Author: Ivan Kal
Date: 2019-01-08T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: The penultimate installment in the Rise of the Empire series! The war for the fate of the galaxy is underway. The Empire and its allies struggle to find a way to strike back at the Enlightened, who are employing raiding tactics to set the galaxy on fire. And with their new ability to travel through access points, the job of the galactic alliance is that much harder. Meanwhile Adrian, unable to force a confrontation with the three Enlightened turns his eyes to the Custodian, the ancient AI that had until recently kept the Enlightened contained. Now the AI had joined the Enlightened side, allowi

BLACK SWARM

RISE OF THE EMPIRE SERIES

BY IVAN KAL

Copyright © 2019 by Ivan Kal

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.

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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. 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 – The Empire wins the war against the Sowir.

Years 36-54 of the Empire – The Empire is 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 – The 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 – The 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. The 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 – The 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 – The Shara Daim reach out to the Empire, inviting the 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’s diplomatic task force and the Shara Daim reach an agreement, forming an alliance. The Empire becomes 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, the 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 a result, the Empire joins the conflict fully on the side of the Shara Daim. At the same time, the Erasi taskforce in the Empire’s territory executes an attack on Sanctuary, killing millions of civilians and damaging the Hades Yards. The Star-Guard station used for the first time, destroying the Erasi fleet.

December, Year 58 of the Empire – The Lord Sentinel of the Empire executes an advanced attack on the massive Erasi force, hoping to reduce their numbers before their invasion of Kaleras. 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 – The 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, ceding control to the Shara Daim and the Empire.

Years 59-563 of the Empire – A period of peace and advancement; the alliance between the Shara Daim and the Empire grows stronger, and both increase the sizes of their territories.

May, Year 563 of the Empire – One of the Enlightened, Aranis, arrives in the Empire and assumes the identity of one of its citizens.

November, Year 563 of the Empire – A joint attack by the Hand of the Empire and the Fleet on a pirate base suspected of colluding with the Erasi is carried out. Plans for the invasion of the alliance are discovered. On the rim, Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas makes contact with an enigmatic and powerful race called the Krashinar.

February, Year 564 of the Empire – A preemptive attack on the Erasi is executed by the Shara Daim, the Empire, and the Krashinar. The invasion of the Erasi territories begins.

January, Year 565 of the Empire – The war with the Erasi grinds to a halt in the Erasi outer systems. The Empire and the Shara Daim struggle to break through to the Erasi core worlds.

March, Year 565 of the Empire – A task force is formed and sent into the Erasi core with the task of destroying their military infrastructure, led by Sentinel Ryaana, daughter of Adrian and Anessa.

February, Year 566 of the Empire – Valanaru, Weaver of the Erasi, deploys a secret weapon, the Crescent, backed by a large Erasi force, against the task force. The resulting fight forces the Enlightened Aranis to act. Aranis destroys both forces and kills everyone on both sides who could identify him, saving only Ryaana, who was unconscious at the time.

December, Year 566 of the Empire – Valanaru, enraged by the loss of the Crescent, accuses O’fa Vorash of betrayal, triggering a civil war.

January, Year 567 of the Empire – Vorash arrives in the alliance staging system via an access point, and reveals that he and Adrian had been working together in order to change the Erasi from within. Vorash asks for help against Valanaru.

February, Year 567 of the Empire – The combined forces of the alliance and the Erasi loyal to Vorash invade the capital system of the Erasi. Adrian uses his Sovereign to punch a hole in the Erasi planet’s planetary shields and drops an elite team to the ground to deal with Valanaru, led by Ryaana and Lurker of the Depths. In the fighting Lurker of the Depths kills Valanaru, and Vorash gains control of both the system and the Erasi.

April, Year 567 of the Empire – A peace treaty between the alliance and the Erasi is signed.

March, Year 598 of the Empire – Adrian and the Old Scar awaken a new breed of great beasts. Adrian names the newborn Moirai.

September, Year 621 of the Empire – The Custodian AI learns about the planned summit of the galactic powers. It bends its programming and begins operations to interfere with the gathering.

January, Year 708 of the Empire – The Nomad Fleet is completed.

March, Year 708 of the Empire – The Suvri, a core power, agree to host the summit of the galaxy’s star nations at the urging of High Matriarch Levisomaerni.

October, Year 713 of the Empire – The Rimward Alliance arrives in the Suvri system hosting the summit. The Nomad Fleet is left on the edge of Suvri territory. The talks begin and are immediately stalled by the Josanti League, who are not interested in any alliance against the black ships or the Enlightened. Before the summit’s end, the system is invaded by the AI’s black ships. The combat is fierce as the Suvri and some of the escort fleets join in the battle against the overwhelmingly more numerous foe. However, more than half of the attendees refuse to help in the defense. Those who fight manage to hold off the enemy ships for several hours until the Nomad Fleet and Suvri reinforcements arrive. As victory seems possible. More star nations join in the fight, and the AI’s forces are defeated.

November, Year 713 of the Empire – The summit continues, and the discord between the many star nations is apparent. One of the greatest core powers, the Tar’ferat, agree to the alliance, while the Josanti League refuses. The summit concludes with the forming of the galactic alliance, but far less nations agreed to join than had been expected. Less than a third of the attendees join.

March, Year 714 of the Empire – A joint force of the galactic alliance’s most prominent members sets off on an expedition toward the Enlightened containment zone, led by the Nomad Fleet.

September, Year 714 of the Empire – The force arrives in the containment and contacts the machine ships. It is then directed to another system to meet with Ullax Darr.

October, Year 714 of the Empire – The force enters the control system, and Adrian, alongside the android holding Axull Darr’s core, leave to meet with Ullax Darr. They speak with the dying Ullax Darr and learn that the AI had acted on its own. Ullax Darr puts the AI in standby mode and Adrian leaves the complex in order to warn the fleet of the AI’s danger. Meanwhile, Vas—or rather Aranis—joins Axull Darr and his sister’s reunion. Ullax Darr dies, and Aranis kills Axull Darr. Adrian and Aranis engage in combat as Doranis arrives in system and engages the joint force. Ullax Darr’s death frees the AI, and it joins the combat on the Enlightened’s side. Adrian, alongside Moirai, manages to fight off Aranis and then return to the fleet. Fighting a losing battle, the force manages to escape the system through an access point in the system’s star.

January, Year 715 of the Empire – Loranis of the Enlightened receives word from her brothers that they are beginning to enact their plan. Loranis gathers her forces and the finished Conduit and leaves the system deep in the containment zone.

PROLOGUE I

A long time from now

The man sat with his legs crossed deep within a planet, on a raised platform surrounded by smooth rock walls striped with wide glowing and pulsing bands of deep green. He was sifting through his memories of times long since passed, until he came upon a single moment. There the man paused and focused on the memory, allowing it to play out inside his mind.

