Date: 2017-06-29T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: The truce with the Erasi allows the Empire and the Shara Daim to grow, expand, and develop new technologies. But the Erasi have a long memory, and the Weaver of the Erasi will not allow the alliance more time to become a greater threat than it already is. Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas-Reiss and Kar Daim Anessa plan for the inevitable Erasi attack. Their only chance is to strike first, and Adrian reaches out to an enigmatic alien race that could be the key to ending the Erasi threat. Massive fleets are preparing for the end of the truce and an all out war. Two Inquisitors of the Hand of the Empir
Publisher: Independently published

HAND OF THE EMPIRE

Rise of the Empire series

IVAN KAL

Copyright © 2017 by Ivan Kal

Art/Cover Copyright © 2017 by Nikola Nikolic

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Contact the artist - chmiky.design@gmail.com

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Table of Contents

Glossary

Timeline

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Interlude I

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Interlude II

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Interlude III

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Epilogue

Timeline

November 2103 – A faction of humanity—Olympus—leaves to colonize a planet in a star system 600 light years from Earth.

February 2159 – An alien race called the Ra’a’zani conquers Earth.

May 2164 – Olympus arrives at their destination; they name the planet Sanctuary. They get involved in a conflict against an alien race called the Sowir. Ally themselves with the Nel of Nuva.

March 2170 – Resistance from Earth contacts Olympus on Sanctuary, asking for aid.

December 2171 – Olympus and Sowir Dominion make a pact of non-aggression.

January 2172 – Olympus fleet arrives in the Sol system, engaging Ra’a’zani forces in the system. The battle for Earth results in narrow human victory, but the cost is Earth. The Ra’a’zani weapon makes the planet uninhabitable.

March 2172 – Year 1 of the Empire – Tomas Klein, leader of Olympus, creates the Empire.

December – Year 30 of the Empire – Sowir attack Nelus system, homeworld of the Nel. Empire breaks the non-aggression pact with Sowir by simultaneously sending aid to Nelus and invading the Sowir territory. Clan Leader Adrian Farkas overuses the Watchtower command interface, and falls into a coma.

January–March Year 31 of the Empire – Adrian Farkas wakes up and hears the telepathic beacon from the sphere left by the originator of the human and Nel races, unlocking all the knowledge and technology contained inside.

March Year 36 of the Empire – Empire wins the war against the Sowir.

Year 36–Year 54 of the Empire – Empire at peace, focusing on exploring, developing technologies from the sphere of the People, and expanding their borders to reclaim Sol.

June Year 54 of the Empire – Empire meets an alien star-nation called the Erasi.

July Year 54 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas meets Dai Sha Anessa of the Shara Daim, the third race created by Axull Darr. Anessa attempts to capture Adrian; the fight ends in narrow victory for Adrian and his people. They take the Dai Sha prisoner.

January Year 55 of the Empire – Shara Daim Elders recall all of their forces for an attack on the Empire, seeking the device left by Axull Darr.

June Year 55 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel releases Dai Sha Anessa.

August Year 55 of the Empire – The Empire defeats the Ra’a’zani, leaving their people abandoned on their worlds with no way of getting back into space.

September Year 55 of the Empire – Three Shara Daim Legions attack Sol. Lord Sentinel defends, and defeats the invading forces, allowing Dai Sha Anessa and her remaining forces to leave Sol.

December Year 55 of the Empire – Erasi invade Shara Daim territory.

September Year 56 of the Empire – After finding out about a conspiracy by the Elders of the Shara Daim, Dai Sha Anessa removes them from power, taking the rule of the Shara Daim for herself, claiming the title Kar Daim.

March Year 57 of the Empire – Shara Daim reach out to the Empire, inviting Lord Sentinel to their homeworld Shara Radum for diplomatic talks.

June Year 57 of the Empire – Empire diplomatic task force is ambushed by the Erasi on their way to Shara Daim homeworld. One battleship is destroyed, but the rest of the taskforce manages to escape.

July Year 57 of the Empire – The Empire and the Shara Daim reach an agreement, forming an alliance. The Empire obligated to help the Shara Daim against the Erasi invasion.

November Year 57 of the Empire – A large Erasi force is detected at the border of the Shara Daim: more than one hundred fleets move to reinforce the Erasi invasion.

July Year 58 of the Empire – The Erasi attack the Empire embassy on Tarabat.

September Year 58 of the Empire – The Shara Daim begin operations to retake their territory back from the Erasi. An Erasi stealth taskforce infiltrates Empire territory.

November Year 58 of the Empire – The Shara Daim, Empire, and the Erasi meet on neutral ground for negotiations. The Erasi break the truce and attempt to assassinate the Kar Daim and the Lord Sentinel. As the result the Empire joins the conflict fully on the side of the Shara Daim. At the same time, the Erasi taskforce in the Empire territory executes an attack on Sanctuary, killing millions of civilians and damaging the Hades Yards. Star-Guard station used for the first time, destroying the Erasi fleet.

December Year 58 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel of the Empire executes an advanced attack on the massive Erasi force, hoping to reduce their numbers before their invasion of Kaleras system. The attack is successful, but not enough. The Erasi force moves against Kaleras with overwhelming numbers. The defending Shara Daim and Empire forces fight a losing defensive battle. After days under siege, help from the Empire arrives in the form of the World-ship Enduring, the personal ship of Axull Darr. Adrian pilots the ship and destroys the Erasi force.

January Year 59 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel of the Empire uses the threat of the Enduring to force the Erasi out of the Orion spur. The Erasi agree to the truce under those terms and abandon all of their territory in the Orion Spur, and cede the control to the Shara Daim and the Empire.

Prologue

Year 42 of the Empire – Sanctuary

Jacob Kelly, the former leader of the Earth Resistance, woke inside his cell just as the lights turned on. The word “cell” was a bit misleading, as the rooms he had been living in were nothing like what the cells on Earth had looked like. His permanent residence consisted of three rooms: a small bathroom, a main room, and a training room. The main room held the bed he slept in, one chair, and a desk with a computer terminal. The training room was twice the size of the main room, with enough room for running and a couple of weightlifting machines.

And it had been his entire world for more than twenty years.

In the time since he had been imprisoned, Jacob hadn’t seen another person. He received his food and water through the slits in the wall, and over the years he had become convinced that the entire process was automated. The computer didn’t have access to any network; he could only access files already on the computer itself, which included a large library of books and a form of writing software which he tried to use, but eventually dropped.

It had taken him a long time to make peace with his sentence, and even longer to come to terms with his crime. When the fleet that had come to Earth’s rescue returned to Olympus—or the Empire, as it was called by then—Jacob was put on trial for his crimes in the Sol system. He was charged with treason and mass murder. Both charges were true, and Jacob had elected to admit his guilt and accept the sentence from the Empire. He had withheld information concerning the Ra’a’zani, which had indirectly led to the destruction of most of the Empire’s fleet and the death of almost the entire population of Earth. That action weighed heavily on him; but at his sentencing, it was made perfectly clear to him that he was not on trial for that crime.

After the Sol system had been won, Jacob had taken control of an old Olympus ship and fired on the mining installations in the Mars asteroid belt, killing thousands of humans who had been brought there as a slave workforce. He had done it because he’d known that those people could not survive without support from Earth, and that the Empire’s fleet was in no shape to take care of them. He’d known that they would try anyway, and in doing so they would endanger the survivors from Earth itself. So he’d done the only thing that would have ensured the survival of the remnants. His punishment was imprisonment, rather than execution; he had been put through the immortality treatment, which stopped him from aging, effectively making his imprisonment unending.

He knew that what he had done was monstrous—but to his mind, it was also merciful. He had spared the Empire from having to choose between a slow death for everyone, or the survival of the few. It was a terrible choice, and Jacob had made it fully expecting to be put to death for his crime.

And yet he still lived. In a way, it was a far crueler punishment, because Jacob was not truly a monster. He felt the weight of all those whose lives he had taken; their screams and accusing eyes haunted his dreams every time sleep came.

There were times when the guilt became too much, when he could not bear it anymore, when he was tempted to end his life. But every time he contemplated ending it, he remembered those accusing eyes from his dreams, and he knew that he didn’t deserve an easy way out. He would take his punishment; he would spend eternity inside these three rooms.

Jacob got up from the bed and started going through his usual routine: the bathroom, then training, then breakfast. After he finished in the bathroom, he went to the training room for his morning routine. He didn’t know if it was really morning, but he did have a clock on one of the walls which showed that it was 06:20. The lights in his rooms always turned on at 06:00 and shut off at 22:00. So he used those times for night and day.

But this time when he was finished with his morning routine, something happened. The wall in the main room slid open, and Jacob was looking at a figure, the first living being he had seen in decades. The figure was dressed in a black armor suit that covered its entire body, with a dark blue coat over it. There was a symbol etched on the armor’s chest: the back of a hand with an open eye drawn on it.

Jacob stared in shock as the figure approached him. Then, as it stopped in front of him, a voice spoke out of the armor.

“Jacob Kelly, I am here to give you a choice. You can stay in these rooms, spending eternity here as punishment for your crime. Or you can come with me, and start atoning for the deaths you caused, by serving the people of the Empire.”

Jacob’s heart pounded in his chest. He looked at the figure. He knew nothing about what the choice meant. But he did know that he owed it to those he’d killed to do something more than simply survive in an endless and pointless existence. He steeled himself, and gave his answer.

***

Year 112 of the Empire—planet Thorsius; Clan Gudólfr territory

Nkiruka held her brother’s body in her arms. His lifeless eyes pointed upward, staring into nothingness. All around her, chaos reigned. People were covered in dust, blood, and debris. Nkiruka closed her brother’s eyes, the movement bringing her attention to the gash on her arm and the red blood flowing over her dark skin. Somehow, the pain seemed far away, insignificant compared to the horror in front of her. A few meters away, she saw the body of her caretaker, the person that had raised Nkiruka along with her brothers and sisters. Around her were the bodies of her remaining siblings.

Her family group numbered seven. All were born from the progeny centers, all had different biological mothers and fathers, and yet they were a family, raised in the progeny programs by their caretaker. And now, on the day that they had finally reached their maturity, when they had been to set off into life to find their paths, their lives had ended. Nkiruka looked at the faces of her family; their bodies somehow didn’t seem real, their shapes twisted, red, and ugly. Her mind couldn’t reconcile the mangled flesh with the faces she had grown up with.

The courtyard was filled with the dead. Wails of those still alive echoed all around her, mingling with the cries of pain from those injured but still alive. Then people wearing armor with the symbol of the Hand of the Empire came. One of them gathered her up and took her to a med-car, which carried her to the hospital. Her mind was still filled with the images of her siblings and her friends as the medical personnel put her to sleep.

Hours—or days—later, Nkiruka woke, dazed from the drugs, hearing the voices of people talking just outside of her room.

“I can’t believe that this is happening here,” a female voice said. “This is Gudólfr territory, not the damned occupation zone.”

“I know, but ever since the Emperor allowed those from the occupation zone to join the Clans as individuals, we’ve been having an influx of people. And with all the resentment that the Erasi left behind, it was bound to happen,” a male voice spoke.

“The Lord Sentinel should’ve just destroyed them all.”

“You don’t mean that. They are people, like us. Only a small percentage have turned to terrorism.”

“I know, but seeing kids dead… It gets to me, you know?”

“Me, too. The Hand will catch them. They always do.”

“Yeah, but there are too few of them, they don’t always get them in time.”

“Maybe…go…if…” The voices grew muffled as the people walked away.

Nkiruka gazed at the ceiling, thinking about what they had said. She and her brother had wanted to join Clan Warpath together. They had been preparing for the tests, and now she couldn’t imagine doing that without him.

One image kept showing up in her mind: one of people dressed in armor moving through the wreckage—Agents of the Hand. There were too few of them, the voice had said. Perhaps Nkiruka could join them…and find and punish the people that had killed her family.

***

Year 563 of the Empire—colony world Santis; Clan Kazalir territory

Vasily was dying. Blood spilled from his stomach as he sat propped against the rock where his murderers had left him. He was so stupid. He knew that he was stupid. He should’ve listened to Robert when he told him that they should wait for the Hand, but no, he’d wanted to be a hero. He’d grabbed his hunting rifle and gone after the pirates. So stupid. And he had even convinced Robert to come with him, and now his lifeless eyes glared accusingly at him from the forest floor. The pirates had played with him, forcing Vasily to watch as they had broken all of his limbs before finally killing him.

And now Vasily was going to die on this backwater planet, alone in the forest, and his body would probably feed some animal after his passing. He shouldn’t have agreed to come here, not to a world so close to the occupation zone. He’d wanted excitement, and starting up a new colony had seemed like a good opportunity.

He heard something coming, and dread gripped him. He knew that he was going to die. His legs were broken and his stomach was cut open. However, he did not have a desire to be eaten by an animal while still alive. The noise came closer and closer, until finally he could see what it was.

It did not look like any of the animals from this world that he was familiar with. It stood upright, with large wings spreading behind it and a black, bone-like carapace growing out of its skin to cover most of its body. Its head looked eerily similar to that of a human’s.

“Help,” Vasily managed to rasp out. His mouth was dry and his voice cracked.

The being stepped closer and knelt in front of Vasily. One of its hands moved toward him, and two fingers pressed against his wound, making him hiss in pain. The being pulled its hand back and looked at his blood on its fingers, and Vasily saw the blood seep into them. Then its completely white eyes turned to Vasily, studying him.

“I am sorry,” the being said with emotion, and Vasily felt a pressure build up in his head. For a moment, it was as if he were not himself, as if something had been taken from him, and then it was gone. “I am sorry, Vasily,” the being said again, its voice sounding familiar now, and its body started to shift. The carapace retreated inside its body, the wings curled and collapsed on themselves, and the being’s features changed. And after it was finished, Vasily was looking at himself.

“Your wounds are too great to fix, but your death and your life will help my need,” the other him said. His hand moved over Vasily’s chest and started glowing with orange light. “This will hurt only for a moment.”

Vasily felt heat and a brief shock of pain, and then there was nothing.

Chapter One

Year 563 of the Empire; June—Sol—Olympus Mons

Administrator Gotu walked down the main hallway of the Sentinel Headquarters inside Olympus Mons. Walking beside him was a tall Sentinel—her dark skin and height made for a stark contrast to the pale skin of his people, the Nel, and betrayed her Shara Daim lineage. Around them the walls were lined with hundreds of symbols, flags, and crests of the races and empires that the Sentinels had encountered over the centuries—it made for an impressive sight. The two of them walked in silence, which was fine by Gotu, as it gave him time to think more about what he was going to say to the Lord Sentinel. He knew that Adrian would see the advantage of the technologies Gotu’s team had developed; the challenge was convincing him to convince the Fleet to have them developed further and then implemented into the mainline fleets, or have them replace the old technologies entirely. He didn’t want to see them delegated to special projects or used as support for the mainline when he knew that there was much greater potential if the technologies were adopted en masse.

He had brought the offers to the Fleet and the other Clans already, and all had refused them. The Empire’s industry had reached parity with the technologies of the People, and had improved on them in many aspects. But Gotu’s proposals would require something different: a step back, in a way, but one that he knew was necessary.

In many ways Gotu could understand why both the Fleet and the Clans refused, as changing their industry now would be a tremendous undertaking—to say nothing of the cost—all to change their warships for something that didn’t have the same proven history as their current ships of the line.

For hundreds of years, the compressed-matter-hull ships had reigned supreme. The might of the Sovereign-class warships allowed the Empire to smite any threat, to expand and dominate thousands of star systems. But an enemy existed that would require more than that. The Enlightened, three beings that were born as members of the People—predecessors of the Nel, Humans, and Shara Daim—now had become something else, bent on ending life in the galaxy for purposes unknown. They knew—and more importantly, had—all the technology of the People, the same technology that the Empire now relied on, and they had grown even more enhanced by bio-tech that not even the progenitor of the Nel, Humans, and Shara Daim—Axull Darr—could understand.

The Empire had enhanced the People’s technology—they had built weapons that they had never even imagined, aided by the knowledge from the sphere and the shadow of Axull Darr: a digital imprint of their ancestor’s memories. It was not really an AI; it was something more akin to a virtual intelligence. It could answer questions and hold conversations based on what Axull Darr himself would say. But Gotu knew that they couldn’t rely solely on that; they needed technology that the Enlightened didn’t understand, and had never encountered before. For that, Gotu knew, they needed to move in the direction of nanotechnology.

He only hoped that Adrian would see that. Gotu glanced at his companion—if there was anyone who could convince him, it would be her. Fortunately, Ryaana had been following Gotu’s research for decades and had just arrived in Sol from a long-term mission outside of the Empire, and when he had asked her to help him convince Adrian, she had agreed.

They reached Adrian’s office and the door opened, letting them in. Gotu was one of the few who had access and could enter unannounced. This time, however, Adrian knew that he was coming, as Gotu had made sure to schedule a meeting. The two of them entered a well-lit room that had a large wall-window at its far end that showed the view of the light-blue sky and the city of Mars Prime from the top of Olympus Mons. Gotu was told that the sky didn’t look quite like the one of the Humanity’s home—Earth—but it was close.

Adrian stood in the center of the room on a glowing, blue platform, his hands waving and swiping at the air around him, using his implant to project windows that only he could see. He could’ve turned on the holographic projector and had them visible to others, but there was no need when he was working alone.

Gotu and Ryaana stood patiently, waiting for a few minutes, until Adrian finally turned to look at them. The light at his feet dimmed and he stepped off the platform, walking over to meet them. He glanced at Ryaana, and his eyes narrowed for a brief instant—Gotu doubted that anyone who wasn’t a Nel or hadn’t known Adrian for more than five hundred years would’ve caught it. Gotu could already see Adrian thinking, wondering what she was doing here.

“So, Gotu,” Adrian began, turning to look at him, “what was it that you wanted to speak with me about?” Adrian asked as he gestured to the side of the room and two chairs put in front of a holo-desk. Adrian moved and took a seat behind the desk, with Ryaana and Gotu taking the two seats in front of it.

“I believe that you are familiar with my project?” Gotu asked.

“Yes.”

“I presented it to the Fleet, and several of the Clans. However, they passed on it. I was hoping that you could take a look and convince the Fleet to give it a chance.”

Adrian kept his face impassive—he didn’t answer immediately—and during the silence, Gotu had half-convinced himself that Adrian would refuse.

“Did you bring anything with you?” Adrian finally asked.

“Yes,” Gotu answered, and hastily brought out a small black cube from the pocket of his overcoat. He placed the datachip on the table, and almost immediately the air above the table filled with various windows.

Adrian efficiently and quickly looked through the data, and then paused on images of a ship. He moved the image to the side just enough so that he could see both Gotu and Ryaana.

“A prototype?” he asked.

“Yes; we named the class Erebus. We haven’t had the chance to test it as extensively as we wanted, but during the tests we did manage to run, it performed far above our expectations.”

Adrian nodded and continued looking, reading amazingly fast through the data. Eventually he reached the core of Gotu’s proposal, and he paused there for a while before meeting Gotu’s eyes again.

“I can see why they passed on this. You are asking for a lot.”

“We need it, Adrian—you know we do. If these technologies perform as we hope they will, it will change the game completely,” Gotu said.

“There is no guarantee that this would work against the Enlightened,” Adrian said.

“Neither will what we are currently using. And there is more, here.” Gotu reached with his implant and opened another file. “These are other projects, other classes that we could build. The Erebus is only the smallest—a proof of concept, if you will,” Gotu said, before quickly skimming through more of the list until he found the one he was looking for. An image of a massive spherical object now appeared, alongside dozens of graphs and comparison charts. “This alone would be worth it. Even one of the Hephaestus class would be a tremendous asset.”

Adrian turned his eyes to the data, studying it intensively. Finally, after several minutes, he sighed. “Even if everything works, if the cyber-warfare suit performs as you hope it will against unknown systems, these ships would still be weaker than our current ones class for class. In order for your stealth systems to work you must limit the power, and that then means either less weapon systems, or less powerful ones. And the hull will be weaker than compressed matter, forcing you to rely more on the shields, which can’t be engaged in stealth…and because of power restrictions, they would still be less powerful than those of other ships in their class.”

“Yes, but the other systems will make up for it. The stealth alone would be a valuable trade-off,” Gotu added.

Adrian glanced at Ryaana. “I assume that you are here to convince me? What do you think?”

“I agree with most of the Administrator Gotu’s propositions. While this might not be a sure thing for the future, it will give us a significant edge now. If we’d had an Erebus-class ship, I could’ve accomplished my mission without many difficulties,” Ryaana answered.

“This isn’t tested, Gotu,” Adrian told him.

“We did test the—” Gotu started, but Adrian stopped him with a raised hand.

“You tested it against our systems, and those of the Shara Daim, which are essentially the same. I know that you think that it will work against other systems just as well, but frankly it is too much to ask without extensive testing.”

“Then let me test it. Let me send the prototype to the Erasi territory,” Gotu said.

“And risk war if it fails?”

“The occupation zone, then—we can test it there just as well.”

“That would be against centuries-old Erasi tech—” Adrian stopped mid-sentence, his eyes glazing over in a way that told Gotu that he was talking privately with someone over the implant—most likely Iris, his AI. Adrian blinked and his eyes refocused on Gotu. “All right. Iris convinced me that there is merit to your proposition, and she has made me aware of an opportunity to test your ship in action.” Gotu beamed, not daring to question this sudden shift in tone. “Go—get the ship ready, and I’ll send you the information. Time is of the essence.”

***

Ryaana watched Gotu as he left the room, leaving her alone with the Lord Sentinel. In the end she hadn’t really contributed much to the argument; she assumed that Gotu had wanted moral support more than any actual help in convincing the Lord Sentinel, who could be very intimidating when he wanted to—although not to her.

She turned back and met his heavy gaze. He could make even the most powerful people in the Empire and outside of it squirm under his gaze, but it was completely useless against her. His mouth quirked upward in a quick smile, and his entire face changed from grim and foreboding to inviting and warm. He stood up and walked around the table. Ryaana did the same, and they embraced. They held each other for a long moment, before he leaned back and looked up at her fondly. Ryaana was of about average height for a Shara Daim, maybe a bit on the lower end at 232 centimeters, and he was about as tall as an above average Nel at 210 centimeters. He had been going through growth treatments over the last two hundred years, slowly adjusting his body. Ryaana knew that he wasn’t going to keep going—this size suited him just fine.

“So, you are back?” he said as he sat in the chair near her.

“Yes, I arrived a few hours ago,” Ryaana responded as she returned to her chair.

Now sitting on the same side of the table, she could study him more closely. His face looked the same, as young, as it always did. But his eyes were old, and there was a tiredness about them.

“And this is your first stop, I assume?” he asked knowingly.

Ryaana rolled her eyes at him. “It is.”

“You can’t keep avoiding her, Ry.”

“Sure I can, I just need to make sure never to enter Shara Radum’s system, and that will do it. She barely leaves it,” Ryaana said, harsher than she meant to.

“Your mother misses you, Ry.”

Ryaana snorted. “She misses telling me how wrong my choices are.”

“She loves you in her own way, Ryaana,” he said firmly.

“But she doesn’t approve of the way I live my life,” Ryaana said.

“She…” he began, then faltered, bringing his hands to rub his eyes. “You are the firstborn child of the Kar Daim. You were supposed to be her heir—when you were born, she had this idea of what you would be. When you chose a different path, it threw her. You need to sit down with her and clear the air. It’s been too long already, and I can’t serve as a go-between the two of you anymore. I’m your father—not your ambassador.”

“I’m not going to be roped into being her heir again. She can chose one of the twins for that. They actually enjoy all that crap,” Ryaana said.

“And she won’t try to. I made her promise me that she would let you make your own choices and be whoever you want to be,” her father said. “And your mother would not lie to me, Ry.”

“I know, Dad, and that only makes it more frustrating,” Ryaana said heavily. There were times when she really couldn’t figure out why her father was with her mother. Growing up, her mother—Kar Daim Anessa, ruler of the Shara Daim—had always seemed cold, distant even. Everyone looked at the two of them with awe and a bit of fear, the Kar Daim of the Shara Daim and the Lord Sentinel of the Empire, two of the most powerful people in the Shara Daim-Empire alliance. Yet to her they had always been Mom and Dad. Growing up, Ryaana had spent most of her time with her father; her mother had been too busy leading the Shara Daim, who had been recovering from war.

She had been taught by the best teachers from both the Empire and the Shara Daim, raised mostly on the World-ship Enduring, and later at the palaces of Olympus Mons and Shara Radum. And she had hated living on Shara Radum; it felt as if she was suffocating there. The staff and the people of the Shara Daim waited on her every need and want, all looking to gain her mother’s favor through her. In contrast, in the halls of Olympus Mons, she was free. The Sentinels didn’t care to indulge her every whim—they looked after her, sure, but not because of whose daughter she was, but because she was still young and inexperienced. And she had fallen in love with their stories about other races, about exploration outside the borders of the Empire.

The happiest day of her life was when she managed to convince her parents to let her try and become one. Even then she knew that her mother wasn’t all that happy with the decision, but she was too busy with ruling to take an interest, and she believed that it would be good experience for the future, for a time when Ryaana might inherit—a time that might never come. Her mother, like her father, didn’t age, which meant that she would have most likely never succeeded her mother regardless. Yet at the time of Ryaana’s birth, Shara Daim had not been as stable as it was today, her mother’s rule not as established and certain. The people needed to know that there was an heir, and when Ryaana was born, she had been thrust into that role. A role that she had never wanted.

And Ryaana had served dutifully in that role for hundreds of years. Touring the Shara Daim worlds, reinforcing her mother’s rule, learning politics and ruling from the best teachers…but never her mother herself. At best she could have hoped to have her to herself for a day or two every few months or perhaps once a year, but Shara Daim always came first to her mother, and she had of course assumed that the same mindset would apply to Ryaana. Perhaps that was why they never really had as close of a relationship: to Ryaana, her mother was just the person who had given birth to her and somehow believed that that gave her the right to choose the way that Ryaana lived her life.

Ryaana still remembered the day when she finished her Sentinel training, some thirty-five years ago, when she had told her mother that she wanted to continue and serve as a Sentinel instead of coming back to Shara Radum. Her mother had crushed every piece of furniture around her to pieces in an instant.

“I can’t talk to her,” Ryaana complained. “Every time I try, we fight.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed at her, and she could see a spark of anger in them. She held her breath and waited.

“The two of you have been feuding for thirty years, Ryaana,” he said softly. “And I will not allow for our family to remain split any longer. Our life spans might allow us the luxury of time, but enough is enough. You are coming home with me tonight, and I will make the two of you speak to each other—civilly.” Her father rarely raised his voice; he rarely even got angry. But Ryaana and her siblings had learned long ago that it was not yelling that one needed to fear from her father, but rather it was when he spoke softly and slowly, dragging out every word out so that it was impossible for anyone to mishear anything.

Ryaana lowered her gaze to look at her palms. “She resents me, Dad,” Ryaana whispered.

“She does not resent you,” she heard her father say.

Ryaana shook her head. “Yes, she does. She resents that I chose to follow in your footsteps instead of hers. That I chose the Empire over the Shara Daim.”

Ryaana heard him stand and walk over to her, and she raised her eyes to see him kneeling in front of her and grasping her hands in his. “I’m not going to lie to you, Ryaana,” he said. “Your mother was…disappointed, yes, and she did not react as well as she should’ve. And she is proud. It is not easy for her to admit when she is wrong. But she does miss you, and I know that she wants to repair the relationship between you. Both her and I made mistakes. You were our first child, and we were in a period of time where our responsibilities often forced us to choose between you and other matters. You’ve inherited a lot from your mother—”

“Except for my eyes,” Ryaana interrupted. Her physical appearance was much like that of a Shara Daim, except for her eyes, which most definitely looked human with whites surrounding her brown irises, instead of the Shara Daim black.

Her father smiled affectionately. “Except for your eyes,” he agreed. “But that did make it easier for your mother to assume that you would follow the path of the Shara Daim. She knows that it was a mistake to assume that, and she wants to make things right between you.”

“All right,” Ryaana said. “I’ll come, but I won’t promise that it won’t end the same as the last time we spoke.”

Her father squeezed her hand. “That is all I ask.” He stood up, and then walked around the table to take a seat in his chair.

Ryaana took a deep breath and calmed herself as she looked at her father, who was studying her. The fact that he had returned to his previous place behind the table meant that family time was over. Now they would have a much different conversation.

“Report, Sentinel,” the Lord Sentinel said.

“The mission was somewhat successful. We managed to infiltrate the Erasi territory beyond their designated trade systems, and obtain some intel about what had been going on inside their territory and in their galactic arm,” Ryaana said. She had been a part of an extended six-year-long mission into Erasi territory, the purpose of which had been to find out anything about what had been going on inside it for the last four hundred years. A bit after the war with the Erasi had ended, they had slowly started limiting the information that escaped out of their territory, until finally they had managed to keep everything out. They denied entry to their territory, except at designated systems where trade with other star-states occurred, though it was highly monitored and carried with it strict information restrictions.

The Empire had their stealth ships inside monitoring their systems, but prior to the establishment of the Erasi isolation, they had been detected, and the Erasi had threatened hostilities if any Empire or Shara Daim ship were to be found inside their territory. And while the Empire had the Enduring, neither the Emperor nor the Kar Daim wanted to restart the war; they had been too busy trying to keep the former Erasi territory from ripping itself apart after the Erasi had left.

Ryaana’s mission had been to infiltrate Erasi territory and gather intel. She had a team comprised of seven members, all of whom were from races that were a part of the Erasi—those that had stayed in the territory that the Erasi abandoned, or those were descended from those who had stayed. They had all been a part of the Empire, as it allowed for individuals to become members.

The Empire had stopped accepting other races as full members and turning them into Clans; instead, additions into the Empire were made strictly on an individual basis. Although there were rare cases where entire races joined, they were not admitted as full members, but more as vassals to an already existing Clan.

“What have you learned?” he asked.

“A lot actually, and not nearly enough,” Ryaana replied. Her team had performed the role of an Erasi trader from one of their more backward systems on their border, one that had their permission to trade with other star-states. It had taken the Empire a long time to obtain an adequate ship and codes so that they could pass an inspection, and even more to get the identifications for her crew. She, on the other hand, couldn’t have passed any inspection; the Erasi did not allow any non-Erasi race inside, which meant that she had spent most of her time on the ship in the hidden room designed to keep her presence a secret.

It might’ve been safer to send a crew that comprised only out of races that were considered Erasi—a point she herself had made—but there was no way of knowing what they would find. And a Sentinel on site was required to make decisions. Not to mention that while many races had some ability with the Sha, none were as powerful as the Shara Daim, Nel, or humans. Ryaana was there for the crew’s safety, and they also needed her if they were to perform a mind probe on an Erasi.

“The atmosphere among their people is grim, and almost no one was willing to share any information. They have all been ordered not to—even among themselves, they were not supposed to discuss anything. And the impression we got was that any breach was punished severely. We spent the first three years and learned nearly nothing, so we focused on building a reputation among the traders. Eventually we were allowed to move deeper and deeper into the Erasi territory.”

Ryaana raised an eyebrow. “That is when things got more interesting. We managed to gain entry to one of their outer core systems, a large shipbuilding and material-processing system. We were able to get passive scans of a lot of their yards, all of which were filled.” Ryaana keyed the holo-projector on her wrist-unit with her implant and a series of images appeared above her forearm. “About two-thirds of the yards we observed were occupied by new constructions, but the rest were filled with damaged ships going through repairs or possibly full retrofits.”

Her father looked at the images closely. “New class?” he asked as he reached the image with a much larger ship. The Erasi had always kept the shape of their ships the same, even when designing new models: all were saucer shaped, except for their Devastator class, which was more of an elongated saucer.

Ryaana nodded. “These are the same shape as their Devastator class, but almost four times the size.”

“That would put them at what? About thirty-three kilometers?” he asked.

“That is what we extrapolated from the images.”

“Damn, that’s more than half the size of a Sovereign,” he said. The Sovereign-class warships were the greatest warships the Empire had produced. Based in part on the technology of World-ship Enduring and human weapon technology, they were the core of Empire fleets. But they were extremely costly to build— the Empire only had sixteen of them, and Shara Daim only twelve.

“Do we know how many they have?” he asked.

“No.”

He nodded. “You have confirmation?”

“Yes. The Erasi are planning something—there is a clear indication of military buildup,” Ryaana said. “We learned that they had been in a long-standing conflict on their rimward border with a race they call the Krashin. And it seems that the force they used to attack the Shara Daim during the war was pulled from that border. Krashin had attacked not long after the ending of our war with the Erasi.”

“So they have been at war for over four hundred years…”

“Yes; and we did manage to get some records of that war, they are in my report,” Ryaana said. “We know that the Erasi lost a lot of systems in the initial invasion by the Krashin, but have since then retaken a great majority of them, although not all, and it seems that the war front has mostly stalled now and the fighting has become sparse. The full-blown war had tapered off some sixty years ago. Most people we encountered willing to discuss it seemed to think that the Erasi were preparing for another big push against the Krashin. But there have been some smaller internal conflicts, system rebellions and such—but those are usually squashed easily. And we managed to confirm our suspicions. The Erasi have skim drives comparable to our fourth-generation drives. As we moved away from the border and into their core, we encountered ships equipped with more powerful drives.”

“We always knew that would happen eventually. It took them barely half a decade to invent their own type of skim drives. And if they have been at war against an opponent of equal or greater power for the past four hundred years, it means that they must’ve advanced significantly,” he said.

Ryaana nodded, agreeing. The lead Empire experts all agreed that advancement was directly influenced by the amount of obstacles or conflict in a civilization’s path. Races that lived through conflict advanced faster than those that had no such obstacles or threats. Humanity had been one of the races that had advanced incredibly fast due to its turbulent past and struggle, while for some races like the People, for example, it took a much longer time to achieve as much.

“We have some data about their military technology. Not as much as I wanted, but enough that we can get a sense about where the Erasi stand now,” Ryaana said.

“Good. I’ll review your report as soon as I get a chance,” he said. “For now you should report to Hayashi for a more in-depth debriefing. I’ll let him know that you are coming.”

Ryaana sighed, holding back her annoyance she nodded. “Understood, Lord Sentinel.”

She stood and turned around to leave when her father called after her. “And make sure that you are free tonight. I’ll let your mother know that you will be coming home with me.”

Ryaana winced—she’d almost forgotten that she had promised to go home with her father. “Of course.”

Chapter Two

Olympus Mons

Adrian watched as his daughter walked out of his office. Her return had removed a great worry, although he wouldn’t ever tell her that. It had taken almost everything for him to retrain himself and not rush out to meet her the moment she arrived in Sol. He had of course known the moment her ship entered the Empire’s territory, but he would’ve never had embarrassed her by acting like an overbearing father. She was a strong woman in her own right—a Sentinel. She wasn’t young by any stretch of imagination, either, and she had achieved much in her life. She had ruled planets, delegated with star-nations, fought in battles.

Yet to him, she was still the little girl that loved sitting on his shoulders. There were times when Adrian missed those few fleeting years when she was a child, when she had depended on him for everything. They had passed too fast for him to truly enjoy them.

He shook his head, dismissing the thoughts. There was no point in dwelling on the past, and his daughter had returned safely. Adrian leaned back in his chair for a moment, and then turned his thoughts to Gotu and his prototype ship. He had known everything about the project long before Gotu had gathered the courage to bring it to him—he was in fact the one that had made sure that the project got on Gotu’s desk in the first place. And he did see the value in the technology, and had plans to utilize it. He just needed a bit more time. Iris had let him know of an opportunity to test the ship, so he had opened a window on his holo-table and input a code that only he knew. A new window had appeared in front of him with the crest of the Hand of the Empire, signaling that a secure link had been established. Adrian had waited for a few minutes, until finally the crest disappeared and a person wearing the armor of the Hand had greeted him.

“Lord Sentinel,” the leader of the Hand of the Empire said through his armor, his voice modulated. With the new relay network covering the entirety of the Empire’s and Shara Daim territory, calls across their territory could be made in real time.

“Thank you for taking my call,” Adrian had said. The knowledge of this link was a secret known only to Adrian and Hayashi—the second in command of the Sentinels. No one should be able to get in contact with the leader of the Hand of the Empire; by design, no one even knew who he or she was. But the nature of the Sentinels and the Hand of the Empire, had made it necessary for their organizations to work closely together. The link was a way for their leadership to communicate directly instead of going through the lower-ranked people, which they still did for the most part. And then there was the fact that the Hand of the Empire was a check on the Emperor’s power, the same way that the Sentinels were.

And Adrian had put together the pieces of who the leader of the Hand was a long time ago. Elias Bakas, once the best friend of Tomas Klein, the Emperor, and now presumed long dead. He had never told anyone that he knew, of course, not even to Elias himself, although Adrian suspected that Elias was aware. “I need the help of the Hand.”

The figure nodded. “What can we do for the left hand of the Empire?” he asked.

Adrian smiled at the term—even through the modular voice he could hear the humor in the man’s voice. The Hand of the Empire had been designed as a chain that bound all of the Empire together. They were the ones that made sure that the codes of the Empire were honored across the Clans. While Clans could have different laws, they could not have laws that were in conflict with the codes of the Empire. The Hand was the ultimate authority in the Empire: they were law keepers and enforcers, mediators between the clans, and executioners. The Hand’s influence was strictly confined only to the matters concerning the citizens of the Empire inside its borders. Because of that, the people of the Empire had started calling the organization “the right hand of the Empire.”

On the other side, the Sentinels were the ones that were in charge of everything outside of the Empire’s borders: first contacts, negotiating with foreign star nations, exploration, spying, and assessment of threats. And over the years the people had similarly started calling the Sentinels “the left hand of the Empire.”

“We need help with a prototype stealth ship. In particular, we need its systems tested. And I was made aware of one of your operations that would suit it perfectly.”

“Which one?”

“You have received an emergency message from one of our colonies near the occupation zone—Santis.”

“A moment,” Elias said, turning his head, likely to look at something off screen. “Ah… May I ask how you knew about this? The teams working in that sector have yet to review it.”

“The copy of the message passed through the Sol relay on its way to the Hand’s headquarters,” Adrian said. After the war with the Erasi, when a large portion of their territory had fallen under the control of the Empire and the Shara Daim, the Sentinels and the Hand had been forced to work together. The territory was technically under the jurisdiction of the Hand, but they hadn’t had the manpower nor the means to control the situation.

So the Sentinels had stepped in to help. The occupation zone had quickly become a massive area of lawlessness and piracy. The Erasi withdrawal had caused the collapse of most of the systems, and it had taken almost two hundred years for things to settle. But there were still problems, and the one that stood out the most was piracy.

“I assume that you believe that it is a legitimate lead, then?”

“Iris seems to think so. I was hoping that you would agree to send your investigators aboard my ship. If you find something, the ship should prove a great asset,” Adrian said.

“Are you sure about this? If this lead turns out to be something of significance, it will be our first real achievement in a long time. Are you really willing to let an untested ship take the front?”

Adrian waved with his hand in a Nel sign of confidence. “This ship is fully capable of dealing with the pirates even if its advanced systems don’t work as we hope. The pirates have never shown anything within even five generations of this ship.”

“Very well. I have no objections. I’ll brief and send my inquisitors to Sol.”

“Thank you.”

Elias nodded and closed the link, and Adrian did the same on his end. He then sent a more detailed instructions to Gotu concerning the Hand. With that finished, he turned to the more in-depth report his daughter had forwarded him concerning her mission into Erasi territory. He skimmed over it, seeing just how much content there was. She had, after all, been writing it for ten years—everything her team had learned during that period was in there. It would take him months, maybe more, to go through it all, but thankfully he could speed that up a bit.

On the left side of his table stood a small, rod-like device with a palm-sized orb as its head. Adrian put his hand over it and used his implant to start the transfer of the data directly into his mind. The transfer of electronic information to thoughts—or, more precisely, memories—was a technology they had developed by studying a similar technology from the People. He wouldn’t immediately just know what was in the report, but all of that data would be stored inside his brain, and he could call up on it inside his mind and digest it faster than reading it directly. After the transfer was done, he leaned back in his chair and focused, moving inside of his mind and into his construct.

It had changed significantly over the years, but the main chamber which connected to all the others was the same. A large, dome-shaped cave, with a small platform in the center. He appeared in the center, on the platform as he always did, and then he walked over to the wall of the cave. As he approached, the perfect wall fell away, and he stepped into another room.

It was a smaller room, five by five meters, and it was empty save for a holo-table in the middle. Adrian sat at the table and brought out the report from his mind. Inside the construct, time flew slightly faster, but still not fast enough for him to make any real headway with the report. So he focused, and brought his construct into his mindspace.

The mindspace was his unique ability. It allowed him many things, but there was one that was most important: he could increase his mind’s processing power to the point where minutes in the real world passed as days in his mindspace. And he had learned how to push his construct, which was an ability derived from his telepathy, into his mindspace, which was a natural evolution of the human brain.

