enemy is not fighting at full strength?”
“No, they only showed glimpses of it when Ullax and the others tried to pull resources from the containment to build up forces. It was as if they could feel that Ullax and the others wanted to try something, so they pushed harder, forcing them to recall the resources they tried to use.”
“But why keep themselves back if their purpose is to devour life?”
“We do not know what their purpose is,” Axull Darr said.
“What? Didn’t you say that they only want to devour life?”
“Yes, they need life to fuel themselves, to grow faster, and any life that happened in their path was destroyed. But we do not know what their real purpose is. Their actions suggest that there is something else, but they have always taken their time, so it has been assumed that they, like the People, are immortal, and that they have time and are in no rush. No incursion into the center of their territory has ever succeeded. We know very little of their actual motives, and the three always spoke cryptically.”
“You spoke with them?” Seo-yun asked, surprised.
“Of course, they were our people. We tried to talk to them, to get them to stop the abominations that they had created. But instead all we got were the offers of a gift of Enlightenment.”
“Enlightenment?”
“They call themselves the Enlightened now. They had taken new names, each a variation on the old language of the People and the word for Enlightened in different dialects—Anis—so they became Aranis, Loranis, and Doranis. The three had offered to make us like them, telling us that we would understand once we were changed,” Axull Darr said sadly. “We of course refused their offer. Whatever had happened to them had clearly driven them insane.”
Seo-yun didn’t respond. Perhaps it was too soon for them to deal with something that was clearly far above them. Each of Axull Darr’s answers only gave rise to new questions.
“I can see now why you didn’t want to tell us too much,” Seo-yun said. “There are so many unanswered questions, and there is nothing that we can do to find the answers.”
“No, there isn’t. In time, I hope that you will be able to answer them.”
Chapter Eight
Ten days later; July — Tarabat
“The Shara Daim have been very clear. Unless you are prepared to meet with their leadership and deal with them in person, and soon, they will retake their systems, and they will not stop at the previous border. They cannot allow you to keep their worlds and people any longer,” Aileen said.
“We understand, of course. But these kind of talks are delicate, and our leadership is in the core,” a Gatrey, Katunaru, said.
“Then you will have war again, and my people will be joining the side of the Shara Daim,” Aileen stated.
“There is no reason for you to involve yourselves in this conflict; there is no cause for it between us.” Katunaru said.
“You started the war with the Shara Daim with no provocation; that tells us a great deal about you. And you have attacked three of the Empire’s ships and destroyed one, killing thousands,” Aileen said coldly.
“An isolated incident, instigated by a rogue commander. Hanaru will be found and will answer for his actions,” Katunaru said dismissively, as the Erasi negotiators always did. The sad part was that Aileen knew that it wasn’t just a rehearsed line; he truly believed that the attack and the deaths of the Empire’s citizens were nothing more than a small incident. The aides sitting around Katunaru seemed to share his opinion. And she knew that they would never find Hanaru. Jurr had not been able to find any more information on the Gatrey; he had probably already disappeared to who knew where.
“And the Shara Daim have been threatening our borders for a long time,” Katunaru continued. “You only need to look at their history to understand why we chose to attack preemptively. They have always looked at other races with distaste. Until you came along, they have never dealt with another race fairly. Our government is not convinced that they are prepared to deal with us in good faith.”
“My Emperor guarantees it. You have this one chance to make peace with the Shara Daim; if you do not take it, you will be at war with both them and the Empire,” Aileen said, and stood up. “This is your last chance. Unless I get a favorable response by the end of the day, the Empire will close its embassy on Tarabat, and with it all diplomatic relations between us.” She nodded once to Katunaru and his aides and then left the room.
It took her and the adept guard less than half an hour to ge
t to the compound, and Aileen headed straight for the communications room. The compound was almost empty. Most personnel had been moved to Aileen’s ship, Jewel, ever since she had received word from Adrian. The only ones remaining at the compound were Aileen, Adept Garani, Communications Adjunct Khan, and Compound Leader Björn. She knew that it was unlikely that the Erasi would agree to anything, and she wanted to be prepared to leave fast. Once inside the communications room, Adjunct Khan greeted Aileen.
“Get me a link with the relay. I need to send a message to Sol,” Aileen said. The Empire had already put a relay net between Sol and Tarabat, and another one between Sol and Shara Radum should be going online in a few days. So while she needed to send a message to Adrian, it would actually get there faster if it was relayed through Sol, as the Shara Daim and Erasi didn’t have any relays between them, and even if they had, Aileen wouldn’t have used their networks to send information.
“That’s strange…” Adjunct commented.
“What’s strange?”
“I can’t get a signal out. Give me a sec,” Adjunct Khan said, and started working on his station. Holowindows flew around, moved by both his hands and his imp. Aileen waited impatiently for him to elaborate, but the man knew how to do his job and didn’t need her interrupting.
“Ah, here it is. The Erasi put out an alert a few minutes ago; a hyperstorm appears to have formed over Tarabat’s hyperspace area. Communications using hyperspace will be impossible for some time,” Khan said.
“A hyperstorm? Is that a real thing?” Aileen asked suspiciously.
Khan turned to look at her. “Oh yes, we know about them, but they should be very rare, and the Empire still hasn’t encountered one. It’s unlikely for them to form over a system, so we still haven’t caught one that we can study more in-depth. Records we have are from much…simpler instruments.”