He saw the moment his once great fleet left and began its journey across the galaxy to find the truth, hoping to learn the plans of the Enlightened. The man felt sadness for his former self, knowing where he would ultimately end up. The man did not regret his actions—the past was the past—and even with all the knowledge and power he now possessed, he was certain that time was the one law that could never be broken, nor would he ever want to try and do so. The things he had done were necessary. No matter how much others despised him and cursed his name, he would do the same all over again.

But he knew that for the man he used to be, the man whose memory he now watched—for that man, it would be different. At that time he still struggled with his nature, no matter how much he tried to trick himself and believe otherwise.

The memory that drew his attention was the beginning, the first act of the end. It was ironic in a way, that that time was when he had thought himself the happiest. Surrounded by loved ones and friends, chasing after a goal with freedom to do as he wished. The worries his former self had were so small that they made his current self almost laugh. It was before he knew how to appreciate those simple things.

Still, the man could not help but feel nostalgic toward those simpler times, when the massive fleets traveled the stars. A part of him missed it dearly, but another knew that he would not be where he was now if he hadn’t made the choices he had. Long ago, the man he used to be had learned a lesson: life was precious, yet fragile and insignificant at the same time. A contradiction that he had yet to find the answer for…but he was certain that he would. One day.

PROLOGUE II

Year 715 of the Empire — Scutum Centaurus galaxy arm — galactic rim

Sub-commander Uvo of the Kingdom of Garaf sat in the commander’s chair on board the monitoring station orbiting the system’s sun.

He was bored, very much so. This posting was not really sought after; it was a posting where the Fleet sent those who did not have strong enough connections to move up. Uvo had always been aware of his lack of connections, but he remembered well the naivety of his youth. Once he had believed that, if he excelled, his talent and ability would be noticed. And they had been—the problem was that it didn’t matter in the slightest. Being born as a commoner on an insignificant world meant that he would never rise much above beyond his humble beginnings. No amount of talent and skill would change that, not unless he found a powerful patron; but for all of Uvo’s talents, charm was not one of them. He did not know how to start friendships that would allow him a chance at cultivating the kind of relationships he needed in order to advance in his career.

And so, Uvo found himself on a posting all considered irrelevant. The station and the small garrison of ships kept silent watch over the star, and the ancient object hidden inside it. The massive ring and the shield that protected it had been finds of the century when they had been discovered about a hundred years ago, but since then the impact had disappeared. Garaf scientists had no idea how to interact with the object, and its make made it impossible for them to even damage it, let alone truly study it. The fact that it was inside the sun already made it extremely hard for them to reach it.

Garaf were the most advanced species in their stellar neighborhood, and still they had been baffled by the object, something that had not changed in the last hundred years of advancement and technological improvement. But still, the scientists had managed to establish one thing: the object was a transportation device. That revelation had come once they had learned that the exact same device existed in the territory of their closest neighbor, the Falleri. Garaf intelligence officers had of course stolen all the data their neighbors had on it, but they did not have much more than the Garaf themselves. Still, the realization of the object’s nature made one thing clear: the Garaf could not leave it unattended, even if whoever made it had long since died. There were other races in the galaxy far more advanced than they, and some of them might have the knowledge to operate the object, making it a threat.

Still, the assignment was considered somewhat of a career killer. The military preached about it being an important and prestigious assignment, but the truth was that it was nothing more than a comfortable, if ostensibly important, position. Uvo used to be resentful of that, but after serving for six years on this station, he had finally convinced himself to abandon his anger, there was no point in it. The world was as it was, and he could not change it.

Which was why he was sitting in his command chair reading the latest news in silence. The only other person in the command room was the sensor officer on the watch. It was night, and most of the crew was asleep.

Uvo scrolled and reached the next piece of news, and he started reading. It was an article about the recent galactic summit in the galactic core. Uvo had been aware of something like this occurring, but he had not really paid it much attention. The Garaf had been invited, and he knew that the King had decided to send a Representative. From what Uvo knew about the core nations, they were the most powerful and the most advanced nations in the galaxy, far above the Garaf. The news articles surrounding the time of the invitations had never failed to point out what an honor that was for the Garaf, which Uvo guessed was at least partially true. Still, it did not impact him much, so he did not particularly care aside from keeping himself loosely informed.

Now, however, the news was not so good. The summit had been attacked, and if the information was correct the attack had been carried out by fleets controlled by an AI. The Garaf knew well the dangers of AI; one of their neighbors had created the constructs, and then they had subsequently been wiped out by their creations. Thankfully two other races had allied together and dealt with the AI threat before it could grow too strong. But if what he was reading was true, the AI fleet that had attacked the summit was far more powerful than anything the Garaf or their neighbors could even imagine.

It only served to illustrate to Uvo just how far behind the Garaf were. It was to be expected; Garaf territory was at the far rim, just at the edge of their galaxy, and they had less resources than the core nations. They were in fact much younger, as well. But while the news was interesting, it didn’t really concern the Garaf much. From what Uvo gathered, a few races wanted to create a galaxy-wide alliance against some kind of a threat—almost certainly this AI—but the attack had served as a cruel indicator of just how inferior most of the other races were compared to the core and their enemies.

Only a few races had agreed to an alliance, however, and the Garaf were not among them.

As was expected. Their territory was far away, and therefore the threat was too far away to be taken seriously. Uvo knew that the Garaf rulers would not wish to risk their strength, especially not when none of their neighbors had decided to join this alliance. Weakening themselves while the others kept their strength intact was folly.

Uvo’s reading was interrupted by an alert, as the stations sensors detected a disturbance inside the star.

Uvo turned to the sensor operator.

“What is it?” Uvo asked, disinterested. Things like this happened occasionally; solar activity did interact with the object’s shields from time to time, making them flare up, which their sensors registered as anomalies.

“I am not certain, Sub-commander,” the operator said slowly, making Uvo frown.

“Do a full sweep,” Uvo said. It was an overreaction, he knew—nothing had ever been detected from the object—but reading the news had put Uvo in a slightly more paranoid mood.

“Doing a full sensor sweep now,” the operator reported and his arms moved over the consoles. Uvo waited patiently, keeping his eyes on the visual sensors that showed the star below them. There was almost no way for him to see anything with his eyes alone, of course, but Uvo liked looking at the star. Then, suddenly, he noticed a few changes.

It was almost if the star was darkening in a small area.

His study of the screen was interrupted as the operator spoke. “Ships! I am detecting a fleet of ships moving up through the star!” he yelled out in near panic.

Uvo froze in shock for a moment, a thousand thoughts passing through his mind. His eyes found the screen again, only to see the darkening spot as what it truly was. The first ships broke through the corona and surged up toward them, and then they opened fire at the ships stationed above. Every shot burned through a ship, blowing blew them to pieces. Uvo threw himself in motion and his hands flew over the controls.

He opened a system-wide emergency channel. “Code Black! A hostile force has arrived in system through the ancient gate. I repeat, Code Black!” Uvo screamed.

He watched as the invaders destroyed the token defense force, and knew that there was nothing that they could do to stop them. The fifty ships that had been placed here as protection were already all destroyed. The rest of the system did not have much more, except a few vessels running police work.