Once he had done so, he started reading.

Chapter Three

Sanctuary

Jacob walked into the office, followed closely by his partner Nkiruka. They walked to the middle of the room and stopped, waiting for their superior sitting at the table at the end of the room to acknowledge them. Elias Bakas, the leader of the Hand, swiped his hand above his table and dismissed the several windows hovering there.

“Inquisitors, come sit,” he said.

Jacob and Nkiruka obliged. Inside the headquarters of the Hand, no one wore their armor; it was one of few places where they were free to do so. The agents of the Hand always wore armor otherwise, as to the public they weren’t individuals, but rather a symbol.

After the two of them took their seats, Elias opened a map of the Empire. “I have a mission for you,” he said. “Two days ago we received a message from a new colony world, Santis, Clan Kazalir, saying that they had detected what might be a pirate presence on the planet. The message was queued for a patrol to be sent once one was available.” He paused. “However, a day ago we received a follow up. Two of the colonists moved to investigate. One was killed, but the other survived. We now have confirmation that there are pirates operating out from this world.”

“Pardon, sir,” Nkiruka said, “but this doesn’t really seem like something that requires inquisitors.”

“Ordinarily you would be right,” Elias said, “but there has been a suspicious amount of reports coming from this sector—ghost signals, mostly. Although there has never been an attack in this area, we did send patrols to investigate. None ever found anything. But now our people believe that this area might be home base for the pirates.”

“The pirates have never struck out at the territory that belonged to the Clans,” Nkiruka said skeptically. “They have been very careful not to attack outside of the occupation zone. It makes no sense that their base is in Clan territory.”

Jacob nodded, agreeing. The Erasi departure from the territory they previously held had birthed the piracy which ran rampant throughout that sector. But it had also birthed the more radical, terrorist element, calling themselves a “liberation force.” While the pirates operated exclusively in the occupation zone, attacking both the Empire, Shara Daim and the former Erasi targets, the liberation force exclusively attacked Empire and Shara Daim targets, moving even into their territory.

The pirates caused mayhem and chaos in the occupation zone, harming the Empire and Shara Daim efforts to integrate the sector. And the liberation force harmed the citizens of the Empire and Shara Daim living in the occupation zone. While the Hand was almost certain that the two acted in concert, and were backed by the Erasi themselves, there was no proof.

And that was what the Hand had been looking for a long time.

Elias shook his head. “It actually does make sense, if you remember that when the pirates began operating in the occupation zone, that area wasn’t a part of the Empire.”

Elias waved his hand and a map of the Empire appeared, then zoomed in to show the occupation zone and Clan Kazalir’s territory. “As you can see,” Elias started, “this area is extremely well placed as a base of operations. It is far enough from the occupation zone to evade detection by our patrols, and placed perfectly on several trans-routes leading to the occupation zone. It would explain why we haven’t been able to find their main base.”

Jacob shook his head dubiously. “Why haven’t we discovered them sooner?” Jacob asked. “Clan Kazalir had presence in that area for a long time.”

“They had claimed the area a long time ago,” Elias clarified. “They had only a few outposts and some mining operations. They’ve just now started putting colonists on the planets. I need you to go and investigate. Find the pirates, if there are any, and learn where their base of operations is.”

“You don’t think that this is it?” Nkiruka asked.

“The colonists hadn’t detected any traffic in the system; if it was their base, there would’ve been more signs. No, I think that it might be a depot of some kind, which is why I am sending you two. Find out if there is any pirate presence on that world, and if there is, eliminate it and recover any salient information.”

“Yes, sir,” Jacob said, and both he and Nkiruka stood up.

“I have a transport ready to take you to Sol. You will meet the ship that will take you to Santis there.”

The two saluted, and left.

***

Two days later, their transport’s shields glowed as it slowly lowered itself into the corona of the sun in the Nelus system. As they dropped lower and lower, a small sphere of blue light became visible. The transport approached, reaching it and passing through the blue light into the protected area. The transport’s shields disappeared as they entered the area protected by the massive shield that surrounded the access point.

A ring, large enough for entire stations to pass through, loomed in front of the ship, making it look tiny. The transport got in lane with dozens of other ships waiting moving toward the ring. As they reached the ring, they passed through the nothingness that pervaded it, and entered a strange space. Jacob knew that if the transport had windows, and if he were too look outside, he would see nothing. The access points compressed space and time to a single point—the inside of each ring occupied the same space. The Empire wasn’t yet sure how it worked, but that did not prevent them from using it. Once inside a ring, a ship only needed to send an access code for the ring they wanted to exit out of. The rest of the trip was nearly instantaneous. They hadn’t spent more than a few seconds inside the ring before they exited into Sol. The transport continued on its way outside of the Sun and toward the Jupiter yards, where Jacob and Nkiruka were supposed to meet their ride.

Several hours later they arrived at the docking berth at the Jupiter yards, and Jacob noticed two people walking toward them. A Trivaxian wearing the uniform of a Warpath Ship Master, and a Furvor who appeared to be his second in command. As soon as they reached them, the Ship Master inclined his head and spoke.

“Inquisitors, welcome. I am Ship Master Quas, and this is my second in command, Hassal. My crew and our ship is at your disposal for the duration of your mission. I was told that your mission is time sensitive, so we should move to the Erebus as soon as possible.”

“We are ready,” Jacob’s modulated voice came through his suit’s speakers. “If you could only have someone bring our gear from the transport?”

“Of course.” Quas turned to his second in command, and the much taller Furvor tilted her head and her eyes lost focus, which was an obvious indicator that she was using her implants.

“The crew will see to it,” Hassal said after a moment.

“Well, then, lead the way,” Jacob said, and followed as the Ship Master escorted them.

“I’m surprised you came to meet us,” Nkiruka said after a minute.

“There isn’t much for us to do on the ship right now. The crew is doing their final checks, and frankly we had been cooped up on Erebus for too long,” Ship Master Quas said.

“Did your ship require a retrofit?” Jacob asked.

“No, no… It’s a new type of a ship. This mission is supposed to be a live test.”

“A new type of ship?” Nkiruka asked.

“You’ll see… Ah, there it is,” Quas said, pointing through the large viewing windows with his lower arm.

Jacob followed the arm’s movement, and found the ship immediately. It stood out too much. It wasn’t very big, not by the standards of the Fleet—Jacob’s implant put it somewhere at around six hundred meters, making it barely a frigate. Its hull was completely smooth and silvery; it seemed solid, yet there was something about it that gave it an unreal look. There didn’t seem to be any imperfection in its bullet shape. There were no hatches, no weapons, nothing at all. Jacob glanced at Nkiruka and she glanced back at him. Their helmets prevented direct eye contact, but the two of them had been partners for a long time, and he could see that she was wondering the same thing.

They walked over to the airlock that was supposed to connect to the ship. Once inside, Jacob noticed that the tunnel ended some five meters before meeting the hull of the ship. And just as he was about to ask the Ship Master about how they were going to enter the ship, the hull moved. A piece of the hull seemed to flow away and reach over to engulf the airlock they were standing in. A few moments later, Jacob could see a tunnel leading into the ship.

The door opened and they stepped through.

“What is this?” Jacob asked as he studied the walls of the tunnel. They were the same color as the outside of the ship, and were completely smooth.

“This is a nano-ship. Most of the ship is made from nanites, except for the core,” Quas said. “The nanites surround the core—the command hub of the ship. They can change their structure to create most anything we need, from weapons, to—as you have seen—an access tunnel.”

Jacob looked in front of them. The tunnel seemed to keep going far deeper into the ship than he imagined it would need to. They walked for at least seventy meters until they finally reached a door, meaning that all around them was a sea of nanites. At the end of the tunnel, Jacob could tell that the hatch, at least, was not made out of nanites like the rest of the ship. This was solid plate—compressed hull, if he wasn’t mistaken. The door opened and they entered into what Jacob considered a more traditional ship interior.

“Hassal can give you a tour of the ship, and show you to your quarters. We can leave as soon as your gear is onboard, unless you have other business?” Quas asked.

“No. We should be on our way as soon as possible,” Nkiruka said.

“Very well,” Quas said. “I will be in the command center if you need me.”

Chapter Four

Sol—Olympus Mons

Ryaana fidgeted in her seat as the transport she and her father were on passed through the Sol access point and into Shara Radum. She had gotten a bit of a reprieve; her father had an emergency and hadn’t been able to go home with her. So, she had spent a few more days in Olympus Mons, being debriefed and seeing the friends she hadn’t been in touch with for years. Her father had tried to get her to go alone, but she had refused. It wasn’t like she was scared of her mother—but she wasn’t going to go face her alone, no matter what her father said about her supposed change of heart.

Their transport exited from Sol and entered the Shara Radum system, skimming to the planet. It was her father’s private transport, so it was allowed down to the planet without much delay. With the access points, the trip between Mars in Sol and Shara Radum took barely an hour, which is how her father could work in Sol and live in the palace on Shara Radum with her mother. The transport landed in on the palace grounds and the two of them exited and made their way to the palace proper.

Her father led the way through the palace and toward the family wing. The staff and guards they encountered bowed deeply as they passed, reminding Ryaana that to them she was still the heir to the Kar Daim. They reached the doors leading into one of the family living rooms, and they entered.

As soon as Ryaana stepped in the room, she was tackled to the ground by a half-a-ton beast.

“Hello, Sora!” Ryaana said to the wolion as she snuggled in her neck. She reached over and petted her for a moment, and the wolion stepped back, letting Ryaana up.

“Ry!” two voices at the same time called from the other side of the room.

Ryaana turned toward them and smiled as she saw the twins, her younger brother and sister. “Kane! Vaana!” she exclaimed, walking over to give them both a hug.

After a moment she leaned back and looked at them. “What’s up with the hair?” she asked them. Her sister’s hair was half dark red and half dark blue, split down the middle.

“I’m trying new things,” Vaana answered.

“I like it,” Ryaana said as she admired her sister’s shoulder-length hair. She glanced at her brother and raised an eyebrow in question at his natural black hair color. The two of them never did anything without the other doing the same.

“Mine was green last week. I’m trying to decide which color I want next,” Kane said.

Ryaana shook her head at them, and then she looked around the room.

“So…where’s mother?” she asked finally.

The twins looked at each other, and then at their father, who was standing behind Ryaana.

“She is in a meeting. It shouldn’t be much longer,” Kane said.

Ryaana sighed. She had been ready to face her mother as soon as she stepped into the palace. She should’ve known that her mother would again put her duty to the Shara Daim over her. Ryaana shook her head, dismissing that thought; she didn’t really mean it. She knew that her mother had a duty, she understood that, it was that she just didn’t want any part of it.

She turned to her siblings and smiled.

“Come, let’s sit, and you can tell me all that has been happening while I’ve been gone.”

***

Speaking with her siblings and listening to their stories only served to illustrate how truly different from them Ryaana was. The twins loved being Shara Daim, they loved serving as Dai Sha, ruling over entire sectors of Shara Daim space and commanding fleets. Ryaana had hated that—she didn’t want to be responsible for worlds filled with billions. For the twins, ruling came as naturally as breathing. She listened as they spoke of their mother, and she noticed the way they spoke about her. They had had a much different mother than Ryaana had.

When she had been born, the Shara Daim had needed her mother, and her mother had chosen the Shara Daim over her. Not that she had been abandoned completely—her mother had taken some time to spend with Ryaana, but such happenings had been rare. She had very few childhood memories of days spent with her mother. She had always spent more time with her father, who, while busy as well, had always taken her with him when he could. She had spent more time sitting quietly in meetings he’d had with his Sentinels than actually spending alone time with him, but at least he had tried. The twins had been born much later, when both her parents could afford them more time.

Ryaana knew that most of her life had been her trying to please her mother, to make her proud, hoping that she would at least once put her before the Shara Daim. It was why she had spent so much of her earlier life following in her mother’s footsteps. She had trained and became a Dai Sha, just like her mother. The day when she was accepted into the order had been the one time her mother had actually told her that she was proud of her. And so, Ryaana had continued doing everything her mother wanted: she studied under every tutor the Kar Daim sent, she ruled in her mother’s name, served as a visible symbol of the Shara Daim to the remote sectors…

Until, one day, she realized that she didn’t want it. She didn’t feel comfortable amongst the Shara Daim. Their values were not her values—she had always felt much more comfortable in Sol, amongst the Sentinels, where race had no meaning, where only one’s achievements mattered. For her mother’s people it was all about the Shara Daim. It had changed a lot over the years, largely in part because of her mother; they traded with other races, and there were even some races from the Empire that worked and lived in the Shara Daim. But it was not the same as in the Empire, not yet.

Their conversation came to a halt when their mother walked in. The twins glanced at their father, who had been silently listening in on the conversation, and they then stood up, looking apologetically at Ryaana.

“We better leave you alone to talk,” Kane said, and the two left the room, leaving Ryaana alone with her parents.

Ryaana studied her mother as she walked over to stand near the chair her father was sitting on, putting a hand on his shoulder. She hadn’t changed, of course. No one in the Shara Daim or the Empire aged past their prime. A part of Ryaana had hoped that when she looked at her mother’s face for the first time in thirty years she would have seen something other than the unmoving Kar Daim Anessa of the Shara Daim, that perhaps her eyes would be softer. Or perhaps that she would grant a smile for her firstborn daughter.

There were none of those things. Her mother was the same as she remembered her.

The two studied each other for a moment, until finally her mother spoke. “Daughter, welcome home.”

Ryaana waited for a beat, hoping that she would say something more, but she didn’t.

“That’s it?” Ryaana asked, standing up and glaring at her mother. “Thirty years and I get only a welcome home?”

She heard her father sigh in exasperation, but Ryaana kept glaring at her mother.

“And what did you want?” her mother asked.

“An apology would be a start.”

“You want me to apologize for you abandoning your duty?” her mother said loudly.

“Ah, so that’s it! You are still mad that I left the Dai Sha!” Ryaana said.

“To be a Dai Sha is an honor without peer. No true Shara Daim would ever dare dishonor that.”

“Even among the Dai Sha, all everyone saw when they looked at me was you, your heir!”

“A Shara Daim would shoulder anything for the good of their people. You had an obligation to your people.”

“Again you oh-so conveniently forget that I am only half Shara Daim. I am half human, too, and humanity and the Empire are my people as well. You just assumed that that part of me didn’t matter, that I would do what you wanted because I had no other choice!”

Her mother’s eyes blazed, and Ryaana felt her anger. She steeled herself for another screaming match.

“Enough!” The word slammed inside her head past all of her defenses and made her wince. Across from her, Ryaana could see her mother do the same, then turn to glare at her father.

Ryaana turned to look at her father as if seeing him for the first time. He had never before used Sha against Ryaana. She had never even seen him use his full abilities. She had heard stories, of course, read the reports of his battles, but she could never see him the way that he was described. Cold, calculating, powerful. To her he had always been a father who never missed the chance to let her know how much he cared about her.

Now, he looked much different. He stood up, his face void of any emotion and appearing eerily similar to that of her mother. He wasn’t as tall as her mother, or Ryaana for that matter, but in that moment he seemed to tower above them both.

He looked at Ryaana’s mother. “We’ve talked about this, Anessa.”

Her mother glared back at him, and for a moment Ryaana feared that they would fight each other. But then Sora appeared at her mother’s side and leaned her snout in her hand. Her mother looked down and she seemed to calm down instantly as she scratched the wolion behind her ears. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The pressure around her disappeared, and her father looked at them both for a moment and then spoke into the silence. “Now, both of you, talk like adults.”

Ryaana and her mother looked at each other for a moment. After a few seconds of awkward silence, her mother’s face relaxed, and for the first time ever Ryaana saw uncertainty and even fear in her mother’s eyes.

“I’m sorry Ryaana,” her mother said, shocking Ryaana speechless. She had hoped, but never really believed, that she would hear those words from her mother.

“I hadn’t reacted as well as I could’ve,” her mother continued, “but I will not lie to you. I am—was, disappointed. Like any parent, I wanted my child to follow in my footsteps, and I wanted the things that matter to me to matter to you as well. I have come to realize that it was unfair of me to push you the way I did. That it was hard on you growing up with both of your parents absent, that I should’ve made more time for you. But I had my duty toward all the Shara Daim. I can’t change the past, nor can I force you to do as I want. I realize that now.”

Ryaana looked at her mother as if she were a stranger—though Ryaana supposed she was, in a strange way. She was tempted to try and pinch herself to see whether she was dreaming. “Thank you for saying that,” Ryaana said finally.

Her mother stood and walked over to Ryaana, then reached slowly around her and embraced her. In a confused panic, Ryaana looked over her mother’s shoulder at her father, who just smiled at her. Then after a moment she returned her mother’s embrace.

“I am truly sorry for the way things have become between us,” her mother whispered in her ear. “I promise that I will do better.”

“Me, too,” Ryaana whispered back.

Chapter Five

Clan Kazalir territory—colony world Santis

Quas sat in his command chair on board the Erebus as the ship dropped out of hyperspace and into the system. “Report,” he said.

“Nothing on long-range scans. The system is clear—we’ve got a link with the colony,” Hassal said.

“Let them know that we will be reaching orbit soon, and that the Hand will be on their way,” Quas replied.

Hassal opened a channel to the colony and informed them of Erebus’s arrival.

“Skim us to the planet,” Quas ordered. “And let the Inquisitors know that we will be in orbit soon.”

***

Jacob and Nkiruka sat in the Erebus’s shuttle as it took them down to the surface. Both of them had taken their trunks with extra gear with them down to the colony, as they would be staying on the surface as they conducted their investigation. Jacob had already read up on the incident, and the lone survivor, Vasily.

The man was in his late twenties, and his Sha rating was below average overall—low on telepathy, slightly above average in telekinesis. Served two years in the Kazalir army before getting out and joining the colony program. He was supposed to serve as a hunter and general security for the colony until it was developed enough for the Kazalir enforcement to build an office.

The report on the pirates was a bit lacking, but Jacob had learned long ago to wait until after he spoke with a person of interest before forming any opinions. The man had lost a friend—it wasn’t strange that his report wasn’t as expansive as it should be. Jacob and Nkiruka would find the truth, as they always did.

“We’ll be landing soon, Inquisitors,” their pilot informed them. Once down, they were met by the colony leader who offered to take them to the rooms they had set aside for them.

“Thank you, but no. We would like to start our investigation immediately. If there is a pirate presence on this world, it is of utmost priority that we find them. We would like to speak with the survivor,” Nkiruka said.

The colony leader nodded, as if he had already anticipated the request. “Of course. I’ll send you the coordinates of his home, and of the quarters we set aside for you.”

A moment later they received them through their implants. “Thank you, colony leader,” Jacob said.

The man nodded. “Every member of the colony is at your disposal. Now, if you will excuse, me I have several appointments,” he said, and left them.

For Jacob and Nkiruka, this was work as usual—so they started making their way through the small colony toward the house of their person of interest.

***

Aranis waited patiently inside the home of the person whose identity he had taken, playing the role of a person who had lost a close friend. He had most of Vasily’s memories, although most were just faded images, words and terms that he knew but didn’t understand, and only Vasily’s most important memories were especially vivid. It was extremely hard to take memories from another living being; it was not just about power, but skill. And Aranis had never really been good at mind Sha. The innate defenses of the mind were too formidable; if a being knew what you were doing, you would get almost nothing. It was why Aranis had chosen to take the memories while his target was weak and dying. But that also meant that he wouldn’t be able to get everything, and only the most recent memories would be clear. Aranis had spent all of his time since he had taken them practicing, so that he could act in the same way that Vasily had acted.

Aranis had spent a long time observing, watching the many races that had emerged since him and the others last went to slumber. What he saw saddened him, so much potential wasted. He had taken his time while he traveled from the Enlightened territory toward the part of the galaxy where the people Axull had created resided. Watching from afar, judging the threats they posed.

None had been worthy of worry. And then when he had arrived at his destination, he had seen the creations of his once best friend’s final attempt to stop the Enlightened. He still remembered the moment that he and the others felt Axull pass through the Sha, all connections that bound his body disappearing. Seeing his children, he had wondered if perhaps they had been wrong. But no—Axull was dead, and the only thing that was left were the abominations he had created. They had reminded him so much of the People, of what he once was, that at times it almost hurt. But over the long years of his observation he had seen just how truly different they were.

On their face, they were the same as the other races in the galaxy. But they had the technology of the People, and no matter how far beyond that the Enlightened had advanced, Aranis had wanted to know just how large of a threat they truly were. After all, they had been created by Axull, and Aranis had nothing but respect for his old friend’s abilities.

A chime at the doors of his—or rather, Vasily’s—quarters, brought him out of his meditation, and he stood up and made his way toward the doors, taking the time to bring Vasily’s facade to the forefront. He opened the door and greeted the two people standing there. From Vasily’s memories and his own observations he knew that they were a part of the Hand of the Empire: the organization that enforced the laws across all the clans of the Empire.

“Hello,” Aranis-as-Vasily said. “You finally got here.”

“We’ve arrived as soon as possible, Mr. Vasily,” the one in the lead said, his voice coming out of his suit modulated, but from their builds he could see that one in the lead was a male and the other a female. Aranis gently drew the tendrils of his mind across theirs, judging their moods. He had planned this for a long time, had waited for the right opportunity and the right person. Vasily had been perfect. He was one of a few very rare people whose bodies rejected the implants that all the people in the Empire wore; Aranis himself obviously couldn’t get such an implant, nor did he have any desire to copy one.

His first attempt at infiltrating the Empire some sixty years prior had ended poorly. Once he had taken the place of a person and disposed of the body, he had returned to the group, only to be found out immediately. He had targeted a small military outpost at the coreward border of the Empire as he had wanted to quickly gain access to the information he was looking for; it hadn’t worked out as he intended. Apparently their implants had served both as an aid in everyday life and as a form of identification. The rest of the soldiers knew immediately that something was wrong, and Aranis had been forced to kill every living person in the outpost.

He had planned his next attempt very carefully. He went to the few worlds where non-Empire races were allowed to inhabit, where most of the trade between the Empire and other star-states occurred. There he learned that a small number of the people in the Empire, mainly humans, rejected the implants, and were forced to use wrist units instead. It had cost him time, but he had found a way in, and he had obtained the information about the people who didn’t have implants and chose the one most suitable for his need. It had been a stroke of luck that Vasily had gotten into trouble—it had allowed Aranis to come in at the end of his life and step in with little to raise suspicion.

Aranis tilted his head as he withdrew his telepathy from their minds, leaving only a gentle touch to help him judge their emotions. It would do no good for him to linger. Even with his power, interfering with others’ thoughts always carried the risk of detection. But he did find out that they were suspicious of him; not to the point that they suspected him of murdering his friend, but they were still curious as to how he survived.

“Come in,” Aranis said, “and please, call me Vas.”

“Thank you, Vas,” the leading one responded, and they stepped inside. Aranis led them to the small sitting area and they settled in. “During this operations you may refer to us as Jok and Norr. We are Inquisitors of the Hand,” the lead one said, motioning first at himself and then his companion as he gave their names.

Aranis had learned that the agents of the Hand took on code names during their missions, as no one could know their real ones. It fascinated him to see the different cultural norms and developments, especially from races that were made in the image of the People.

“Of course,” Aranis said. “How can I help your investigation?”

“Let’s start with how exactly you became aware of the pirates, and everything that followed,” Inquisitor Jok said.

Aranis told them exactly what happened, recounting the memories. The closer the memory was to the moment Aranis took them, the more vivid they were. Aranis continued, telling them how Vasily and Robert were out exploring the small valley beyond the mountains to the east of the colony. How they stumbled onto a group of people unloading cargo, closed boxes, and cages filled with animals that Vasily recognized as being from various worlds in the occupation zone, and even a few from the Empire itself, that were being taken off the shuttle and loaded onto a land transport vehicle. None had been of the Empire races, and Robert’s implant had recognized several of the races as those that lived in the occupation zone. The two of them had returned back to the colony and sent a message to the Hand. The colony leaders had argued that they had no proof that the people they saw were in fact pirates.

So Vasily convinced his friend, Robert, that they should go back and investigate further. They went back to the spot where they first encountered them and attempted to follow the tracks. Then Aranis deviated from the memories. Instead of telling the truth of how the pirates found them, tortured them, and killed Robert and left Vasily to die, he told the inquisitors that the two of them lost the tracks and split up to cover more ground. Then the pirates found Robert. Vasily eventually went to look for his friend, but by the time he got there his friend had been dead. He’d had no choice but to return to the colony and wait for the Hand.

The inquisitors sat and listened in silence. Then, after Aranis finished, they started asking questions. “You were exploring on foot? The colony has a shuttle registered, why not use it?” the female one, Inquisitor Norr, asked.

“It is an older model, and is only supposed to be used for emergencies. We only have a limited amount of fuel for it, and we don’t have so many resources that we can afford to use it without a serious need. And it wouldn’t have helped regardless, as the forest is thick in the valley with only few clearings. We wouldn’t have seen anything,” Aranis said, the memories he had taken providing the information.

“How many of them were there?” Inquisitor Jok asked.

“I saw eight different beings, two with the shuttle crew.”

“Can you tell us anything else about them, their clothing, weapons?”

“They wore different clothes, no real identifying markers. Four of them wore Erasi plasma rifles—an older design. Others had weapons but I wasn’t close enough to see.” On this point, Aranis had again lied. Vasily had been very close, and had seen all of their weapons. But the only ones that Vasily had recognized were the Erasi weapons.

“We will need the coordinates for the place where you encountered them,” Jok said.

“Of course, but I want to go with you.”

Aranis felt them study him, and felt them preparing to refuse him, and he couldn’t have that. He brushed against their minds, making them more receptive.

“Why?” Jok asked.

“Aside from wanting to make sure that the people that killed my friend pay, I know this world far better than you. Unless you plan on using the ship in orbit or using a shuttle to search for them—and make sure that they know you are searching for them while you get some pretty impressive scans of the tree tops—you will need to go on foot. That means you will need a guide through the mountain pass, and someone who knows the wildlife enough to ensure you don’t end up as food.”

They remained silent as they thought it over, but Aranis felt their reluctance. He didn’t want to risk them sensing his interference with their thoughts; they weren’t powerful telepaths at all, but they could still sense that something was wrong. He could take over their minds and make them his puppets, but that would most certainly draw attention, as any telepath would be able to feel that something wasn’t quite right with them. He could only make small adjustments, make them more receptive to what he was asking. He had no other choice unless he wanted to find some other way to infiltrate the Empire.

Aranis intensified his telepathic touch.

“That—that makes sense,” Jok said slowly. “It would be more prudent to search for them stealthily. Very well—but you follow our orders. You disobey us and we are leaving you behind.”

“Understood,” Aranis said.

The two inquisitors stood. “Good. We will need to get our equipment ready and purchase supplies from the colonists for the trip. Be ready to leave tomorrow morning.”

Chapter Six

Shara Radum—Palace

Adrian relaxed in his favorite armchair in his and Anessa’s private quarters, reading reports as he almost always seemed to do lately, if “lately” was the past few hundred years. The reports were suspended in the air around him, but only he could see them as they were projections from his implant. The job of Lord Sentinel had become mostly one of reading reports and authorizing or declining requests, and it had been a long time since Adrian had commanded a fleet or engaged in combat personally.

He heard the water turn off and he glanced toward the bathroom area of the large room. The Shara Daim quarters were one large room with no dividing walls, but rather only half walls sectioning certain areas. So he could see Anessa as she stepped out of the area and through the invisible force field that removed the water from her body and left it inside the “shower” area. He took a moment to admire her as she walked over to him and seated herself in the armchair across from his. His admiration was interrupted by her speaking.

“So did you have the chance to read through her reports or debriefs?” Anessa asked.

Adrian blinked and dismissed the reports in his HUD before responding, “I did.” Adrian knew that Anessa was referring to the reports and debriefings made by their daughter.

“And?”

“We got confirmation.”

“Independent?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the third independent confirmation we have,” Anessa reminded him.

“It is.”

“Are the three different confirmation sources enough for you?”

Adrian sighed. “Yes, they are.”

“Then when are we authorizing the plan?”

Adrian remained silent.

Anessa waited for him to answer, and then after a few moments her eyes narrowed at him. “You still want the Krashin.”

Adrian nodded.

“We don’t even know if we can establish any kind of communication with them. Every race that had contact with them describes them as strange and xenophobic; both the Vurta and the Hasre agree,” Anessa said, speaking of the two of the larger empires that held territory close to the Erasi and the Krashin. The Vurta held territory in the Perseus arm along the anti-spinward border of the Erasi. The Hasre were in the outer arm, far away from both Shara Daim and Empire territory, and the contact Adrian’s people had with them was limited and came only through the Vurta.

The Hasre shared a border with the Krashin, but unlike the Erasi, the Hasre had never had a conflict with the Krashin as far as he knew, but that didn’t mean that they had any kind of a relationship. The Hasre stayed away from them and the Krashin didn’t push further into their territory.

“They were the part of the original plan, and just because they are strange doesn’t mean that we can’t find common ground with them.”

“We have enough things in place, Adrian. We don’t need them,” Anessa insisted.

Adrian sighed again. They had always known that the Erasi were not going to take their defeat without striking back; the Erasi had a long memory.

So a plan had been put into place. The Shara Daim-Empire alliance had made sure that they would be ready when that time comes. They had infiltrated Erasi territory with deep cover agents. They had slowly started building unrest amongst the lower members of the Erasi, just like what the Erasi were doing with their pirates and the liberation force in the alliance.

But the alliance had gone a step further, and Anessa’s and Adrian’s plan had with it. They made contact with the races bordering the Erasi and made friends of them, which wasn’t easy as the Erasi still had their webs wrapped around them, filling their ears with distrust. But then the Krashin had pushed into Erasi territory and their grasp on the races outside of their territory had lessened. The alliance offered them gifts, trade, and friendship.

And eventually many of those races allowed them to build secret military bases and staging points inside their territories, all for the day that they struck against the Erasi. Adrian’s spies had learned of the Krashin long ago, and his original plan had been to reach out to them and strike a bargain, that they coordinate their attacks, but Krashin territory was too far away and on the other side of the Erasi. And then the Krashin attacked on their own, and the alliance wasn’t ready. So they used the time while the Erasi were distracted to build up and get ready. And now they were, but so were the Erasi—they hadn’t fallen to the Krashin. In fact, their conflict had only made their military stronger.

And now they had confirmation that the Erasi were planning something: Ryaana’s report indicated that most of the Erasi public believed they were going to try to push against the Krashin, but Adrian had other sources, and they agreed that the target would be the Shara Daim and the Empire. What he didn’t know was when—and their plan was for them to strike first.

Adrian did however agree with Anessa in that they didn’t necessarily need the Krashin—they had enough forces and plans to take down the Erasi. There was another problem, however, in that it would probably take them a very long time to do so—hundreds of years at least, and time was an issue.

“I received a report from Aileen,” Adrian said, and Anessa’s expression changed.

“Did they agree?” she asked.

“No. The Josanti League is refusing us passage through their territory,” Adrian said.

“That…is inconvenient, but it has nothing to do with our plan against the Erasi.”

“There has been an increased number of sightings, and I fear that the Enlightened might have pushed out of their containment, or are about to,” Adrian said.

“That means nothing. We have seen no sight of the machine fleets, only scouts, and unless the Josanti League is far better at hiding things from us, the machine fleets must not have reached them.”

“Yet machine scout ships are still watching our territory, and with increasing intensity,” Adrian said. The first black ship came through the Nelus access point just after the peace with the Erasi had been established. They came out, scaring everyone, scanned everything around them, and then disappeared back into the access point, exiting somewhere where the Empire couldn’t follow. The access points in Sol and Shara Radum had been placed there by Axull Darr, but the one in Nelus had been part of the galactic network, and they should’ve been able to use it to get to other points in the galaxy. Yet they had all been somehow locked, their codes changed presumably some time after Axull Darr left, but before he had built the two additional points. He had probably unlocked the Nelus one so that they could only use the three in the home systems. But while they didn’t have codes to exit through other access points, they did have their locations, and had since then found them and manually discovered the new codes for each point they had found, bringing the total number of the points they could use to nine across their territory and one outside of it.

Since then the black ships had regularly visited the Empire’s territory. Their ships would exit out at the far edges of systems and scan, watch, and leave as soon as anything came close to them. At the time, the ships had been far more advanced than anything that the Empire had—they’d had no chance of catching them—but they had advanced, and eventually they managed to reach them. No black ship had ever answered any communications, nor had it broadcasted anything, ever. Eventually the Emperor ordered that they try and disable the ship, to try to find some answers. They did, but the ships were machines with no living things on them, only computers following programming. They caught one and opened fire, trying to disable it, but the ship was tough, and in the moment it became aware that it would be captured, it self-destructed. This repeated six more times before the Emperor ordered the ships to be left alone.

The ships followed their programming to the letter, and the only way they could get any kind of an answer was to go to the source: the AI designed by Axull Darr’s sister which controlled the machine fleets and kept the Enlightened contained. The problem was that the last known location was on the other side of the galaxy, and to get there the Empire had not only to travel for a long time, but pass through territories of many other species. And now the greatest obstacle in their path was the Josanti League, which controlled a large part of the galactic core. A vast area, filled with resources and intelligent races. And they were refusing them passage.

The increase in machine ships sightings worried Adrian. “I think that something is happening, and we need to make contact with the AI as soon as possible.”

“The AI hasn’t reached out to us, not even once. Perhaps its programming forbids it, or it simply doesn’t want to speak with us, but what does this have to do with the Krashin and our plan for the Erasi?”

“If there is even a one-percent chance that there is a problem with the Enlightened, we can’t get ourselves involved in a long conflict, which is what the conquest of the Erasi would be. We would tie almost all of our resources into taking over their territory. We can’t afford to do that, and the only race that stands a chance against the Erasi and has an interest in a war against them is the Krashin.”

Anessa grimaced. “Even if the Enlightened have restarted their movement, they must be so far away that we have some time. The last time they moved was more than ten thousand years ago, and they moved…what? A little over a thousand light years, if what you learned from the Union databases is true. And we don’t even know why the Krashin went to war with the Erasi in the first place. The Erasi are known to use propaganda and deceit.”

“You are right about the Enlightened; they are far away… I just don’t like knowing that there are beings dying, and we were created to stop the Enlightened.” Adrian sighed. “But, no—you are right, we have time still. They don’t know about us, and there is no reason to believe that they would change the way they have been acting for so long. Anyway, I am planning on going to meet with the Krashin myself, to try to establish contact.”

Anessa raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you sure that you can get away for so long?”

Adrian shrugged. “Hayashi is perfectly capable of taking over my duties. I won’t even be missed.”

“When do you plan on leaving?”

“In a month or two; I need to get a few things ready. And I sent in a requisition for a Sovereign.”

Anessa tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “You think that you are going to need that?”

“The Krashin use bio-tech unlike anything we have seen before, and we know next to nothing about them or their capabilities other than they are a match or better for Erasi. And if they had advanced at the same rate as the Erasi have in these last couple of centuries, then I want to be able to protect myself. I don’t plan on underestimating them.”

Adrian steepled his fingers. “I want to establish at least some kind of a trade agreement, or at least an exchange for their tech. We could use that tech for when we meet the Enlightened. And there are three access points in Krashin territory, so if everything goes well, I can be back here in an instant. And if not, well…if you have confirmation that the Erasi are going to start their invasion, you can initiate the plan before my return.”

Anessa nodded, her eyes calculating. “Very well.”

Chapter Seven

Colony world Santis—wilderness

Jacob and Nkiruka walked behind their guide as they slowly moved through the pass between the mountains and down into the valley toward their destination.

Taking Vas with them had proven to be a surprisingly good decision. Jacob’s first instinct had been to refuse the man when he asked, but he changed his mind. What Vas had said was true: they didn’t know anything about the planet and its dangers. And already his expertise had paid off. On the morning of their third day, they had stumbled on to the hunting grounds of one of the more dangerous local beasts, and without Vas they would’ve surely continued forward instead of going back and around. As they were stepping back, Vas pointed out to them the beast waiting patiently in the trees, nearly invisible—if they had continued forward, it would’ve attacked them from above. The animals didn’t yet know the dangers of attacking humans, and this particular species had claws capable of stabbing through armor.

The rest of the trip had been less eventful, and two days later they had reached the pass. Now they were only minutes away from their destination—the place where the colonist was murdered. Once there, Jacob hoped that they would find clues to lead them to their hideout.

“Here we are,” Vas said over their comms. He was wearing a combat suit, an older generation of military suits that had been sold to the clans after new ones had been put in use. Vas raised his rifle and slowly stepped into the small clearing.

Jacob and Nkiruka did the same. Both readying their rifles, they stepped out of the cover of the trees, watching their surroundings closely. It was unlikely that the pirates were still present, but they couldn’t afford to not be alert. As they swept the surroundings, Nkiruka deployed several watcher drones and put them in guard positions. They flew off in different directions and set up a perimeter as Nkiruka disappeared into the trees. Vas was standing close to a small boulder, his rifle pointed toward the ground, and as Jacob approached, he saw what Vas was looking at. The ground was red with dried blood.

“We will find them and bring them to justice, Vas. I promise you that,” Jacob said.

Vas nodded. “There isn’t even a body. The animals must’ve dragged it off somewhere.”

Jacob remained silent, and after a beat turned around and studied the ground, trying to see if there were any tracks or anything else that could point them in the right direction. He scanned the ground with the camera on his helmet, and watched over the findings on his HUD. After several minutes, he gave up. There was nothing here that could help them. The ground was filled with animal tracks, and it had been a while since the incident.

“There’s nothing here,” Jacob said out loud, and then he opened a private channel to Nkiruka. “Get back, we are moving to the next location.” She acknowledged, and Jacob turned toward Vas.

“The next location was a bit further north, closer to the mountains,” Vas told him.

“Lead the way.”

***

It took them three hours to get to the next location, and immediately after seeing the clearing Jacob could see that it was a very good spot for unloading goods. It was a flat and large open space, almost a hundred meters across. It would accommodate even the larger shuttles.

He opened a private channel to Nkiruka through his imp. “Secure the perimeter and get in position—here,” he said, marking a point on the other side of the clearing on his HUD’s map of the area. The same mark appeared on her map, as their suits were linked.

Nkiruka nodded, then released seven drones that immediately flew away in different directions while she moved eastward, going around the clearing to the other side. Jacob and Vas set up positions and waited. Jacob slid his backpack from his shoulders and pulled out a scanning device. He pulled out its legs and set it up, pointing it toward the clearing.

They spent several minutes in silence, watching both the clearing and their surroundings.

“Their hideout must be close,” Vas commented. “I doubt that they would be willing to transport their cargo too far.”

“Yes,” Jacob responded, “it must also be well hidden and inaccessible by shuttle if they are using this spot.”

“You think that this is the pirate base of operations?” Vas asked.

“No, there is not enough traffic in the system. I believe that this is nothing but a small depot. They wouldn’t want to carry any stolen goods directly to their base; they would use smaller depots to unload what they pirated and then have it shipped elsewhere later. They’ve always been smart. We have found several depots like this one before by following the pirate ships, but each time we assaulted them we would find nothing—all their cores were always wiped.”

“Then what are you hoping to find here?”

“If these are indeed pirates, I’m hoping that we can surprise them and find the data we are looking for before they wipe it.”

“You don’t think that they will be ready? They must know that there is a colony on this world. They could’ve already wiped everything.”

“If they are still here, they will most certainly be preparing to get out. If we catch them before they wipe the drives, and while they are distracted with packing up, we might have a chance to get what we are looking for.”

“The location of the pirates’ base of operations?”

“Yes,” Jacob confirmed.

The scanner beeped, alerting him to its findings, and Jacob retrieved the data and put it on his HUD. There were clear traces that indicated that a shuttle had landed there within the week. And there was a trail leading northward into the mountains. Nkiruka interrupted his musings via their comms.

“All clear. No sign of hostile presence…and I found something.”

Jacob turned toward Vas, who was kneeling behind a tree trunk and holding his rifle at the ready. Jacob tapped him on the shoulder. “We’re clear. C’mon, Norr found something.”

The two made their way to the other side, and found Nkiruka kneeling in front of a device in that looked like a canister. It stood about a meter high, with a wide base and three pillars dug into the ground. A panel was open, and several thin wires were extended from his partner’s forearm and jacked into the device. Before Jacob could ask what it was, Nkiruka raised her hand in a halting motion toward them as she kept her focus on the holos above her left forearm. From where Jacob was standing, he could see a graph and a prompt with long lines of code.

About a minute later, Nkiruka lowered her arm and the wires unplugged themselves from the device and retracted back into her arm. She then turned to look at them. “There, I got it.”

“What is that?” Vas asked.

“It’s a guiding beacon,” Nkiruka said, and pointed upward. Jacob raised his head and saw a hole in the foliage. It was obviously not natural; branches had been cut and a hole had been opened up.