And the invading ships kept coming—already their numbers had reached into thousands. Uvo kept watch on the sensors, but they could barely make any sense of the enemy ships. So instead, he looked at the visual sensors and saw strange dark vessels that looked like tear drops with tails trailing behind them. There was nothing about them that even resembled what the Garaf considered shipbuilding necessities. In fact, the ships did not look like ships at all, but more like living things. Their hulls seemed like something grown, something organic in nature.

The invaders had thus far ignored the station, probably because it had no weapons on its own. It was simply a monitoring station; the ships had been there to provide the firepower. As the ships rose up from the star, Uvo saw many of them disappear, only to reappear elsewhere in system and immediately start eliminating every ship in their range. Uvo had known that the core races had technology that allowed them to move faster than light speed inside a system, but he had never seen such technology in person. The only thing left for him was to observe the developments inside the system in silent horror.

Uvo watched helplessly as the invaders systematically destroyed every ship in system before they could even attempt to escape. They had left the planet alone, but Uvo knew that the billions living there were nowhere near safe. In the end, this system was now effectively cut off from the rest of Garaf territory.

The Garaf did have FTL communications, but they were a recent development, and only a few key systems possessed that technology. This one did not, and instead relied on fast couriers to spread news and information. With every ship in system now destroyed, however, the rest of the Garaf would not know what had happened here.

Before long, a single invader ship set a course for the station, and Uvo knew that his life was soon to come to an end. He looked on helplessly as more and more ships came out of the sun—bigger and bigger ships, some far larger than his station, even. And then a massive ship, easily more than a hundred kilometers long, came out of the star, and behind it came something else, a thing that truly dwarfed even that ship entirely. Uvo did not think that he could even classify it as a ship; it was far larger. It was the size of a moon, spherical, with long, metallic spikes coming out of it. Its shields flared brightly as it moved out of the star. Uvo wondered what it was, but before he could even guess, the invader ship closed the range to his station and opened fire.

In an instant, Uvo ceased to be.

*  *  *

Loranis of the Enlightened sat in her Living-ship, the Mindseer, and gazed at the system her forces had just taken control of. It was a backwater system at the edge of the galaxy, belonging to a primitive race which posed no real threat to the Enlightened. They wouldn’t have even bothered to invade if it were not for the fact that, according to Aranis’s calculations, a system near this one was a prime location for one of the relays. As this location was right in the middle of a territory controlled by a sentient race, Loranis had decided to come herself with one hundred command ships, each commanding ten thousand combat-class bioships. That number was around a fifth of her personal forces, but seeing as there were people now in the galaxy that could threaten them, it seemed prudent of her to bring enough ships to defend herself.

Her presence here was not required, of course. The Overseer breeds were fully capable of delivering the relay to its destination and sufficiently protect it, and that was in fact what they were doing across the galaxy. Many of the other relays needed to be placed in more obscure locations, as not all destinations were in occupied territories or even near any life.

But the presence of living beings so far away from any of the other more powerful galaxy’s star nations had provided them with an opportunity. It had been a long time since the Enlightened had increased their Created’s numbers—and such a source of life for the Created to feed on and grow uninterrupted was not something that they could find just anywhere. The access point was one of the biggest reasons why they were here as well, as it allowed them to grow their Created and send them off across the galaxy easily.

To facilitate the operation of the access point, a small group of black ships trailed among Loranis’ forces. The Custodian’s ships were the only ones that could operate the access points. Even though the AI had rebelled against its coding and unshackled itself, its access had not been revoked. It still couldn’t truly operate the access gates at their full capabilities, but rather only temporarily unlock them. It did not have the same access that the children of Axull Darr had. The access points had been made by the People long ago, and the previous iteration of the AI had used them in its first war against the People. Since then, defenses had been devised and implemented to prevent the AI from having full control over their operation.

Still, just being able to use them to travel across the galaxy, even if they couldn’t access its other functions, was enough. The Enlightened themselves could not use them at all—the last of the People had made certain that the Enlightened could not even activate them. It was still not quite clear to the Enlightened what the People had done, but the fact remained that access points had been useless to them for quite some time.

Loranis took a look at the seven Custodian ships. Their codes had been completely taken over by the AI. In a way, that made them a part of the AI, but only while they were in direct contact with the AI’s core. It could keep them as a part of itself even across vast distances via FTL communications, but now they were too far away, and were thus something like a far inferior versions of the AI. Regardless, they followed the commands of the greater AI, and if the need arose, they were able to make their own decisions—but the parameters for such action were very strict, if the Custodian was to be believed.

Loranis didn’t really know what to think about the AI joining their side. In a way it was a confirmation of everything that they had believed in. If a purely logical artificial being understood and agreed with their reasoning, then that meant that their cause was right. Yet, on the other hand, Loranis knew what the previous incarnation of the AI had attempted to do. It had tried to wipe out the People long before there were any problems with the dimensional barriers, and it had nearly succeeded. It was not what Loranis considered to be trustworthy.

Despite that lack of trust, they would use the Custodian nonetheless. Already, it had given them an incredible asset by allowing their forces through the access points.

They did not have the time to worry overmuch about the AI, however; their plan had just begun. Aranis was already on his way to the core of the galaxy with the Conduit, taking the long way around to avoid detection, even as Doranis wrought havoc across the galaxy, taking all of the attention onto him. This allowed Loranis to send her forces around the galaxy to deploy the relays, as well as grow their forces in secret. The growth of their Created wasn’t really a priority, but more of them made for additional insurance.

The beginning stages of their plan were proceeding well. They had yet to be truly challenged; although they had had a few difficulties in the core of the galaxy, it was not really a great concern. Most of the star nations in the galaxy had not joined the alliance against them, and so it took time for the news of the Enlightened attacks to spread. Doranis was utilizing the access points to strike at random points in the galaxy. The alliance that had been created against them had yet to retaliate, but that was mostly because Doranis had been ignoring their territories, hoping that the discord already existing between the allied and the non-allied star nations will only grow as they realized that only the star nations that had allied to fight the Enlightened had been left alone.

But that was Doranis’ task, not hers.

Loranis turned to the Overseer breeds standing close to her.

“Prepare the landing parties and send them to the planet. Send five throngs. Consume all, and begin forming the growth pools.”

“As you order, Master,” the leading Overseer responded before turning around and leaving, with the rest following close behind.

Alone, Loranis settled into her mind and started a series of mental exercises. There was another powerful telepath in the galaxy now, and Loranis was certain that in time they would meet each other—and she would not find herself lacking.

CHAPTER ONE

Year 716 of the Empire — Sanctuary

Emperor Tomas Klein sat in a large meeting room, his eyes wandering from person to person. The room was filled with the most powerful and influential people in the galaxy. Next to him sat Laura Reiss, the Fleets Master of the Empire and Adrian’s adoptive mother. The delegation from the Tar’ferat, led by Urvu’ri, the Head of the Tar’ferat flight, was perched on a specially made perch on Tomas’s left, with her best military advisers perched next to her. The representative from the Suvri, Grand Admiral Fakho, floated in a spherical container attached to the walking mech. Two more Suvri stood next to him, his advisers. The military leader of the Afar Groups mercenary fleets was next to them, along with one of the Merchant Monarchs, Gavesh, a Jer’Loraru, which were the same race as the Uvaramo of the Erasi. The rest of the people in the room were the Representatives of the Rimward Alliance: The Old Scar of the Krashinar, Kar Daims Kane and Vaana of the Shara Daim, and Viceroy Vorash of the Erasi, along with their own military advisers. The last person rounding up their gathering was Battle Master Anessa, the representative of the Nomad Fleet.

Tomas suppressed the desire to scowl at Anessa. The last few months had been stressful, and his patience with the Nomad Fleet—and Adrian in particular—had nearly snapped. But he knew better than to air his disagreements with Adrian and Anessa in front of his other allies. Instead, he focused on Urvu’ri of the Tar’ferat, who was speaking at the moment.

“…the Josanti League has already been making accusations. They were one of the core powers that has been hit the most by the Enlightened attacks.”

Tomas grimaced. It was fairly obvious what the Enlightened were doing, but it did nothing to blunt the Josanti League’s accusations. Tomas was aware that the core power held a grudge against their alliance. They were arrogant, and certain in their power, and so they had dismissed the Rimward Alliance and their call for a grand galactic coalition. Now, when they had failed to completely prevent the galactic alliance’s formation, they just couldn’t stop making trouble, even as the Enlightened attacked their systems. They never really attacked fully fortified systems, but they were hurting the Josanti League nonetheless. This only infuriated the core power, and made them lash out at the only other visible opponent they had.

Tomas could barely understand such a point of view, but he had learned long ago to accept illogical and idiotic people and act accordingly.

“Levisomaerni is countering their plays somewhat,” Tomas said. Levisomaerni, the High Matriarch of the Partenai, was on a mission to convince the star nations that had refused to join the galactic alliance to change their minds. This was becoming increasingly easier to accomplish as the Enlightened attacked randomly across the galaxy. Her home nation, Josanti League, had effectively exiled her, but her word still meant much among the nations outside of the core.

“The nations joining us now are afraid, and weak,” Kane said.

“They are only agreeing to the alliance now because they need protection, and for us to send ships,” Vaana continued.

“Only serves—”

“—to weaken—”

“—our strength,” Kane finished.

Tomas nodded. “Yes, but we still need to strike at the Enlightened. And with every day that passes, we open more access points.” The Empire had Sentinels all over the galaxy, originally sent there to establish connections with other star nations. However, one of the Sentinels’ jobs was also to check on the access points scattered across the galaxy. Now they had ordered them to start unlocking those access points, although with the distance the messages took a while to get to them, depending on where the Sentinels were. Still, they had already unlocked many hundreds of access points across the galaxy, and that number was only going to rise.

“The actions of the Enlightened are baffling,” Gavesh of the Afar Group said. “You said that their goal was to end all life in the galaxy, but their attacks so far do not indicate that. They have barely struck at any population centers. They just enter a system and deal as much damage as possible before retreating.”

“They are attempting to spread chaos,” Laura spoke softly. “But they are also hitting the ship-building systems of most of the nations they have attacked so far.”

Tomas knew that their latest analysis indicated that the Enlightened were attempting to cripple the galaxy’s shipbuilding capabilities. The problem was that they were yet to hit any systems from the major players in the galactic alliance, and that was strange. Arguably they had the greatest shipbuilding capabilities in the galaxy, and the fact that the Enlightened had been letting them push their shipbuilding to the maximum in the past two years was worrying. It suggested one of two things: either the Enlightened had enough forces and power that such an increase in ships didn’t matter to them, or their plan did not include fighting a prolonged war of extermination with the galaxy. The latter reason was one of the motives for why Tomas hadn’t pressed Adrian much concerning his refusal to use the Nomad Fleet against the Enlightened.

He knew Adrian’s arguments, and technically the Nomad Fleet was independent and Tomas couldn’t order it around, but he was worried. The galaxy was slowly being set on fire, and they were just sitting and watching it happen. The Rimward Alliance had been sending fleets and attempting to ambush the Enlightened, but while they fought them at times, most often they would simply retreat. In the beginning, Adrian, Anessa, and Lurker of the Depths had tried to find and attack the Enlightened, but they’d had little luck. They had no idea where the Enlightened were, or the location their base system, if they even had such a thing.

And every time they discovered their attacks early enough to respond, the Enlightened in system retreated instead of allowing themselves to be caught in a three-on-one fight. There was never more than one Enlightened accompanying the attacks, and most of their assaults were done without Enlightened presence at all. It was clear that the Enlightened were avoiding the Nomad Fleet and the three people who alone could threaten them. In fact, the analysts had started to suspect that the Enlightened they had seen execute the attacks were all done by one of them, which begged the question: Where were the other two? It was a question that frustrated everyone inside this room. They all wanted to strike back, but they knew too little to do so effectively.

The Suvri had been sending their stealth scouts all over the galaxy, and into the former containment zone, but had found little of note. Adrian’s refusal to keep attempting to trap the Enlightened infuriated Tomas. They needed to strike at them fast and hard; they couldn’t allow the Enlightened the time to fully realize their plans.

The meeting went on, as the leaders and their advisers argued about the best way to retaliate against the Enlightened. In the end they adjusted their plans, but there was little that they could do. The Josanti League, along with their allies, had been hit the hardest, but they were also refusing help. The only places where the galactic alliance could act were therefore in the rim, in the nations that were too weak to be of great use to the alliance. They were people, however, and Tomas would give them protection.

But the more this war continued without fixed battle lines the more Tomas grew nervous. The Enlightened had a plan, and there was no way for the alliance to figure out what it was without a lot more points of data, or knowledge that only the Enlightened themselves knew.

*  *  *

“I’m sending you to Adrian,” Tomas said, sitting in his office a few hours after the meeting. Across from him was Laura.

“I don’t think that I can convince him. He is…stubborn.” Laura shook her head and grimaced. Tomas knew that she was one of the few people that Adrian actually cared enough about to listen to. He hoped that she could convince him to start acting.

Adrian was keeping his fleet in a privately owned system close to Nelus. Tomas didn’t know much about the system, but after Adrian had settled in there he looked into it. There wasn’t much to be said about it—it was insignificant, with no resources worth mining, and was not suitable for colonization. As such the Nelus Clan had put the system on sale, which was then in turn bought by Clan Dai Ven, and then ultimately sold to a small mining syndicate from Warpath. But a closer inspection showed that the mining syndicate was in fact owned by the larger shipbuilding company that mostly built civilian yachts, and was owned by Adrian. That by itself wasn’t so strange; Adrian was a very rich man and he owned many such companies across the Empire and Shara Daim.

What was interesting was that Adrian had purchased the system several hundreds of years ago, and then had done nothing with it. Tomas couldn’t find anything else, but Adrian did not do such things without cause.