“It has a tight-beam link with a satellite in orbit. I isolated the beacon’s functions and created a virtual dummy. It was in standby mode; I assume that it only activates once it gets a signal from the satellite,” she added.

“Erebus didn’t detect anything in orbit,” Jacob said.

“It’s in high orbit, and it too is in standby. It probably only activates once a ship pings it. Then the beacon guides the shuttles down here.”

“Did you find anything else?”

“I got into its records. I have the IFFs of the shuttles that passed through, and I compared them against the records we have of the pirate attacks that occurred in the last year.”

Jacob nodded. For this mission, they had added the records to their implants for every recorded attack in the past three years. Most pirate ships were Erasi-built converted cargo or merchant ships, but from time to time there was a true warship among them: an older Erasi or even older Empire cruiser and, in one case, even a battleship. But the Hand had records of all the support craft that the recorded pirate ships were supposed to have.

“And?”

“We got one match… Here,” she said, and a hologram blossomed in the air above her forearm. Jacob looked over it and read the highlighted information. One of the shuttles that had landed here had been recorded as a support vessel for a pirate ship that was a part of the attack on a merchant convoy seven months ago.

“Well, I guess we do have the right place.”

“Are we calling in backup from the Erebus?” Nkiruka asked.

Jacob thought about it. The intel they had suggested a small depot, and Vas had indicated that at least six pirates operated on this world. And they did have at least one satellite in orbit, so chances were they were aware of Erebus in orbit. They of course couldn’t know that the ship was there to find them, however. As far as they knew, they hadn’t been detected yet. But moving a squad here would take time, and Jacob knew that they had a very short window. If the pirates were still here, they would be getting ready to leave. With the colony established, they wouldn’t want to risk detection.

They needed to act fast, and a group of soldiers moving through the forest was a lot less stealthy than just three people. Jacob turned to look at Vas—the man was young, but he did have military experience and his equipment was solid. They could do this if they acted fast and smart.

“No—we proceed now. We brought enough equipment for this eventuality. The trail points to the mountains up north. I suggest that we follow the trail and see what we find.”

Chapter Eight

Sol—Olympus Mons

Adrian’s eyes were closed, but he could see. In his mind he could see his surroundings in a full three hundred and sixty degrees around himself, all bathed in shadowy features. It was an ability that was rare even for the People, the ability to perceive through the Sha—to see it, sense it, feel it. Sha was what held the universe together, every bond, down to even the most miniscule particles—quarks, leptons, atoms, all were held together by the Sha. It was the connective substance of the Universe.

When “looking” through it, Adrian didn’t see his surroundings as reflections of light, but rather he saw the Sha; the more something had, the clearer it was. It was through this that he could distinguish his surroundings. For example, the air was less “dense” with Sha than the ground, which in turn was far less dense than living things; and of course when something moved, the Sha moved with it.

Which was how he clearly saw the small ball flying straight for his back. The ball had a layer of Sha that to him looked like a smoke surrounding it, and a thread that stretched all the way back to the person-shaped shadow that had its arm pointed at him.

Adrian sidestepped and turned, his arm striking out and pointing behind him at the ball that had just passed him. He clearly saw a thread shoot out of his arm and pierce the Sha holding the ball, enveloping it in his own. He kept his spin, dragging the ball as if on a string and shooting it back at its sender. At the midway point of its arc, he lashed out telekinetically, further accelerating the ball, which surprised his opponent—and yet just as he thought it would hit her, he saw the Sha in front of her move. The bonds that held the molecules in the air changed and hardened, and a shield flashed in front of her, stopping the ball in its tracks.

Even before the ball hit the shield, Adrian pushed with both his arms in the direction of his opponent, sending a powerful kinetic attack at her. Sha rippled in front of him, transferring the energy through the air and striking the shield a moment after the ball. The shield, already weakened, broke, and the remains of his kinetic attack struck and picked her up into the air, throwing her across the room. She hit the ground hard and stayed there.

Adrian approached, and stood over her.

“Ouch,” Ryaana said.

Adrian opened his eyes, and saw his Sha vision superimposed on his regular vision. It was strange looking at the world like this; half with his eyes and half with his mind. He saw shadowy swirls that were spread across her body, and they gathered more thickly in her chest, where the organ that allowed them to store the energy to affect the Sha was located. The more powerful someone was in the Sha, the more it pooled in their body, and the thicker the shadows were. Ryaana was very powerful, but not yet as powerful as her mother or Adrian himself. Regardless, she was still one of the more powerful Sha users in the Empire.

“Another round?” Adrian asked.

“Hell no, I have another debrief in an hour,” Ryaana said as Adrian helped her up.

She shook herself and then turned her eyes on him. “So, how much were you holding back?”

Adrian stopped tilting his head in thought. “About sixty percent,” he lied.

Ryaana smiled sadly. She knew him too well. “I’m never going to catch up to you, am I?”

“You have all the time in the world,” Adrian told her gently.

“I guess that everyone needs to have something to overcome,” Ryaana said as she walked out of the training room.

Adrian gazed at the closed doors for minutes after she was gone. Her words had struck a chord with him. There were only three people in the alliance that could give him a challenge: Anessa, the Lurker of the Depths, and Ryaana. And not even they could force him to use all of his power—never that. Everyone in the Empire had at least a few Sha abilities. The Shara Daim, Humans, and Nel had everything that they had inherited from the People: a wide spectrum of abilities. The rest of the races in the Empire had been given as many as the geneticists had managed—a few races had even developed a couple of unique abilities after they had been given the rest. But very few individuals had the talent and power that Adrian possessed.

While dedicated training could increase an individual’s power somewhat, and talent could push them even further, all seemed to hit a wall, an obstacle past which they could not go and they could no longer improve. Ryaana hadn’t yet reached that wall, but Adrian could tell that her rate of improvement had slowed, as it had been with her mother. Although for Anessa, it could have been because she had been focused more on ruling than improving herself these last few centuries.

Adrian, on the other hand, still hasn’t reached his limit. He still pushed himself constantly. It was his goal, his reason for living—to find greater and greater obstacles and overcome them, to find his limit and try to push beyond it. He craved challenges and conflict, craved true struggle, something which seemed to have been denied him in the last five hundred years. He had commanded fleets, mastered his mind and body, defeated enemies, and all of that had left him only craving for more. He had created the Sentinels in order to seek out challenges, and yet circumstances had forced him to remain in the Empire, to guide from Sol as others sought out that which he had wanted for himself.

He understood why Tomas had needed him to stay in command. Adrian was one of the Empire’s most visible leaders other than him, and the people had needed stability. But now times had changed—the Clans had grown more powerful, and the Empire was at peace. Adrian wasn’t truly needed anymore.

He was more excited to make contact with the Krashin than he had been for anything in centuries. And after he was finished with that, after he made sure that the Erasi were no longer a threat, he would leave. Because there was one challenge out there in the galaxy that might sate his hunger—the Enlightened. He needed to find them, to see with his own eyes what they were. And Tomas had promised him that he could go.

He glanced at his bare arms. Both were covered in tattoos. Each image represented an aspect he had mastered and the level of mastery he had attained; the tattoos stretched even to his back. Five hundred years was a long time, and he had spent it all improving himself. He learned as much as he could from every area that even remotely interested him. He had spent time learning how to operate mechs, how to fly combat shuttles. He had learned how to care for those machines and repair them, and he could even build one by himself if he had the tools and materials. He had spent a century learning about the histories of all the races in the Empire, and he studied their conflicts and important events.

So much knowledge…and still, he needed more.

Finally, he sighed and walked out of the training room, heading toward his private rooms. “Get a transport ready to take me off planet in an hour.”

“Where are we going?” Iris’s hologram appeared in front of him.

“Jupiter Yards. I’m going to accept Gotu’s invitation to show me a few more prototypes of his nanotechnology.”

“You could just tell him what you are planning, you know?” She put her fiery hands on her hips as she floated backward, pacing his steps.

“Most of the yards are booked for another five years. Even if I wanted to start now we wouldn’t be able.”

“You could at least tell him. Who knows, he might even sign on.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Chapter Nine

Colony world Santis

Jacob, Nkiruka, and Vas were crouched behind a large fallen tree trunk, looking ahead at the inconspicuous break in the rock of the mountain that was about two hundred meters ahead of them. Nkiruka’s drones had already scouted ahead, carefully, and they were certain that this was indeed the pirate depot. A large door was covering the entrance into the cave.

“There are two turrets, hidden in the rock, here and here,” Nkiruka said as she showed them the feed from her drone on the holo-screen above her forearm.

“I see them,” Vas said. “They look nasty.”

“Class-3 plasma turrets; Erasi make. There aren’t any other defenses inside, but these turrets can blow a hole through our suits,” Jacob said.

“So how are we getting around them?”

“We’ll disable them, but first…” He pulled his backpack and put it down in front of him, and Nkiruka did the same. Jacob pulled out the two boxes that had been at the bottom, and he opened one, pulling out two plasma pistols. He checked their charge, then offered one to Vas.

“You’ll need a backup. You have ten rapid shot rounds before it needs to cool down for ten seconds. The charge holds twenty in total,” Jacob said as he showed Vas where the safety was.

“Thanks,” Vas said. He slid the weapon into his coat before he raised his rifle and started checking it over.

Jacob opened the other box and pulled out three small insect-shaped drones. He slaved them to his implant and turned them on. The small things buzzed to life and flew into the air above them.

“Once I shut down the turrets and open the doors, we need to move quickly. Our objective is their computers—and remember, we need them intact. The rest of the scum are irrelevant,” he said derisively. “I’ll make them an offer to surrender. If they drop their weapons to the ground and put their hands on their heads, knock them out and move on. Anyone with a weapon in their hands is considered fair game.”

The other two nodded. “Norr and I will take the point,” Jacob said firmly. He turned to look at Vas. He didn’t know the man, yet he couldn’t escape the feeling that he was trustworthy. “Vas, you follow and keep our backs safe.”

Vas and Nkiruka readied themselves, and Jacob sent his drones out. He used his implant to guide them to their targets, but they were mostly autonomous. Two of the drones landed on the turrets, and small needle-like injectors stabbed into the turrets’ control panels. Their advanced computers started hacking in. The last drone flew over to the door and landed on its access panel, doing the same.

It didn’t take him long to get control over the pirate systems. They were using old Erasi tech—nothing that presented a difficulty for the Hand’s latest-generation toys. Through the door panel, he got into their surveillance system and retrieved the feed from the cameras inside. There were three feeds, each from a different room.

The storage area was the first one. Inside, dozens of crates were stacked up on one another and two of the pirates were moving the crates from the back of the room to the front. Both were Sorvani, furry bipeds with two arms that split off at the elbows into two more. Thus, while they technically had four arms, the two pairs weren’t capable of full independent movement. Another feed showed him a room that looked like a mix between a resting area and crew quarters, with beds stacked to the one side and entertainment modules on the other. There were three doors, each leading to another room, which meant that one room didn’t have surveillance. There was only one person inside: a Ssarath. Black and red in color, it had a long, sinuous, snake-like body with two arms coming from its torso.

The third room looked like what Jacob would expect of a small command center—computer modules occupied one wall, and a small holo-table stood to the side. It, too, had a single occupant. Another Ssarath.

“Only four occupants. If what you told us was correct, Vas, there should be two more,” Jacob said.

“Unless they left. You did say that at least one more shuttle had landed here,” Vas said.

“True,” Jacob agreed, “but we must assume that they are in there somewhere. We don’t have feeds through that door,” he said, pointing at the holo-feed. “For all we know, that door leads to a larger complex.”

“That’s unlikely,” Nkiruka chimed in. “Their system doesn’t support a larger complex, and this is about the right size for every depot we found before. They like to keep things small. Less chance of us detecting them.”

“We should be on guard nevertheless. Once I open their entrance, we storm in, take care of those in the storage area and move forward. Vas, you come in after us. I’ll broadcast just before we go in.”

“All right, let’s go!” Jacob jumped over their cover just as he initiated the turret shutdown. Before he had even crossed the halfway point, the turrets were disabled. Jacob and Nkiruka reached the entrance and he used the pirates’ own system to broadcast the offer for them to surrender. Before his words even had the chance to settle in, he opened the doors and stepped inside.

Looking down his rifle, he stepped to the left and knew that Nkiruka stepped to the right, both going around the crates. He spread his limited telepathy around him, giving him a small sense of where the pirates were. The two Sorvani were caught off guard. One reached for the weapon at his hip, and Jacob fired, a plasma bolt making a hole in the center of his face. The other one dropped the crate he was holding and raised his hands as he was going down to his knees. Nkiruka walked passed him as Jacob threw a punch in the pirate’s direction and sent a kinetic blast that knocked him out with a hit to the head.

A glance at his HUD’s map told him that Vas had followed them inside. He heard Nkiruka firing her weapon, and he rushed forward into the next room. The Ssarath was on the ground with two steaming holes in the chest.

Nkiruka walked into the control room. Jacob moved toward the door through for which they didn’t have any feed. His drone was still in control of their system, and he opened it. He stepped into the small room that was clearly a bathroom of some kind and was immediately attacked. A large shape grabbed his rifle and ripped it from his grasp while pulling him in. Large hands fell on him and threw him against the wall.

A large, hairy biped with a hulking torso launched down at him—a Bomtu, Jacob recognized the race, as his attacker raised a hand to strike. Jacob had never really been that good with the Sha. He didn’t have the talent for it—but he could throw a good kinetic punch. Jacob raised his left arm and threw a kinetic punch right into the pirate’s face. The pirate’s head snapped back. He stumbled backward, but still held Jacob against the wall. Jacob reached to his thigh and grabbed his pistol. Drawing it from its holster, he started firing from his hip upward. The plasma sizzled as it punched through the pirate’s clothing and flesh. The Bomtu’s grip lessened, and he took a step backward before falling summarily to the ground.

Jacob stumbled from the wall and into the doorway to the previous room, and came face to face with another pirate. The pirate’s rifle was pointed right at Jacob’s face. Time froze as he saw the grin on the pirate’s face, saw his finger tightening on the trigger. The suits that Hand of the Empire provided were good, but not good enough to stop a point-blank plasma shot to the head.

His life flashed before his eyes. He had lived for a long time, more than he could’ve ever imagined back when he had still been on Earth. His only regret was that he couldn’t have done more good, couldn’t have helped more people—

A gunshot boomed, and Jacob saw as the pirate’s head blew apart, his rifle and body crumbling to the ground. Jacob turned toward the source, and saw Vas standing there, his rifle pointed at where just a moment before the pirate was about to kill him. Vas inclined his head and moved further inside the room.

“Thanks,” Jacob said, the modulator hiding his voice’s shakiness, before going back to retrieve his rifle from the floor and he walked back into the “living room.” Vas was standing alert and ready in the corner, watching every entrance. Nkiruka peeked out of the control room, and then gestured for Jacob to follow. He did so, but first he closed and locked the main entrance through his imp.

Inside the control room, Nkiruka was sitting in a chair in front of a computer, looking through the data. “They had initiated a wipe as soon as they became aware of us. I managed to stop it partway through, but they still managed to wipe a few things.”

“Location of their base?”

She shook her head. “Don’t know yet. It could be that it wasn’t even on these computers, but there must be at least a clue. This is the first database that we managed to get that was so much as partially intact.”

Jacob nodded at her words. It wasn’t that the Hand was incompetent, it was that the pirates had been very careful. Lucky, too, he thought with irritation.

“Ah, here we go. They were planning on abandoning this depot soon. They have a ship scheduled to come and pick them up…in two months.”

For a moment Jacob wondered, Why so long? Then he realized that they had no reason to believe that the colonists knew about them—for all they knew, they had eliminated the only person that had seen them.

“What else?” he asked.

“There are manifests of cargo: where it was acquired and which ship took it and what amount they should be paid for it… This indicates that they have a kind of a centralized organization. The pirates bring their loot to the depots, they catalogue it and then send it to their base. The pirates can then retrieve funds from the depots after they receive it from their base.”

“Anything on location?”

“There are coordinates for other depots, but I’m not… Wait. I have something—I managed to retrieve a database that had been deleted. I think that this is it,” she said excitedly.

“Where is it?”

“One sec.” Nkiruka opened a map above her wrist and input the coordinates. The map changed, and a system flashed red. “Well, that is a problem.”

Jacob grimaced behind his mask. “Yeah, that’s a problem.”

Then a sizzle of a plasma shot rang out, followed by a gunshot, startling them both. They ran out of the room immediately, their weapons at the ready.

***

Aranis watched as the two inquisitors walked into the control room, his arm still tingling from firing his weapon. He had memories of Vasily firing the weapon before, but it was another thing to experience it for himself. The People had never invented devices whose only purpose was to kill living beings; they had only adapted tools for that purpose. And now the galaxy was filled with races that did so. Aranis and the rest of the Enlightened had done some experimenting, and while their technology and weapons were more advanced, they were also simpler in concept—if vastly more powerful.

Aranis let his mind expand and brush against the two inquisitors, making sure that they didn’t plan on leaving the room soon. Then he turned and walked back into the storage area. The alien lying on the floor unconscious had the bad luck of being present when Vasily had been shot. He knew his face, and knew that Vasily couldn’t have survived.

He approached the pirate and but stopped several steps away. There were visual recording devices. He couldn’t do anything that the inquisitors wouldn’t later see, and he would really like not to need to alter their memories—that was complicated and carried too much of a risk of detection. He pretended to look the pirate over, then he stepped back to the doorway and stood so that he could see into the both rooms. As he turned to look at the living area, he reached out with the Sha, waking the pirate up. Then his mind broke through the feeble defenses that the pirate had. His telepathy was pathetic, barely capable of mind speech. He put him under his control, breaking his mind in the process. It didn’t really matter; no one would be able to look at him and discover what Aranis had done.

The pirate, under Aranis’s control, crawled over and took his fallen comrade’s rifle. He knelt and pointed it at Aranis. By his command, the pirate fired once, missing, and Aranis turned quickly and fired, putting a shot through the pirate’s head.

The two inquisitors ran out of the control room almost immediately.

“What happened?” Jok asked as soon as he saw the dead pirate.

“He woke up and fired at me. I had no choice,” Aranis said.

The inquisitors looked at the body and the rifle in its arms, and Aranis could see them thinking. He could make them more ready to believe him, but there was no need. The facts would speak for themselves, even if they looked at the video feed.

“Did you find what you’d been looking for?” Aranis asked.

And after a beat, Jok answered him. “Yes. Yes, we did.”

Chapter Ten

Erasi core world

O’fa Valanaru, the Weaver of the Erasi, sat in the center of her sanctum. All around her, holograms twisted, showing her whatever data she wished. The last preparations for her revenge were at hand, and it had been too long. The fleets were mobilizing and the supplies had been acquired, great care having been taken for all of it to remain secret. She was certain that the alliance of the Empire and the Shara Daim had spies in Erasi territory; after all, she had her own in theirs. They might know something, but they couldn’t know everything.

She had been planning this for over five centuries. She never intended it to take this long—the original plan had been for the Erasi to strike back within three decades. They would’ve done it sooner, if not for the threat that their advanced ship posed—if one could call that thing a ship. But quickly it had become apparent that it was the only thing of such advanced technology that the Empire possessed, and countermeasures for it were quickly devised. It was after all just one ship, and it couldn’t be everywhere at the same time no matter how fast it was.

The Empire and the Shara Daim combined had thousands of star-systems under their control, and the Erasi could attack hundreds across their entire territory. The alliance wouldn’t be able to keep up with their might. The Council of Erasi had given her time. Their scientists had developed technologies that the Empire had demonstrated, mainly their FTL drives or, as they called them, skim drives. They had reignited the fabricator yards and build up their forces. It had cost them a lot, the people weren’t happy with added taxes, but they obeyed. And within ten years they already had fleets capable of accomplishing Valanaru’s plan.

Then the Krashin had attacked, the beasts spilling across the border in numbers never before seen. Whether they had sensed when Garash had weakened the border or they had planned another invasion on their own—it ultimately didn’t matter. The fleets that were meant for the alliance had been sent to the rimward border in an attempt to halt the hordes of Krashin animals. At first the technology that the Erasi had replicated from the Empire had given them an edge, but such things never worked for long against the Krashin. Their initial push had been halted at an unimaginable cost, but then the next generations of Krashin fleets had arrived, stronger and faster, and they had pushed into the Erasi territory again.

And so the dance had continued on for one hundred years. The Erasi slowly lost ground, then gained it—until finally the Krashin fleets attained FTL drives of their own. The Krashin then pushed further and faster into Erasi territory than ever before, taking territory from the Erasi for the first time in thousands of years.

Until, finally, they just stopped. Their line stopped moving, and they started reinforcing the territory they had taken. It was always this way with the Krashin—no one had ever figured out their reasons, but the pattern always remained the same. Whether they were winning or losing, once some strange Krashin goal was fulfilled, they stopped.

To Valanaru it always seemed like they gave themselves a limit, a set amount of forces that they were ready to lose and just kept going until they reached that number. They had stopped attacking before on the cusp of victory, giving the Erasi time to recover, and always for reasons that none of them could understand. If there was one thing that frightened her, it was the Krashin. They had the numbers to overwhelm the Erasi if they so wanted, and yet they didn’t. It was almost as if they were toying with them. That was, if there ever were one, the one great mistake of the Erasi, the moment when they had first meddled with the Krashin.

But it no longer mattered. The new border had been reinforced and Krashin always allow for a long period of no hostilities after their invasions. New fleets for the invasion had been built, and now they had the time to deal with the alliance. There was no choice; their threat level was quickly reaching that of the Krashin, and that could not be allowed. The Empire had access to incredibly advanced technology. It was clear now that it wasn’t their own, but rather something that they had found—or, if her suspicions were right, inherited. The Erasi had advanced just by being merely exposed to this technology, and during the war with the Krashin they had developed new technologies of their own.

It was now or never—and Valanaru would finally have her revenge.

Interlude I

A long time ago

Waiss Gast entered the small laboratory reluctantly. He was not in the mood for another failure, yet Nariax had insisted that both his and Eroill’s presence was required. He hadn’t had the will to refuse her. But in truth he was very close to the point of giving up on trying to find a cure. If they couldn’t have found it before, how could they do so now when there was only a handful of them left? He found Nariax inside the laboratory with Eroill already there, both hunched over a specimen in containment.

Nariax raised her head and looked at him as he entered, and yet again Waiss was struck by just how bad she looked. Once she had been very beautiful, but the disease had taken its toll. It had done so on all of them, both outside and inside. Waiss knew that he didn’t look any better. The three of them had left the others because the disease had progressed much further with them. They didn’t want to let the others watch them die. All of them had seen too many of the People die already, and Waiss did not want Ullax to suffer through a slow and inevitable death—she had seen enough of her loved ones die.

“Waiss, come and see!” Nariax said, beckoning him closer.

He walked over unsteadily, already his joints ached from just this short walk. He glanced at Eroill, and actually looked at the other man. For the first time in so long that it might as well be forever he saw an emotion in his eyes that he had thought he would never see again—hope.

“What is it?” Waiss asked hesitantly, not allowing himself to hope.

“Well… I made an alteration to the specimen,” Nariax said.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What kind of an alteration?”

She glanced at Eroill, then back to Waiss, before she nervously answered. “I gave it a connection to the Sha.”

Waiss’s eyes widened. “Are you insane?” he yelled out. “You gave an artificial life form the spark that creates intelligence?”

“Please, Waiss, let me explain,” she said.

After a moment, Waiss reined his anger back. Still seething, he nodded at her to speak.

“Nothing that we have been trying has worked, Waiss,” she said quietly. “This was the only thing remaining that has a chance. None of the specimens were adapting in the directions we needed them to. They were evolving in random directions; they were chaotic. The environments we provided were nothing compared to the real things. I thought that if it had at least a small amount of intelligence, it could guide its own evolution. And it worked!”

“It worked…how?” Waiss asked, curious in spite of himself.

Eroill stepped closer, bringing up the holo of the data. “Here,” he said. “The life form already halted the deterioration. If we give it a bit longer…it might even develop the cure.”

“You remember what happened last time we meddled and gave the Sha to a life form, don’t you?”

“This is not the same, Waiss,” Nariax said.

Waiss opened his mouth to argue, but instead just sighed. He did not have the strength to argue, to care, anymore. He had lost his will when he and Ullax had watched their children and grandchildren die from the disease. So, instead, he turned to leave.

“Do as you will,” he threw back at them as he left the room.

Chapter Eleven

Sol

Adrian watched the activity in the Sol system as his transport rose through Mars’s atmosphere. Sol had changed a lot from the time Adrian had been a child; it was now the industrial and trading hub of the Empire, the envy of many star nations. The trading stations of Mercury, the resin yards of Venus and the Jupiter Yards all stood as proof of the Empire’s might. And there, in the high orbit over Olympus Mons, was the World-ship Enduring, a reminder to all outside of the Empire of what it was truly capable of—and a reminder to all those in the Empire of what they had achieved. The Empire had matched the technology of the People in many aspects, and surpassed it in others.

The Sovereign-class warships were the most visible symbols of that. Based in large part on the Enduring, they were the pinnacle of power personified. Fleet-killers, as the Empire’s enemies had come to call them in the last five hundred years. They had been used only three times against three different races, those that had in their foolishness attacked the Empire, thinking them nothing more than upstarts on the galactic stage, a young race encroaching on what was rightfully theirs.

The Sovereign class had changed that opinion. Now the great star nations treaded carefully when dealing with the Empire, but all had learned that the Empire dealt fairly with those that dealt fairly with it. All now respected the power that Empire had. Tomas had learned long ago the price of keeping to standards that had no place in the hostile galaxy.

The Empire had sixteen Sovereign-class ships, built in generations of four ships each. The first four had been built shortly after the end of the war with the Erasi, at the time when the Empire had just cracked compressed-matter hulls. It had cost Warpath almost all of its budget to create enough hull to cover the massive ships, and Sanctuary had to help with the weaponry. Even at the time they had been beasts, but they had been upgraded over the years as new technologies were developed. Each next generation was built around a hundred years after the last, once enough technologies were developed to warrant it.

It had been decided that there would always be four in each generation. The cost prevented them from building more, and now each Clan was involved in the construction, sharing the cost. The newest Sovereign warships were just six years old, and compared to the first generation they were in a league of their own. Their hull was much tougher than that of the oldest ones. The upgrades of the old ones included a layer of newer and better hull placed over the old, as it cost almost half the price of a new Sovereign to strip the old hull and put in a new one. It wasn’t deemed cost effective; augmentation was more efficient.

Now Adrian would pit any of the Sovereign class against the Enduring with the knowledge that they could win. The Sovereign class were all built to be around 50 kilometers long—some generations longer, some shorter—but all were at about a third of the Enduring itself, which stood at 168 kilometers. The Enduring was built to be a mobile city. It was called a World-ship for a reason, Adrian noted drily. It was never intended for war. Its only weapons were tools, its power having been delegated to systems that kept the city operational and kept the inhabitants safe. Sovereign-class ships, on the other hand, were built for war and violence. No space inside of them was wasted, and weapon systems designed for destroying their enemies as fast and as efficiently as possible bristled throughout their hulls.

Of course, it wasn’t as if the Empire relied solely on the Sovereign class—there was the Fleet and the Clan Defense Forces, or CDF. The fleets themselves had gone through a massive change and overhaul. Ships that were a part of the fleet couldn’t be older than fifty years, the construction of new ones started every forty years, and the old ones were sold to either the CDF or their hulls scrapped and used as materials. Sometimes the Fleet would even sell the older ships’ hulls, stripped of their military-class weapons, to private buyers, organizations or private security.

A small light flashed inside the passenger area, shaking Adrian from his thoughts and informing him that the transport was about to enter the skim. A few minutes later, they exited, and arrived at their destination. Three massive rings surrounded the gas giant in front of him. Each was a shipyard filled with fabricators—thousands upon thousands of ships moved all over the area, from the facilities on the Jupiter’s moons to the yards and back. Harvesting stations spotted the orbit of the planet, their long harvesting tubes reaching far below. It was the one of the largest fabricating shipyards in the Empire, matched only by Warpath’s Forge, and Sanctuary’s Hades Yards. Along with the Venus Resin Pools, it made Sol the greatest shipbuilding system in the Empire. Because of that, Sol leased the use of its yards to the Clans, some Corporations, and the Fleet.

The transport headed toward a station in the orbit of Europa. Less than ten minutes later, he exited the transport and was met by Gotu.

“Adrian,” he said respectfully. “I’m glad that you took the time to come here.”

“Of course, Gotu.”

Gotu led them through the station until they finally reached a large room, where they were met with several research team members and an assortment of things Gotu wanted to show him.

“Let’s see… Where should we start?”

***

Two hours later, Gotu’s team finished the presentation of the last item on their list. He had been shown amazing devices, all of them based on nanotechnology. Adrian could see the hope in Gotu’s eyes as he showed them to him, and Adrian could understand—to a point. Gotu was invested in this project, perhaps a bit too much. He wanted to redesign all of the Empire’s military, and that was something that would never happen. Not because his nanotechnology wasn’t good, or even because of the cost, but because what they already had was in many ways better. The nanotech had some advantages—the military had seen it, nanotech was used in almost everything, from fabricators to medicine—but there was a reason why it wasn’t used more than it was. A ship made out of nanites might have advantages, but a solid meter of compressed hull was simply tougher.

Granted, the nanotechnology that Gotu’s team had developed was more advanced than what they had before, but it still wasn’t superior enough to warrant such a drastic change. Building a fleet or two of nanoships was something that Adrian could sell to his mother, but it was not what Gotu was hoping for.

“This is very impressive,” Adrian addressed the team. “Congratulations.”

A choir of, “Thank you, Lord Sentinel,” answered him, and Adrian inclined his head before walking away, following Gotu to small private briefing room.

Once inside, they sat down across from each other and Gotu looked at him expectantly.

“Well? What do you think?”

“As I said, it is all very impressive.”

“The biggest benefit is that we can always have nanites replicate themselves, of course assuming that we have materials. It is what would make fleets of these ships so powerful—they would only need to find an asteroid field and they could repair themselves, no need for yards,” Gotu said in a single breath. “And as you just saw, we have a lot of devices and weapons useful for our ground forces.”

“True,” Adrian said.

“So, you will speak with the Fleet Master?”

Adrian sighed. He did have plans for Gotu’s nanotechnology; he just wasn’t ready to share them yet. He had hoped to bring Gotu in on it in a year or two—that would give them enough time to start recruiting other people. But perhaps he could accelerate his plans a bit.

“She already gave you her answer, and I agree with her.”

Immediately he could see Gotu’s face drop. Such a response was extreme—it was highly unusual for a Nel to allow emotion to be seen on their face.

“But,” Adrian started, “there is something else. Something that, I think, fits this better.”

Gotu grimaced. “This deserves better than to be delegated to some special task force.”

“On that point we agree.” Adrian reached into his pocket and pulled out a small datachip. Placing it on the table, a hologram sprung in the air in front of them. “Here. This is what I had in mind.”

Reluctantly, Gotu turned his attention to the hologram, and Adrian watched as his expression went from somber to interested.

“This…is.. a massive undertaking,” Gotu said after a while.

“It is,” Adrian acknowledged.

“There’s no way that we can do it. Not soon, anyway. The yards are leased for another decade at least, all of the ones that can handle this undertaking.”

Adrian allowed a corner of his mouth to turn upward into a half-smile. “They are, but I have purchased slots for all of the yards in five years.”

Gotu looked at him with his mouth open—another unusual display of emotion—and then his eyes got a faraway look, one that indicated that he was looking for something on his implant.

“That lease is listed as…the Nomad project? That’s you?”

“Yes,” Adrian said crisply. “I will need a lot of recruits, and I was hoping to bring you in on it in a year or two to help me with that. So—how about it? Do you want to help me build that?”

Gotu glanced at the hologram again, then looked at Adrian, his eyes deadly serious. “Yes, Lord Sentinel.”

***

Several hours later, Adrian was sitting in his office with Hayashi, making sure that his one-time mentor and now second in command had everything ready to take over the leadership of the Sentinels while Adrian was away.

“You don’t need to worry, I’m not going to break your toy while you are gone,” Hayashi said with a boyish grin.

“I’m not worried,” Adrian said, “I just want to make sure you have everything you need. This is our dry run. Soon enough you will take my place permanently.”

“Bah, it will be fine. I’ve been your second in command for a long time, I know how to do this.”

Adrian nodded. “I know. That is why I am stepping down now.”

“So what is it, then?”

“I created all of this,” he said simply, gesturing around himself. “I’ll be sad to leave it behind.”

“It’s not like you’ll never come here again.”

“True.”

“Adrian, it’s here,” Iris’s voice interrupted.

“My ship has arrived,” Adrian said out loud.

“Well, then, I suppose I will see you later,” Hayashi said as they stood up.

“Do try not to burn my system down while I’m gone.”

***

“Well, I didn’t think that she would send you that,” Iris commented as they looked at their ship on the shuttle’s view-screen.

“Neither did I,” Adrian said. “That’s the Herald of War.”

“Fitting, I guess. Your mother does have a great sense of humor.”

Adrian silently agreed as he took in the lines of the Empire’s latest-generation Sovereign. Hovering in high orbit of Mars near the ship that had inspired it, it dwarfed the other ships in the area. Though it in turn was smaller than the Enduring, it was clear that the larger ship was related in some way to the Sovereign. The Herald of War’s harsh lines were accented by soft curves in a melding of craftsmanship in a obelisk-like shape. Its back end was rounded with no exhausts for thrust-based drives—it didn’t need them, as the ship relied solely on its gravity drives. No one would ever mistake a Sovereign for anything other than a warship.

The nature of both the Empire’s and the Shara Daim fleets had changed a lot since the war with the Erasi. The number of ships in a fleet for one had increased up to four thousand. The dreadnought warships had once been the cores of the fleets, supported by the smaller ships and drones. The dreadnoughts were still powerful ships that held the lines and kept anything from getting through to the rest of the fleet, but the biggest addition had been the drone carriers. Once, the Empire had contemplated using fighters, but had quickly realized that they would not be viable. It would have been too difficult to make them small enough that they could be made both maneuverable and potent offensively—so much so that they wouldn’t be able to do anything.

That still hadn’t changed, but they had merged the concept of fighters with that of drone control ships. The drone carriers were massive ships, shaped a bit like an open ribcage, that could carry drones inside of them. They had fabricators capable of repairing them in the field, they carried the control teams that flew the drones, and the drones themselves had underwent a large change—they were smaller than they used to be. Now, down to 300 meters in length, around 100 meters in width, and 150 meters in height, each drone resembled a blade’s edge. The miniaturization of many of the Empire’s technologies allowed for them to pack a significant amount of weapons into them, as well as build drones equipped with specific systems for different situations. They had also removed any projectile weapon from their arsenal, making them purely energy-based platforms.

Each fleet had eight hundred carriers, each carrying forty drones. Another four hundred dreadnoughts had their main task changed from being at the front of the line against the enemy to being the line of defense for the other ships in the fleet. Six hundred battleships had had taken over as the tip of the spear, as they were the most powerful of the Empire’s ships. The core of their fleets were the battle cruisers, a class of ships designed to be a well-armored and armed variant of the cruiser class. And finally there were the missile cruisers, the progression on the Empire’s missile pods. These ships were the platforms for launching the Empire’s s-missiles and other extreme long-range weaponry. All of them were supported by the drones.

Sovereign warships, however, were in a class of its own—they were fleet-killers. The Empire had never had the need to use them alongside a fleet. The Sovereign ships were made to be independent, but if used in a fleet they were designed to be able to serve as command hubs for the fleets under their command. The Shara Daim had done something similar, and had adopted the Empire’s drone carriers, except that their fleets still relied a bit more on their super-battleships and less on the carriers, with their fleets having four hundred carriers and eight hundred super-battleships.

The shuttle neared the massive Sovereign and slowly its bay door melted away and let it inside. The shuttle passed through the field that kept the atmosphere inside and landed. Adrian stepped out of the shuttle and was greeted by the command crew of the warship.

Names and ranks appeared above their heads, read by Adrian’s implant, and he glanced at each. The highest-ranking officer stepped forward.

“Lord Sentinel,” Acting Commander Ruiss—a Guxcacul female—greeted him. “I relinquish the command of the Herald of War to you.”

“I accept the command,” Adrian said respectfully, taking a moment to study her impressive head-plate, which was filled with all kinds of colors and patterns—indicating that she was young, not yet out of her first century. “Is the ship ready for our trip?”

“We are fully stocked, and the Fleet has added a few things. Since we don’t know the nature of our mission, I have taken the liberty of outfitting the ship with standard provisions,” she said, her top set of hands twitching in annoyance.

“That will do. Now, let’s find a briefing room, and I will tell you what our mission is,” Adrian said. “Also, call the bridge crew and tell them to set a course for the access point. We are going to Shara Radum.”

Chapter Twelve

Two weeks later—Erebus

Jacob and Nkiruka stood at the colony landing site, waiting for the shuttle from the Erebus to come and pick them up. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Vas walking over to them. He had a backpack in his hand.

“You leaving already?” Vas asked.

“Yes,” Jacob answered. “There isn’t anything left for us to do here.”

“So, you are going to Sol…”

Jacob didn’t respond; the young man was obviously building up to something—and he was pretty sure he knew what that was.

After a moment, Vas finally spoke. “Take me with you.”

“Why would you want to come with us?” Nkiruka asked him.

“I…I thought that I wanted this life, but I’ve come to realize I don’t. There are opportunities in Sol.” Vas paused for a moment, seemingly gathering himself. “And I want to help you finish what we started. They killed my friend, and I…I need to see this through.”

Jacob opened his mouth to refuse, but the intense look Vas was giving him stopped him. Did he really need to refuse? It was not uncommon for the agents of the Hand to conscript local forces on missions. It was regular practice, actually—the Hand’s numbers were too few for the scope of their responsibilities. And Vas had been helpful, more than that in fact. He had saved Jacob’s life. And he was army trained, so he wouldn’t be a burden in combat. Jacob did owe him a debt.

He thought it over for a few more minutes, but the more he thought, the more he became convinced that it wasn’t a bad idea.

Finally, he nodded. “All right, you can come.”

Vas smiled widely. “Good, because I’ve already severed my contract with the colony. I’m ready to go.”

***

Jacob stood in the observation room on board the Erebus waiting for it to exit trans-space and enter Sol. With a flash of violet light, the Erebus exited the trans-lane and entered the system. The view-screen was suddenly filled with three massive defense stations, and as the computer made the connection with the Sol network, a small part of the screen changed and showed a selection allowing the viewers to choose and watch any part of the system. He glanced to his side at Vas—the young man was looking intently at the stations. Shortly thereafter, he started looking through the options of the feeds on the net.

Jacob smiled behind his helmet. It was probably his first time seeing Sol. Jacob had come to like the young man quite a bit—he was a great person to have a conversation with, although Jacob had noticed several areas where his education was lacking. Thankfully, however, Vas wasn’t afraid to ask questions, and he actually listened when Jacob explained. During the trip, Vas had confessed that he had slacked off during his school years quite a bit, thinking that he would join the military for life and that he would have no need for the knowledge the education system offered. Jacob understood that, of course; he had seen that same story play out on many of the Empire’s worlds. Not everyone took the advantage of everything that the Empire offered. Thankfully, not aging meant that most had the opportunity to make such mistakes and recover in time, and Jacob was more than happy to help. It was the only way he knew of making amends for his crime: helping as many people as possible.

Then the view-screen changed, and a sphere, wearing twisted shades of red, gray, and black, appeared. Jacob looked at the Earth with sadness and regret. It was his fault that it had been turned into a wasteland. It was the one thing that he could never forgive himself for, no matter how much he did. Firing on the mining facilities and killing thousands he could somewhat justify to himself. He had done it to save them from a slow and terrible death, and to remove the choice from the fleet that would’ve certainly tried to save them, even though the effort would have been futile. But the deaths of billions on Earth weighed heavily on him. Not even an hour passed by without him remembering.

Jacob glanced at Vas, curious to see his reaction. The young man had been born hundreds of years after Earth’s destruction, in a world far different than the one Jacob called home. The look on his face was strange; for a moment Jacob thought that he was going to ask him something, but then it looked like he thought better of it.

Light flashed in the room, signifying that they were about to enter skim. They waited patiently until the ship dropped out of it in high Mars orbit. Vas looked around the interface, using his wrist unit to scroll through the net. The view-screen changed again.

Vas’s eyes widened, and he turned to Jacob.

“That’s…”

“The Enduring, yes.”

Vas’s eyes returned to the World-ship. “I’ve forgotten how beautiful it was.”

“You’ve seen it before?” Jacob asked, surprised. The Enduring hadn’t left Sol in two hundred years.

“Ah… I did, on vids of course,” Vas said.

“Of course,” Jacob said, turning his eyes to the World-ship. “Too bad that it serves only as a symbol now. With the Sovereign class, there probably won’t ever come a time when it is used in war again.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obsolete. The Sovereign class are far more powerful. And they were made for war, whereas the Enduring was meant to be a city.”