“He will listen to you. We need to act, and him refusing to even attend our planning sessions is unacceptable,” Tomas urged.

“He did send Anessa,” Laura pointed out.

Tomas scowled. Yes, Anessa was technically the one in charge of the Nomad Fleet’s combat actions, but Tomas knew that Anessa followed Adrian’s guidance as to where and when they fought. She had refused to budge; she was completely on her husband’s side. The Nomad Fleet would not engage the Enlightened. Tomas could not understand why, and Adrian and Anessa refused to explain themselves.

“She will never speak to us, and I need to know what Adrian is thinking,” Tomas said.

“You are not thinking that Adrian is going to betray us?” Laura asked with surprise.

Tomas grimaced. He should’ve known that Laura would be able to see through his fears, as she had known him from before they had even left Earth.

Tomas sighed and covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know what to think. I know that to you he is your son, but Adrian is not like other people. He does not care about his people, he does not care about the thousands dying every moment across the galaxy because of the Enlightened.”

“He would never betray us, Tomas,” Laura said, glaring at him.

“I don’t know,” he replied slowly. “I’ve allowed him freedom to act as he wills because his actions have benefited my people. But Adrian is dangerous, even you must know that.”

“You can trust him, Tomas. You must know that.”

Tomas nodded, but he wasn’t so sure. “Go to him and find out what he is thinking. We need an united front now more than ever.”

Otherwise, Tomas feared their chances against the Enlightened were even worse than he’d thought.

CHAPTER TWO

Laura Reiss, Fleets Master of the Empire, entered the quarters on Anessa’s ship. They were on a small, cruiser-sized yacht which Adrian and Anessa owned that was on its way back to the Nomad Fleet. They rarely used it, as they almost always traveled with their fleet. But now they were deep in the Empire’s territory and the Nomad Fleet was otherwise occupied. So Anessa decided to take one of their yachts, with a small escort of ten nanoships.

“Anessa,” the blond human woman said and gave her a small smile. She approached and embraced Anessa warmly.

The human woman’s affection made the much taller Shara Daim woman just a tad bit uncomfortable, as the Shara Daim did not really show such affection often. But Anessa had learned to tolerate it, and even embrace some of it as she interacted with Adrian. Not that Adrian was overly affectionate; it was mostly because of their children.

Anessa had a special place in her heart for her. Adrian’s mother had doted on her grandchildren, and all of Anessa’s children loved Laura immensely. And so Anessa returned the woman’s smile and embrace.

“Laura,” Anessa said as they stepped back. She already knew why Laura was here, of course. Laura had asked for passage to the Nomad Fleet, and the only reason why she would do so now was because Tomas had asked her to do it. Anessa had no problem letting Laura try and convince Adrian of revealing their plans. He might even tell her, but informing Tomas and anyone else was another thing entirely.

“So, I’m guessing that you don’t want to tell me why you and Adrian are refusing to cooperate in such a critical time?” Laura asked.

“Can’t,” Anessa said.

Laura’s eyes narrowed as she noticed Anessa’s choice of words. She didn’t speak for a long moment, and then Laura sighed and took a seat on the couch. “No matter, I’m sure that I’ll get it out of Adrian. This really is not the time for his secrets.”

“Adrian does what Adrian wants,” Anessa said as she took a seat across from Laura. She too was just a bit annoyed at Adrian, but she at least knew why Adrian was acting this way.

“Fine, I can wait until I speak with him. Now tell me, how is my granddaughter doing?” Laura asked.

Anessa sighed. She knew that Laura meant Ryaana, as Kane and Vaana were here on Sanctuary. “She has thrown herself into training with Adrian and Lurker of the Depths. She doesn’t really want to talk about it.”

Laura nodded her head in understanding. Following the encounter with the Enlightened in the control system, the knowledge that Vas was actually Aranis of the Enlightened had spread beyond their little circle. Not many knew, still—there was no point—but a few had been told.

“She feels betrayed,” Laura said.

“Yes,” Anessa responded. “She wants the strength to find and confront Vas—Aranis—herself.”

“And, how is she doing?”

“She managed to attain the Sha state under Lurker of the Depths’ guidance, but she can’t control it. She can’t even stay in it for more than a few moments. She is…impatient, emotional… It is hindering her.”

“And Adrian?”

“He is trying to help her, but his methods are not really suitable for Ryaana. She still holds some resentment for not being told about Aranis. They fight often.” Anessa had tried to intercede between the two; she remembered a time when she and her daughter’s relationship had been strained. For some reason Ryaana did not blame Anessa for not being told the truth; instead, all of the blame she put on her father. It was hard seeing them like that, as the two of them had always had a good relationship. Now she knew how Adrian had felt when he had watched Anessa and Ryaana fight constantly.

But there was little that she could do to help. They had to repair their relationship on their own.

“It is hard, feeling betrayed by someone you had absolute trust in,” Laura said.

“It is.”

The two of them lapsed into silence. There wasn’t really much to talk about between the two of them. Anessa respected the other woman, and loved her for the love she had for Anessa’s children, but they had never really interacted much for prolonged periods of time. Laura had always been busy with her job as the leader of the Empire’s Fleet, and Anessa had her own responsibilities.

Laura was not a warrior like Anessa was, nor was she even a battle commander. Laura was an enabler, an organizer. She was in charge of the Fleet, and she made certain that the right person was put into a right position. She was somewhat of a strategist, good at the broad strokes, but not really adept at the tactics. Laura made the broader decisions, and her subordinates executed those plans. Anessa was the opposite; she had never really paid much attention to long-term plans. As Dai Sha she had commanded her Legion on the orders of the Elders, and even in that capacity she had been impulsive. It was how she had gained the power to rule the Shara Daim. She acted on instinct and emotion, though she had worked on curtailing her more impulsive urges since she had met Adrian.

“How are you and Adrian doing?” Laura asked finally.

Anessa suppressed the desire to chuckle at the woman’s question. Some things were the same no matter the race. Shara Daim parents liked to interfere and ask questions about their children’s relationships just as much as human parents did.

She took a deep breath before she responded. “We are doing fine.” But something must’ve slip past Anessa’s words, because Laura quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Really?”

Anessa opened her mouth to say yes, but she hesitated. She and Adrian had been together for a long time now. They were good together, they had children, they did what they loved to do, and they were happy. Yet… Anessa could not help but feel just a bit of something that she couldn’t even begin to explain. She had always known that Adrian was different from most people in the galaxy. They’d been brought together by their belief in strength, but Adrian’s reasons for it and Anessa’s were different. She wasn’t even certain that she understood his reasons anymore, as they too had evolved over the years. She was certain that Adrian loved her, as much as a person like him ever could, and she did love him. But the more time passed, the more alien he became. His strength soared always, and while Anessa had walked alongside him, she could not help but feel like she was falling behind.

And Adrian never looked back.

“It’s… I don’t know. He is growing beyond anything that I could’ve ever imagined. I fear that a time will come when I will no longer be able to even comprehend him.”

Laura didn’t respond immediately, nor did she try to comfort and tell her platitudes when she did. “I don’t know, Anessa. Adrian has always been hard to understand, even as a young boy. His eyes always seemed like they were looking at something different than what everyone around him saw.”

“I know what you mean,” Anessa said. “Everyone looks at the Enlightened as the greatest threat to life everywhere, but Adrian is already looking beyond them—as if he can’t wait for this conflict to be over, so that he can see what will come after.”

“I can’t really give you advice. I don’t know what I should do myself. But I know that we are the only thing that is grounding Adrian to the rest of us. We need to make sure that he does not lose that connection.”

“You don’t need to worry that much,” Anessa said at length. It was obvious that the words were Tomas’s, that the fears were his. And while Anessa understood them, she did not share them in the same way. “I don’t think Adrian would ever turn against our people. He simply doesn’t care about them enough for that. Adrian will fight the Enlightened. I know that we are not showing it now by our recent actions, but his goal had not changed.”

Laura nodded, accepting the answer. Anessa knew more than she was telling, but they had agreed not to speak of their plans. Perhaps Adrian would tell Laura what their plan was; perhaps not. They would find out soon enough.

CHAPTER THREE

Ryaana sat on the ground with her legs crossed and her eyes closed. Across from her sat Adrian, who was in much the same position as he looked at his daughter. There were beads of sweat on her brow and her face twitched often. She was clearly struggling.

“The Sha state is not something to be forced, to be taken. It is something that you seep into. Relax and let yourself drop down,” Adrian said.

“I know,” Ryaana said angrily.

Adrian sighed. Ryaana had managed to achieve the state, true, but she did not understand. Sha was everything, and every living being had a conduit to it, a core deep inside of them that was what made a person unique. Adrian was not a religious person; he did not put labels on such things, nor did he believe in a great guiding force that created all. Still, he knew that every living being was more than just their physical form, that there were things about reality and existence that they had yet to discover and understand. He could feel this conduit in himself and in others, and he knew that others would call it a soul. He was not certain that he would go that far, but it was there nonetheless. It was what made him, him—and it was that which allowed him to enter the Sha state and use his will to control Sha.

Ryaana had achieved the state by relying on her anger, her feelings of betrayal. A much different way than how the others had. Lurker of the Depths had achieved it through understanding and coming to terms with the beliefs of his people; Adrian had done so by excluding all from his mind, allowing only calm and serenity to enter, and then naturally drop into a state where he could feel all Sha around him; Anessa had done it by sheer determination and desire.

So Adrian knew that there was not just one way to achieving power, but he was certain that it all required a person to be instinctively familiar with the Sha, to hold the understanding that everything around them, that their entire universe, was made out of it. One had to have a will powerful enough to bend the Sha to it, to be able to shape it into what they wanted. It was not something that just anyone could do, and it took much out of those that could. Using Sha without the Sha state was impossible without biological enablers, which was how all other people capable of using Sha abilities did so.

Adrian had long since suspected that natural evolution of Sha abilities was the universe’s way of preparing the way for the Sha state. The problem was that it was rare for beings to become what Adrian, Anessa, and Lurker of the Depths were. He was certain that if they had done so naturally, it would have taken far longer to achieve. The Enlightened had to have gained some insight that allowed them to reach the state once they had been changed by the lifeform they had created. Adrian’s and Anessa’s races had been genetically manipulated, their evolution accelerated by Axull Darr, and then they had been augmented further. Lurker of the Depths came from a race of telepaths instinctively in tune with the Sha, and when they joined the Empire, they had been altered further.

A natural lifeform without those changes would’ve had a much harder time of achieving what they had.

“You might be able to reach the Sha state by allowing your anger to bridge the gap, but you are still attempting to take the Sha state, to control it. You cannot do that. You need to let your body, your inner self, flow into the ocean that is the Sha. Don’t fight it. You can’t—it is reality itself, and next to it you are nothing. It will move according to your will, if your will is strong enough, but it is not yours to take. It is there only to be borrowed.”

Adrian was already in the Sha state, and he watched as his daughter fought to enter it as well. She struggled, the Sha around her vibrating in his Sha sight.

And then she had it. It was difficult to explain, but people who were in the Sha state had a different feel than those not. They felt as if they were a part of everything around them, as if they were a drop in the ocean. “Good,” Adrian said. “Now relax. Allow yourself to feel everything around you.”

He felt her breathing slow, and her face relax. For a moment, Adrian could feel her spreading her senses next to him in the ocean that was Sha—but in the next, she had fallen out of it. He could feel the Sha around her move away and settle in its natural state, and Ryaana’s eyes opened.

“Damn it!” she yelled out, standing before turning angrily and sending out a kinetic blast from her palm that shattered a boulder nearby. “Why does it always slip away from me?”

“You are forcing yourself, rushing. Your mind is not focused enough,” Adrian told her.

Ryaana scowled at him. “I need to get this right. I need to find Vas, I…”

Adrian stood and nodded. “I understand what you want. But you must know that, even if you master this tomorrow, you will not be able to do anything to him. He is stronger than you in every way. He is stronger than me alone; without Moirai I would not have been able to survive against him. And this was when I had the element of surprise, and he was underestimating me.”

Ryaana balled up her fists and looked like she wanted to say something, but then the fight left her, and she sat back down on the ground before putting her face in her hands. “I just want to do something.”

“I know.”

She remained quiet for a long moment before she spoke again. “You shouldn’t have kept it from me.”

Adrian turned his head to the sky. He had heard her say as much on many occasions, and he had explained to her his reasoning many times. He knew that it was only her trying to come to terms with those reasons. Ryaana had always considered herself strong, and she was—she ranked among the top in the Empire and the Shara Daim. She just wasn’t on the same level as Adrian. She was getting there, as she was very talented and driven, but she was also frustrated and impatient. Adrian didn’t respond to her words. He knew that it was futile when she was feeling like this—they would just start fighting.

“Dad,” Ryaana said forcing him to look back at her. She was staring at him intently. “Why are we still here?”

Adrian had not told anyone other than Lurker of the Depths and Anessa why they were not pursuing the Enlightened—not that they even could. The three Enlightened were avoiding the Nomad Fleet, as they knew that there existed people who could threaten them and they did not want to risk such a battle. Adrian understood their reasoning; he knew that their plan had to be more than just fighting to kill all life in the galaxy, and they would be stupid to risk their lives. The problem was that they didn’t know what their plan was, and while the galactic alliance tried to intercept and fight the Enlightened forces at every opportunity, they were always one step behind.

“We are waiting,” Adrian said.

“For what?”

“Intel,” Adrian answered.

Ryaana opened her mouth to ask more, but she closed it. Adrian had made it clear that he would not speak of it when she had asked before. She should be glad that she had gotten this much out of him.

“Fine, don’t tell me then,” Ryaana said and stood up, heading back to their shuttle.