Vas narrowed his eyes at Jacob. “Right. How long are we going to be here?” he asked as the Erebus slowly docked with a station.

“Hopefully not long. We only need someone with authority to act outside of our territory.” The Hand of the Empire’s authority was limited in that its agents could only act inside the Empire. Their purpose was to keep the law, to keep the peace, and to enforce the codes of the Empire across the Clans.

The location of the pirate base was not in the Empire’s territory. If it had been in the unclaimed space Jacob might’ve stretched his authority and ordered Erebus there, but it was not. The coordinates led to a system controlled by another star-nation—and in order to act there, he needed a Sentinel, as they were the only ones authorized to work outside of the Empire’s territory.

Coming back to Sol had cost them time. He had debated with Nkiruka about sending a message and meeting a Sentinel on the way, but they couldn’t be sure that their knowledge of the location of pirate’s base of operation wouldn’t get back to the Erasi. Even though there wasn’t any real proof that the Erasi were involved with the pirates and the liberation force, he couldn’t risk it. Not now when they were so close. It was known that Erasi had spies in the Empire. The only thing left to them was to come in person.

“Come, we should hurry,” Jacob said as they docked with the station. He had sent a message only to ask for an audience with someone high ranking in the Sentinels, and was supposed to meet them in Olympus Mons.

The two of them left the ship along with Nkiruka, and headed toward the space elevator.

***

Aranis followed the two inquisitors as they led him through the strange-looking city and into a complex carved inside a large mountain. But his thoughts were still focused on all the things he had learned since entering this system. Seeing the Enduring had brought out too many memories of his former life, when he had been Waiss—a Grand Exatt of the People.

He had walked the street of the Enduring’s city with Axull Darr, and it was where he and Ullax had spent most of their time together. It was where they’d had a life, a family. Now it was in the hands of these…unworthy, abominable children, this marvel created by his once best friend. Yet the things he had learned worried him; the inquisitor had said that Enduring was inferior to these Sovereign ships, and that could prove to be a problem.

The Enlightened had advanced ahead of the People, and anything that these people had that was better could be a threat. Only, it was so hard to judge anything he had seen. The memories he had stolen gave him little context to the things he encountered. The older the memories, the less clear they were. The time Vas and Aranis’s first victim spent learning in their education programs was fuzzy, unclear, bits and pieces that meant little to him now. He needed more firsthand information.

Once inside the mountain complex, they were met by a strange-looking man, his skin pale, his fingers clawed, and a long tail trailing behind him. After a moment, Aranis recognized his race as Nel. He led them even deeper inside, through a hallway filled with crests and banners, with a few that Aranis actually recognized as belonging to the races he had encountered on his trip here. As they neared the door at the end of the hallway, a nagging sensation kept intruding on Aranis’s mind.

They were ushered to a room, and Aranis felt it. They stepped up to stand in front of a table occupied by a single person. By his attire, Aranis knew that he was someone important to this Empire, and his suspicions were confirmed when the inquisitors bowed low. Aranis followed their lead, being extremely careful not to do anything that could give him away. The man in front of him was powerful. And that was worrying. His power wasn’t near to that of Aranis himself, nor the other two Enlightened, not even close to what power Aranis held before he became what he was now, and he most certainly didn’t have the same connection to the Sha now as he had—but it was still a shock for him to encounter someone so strong. He knew too little and couldn’t afford to get found out here, not in such a public place by such a visible person. He redoubled his efforts to act as normal as possible.

“Sentinel Hayashi,” Inquisitor Jok said. “I wasn’t expecting for you to meet with us in person.”

The man behind the table raised his head from the holograms above his table and looked at the inquisitor, dismissing the holograms with a gesture. He glanced at Inquisitor Norr, and then turned his eyes at Aranis. Their eyes met, but the man quickly dismissed Aranis as inconsequential. The man turned back to Jok.

“The Lord Sentinel informed me of your mission before he left. I assumed that because you asked to meet, you have something important to report and that discretion is important?”

“Yes, sir,” the inquisitor said. “We found the location of their base. It is in Nauira territory.”

“Ah… That means that you will need to work with the Sentinels, assuming you want to see this operation through?”

“We do.”

“Well then, I think that I have just the right sentinel for this task. Go back to the Erebus. I’ll send her there to meet you.”

“Thank you, Sentinel,” the inquisitor said, and they bowed again before turning and leaving the room, going back toward the ship.

Chapter Thirteen

Erebus

Ryaana entered the Erebus through a strangely smooth corridor that led to the ship proper. She only had a short time to read up on the ship and its capabilities, as Sentinel Hayashi had assigned her to the mission. She had been familiar with nanotechnology and its application in a general sense only, and was very excited to see it in action. She followed the crewmen as they guided her through the ship and to a small briefing room. The people inside stood up as she entered.

“Sentinel Ryaana, please sit and we will begin,” Ship Master Quas said.

Ryaana nodded to the three other people, the two inquisitors and the ship’s second in command, and they resumed their places.

“If you will, Inquisitor Jok,” the Ship Master said.

The inquisitor put a datachip on the table and a hologram appeared above it. “We are relatively certain that this is the location of the pirate base of operations.”

Ryaana nodded, she had already learned the location from Hayashi. “Nauira territory… That is problematic. How certain are you that this is their base?” The Nauira were a race that held territory bordering with the Erasi, and had actually been very close to gaining membership to the Erasi. When the Empire forced the Erasi out of the Orion Spur, the sector had collapsed, and the Nauira who had put a large part of their resources in the trade with the Erasi had been left without a future. They did not take kindly to their new neighbors. The relation between the alliance and them had always been shaky.

They weren’t a large player; they had only controlled several systems, and were technologically behind the Empire, so they had been marked as unimportant. The Empire and the Shara Daim had been too occupied with the chaos that the Erasi had left to deal with the races that had been dealing with and relied on the Erasi to survive.

“It was the first thing they deleted, but we recovered it by chance. This and a few other half-corrupted files lead us to believe that this was, or is, the location of their base. At the very least it is an important site. Sending in a fleet would look bad,” the inquisitor said.

“And if it truly is their base?” Ryaana asked. “They will have defenses.”

“The Erebus is top of the line. The pirates have never demonstrated anything that could seriously threaten it,” Ship Master interjected.

“I would still be more comfortable with at least a taskforce accompanying us,” Ryaana said.

“I did ask the Sol Fleet commander. His answer was that the Fleet was unwilling to allow our Fleet vessels inside foreign territory,” the inquisitor said.

Ryaana grimaced. That meant that the Emperor was not willing to allow it. She could understand that—many star-nations were just waiting for the Empire to do something that they could use to condemn them as bullies. Already they had been at a disadvantage, having to work against the reputation of the Shara Daim. “We don’t even know how large this base is, and what if we encounter something that we are not prepared to handle?”

“We will have four army platoons accompanying us, enough to take any pirate base,” the Ship Master said.

“And what about ships?” she asked.

“I am confident that Erebus can handle anything.”

Ryaana knew from the reports that the pirates had never shown to have any modern warship. Their fleets consisted out of retrofitted merchant vessels, and occasionally they would show up with an outdated class of Empire or Erasi ships, but those were very old ships. There was a huge gap between a pirate ship and current military vessels—they were not even in the same league, but they could still possess strength in numbers. Erebus had the newest Empire technology, but it was also barely the size of a frigate. Its advanced technology should have no problem of keeping its presence from the pirates, but she didn’t like going in without any information about what they would find there.

But she knew that they would have to act. There would be no coming back and brining proof that would then bring the fleets down on the pirates. The Empire was bound by treaties to inform the Nauira about it and ask permission to enter their territory. Which the Nauira would refuse for the sake of spite alone, and if they were somehow involved with the pirates… Ryaana shook herself. No—they would need to cut off the snake’s head, alone. A surgical strike with a single ship.

“Very well then, Ship Master; Inquisitor. By my authority as a Sentinel, I am authorizing the mission in Nauira territory.”

***

Aranis walked slowly through corridors of the strange ship. He had been given a small berth with a few of the crew. He didn’t complain, as he had what he wanted: a chance to interact with the people who had knowledge that he sought. So far, however, he hadn’t seen or heard anything that could give him an exact idea of just what the Empire’s ships were capable of.

Finally, Aranis reached a door that led to the ship’s training room. He had visited it previously to observe the ship’s crew training with the Sha. He hadn’t been all that impressed; most of them were weak, far below the average of the People. A few had been somewhat stronger, but none enough for him to take an interest.

Until a few hours ago, when he had felt a very powerful presence come on board the ship, far more powerful than any he had encountered in the Empire. Whoever it was held a great amount of power. Aranis looked at the closed doors leading to the training room, and he could feel Sha being used inside. Slowly, he used his wrist-unit and entered.

The person inside stood still in the center of the room as metal globes twirled around them. Aranis had seen the others do that, and upon asking he had been told that the goal was to train control. The most that he had seen someone handle was two globes at the same time. There were twenty spinning around the person at the same time, all in different orbits and moving at different speeds. Then as soon as Aranis stepped inside, every single globe froze in the air, and the person keeping them suspended in the air turned around to look at him.

Everyone in this Empire wore skintight suits, and Aranis could clearly see that this person was a female. Her hair was short and black, and by the color of her skin he could tell that she was a Shara Daim. The third race that Axull Darr created. She was the first one he had encountered in person—Vas had never seen one before, nor had the first person whom he had stolen memories from.

“Do you wish to train?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I didn’t know that someone was already here. I’ll come back later,” Aranis said.

“Wait,” she said, and started walking toward him, her eyes narrowed as she stood in front of him and studied him. For a moment Aranis feared that somehow she could see what he truly was, and he prepared to act.

“You are not part of the crew,” she said finally.

Aranis relaxed. “No. I am with the inquisitors.”

“Ah… I remember, I read about you in the report. Vasily, right?”

“Vas,” Aranis said, and took the time to study her in turn.

“I’m Ryaana.”

“You are Shara Daim?” Aranis asked—the question was, after all, in line with who Vasily was.

“Half,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m half Shara Daim, and half Human,” she answered with a slight smile.

“I apologize, I meant no offense. I’ll leave you to your training.”

She tilted her head at him and her smile grew bigger. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

Aranis froze. Am I supposed to know? He quickly went back through the memories available to him. There was nothing in them to tell him who this person was.

“No,” Aranis said slowly, watching her closely.

Suddenly, she laughed. “That’s so refreshing! I can’t remember the last time this has happened.”

Aranis looked at her in confusion, keeping still.

“You wanted to train? Come, I need a training partner.”

Before Aranis could refuse, she grabbed and pulled him forward.

Several hours later, Aranis lay in the berth assigned to him. To anyone looking at him he would seem completely asleep. But his mind was wide awake. The short training session had proven…enlightening. Aranis had of course pretended to be at the level believable for someone like Vasily, and had taken great care to conceal his power. Regardless, he couldn’t help but feel like he had shown too much. Something about his training partner made him want to show more than he knew would be wise. It had been a risk—his training partner was very powerful—but he had also learned a lot. There was an elegance to her use of the Sha that he wouldn’t have believed possible. He was now certain that she was more powerful than he had been when he had still called himself Waiss. But she had nowhere near the power nor the mastery of it that he possessed now, of course. She did however have tremendous control for someone of her power.

And his contact with her turned out extremely advantageous. Afterward he had done some research and found out that Ryaana was the daughter of two of the most influential people both in the Empire and the Shara Daim. Exactly what he had been looking for. Now he only needed to attach himself to her side, and eventually he would get a true picture of what kind of a threat the children of Axull Darr truly were.

Thankfully, she had insisted that he remain her training partner for the duration of their mission.

Chapter Fourteen

Two weeks later; July—Josanti League border sector

Alliooppaastori, High Venesar of the Josanti, was having a good day. The taxes for this half a cycle had been paid in full and with no need for him to send the enforcers to remind the errant systems of the law—a first for the Nassanti sector. It was why the Great Council had appointed him in this backwater sector of their grand nation, on the borders with primitive races not even worth Josanti attention. Alliooppaastori had the knack for turning troublesome sectors into productive areas of the Josanti. He had spent many full cycles doing the same thing in many such sectors, and all had been considered on par with the sectors in the core after he had finished his job.

And after he finished with this system, he just knew that his deserved reward would finally be granted to him. To be an administrator of a core system—the jewels of the Josanti and envy of all other star-nations. He could already imagine it: he, who had been born in the outer sectors, and had risen through the ranks on his ability alone, overcoming his innate handicap to become an equal of the core-born. His tentacles twitched at the excitement he felt for the future.

A soft chime interrupted his musings and his aide walked in on his four leg tentacles. “High Venesar,” he started, “the Empire’s ambassador is here to see you.”

Alliooppaastori’s mood immediately dropped. He had forgotten that he had a meeting scheduled with the cursed primitive. For a moment he considered telling his aide to send the ambassador away, but decided against it. It would not do for someone as exalted as him to act in such a way, even toward a primitive.

“Very well,” he told his aide.

The Empire’s ambassador walked in, and once again Alliooppaastori studied it—her. He always forgot that it was a female of its species. Unlike his own race, the Oovaa, the genders of the humans, as they called themselves, resembled each other very much. This was not the case for the Oovaa, where the difference was clear immediately: the males had eight tentacles plus four for use in movement, and the females had six plus four. How the humans were able to tell which gender was which baffled him.

“High Venesar,” the ambassador greeted him.

“Ambassador Aileen,” Alliooppaastori greeted her in return, making sure that his smell flaps were closed. Humans had a very strong odor. “Please, take a seat.”

The Ambassador walked to his desk and awkwardly took a seat on the adaptive foam. Alliooppaastori chuckled inwardly. The human couldn’t even sit properly, its legs dangling over above the floor.

“What can I do for you, Ambassador?” he asked, even though he already knew.

“I wanted to see if you’ve reconsidered your stance?”

“As I said to you the last time, the Josanti are not in the practice of allowing foreign ships through our territory. You are more than welcome to visit the delegated trading systems.”

“We are willing to pay in currency, resources, or technology.”

Alliooppaastori almost laughed out loud. The arrogance! That such primitives believed they had anything that could be valuable to the Josanti, they who had ruled the core of the galaxy for a length of time incomprehensible to them. He remembered when this Empire had first made contact barely a full cycle ago. Their ship had the technology that allowed for faster-than-light travel through normal space, something that not many races ever achieved. Alliooppaastori was willing enough to admit that was impressive, but nothing else about them could be called that. They used metals to build their ships. Metals! No race of the Josanti had used such antiquated materials in their shipbuilding for a long, long time.

And there was no craft in their build, as everything from their ship to its support craft was ugly. Sharp lines, plates of metal, and weapons—there was no artistry, no beauty. Everything about them irritated his senses. Oh, he had heard tales of their Empire, far away toward the rim where Josanti did not care to go. Tales of a great Empire with technology far ahead of their neighbors. That only told him about the state of all those other races, if they believed this Empire advanced. And he did heard tales of their Fleet-killer ships, and he laughed at absurdity of such a thing. No, there was nothing that they could offer to the Josanti League, nor was there any chance of their ships passing through Josanti territory.

Especially since they stated that they wished to find the black ships. Alliooppaastori shivered at the thought—he remembered the stories he heard as a child of black unstoppable ships and the countless they had wiped out. Thankfully, they were far away from Josanti territory, even though word of them had reached their people. Allowing these primitives to go and provoke them was never going to happen.

“My previous decision stands,” he said at last. “Passage through our territory will not happen. You can go to one of our many planets designated for embassies or trade—escorted, of course, and set up an embassy. You could then appeal our foreign affairs organization, but the answer will be the same.”

The ambassador studied him, but Alliooppaastori could not discern anything from her alien expressions.

“Very well, High Venesar,” she said after a time. “I will not take any more of your time.”

“Of course. Be well, Ambassador.”

As soon as she left, Alliooppaastori put her and her Empire out of his mind. He had better things to do than to dwell on primitives.

***

Sentinel Aileen entered the ready room on her ship, enraged. Before the meeting she’d still had some small hope that she would be able to convince the High Venesar to allow the Empire passage through their territory. Now she knew that there was no chance of it. The Josanti were arrogant to an extreme she had never seen before, not even with the Ra’a’zani. They believed that all outside of the core were primitive and not worth their time. She had encountered the same even in their civilian branches. Traders would not even look at their technology, so assured they were of their supremacy.

Aileen could admit that they were advanced, as much as the Empire in many aspects at least based on what she had seen. But such complete disregard for those outside of themselves was something that she had not believed existed. And so she had failed in her mission. Lord Sentinel had tasked her with finding a safe route to the territory of the machines, to the borders that contained the Enlightened. Passing through the core would have been the shortest route, especially if they had managed to activate the access points along the way.

But now she would be forced to seek a route around the Josanti, which would add years to the trip. The machines that Ullax Darr had created were on the other side of the galactic core. And the Josanti controlled the core—they held a truly ridiculous amount of territory. She was tempted to try and force her way through, to show them how primitive her ship truly was, but she was not about to provoke one of the more powerful nations that the Empire had encountered.

She sat down in her chair and sighed. There was no point in staying here. Her mission was not here, not anymore. Other Sentinels would come here and establish embassies, and perhaps they would have better luck than her. Aileen needed to find another route, and that meant leaving Josanti territory.

She opened a galactic map and started planning her next move.

Chapter Fifteen

Several months later—En route to Krashin territory

The Herald of War exited the trans-lane and entered the Hasre-controlled system. Adrian sighed in relief as they had finally reached their destination. He remembered when they had reached the Vurta-controlled access point and had slowly exited the star’s corona. In a blink of the eye they had went from the heart of the Orion Spur to the edge of the Perseus Arm, almost thirty-five thousand light years away. The advantages of having an access point. The Vurta were the only race that was not the part of the alliance that had access to one—save for the Ullax’s machines, of course. It was the price that the Vurta had asked for turning on their longtime neighbor, the Erasi. And they had been smart—they didn’t allow the alliance to activate those inside the heart of their territory, but instead they had chosen one that was just at the edge of their territory in the space between the Perseus Arm and the Outer Arm.

Over the years trade between the alliance and the Vurta had skyrocketed, and the system had become one of the larger trading hubs in this area of space. It was the easiest part of their trip. The hard part of their journey had been to cross to the Outer Arm and the territory of the Hasre, the star-nation that neighbored with the Krashin. Before contacting the Krashin, Adrian wanted as much information as possible, and that meant going to those who shared a border with them.

The alliance had very little contact with the Hasre, and most of their contact was through the Vurta and the Vurta trading system. Occasionally Hasre ships would arrive for trade from their territory, which was some three thousand light years away. A long way without an access point. Thankfully they had trans-lane maps for the area, purchased from the Vurta. Still it took them several months to get here.

Adrian remembered the Herald of War rising up from the corona in the Vurta territory, and the reactions of the system’s inhabitants. A couple of the smaller ships had turned from their headings and started going in the opposite direction. Adrian smiled—there had been ships of many races and star-nations here that had never seen or heard about the Empire. Seeing a Sovereign had been a real shock for them. He could imagine that their passing through would be talked about for a long time.

Now he wondered what the reaction of the Hasre would be. The Hasre knew that they were arriving, but they didn’t know that they would arrive in a Sovereign; Adrian didn’t even know if they knew what a Sovereign was. Hasre territory was very far away from the Empire’s.

Adrian was sitting in the fleet command chair of the ship. Around him the command crew sat and worked. Technology had advanced a lot, and every ship in the Empire’s military was now commanded by control interfaces—a hybrid system, utilizing both the Empire’s Watchtower interface technology and the People’s telepathic interface. The People’s interface was a powerful tool, but one that only they could use to its fullest. Very few people in the Empire could handle the drain that the interface put on one’s mind. It was simply not designed for human, Nel, or Shara Daim brains. Even Adrian, who could use it the longest, couldn’t exactly reach its full potential.

So they had designed a new system. The ships of the People were controlled by a single person—the Empire took another approach. The control interface spread the drain and load on the brain by splitting up control among several people, and by using both the telepathic and the implant-based interfaces. Four people controlled the weapons systems, one was the pilot, one was the communications officer, and two operated the scanners. There was one more interface delegated to command and intended to be used by the fleet commander, similar to the control boards that the Empire had used for a long time.

Commander Ruiss acted as the ship’s pilot. She was in overall command of the ship when there wasn’t a fleet commander on board. She turned to look at Adrian, who was sitting just behind her. No one was using their control interfaces right now—they were relying on more conventional controls to move the ship. There was no need for the use of the advanced systems outside of combat.

“We are being hailed, Lord Sentinel,” the communications officer said. “It’s coming from a Hasre patrol ship.”

“Very well, put it through.”

A hologram came to life in the center of the room, and a fairly frightened-looking Hasre appeared. Hasre were biped, tall and lithe with faces that looked like a Bonnet macaque monkey’s, with a large, red-haired mane framing their head. They were another of the species that had been more heavily shaped by the People. The similarities allowed Adrian to gauge the alien’s expression far more accurately.

“This is Hasre patrol vessel Jughhnao. Identify yourselves and state your business in our territory,” the Hasre managed to say in a high-pitched voice.

Adrian smiled inwardly. The poor Hasre probably never even heard of the Empire, and if he had it was probably just in passing.

“I am Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas-Reiss of the Empire,” he replied coolly. “I am here to speak with the person in control of this system. We are expected.”

“I will need to verify that. Keep your position until further notice,” he said, and Adrian could see a glimmer of relief in his expression.

“Of course.”

***

Several hours later, Adrian sat across from the person he had come to meet with—Administrator Jassail, she was the person in charge with the entire Hasre-Krashin border. A telepath, as his senses told him, though not particularly powerful—but Adrian assumed that she had other psionics as well. It had been agreed that she would be the one to deal with Adrian. The Hasre were willing to provide information and passage through their territory, but of course they wanted something in return. And Adrian was fairly certain that he knew what they wanted.

“My superiors have granted me the authority to make a deal with you, Lord Sentinel,” she told him.

“I’m glad to hear that. I was worried that we would be forced to wait here for someone who had the authority.”

“Well, since you didn’t give us an exact timeline of your arrival, they were forced to place someone here who could make such decisions. We, too, care little for wasted time.”

“That is great to hear. I am very anxious to get in contact with the Krashin,” Adrian said, and he saw her face twitch at his words. “You don’t believe that we will be successful?” he asked.

“I shall leave my thoughts for after we make a deal. Information such as you seek is not something that we are willing to give for nothing.”

Adrian’s lip curled up in a half smile. “Very well, since your people seem to value directness—tell me, what is it that you want in return?”

She blinked her large eyes several times. “We want an access point.”

Adrian nodded—as he had expected. “Done.”

The Hasre looked at him in surprise. “Just like that? No additional negotiations or attempts to give us something else?”

“Yes, an access point would benefit you greatly, but it would benefit us as well by opening trade between us. I have several locations of access points that we will be willing to open for you. Here.” Adrian put a small holo-device on the table in front of him and a map of several systems appeared. He allowed the Administrator to study them, and after several minutes she pointed to one.

“That one.”

“As you wish. My ship has a support vessel capable of giving you access to this point. It can leave for that system immediately—if you provide an escort, of course.”

“A moment,” she said, and she activated a small comm device that she pulled out from her belt. She relayed her orders.

“If you will notify your ship, they can leave as soon as your support vessel is ready.”

“I’ve already notified them,” Adrian said. He had used his implant to speak with the Herald of War while she had talked with her people.

Her comm chimed and she listened closely. “Good,” she said as she returned her comm device to her belt.

“Do you wish for us to wait for confirmation?” Adrian asked.

“I think not. I believe you are trustworthy. Let’s speak of the Krashin.”

Adrian leaned forward, looking her in the eye. “I need to know everything that you know about them. How are you interacting with them? How you manage to have a peaceful border with them?”

“There isn’t as much to tell, I’m afraid. The Krashin are mysterious. They are not like other life we have encountered. Our arm of the galaxy is far less populated than the others, at least according to what we have learned through our interactions with the Vurta. So during our explorations we have rarely encountered other life, but always we have had peaceful interactions. Until the Krashin.” She paused for a moment, looking uncomfortable.

“What happened when you encountered them?”

“We couldn’t communicate with them. They didn’t use any of the means of communication that we did. We tried everything, but never got any response. The first encounter ended with our ship destroyed, a single scouting vessel. Of course we were alarmed, so we sent more ships, both scientific that could try to communicate with them and military that could defend them. We found the Krashin ship that destroyed ours and attempted to communicate. We failed again, and we were forced to destroy it. Afterward we found out that another Krashin ship had been in the system and upon seeing the destruction of its kin, it turned away. Our fleet was frightened. We knew nothing about these species, and their ships were strange and powerful, although not much more so than ours.

“Our fleet followed, still trying to figure out a way for us to communicate. Eventually they were met with a Krashin fleet, one that had the exact number of our own. By then, however, our scientists had devised a way for us to communicate that they thought was worth attempting.”

“What was it?”

“Telepathy,” she said simply. “They built amplifiers that allowed them to speak across large distances.”

Adrian nodded. He assumed that it would be something like that. They couldn’t have known that it was one way for them to understand themselves without knowing each other’s languages. The People had made sure to design telepathy for every life form they altered, so that no matter how different two races were, they would be able to understand each other.

“We managed to make contact, but we were not able to reach a peaceful resolution. Even with a means of communication, understanding was very difficult. We met their fleet in battle. Our fleet won, just barely—most of our ships were destroyed, and the rest were severely damaged. Then another Krashin fleet arrived in system, and our people prepared to die. Instead, the Krashin contacted them, and after many days of our people trying to discern their communications, they managed to understand. The Krashin told them that the trial of the confrontation was satisfied, and asked our people for their terms.”

Adrian frowned. There wasn’t supposed to be any difficulty in them understanding each other—the People had designed telepathy as a type of universal communication.

“My people didn’t understand what they were asking,” she continued. “But still, they told them—they asked the Krashin to respect our borders and never bother us again. The Krashin agreed, and left. Since then no Krashin ship has ever crossed into our territory and no Hasre ship has entered theirs. We have never seen what they look like, only their ships, which look like giant life forms in space.”

Adrian thought about what he had just heard. Obviously the Krashin were very strange beings; but then again, he had known that already.

“You still plan on getting in contact with them?” she asked.

“Yes. This is informative, but it changes little.”

“Do you have the telepathic amplifiers? You will not be able to speak with them otherwise.”

“We do,” Adrian said. The Sowir had used the amplifiers to control their genetically engineered armies during their wars with the Empire and the Consortium. And the Empire had improved on them since then.

“You will not have a peaceful meeting with them,” she told him.

“Nevertheless, I will meet with them. You managed to make a deal with them. I shall do the same, no matter the cost.”

“Here,” she said, putting a small cube on the table, “this is all the data we have on the Krashin. Hopefully it will make a difference.”

“Thank you, I’m sure that it will,” Adrian said absentmindedly, but already he was thinking on the challenge in front of him.

Chapter Sixteen

November; Year 563 of the Empire—Erebus—Nauira territory

Ryaana stood next to the Ship Master in the Erebus command room as the ship exited the skim. They had spent the last several months slowly making their way to the location of the pirate base in Nauira territory. Their need for stealth prevented them from using trans-lanes—those were almost certainly watched, and an exit from trans-space was unmistakable. They had been forced to use slower hyperspace travel and to exit it far enough away from the system in order to remain undetected, and then use the skim drives to enter the system.

The first versions of the skim drives that the Empire developed had a large flaw: not only would the entrance or exit from skim light up every sensor in half the system, but the exit also released a very powerful electromagnetic pulse. The Empire had used it offensively before, but it had been another issue that had prevented stealth ships from using it actively. The current generation, on the other hand, had no such side effect.

As the Erebus left the skim, the holo in the middle of the room updated with sensory data. They were in their target system, a double-star system with a red dwarf star and a B-type main-sequence star. The system had only three planets, one of which was a large gas giant—that was their target. The gas giant had almost sixty moons and three extremely thick rings, which included several minor planets. There was nothing else of interest in the system. Not a single ship was being detected by the Erebus’s passive scans.

“Release six probes, and focus on the rings,” Ship Master Quas ordered, then turned to look at Ryaana at his side. “The coordinates are right in the middle of the ring.”

“Are we getting anything?” Inquisitor Jok asked as he stepped up to the holo.

“No, but we can’t risk going active with the scanners. We should wait and see if the probes find something before we take the ship there. My people assure me that the composition of the ring won’t affect our stealth, but I would not risk it yet.”

The inquisitor nodded in agreement. “I shall inform the platoons that we should be ready to go at the moment’s notice.” He glanced at Ryaana. “I assume that you will command the assault from the ground?”

“Yes,” Ryaana answered. She turned to the Ship Master. “Let me know as soon as you have something.”

“Of course, Sentinel.”

***

Aranis waited patiently with the rest of the soldiers in a large hangar area, taking great care to study their arms and armor. There were four groups—platoons, as they called them, each with twenty-eight people, with various races included. Most of the soldiers wore the same type of armor, a battle suit. He had received one as well. The memories that Vasily had of using something similar were not very clear, but with some help, he managed. A few soldiers in every group wore something that he had heard referred to as heavy battle armor, a large hulking suit that encased its wearer completely. Aranis guessed that it allowed for a greater protection.

The weapons they carried were various. Some carried plasma rifles like what he was familiar with, and others carried large weapons that required harnesses attached to their shoulders in order to be carried. Aranis was allowed to keep his own rifle, as it was deemed suitable, but he was given an additional pistol and plasma cartridges. The inquisitors had different armor than the suits they used previously—these ones seemed to have extra plates attached to important areas.

And then there was Sentinel Ryaana.

Her armor was the strangest. It had several hard pieces of plates, on her chest, back, forearms and shins. The rest looked like some kind of overlapping scales. She had no weapons in her hands, but there were things molded to both of her shoulders that Aranis assumed were weapons—he had seen them move in several directions. He had waited to see if she would take any additional weapons, but then he realized that she probably didn’t even need them. Their training sessions had been…illuminating.

He had held back, of course, keeping his true capabilities a secret, ‘“improving” himself as quickly as he thought was reasonable. But even so, she had surprised him, enough that he had started worrying about the future and the inevitable conflict between the Enlightened and his friend’s progeny. But later he had learned from the crew of the ship that she was one of the most powerful Sha users in the Empire and the Shara Daim—she was far above the rest. A few anomalies could be handled without problems; it would’ve been more a problem if they had hundreds of thousands of people like her.

Aranis believed that he had gauged her power accurately, but now he would have a chance to see her in action, and see what she could truly do in a combat setting. That was exactly the kind of information he had come here to find. Inwardly, he smiled to himself. Knowing one’s enemy is the first step to wiping them out entirely.

***

Jacob sat in silence and went over his equipment as they waited. The ship was slowly creeping toward the rings, as the probes explored and searched for the pirate base. They would need to act fast once they found it. He went over his comms with his implant, making sure that he was connected with Nkiruka, the platoon leaders, and the Sentinel. The overall command would be the Sentinel’s, of course, as she was the one person that had trained extensively for these kind of things, although she would depend heavily on the platoon leaders. Jacob himself had led several raids using local enforcement teams, but nothing like this. They had limited people, but theirs had equipment, training, and experience superior to anything the pirates could have. Yet they didn’t know exactly how big this base was, nor how many of the pirates there were.

“Inquisitor,” the Sentinel said as she walked up to him, startling him. He hadn’t noticed her approach.

“Sentinel,” he said.

“They’ve got something. Come,” she said, and walked over to the small briefing room attached to the hangar, followed by Nkiruka and the four platoon leaders.

Once inside he saw the hologram of the Ship Master sitting in one of the chairs, and the holo-table showing scans of a large rock, a minor planet. They all took their seats, and the Sentinel gestured toward the Ship Master for him to speak.

“There it is,” the Ship Master said. “The scans show it embedded deep into the rock, and the power scans indicate a fairly large facility. There are four open yards, and two closed. Two of the four are occupied by pirate ships undergoing repairs, and we know that there are ships in the closed ones, but we can’t tell what they are. As you can see here”—his hand went to the screen attached to his armrest—“there are three ships in positions above the base. Two are obviously pirate ships, converted merchants, nothing that should prove to be a problem, but the third is a Nauira heavy cruiser.”

Jacob looked at the holo. The two converts were rectangular ships, with turrets and armor plates welded to the hull. But as the Ship Master had indicated, the third one was a large ship, one about the size of the Erebus, though it was pointed in the front with wide, crescent-shaped wings at the back.

“So they know about the base,” Jacob said to the room.

“We can’t assume that just yet, as the pirates could’ve stolen the ship,” the Sentinel said.

“That is a modern Nauira cruiser. If the pirates had anything that could take that ship, we would’ve had much more trouble against them,” the Ship Master said.

Jacob agreed silently. “We might be right, but as the Sentinel said we can’t assume anything without more proof. What kind of a threat does that ship pose?”

“Nauira technology is some way behind ours. We should have no problems,” the Ship Master said.

“What’s the plan?” Jacob asked, turning to the Sentinel.

“We will need cover as we assault the base, and that means putting Erebus as close as possible to keep those ships off our backs. Their weapons might be inferior but they are capable of taking down an assault shuttle all the same,” she said. “I think that our best option is to breach the base through the open yards, and through here.” She pointed at a large stretch of hull. “If our scans are correct, there are several hallways running through there on the other side.”

“I agree. Two platoons should take the yards and two should infiltrate through there,” one of the Platoon Leaders said. “The platoons in the yards will probably draw the majority of their response. The other two should make as to penetrate as deep as possible inside the base. A priority should be their command center.”

“Agreed,” the Sentinel said. “Ship Master, we leave as soon as you get us in position.”

Chapter Seventeen

Erebus

Ship Master Quas sat nervously in the command chair of his ship cracking the knuckles of his lower arms. He had been in battles before—he was one of the first Trivaxians that had joined the Empire’s Fleet, and had seen the end of the Erasi war. But today he was going to take this new kind of ship to battle for the first time. His actions today would reflect on the feasibility of nano-ships in the future. He couldn’t fail.

“We are in position, sir,” the pilot reported.

“Weapons are ready, sir,” the weapons officer reported.

Quas turned to look at his second in command. “Is the system ready?”

“Cyber-warfare systems are ready, and we have tentative connections to the enemy systems,” Hassal reported.

“Engage the control systems,” Quas said, and used his imp to activate the system. A needle made the connection with his implant through the access port on the back of his head, and a moment later he felt himself make the connection to his ship. He could feel its systems, and all the information he needed flowed through his implant and was processed and passed on to his brain. He raised his arms and put them on the two orbs that rose on his armrest, and the second part of the system activated. Making the connection to his telepathy, he and the rest of his crew gained a link.

“Weapons target the two pirate ships, proton beams only, full spread,” Quas ordered with his thoughts. He would’ve liked to take the Nauira ship first, but it was awkwardly positioned behind the two pirate ships, and the Erebus’s priority was to cover the assault. Afterward, he could deal with the Nauira cruiser.

“Weapons locked and ready,” His weapons officer reported, their exchange taking place in a single moment.

“Fire,” Quas ordered.

***

Out of the mist of gases and particles that surrounded the pirate base, a silver ship appeared. Before the pirates could even detect its presence, it opened fire with its powerful proton weapons. Beams pummeled into the two converted merchant ships, vaporizing entire sections of their hulls and causing them to explode into pieces.

The first to react was the base. Turrets rose out of the hull and swiveled to target the Empire’s ship, but before they were able, the Erebus’s cyber-warfare system deftly locked the gunners from their turrets, preventing them from firing. The Nauira heavy cruiser reacted by powering its shields and weapons and moved to bring its weapons on the Erebus.

As soon as the Erebus had fired, four assault shuttles left its hangar, accelerating toward the pirate base.

***

Ryaana stood patiently at the head of the soldiers inside the shuttle, and waited as they accelerated toward the base. She glanced behind her at the two inquisitors, and at Vas. The young man had proven surprisingly talented with the Sha, although he didn’t show all that much power—but with time, that could change. He had most certainly improved a lot since they had started training together. It never took him more than one or two attempts to replicate something that she showed him, showing a raw talent that needed only shaping. She hoped that he would get through this safely, as she had taken a liking to him. He didn’t care who she was, and he was not afraid to ask questions.

She turned back and watched the exit, bringing her thoughts back to the mission. She got a ping on her HUD indicating that they would reach their destination soon, and she gripped the safety railings as she waited. Soon enough the shuttle decelerated and then shook as they impacted the hull. A large clank informed her that they had made a hard seal with the hull, and then she heard several short thumps as the breaching charges detonated and the forward section of the shuttle opened, allowing them inside.

Ryaana sprang forward, entering the pirate base, and immediately she activated her suit’s drones, calling forth six small pearl-sized drones to leave their container on her back and fly ahead. The left side of the corridor led back toward the yards, so she turned to the right and started moving forward, the rest following quickly behind.

She watched the drone’s feeds on her HUD, and saw a group of pirates just about to turn a corner and come face to face with her people. She jumped forward, covering the five meters to the corner in a blink as she gathered Sha. As soon as she landed, she raised her arms and pointed them at the unsuspecting pirate that had just turned the corner. A stream of plasma left her palms, incinerating the pirate’s head. She kicked the body as she stepped out of the edge, keeping the stream of plasma going and burning another three that had followed close behind the first.

Two of the pirates were slower, and upon seeing their friends die, they raised their rifles and fired. Unfortunately for them Ryaana already had a shield up, and their opening shots splattered against it, leaving no chance for a follow up. Ryaana lashed out and telekinetically crushed the head of the closest pirate, while she struck out with her mind at the other. With a thought she broke the pirate’s mind. Without even losing a step, she stepped over their corpses.

Her drones had already reached the end of the corridor and found a large room where a dozen or so pirates were waiting for them to arrive. Ryaana and the rest of the platoon quickly reached the end and she stepped into the room, keeping the shield up as her people entered behind her. The pirates unloaded everything they had at her, but they could not pierce her barrier. Her people filled in and started returning fire while she covered them. They then reached the short wall and took cover behind it as they kept picking off the pirates.

Ryaana got down and leaned against the wall, lowering the shield. She took a moment to gather her breath and with a thought activated the turrets on her shoulders. She jumped over the cover and crossed ten meters to land in the middle of the pirates. The mono-blade from her right forearm extended and she swiped to the right, cutting a pirate clean in half. Her turrets started firing, and spheres of blue-white energy scorched through the pathetic armor that the pirates had, killing them instantly. She moved without stopping, her blade singing through the air as her turrets fired all around her.

Another group of pirates filled into the room, and her people moved up as she cleaned up her group. A grenade flew over her head and dropped it in the middle of the new group. A moment later the area was filled with gas, and then a massive flash of light exploded in the area, flash freezing the pirates. Ryaana leveled her turrets at them and together with the soldiers that were now standing beside her, she cut them all down.

“The room is clear, Sentinel,” the Platoon Leader said over the comms, as he gestured and gave other orders to his people.

“Set up a point here, I don’t want anyone coming behind our backs,” she ordered.

One of her drones recorded another group coming their way and Ryaana opened a channel. “Incoming, get ready.” She marked the door through which the enemy was coming on their shared HUD map. They took positions and waited. The two inquisitors and Vas stepped to her side and leveled their rifles at the entrance.

Several grenades shot from the door and Ryaana and the platoon leader grabbed them with telekinesis, the intention being to throw them to the side. As soon as they caught them, however, the grenades detonated and a harsh light exploded, blinding them. Ryaana closed her eyes hard, but she was still stunned. Then, with barely a second’s warning, she felt it.

Immediately she tried to warn the others. “They have a Gat—”

A loud screech filled her mind, dropping her to her to her knees. The soldiers around her dropped down to the floor, spasming in pain. She gathered her mental walls as quickly as possible and pushed the attack out, but the effort cost her, testing her endurance. She stood up and saw a group of pirates moving inside with their weapons ready, and in the middle of their group walked the Gatrey. She raised her hand to fire a plasma bolt—killing him was the only thing that would stop his mental attack. But before she could get off a shot, a bolt of plasma flew from her side of the room, taking the Gatrey’s head clean off.

Both the pirates and Ryaana were shocked. She turned to the side and saw Vas with his rifle raised. He turned toward her, but she couldn’t see his expression through the helmet. He should’ve been disabled, she thought in disbelief. It takes an incredibly powerful mental shield to block their attacks. She wanted to ask him how he wasn’t affected by the attack, but she had no time. She turned toward the pirates, and the turrets on her shoulders opened fire.

***

Aranis had made a mistake. He knew he had the moment he realized what had happened. He had been so lost in the combat, in seeing her move and use the Sha with such brutality and efficiency, that he had forgotten for a moment who he was supposed to be. When the alien had thrown his mental attack, Aranis was of course not affected. Such a weak attempt had no chance of breaking through his defenses. But he hadn’t noticed its effect on the others—in the moment he had only seen the attack on himself. Aranis had never before been in such a battle, as he had always commanded from afar. Being on the front lines was beneath him. And so, when the alien dared to attack him, he could only think of punishing that arrogance.