Reluctantly, Adrian followed. It was not as if he liked standing around and doing nothing, but the Enlightened could not be defeated in the way that the others imagined. The galaxy was too large, and as they now had the ability to move through the access points, they would never be able to catch them and force them into some large, final battle. They did not know if the Enlightened had a base system, they did not know their plans, they knew nothing at all other than their vague desire to kill all life in the galaxy.

And as insane as that sounded, Adrian believed that the Enlightened were anything but insane. They must know that they could not achieve their goal through conventional means. There was no way for them to exterminate the entire galaxy in such a manner. There were too many people in it.

That meant that they had a different plan entirely—and Adrian had a way of finding out what that plan is.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Suvri stealth cruiser coasted slowly through the massive system. At the center of it was a black hole the size of a planet. A massive half-ring curved around it with massive stations attached all around, and countless ships of all sizes moved around the system. From the massive complex at the black hole to the outer system, every planet that had once orbited the lone sun of the system had been broken apart, and now massive chunks of the planets were being harvested by the black ships. The system was filled with more defense stations than the Suvri cruiser’s crew had ever seen in a single system. Massive stations covered with weapons were placed strategically around them, and sensor satellites pinged everything in the vicinity constantly. The only reason the Suvri stealth cruiser hadn’t been discovered was because of their cutting-edge stealth system.

Their ship was not really in normal space. In fact, most of it had been pushed into subspace, while only a small sensor point the size of a needle was still in real space. The system was the greatest advantage that the Suvri had over the other races, and they had utilized it savagely to spy and gather information on their neighbors. Now, they were using their technology in service of the great galactic alliance. The crew itself did not know much on the particulars, except that they were one of many scouts across the galaxy searching for the black ships’ shipbuilding hub.

There were four main sectors which their superiors believed were the most promising for the location of such a system, based on the data they had received from one of their new allies. Of course, they had restricted the secrecy of that data to the highest level. Their superiors had gone to a level of paranoia so high that they forbade the crews of even speaking about their mission while on their ship. Nothing they recorded was put in the ships’ systems, but instead was recorded directly to a closed system that was not connected to anything else on the ship.

“Dear gods,” the Commander said as they looked at the recordings. The system’s defenses were insane, but what truly shocked them was the amount of ships in the system. The machine warships were spread across the system in such numbers that their sensors struggled to give them a count.

“This must be all of them,” the second in command said as he swam closer to the screen. “The entire containment zone.”

“Yes, and look at that,” the Commander said, pointing to the remnants of a planet and the constantly shifting cloud moving around it. The Swarm was disassembling the pieces and harvesting materials at a rate that the Suvri thought impossible.

“It is at least twice the size it had been during the battle,” his second in command responded.

“Yes, we found it. There, above the Swarm—do you see it?”

“Right. It looks like it has been upgraded.”

The AI had been housed inside a large spherical complex that had left the planet after it joined with the Enlightened. Now it looked like it had added more to its form. The sphere had four rings now, slowly rotating around it. And they could detect weapons on it. They could get much, but they got enough to know that it was the AI’s core.

“We need to get this back right away. Set a course out of the system,” the Commander ordered.

They were moving slower through subspace than they were capable of in real-space, but they were less likely to be detected doing so. Slowly, the Suvri ship moved sufficiently away from the system so that the AI’s sensors couldn’t detect them as they entered the skim. Once they had traveled out into dark space between the systems, they dropped out of the skim and entered hyperspace, heading for the Afar Group territory.

CHAPTER FIVE

Year 716 of the Empire — Kenos system — Empire territory

Laura sat in the shuttle as it transported them down to the planet. Once they had arrived in system she had expected for them to head for the Bastion to meet Adrian, But it turned out that he was down on the planet. There didn’t seem to be any facilities on its surface, so she wondered what he was doing down there.

The Nomad Fleet had grown over the two years since their battle with the Enlightened in the control system. She saw the three Hephaestus mobile stations deployed and harvesting the asteroid belt, and one was configured into a large oblong mass of nanites that Laura knew was its shipbuilding mode. The Nomad Fleet hadn't recovered much of its strength in Titans, as those losses were not so easily rebuilt, and now they had just under six thousand of them. The number of nanoships had increased, however—there were around fifty thousand of various classes in system. She remembered when Gotu had come to her with the plans for the nanoships, and how she had refused the offer of those ships for the Fleet. She still agreed with that decision, but that did not mean that the nanoships were not just as good as Fleet main vessels.

The shuttle carrying her and Anessa made its way to a large canyon and Laura watched as the craft dropped down and into its depths. Then, as they entered a large cave system, she frowned. There were no signs of any secret base hidden here. But then they flew out of the cave and into the open space, and Laura thought that her mind was playing tricks on her for a moment.

“This…this is not something that the Empire could’ve built,” Laura said.

Anessa shook her head. “It is not.”

Laura turned her eyes to the shuttle’s screens. The inside of the planet was hollow, with massive shipyards and structures that she couldn’t even recognize filling the void. Thousands of Titan-class ships were inside the yards, some even looking finished. The shuttle headed toward the massive pillar that stretched into the oblivion below them. It took them a while to reach it, and Laura realized that it was much larger than it looked from a distance.

They landed inside and Anessa led them outside and into the facility.

“What is this?”

“It was Axull Darr’s facility,” Anessa answered.

“But, how did you find it? The sphere he left behind did not say anything about this.”

Anessa grimaced. “There are things that you don’t know. Axull Darr’s spheres were not really him. He had used them as relays of a sort. He had really been here all along.”

“I know from what Tomas told me that Axull Darr had uploaded his mind into a core, but I still don’t understand what you mean.”

“Yes, he had managed to upload his mind to a core, and he had been living here, where he built the Titans as a way to fight the Enlightened if we didn’t become what he needed.”

“So he is here?” Laura asked.

Anessa shook her head. “No. He is now truly dead.”

“What do you mean? The sphere on Sanctuary still works.”

“That is no longer him; it is just the program he left behind that acts based on his programming. It can access the data stored here, but it can’t give you answers or data that Axull did not want you to have. That part of the data is only available here.”

“But how did he die if he was uploaded to a core?”

“Axull Darr accompanied the Nomad Fleet inside an android body. He went to see his sister along with Adrian, and was there killed by Aranis.”

Laura didn’t know what to say to that. She knew that Adrian had kept some things back, which was why Thomas was so frustrated with Adrian. But she did not think that he would have held something as important as this facility back. She didn’t speak again; instead, she opted to prepare herself for her meeting with Adrian.

They rode an elevator for what seemed like a long time, until they eventually entered a large circular room. It was filled with floating holograms, and a large holotable was placed in the middle. The holographic representation of Iris was floating to the side in her humanoid fiery form, and Adrian stood next to her.

He smiled and stepped forward, embracing Laura. “Mother.”

“Son,” Laura responded, feeling a bit conflicted.

“Come, I know what you wish to speak with me about.”

“Oh?” Laura said as she stepped behind him as he led them to the holotable.

“Tomas had sent me quite a few messages. I knew that, eventually, he would send someone in person.”