Thankfully he had used the weapon in his hands; perhaps some part of his mind still knew that he needed to keep his capabilities a secret. Only when he had killed the alien did he realize that the fact that he was unaffected was a tell in of itself. Ryaana had seen him, he knew. He only wondered how suspicious the fact that he was unaffected made her. She didn’t have the time to question him about it, but even without seeing her face, he could tell that she had noticed and was at the very least intrigued.

She continued fighting, and Vas followed behind as they moved out of the room and into another long corridor. He followed Ryaana and watched as she kept dispatching the pirates, never even slowing down. She was exactly what the Enlightened had feared would come to be because of the mistakes of the People. She was the proof that their reasoning was right—that the galaxy could not afford these abominations to live.

Chapter Eighteen

Erebus

Ship Master Quas watched as the Nauira heavy cruiser fired its main weapons at the Erebus, followed by an impressive missile barrage. It wouldn’t be enough, of course. The Nauira ship was moving away from the base, forcing the Erebus to follow. They must’ve realized that nothing that their warship had could take down the Erebus’s shields, at least not fast enough for it to matter. Their only chance was to escape, and to enter the skim they would need to leave the ring. The Nauira missiles burned toward his ship, and Quas shook his head in amazement. It had been a long time since the Empire had used massive sublight missile swarms as weapons systems. There was no need when they had skim-capable missiles, and no missile swarm would be able to take down even a cruiser’s shields—the missiles’ yields were just too small, and the ships too fast. It was technically possible, but to do that there would need to be a coordinated missile swarm attack that didn’t allow the shields time to regenerate.

The shields powered by the Empire’s singularity cores were capable of taking an insane amount of weapons fire. So much so, in fact, that the Erebus had no static point defenses; it did have a dozen defender drones that could be released and used to create a point defense field around the ship if necessary, but there was no need to use them now.

“Lock on ion cannons—take down their shields,” Quas ordered.

“Cannons locked—firing.”

Beams of light blue flashed across the distance, hitting the cruiser amidships. And barely ten seconds later, their shields failed. The Nauira missiles closed the distance and slammed into the Erebus’s shields, illuminating the points of impact but barely making a dent in the shield integrity. The Nauira particle weapons likewise did little to halt the Erebus’s advance.

“Arm and lock s-missiles. Two should be enough,” Quas sent to the weapons officer over the interface.

“Missiles armed and ready. We have a hard lock.”

“Fire.”

The nanite hull of the Erebus shifted and created tubes through which the missiles would exit the core of the ship, and a moment later two missiles launched and were on their way to the cruiser. Mere moments after the missiles left the ship, skim fields formed around them and they crossed the distance in a near instant. The missiles dropped out of the skim right on top of the ship, making sure that they don’t impact the ship with their skim fields active, which would nullify most of their destructive power.

The cruiser’s point defense didn’t even have the time to open fire before the two s-missiles hit, one in the forward section and one in the back. The result was the utter destruction of the Nauira ship.

“Good work. Release the drones to watch over the system—we don’t want any unannounced visitors,” Quas ordered.

***

Ryaana smashed one of the pirates to the ceiling with her telekinesis and kept walking forward, her turrets keeping pressure on the pirates hiding behind cover. One of the soldiers behind her took care of the pirate on the ceiling and she let his corpse drop to the floor. Then she let two of the platoon’s Sha commandos—a Sowir and a Nel—in front of her, allowing her some rest. As their shields blossomed, she dropped hers and moved back. She was both tired and stretched thin. Ever since the Gatrey’s attack, she had been keeping close watch, not wanting to be surprised again, and that meant using her telepathy to scan their surroundings constantly.

The presence of a Gatrey was extremely troubling—as it was almost unheard of for any of that species to act outside of the Erasi. They were after all a founding and ruling member, and every Gatrey was a powerful telepath. It was the first real piece of evidence that the Empire had that the Erasi were in fact behind the pirates. Now she only needed to find something that undisputedly proved the connection—a single Erasi was not going to be enough for the alliance to condemn the Erasi publicly.

A chime informed her about an incoming comm request from one of the Platoon Leaders at the yards. With a thought, she answered, “Tell me.”

“We have a problem, Sentinel. A group of pirates, led by several Gatrey and other Erasi races, broke our lines and pushed to one of the closed yards. They boarded the ship there.”

“Can you take the ship?”

“Negative, they have already broken free of the yard’s tethers.”

“Then it’s the Erebus’s concern. Did you recognize the ship type?”

“Sentinel… It’s most definitely an Erasi cruiser. And if I am not mistaken, it is one of their latest generation.”

Ryaana froze. That was her proof. An Erasi military warship of the latest generation in a pirate yard, operated by Gatrey and other Erasi races… The problem was that this was a ship a class larger than the Erebus—and likely more powerful.

“Start moving deeper into the base. I’ll inform the Ship Master,” Ryaana said, and opened a link with the Erebus, routing the comm through the shuttles.

“Ship Master, we have a problem.”

“What is it, Sentinel?”

“We found an Erasi cruiser in one of the yards. Its crew managed to board it and are going to be leaving the yard soon.”

“Very well, Sentinel. We have drifted away from the base, but are on our way back. We’ll deal with it soon.”

Ryaana winced. “It’s a modern cruiser, Ship Master.”

The line was silent for a moment. “Damn,” the Ship Master said.

“It looks like you are about to test our newest ship against the Erasi best.”

“I’m sure that the Erebus will end up on top.”

“Good luck, Ship Master,” Ryaana said and closed the comm. Almost immediately, one of the platoon’s Squad Leaders commed her.

“We have found the control center, Sentinel.”

“I’m on my way,” Ryaana said, and she started running in the direction marked on her HUD. She reached her group and walked over to the inquisitors and Vas, as they stood a way back from large double doors. Three soldiers were in the process of planting breaching charges.

“Hacking failed?” Ryaana asked them.

“They destroyed the panels, locking themselves in. We offered to accept surrender, and they refused,” Inquisitor Jok answered. It didn’t surprise her in the least—the sentence for piracy ranged from life in prison to execution depending on the severity of their crimes.

She glanced at Vas, studying him intently. She opened her mind and looked at him, and she found that there was nothing out of ordinary, that he was the same as always. She wanted to ask him about the Gatrey attack, but this was not the time nor the place. He turned to look at her and she wished he wasn’t wearing a helmet so that she could see his face…to try and discern something.

The Platoon Leader interrupted her.

“We are ready to breach the doors, Sentinel.”

“Good,” Ryaana said and took cover behind a small portable shield that the soldiers set up in front of the doors to protect them from the blast. “When you are ready.”

A soldier kneeling in front of her pressed the button on the detonator and the corridor was suddenly filled with light as the blast hit the shield. Immediately, she shut down the shield with her imp and jumped forward into the smoke, followed closely by her soldiers.

She entered the room and, keeping her mind open, she felt the Gatrey immediately and smashed her mind against the Gatrey’s defenses before he could use his power, dropping him to the floor. Her HUD lit up with targets as her suit’s sensors detected the pirates, and her turrets fired. The soldiers entered behind her and cleaned up the rest.

Chapter Nineteen

Erebus

“Good luck, Ship Master,” the Sentinel said and closed the link.

Quas looked around at his crew, then immediately started giving out orders.

“Get us back to the base, full stealth. We have an Erasi heavy cruiser to deal with.”

As integrated into the system as he was, he more felt than heard his crew’s response. Trepidation, eagerness, even fear. Quas nodded to himself—it was good for them to be afraid. They were about to go against an opponent that was more than capable of killing them. The Erasi military made for a much more formidable adversary than the pirates, and their ships were technologically comparable to the Empire’s.

Erebus moved slowly toward the pirate base. Quas considered trying to get there faster to attack the ship before it left the yard, but then decided against it. They would most certainly inflict damage to the base—and more importantly, kill their own people. For a moment he contemplated releasing the defender drones, but realized that there would be no point. The distance between the two ships and the nature of the ring would prevent them from getting a lock on the Erasi skim capable missiles in time.

Instead he watched as the Erasi cruiser exited the yard. He cursed silently as the sensors got a clearer picture of it. It was saucer shaped, as all Erasi ships were, and fifteen hundred meters in diameter. Almost three times the mass of the Erebus. Yes, this was going to be a hard fight. Erebus had an advantage with its stealth and cyber-warfare suites, but those had never been tested against modern Erasi systems. Now it was going to be trial by fire. The Erasi ship was obviously looking for them, and Quas was not going to allow them time to penetrate the Erebus’s stealth.

“Target all ion cannons and proton beams and arm a load of s-missiles. Target the center of mass.” Quas gave the order faster than normal speech would allow—their connection and reaction speeds would be an important edge against the Erasi cruiser.

Mere moments later, his crew informed him that all was ready.

“Fire.”

***

The Erebus dropped its stealth and fired upon the Erasi cruiser. Ion beams struck their shields and revealed its matrix. Proton beams rained down and three s-missiles slammed into their shields. The onslaught was targeted at the same area of the ship in hope of breaking through the shields and inflicting catastrophic damage. The Erasi shields struggled, and as they were momentarily overwhelmed, a hole appeared in the shield matrix.

The Erebus immediately took advantage, firing its main weapons. Proton cannons lit up and opened fire, beams struck the hull, and crackling arcs of energy jumped from the impact point to scorch the surrounding hull. Four s-missiles left the launch tubes and skimmed to their target, exploding directly against the hull. The Erasi cruiser rolled, removing the areas that were no longer shielded from their cone of fire and preventing the Erebus from firing through the opening they had made.

Then the Erasi cruiser returned fire.

***

Quas watched as the Erasi cruiser rolled away. The damage that the Erebus inflicted was not enough to cripple the ship, but they had at least inflicted the first blow. The Erasi cruiser’s hull was made out of compressed matter, so it would take a lot more for them to get through—but the area that they had hit did show some cracks and small craters.

The Erebus kept firing, using its ion and proton weapons to attempt and break through the shields. But with the cruiser now rolling, it was that much harder. They were keeping their unshielded area away from the Erebus, and were most certainly working on repairing the shield emitters in that region. Quas need to end this fight quickly—a prolonged battle would favor the Erasi.

The Erebus was not meant to be a ship of the line, and its weapons reflected that. Its most powerful weapon system was its six proton cannons. While it had a small amount of s-missiles, only twenty four, almost half of them were already gone, and their only other offensive weapons were the ion cannons.

“Status on the cyber-warfare attacks?” Quas asked.

“We have a tentative connection. It will take time for us to gain access to anything important if we want to remain undetected,” Hassal reported.

Quas debated an attempt to smash through the Erasi firewalls. No—they most certainly have backup systems and other tactics in place to battle such attacks, he mused. They would gain little. They needed to get in without the Erasi knowing.

The Erasi cruiser opened fire, its own ion beams slashing against the Erebus’s shields.

“Shield integrity down to forty percent in sector A-13.”

Quas winced. The Erasi weapons were powerful, and the Ship Master knew that the shields wouldn’t hold against that much fire for long.

“Roll the ship, and keep firing. Get us above them and try to position a shot against their unshielded hull.”

The Erebus’s shields were shining bright around the ship as they barely held against the Erasi attack. Then a sequenced attack managed to overload the emitters, and a part of their shield collapsed. The Erasi immediately fired and particle beams cut in to the nano-hull. Six s-missiles left the cruiser but only two found their target, the other four arriving just as the Erebus had rolled enough to bring a shielded area in position. Quas rocked in his chair as the ship shook.

“We lost six percent of volume, Ship Master.”

“Rearrange the nanites, integrate the hull,” Quas ordered. He grimaced at the amount of nanites that the ship had lost. Unlike the traditional solid-hull ships, the Erebus’s solid core was surrounded by a sea of nanites. The nanites could bond with each other to create solid surfaces, but they were not as tough as the compressed matter hull. But they did have an advantage—as long as there was enough of them, undamaged nanites could just flow into the damaged areas of the hull and reintegrate.

Thankfully the Erasi weapons hadn’t penetrated deep enough to hit the core, and within seconds the hull had been rearranged and was as smooth as it had been before. The shields blossomed above the previously damaged area as new emitters were formed by the nanites. The Erebus was whole, although six percent smaller in volume.

***

The Erasi cruiser and the Empire’s nano-ship danced around each other. Beams firing from both ships filled the space between them. Then the Erasi cruiser’s largest cannon rose up from its hull and swiveled to target the Erebus. In the breadth of a moment, the entirety of the cruiser’s weapons targeted the same spot. Two s-missiles hammered into the shields; six particle and four ion cannons aligned and fired. The Erebus’s shields were overwhelmed and the entire front section of the shields disappeared. Particle beams ate into the nano-hull, burning nanites by the millions.

Then the cruiser’s main weapons fired: a harsh beam of yellow light instantly appeared, seemingly as if it had always been there, punching right through the Erebus. A mere moment later, it was gone—but the gaping hole through the Empire’s ship remained.

***

The force of the attack nearly dropped Quas from his chair. The lights dimmed and for a few seconds his mind and implant were fuzzy as the control system attempted to fight the sudden power surge and not incinerate the minds of its users.

“Was that—”

Hassal answered before Quas could finish the question. “Molecular disintegration weapon.”

Quas knew that the Erasi had advanced far, but to see it firsthand was another thing entirely. The MD weapon was one of the most powerful technologies that the Empire had learned from the Enduring. In fact those were the Enduring’s only weapons: a beam of faster-than-light energy that dissolved any matter it came in contact with. It was also the weapon that the Empire’s Star-Guard stations used.

“Damage report?”

“We lost thirteen percent of volume, and the shot went clean through the nanites. The power surge was from the intensity—it didn’t hit the core of the ship. Several of our minor systems have suffered energy surges. If it had been just a few meters to the left…”

He glanced at the sensor readings, seeing that the weapon’s power level was nowhere near the output of a Star-Guard station, nor even one of the Empire’s heavy cruisers. The size of the beam was small as well, but it didn’t really matter. It was a weapon that the Erebus couldn’t match. It was more than enough to destroy the Erebus—all they needed was one good shot that pierced the core of the ship.

With the interface again running at full capacity, Quas had time to think. The interface allowed for a kind of time dilation; his mind processed things faster and he and his crew could speak entire conversations in a span of a couple of seconds. He knew the capacity of the MD weapons that the Empire had, so he knew that the Erasi would most likely need to recharge it. That gave them some time.

“Were are we with the infiltration of their systems?”

“I have access to the sensors; still working on weapons and drives,” Hassal answered.

“ETA?”

“Several minutes at least.”

Quas knew that they didn’t have that long. Once the cruiser’s MD cannon recharged, they would lose, if they even survived until then. Already the cruiser’s superior firepower was close to overwhelming more of their shields.

“Reintegrate the hull as best as possible. Cut power to all our weapons, and I want full control of their sensors,” Quas ordered.

“That won’t last long. They will figure out that something is wrong.”

“We won’t need long. I need you to show them a shadow image of us spinning in space damaged by their attack. As soon as you do it I want us in stealth and under full thrust,” Quas ordered, a plan forming in his mind. They would have only one chance at this.

***

Invading and gaining control of an alien computer system had once been thought hard, but then people had realized that the basics of every computer system was almost always the same. And with so many races in space, it was only a matter of time before someone developed an adaptive system that could converse between different systems. It was ironic, then, that it was the Erasi who had built the first one. The Empire took their system and improved upon it, and then eventually weaponized it.

The worm that the Erebus planted in the Erasi systems slowly weaved through their firewalls as the battle raged. It was a slow process, but it did manage to get to the cruiser’s sensor systems, which weren’t as heavily protected as some of the vessel’s other systems. Once the command from the Erebus came, the worm woke up and took complete control of the system. If the cruiser’s crew hadn’t been so engrossed in the battle, they might’ve noticed the moment it took over.

The worm showed the crew what it wanted them to see, which was a damaged ship rolling slowly with a gaping hole in its side. The Erasi cruiser fired several more times with its particle beams, making more holes in the ship. If the crew had paid more attention they might’ve noticed that their secondary passive sensors showed their shots passing clear through empty space. Unfortunately for them, they never did.

Another order went out to the worm embedded into the pirate base. Their systems were less advanced, and easily controlled. And under the guidance of the Erebus, the weapons on the surface of the base swiveled to target the Erasi cruiser.

***

With a burst of speed, the Erebus moved, angling on a course that brought them below the Erasi cruiser and within point-blank range of the area where the cruiser’s shields were weaker: the same area where they had attacked in the beginning. The Erasi weapons were firing at empty space, at the area where the Erebus had been previously. Then they stopped and slowly moved closer to the where they thought the Erebus was.

Quas knew that they didn’t have much time. Soon the cruiser’s crew would notice that something was wrong. With a thought, he gave the order for the Erebus to fire.

All of the ship’s four ion cannons opened fire, followed by the six proton cannons. Their fire struck at the exact same spot that they had targeted with their opening shot. The now weakened shields collapsed, and the weapons fire started biting into the cruiser’s hull. The pirate base’s less powerful plasma weapons fired as well, their strength increased by the amount of the turrets.

Quas ordered all of their remaining s-missiles fired, and watched as they rained onto the Erasi warship. The cruiser was bathed in fire from two sides, and soon Quas noticed the shields drop on the other side due to the heavy fire from the pirate base. Explosions broke through the cruiser’s hull from the inside as the Erebus’s fire punched through the tough hull and damaged the systems inside.

The cruiser’s crew must’ve realized that their sensors were showing them false data, and within seconds their weapons found the true location of the Erebus. Nevertheless, the damage already inflicted was too extensive, and soon the cruiser’s weapons grew silent and their shields dropped. The Erebus and the pirate base’s turrets kept firing, pounding the cruiser to pieces.

Chapter Twenty

Pirate base

Ryaana stood behind one of the platoon’s techs as he worked on the base’s computers. They had taken full control of the base, with most of the pirates killed and a few taken prisoner. As they had started going through the computers and the hangars filled with various goods, it quickly became apparent that the Erasi were fully behind both the pirates and the liberation force.

They found crates filled with weapons, explosives, and spying devices. Laboratories that worked on developing poisons that would be undetectable, and many more vile things. The good news was that as far as they were able to find out, this base was from where their leadership had planned their attacks.

Most of them had been killed, but a few of the liberation force’s higher ranking officers had been captured. They would be transported back to Sol for interrogation and eventual imprisonment. The problem she now had was the information they had recovered from the pirate’s computers.

The Erasi had been planning something big. The pirates and the liberation force had been instructed to begin a large-scale operation across the occupied zone and several of the Empire’s Clans in five months’ time.

The targets for the liberation force included politicians, colony leaders and even a few Fleet commanders. The pirates were supposed to sow as much unrest in the occupied zone as possible, attacking civilian merchant vessels. The pirate’s ships were fairly lacking, so their only targets could be the merchant vessels that operated in the occupied zone. If they had tried to move into the Clans, they would’ve encountered the CDF ships, which were far more formidable.

But while the occupied zone had been integrated greatly since the Empire and the Shara Daim took over, there were a lot of races living there, and uplifting them all with advanced technology hadn’t been easy. Their merchant fleets still used outdated ships compared to those within the Empire. Perfect targets for the pirates.

The pirate attacks would’ve harmed the precarious balance of the sector. It had taken the alliance a lot of time to get the sector under control, as there were many that resented the fact that the Erasi had been forced out. The alliance was seen as the aggressor.

And the fact that the Erasi had given a timetable meant that something was going to happen. Another incursion by their forces was most likely, which meant that she needed to get this information back as soon as possible.

She ordered her people to copy as much of the data as possible and to plant explosives to destroy the base. She was not about to leave her people here to wait until some pirates came back, nor was she about to leave the base for them.

They were going back to Sol.

***

Jacob approached Vas. The man was standing in a corner, leaning against the wall with his helmet removed, observing the soldiers as they moved about. The Erebus was en route back to Sol, but it would take them almost a week to get there.

“Did you get what you came here for?” Jacob asked.

Vas turned to look at him, his expression unreadable. “I think that I have, yes.”

“Revenge isn’t always what one hopes it to be,” Jacob said as he turned to look at the dead.

He didn’t mourn for them; they had killed innocents for their own personal greed. To do so was a crime without forgiveness, even in the Empire. Some—if they knew anything about who Jacob was and what he had done before joining the Hand of the Empire—might’ve thought him the same class of criminal as these pirates. But in the Empire, motives mattered a great deal more—the intent and reason behind actions were paramount. The pirates did these things for themselves, not caring that they would be killing innocents. What Jacob had done, he had done to save others. He had sacrificed the few to save the many. Not that that somehow made his crimes just; he would never think his scales balanced, no matter how much good he did in his life.

“What are you going to do now?” Jacob asked.

“Go back to Sol with you. I think that I might like trying to join the Sentinels organization,” Vas said.

Jacob tilted his head. Vas didn’t really strike him as someone who would enjoy being a Sentinel much. But that was not his decision to make.

“Being a Sentinel requires a lot of knowledge outside of being proficient with the Sha,” Jacob said.

“Oh, I know. I don’t plan on becoming a Sentinel right away, of course. But joining the organization as a support staff for a Sentinel is something that I can do right now,” Vas said as Sentinel Ryaana walked in to the room and approached the Platoon Leader. It had been a great stroke of luck for the young Vas to be taken under the Sentinel’s wing—just a chance to train with her once was something for which many would have given all they owned. And from what Jacob heard from the other crewmen, young Vas had improved greatly in the short time he had been training with the Sentinel.

“Well, I guess that you couldn’t have picked a better mentor.”

“Yes,” Vas said slowly. “She is fascinating.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her.

Jacob silently agreed. He gave his goodbyes to the young man. He doubted that they would meet again, and if they did, Jacob would have another codename—Vas would never even know that he was speaking with the person that he had encountered before. That was the way of the Hand. He turned and left. He and Nkiruka would now return to Sanctuary for a debriefing. The mission was finished, and with all of the information they had recovered, they would finally be able to put a stop to the pirates and the liberation force.

Another mission done well, and another mission that would ultimately result in lives saved. And yet Jacob still didn’t feel like it was enough to remove the taint from his soul. But he had already made his peace with that, and he knew that he would spend every moment of his life in service to the Hand of the Empire.

***

Two days after they left the pirate base, Ryaana finally found the time to track down Vas and ask him some pointed questions. She was very curious about how he had managed to keep his wits under the Gatrey’s attack. She herself had barely kept her cool, although as much as it pained her to admit it, it had mostly been her fault for not paying attention. If she had been expecting the attack she would’ve been able to repel it without much difficulty.

But for someone who was relatively untrained to do the same was unheard of, though there had been cases in both the Empire and the Shara Daim where individuals had awakened amazing abilities under duress, or had found talents previously unknown. She reached the training room and entered. She fount Vas in the room among several soldiers, training their telekinesis. She watched him for a moment, and noted that the soldiers seemed to genuinely like him. He hadn’t spent much time with them previously, but Ryaana knew that combat had a way of bringing people together. She found herself smiling as she saw him interact with the soldiers. He was obviously hanging on to every word they had to say, listening intently. He was like that with her as well, always wanting to hear more about anything and everything.

She was going to stand back and wait for them to finish, but then they noticed her and promptly left, bowing as they stepped around her. She was tempted to scowl at them, but she had already grown used to the way most people treated her, so she just nodded. She was as much royalty in the Empire as she was in the Shara Daim, especially in the circles that she moved in. The only people that didn’t act that way around her were the Sentinels, but even they had a wall between her and them. They considered her a comrade, and that came with a certain closeness, but none were willing to approach her on a more personal level. She could count on one hand the amount of friends she had made in her life, if she included her siblings.

That was why she liked Vas so much. He was ignorant about the many ways of the Empire. Growing up in a remote part of Clan Kazalir, he knew little about them. It was refreshing, and a part of her knew that she needed that connection, that she needed people with whom she could be herself.

Vas watched with a smile on his face as she slowly walked over to him.

“You finally free to train? I must admit I missed your instruction, and if I am to join the Sentinel support staff I will need all the help I can get.”

“What?” Ryaana asked, surprised, for a moment forgetting the reason why she was there. It was the first time she’d heard him declare interest.

“Yes. I left the colony because I wanted to finish what we started there. And now that is finished with, but I don’t want to return to that life. I want to explore the stars, to do something meaningful.”

“Well, I guess that you could try. With some more training I think that you could pass the initial tests. But you know that Sentinels usually hand pick their support staff? I suppose you could work on Mars, or any other Sentinel facilities in the Empire.”

“Well, I did some research and I know about a Sentinel that currently has no support staff,” he said, a strange slyness in his voice. “I was wondering if perhaps she would take me on.”

“Oh, really?” Ryaana asked awkwardly. “I wasn’t aware that you knew any other Sentinels other than me.”

Vas narrowed his eyes at her in confusion. “I was talking about you.”

It took a moment for his words to get through to Ryaana, and she stood there looking at him, stunned. There was a reason why she didn’t have a support staff—she had never found anyone that she trusted enough to see who she truly was rather than the image that the Empire had of her. That and no one had ever dared to ask. Her father had tried to give her a ship, telling her that in time she would grow to trust the crew, but she had refused. Ryaana had always been alone; trust did not come easily to her.

“Perhaps,” she responded finally. “Before we can speak about that, however, there is something I need to know. On the pirate base, how did you withstand the Gatrey’s mental attack?” She spread her mind and gently touched his, being very careful not to be noticed, hoping to hear the truth.

“In truth, I don’t know. I felt the attack, and I just pushed it out. It was not something that I consciously did. I doubt that I could do it again.”

Every word that he said felt like the truth to her, and she relaxed.

“There have been cases of latent abilities manifesting in people, usually in humans and Nel. It has to do with how we meddled with our own genetic code to unlock our Sha abilities, and didn’t gain them naturally.”

She gazed down at him, thinking. If he did have latent telepathic abilities, she could teach him, although the perfect mentors would be either her father or the Lurker of the Depths. But of course they were far too busy to take on an apprentice. She on the other hand might not be as powerful a telepath as them, but she was more than capable of teaching him. And forming a support staff might be good. She had spent the last years during her mission in Erasi space alone. She had rarely interacted with the crew, spending most of her time hidden. There had only been a few situations where her abilities had been needed.

And Vas was the first person she had ever met who didn’t know who she was, and didn’t care. She did like him; when she was with him, she felt…at ease to be who she was, to not wear any masks.

“So does that mean that you will accept?” Vas said, smiling.

“Yes,” she said, hiding her own smile from him. “I will. Just so you know, this means far more training.”

She saw Vas wince, and she again smiled inwardly. She clasped his shoulder and turned him toward the center of the room.

“Come—we start now.”

Interlude II

A long time ago

“It worked,” Nariax said.

Waiss looked down at the life form. It was a blob of gray-and-black matter—flesh. From the blob, tendrils of black spread to cover the entire containment unit. It was trying to get out. His wings twitched each time it struck the wall of the containment unit.

“Are you sure?” Eroill asked, his voice barely being able to contain his happiness.

“I am. There is no trace of the disease within it. Its cells are not deteriorating anymore,” Nariax answered.

While the two of them spoke, Waiss was keeping his mind open, feeling the Sha around them. In that moment he wished that he had the ability to look through the Sha, to see the life form in a way that none of their instruments were capable of. But even without that ability he could still feel the Sha around him. The life form was draining Sha from its surroundings—it was pulling it all inside of itself.

“It is pulling too much of the Sha,” Waiss said. “Something’s wrong.”

“I’ve done some preliminary tests. I am speculating that such an amount of Sha was needed for it to cure itself. Its connection to the Sha had pushed its already fast natural evolution into a frenzy. It’s evolving faster than we can track now.”

“And that doesn’t worry you?” Waiss asked.

“It won’t be able to escape containment,” she said with certainty.

“We should contact the rest,” Eroill interjected. “Now that we have finally made progress, they might be able to help. Axull’s insight alone could help us duplicate the cure in ourselves.”

Waiss didn’t respond. He had abandoned all hope so long ago that now he could barely get himself to believe that they could finally find a cure. And even if they did, it would not return the dead. An entire race was gone, the first intelligent life in the galaxy virtually extinct, with only eight of them remaining. What hope did they have of regaining what they once were, even with a cure? The Universe had punished them, and this was their fate.

“Let’s wait a bit more. We need to be sure, and the others are all engrossed in their own projects attempting to find a way for us to survive. We should not ask them to drop everything and travel here without an actual cure in our hands,” Nariax said.

“So what next?” Eroill asked.

“We should monitor it and adjust the code if needed. For now it seems that it is doing very well on its own.”

The fact that it was doing well on its own was exactly what bothered Waiss.

Chapter Twenty-One

November—Herald of War

Adrian sat in the command center and watched as his ship entered a new system, after they had spent almost a month sitting at the border of the Krashin systems. Adrian did not want to just enter their territory blindly. The Sovereign-class ships were large enough that they carried four smaller stealth light cruisers, and he had sent them out to explore Krashin territory and report back once they found a system where there was a significant Krashin presence.

During the wait he had studied the Hasre information on the Krashin intently. But he hadn’t learned all that much. There were some very interesting scans and images of some six-hundred-year-old Krashin ships, but very little actual data, other than the fact that the ships were biological in nature. It was clear when one looked at them, their “hulls”—and Adrian was not even sure if that was even the right term—looked like flesh, or more like tough hide. There were several ship types but most were brown or dark gray in color. And it looked as if there were slits in the hide that revealed things like hollow spikes or even tusks, which from the records of the battles Adrian knew were in fact their weapons systems. They were very strange.

For a moment he had even considered that perhaps the Krashin were an interstellar life form, that the ships themselves were the Krashin. But he knew that that was not the case. He had records recovered from their wars with the Erasi, where their troops had landed on the ground. The beings in those recordings were just as strange as their ships. They were the most “alien” aliens that Adrian had ever seen. He had tried to compare them to things he had seen before, but there was very little that could be used as comparison. They were not bipeds, which meant that they were most likely one of the races that the People didn’t actively shape, but rather just nudged along.

They did have distinct heads, elongated and shaped like those of crocodiles from Earth, with four eyes pointed forward and with several slits at the top, and two black horn-like spikes curved backward. Their jaws opened in three separate parts, with the lower jaw being split into two, and they had four serrated tongues. Their necks were powerful, although short. Their body was lean and muscular, and they carried large broad wings on their backs that reminded Adrian of what most reproductions agreed the wings of pterodactyls had looked like, if they had been wider and not attached to arms.

Their top appendages were long and flipper-like, although Adrian had seen some recordings where short blade-like sharp bones had extended from the tips—and they seemed to have four joints from the “shoulders” to the tip of the flippers. The second pair of appendages was retracted inside of their body, and would push out of the slits in its side when necessary. They had more of what most races considered tool manipulators, although they were strange. The tips of the thinner twig-like appendages were tusk-like points with six holes in them, each with a small tentacle inside, which could come out when needed.

The rest of their bodies was sinuous, thick, and snake-like, but even more muscled, tapering into a tail that split into two at the pinnacles of its fin-like endings. Adrian knew that they could both swim and fly, in addition to being able to move fast on the ground, especially for their size. From their heads to the tip of their tails they were around three-and-a-half meters long, and around two meters in height, when they straightened up.

He had seen recordings of them hunting down Erasi soldiers. They were most certainly a predatory species. They were usually colored in some shade of teal, with their fronts being lighter and their backs darker, at least according to the records they managed to get from the Erasi—of which there weren’t all that many.

About their technology and society, he knew almost nothing. The Erasi were religious about keeping any information they had about the Krashin a secret, and the Hasre just didn’t know. All this meant that Adrian was going to need to do this with very little information.

Then, after the three weeks of waiting, one of the cruisers had reported back—they had found a system with a large Krashin fleet in the orbit of a gas giant, with massive station-like objects orbiting there as well. And as they hadn’t found any systems with colonies, Adrian decided to give that system a chance. And so the Herald of War had set a course and spent the next several days in hyperspace traveling to that system.

Now, as the Herald of War’s sensors updated, Adrian could not help but feel excited. This was why he had created the Sentinels, to search out new and strange life forms. To make contact and explore, to find challenges. As soon as their sensors reached the gas giant, Adrian saw that his ship’s presence had not gone unnoticed.

He stood up from his chair and walked over to one of the communications officers. Their station had the connector that allowed for them to use the ship’s telepathic amplifier. The sensor officer, a Sowir, got up and allowed Adrian to take a seat.

Adrian was the most powerful telepath in the Empire—he was what the Erasi called a “mindbender.” It made sense for him to be the one to make contact. On the holo he could see the Krashin fleet move, arranging in various formations around their stations.

Adrian placed his hands on the chair’s two orbs, and activated the amplifier. He pushed his mind and threw it forward across the vast distance to the Krashin ships.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Krashin system

The Old Scar moved intently through the spawnery, seeing the progress on the new beasts. The last culling against the Betrayers of Oaths had been incredibly beneficial. The Betrayers’ cold and hollow tools had been understood and ways had been found to add them to the beasts. Such was the Krashinar way: to watch, to learn, to grow, to change. Always to change. To make the horde strong, and never again allow those like the betrayers to harm Krashinar.

It stopped near one of the wombs and reached out to the life growing inside, its mind brushing against it. It looked deeper, to the design laid deep within its core. It had been a spawner once, long ago, before the Betrayers of Oaths had lain waste to the Seventh. It was there that it had been given its title, or name: Scar. A part of the name that it still carried—now it was the Old Scar. And it knew the spawning very well. The design taking shape inside the womb was good, solid work, though a small mistake became apparent to it. The Old Scar’s arms slipped out of the slits in its body and it placed them atop the spawning node.

Its manipulators extended and grasped the access node. Its mind slipped inside the womb and the life inside. Carefully it altered the design, correcting the mistake. It took the chance to check over the design more in depth, and after a while it was satisfied. It pulled out of the womb and back into its own mind, its arms retracting as it slid away from the node.

“Is it to your satisfaction, Hunt-master?” the spawner standing behind the Old Scar asked with the mind-speech.

“It is now,” the Old Scar answered.

“Shall the rest of the designs need updating?”

“They shall. See to it immediately.”

“As you command, Hunt-master.”

The Old Scar watched the spawner slither away, its mind wandering. Its wondered how difficult the process of taming and teaching these new beasts was going to be. Each new design had its own quirks, its own needs. The quality of a tamer was in how well it was capable of adapting to those little things. Sometimes, it wished that it could do their work instead of its own. To be a tamer was…liberating. To ride with the void beasts, to be a part of the packs, that had once been the only things the Old Scar had desired.

Unfortunately, it had been too good at its job. It had been placed in situations where it was forced to lead the pack itself, and eventually it was noticed by the Hunt-masters and taken under their wing. Now all of them were dead, and it was the oldest and the most honored Hunt-master. It was its duty to lead the Great Packs, to guide them in the hunts.

Yet all the Old Scar wanted to do was to finish the Betrayers of Oaths, to end this long hunt. But the Six would never allow it. The dying screech of the Seventh still echoed in their minds, as it did in the minds of all born of Krashinar. The long hunt was going to continue—the Betrayers would die a slow death, knowing always that the Krashinar could hunt them to extinction at their leisure. At times, the Old Scar believed the Six foolish for allowing the Betrayers the time to improve on their hollow void tools. It would never dare say so to them, of course—but while it knew the Krashinar outnumbered the Betrayers significantly, it could not stop the feeling that they were playing with their prey by using only a single Great Pack for their revenge. A thing that every hunter knew was dangerous. But it was not the Old Scar’s place to say so. It was to bring a slow death to the Betrayers and avenge the Seventh.

The Old Scar moved slowly through the spawnery, continuing its inspection. After finishing without finding any more things that needed its attention, the Old Scar went back to its great beast. It was very proud of the great beast from which it commanded the rest of the Great Pack. Araxi was grown in the latest generation, with many of the upgrades that the Krashinar learned from their last culling of the Betrayers. A truly incredible beast, Araxi was the largest ever grown: a hunter without peer. Not even the massive hollow and cold tools of the Betrayers were its match; it out-massed them as well.

It pained the Old Scar to admit it, but the design for the beast had been inspired by the Betrayers’ largest hollow beasts. They had always been hard to deal with, requiring sacrifices of many beast to get through the thick metals they were built from. And so the spawners had decided to try their own version, and despite its misgivings, the Old Scar was more than happy with it. Araxi had been easy to tame—well, not exactly tame. It would follow orders in battle without problems, as it loved the battles; but outside of them, the beast could get restless. However, it was nothing that its tamers couldn’t handle.

The Old Scar entered the innards of the Araxi, the beast’s mind brushing gently against its, bidding it welcome. The Old Scar returned the sentiment and the beast brought to its attention matters from the control den. It sighed and made its way toward the heart of the great beast, moving through the twisting tunnels. Eventually the Old Scar reached its destination and entered the control den. Three tamers laid curled in their cradles, their manipulators placed on the control nodes.

The Old Scar’s First-tamer raised its head as it noticed the new presence.

“Hunt-master,” the First-tamer greeted. “We’ve detected an unknown presence at the edge of the system.”

“Let me see,” the Old Scar responded, and found its way to its own cradle. Curling the lower part of its body into the liquid, it extended its lower arms and placed them on the nodes, gaining access to the Araxi’s senses.

Immediately it felt the presence of a hollow object of metals and cold. Its instincts battled for a moment with Araxi’s desire for combat, but it deftly and gently calmed the beast. The Old Scar went through the memories of the hollows they had encountered before trying to find a match. When it didn’t, it piqued its curiosity. It wondered if this was a hollow from a race that they had not met previously. It did happen from time to time, although rarely did they find understanding with the other races. How could they, when the first one they had encountered betrayed them and killed the Seventh?

To deal with a new race, the trial of confrontation was required. The Krashinar always gave them two options to prove their intentions—by allowing for a sharing of minds, for the horde to test and see who they were at the core of their beings, or for the price of blood to be paid, a sacrifice for the hunt. Never again would the Krashinar give something without a price being paid. And no race had ever accepted to be tried peacefully; always they chose to spill blood. Attacking without warning. That was fine by the Krashinar, as it was a good way to test the newly raised hunters.

The Old Scar pulled more from the senses of its beast and those around them, and a clearer picture of the intruder formed. It was definitely something new, and large. Far larger than any such hollow they had encountered before. Larger even than the spawnery it had just inspected. The Old Scar sent orders to the First-tamer, instructing the tamer to move the Araxi away from the spawnery and to arrange the rest of the pack into hunting formations.

The thing before them was powerful; there could be no questioning that. The Old Scar wondered what would’ve happened if its pack hadn’t been here for the small inspection; would they have lost the spawnery? Or was this to be their first peaceful encounter with another race?

“Hunt-master,” one of the tamers started. “We are detecting a mind reaching for us.”

“Well… Let us see what the intruder has to say.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Herald of War

Powered by the amplifier, Adrian’s mind reached across the system. It was a great tool, but it did limit one’s power. It did not increase one’s telepathic strength; it only added reach, and the further away it went, the less power you had. At such distances only mind-speech was capable. Once Adrian had wondered if they could turn the amplifiers into weapons, to reach to other ships and disable their crews, but it had proven impossible. At most they could speak with another being.

His mind rode the Sha, and he felt a large mind, but one that was somehow primitive. For a moment Adrian wondered if the Krashin truly were sentient interstellar life forms, but then another mind reached for him. It was strange, seemingly coming from the primitive mind, yet clearly distinct. And then it answered.

It was not speech as Adrian understood it, yet he heard words. However, there were other things attached to it: sounds, images that he couldn’t understand, colors, and smells. His telepathy interpreted the mess as words.

“Answer, Krashnaa, to be consumed-of-life-understanding to drain and learn. Hunt the intruder, sacrifice for price. Satisfied for terms?”

Adrian glanced at the crew around him. All had been plugged in, and all heard the same things he did. By the looks on their faces they didn’t understand either. Adrian tried to divine some kind of understanding from the message, but there was nothing clear that he could glean from it. He understood the individual words, but their overall meaning eluded him. And that was something that shouldn’t be possible.

The People had designed telepathy for every race. They had designed their minds to think along the same lines. Variation was allowed, of course, and so there were races that had languages that were difficult to be pronounced, or races that hadn’t yet evolved to the point where they had gained telepathy. But there had never been problems; translator programs usually had no problems with other languages.

But this message had not been in a different language. His telepathy had interpreted it and he heard it in his own. Yet he did not have a complete understanding; it was as if his mind couldn’t quite understand the communication’s concepts, as it had no reference for the way that the alien mind thought. And so he ended up with this half-mangled jumble of words. But that was impossible, unless… Unless the Krashin had not been meddled with by the People, unless they had evolved on their own. That would make them the second intelligent race known to have evolved in the galaxy independently, and it would explain why no race that had ever encountered them could truly communicate with them.

The People had been masters. Their telepathy had been designed to adapt, to convey intent of communication and convert it into something that the one receiving the message could understand. But this was outside of its scope. His telepathy was trying to understand something that it had no basis of comparison for.

“Do you have any ideas?” Adrian asked.

“Sorry, no, I can’t make sense of it any more than you can,” Iris said.

Adrian thought furiously about a way to communicate with them, to get them to understand. Then he remembered that the Sowir communicated with a mix of words, images, and memories—while the content of their telepathy was clearly distinct, their method of communication was at least more similar. Adrian focused, compiled a message, and then threw his thoughts at the Krashin.

“I come from a people far away from you. I am here to speak with you peacefully, and I wish to negotiate a trade with you. We have the same enemy,” Adrian sent, sending images of the galaxy with the territory of the Krashin and the Empire lit up, then images of himself and a Krashin standing side by side exchanging goods, and lastly an image of Erasi races attacking both the humans and the Krashin.

He hoped that the Krashin could understand the meaning behind his images, if not the words themselves. They waited for the Krashin to respond, and Adrian tried to think of anything else that he could try. Then, several minutes later, they got a response.

“Answer, Krashnaa, agree be consumed-of-life-understanding, to drain and learn. Agreement satisfied for terms?” it said again. He could feel that it was a question, only the words made no sense again. But this time among the mess of sounds, smells, and colors, there were images that he could interpret.

One image showed a large Krashin standing in front of Adrian, its mouth opened and its tongues slipping into Adrian’s skull. Adrian recoiled from the image. Another image showed Krashin fighting the Erasi, and another the galaxy as the Krashin’s borders expanded. Harsh sounds followed with smells of blood—or at least that was how his mind interpreted them.

Was that a threat, or was he simply misunderstanding them? He composed another message, returning the image of the Krashin with his tongues in Adrian’s head and then replacing it with that of the two of them peacefully exchanging items, then an image of the galaxy where both the Empire and the Krashin territory expanded into that of the Erasi.

And again the Krashin responded, “Answer, Krashnaa, agree be consumed-of-life-understanding, to drain and learn. Hunt the intruder, sacrifice for price. Decision satisfied for terms?” He sent the same image of the Krashin and his tongues inside Adrian’s skull, and then followed by another where Krashin ships attacked the Herald of War. The second image was followed by angry emotions.

“Damn it.”

“Perhaps we should leave, take time to figure out a way to talk with them?”

Adrian tried again, sending another message.

“We are not here to fight or threaten you in any way. I just want to talk, I want us to be friends,” he sent, also sending images of the Krashin and himself working together alongside his feelings of desire for peace and friendship. He didn’t even knew if they understood emotions, but he needed to try.

Their response was faster this time.

“Decision, Krashnaa—Hunt the intruder, sacrifice for price. Confrontation satisfied for terms.” The images were now only of their ships fighting the Herald of War, but underneath it all he could taste a sliver of emotion. He recognized something that to him, at least, felt like resignation.

This was not how he imagined this meeting going. He was at a loss. It felt like with each interaction he had gained more understanding, was closer to true communication. But it was not enough; their telepathies were fundamentally different. He tried to devise another message, but one of the crew interrupted him.

“Lord Sentinel, twenty of their ships have entered the skim. They are coming here!”

Adrian closed his eyes. He didn’t want to fight them. But he felt like the answer was right there in front of him—he could almost taste it.

“Raise shields, but don’t fire. I need time to figure this out.”

The Krashin ships dropped out of the skim and started surrounding the Herald of War. A part of his mind that was watching the holo admired their coordination. Then they opened fire, their weapons striking against the Sovereign’s shields.

Adrian was surprised to see that their weapons were so powerful. With only twenty ships, they wouldn’t break through a Sovereign’s shields any time soon, but they were most certainly capable of it. The ship leading this assault was the one with which he had been communicating. And now that it was closer, he could feel the primal mind of the ship itself. It was a living being, after all. He didn’t know how that was possible, yet it was.

Adrian pulled his attention from the attacking Krashin, and pulled himself into his mindspace. Time outside of his mind slowed to a crawl as he replayed the Krashin messages in his mind thousands of times. He was certain that he was missing something. He just didn’t know what.

The Krashin had spoken with him; they were coordinated, and they hadn’t attacked blindly. That meant that they were most certainly intelligent, conscious beings. They had made peace with the Hasre, so he knew that they were capable of negotiating. But before they had reached an agreement they had fought. But he couldn’t understand why. If they were able to understand the Hasre, why did they first fight? Did they misunderstand each other at the beginning?

His thoughts moved back to the Krashin message. He was certain that it was a question, and that nagged on his mind. If they were xenophobic, if they had always intended to attack, why ask a question? What did “consumed-of-life-understanding, to drain and learn” mean? Did the words that he had heard mean the same things that they wanted to tell him? Or was it just the closest thing that his mind could come up with. Each time when they had sent him the image of them attacking the Herald of War, there had been emotions of anger, and yet their last message was followed by a feeling of resignation. But every time they had showed him an image of Adrian’s head being eaten, the emotions behind it were eager and peaceful. And why would they threaten him twice? It made no sense to him; if they had been intent on fighting, there would be no need for them to threaten two different things.

He remembered that their messages had been questions. They had wanted something from him. He analyzed the messages thousands of times, his mind working faster and faster. Then it dawned to him—they were asking him to choose. A choice between ‘consumed-of-life-understanding, to drain and learn’ and ‘hunt the intruder, sacrifice for price’. Was that what their fight with the Hasre was? A price so that they could come to terms? A test? If the second option was combat, then what was the first? The Krashin’s tongues in Adrian’s head may have meant something else to the Krashin—perhaps it hadn’t been meant as a threat?

And then things clicked in his mind. Of course—a race of telepaths, like the Sowir. To them, the sharing of memories of minds was the only way to actually understand one another. To know one’s desires and wants for certain. The Krashin had to be the same. They wanted to know Adrian’s people, to understand everything, and to know their intentions. But he wondered why they would have an option for battle, something that required blood to be spilled. Unless…it was cultural, a way to see a race’s mettle? When the Hasre barely won the battle, the Krashin had then agreed to the terms the Hasre asked.

Would it be the same if he had the Herald of War destroy their fleet? Or was there still a chance for a peaceful resolution? Adrian brought his mind out of his mindspace and opened his eyes. His crew was moving the ship around, but they still hadn’t returned fire. The shields were holding, but the Krashin seemed to have doubled their efforts to take them down. Adrian used the amplifier and sent a new message to the leading ship.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sol

Ryaana walked into the Lord Sentinel’s office, making her way to the table. She sat down hard and looked at Hayashi, who was acting as the leader of the Sentinels in her father’s stead. He studied her intently with a raised eyebrow.

“I assume that your mission was successful?” he asked.

“It was,” Ryaana said. “The problem is what we found.”

“Is that the reason why you didn’t send word through the relays, and why you wanted a face-to-face meeting?”

“Yes, I’m afraid,” Ryaana answered with a tired expression on her face.

“What is it?”

“We’ve greatly underestimated the Erasi’s spying efforts. And yes, we were right—I have proof that both the liberation force and the pirates had been funded by the Erasi. The pirates and the liberation force were supposed to begin major actions in our systems in five months’ time.”

Hayashi paused, considering this carefully. “That is bad. Can we assume that that timetable would also mean Erasi action?”

“I believe so,” Ryaana said and pulled out a datachip, putting it on the table. “That’s the list of targets. We took care of their base, but they might already have assets in place. We should move to secure those on the list.”

He nodded. “I agree. I’ll pass this on to the Hand of the Empire—although I assume that the inquisitors will do the same?”

“They will, but you should let the Fleet and the Emperor know.”

“And the Shara Daim?” Hayashi asked.

“I’m leaving as soon as possible for Shara Radum to talk with my mother.”

“Good. This will mean that the plan will be pushed forward.”

“Plan?” Ryaana asked.

Hayashi winced; it was obviously something that he had not been supposed to say. “I swear, sometimes when I speak with you it’s just like I’m speaking with your father.” He shook his head. “I’m sure that your mother will fill you in. There is little reason now for it to be a secret, and we will need to move before the Erasi.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but let it go. “Very well, then. I’m off to deliver the information to Shara Radum.”

***

Administrator Gotu sat in the Lord Sentinel’s office across from Sentinel Hayashi, going over the report about the Erebus.

“Its systems showed themselves capable of interacting even with modern Erasi systems,” Hayashi said.

“Yes, but it took them too long to gain access…” Gotu said.

“Well, this report will go a long way to helping your teams improve on them for the Nomad fleet.”

Gotu frowned at Hayashi. “Wait, you know about that?”

Hayashi gave him a smug look without answering.

Gotu then shook his head. “Right. Of course you know about it.”

“Who do you think helped him come up with the idea?”

“Well, it is a good idea if we manage to get everything to work. Otherwise it will be the biggest failure the Empire has ever engaged in.”

“That’s why we have you. To make sure that it doesn’t fail.”

“He gave me most of the files regarding the project, but there is one that is restricted… You don’t happen to know what Project Skywrath is?” Gotu asked hopefully.

“Ah… That I do know. But it is restricted for a reason. Don’t worry, Gotu, old friend—you’ll see it in time.”

***

Aranis watched from the transport as they passed through an access point. He was still amazed that they could use them, when even the Enlightened could not. But then again, when Ullax had locked the points, she had made them impossible to activate by anyone other than the surviving People. And Aranis assumed that since the children of Axull Darr carried his DNA, they were allowed by the system. The Enlightened had tried to activate the points on several occasions, but always they had failed. They could’ve constructed their own, but they had no need. They would’ve been an asset, but their resources were better placed on other things.

They exited the point and arrived at their destination. Shara Radum, the home system of Ryaana’s mother—the Kar Daim of the Shara Daim. He glanced at her as she read through something on her implant. Once in Sol, she had immediately registered him as a part of her support staff. With that position, he had gained new weapons and uniform, although he didn’t really know what his duties were supposed to be. In any case, he was going to be seeing a lot more now, and would have access to things that would’ve taken him a long time to see otherwise if he had rose through the ranks like he initially planned. He had been extremely fortunate in crossing paths with Ryaana.

These last couple of decades, he had felt the inevitable looming over the horizon. The bargain he had made with the other Enlightened was nearing its end. He could feel it in the Sha—Ullax’s time was drawing to a close. He wondered if he would have the chance to see her before she died. He had made the bargain, forced the others to a consensus for the sake of the love he had for Ullax once, long ago. He gave her and the others time, a stay of the execution for the galaxy. He did not want for them to see what he and the others must do. He had gifted them with ignorance as a parting gift. And now only Ullax remained, her body near its limit.

The galaxy was filled with life birthed by the People; it was the greatest crime they had ever committed. Yet they did not understand. For all of their knowledge, they couldn’t have known what so much life would’ve done to the galaxy. Doranis had been right—on his travel from Enlightened territory, he had seen it firsthand. The dimensional barriers were faltering, and their plans needed to be enacted faster than he had initially thought. He had underestimated the effects of so many races capable of wielding the Sha. Yet he could not help but question if it would be enough. Their project had been a success, and soon enough it would be ready. But with so many races, a few of which could prove problematic…it would be difficult for them to get everything in position.

It would take everything that they had built up in since before Ullax and the rest had contained them. The containment had slowed their advance down, certainly, but more because they hadn’t wanted to waste resources and force Ullax to react unpredictably, than any real threat on the part of her machines. And Aranis could admit that he had given the galaxy time because of his sentimentality. A part of him still remembered Waiss Gast, who had loved Ullax Darr more than life itself.

“We are here,” Ryaana said, snapping him out of his thoughts.

He glanced at the viewscreen, seeing that they had already reached the planet. He stood up as the transport lowered gently through the atmosphere.

***

Ryaana walked through the palace, Vas following close behind her. She guessed that since he was the only member of her staff, that made him her second. So she introduced him as such to the palace security. She noticed the strange looks she was getting from the guards as she passed. They bowed, but there was something else in their eyes. Something that she couldn’t recognize. Eventually, she reached the Kar Daim’s briefing room and entered, finding her mother and Dai Sha Garaam already inside waiting.

A pang hit Ryaana as she saw her mother waiting. This was an official visit by a Sentinel of the Empire to the Kar Daim. Of course Ryaana didn’t need to wait for her mother to arrive.

“Kar Daim,” Ryaana bowed respectfully. She made herself remember that she was going to be speaking with the ruler, and not her mother—although she had never really seen that much of a difference until their previous meeting.

“Sentinel,” the Kar Daim answered, then glanced at Vas.

“This is my second, Vasily.” He, too, bowed low.

Kar Daim nodded, and gestured for them to be seated.

“I was told that you have important information to share, something that should not be told through regular channels?”

“Yes, Kar Daim. I have information on Erasi activities, and because of the nature of information and what it reveals, we are worried about information leaks.”

“Report.”

Ryaana pulled the datachip from her pocket and placed it on the holo-desk, activating it with her imp. Holograms blossomed above the table and she scrolled through the files until she found the one she wanted.

“As you can see, this is a list of targets that the pirates and the liberation force had been instructed to hit by the Erasi. The timetable for their attacks was supposed to begin five months from now. We don’t know yet if us destroying their base of operations is going to force them to discard or change their plans.”

Kar Daim and the Dai Sha looked through the data carefully, and then looked at each other.

“This is the confirmation we were needing, complete with a possible timetable for their attack,” Dai Sha Garaam said.

“I would agree,” the Kar Daim said, nodding. “They do like to create chaos before interfering personally.”

“What are your orders?” Garaam asked.

“The Lord Sentinel gave me the authority to execute the plan before he returned if we uncovered proof that an Erasi attack was imminent. And I think that this constitutes exactly that.”

“Then I shall prepare the Legions, and let the Empire’s Fleet know,” Garaam said.

“The plan?” Ryaana asked.

Kar Daim turned and gave her a predatory grin. “Conquest.”

***

Several hours later, Ryaana was sitting in their family quarters in the palace. Across from her, sat her mother and the twins.

“You did what?” Ryaana asked disbelievingly.

“I removed you from the line of succession. I’ve decided to make the twins my heirs,” her mother said.

Ryaana looked at her mother in shock—she had wanted this for so long that now that she had finally gotten what she’d wanted, she couldn’t believe it.

“Uh… I hope that you aren’t mad, Ry,” Kane said slowly, looking at her as if expecting her to go berserk on him any moment now.

“Mad!” she exclaimed, jumping up with a large smile on her face. She crossed the distance and pulled her brother out of his seat, enveloping him in a hug and twirling around with him. She finally let him down and looked at his surprised expression.

“This is exactly what I wanted!” she said and then turned to grin at her mother, who looked at her with an expression of exasperation. But Ryaana didn’t care—she was finally free.

“You really wanted this?” Kane asked.

“Of course!” Ryaana said as she saw the look on Kane’s and Vaana’s faces. They hadn’t really believed her when she had told them before. The two of them were Shara Daim to the core. They couldn’t understand something like not wanting to be the heir.

“But…why wouldn’t you want to be the heir?” Vaana asked.

Ryaana smiled at her sister. “The fact that you can’t understand is exactly why you are better suited for it than me.”

She stepped away from her brother and looked at her mother, whispering a silent thanks. She was free.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Krashin system

Adrian sat in the Herald of War’s shuttle transport on his way to the Krashin ship. Somehow he had managed to communicate with them, although he still was not sure if he was interpreting correctly. He had accepted their offer “to be consumed-of-life-understanding to drain and learn.” If he was right about what that meant, they might be able to establish proper communication. If not, well—he would probably have his brains drained, he thought with a slight smile. His staff and crew had objected vehemently to his decision, citing that if anyone was to go, it should be one of them. Adrian had refused them, of course, as he was the only one powerful enough to do something if he was wrong.

In the end they had settled on a six-man guard, two of whom were Sha commandos. Although Adrian himself was more powerful than all of them put together and more, it was never a bad idea to bring backup. The Herald of War loomed over the Krashin ship, ready to blast it to pieces if anything went wrong. The rest of the Krashin task force had pulled back to a short distance, still in range, but they had clearly made a peaceful gesture.

It had taken a bit for them to coordinate and make the arrangements, but in the end Adrian had managed to understand that they wanted a meeting in person. Another point that gave credence to his conclusion.

Slowly, as their shuttle approached, the Krashin ship opened like some great maw, and Adrian ordered the pilot to take them inside. For a moment he wondered if he had made a mistake, and if they were about to become food for some massive beast. Then the maw closed behind them, and they found themselves in a completely closed pocket. He felt a twinge of panic from his pilots, but then the sensors told them that air was being pushed into the pocket. A few moments after the pocket was filled, the other side opened and they entered a large hangar-like chamber. He instructed the pilots to land. As they did so, he noticed shapes moving at the end of the chamber, in the tunnels that lined the far wall.

He turned and walked toward his people.

“Keep your weapons ready, but don’t antagonize them. Keep them pointed at the ground. Don’t act unless I explicitly order you to. Understood?”

A chorus of, “Yes, Lord Sentinel!” answered him.

Adrian triggered the helmet of his armor to close around his head and opened the shuttle doors. They stepped into a dark room, lit up from the ceilings by soft blue lines. The atmosphere reminded him of caves with natural bioluminescent life forms hanging from the ceiling. He took the lead and walked forward toward the shapes that had exited the tunnel and were slithering toward him slowly.

The fact that no one was shooting at them was a good sign, or at least he thought it was. The leading Krashin came to a stop in front of him, and Adrian looked up at it. It was large, looming over him, and well muscled—power radiated from it. It had a long scar running from the side of its face down its neck and across its chest to end just below the slits of its secondary appendages. He opened his Sha sight, seeing the Krashin in the shades of twisting shadows. It was powerful, very powerful; he could see that from the amount of Sha inside of its body. But it also felt different to his sight, somehow unique.

The Krashin studied Adrian in turn, and after several moments of them studying each other, he heard its voice in his mind.

“Consume-of-life-understanding to drain and learn?”

Adrian steeled himself and took a step forward. He felt his people tense up behind him and shot them a message: “Don’t interfere.”

Adrian looked at its four eyes, which seemed to glow faintly in the dimly lit chamber. He took a deep breath and opened his mind, lowering his walls. He reached for the Krashin. The Krashin noticed immediately, and Adrian felt him grasp the tendrils that Adrian had extended. Every instinct he had told him to raise his shields back up, but he persisted, inviting the Krashin in.

He felt the Krashin accept, and then just as Adrian felt the Krashin’s mind seeping into his own, several tendrils reached and pulled him out of his own mind and into the Krashin’s. In that moment, the human Adrian Farkas-Reiss ceased to exist.

***

First came the light, then the cold, and the warmth, and the sensation. Each movement brought only pain. And then it was enveloped, it felt safe, and the pain disappeared. It knew that all would be right in the world.

It had grown to be the strongest of its brood. It had been given a name, the Seeker, for its desire to seek knowledge. And it had learned much. It knew that it was born of the Krashinar, from the wombs belonging to the Seventh. It did not know exactly what that meant, but it was certain that it meant something. It didn’t worry; in time it would learn the meanings behind everything.

The Seeker had decided that it wanted to be a tamer, and to be a good tamer one needed to first know how the majestic beasts were spawned. To understand them down to their basest form. The Seeker had been granted a spot within the Seventh’s personal spawnery. An honor to be sure, yet the Seeker knew that the honor had been given because it had been spawned from the Seventh. It did not feel worthy of the honor—but it would not refuse it. The Seeker would prove its worth to the Seventh who had spawned it from its own womb.

The Seeker had learned well the craft of the spawners, and had finally been granted permission to become a tamer. Finally it would taste the freedom of the void. The Seeker would seek knowledge and new tests—it would know everything.

The Seeker rejoiced with the rest of the Krashinar when a scouting pack had encountered life in the galaxy. And it was not a single new organism, but rather a pack of many different ones. They were strange, living in their hollow beasts, grown of metals and cold. Communication was hard, they could not really understand each other; but there was time, and the Seeker would seek that knowledge.

Communication with the Visitors had been established, and the Seventh itself had met with them and extended the friendship of all the Krashinar. Communication was still not perfect. The Visitors refused to share their lives so that they could learn of one another. But the Seven did not want to press, as the Visitors had their own beliefs. And the Seven did not wish to offend them.

The Visitors had made them an Oath of Friendship. The Krashinar rejoiced upon hearing the news, and the Seeker had as well. And the Visitors told them of their problems, a clear sign of trust and friendship. The Visitors warned their new friends of another race that lived close to the Krashinar territory, a vile one that preyed on those weaker than themselves. The Visitors did not have the strength to fight them, as they said their territory is far away. By the time they could send for enough forces, the Vile Ones would kill many packs. The Seven had decided to offer their help.

The Seeker led its void beast as its packs hunted the Vile Ones. Its void beast had killed many, and the Seeker itself had walked the ruins of the worlds the Vile Ones had possessed. And something nagged on the Seeker’s mind—a wrongness that seeped into its being.

The Seven refused to believe the proof before their eyes, and the Seeker itself was the same—for the first time in its life, it began to fear knowledge. The Seventh had retreated to its core world, its packs following. The rest of the Seven had done the same. They returned to their core worlds and contemplated their past actions. How had they not seen the truth? Where had they gone wrong?

The final proof had come when the hollow beasts of the Visitors arrived. They were moving on the Seventh’s core world with numbers too great even for the Seventh’s Great Pack. The Seeker readied its beast, whispering encouragements, more for itself than for the beast.

They were not the hunters—the Visitors had made them the prey. They had cornered them across the system. Crippled the Great Pack, killed the Hunt-masters. But the Seeker still lived, and it watched as the Visitors cleaved the Seventh’s world in half. The Seventh’s warmth disappeared, leaving only the last echo of its final scream. The Seeker and its beast heard it, as all the remnants of their Great Pack heard it. They felt the scream in their minds still. The Seeker threw its mind to the void, calling out to every wounded beast, and every tamer. A cornered prey is most dangerous when it knows it is going to die. The Betrayers of Oaths would pay.

The Seeker watched as the hollow beasts of the Betrayers burned, and its own beast was at its deaths door. But still it fought, still it listened to the Seeker’s pained voice. A gash across the Seeker’s length pulses in pain as its life blood drains away. The Betrayers were many, and the Seeker would most certainly die. And then a new song came: one of revenge, and a price of blood. Six Great Packs had come. And in each the Seeker heard a song of mourning. The rest of the Seven had arrived, but they were too late.

The time did nothing to ease the echo of the Seventh’s dying scream. The Six had proclaimed a long hunt against the Betrayers. They called out to the Seeker, the last hunter of the Seventh. It was its duty now to see their revenge through. It agreed, but it was no longer the Seeker. The death of the Seventh had taken with it its desire for knowledge. It cared nothing for the beauty of the Universe now, not when there was such wickedness within it. The hole in its being had healed, leaving only the scar. And that was what it had become—The Scar.

***

It stumbled backward, its back caught by something or someone. It turned its head to look—yet it felt strange.

“Lord Sentinel, are you all right?”

It—no, he understood the words, yet it felt as though he had not heard the words in a long, long time. He… Adrian, his name came to him, as the rest of the shock slowly seeped away. His mind reasserted itself, pushing the memories he had lived through back.

“I’m fine,” Adrian said, and stood on his own.

This was something that he had never felt before. His mind was a mess. He had lived through the memories of the Krashinar before him. He had been it. The memories were fading now, but they were there still, like the memories of a vivid dream. That wasn’t supposed to be possible. The telepathy of all the races he had encountered didn’t work like that. Even the Sowir, who shared memories in a similar manner, needed to reconstruct the older one, to add their own flair to them. Adrian, however, had lived the Krashinar’s entire life, from his—no, its birth, its spawning in the womb of the Seventh to the moment the two of them met. Adrian had lived through thousands of years of life, every moment of it. At the time it had felt as real as anything that he had experienced in his own life. Now, he knew that those were not his own memories, not his own life. It had to be an ability unique to the Krashinar.

He looked up at the Old Scar, and saw that it too had been affected. Adrian knew that it had lived through his life, just like Adrian had its. Now, Adrian knew the Krashinar. But more importantly, he knew the being in front of him. After all he had been it, he knew it as well as he knew himself.

Adrian opened his mind and reached out to the Old Scar. “So, tell me, Old Scar: Is the trial of conformation satisfied?” he asked. For a lifetime he had spoken the language of the Krashinar. There was no doubt in Adrian’s mind that now there would be no misunderstandings between them.

“Yes, Adrian, it is. And I agree to speak on your behalf with the Six.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Several hours later—Herald of War

“That was extremely foolish, Lord Sentinel,” Commander Ruiss said with frustration.

Adrian had returned to his ship after a short talk with the Old Scar. It had been suggested that they should both rest. They had just lived through each other’s lives, and they would need time to get their own minds settled. In a week’s time, they would start official negotiations.

“Not really,” Adrian answered.

“That alien could’ve killed you!”

“Trust me, Ruiss, I can defend myself. It would’ve taken a lot for him to kill me,” Adrian said, though he wasn’t as sure as he made himself sound. The Krashinar were natural telepaths, just like the Sowir, and their telepathy was slightly different than that of every other race. It was possible that he might’ve had some difficulty.

“In any case, it is done with,” Adrian said. “And now we have a reliable way of communicating with them.”

“You still haven’t explained exactly how and why you are suddenly able to understand them,” Ruiss said.

“We shared…knowledge. I gained their language, and they gained mine. My mind now understands how theirs work, and can now adapt and translate their words into things that I can comprehend. I believe that the same is true of it.”

“Are you certain of that? We can’t afford misunderstandings.”

“I am certain.”

“Fine; I will not pretend to understand. But I will take your word for it. You said that you exchanged knowledge—so what else did you learn about them?”

Adrian closed his eyes as flashes of memories rose to the surface. Quickly he pushed them down—ever since their encounter Adrian had been working tirelessly to contain the memories and isolate them inside his mind construct. He had been forced to craft another room inside his mountain, a fairly large one. It had to be in order to store all those memories. Adrian didn’t want them interfering with his life, but they were useful, so isolation and containment was his best option. He would still be able to access the memories whenever he wanted inside his mind construct.

“I learned a lot,” Adrian started. “For example, they don’t have genders. They just are. So I believe that we should refer to them as beings, or use ‘it’ to reference them.”

“Then how do they reproduce?”

“When a Krashinar reaches a certain age, they can grow a womb inside their bodies. They then ‘craft’ the necessary genetic material and mold their children. The womb is then ejected outside of the body and it grows until it can fit several Krashinar children inside, forming a brood. Once they develop enough, they are spawned.”

“Krashinar?”

“Yes, the Erasi call them Krashin, but that is wrong. I assume that the mistake comes from the fact that communications between them were not perfect.”

“And do you know why they are at war with the Erasi?”

“The Erasi manipulated them. They led them to do their dirty work and wipe out an innocent race, and then they betrayed them in turn.”

“Classic Erasi strategy, then,” Ruiss said, nodding her large head in a very human-like gesture.

“Yes.”

“And do you think that we can fulfill our mission here?”

“We shall see,” Adrian said. He then stood up, and turned to leave the briefing room. “Let’s continue speaking tomorrow. I am still recovering from the ordeal and need rest.”

“What if they try to communicate? Only you can understand them.”

“They won’t, but I will share my understanding with the Herald of War’s Sowir crew. They are the only ones that can digest the information quickly enough to be of any use. You should change the command crew shift so that we have one Sowir present on the bridge at all times.”

“I’ll see to it, Lord Sentinel.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

***

Once Adrian reached his room, he collapsed on his bed in exhaustion. He had learned so much that he could barely structure his own thoughts. But one thing had stuck in his mind: the way that the Krashinar spawned their ships—their beasts. They had the Sha, of course, all intelligent life did, but they could use it on such a small scale that they were able to program genetic codes. It took a lot of strength from their spawners, and a lot of time and craft had to be dedicated to it, but they were growing beasts of low intelligence in massive wombs.

And it was very similar to how they reproduced. It was all extremely fascinating and worrying. They were essentially using war animals, although Adrian knew that it was more complicated than that. Adrian didn’t know how to feel about it. The Krashinar void beasts depended on the bonds with their tamers, and when the Krashinar went to battle, every destroyed void beast was to them another life lost.

But then on the other hand, humanity had used animals for war since before they had learned to write. Adrian knew that it was not up to them to judge. It was the Krashinar way; it was how they had been shaped by the Universe. And he was more certain now that they were indeed a race that had not been interfered with by the People. He couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, of course, but from what he had lived through, he considered it extremely probable.

And now he needed to convince them to join in the attack on the Erasi. And from the Old Scar’s memories, he knew that the Six would need much convincing. They had trusted another before, and because of it had committed a crime that they would feel shame for forever, and for it they had paid an unimaginable price. That was why they now required a price themselves for any action between themselves and a new race. They would never again do something without gaining something concrete in return. The spilling of blood was a ritual, a symbol of a race’s willingness to abide by the terms reached. It was hard for Adrian to make sense of it now as the memories settled into the background, but he knew that it made perfect sense to the Krashinar.

And a price must be paid. If it was in sacrifice, it required the blood of the Krashinar for the crime they committed unknowingly, and it required too the blood of those they encountered as a kind of collateral against any future dealings. If it was in knowledge, it required the entirety of a life lived, for it was the only way for the Krashinar to truly know another entity and prevent any further betrayal. All this because the Erasi had killed the Seventh and destroyed an entire world.

The Seven had been the long lines of their rulers, Krashinar that had dated back to long before they had left their world and ventured out into space. They were from a time when they had first learned to use the Sha to shape life consciously. Each of the Seven had held the memories of all the previous rulers of their line, through the way similar to the one that Adrian and the Old Scar had used to share their lives with each other. So each of the Seven had done with its predecessors. Only for them, the exchange was more…vivid. At least based on Old Scar’s knowledge; it had not experienced it. But the Old Scar knew that it involved a true consumption of organic matter, not just telepathy. And that was because it had only been done at the end of one of the Seven’s life, by one of their line that was chosen to succeed as the next ruler. The Krashinar were not virtually immortal like most other races, but they were however extremely long lived. Capable of surviving for tens of thousands of years.

The Erasi had killed the Seventh. And in doing so, they had robbed the Krashinar of the memories of the Seventh’s line. Countless ages worth of experience that the Krashinar had relied upon to guide them gone in an instant. Adrian knew that the Krashinar hated the Erasi with the passion of a burning sun, that they wanted to kill them all slowly. It was why they were enacting their long hunt. But they didn’t understand that it didn’t have the effect that they desired. Nor did they understand that not all Erasi were guilty.

The Erasi were thriving. The Krashinar might be a thorn in their side, but the Erasi had been expanding coreward every time the Krashinar pushed them from the rim. They had been adding new members to the Erasi just to compensate and gain back the losses they had suffered from the Krashinar. The Krashinar scheme of revenge was not going to work. Eventually the Erasi would manage to build up enough forces to prevent the Krashinar attacks.

Perhaps the Old Scar now understood that after it had seen Adrian’s own memories. It understood that the Erasi were an enemy of the Empire. The Old Scar had been there when the Erasi delegation had met with the Seventh. It remembered their leader: Valanaru, the Weaver of the Erasi. And Adrian knew that he would have the trust of the Krashinar—because the Old Scar had lived through Adrian’s life, and it knew that Valanaru was Adrian’s enemy as well.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Krashinar great beast

The Old Scar had slowly recovered from the mind share. It had learned much about the individual whose life it had lived. Many things good, others not so much. But above all else, it now knew that the Empire and their Shara Daim allies were the enemies of the Betrayers of Oaths. And it had learned a lot more about the Betrayers themselves. A part of it wanted to forget what it had learned; it only added to their shame. But how could’ve the Six known? To live like the rest of the races did was incomprehensible to the Krashinar who shared their memories.

But the Six needed to know that the long hunt had to change. Whether or not they would join with this alliance was a decision for someone like them, not for an old scar. Regardless, it needed to give them the information. The Old Scar had rested enough that he could use the relay and mind-talk with the Six. It had ordered the great beast back to the gas giant, where, among the rest of the pack, waited the relay beast.

The Old Scar felt the great beast’s dissatisfaction at being ordered to connect with the relay beast, and so the tamers reinforced the order. One needed to be strict with the beasts; they needed to be controlled firmly. The great beast allowed the relay beast to wrap its communication tendrils around its own, and initiate the contact.

The Old Scar accessed the node, and through it the great relay of the beast that amplified its voice enough to reach the Six. It was a tasking endeavor, and it would not be able to speak as fully as if they were in the same room, or even the same system. But it would be enough.

Almost immediately the Six responded—they always did when the Old Scar called. Very few Krashinar could call upon the Six and be answered immediately. It was an honor that the Old Scar knew it did not deserve.

“Greetings, Old Scar,” the Second greeted it, taking the lead in the conversation.

“I greet the Six. I hope that I am not interrupting your duties.”

“It is rare for you to call upon us. Tell us what you need. We are always free to speak with you, Hunt-master.”

The Old Scar felt gratitude at the kind words they had bestowed upon it, and it sent a part of that gratitude back to them. Then it turned to more important matters.

“A new race has been encountered,” it sent.

“How much of a price did we pay? How many did we lose?” the Second asked, a touch of sadness making its way to the Old Scar.

“We lost none. The people we encountered chose to share lives.”

The Old Scar felt their amazement, even disbelief.

“Who of the Krashinar did live their life?”

“It was I.”

For a moment the link was silent, and then joy and hope passed through the link to bathe the Old Scar.

“You shared of yourself with another? Are you the Seeker once more?”

Old Scar shrunk in shame, “I… No. Not yet.”

“You say yet. And while we understand, we are glad that who you were still lingers.”

The Old Scar had been surprised at its own words. It had not intended on ever being the Seeker again. It knew that it was the influence of the memories—the life he had lived. Adrian was a strange creature, a thing that it could never have understood without sharing lives. He cared for very few of his own people, and all that he did was in a service to a goal that impacted only himself. A selfish creature that lived for the challenge of tomorrow. Yet his life had been filled with him being responsible for the progress and prosperity of many. His goal had helped those around him almost by accident, and they were uplifted simply by being near him.

The Old Scar could never live like that. For the Seeker, life had been about learning everything for the sake of the Krashinar. For the Old Scar, life was about revenge—but even that it did for the sake of the Krashinar. Yet there was something infectious about the life it had lived through the alien. It could feel the call of a goal like Adrian’s. His life had awakened the Seeker within the Old Scar.

“We shall see. Perhaps in time the Seeker might live again,” the Old Scar told them.

“Tell us of these newcomers. What did the life you lived show you, and what do they want?”

“There are many things that I’ve learned, things that you need to know. I would like permission to come to you and share parts of the life I lived, and to discuss the proposal of these newcomers.”

“Of course, Old Scar. You never need ask to come to us.”

“I thank you. I shall be with you soon,” the Old Scar said, and pulled back from the link, feeling exhausted.

It would go to the Six and tell them everything it had learned about the galaxy, of the People, and of the things they had unwittingly unleashed; of the Empire and the Shara Daim, and the Erasi—the Betrayers of Oaths, who were not what the Krashinar believed them to be.

And the Old Scar would tell them what Adrian had wanted, and hear the Six’s decision. It would see if they would put their long hunt aside, and seek to punish rather than destroy.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

December; Year 563 of the Empire—Herald of War

Adrian took a last look at the Krashinar system as the Herald of War disappeared into the star’s corona and into the access point. He and the Old Scar had negotiated for days after it had communicated with the Six. It said that it would go to the Six and tell them of his proposal of a joint attack on the Erasi. Adrian knew that before their life-sharing, the Krashinar plan had been to wipe out the Erasi in their entirety. But now they would know that that would be near impossible. Adrian’s plan would see the Erasi gone, their way of life destroyed completely. He had to make adjustments during the negotiation with the Old Scar, to make an allowance for the Krashinar.

There was nothing now for Adrian to do other than wait, and there was no need for him to stay here while the Krashinar decided, which he knew from the Old Scar’s memories could take some time. Instead, he offered to open an access point for them and give them the codes for Sol. That way they would be able to answer as soon as they reached their decision, and Adrian could return home.

The Herald of War passed through the access point, making its own return to Sol. Almost immediately upon entering the system, they received a message calling Adrian to Olympus Mons. The ship left the Sun and then made a short skim to Mars.

Once the transport got him down to the planet, he entered Olympus Mons and was met by his daughter. He saw her walking toward him, followed by a man wearing the uniform of the Sentinel support staff. He raised his eyebrow at that—his daughter had never before shown interest in such companionship. He walked up to meet her half way.

***

Ryaana walked over and gave her father a hug. She had known that he had left on a secret mission, but she was glad that he had returned in time for the start of the operation. Her mother had already set things in motion, and soon the Empire and the Shara Daim fleets would be getting in position. She released her father and gave him a warm smile.

“I’m glad that you are back. A lot of things have happened. But first…” She turned to Vas, who was looking at her father with a strange expression. “This is Vas. He will be a part of my team now. Vas, this is my father.”

Her father narrowed his eyes at Vas, and held his gaze for several moments. Then she could swear she saw her father’s eyes widen in shock, but his face was back to his usual stern mask so quickly that she doubted her own eyes.

“Vas, you said…” He stepped closer to him and extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Vas. I am Adrian.”

Vas hesitated for a moment, but then grasped her father’s hand in a handshake. “It is a pleasure, Lord Sentinel.”

Her father held Vas’s hand for a second too long, and then finally released him. Then he turned to Ryaana, ignoring Vas completely.

“So—what happened while I was gone?” he asked.

“I think that we should move somewhere more private,” Ryaana said. The plan was still being kept as under wraps as possible.

“You know, it has been a long time since we’ve had dinner, just the two of us. And I’ve been craving something other than the rations they fed me with on the Herald of War. Come, let us go to my quarters, and I’ll have the kitchen bring us something good.”

Ryaana tilted her head, but then smiled. Having her father all to herself was a rare chance, one that she would not refuse. “All right.” She turned to Vas. “I’ll meet up with you later. You still owe me a training session for today.”

“Of course, Sentinel,” Vas said as Ryaana’s father gently took her hand and led her away.

***

Every time he thought that he had a clear picture of the children of Axull Darr, something happened to show him how wrong he was. Aranis looked at the being walking away with Ryaana—her father. He had been surprised enough when he had accompanied Ryaana to see her mother; the Kar Daim was powerful, more so than Ryaana, but not by any large margin. But her father… He was so powerful, that for the first time since he had been changed, he felt fear. Aranis knew that he held more power, knew that he understood the Sha better than any other, that he was connected to it in ways that nothing else in the universe was.

But the thing that had stood before him was something else entirely. To someone like himself, Ryaana’s father had radiated so much power that Aranis could feel it in his bones. And he worried that his disguise would fail, that the Lord Sentinel would see through it. For a moment there, he had been sure that he had been discovered. But in the end, he had remained undetected. The body he had crafted was truly human, down to its genetic code. It was the Sha that held the truth of who Aranis really was. And he had taken great care to fabricate the Sha image that hid his strength; his mental state was that of someone much weaker than he. There was no way for him to see who he was.

Yet again, his decision to come and see the children of Axull Darr in person had proven to be the correct one. What would’ve happened if they hadn’t known? If they had begun the inevitable, only to be met with such power unprepared? No—now he knew, and the right countermeasures would be taken. But for now he would watch, and he would learn.

***

“You’ve been very quiet,” Ryaana said as she watched her father push his food around for the tenth time.

He raised his head and looked at her, seemingly surprised that she was there.

“Sorry, Ry. I have a lot of things on my mind. I got lost in thought.”

“Is it because mother gave authorization for the plan without you?”

“What? No, of course not, we’ve agreed to it.”

“What is it, then?”

“Nothing. I was thinking about the Krashinar,” he said.

Ryaana could still barely believe what he told her—that the Krashinar were a race that had evolved naturally. Only the second such race known to have done so in the Milky Way galaxy.

“So, tell me more about Vas,” her father asked in a strange tone that made her frown.

“There’s not much to tell, really. He was a part of our operation against the pirates.”

“This is the first time that you decided to get a support staff. I was just wondering why that is.”

Ryaana kept quiet for a while, debating what to say. Then she decided that the truth was the only answer. “I never wanted a support staff because of the ways that everyone acted around me. I am the daughter of the Empire’s Lord Sentinel and the Shara Daim’s Kar Daim after all,” she said mockingly.

Her father winced, but nodded in understanding. Of course her father had noticed.

“But Vas is not like that. He doesn’t care; he didn’t even know who I was when we first met. I feel like I can trust him.”

“He didn’t know who you were?”

“Well, he was born in Kazalir, on a small world. And he says that he hadn’t been a very good student. A lot of his education is lacking, but he doesn’t feel ashamed to ask questions. It’s one of the reasons why I like him so much.”

“A small world… And you say that his education is lacking…” her father said slowly, his face getting darker.

“Dad? What’s this really about?”

“I don’t know if I want you being near him, Ryaana.”

Ryaana leaned back in confusion. She had never heard her father speak this way. It made no sense—Vas wasn’t any kind of threat. He was far weaker than her and far more ignorant. And then it dawned on her.

“Dad! I’m almost five hundred years old. I don’t need you looking after me!” she said, feigning outrage, but she was smiling. It felt good knowing that her father cared about her that much. And she could see why he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Ryaana had never before brought anyone to meet her parents. And most of her relationships happened in systems far away from them. Her parents had always been busy and she had never met anyone that she would even consider bringing home to meet her parents. And here she was talking about how much she liked Vas.

“It’s not like that at all, Dad. Vas is just a friend, and now a subordinate.”

Her father was taken aback by her outburst. To her further confusion, he leaned back and his eyes narrowed, looking dangerously grim. Then his gaze lessened, and she could see him thinking things through, considering.

“Right,” he said. “I apologize if I jumped to any conclusions.”

“It’s kind of nice knowing that you care so much.”

Her father gave her a smile. “Of course I do. Anyway, I think that I have a proposal for you.”

“A proposal?”

“Yes. I’ll have Gotu call you and explain,” he said, nodding to himself, as if he had made some big decision. Then he gave her that same grave look and added, “You should extend the invitation to your new subordinate as well.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Josanti League

Alliooppaastori, High Venesar of the Josanti League in charge of Nassanti sector, hurried to make sure that his office was in top condition. He was having a very important visitor—an envoy of the Partenai, something that was almost unheard of. The Partenai almost never left their systems in the core. The enigmatic race was one of the founders of the Josanti League and was the oldest race in the Josanti—perhaps even the oldest in the galaxy. They had vast knowledge and power, but never did they abuse it. Many thought them pacifists, but there had been instances where the Partenai had fought wars, although all of the wars in their history had been defensive in nature.

The Partenai were the most revered race in the Josanti, and were one of the leaders of the League. Arguably, they were its most important race. That one was coming here, to meet with him… It was a clearly a sign of how much respect he had garnered in the core. He had always dreamed of being recognized by the core powers for his achievements. But not even in his dreams had he thought that he would be honored by a Partenai, and given his new post in person! And not only that, the Partenai in question was the High Matriarch—Levisomaerni, the oldest and the most respected of the Partenai. Some said that she was older than some stars.

Suddenly a chime announced his visitor, and Alliooppaastori quickly straightened his tentacles and wrapped them around his body, making himself presentable.

The Partenai walked into his office, her sleek four-legged form gracefully stepping toward his desk. Alliooppaastori could not help but admire her beautiful feathers, red with blue tips covering her entire body. Her long, graceful neck had a red mane of long hair framing a long snout covered with blue feathers, and her feathered wings were folded neatly on her back. The Partenai had no manipulator appendages, but then they didn’t need them. They could move things by using their telekinesis, and in many way could operate fine tasks far better than any other race.

She was smaller than him, and many other races in the Josanti League, yet she had such grace and power that even from above none could really look down on her, or any other of her race.

Alliooppaastori greeted her respectfully.

“High Matriarch, it is an honor to have you grace my small sector,” he said. His sector was in fact very large, but there was no point in bragging to her.

“High Venesar,” she said, her voice as gorgeous as she was herself. It was a song that brought tears to the eyes. “Thank you for receiving me on such short notice.”

“Of course, High Matriarch. Please, take a seat.”

She walked over to the foam and jumped on it, landing gently and curling her legs behind her body as she turned her long neck and her deep yellow eyes to Alliooppaastori.

“Thank you. I came here in order to ask you a few questions.”

“I am at your disposal, High Matriarch,” he said. He hadn’t been aware that gaining a post in the core required any kind of interview, but perhaps it was necessary in this case. After all, Alliooppaastori was going to be the first that had not been born in the core to gain a position there.

“I would like you to tell me anything that you know of this Empire that we have recently came in contact with. More precisely, the three races that are a part of it. The Humans, the Nel, and the Shara Daim.”

Alliooppaastori looked at the High Matriarch blankly, for a moment not even comprehending the question. The High Matriarch wanted to talk about the humans? He couldn’t imagine any reason why she would want to know about those primitives. It must be some kind of a test, then—there was no other explanation possible.

He composed himself and spoke. “From the three races you just mentioned, we have dealt only with the Humans. The Empire’s Ambassador is a human female.”

“Do you have a visual record of their appearance?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “But may I ask why you are interested in them?”

“The report you sent to the core on them triggered certain…keywords, let’s say. We wish to know more.”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Alliooppaastori said, not understanding at all, and he opened a file containing the data on the humans, bringing out the hologram of the ambassador.

“Dear creators!” the High Matriarch exclaimed, her feathers ruffled. Liquid that he was pretty sure was tears leaked out of her eyes. “It’s really them.”

“High Matriarch?” Alliooppaastori said, completely lost.

She composed herself, and used her paws to wipe away at her tears. Then she turned her eyes back to Alliooppaastori.

“Tell me more, what did they say? What did they want?”

“They asked for permission to pass through our territory,” Alliooppaastori responded carefully.

“Why?”

“They wished to reach the territory of the black ships.”

The High Matriarch nodded as if in understanding. “Of course, of course… But why would they need to pass through our territory?” she asked, but Alliooppaastori thought that she was talking to herself. “They could just—but then again, we haven’t been able to use them…”

“High Matriarch?” Alliooppaastori said, after several minutes of her silently mumbling to herself passed.

“What?” She raised her head to look at Alliooppaastori, appearing almost surprised that he was still there. “Right. Tell me more—is there a representative of theirs here?”

“Ah…  Well, no. There is not.”

“Why not?”

“I refused their request. And they packed up and left. As far as I know, their ships left and headed toward the territory of Tar’ferat.”

“You refused their request?” she said menacingly.

“It is the usual practice,” he protested. “We don’t allow primitives unchecked access to our territory. There are designated systems if they wish to trade, and I pointed them to those.”

“Primitives?” She raised her voice. “You fool… You…” she started, and then stopped shaking her head and calming herself.

“I need to get back to the core,” she said as she stood up. “Get back and arrange for a true diplomatic team. We will need to approach them as fast as possible and make sure that we make amends for your actions. And then, we need to ask for forgiveness,” she said wistfully.

She turned and started toward the doors. Alliooppaastori watched her in shock, without understanding anything that had just occurred. She wanted to ask the humans for forgiveness? Then, as she reached the door to his office, he finally found his voice.

“Wait! But…but what about my new post?”

The High Matriarch turned and looked at him in confusion. “What post?”

Chapter Thirty

Olympus Mons

Adrian sat at his table inside his quarters. Above his table in the air was suspended a hologram—a file. He had read through it countless times now, and he’d had Iris go through it countless times as well. He’d even had her access the relays and the net and search there for anything that might seem off. They had found nothing. The person on the file above him seemed to be exactly who he claimed to be.

Except that he wasn’t.

Vasily, born in Clan Kazalir on an insignificant world, with an identification number too long to actually speak out. Every single thing in the file checked out. Not a single thing was questionable, not a single thing seemed out of place. The events of the last few months seemed suspicious to Adrian, but only because he knew without a shred of a doubt what Vasily really was.

Vasily and his friend had stumbled upon pirates, his friend had gotten killed, and the Hand had been called. Adrian then sent the Erebus along with two inquisitors there, as a way to test the Erebus’s systems. Vasily did not initiate anything. His presence on Olympus Mons was ultimately because of a fortunate set of circumstances. The inquisitors used him as a part of their team—again, nothing strange, as the Hand regularly utilized personnel on site. Vasily was military trained and had experience on the colony world and with the pirates.

Again, nothing really suspicious. The inquisitors took him with them after they dealt with the pirate depot. That could be strange, yet Adrian could explain the action easily enough. Vasily’s friend had been murdered, he had wanted retribution, and the inquisitor whose life Vasily had saved allowed him to accompany them. They came to Sol, and Hayashi assigned Ryaana as overseer of the mission. And everything that happened afterward was equally explainable—except for one thing. In Ryaana’s report, he found a mention of a Gatrey using its mental attack and Vasily being unaffected.

Ryaana noted it as a latent talent, an ability that manifested itself during a stressful situation. If Adrian hadn’t been unsure about Vasily, he wouldn’t have looked twice at the explanation. It was a rare occurrence, but one that was documented. Hell, it had happened to him as well.

It was all just a set of explainable circumstances that had brought an Enlightened right to the top of the Empire.

It had taken a lot of willpower not to visibly act when he had seen through his disguise. And it was a good one—to his senses, he was a human. Vasily’s mental signature barely registered on Adrian’s mind. But he had been curious—his daughter had for the first time ever assigned someone to her team. And Adrian had wanted to see everything about him. He used his Sha sight, and was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of Sha twisting and churning inside of him. And threads, so many of them, thin as if made of silk reaching around him everywhere, connecting him to the Sha. And many more had been wrapped around him, bounding all that Sha inside deep. It was why to all of his other senses Vasily seemed normal.

He had been tempted to attack immediately, to get a first strike in and kill the monster. But something had held him back. In that moment, Adrian truly realized how different from everyone else he was. He had always stood out from the rest of humanity. He was capable of setting his emotions aside and doing what needed to be done. It was what made him a very good commander—he could sacrifice anything and anyone if it meant gaining victory. And in that moment, he knew that anyone else in his place would’ve felt fear. But Adrian had felt something totally different: relief and exhilaration. There, in front of him, stood something that was beyond him, an obstacle that he could not overcome easily. Even with Ryaana fighting by his side, he didn’t think that they could manage to take the Enlightened down. But now, finally, he had found an obstacle worth overcoming.

Vasily would not act, at least not soon. He was here for information; otherwise, he would’ve acted the moment he had seen Adrian. No—he was playing the long game. The Enlightened had come to his territory, was hiding right in front of Adrian. But this was a game that Adrian played well. He had learned a lot in the long peace after the war with the Erasi. The Heart of the Mountain had learned the Weaver’s lessons well. Now, he had a game to play. A game with the fate of the galaxy as the prize. A game truly worth playing.

And to play it well, he would need information, and there was only one place where he could get the information that he now needed.

But before, that he needed to make a short call to Gotu. He closed the file and opened the comms. He waited for several seconds, and then Gotu answered from across the system.

“Lord Sentinel, how can I help you?”

“I just wanted to see how you were doing with the lists?”

“Well, so far more than ninety percent of personnel that I asked have accepted. However, I have been focusing on military personnel; I think that once I start on civilian personnel, that percentage is going to drop somewhat. But we are slowly gathering recruits, and I have no doubt that we will have enough by the deadline.”

“That’s good, Gotu. I need you to add two more names to your list. Preferably you will speak with them soon.”

“Of course, Lord Sentinel.”

“I’m sending you the files now,” Adrian said, and sent the two files.

He saw Gotu receive them and glance at them. He nodded and then turned his eyes back to Adrian.

“I think that Ryaana would be a great asset, but I am not familiar with this other person.”

“Vasily is now a part of Ryaana’s team. She seems to think that he has potential. We won’t need just the old and the proven—young people with talent should be approached as well.”

“I see. Yes, I agree. I’ll see to it, Lord Sentinel.”

“Good. Let me know if you encounter any problems,” Adrian said and closed the comm. He wondered if the Enlightened would take the bait.

***

Ten days later—Clan Warpath

Adrian’s transport entered the massive cavern in the asteroid that served as Warpath’s greatest shipyard and research center. It was from here that the greatest achievements of the Empire had come—it was where the first four Sovereign had been built, and where all of their advanced weapons and technologies were developed. It was also the one place where Adrian might get the information he needed on the Enlightened. As his transport passed through the large cavern, he saw the bones of a massive ship. Another Sovereign, Adrian’s personal ship. It was costing him a lot to have it built, and it would not be finished for a long time, a decade at least. But he didn’t need it yet—not until the Nomad fleet was finished. He turned his eyes from it and watched as the transport landed.

Upon exiting he was met with the Warpath’s Clan Leader, the man that had succeeded the post after Adrian, Isani.

“Adrian. From your message I got the impression that something serious happened. Is everything okay?” Isani asked.

Adrian nodded as he approached and greeted his friend. “Yes, everything is fine.”

Isani turned his palm in a gesture that meant skepticism. “Does it have to do with the fleets? The order for mobilization had already gone out.”

“No, no. Trust me, everything is fine. For now. I need to speak with Axull Darr. Privately.”

Isani gave him a strange look, and then shrugged in a very human gesture. “All right then, don’t tell me.” He turned to leave and then threw back over his shoulder, “You know the way.”

Adrian made his way to the research center, navigating through dozens of laboratories to eventually reach his destination. He put in his code with his implant, and the doors slid open, allowing him inside. At the center of the room, on a small pedestal, lay a sphere. A storage system that contained all the knowledge of the People, as well as the shadow of Axull Darr. A digital image of his memories.

As Adrian approached, the sphere was illuminated with soft blue lines, and above the sphere, a hologram of Axull Darr appeared, floating.

“Adrian, it is nice seeing you again,” the shadow of Axull Darr said.

“Axull Darr,” Adrian greeted the hologram.

“It has been a long time since you last visited me. How may I help you?”

“I need to review everything that you have on the Enlightened.”

“I have already provided you with all the data the People possessed on the Enlightened.”

“Yes, but you have kept things from us before. I need to know if there is anything else you are not telling us.”

“You know that if I have protocols that have not been satisfied yet, I can do nothing about it. Why are you asking now? Did something happen that I was not made aware of?”

Adrian looked at the hologram for several moments, debating whether to tell him or not.“Yes,” he said slowly. “Something did occur, something that only I know about.” The hologram’s expressionless eyes kept his, and Adrian continued. “There is an Enlightened in the Empire’s territory.”

For the first time ever, the hologram changed its pose. It jumped up from its cross-legged position to stand, its eyes wide, and real emotion displaying on its face. “What?” the hologram yelled. “When? Did Ullax’s containment fail? Why was I not told?”

Adrian studied the hologram with care—and, slowly, things started to fall into place.

“You lied to us.”

“What?” It seemed surprised.

“You said that you were a digital imprint of Axull Darr, a shadow. I see now how stupid we were to believe it. But then again, we hadn’t been all that advanced, so we just took you at your word.”

He could see the hologram realize what it had done. They looked at each other in silence, until Adrian finally spoke again.

“One Enlightened infiltrated the Empire disguised as a human. The containment was not broken, at least I do not believe so, and no one other than me knows.”

The hologram slowly composed itself and returned to its previous position. “How do you know?”

“Because I looked at him with my Sha sight. I have never before seen anything like him. It was like he is attached to the Sha with thousands of little threads.”

“Does the Enlightened realize that you know?” Axull Darr asked quickly.

“I don’t think so. I believe he would have acted immediately if he had. His disguise is perfect; every sensor that had taken a reading clearly thinks that he is human. His mental signature is human, and one of average strength; even the amount of power that I felt from him was average. It is only because I have the Sha sight that I was able to see through his disguise.”

“You should thank everything that you hold dear for the fact that you possess that ability. It was very rare, even among my people. None of us who remained had it, nor had we seen someone who had it in lifetimes. Whomever it is you encountered obviously doesn’t think that any of you could have that ability. But even if they did, I doubt that they would realize that it would reveal them. Otherwise, all might’ve already been lost.”

“Tell me the truth,” Adrian said firmly. “All of it.”

“You are right. I have lied about many things. About my own nature as well.”

“Then this is the time for the truth. Don’t keep anything from me.”

“Well, first, I suppose, I should explain what I truly am.” The hologram lowered itself to the floor and stood across from Adrian. “Everything I said before about me splitting off from the others once Ullax convinced them about the containment option was true, as was the part where I created the Shara Daim, Nel, and Humanity. The part that I altered a bit is about me being a digital representation—although that, too, is a partial truth.”

“Explain.”

The hologram took a deep breath, then turned its gaze to the side. “As you know, the People were dying. Waiss, Nariax, and Eroill were exploring the possibility of finding a cure by creating new life, one capable of extremely accelerated evolution. During that time, the rest of us pursued other ways of cheating death. Ullax and her team were attempting to alter our own genetic code to make it more difficult for the disease to kill us.” Axull’s eyes widened slightly. “But I was researching a way to cheat death entirely.”

Adrian raised an eyebrow as the hologram continued. “I found a way to upload my consciousness to a digital brain of sorts. It had been tried before, of course, but always we had failed. The resulting being was never the same as the person that underwent the procedure. But at those times, we had always copied consciousness. The original person was still alive. So I tried desperately, until I was close to death. I had already done all that I could for you, my children. So I tried again. But I did not copy my consciousness—I uploaded it. And so I came to live inside the brain I constructed, and my body died. But I lived on.”

Adrian narrowed his eyes. “The spheres? You originally told us that each of our homeworlds had a sphere with your consciousness. But if there is only one you, then…”

“Yes, there has always only been one of me. The spheres utilize technology similar to that of access points to remain in constant contact with each other. In many ways, the spheres are just access nodes. I am not inside of them.”

“So where are you then, really?”

The hologram sighed. “My real ‘brain’ is in a system not far from Nellus.”

“So when you told me about the Shara Daim, how you knew nothing about what happened with them, that was a lie.”

Axull Darr winced. “It was. My original intent had been to raise all three of your races up by guiding you. I planned on being very much involved in your development. The Shara Daim were the first of you to become advanced enough that I could reveal myself. So I did. It went well for a time… But I made mistakes. I hadn’t revealed everything about myself; I acted as if I was a shadow of the ‘real’ Axull Darr. I told the Shara Daim of the Enlightened, and that it was their destiny to defeat them. I told them that they were heirs to the Galaxy. Eventually their council decided that they didn’t really need me, a computer program telling them what to do—they were the heirs to the galaxy after all,” the hologram said sardonically. “They started a war against their neighbors, and leaked the location of the sphere to them. You know the rest. The sphere was destroyed, and here we are today.”

“And the Nel?”

“After my failure with the Shara Daim I decided on a different approach with the Nel. And as you well know, that, too, backfired. They slaughtered each other for the sake of a religion based around me. And so after that, I decided to stop meddling. I never activated the sphere on Earth, and chose instead to leave you all alone. So far my decision with you has paid off.”

“We will speak about that some more, but right now the Enlightened are the priority. We don’t have many options, and I don’t think that I could defeat him right now. Not unless you tell me something that can help me against them. I did consider trying to evacuate Olympus Mons without him realizing and then bombing it.”

Axull Darr’s eyes widened at that. “Be glad that you haven’t! The only thing that would’ve done is destroy your city.”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. “He is that strong?”

“Do you know which one it is? No, no… You’ve never seen them or felt them, you can’t know.”

“I assume that it must be either Doranis or Aranis, since he is male.”

But Axull Darr waved his hand. “No, that means nothing. The Enlightened can change their shape as they wish. Gender means nothing to them.”

Adrian raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“So how strong are they, really?”

Axull studied Adrian intently. Then, finally, he nodded to himself and spoke. “Tell me, do you think that you could use the Sha to destroy one of your grav cars?”

Adrian gave him a confused look. “I suppose, yes.”

“Then what about a shuttle, a military-grade one?”

Adrian thought about it. “Yes… I mean, I know how they are built. I could probably yank a fuel line or ignite the tanks if it were close enough. Or attack the mind of a pilot and have him crash it.”

Axull shook his head. “No, I don’t mean by being smart about it, or precise. Could you use your power to crush it, or rip it apart with raw power?”

Again Adrian thought about it, then nodded slowly. “Yes, I think that I could do that.”

Axull nodded. “What about a ship, then? Let’s say a small frigate?”

“Perhaps, if used every ounce of power I had. I would probably drop dead afterward, though. Why are you asking me this?”

Axull looked Adrian straight in the eyes. “Because I watched Doranis rip an entire World-ship to pieces in space…from his own ship that was thousands of kilometers away.”

“That…that’s insane,” Adrian said disbelievingly.

“Yet it is true. Although, after that feat, Doranis had not been seen in battle for quite some time afterward. It might have taken a lot out of him. Yet still, those are the things that these monsters are capable of.”

“But how?”

“We never really found out what exactly happened to them. We know only what they told us. But the life form that infected them somehow altered their connection to the Sha, and made them stronger beyond belief.”

“So how can we fight something like that?”

“They can, obviously, be defeated. They wouldn’t have taken such great care to protect whatever they were doing in their territory otherwise. Nor would they bother coming here to spy on you. I don’t know how they found out about you, but they must fear you if one of them was here in person to gather intelligence. During our war we’ve never really had an opportunity to strike against them directly. There were only five of us left, and all of us were dying. Yet they are still flesh. Damage them enough and they will die.”

“It still might be worth it to try bombing, or I could blow an entire planet.”

“Unless you are willing to sacrifice millions of people on Mars, you will not fool him and trap him alone on a remote world. And even if you did manage it there is no guarantee that he wouldn’t survive. I do have some reports of them being able to survive in the vacuum of space. If he managed to shield himself from the blast he might be able to survive anything. You need to get him completely off guard, which would be extremely hard with their connection to the Sha. He would see any blast coming.”

Adrian thought about it. Killing one of them might even be worth the price and the risk. But then again, there was no need for it now. Vasily had not acted in any hostile way. If Adrian’s plan worked and he and Ryaana accepted the offer to join the Nomad fleet, he would be able to watch over him. Perhaps he could even learn more about him and the Enlightened’s goals.

“Not yet. What do you suggest I do? I do have a rough plan, but I came here hoping to gather more information to make that plan more solid. Now I would guess that there is a lot that I still need to know.”

“What is your plan?”

“Keep him close, befriend him. Perhaps even change his mind, eventually.”

Axull shook his head sadly. “Ullax had been Aranis’s life-partner for longer than humanity had existed, and he had been my best friend for longer. He still turned against us. All of them had been our friends for longer than some stars had existed. They all turned against us nonetheless.”

“Then I will learn more about them.”

“I truly hope that you find a way to defeat them. It is, after all, why I created you. Otherwise, I fear they will wipe the galaxy clean of all life.”

“Why haven’t they done so yet? You told me once that you didn’t really understand their motives, but that you were certain that they had enough forces to break Ullax’s containment.”

“At the height of the People’s civilization, there had been around a billion of us. By the time the three were changed, the galaxy was filled with life, with the many races that we had uplifted. The Enlightened had created three races to be their servants, yet in order to build them strong enough to battle us and the races we uplifted to fight them, they sacrificed on numbers. The other races of the galaxy outnumbered them. And if they had broken free and started purging the others, the galaxy would’ve inevitably joined together. The Enlightened would’ve been severely outnumbered. I doubt that even they could’ve survived with that many races bound together in their fear of them.”

“But the situation has certainly only gotten worse!”

“It has,” the hologram acknowledged. “There are more beings in the galaxy today than there ever were.”

“So what are they waiting for?”

“We don’t know; however, I do have my own theories.”

“Such as?”

“They must know that there are too many beings for them to fight all at once. They had always been smart, even when they had been of the People. They are most certainly working on a way to overcome that problem.”

“Great, just great.”

“You will need to be extremely careful, Adrian.”

“What do you think would happen if I brought you with me? Showed you to him?”

“I would rather not try that. We have no way of predicting their reaction. We have no idea which one of them it is.”

“And you have no way of knowing which one it is? If I bring your sphere close enough, couldn’t you scan him or something?”

“No. I am sorry, Adrian, but the Enlightened have the ability to completely fool any kind of sensor that I know of.”

“Right… Now, tell me everything about their abilities. All the things you have seen them do, or suspected them capable of.”

Interlude III

A long time ago

Waiss ran through the station, his legs shooting needles of pain through his body with each step. The alarms blared throughout the station. Too loud, so much so that he could barely think. Every sensor had gone berserk. The entire planet was shaking as if it wanted to tear itself apart. And the worst thing was the Sha. It was a storm of power, all pulled to a single point—the bonds of matter around him failed, and walls crumbled. Cracks appeared in the air, and the laws of physics went insane.

And the source was just ahead, in the small laboratory. Waiss stumbled inside only to find Nariax and Eroill already there. Nariax was pounding on the consoles, and Eroill used the disintegration matrix to fire at the life form inside the containment unit.

“It’s not working, Nariax!” Eroill yelled out.

Waiss grabbed another matrix and turned toward the containment unit. Tendrils of black flesh were already pulling through the cracks in the unit. Waiss added his fire to Eroill’s.

“I can’t initiate the protocols!” Nariax yelled back. “The computers are fried!”

The weapons fire from both Eroill and Waiss did nothing to the life form. The Sha was being pulled inside of it, so much of it that everything around them had started falling apart. Nariax walked over to them and looked on in horror as the life form broke free and attacked Eroill. In an instant it enveloped him, consuming him—and it spread, grew, and caught Nariax as well.

Waiss turned to run, to get away. He took a single step, but was too late and too slow. It caught him and pulled him inside of itself. He felt it seep into his skin, through his mouth and every other orifice. He could feel his body decompose and then suddenly rearrange itself. In a moment he was nothing, and everything.

All the Sha that the life form had gathered in itself closed in on Waiss. It bore a hole through him, and suddenly he was aware of Nariax and Eroill.

And then they were everywhere. The entire galaxy stretched around them—everything that the Sha touched, they touched. And they could see. They saw everything. And in their horror, they understood. All of it was their fault.

He didn’t know for how long they had been like that, but it felt like an eternity. And then they contracted, each being pulled back into their own body.

Waiss opened his eyes. The lights were dim, and everything around them was destroyed. His body was stuck in a black liquid, and he slowly stood up. For the first time in a very long time he felt no pain, for there was no disease in his body now. He looked at the others; both of them were struggling to stand—and both of them were changed.

Nariax was almost the same, her features like those of before, only now there was no sign of the disease. She was more beautiful than she ever was, but from her back, black bones jutted at odd angles, curving in all direction.

Eroill looked worse. His head was elongated, and large, sharp teeth jutted from his jaws. His arms were elongated as well, and claws tipped each finger. Waiss feared looking at himself, but finally he turned his eyes down. There were things growing out of his body, plates of black that covered his skin. He glanced at his wings and saw they had grown black as well—and larger.

“You all saw it?” Waiss said, and then realized that he had spoken with his mind. It felt effortless, as if he were speaking with his mouth.

“Yes,” both of them answered in the same manner.

“The galaxy is bleeding,” he said.

“We did this. We created the disease that is butchering it!” Eroill growled in his mind.

“How could we have known?” Nariax wailed.

“It is my fault. It was Axull, Ullax, and I that discovered how to do it. It was we that convinced the Grand Exatts to allow us to continue,” Waiss said sorrowfully.

“No! We all followed in your footsteps, we all played with things we should not have!” Nariax sent. “The fault lays upon all of us.”

“And the People paid for our mistake with the death of our civilization,” Eroill said.

“We can’t let it be like this! We need to change it, to heal it,” Waiss said.

“But how?” Nariax asked.

“First we need to exterminate the virus, the thing that is ripping its walls asunder! The dimensional barriers are thinning with every moment that they take the Sha from its true purpose!” Eroill growled.

“There are so many of them. How could the three of us do it?” Waiss asked.

“What about the others, could they help us?” Nariax asked.

Waiss thought about it, but then shook his head. “Look at us. They would take one look at us and see monsters. And they will not believe us, not until they see it for themselves. Do you really think that they will willingly allow us to make them like us?”

“No…”

“We don’t need them! We can kill them all, we must!” Eroill said.

“It would not fix the problem; the wounds would still remain. And the end will not come soon. You’ve seen it. It is a slow death,” Nariax said.

“So we heal the wounds,” Waiss said.

“And how do we do that?” Nariax asked.

“I don’t know yet, but we will figure it out,” Waiss said.

“So what now, Waiss?” Nariax asked.

He winced at the sound of his own name—it reminded him of what they had seen. It reminded him that it was he who had been the one to instigate it. It was he who had gone to Axull, he who had gathered them and pointed them in the direction of studying primitive life. Because of him, they had given intelligence to things not meant to have it.

“No… I can’t use that name again. Waiss was an ignorant fool, one who in his stupidity doomed the galaxy to a certain death. I require a new name…” He thought about it for a few moments, and then it came to him. “Anis—the Enlightened… Yes, that is a good name for what we are now. From this day forward, I shall be called Aranis.”

Chapter Thirty-One

January; Year 564 of the Empire—Olympus Mons

Adrian looked over the force assembled in Sol—fifty of the Empire’s fleets with another thirty from the Shara Daim, all ready to strike against the Erasi. Adrian and Anessa had planned for this for a long time, working around the plans of the Erasi. Adrian had been aware of the Weaver’s plans; not all of them, he knew, but enough to know that she would come back for her revenge. Come back to fulfill the promise she had given him at their last meeting. But it would not work out in her favor—Adrian had seen to it.

The Weaver had made two critical mistakes. First, she was underestimating him again. Second, she had turned all of her attention on the Krashinar for too long. It made the thread she had used to bind the races around the Erasi weaker. And it also made her more likely to miss obvious things, such as Adrian’s spies in her territory.

Now it all came back to the timeline. He couldn’t be in direct contact with his spies—sending them the message and hoping that they fulfill their mission in time had to be enough.

More fleets had been assembled in the territories of the star-nations surrounding the Erasi in staging point that they had taken hundreds of years to set up. The people he had in the Erasi governments were informed of the beginning on operations, and were hopefully preparing accordingly. The attack on the Erasi would come from all sides—his fleets would crash against the Erasi systems, and his agents would light fires within their governments. Rebellions and coups would plague the Erasi ruling class, and once the dust settled, the Empire and the Shara Daim would control the Erasi.

The only problem was that, as long as the Erasi had fleets, their government would retain power. They were not an easy opponent to defeat; and their industrial power outmatched both the Shara Daim and the Empire still. They had more ships. Adrian was confident that they could prevail in the end, but it was going to take many years. Hundreds, perhaps, unless the Krashinar struck as well from the Erasi’s rimward border. They alone had the strength and numbers to make a difference, to pummel the Erasi fleets and allow Adrian to systematically destroy the Erasi government. To conquer their territory.

Adrian sighed; he had hoped that the Krashinar would’ve responded before now. But it didn’t change anything. They were going to attack anyway. Adrian looked over the fleets and the two Sovereign-class ships attached to them. One of the Empire, and one of the Shara Daim. This was going to be the first time in history where more than one was used at a single time, and the first time they were going to be fighting as a part of such a large force.

“How much longer?” Anessa asked from behind him. She had finally changed the order of succession and put the twins as her primary heirs. The two would rule jointly, and she had decided to leave them in charge of Shara Radum while she went to war.

He winced as he remembered the conversation. The twins hadn’t been at all happy to be left out of the war; they were Dai Sha, after all, warrior leaders of the Shara Daim. But this was personal for Anessa. She had a vendetta against the Erasi and nothing would stop her from being in this war.

“We can’t know for sure. It isn’t really an exact science, you know.” Adrian gave her a wide smile over his shoulder.

She snorted and turned away just as a chime announced a comm request from the Sol access point.

“Tell me,” Adrian said.

“They are through. They activated the point.”

Adrian smiled. “Good.”

“It’s done, we can go through,” he told Anessa.

“Finally.”

Then there was another chime, and Adrian turned back and accepted the comm from the access point again.

“What is it?”

“Lord Sentinel! We have an unannounced entrance! Ships are coming through the point—fleets!”

“There weren’t supposed to be any Erasi there! Where are they coming from?”

“It’s not the Erasi! We don’t have the records for these ships! They are not answering any hails, and the defender station are preparing to open fire!”

“Do not fire yet—send me the feed.”

Adrian looked at the feed, expecting to see an invading force, but as soon as he saw the ships coming through the access point he relaxed.

“It’s all right. They are friends, and have been invited here by me. Let them through,” Adrian said.

He turned to look at Anessa and grinned. “It looks like we will be having company after all.”

“The Krashinar?”

“Yes,” Adrian answered. “I need to get back to the Herald of War. We need to coordinate, fast. Once we enter Erasi territory, all hell will break loose.”

“There are five days left until the rest of our fleets attack across the borders. We have time,” Anessa said.

“It will be better if we draw some of their ships from their borders. If they think that all of our attacks are focused from the inside of their territory then they will reinforce inward from their borders, and make it that much easier for the rest of our forces to invade.”

Anessa nodded in agreement, and then a smile blossomed on her face. “You know, I really missed this—war.”

“Yeah, I know. I did too,” Adrian said, her predatory smile reminding him why he had fallen in love with her in the first place.

***

“Thank you for coming, Old Scar,” Adrian sent to the leading ship of the Krashinar force. An entire Great Pack. The pack of the Seventh. Its size was comparable to around seventy-five of the Empire’s fleets—a large number to be sure. Adrian knew everything that the Old Scar knew. The Krashinar Great Pack was bred to act in such massive numbers; they were not made out of smaller packs. They were one single massive fleet.

“It was the Six that came to this decision. I only provided them with information. If anyone deserves your thanks, it is them.”

“Your Great Pack will aid us greatly,” Adrian sent.

“I bring the Seventh Pack with me, for your attack. And three additional Great Packs are already moving toward the borders from our territory. They should be arriving within a month.”

“That is greatly appreciated. It will add additional pressure to the Erasi, force them to split their forces further. I hope that the Six agreed to follow my plan?”

“They have. We will strike only their military targets. It is not easy for us to abandon our revenge. But we understand now that many things have changed, and if you fulfill what you promised, we shall abide by the terms of our agreement.”

“Good. Since there are few of my people capable of communicating with you, I shall keep in contact, but your Great Pack should act as independently as possible. We don’t have the time to integrate our forces. If you do need assistance, your people will need to send their request through me or the other Sovereign-class ships. I’ll make sure that there are people capable of communicating with you there at all times.”

“Very well, Lord Sentinel. We follow behind you. May our hunt be successful,” the Old Scar said, and closed the link.

Adrian turned to his crew, looking around the command hub of the Herald of War.

“Order the force toward the access point. The invasion begins now.”

“Yes, Lord Sentinel.”

The massive force started moving toward the Sun. And then, slowly entering the corona, the legions of warships made their way to the access point.

***

The massive force exited the access point and entered the Erasi system. Once they had found out about the access points, the Erasi had been very careful in the years since the war to find those in their territory and secure them. They had succeeded in most cases, building defenses around the access points that would savage any ship that attempted to get through. They had managed to secure every system in their core, and most in their other sectors. The system that their force came through was one of those that they had missed. It was an insignificant system—barren, with nothing of interest.

Except for the fact that it had an access point.

And Adrian’s people in the Erasi had activated it. He had people all over the Erasi, all of whom had just been activated. Soon enough, the Erasi’s territory was going to be set afire—but now was the time for the first blow. He knew that the Erasi had been planning to attack the Shara Daim and the Empire, and that meant that their fleets would be ready. And they needed to stretch them thin, to strike fast and strong.

As the force organized itself, they skimmed to the hyperspace edge and set a course for the capital of the Horsiar sector, which was the sector bordering the Empire and the Shara Daim. It wasn’t as deep into their territory as Adrian would’ve wanted, but the other targets available by access points were far more fortified and closer to the staging points of the Erasi fleets. He had entertained the idea of attacking a deeper system, but eventually decided against it. The Erasi had the numbers advantage, and Adrian’s fleets would need to fight their way through the defenses and then engage the Erasi fleets. He would have no advantage in that situation. Adrian’s plan required for them to overwhelmingly take the system, to show the Erasi that they were not safe.

He opened a channel to all ships and ordered them into hyperspace.

Chapter Thirty-Two

February; Year 564 of the Empire—Horsiar sector—Erasi territory

The joint force dropped out of hyperspace and into the system, which was filled with activity. The Erasi’s own spies must’ve sent word back that a massive force had left Sol—they just couldn’t have known where they were headed, and they hadn’t had much time to prepare. It had taken them no time at all to pass through the point, but about two weeks travel time through hyperspace. In any case, the system couldn’t have been prepared for the force that had just arrived.

Immediately upon noticing them, chaos unfolded in the system. It was fairly large, with seventeen planets, thousands of stations, and swarms of civilian ships moving about. It was also well defended, and had twenty Erasi fleets stationed as a defense force. It wouldn’t matter; they were outnumbered almost ten to one. The force moving against them now was almost twice the size of the fore that the O’fa Garash had used to invade the Shara Daim.

Adrian took a deep breath and then leaned back into his chair. Placing his hands on the two orbs on the armrests, he closed his eyes. He opened them again to see the entire system in front of him, his vision being fed by the sensors from all the ships in the fleet. The command interface was principally designed for fleet command.

A moment later, Iris appeared beside him in her usual fiery form.

“Shall we?” Adrian asked.

“I’m ready,” she responded.

With a thought, Adrian gave the order for the fleets to advance.

***

The force split up, several smaller groups of fleets each moving toward a different target. The siege of the system had begun.

Ten of the Shara Daim fleets skimmed around the system to attack the shipyards around one of the system’s gas giants. Twenty of the Empire’s fleets slowly moved forward toward the defense station guarding a mining planet. Several small groups were sent all over the system with orders to find and destroy every relay in the system, effectively cutting them off from the rest of the Erasi. The Krashinar moved as one, their immense numbers travelling as a swarm toward the Erasi fleets.

Adrian’s orders had been for them to only hit military targets and to ignore the civilian ships that were attempting to run away. It was why he had chosen to start the attacks on the planets at the edge of the system. That would give the Erasi defenders more times to evacuate, but also more time to set up defenses above their capital planet and time to send word for help. It wouldn’t matter in the end regardless, as the rest of the fleets had already begun their attacks across the border, both from the Empire’s side and the Krashinar. The Erasi would need to choose whether to let this system fall or to allow his forces to take a dozen more systems on the borders. Even if they chose to send help here, it would take weeks, months even. The Erasi didn’t have useable access points, so they would need to rely on hyperspace and trans-lanes.

Adrian didn’t envy the Erasi. There was no decision that they could make that would allow them to come up ahead. He had planned it that way. He sent orders to four of his fleets, ordering their missile cruisers to start taking down the static defenses—they had a range spanning essentially half the system, and it would be much easier for them to take the system without having to worry about their defense platforms.

Thousands of s-missiles flew out of their launch bays and then entered the skim on their way to their targets around the fifteenth planet. Adrian watched in interest, until he suddenly saw his s-missiles drop out of their skim—all of them.

“What is happening?”

“Something is collapsing the skim fields,” Iris answered him.

“Damn! I guess they have a new defense,” Adrian said as he watched his missiles now continuing to burn at sublight toward their targets. They had been fired from so far away that they wouldn’t even reach their targets before they ran out of fuel.

He quickly went through his choices. He had no idea what it was that was disrupting the fields, but whatever it was, it had to be on the stations.

“I guess that we are going to have to do this from close range then,” Adrian said, and gave the order.

***

Ryaana sat in the assault shuttle and waited as it crossed the distance to their target. The fighting around the shipyard had been fierce, but ultimately the outcome was not in question. The Empire’s ships broke through the defenses easily enough, and then pummeled the yards’ shields until they dropped. And now the assault to take the shipyards was underway. The plan was conquest—not simple destruction.

The Sentinels were acting as leaders of Sha commando units that were going to land first. The shipyards were vast, curving around the gas giant in not quite a ring, but it was massive nevertheless. She glanced behind her at Vas. He was decked out in the best gear the Sentinels had—a full battle suit. She had already seen him in action against the pirates, but now he was going to be acting directly under her command, and during an assault of much greater magnitude.

The light flashed and a soft chime announced that they were about to reach their target. She could feel the internal dampeners as they suddenly slowed down. The assault shuttle shook as they made contact with the hull, and then the breaching charges detonated. Ryaana was first inside, her shield in front of her soaking up Erasi fire. Her turrets unleashed on the enemy, but their portable energy shields protected them.

Ryaana extended her shields around the breach and signaled for her people to get through. Two Sha commandos jumped forward and put their own portable shields in place, allowing Ryaana to drop her Sha shield. She reached behind her back and pulled out two black spheres and threw them above the shields, guiding them telekinetically over the Erasi shields and into their numbers, and then she pulled their triggers.

The devices activated and the two spheres imploded, ripping the Erasi to pieces as they were suddenly forced into two separate points. Their shields failed and Ryaana’s squad jumped forward, taking ground. They were in a medium-sized hangar area. A few shuttles were parked to the side, and some crates on the other, but other than that there was nothing of interest.

As soon as every one of her small seven-man squad left the assault shuttle, she ordered them forward. They were supposed to strike fast and deep, to cover as much ground as possible and disrupt the Erasi defenses, allowing the assault forces coming in behind them to land without much trouble.

“Let’s go,” she ordered, starting toward a corridor that led deeper into the shipyard’s station.

***

Aranis could barely believe his luck. Not only had he attached himself to the very top of the Empire’s leaders, he was now a part of a war. It was the perfect opportunity for him to gauge exactly what they were capable of. He had already seen a glimmer as the fleets had assembled in the Sol system.

That exactly had been why the Enlightened had been forced to wait to enact their plan. They could not leave anything to chance, and the other races were just too numerous. Even with all of their advanced technologies, they would’ve been overrun eventually. The force assembled in Sol had already made up a good chunk of the forces that the Enlightened themselves commanded. And these Krashinar had been very interesting; their ships were biological in make, much like those that he and the others had designed, yet theirs were something more. He could feel them in the Sha. They had intelligence. Figuring out how they managed that might give the Enlightened an additional edge when the time finally came.

If the galaxy united against them, before their countermeasures were finished, all could be lost. This was why Aranis needed information. In great part it was why he had forced the others to wait. He knew that Loranis would’ve been on his side, but Doranis was too primal. He would’ve started the purge immediately even if that meant uniting races in the cause against them. He didn’t understand that their advances mattered little when faced with such numbers. No—they needed to get the relays and the Conduit finished. It was the only way to finish them all.

He jumped over a corpse of an Erasi with a hole in its chest and followed behind Ryaana. For now, he would watch and learn.

Chapter Thirty-Three

March—Horsiar sector

Anessa, Kar Daim of the Shara Daim, was having a good time. Three weeks had passed since their invasion of the system, and already they had control of more than half of it, which put them ahead of schedule. She was commanding the Shara Daim fleets as they battled the Erasi. It was what she was supposed to do. She had taken the leadership of the Shara Daim out of necessity—not because she had wanted it. And now sitting upon her Sovereign, the Song of Retribution, she felt like all was finally right. The Shara Daim Sovereign class were built along different shapes than those of the Empire’s, the shapes more suitable for them. It was built like a narrow arch, with weapon systems covering both pillars. Their weaponry was different, as well. The Empire had its way of fighting, and the Shara Daim had their own.

Anessa ordered for the Song of Retribution to skim to the sixth planet, where a heated battle had erupted between her fleets and about half of the remnants of the Erasi’s defending fleets. Both she and Adrian had used their Sovereign-class ships sparingly, only in places where the fighting was heavy and where they had trouble with the Erasi defenses. If they had used them in their full capacity, they could’ve probably taken the system by now.

The problem was that the Sovereign class, while powerful, could only be in one place at a time. They needed their fleets to be capable, and a lot of their people had never actually been in a battle of this magnitude. The alliance had had five hundred years of relative peace, and both Adrian and Anessa wanted to allow their people to get battle experience during the openings of the conquest. Soon enough the Erasi would retaliate, Anessa had no doubt about that—and they needed to be ready for that. The Weaver of the Erasi would not take this defeat calmly; she would have some scheme or a card to play. It was what she did.

The Song of Retribution dropped out of skim and above her fleets’ battle lines, and with a thought she ordered them to open fire. Ion beams leapt and struck down the shields of the ships across the Erasi line, and proton beams exploded out of the Sovereign to batter the Erasi battleships. She ordered the focus of the fire to be shifted to the super-battleships, and the Song of Retribution opened fire with its antimatter beams.

Despite their name, the weapons weren’t really antimatter beams; the beam itself was more of a delivery system. A beam would reach to the enemy ship, marking it, and then the beam would deliver a small amount of several grams of antimatter to the target. Unlike the molecular-disintegration weapons that simply destroyed the bonds of any matter they came in contact with, the antimatter reacted violently when it came in contact with normal matter. That was exactly what happened as the Song of Retribution fired on one of the Erasi super-battleships.

The flash of an antimatter explosion ripped a massive hole in the ship’s hull, and the two of her battleships took advantage, pummeling the ship with proton beams, destroying it.

The arrival of her ship was forcing the Erasi to retreat. They had already learned about the capabilities of a Sovereign, and their retreat meant that another world had just joined those whose orbit the alliance now controlled. Now it would be on their land forces to take it. The land invasions had been hard overall. They wanted to take control of the worlds with the least amount of bloodshed possible for the civilian population; they did intend to keep the systems afterward, and killing the civilian population was not going to make that easier. Only the Erasi figured that out, they were taking every chance they could to hide behind the civilians. Fortunately, Adrian had Erasi agents in place that had mitigated that somewhat, by evacuating as many people as possible.

She looked over the battle map before her. Like the Empire’s ships, hers too now used a similar interface. She was floating in space above her fleets, issuing orders with her mind. Looking over the situation, she saw that her fleets around this world had the upper hand, but on the other side of the system, a couple of fleets were having difficulties breaking through the Erasi defense platforms. She quickly sent out the order for the Song of Retribution to enter the skim once again.

***

Planetside

Ryaana slid into cover behind a wall just as a bomb went off to her side, covering her in debris. She looked up over her cover and saw Erasi soldiers running up the street to her position. She waited until they entered range, and then sent the order to her team. Weapons fire showered the Erasi squad as her people shot at them from inside the buildings.

Afterward, Ryaana stepped out of the cover and called her people down. They needed to move quickly. They had been dropped into a hostile area with no support, with the mission to disable the anti-air guns covering this part of the city, so that the rest of the army assault could get down.

They gathered and started moving quickly down the streets. The Erasi anti-air platform was close by. As they neared the location of the building with the gun on top of it, Ryaana stopped her squad. She had kept a close watch on their surroundings with her mind, and had detected two Erasi minds moving toward them. She used her imp to order her team to dispatch them stealthily as she stepped inside a nearby building. She watched from the doorway.

The two Erasi never saw her Sha commandos. They grabbed them with telekinesis and broke their necks before they had even realized what happened, and then floated their bodies out of sight. She stepped out and they continued forward, finding the building that was their target. They had several guards as well as a plasma turret set up in front of the entrance—which was a problem.

She thought about the best way to approach it for a minute, then started giving out orders. She sent Vas to the building across them with his sniper rifle. He had shown himself to be extremely proficient with it. She had the rest of her team assemble and wait. Once Vas was in position, she gave the order. His first shot rang out and the bullet took the head of the Erasi soldier at the back of their small encampment. The second fired even before the first one reached its target, killing another one.

Ryaana’s heavy-weapons squad mate lined up a shot and fired his missile launcher, hitting and destroying the turret. Ryaana and the rest of her commandos rushed the encampment, her turrets firing as fast as possible. They jumped over the short barricades and mopped up the rest. Ryaana led the way into the building and up to the roof. Once she reached the last floor, she felt the Erasi preparing to ambush her as she stepped onto the roof. She didn’t give them the chance. Her turrets fired through the walls, and she reached with the Sha and threw several of them off the roof. She and two of her squad mates closed on the turret and planted explosives.

They jumped off the roof of the five-story building and softened their landings with their anti-grav generators. Once safely on the ground, they moved away and detonated the charges. They placed an orbital transmitter, and Ryaana opened a channel to her ship in orbit and reported in.

“Target destroyed.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Herald of War

Adrian looked over the several battles his ships were engaged in. There hadn’t been any major problems during the assaults. The Erasi defending fleet had been outnumbered and had been unable to do much more than delay his forces. The static defenses, on the other hand, had been very annoying with their anti-skim defenses. A large part of his arsenal had been rendered inert. And he had noticed several of their super-battleships had the same defenses. Not all of them, though, which was a blessing. It had to be something fairly new. The other reason why they had such an easy time of it was because the fleets defending the system had none of the Erasi Devastator-class warships. The Devastator ships were about half the size of a Sovereign, which meant that they would be a great threat.

But for now, they had the run of the system. They had taken the orbits of eleven out of the seventeen worlds, and had managed to occupy four of the more important ones. The rest they had left under Erasi control, while they kept the orbitals. There was no need for them to waste resources on them now, not until they took the entire system.

Several of his scouts had reached him to report that the invasions across the border had met with great success. The Erasi had been tied up on the borders too much to send help, and the only way this system was going to see any reinforcements was if the Erasi sent them from their core or from the surrounding sectors. And doing that would do nothing but further weaken them. Adrian knew that by now they had figured out how a force of this size had arrived so deep in their territory, especially since the Krashinar were a part of that force. That meant that the Erasi would fear them appearing somewhere else in the blink of an eye—and that would keep them from acting fast enough. They will hesitate to move the forces from their core, Adrian thought.

His attention was drawn to a group of Erasi, two fleets that had just skimmed in close to the shipyards in the orbit of the gas giant. Immediately Adrian saw that they intended for a fast strike to damage the yards and deny them to the alliance. Adrian ordered the Herald of War to skim toward them at the fastest speed available to them.

Minutes later, the Herald of War arrived to find the small task force of Shara Daim ships defending the shipyards, hard pressed under the Erasi fire. As soon as the Herald of War dropped out of skim, Adrian ordered the crew to fire.

The Erasi super-battleships attempted to shield the smaller ships, but the gesture was futile. The firepower of the Sovereign broke through their shields, and MD cannons obliterated the ships to nothingness.

S-missiles launched and struck every smaller ship that was attempting to run away. Less than ten minutes after the Sovereign arrived, the two Erasi fleets had been destroyed.

***

Aranis had never seen war like this before. Millions upon millions had died. The fighting during the wars between the People and the races that they had uplifted long ago had not been like this. The People had superior technology, and so twelve World-ships had managed to subdue all of the races that had risen up against them. And while he knew that many of them had died, at the time he hadn’t truly understood death on such a scale. He had been removed from the carnage, safe on the World-ships.

Then, later, when the Enlightened were fighting against the remnants of the People and the races they had tasked to fight against them, it had been the client races that the three of them had created that fought in their stead. Again, Aranis had been too busy with other things, trying to get the Conduit to work. It was Doranis that had led their fleets.

But now he had seen war, and the death it brought firsthand. He had seen the diversity of weapons that the Empire wielded against its enemies. These people breathed war; they thrived in it. It was now that he had seen the brilliance of Axull Darr’s plan. He had created a people that were all that the People had been, but were also more. They were a true threat to the Enlightened.

And their ships… He had seen only a few of their battles, but the destructive power that both sides wielded was enough that even one of the Enlightened’s living-ships might not survive in battle. And their Sovereign-class warships were truly a marvel to look at. He understood now what the inquisitor had meant when he had said that the Enduring was obsolete. They were almost forces of nature, with enough firepower to lay waste to entire systems. The idea behind them was very…interesting. He was certain that he could have something similar made. Perhaps he would once he went back.

Aranis considered going back right now—he had seen a lot, after all. But there were still things to learn. Ryaana had invited him to join something called the Nomad fleet, a creation of her father’s, and he had to admit that he was intrigued.

In any case, the consensus that he had reached with the others meant that the purge would begin once Ullax died. And while Aranis was capable of many things, he would not go back on his word. There was a part of him, still, that cared about Ullax, and he did not want her alive to see what they were going to do to her legacy.

In the end he would be better served staying exactly where he was for the foreseeable future. Not only had he been learning a lot about his enemies, but he had also learned many different skills. He was learning about how to wage true war. He saw now how complacent his power had made him. He had come to believe that he didn’t need to learn how to fight when he could just crush any opponent with that power.

Now he knew better. And the things he learned were going to be useful—very useful, once the purge began.

***

Ryaana was lying in her bed during one of their rare downtimes. She had been hitting planets and installations all across the system for almost a full month now. The fighting had been fierce in some places—the Erasi were not an easy opponent to fight against. Thankfully this system had a very low Gatrey population, as otherwise she knew that taking the system would have been much harder. In fact, none of their “ruling” races were represented in large numbers here, which was a blessing. Those from the ruling races tended to be a class above the rest in a fight.

In any case, their technology alone made them very dangerous. Already they had encountered weapon systems that they hadn’t even known existed. The Erasi had clearly advanced a lot since the prior war. This operation had been a great success, but she knew that they hadn’t yet faced any true resistance. They had caught the Erasi off guard, and that was all.

When their push back finally came, then the might of the alliance would truly be tested. They hadn’t yet seen their Devastator-class ships in action, and she could feel that they had many. Even with five hundred years of intelligence gathering, she knew that they hadn’t managed to get everything. The Erasi were masters of the game; the only reason that her father had managed to get his plan to work was because the Erasi had been hard pressed by the Krashinar.

But it was fine if the Erasi had things in reserve, as Ryaana knew that her father did as well.

The conquest was only beginning.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Krashinar great beast Araxi

The Old Scar supervised its tamers as they guided its great beast. The Araxi had been singing in happiness. It had been bored outside of battle—it was made to hunt, to exchange fire in the void. The Old Scar agreed; it hadn’t realized how much it had missed the hunt until it came back to it. It knew that it hadn’t felt this way before it exchanged lives with Adrian. The memories of his life had changed it, had given it a new breath and desire for life.

Adrian had asked the Old Scar to take its Great Pack and deal with four worlds that held only the Betrayers’ military installations, and the Old Scar had agreed. The concept of civilians and military beings was foreign to the Krashinar, as they were simply all Krashinar. Yet from Adrian’s memories it knew that almost every other race in the galaxy understood these concepts. The Old Scar knew now that that was the reason that the Krashinar had never managed to find common ground with the other races. They had blindly walked into the trap laid by the Betrayers of Oaths, and since then every single one of their contacts had ended in violence and blood. Only, they had managed a bloodless contact with the Empire. The Old Scar believed them trustworthy, and perhaps they would one day even be friends.

The Old Scar watched as several of its beasts cornered a single enemy hollow beast—or a ship, as it knew they called them—and destroyed it. Its Great Pack had performed very well. They hadn’t had to worry about differentiating between “civilians” and “military personnel,” and had simply moved and killed everything in their way.

The Betrayers had formidable defenses, but nothing that the Great Pack hadn’t encountered before. The beasts of the Great Pack used their long-range energy weapons to lower their defenses and maim them, and then they moved in closer for the kill. Coordinated assaults on the ground had been successful as well. Krashinar weapons might not be as diverse as those of the Betrayers, but they did get the task done.

A short burst of information reached the Old Scar’s mind, directed from its great beast. A group of the Betrayers ships had “skimmed” close to its position. The Old Scar ordered the great beast to intercept. It had done well in the battle, but had been held back a lot, as the Old Scar’s purpose was to lead the Great Pack and not to hunt for enemies. However, it knew that Araxi deserved some entertainment.

The Old Scar felt Araxi’s joy as it sped toward the enemy ships. Deftly, the tamers guided the great beast. It moved below the enemy ships as they fired their skim missiles. Araxi released a pulse of energy around it, taking down the skim fields from around them, and then shot them down with its low-power plasma weapons. It was foolish of the Betrayers to attempt to use the skim missiles, as it was the Krashinar who had originally developed the abilities to disrupt their fields. An ability that the Betrayers had then stolen.

Araxi drew closer, and it reached out to one of the enemy ships, manipulating the gravitons around it to squeeze the ship and crush it. The Old Scar was surprised that the enemy had allowed Araxi so close. It was the largest of the Krashinar beasts—not as large as the Empire’s Sovereign warships, but still larger than the largest enemy warship in the system. They must’ve known what the rest of the Krashinar beast were capable of, and they should’ve assumed that what they could do the Araxi could do better.

Araxi put out one short burst of power and crushed the enemy ship’s back. It released the ship and left it there to float as it began the hunt for the remaining enemy ships. The tamers guided Araxi to fire its long-range weapons at the furthest enemy while focusing its other weapons on those closer.

Green energy beams lashed out at the furthest enemy ship, while it reached out with its power to another ship. The enemy had been firing nonstop at Araxi, but the great beast had barely noticed as the shield pylons on its hide were handling the weapons fire with ease. A group of fast-moving small projectiles left the slits in its hide and hit the shields of one enemy ship. The shields flared brightly and then collapsed all around the ship. Araxi took advantage, and plasma flew out, hitting the enemy ship and burning its way inside. Several powerful hits later and the ship was dead in space, just as she crushed yet another under the force of increased gravity.

The last enemy ship attempted to run away, but the tamers had Araxi make a short skim trip, exiting right on top of the fleeing ship. Araxi’s graviton weapon pulled the ship toward its hide. The enemy ship was firing directly into Araxi now, as it was inside the area protected by the shields. But Araxi didn’t pay any attention; it would take far more than that to even scratch its tough hide. Two tendrils left the slits in its hide and struck downward just as it increased its pull. The sharp tips of the tendrils punched through the ship, and slowly, Araxi pulled the ship apart. It came to the Old Scar then, the reason why the enemy didn’t appear to know the capabilities of their beasts: these enemies had never met with the Krashinar, and they most likely had no knowledge of them. From Adrian’s memories it knew that most races were separated as individuals, much more so than the Krashinar. To them there would be no need to teach the forces on the other side of their territory how to fight the Krashinar.

The Old Scar felt Araxi’s joy at a good hunt, and sent it its compliments. Immediately it asked if they could go hunt something else, and the Old Scar told it that they would have many chances for good hunts in the future, but they needed to stay here for the moment.

That made it sulk for a bit, but ultimately the promise of more good hunts prevailed, and it settled down. The Old Scar had the tamers move Araxi back above the world where Krashinar troops were still fighting.

The Old Scar glanced at the sensory feed of the system, seeing that its side was winning. It had been very impressed by the war mastery of the Empire and the Shara Daim. Their ships were things to behold, even if they were hollow—especially their Sovereign-class beasts. Old Scar knew now that if Adrian had decided to fight the Krashinar in the system where they had met, he would’ve won easily against the Old Scar’s pack. It was thankful, then, that they had avoided that.

The fighting in this system had been fierce, but the Great Pack was fighting isolated from its allies. There just hadn’t been enough time for them to gain the same level of cooperation as the Empire and the Shara Daim obviously possessed, and the Betrayers of Oaths had attempted to take advantage of that. Thankfully, while they weren’t working together for the most part, the Empire and the Shara Daim had been ready to give assistance. Those few attempts by the Betrayers to gain advantage had ended in failure.

It watched over the operations on the ground until the word came that they had secured the facilities. The Old Scar had one of its tamers relay that information to the Empire’s ships. It was they who would gain control of this system afterward—there was nothing here that the Krashinar wanted. The agreement between the Empire and the Krashinar stated that the Krashinar would get the territories bordering their territory back from the Betrayers. This was fine enough with the Old Scar and the Six.

As the world was secured, the Old Scar sent word for the Great Pack to gather from their small hunts. They would now strike the next world on their list, another “military target.” It was also the last place where enemy warships were hiding behind many static defenses.

Once the Great Pack had gathered, with a thought the Old Scar gave the order for it to move.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Herald of War

The system had been won, the last of the Erasi warships were being chased out of the system. Since they were using their sublight drives Adrian assumed that their skim drives were probably still recharging, or had been damaged in battles. But in any case they wouldn’t be running for much longer, as his ships were about to overtake them. In the end, three of the planets in the system surrendered—both the civilian and the military populations, which had been a surprise. Erasi rarely surrender. But Adrian was thankful. It made his job easier.

Already he had sent a ship to get back to Sol and inform the waiting occupation fleet that the system was secure and that they should get to the system as fast as possible to take possession of it. His own forces would continue attacking other Erasi systems. Anessa had already departed—she had been with his force only for the main assault, and now she would take command over the border invasion forces while Adrian kept the pressure on the Erasi systems deeper in their territory, as well as going around activating any access point he could find and take.

He was very aware that this war was going to be won because of the access points. Without those, it would have taken them hundreds of years to get through enough of Erasi territory to deal them a crippling blow.

Adrian glanced at the c-board in front of him. Without active fighting in the system, he didn’t need to use the interface, and he had instead been watching the information projected on the board. He saw that only one Erasi battleship was remaining and that it was damaged, and an idea struck him. He immediately sent orders for his ships to stop firing and leave the ship alone.

“Commander, skim us to that position,” Adrian ordered. The crew obeyed without question, and the Herald of War skimmed to the still fleeing Erasi battleship.

Adrian transmitted a request for surrender. The Erasi had received constant requests for surrender, and Adrian hoped that they would refuse. Which they did—the Erasi were proud, and many would rather die than surrender. Adrian smiled and stood up from his chair and walked over to the amplifier, drawing curious looks from his crew.

Once he sat down and made the connection, he reached out, throwing his mind across the space to the battleship. The amplifiers were initially based on models designed by the Sowir, but later they had upgraded them with the knowledge of the People. An amplifier could not increase one’s power. It did however, increase a person’s reach, the distance that he could touch with the Sha. The original amplifiers had been made with telepathy in mind, but that didn’t really matter, the Sha was the Sha.

Ever since Axull Darr had told him about what the Enlightened were capable of, had told him what Doranis did, Adrian had wondered: What were the limitations of their power? Had Doranis really reached across such a vast distance with his own power alone? Or had he used an amplifier like the one Adrian was using now? Adrian’s reach right now was large, on the order of several hundred kilometers, yet it was nothing compared to what he had been told Doranis had done. And already Adrian felt like he was close to the edge of where he could actually do anything. He knew that he could use his telepathy to throw his words much further, but that was not the same.

He looked at the ship and wondered: Could he do it? He knew that there was no chance of him crushing the ship with raw power like Doranis, and that alone told him just how far behind he was. Doranis had crushed a ship that had been far more powerful, and more than twenty times larger than the battleship in front of Adrian right now. No—he was not even in the same class as the Enlightened.

But he had learned a lot over his life. He knew that power didn’t mean everything. He was best with telepathy, and although his other skills followed very close behind, it was his mind’s power that he really took pride in. And he knew that being a great telepath didn’t require a massive amount of power, but rather a great deal of skill. Mastery of the craft. He tried to reach to the minds of the Erasi crew—he could feel them, but he doubted that he could actually enter their minds, not at this distance. Range mattered with the Sha, especially with telepathy. The amplifier gave him more range, but he was at the edge of his amplified range now. If they took the Herald of War closer, perhaps then he could do something.

So, if he couldn’t crush the ship like Doranis, and couldn’t break the crew’s mind, he wondered about what he could do. He might be able to crush a beam or two, maybe collapse a room. But that would do nothing to a ship of that size. He kept looking, trying to find something that he could do. He needed to know that he could reach out for the Enlightened, and that he could eventually rise to their level.

Then he got an idea.

He found the ship’s drives, and he felt the Sha, wondering if he could do it. The Sha was the thing that bound everything—it was what held all bonds together—and he could manipulate it at will with his psionics. He reached deep inside the drives, and he surrendered himself to his Sha sight. He had never before seen like this—the amplifier made his sight so much more. He found the center of the drives, and he felt its containment.

Will it really work? he wondered. He focused on a single point, a single particle out of thousands that the Erasi drives kept in perfect alignment and stability. He reached for it, but felt his grasp slip away. It was too far away, he knew. If the ship was just a little bit closer he knew that he could do it. But it was not about that—it was about pushing himself forward. About reaching for something outside of his scope and grasping it in his palms.

He closed his eyes and tried again, focusing as hard as possible. His hand raised up and pointed toward the ship. Somewhere in the back of his mind he felt the confused reactions of his crew as they looked at him with his eyes closed and his hand reaching forward. He didn’t care; he kept concentrating. Time passed, but he still kept his focus, trying to grasp the particle with his Sha.

Then, finally, he felt and saw the threads of his power wrap themselves around it. Adrian’s mouth quirked upward in a half smile. He made sure that he had a good grip on the particle, and then he closed his hand in a fist—pulling with the Sha and breaking the bonds that held the particle together. To his Sha sight, the result was immediate—an explosion ripped out of the point he had touched, causing a chain reaction that had enveloped the rest of the particles in the Erasi battleship’s drives. The Sha churned at the violent explosion and he was forced to pull his sight back. He opened his eyes and looked at the holo in the middle of the command room.

For a moment he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, and then he realized that the things floating around the holo were the pieces of the Erasi battleship. The room was silent, and he turned slowly to look at his crew. Each of them had the same look on their face: part amazement, part horror and fear…and part reverence.

Adrian ignored them.

He used his imp to rewind the record and privately look at the battleship’s destruction. Its destruction was much more violent than what he had imagined. In a single moment, the battleship had gone from being whole to being a large ball of white flames, and in the next it had been blown to pieces that flew in all directions. Not a single piece larger than several meters remained.

“Adrian… That’s…”

“I can do it, Iris. I can reach them,” he said, relieved. A part of him had been afraid that he would never be able to contend with the Enlightened.

Suddenly he felt extremely tired, and he noticed sweat dripping into his eyes from his brow. He was exhausted, actually, depleted. But a grin appeared on his face nonetheless. He looked at his command crew, who still had the same expressions on their faces.

“Skim us back to our previous position,” Adrian said, his voice hoarse.

The commander stared at Adrian for a second, then glanced back to where the Erasi battleship had just been, and then back to Adrian again.

“As you command, Lord Sentinel!”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Erasi core

O’fa Valanaru, the Weaver of the Erasi, raged inside of her sanctum. None of her attendants had dared come near her after she had killed the last fool that had attempted to calm her down. All of her planning had been turned to nothing. The Empire and the Shara Daim had struck first, mere months before her own plan had been set to begin. And somehow they had allied themselves with the Krashin. That alone would have been enough to send her into a murderous rage, but it was not even all that they had done.

Immediately after she learned of their attacks she had sent word to the star-nations bordering with the Empire, and others that were close. She used all of her old contacts to urge them to attack the Empire while it was distracted. All of them had refused her, save for the Nauira—who were less than useless. She couldn’t believe what she had heard. It had taken her hundreds of years to build up the trust and to craft their governments so that they would be under her influence, yet all of them refused her.

It hadn’t made sense to her, not until word of the second wave of the Empire and the Shara Daim invasion force reached her. Their forces were attacking across the borders from the staging points in those same star-nations. And then she knew that they had betrayed her. All of her work and effort supplanted by an upstart—and she knew that it was him, the Heart of the Mountain.

She cursed the day that Garash had decided that they were nothing, and she cursed the fact that she had agreed with him. Both of them had underestimated them, and Garash had paid for it with his life. And most of all she cursed the fact that she had named him, that she had allowed him the honor of the name Heart of the Mountain.

She reached with her mind and ripped a lighting source from the ceiling, smashing it against the floor. She knew intellectually that her reaction was not something that she would’ve normally allowed herself. But then again, she was not herself. She hadn’t been herself since the battle with the Heart of the Mountain and his teacher.

The Lurker of the Depths. She spat at the name in her mind. The alien had wounded her, he had made her weak. It was because of him and his fool of a pupil that all of this had happened. Still, after five hundred years, she woke screaming in fear and pain from what he had done to her. She had killed the Lurker of the Depths hundreds of times in her dreams, and she had been waiting for the moment when she would finally have her revenge.

But now the Heart of the Mountain had tricked her, had cut the strings of her web and weaved his own. She would not forgive this betrayal. Every star-nation that had sided against the Erasi would pay for it, and dearly. But for now, she needed to find a way to defeat her enemy.

The blow that they had struck was a large one, but it was not yet crippling. The Erasi still had massive industry. Their core worlds alone had five times the output of both the Empire and the Shara Daim combined—the problem was the Krashin. She needed to halt them in their tracks. But that was going to be extremely hard, as this was the first time ever that they had used such numbers. She didn’t know what it was that the Heart of the Mountain had offered them, but she would make them pay for agreeing to it. If they thought that killing one of their Seven was bad, then they had seen nothing yet.

She couldn’t stop their advance from the coreward border, not quickly enough. But she could send ships to attack their territory. That would force them to pull back. She would need to send the Devastator-class ships; those were the only ships that could survive long enough to force the Krashin to pull back.

As for the Empire and the Shara Daim, she would need to increase the production rates of the Erasi fabricators tenfold if she was to build up enough forces to overcome them. Since they had been invaded, she would be able to get the council to waive the rights of the workers. Having them work around the clock would kill many, both in the yards and in the mines, but in the end it would be worth it.

She calmed herself slowly, pushing the anger behind the barriers where she kept the gift the Lurker of the Depths had given her during their battle. The combined feelings of his entire race, the horror and the sadness that they had felt after they had learned of what they’d done. If Valanaru had been anything less than what she was, she would’ve been long dead. Such was the power of that attack.

Finally, as if they could feel her calming down, two of her aides walked in, taking great care to walk around the corpse of their fellow.

“O’fa,” they greeted her meekly.

“Speak,” she sent to them, not trusting her voice just yet.

“You asked us to give you the report on the Crescent.”

Immediately her mind jumped to the topic. Yes, that was exactly what she needed right now. “Give it to me.”

One of the aides approached and gave her the datachip. She walked over to the holo-table ignoring the two aides who slowly retreated. She put the datachip on the reader and the hologram blossomed above the table. She read through the data quickly, making calculations as she read. By the time she finished, she knew that it wasn’t ready. Not yet, but it was operational, just barely. And with it she might have a chance to strike a blow against her enemies before they managed to push further into the Erasi territory.

Yes, with the Crescent we have a chance. More than a chance—with it, I will see them all burn!

Epilogue

World-ship Everlasting

Ullax Darr looked at the latest reports from her machines. The AI had been following her orders and had been collecting information on the people that her brother had created. It had broken her heart when she had realized that the Enduring’s appearance didn’t mean that her brother was alive, but that a race designed by him was using it. It had been quite a shock. Once her brother had left, she hadn’t known what he had planned on doing. But after seeing the races in possession of the Enduring, she immediately knew that they had been created by Axull.

She couldn’t imagine his plan, or the reasons why he thought them the answer to the Enlightened. But she needed to know more. So she had them watched as she went back into stasis. She had precious little life left to waste. A part of her had wondered if she should’ve went there, revealed herself to her brother’s children. But she didn’t have the strength, nor the will.

She couldn’t have taken looking at them without seeing her brother and remembering their parting. It would be too painful for her. So she ordered her AI only to keep watch, and to not contact them. Once she had finished reading the reports, she saw just how rapidly they had advanced—to the point where they had even managed to harm a few of her scout ships.

That kind of progress was not normal—which she assumed was the point. That was why, after all, her brother had created them. They were his weapons against the Enlightened. Yet even with all that her machines had seen, they weren’t up to task, not yet. She set aside the reports on them and turned to those on the Enlightened.

Five hundred years was a short time for the Enlightened, so she doubted that there was anything that would need her attention. And after she finished reading the reports, it was as she had assumed—no changes. The only interesting thing came from one of the reports on her various projects.

“Tell me the status on Project Black Swarm,” she told the AI.

“The project is performing above projections. We will have full capability in less than two hundred years.”

Well ahead of the projections, it seemed. “And are there any signs that the Enlightened are aware of what we are doing?”

“None, Grand Exatt.”

Ullax sighed in relief. The Enlightened had managed to squash hundreds of her projects that had been supposed to stop them. They had kept her machine forces in constant struggle to keep up, even though she knew that they were capable of breaking containment. They kept it around their territory more to keep everything out of their territory rather than because Ullax’s forces forced it on them. She had tried building more ships to overwhelm the Enlightened, but every time she did try, they somehow knew, and they would increase their pressure, forcing her to recall the forces she had sent to build more yards. The same had happened when she had tried uplifting other races. And after several of those races had betrayed her, she hadn’t tried that avenue for a long time.

But Project Black Swarm was the one thing that she had managed to hide from them, with great care. She hoped that it was going to be the final answer against them—that it would bring about the final defeat of the Enlightened.

She had debated with herself for a long time on whether to build it or not, but the closer to her own death she came, the more convinced she became that she had no choice. The Enlightened had to be stopped.

Finally, she finished reading all of the reports, and decided that it was time for her to go back to sleep. She feared each time she woke up that it was going to be her last. And now, more than ever before, she felt like there was not much more time left. She walked over to her bed and lay down, initiating the stasis with a thought.

She welcomed the dreamless sleep that took her.

Thank you for reading!

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Rise of the Empire series

Olympus

Sanctuary

Out of the Ashes

Warpath

Inheritance

Onslaught

What War Had Wrought

Hand of the Empire

Conquest—Coming soon!

Glossary

Cast of Characters

Empire

Adrian Farkas-Reiss — Human; Lord Sentinel of the Empire; Dal A’sha to Kar Daim Anessa of the Shara Daim. Known as the Heart of the Mountain.

Ryaana Farkas-Reiss — Half human, half Shara Daim; Sentinel of the Empire; Daughter to Adrian and Anessa.

Elias Bakas — Human; Leader of the Hand of the Empire.

Jacob Kelly — Human; Inquisitor of the Hand of the Empire. Former leader of Earth resistance.

Nkiruka — Human; Inquisitor of the Hand of the Empire.

Tomas Klein — Human; Emperor of the Empire.

Seo-yun Hyeon — Human; Minister of Science; Tomas’s partner.

Laura Reiss — Human; Fleets Master of the Empire; Adrian’s adoptive mother.

Nadia Wilson — Human; Minister of Civil Service.

Aileen — Human; Sentinel of the Empire

Oswald Mein — Human; Commander of Fleets.

Nair Hakeem — Human; Fleet Commander of the First Fleet.

Johanna Stern — Human; Fleet Commander of the Third Fleet.

Gotu — Nel; Administrator of Sol system.

Isani — Nel; Leader of Clan Warpath.

Jusan — Nel; Leader of Clan Dai Ven.

Shara Daim

Anessa — Kar Daim of Shara Daim; Dal A’sha to Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas-Reiss.

Kane — Dai Sha of the Shara Daim; Son of Anessa and Adrian.

Vaana — Dai Sha of the Shara Daim; Daughter of Anessa and Adrian.

Garaam — Dai Sha, commander of the Shara Daim Legions.

Karoom — Dai Sha of the Twenty-Second Legion.

Horas — Dai Sha of the Twenty-Fifth Legion.

Arisak — Do Sun to Dai Sha Garaam.

Erasi

Valanaru — Gatrey; Ancient of the Erasi. Known as the Weaver.

The People

Axull Darr — Ultimate ancestor of the Human, Nel, and Shara Daim races.

Ullax Darr — Axull Darr’s twin sister, life partner to Waiss Gast.

The Enlightened

Waiss Gast — Once best friend of Axull Darr. Later becomes Aranis of the Enlightened.

Eroill Noust — Scientist of the People. Later becomes Doranis of the Enlightened.

Nariax Oera — Scientist of the People. Later becomes Loranis of the Enlightened.

Races

The People — The first intelligent race in the galaxy.

Human — Genetic descendants of the People, engineered by Axull Darr and left on Earth to evolve. Founding members of the Empire.

Nel — Genetic descendants of the People, engineered by Axull Darr and left on Nelus to evolve. Founding members of the Empire; former members of the Consortium.

Shara Daim — Genetic descendants of the People, engineered by Axull Darr and left on Shara Radum to evolve.

Guxcacul — Arthropods, subterranean; former members of the Consortium; Members of the Empire.

Sowir — Aquatic- and land-based race; former members of the Consortium; Members of the Empire.

Trivaxian — Mammalian; Members of the Empire.

Furvor — Avian; Members of the Empire.

Uvaramo — Members of the Erasi; formerly called Loraru; former members of the Union.

Gatrey — Members of the Erasi.

Ssarath — Members of the Erasi.

Krashin — An Enigmatic race with territory in the Outer Arm on the coreward border of the Erasi territory.

Hasre — Mammalian; bipeds; territory in the Outer Arm on anti-spinward border of the Krashin.

Ships

Empire Warships

Empire Fleet — Modern Empire fleets consist of 1200 missile cruisers, 1000 battle cruisers, 600 battleships, 400 dreadnoughts, and 800 drone carriers, for a total of 4000 warships. In addition, every fleet has 600 auxiliary vessels, which include: repair ships, construction ships, ammo ships, military transports, and stealth scout ships; for a total of 4600 ships per a single fleet. The Empire possesses sixteen Sovereign-class warships.

Drone-class warships

Appearance — Sleek blade.

Size — 300 meters long, 100 wide and 150 tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered proton beams, ion beams, plasma turrets. Shields.

Missile cruiser-class warships

Appearance — Rectangular platforms.

Size — 1400 meters long, 400 wide, 200 tall.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, s-missile launchers, antimatter torpedoes launchers. Drone point defense systems, shields.

Battlecruiser-class warships

Appearance — Resemble sleek talons.

Size — 1000 meters long, 350 wide, 550 tall.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, ion beams, molecular disintegration beams, s-missile launchers. Drone point defense systems, shields.

Battleship-class warships

Appearance — Overlapping carapace-like plates, turtle-shell design.

Size — 2200 meters long, 1300 wide, 600 tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered proton beams, ion beams, molecular disintegration beams, plasma turrets, s-missile launchers. Drone point defense system, shields, shimmering field.

Dreadnought-class warships

Appearance — Arrowhead design.

Size — 3200 meters long, 2100 wide, 750 tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered proton beams, ion beams, molecular disintegration beams, plasma turrets, high-powered kinetic turrets, antimatter beams, s-missile launchers. Drone point defense system, shields, shimmering field.

Drone carrier-class warship

Appearance — Open ribcage design.

Size — 4200 meters long, 3000 wide, 1800 tall.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, drone control teams. Drone point defense system, ability to power both the shields and shimmering fields at the same time. Carries forty drones and drone repair facilities.

Sovereign-class warship

Appearance — Depends on the generation. All are some variant on the World-ship Enduring and its six-sided pyramid shape.

Size — Depends on the generation; all are between 48 and 58 kilometers long, 18 and 24 kilometers wide/high at the widest/highest point.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, ion beams, antimatter beams, molecular disintegration beams, xa-nan turrets, high-velocity kinetic turrets, plasma turrets, s-missile launchers, antimatter torpedoes. Carries six Frigate-class vessels. Drone point defense system, shimmering fields, shields.

Shara Daim warships

Shara Daim Legion — Modern Shara Daim Legions consist of 1000 missile cruisers, 1200 battlecruisers, 600 battleships, 800 super battleships, and 400 carriers for a total of 4000 warships, plus another 600 auxiliary vessels, for a total of 4600 ships per a single fleet. The Shara Daim possess twelve Sovereign class warships.

Drone-class warships

Appearance — Sleek blade.

Size — 300 meters long, 100 wide and 150 tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered proton beams, ion beams, plasma turrets. Shields.

Missile cruiser-class warships

Appearance — Pillar shaped.

Size — 1300 meters long, 600 meters in diameter.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, s-missile launchers, antimatter torpedoes launchers. Drone point defense systems, shields.

Battlecruiser-class warships

Appearance — Pillar shaped.

Size — 1200 meters long, 500 meters in diameter.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, ion beams, molecular disintegration beams, s-missile launchers. Drone point defense systems, shields.

Battleship-class warships

Appearance — Pillar shaped, with a widening at the middle of the ship in a shape of a rectangular box.

Size — 2600 meters long, 800 meters in diameter (pillar), 1500 meters wide and 900 meters tall (middle part).

Weapons and defenses — High-powered proton beams, ion beams, molecular disintegration beams, plasma turrets, s-missile launchers. Drone point defense system, shields, shimmering field.

Super battleship-class warships

Appearance — Pillar shaped, with a widening at the middle of the ship in a shape of a rectangular box.

Size — 3600 meters long, 880 meters diameter of the pillar, 2400 meters wide middle part, 1200 meters tall middle part.

Weapon and defenses — High-powered proton beams, ion beams, antimatter beams, molecular disintegration beams, plasma turrets, s-missile launchers, antimatter torpedoes. Drone point defense system, shields, shimmering field.

Drone carrier-class warship

Appearance — Half-sphere design.

Size — 3800 meters in diameter, 2000 tall.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, drone control teams. Drone point defense system, ability to power both the shields and shimmering fields at the same time. Carries forty drones and drone repair facilities.

Sovereign-class warship

Appearance — Depends on the generation. All are some variant on the horseshoe or narrow-arch design.

Size — Depends on the generation; all are between 48 and 62 kilometers long, 24 and 32 kilometers wide at the widest point, and between 4 and 10 kilometers tall.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, ion beams, antimatter beams, molecular disintegration beams, xa-nan turrets, high velocity kinetic turrets, plasma turrets, s-missile launchers, antimatter torpedoes. Carries six frigate class vessels. Drone point defense system, shimmering fields, shields.

Erasi warships

Erasi Fleet — Modern Erasi fleets consist of 2500 destroyers, 1000 light cruisers, 600 heavy cruisers, 800 battleships, and 600 super battleships, for a total of 5500 warships, plus 600 auxiliary vessels, for a total of 6100 ships per a single fleet.

Destroyer-class warships

Appearance — Saucer shaped.

Size — 900 meters diameter, 180 meters tall.

Weapons and defenses — Particle beams, s-missile launchers. Point defense, shields.

Light cruiser-class warships

Appearance — Saucer shaped.

Size — 1200 meters in diameter, 200 meters tall.

Weapons and defenses — Particle beams, s-missile launchers, molecular disintegration beam. Point defense, shields.

Heavy cruiser-class warships

Appearance — Saucer shaped.

Size — 1500 meters in diameter, 300 meters tall.

Weapons and defenses — Particle beams, molecular disintegration, ion beams, s-missile launchers. Point defense, shields.

Battleship-class warships

Appearance — Saucer shaped.

Size — 2800 meters diameter, 580 meters tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered particle beams, molecular disintegration beams, plasma turrets, ion beams, s-missile launchers. Point defense, shields.

Super battleship-class warships

Appearance — Saucer shaped.

Size — 3200 meters in diameter, 800 meters tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered particle beams, molecular disintegration beams, hir’sa beams, plasma turrets, ion beams, s-missile launchers. Point defense, shields.

Devastator-class warships

Appearance — Elongated saucer shaped.

Size — 33 kilometers length, 18 kilometers wide, 2.8 kilometers tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered particle beams, molecular disintegration beams, hir’sa beams, plasma turrets, ion beams, s-missile launchers. Point defense, shields, skim-field neutralizers.