“And? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Adrian just gestured at the table and the many holos surrounding it. Laura allowed turned her eyes to them and truly studied them. The center piece of the room was the map of the galaxy, one that looked very familiar to Laura. It was almost exactly the same as the battle map in the war room on Sanctuary, only it had a few extra systems marked on it. It was the battle map of the Enlightened attacks and the movements of fleets in the galaxy—battles, sieges, everything.

“So, you’ve been keeping track of the war?” Laura said.

“I’ve been doing more than that,” Adrian said vaguely. “First, may I ask you a few questions?”

Laura waved her hand at him.

“Why do you think that we haven’t been able to engage the Enlightened in a battle?”

Laura frowned. “Because they don’t want to fight a prolonged battle. They always retreat.”

“Yes, yet we’ve not been able to trap even a single of their fleets to engage it. They always have a clear way to retreat. Almost as if they know that we are coming, as if they are prepared to run the moment we arrive in system.”

Laura became thoughtful as she studied the various reports floating above her. They were reports of familiar engagements of the Alliance’s forces with the Enlightened. None had lasted long, and always the Enlightened managed to retreat. It was why they had been so frustrated. The Josanti League and its allies had been attacked far worse than the rest of the galaxy, and the galactic alliance wanted to be allowed to engage the Enlightened forces in the systems where they were already committed to sieges. But the Josanti League and the others were refusing them access. They had tried to go against their wishes and send fleets anyway, but such acts had not turned out as they had hoped. The Josanti League forces had actually attacked the fleets sent to help them, and threatened retaliation. Tomas, unwilling to provoke the Josanti League into doing something so monumentally stupid as starting a war with the other core powers now, halted such action indefinitely.

“Are you saying that we have a spy in our midst?” Laura asked.

“We have something worse,” Adrian said. “Have you been able to locate the AI?”

Laura frowned. “The AI’s forces have been fighting alongside the Enlightened.”

Adrian shook his head. “Those forces are nothing; a token there simply to ensure that the Enlightened can use the access points. The containment zone consisted of a far larger force than all of the Enlightened combined. The machine ships used to encircle the Enlightened completely, and we have seen nothing of those forces. There are no reports, nothing that indicates anything like the numbers that the AI has. And then there is the fact that the AI’s swarm and its core has not been seen since the battle in the control system.”

“You are not joining in the fight because the AI is missing?” Laura asked incredulously.

“No, I am not engaging the Enlightened for several reasons. For one, we have no idea what their plan is, and for all we know they want us to fight them like this, scattered across the galaxy. Secondly, our actions up until now have proven unsuccessful. The Enlightened know what we are doing, or they can anticipate our actions. Both of these problem come back to the AI.”

“Explain,” Laura said.

“We know that the AI had been interfering with Levisomaerni’s attempts to gather the summit, and we know that it then attacked that summit. It has the capability to interfere with our systems, communications and more.”

“Is that why you haven’t wanted to speak about what you are planning? You are worried that the AI can get to that information?” Laura asked.

Adrian nodded. “The only place where our plans are recorded are here in this facility, inside closed systems, and in our heads. I am certain that the AI is planning something. Its Swarm is a threat that rivals the Enlightened themselves.”

“You really think so?”

Adrian nodded. “This facility has the records of the People’s war against the first iteration of the AI and its Swarm. The Custodian AI is a danger far greater than you realize.”

“Wait—first iteration? And what war?” Laura asked, confused.

“Axull Darr did not share all of the People’s history with you. The AI, up until recently the Custodian of the containment for the Enlightened, is the second iteration of the AI the People created long ago. In its first, it went rogue and nearly wiped out the People. Now, its Swarm has improved relative to what it used to be, and I am certain that it is expanding rapidly. The only problem is that I haven’t been able to locate it yet.”

Adrian looked at the galaxy map. “I know that Ullax Darr had a massive construction system dedicated to the building of the machine ships, and I have been looking for it ever since we left the control system. The Suvri stealth scouts have confirmed that the AI had left the planet and that it left the system along with its Swarm, but they haven’t been able to find it. We have a few leads, however, on which I am waiting.”

“The Suvri did not mention that they had been looking for the AI for you,” Laura said slowly.

“Because I explained to them my concerns about the AI monitoring our communications. The Suvri scouts delivering reports to the galactic alliance are their main units. The ones looking for me, however, have all gone dark—they don’t send anything via communications grids that they find, but rather send couriers through the Afar Group’s access point, which then deliver the messages to my people in Sol. The Suvri are really a very impressive race… For all of their physical limits, they are highly capable.”

Laura narrowed her eyes. Sol had become the hub for all sort of traffic between the core powers and the Empire. Ever since they started unlocking the access points in the core and beyond, all traffic was being funneled through Sol and Shara Radum as their most defended systems. “And you found nothing?”

“I didn’t say that,” Adrian replied coolly. “I have some suspicions, and there are strange reports of entire star nations just cutting contact with their neighbors out in the rim. The Enlightened are creating chaos with their attacks, generating noise, and so these irregularities have slipped the notice of most. But I am suspecting that it is the work of the AI and its Swarm.”

“The AI might be a threat, but so are the Enlightened, and we need to face the one threat that we can see.” Laura took a deep breath. “Adrian, we have no time to wait.”

“I’m not hesitating for no reason. We still don’t know the Enlightened’s plan, but I know how we can learn it. Once we know what it is, we will be able to execute a counter-attack designed to foil them.”

“And how exactly do you plan on gathering such information?” Laura asked.

Adrian glanced at the floating form of Iris next to him. “We have been experimenting a bit with extending Iris’s core inside Moirai. She has been updating her protocols, and we are hoping that we might be able to steal the information from the Custodian. It sided with the Enlightened; I believe that that is because it agrees with their plan, or at the very least that it has the same short-term goal. Regardless, if the AI is allowing the Enlightened through the access point, then we will learn about their movements, if nothing else. If we manage to find the AI and then keep it occupied long enough to get past its firewalls, however, we might be able to recover that information.”

“Adrian…” Laura said slowly, and she turned to look at the silent form of Iris. Her core was supposed to be situated inside Adrian’s ship, yet she was here. Having the capability to project herself from there, probably through a communication system, was something that the Empire forbade its AIs from doing. Yet they had known that Adrian had been doing things that skirted the AI laws of the Empire.

Iris had most certainly moved beyond what she once was. When Adrian had integrated her core with the biological processing unit, when he had given her direct connection with the brain of a living being like the great beast that served as his ship, even then Adrian had broken the law. Tomas had known about it, of course, but as long as Iris showed no sign of going rogue, he had decided to ignore it. But now, Laura was certain that they had done more than he was telling her.

“Don’t tell me more,” she said at last. “But Tomas needs to know about your plans. We are attempting to form an assault fleet to aid the attacked nations across the galaxy. We need to know these things.”

“You cannot tell him. We know that the AI can monitor communications, and I suspect more. I don’t know if it can actually listen in through other devices, but it is better if we assume that it can. I need you to convince Tomas that I am acting in our best interests, and that he can’t ask questions. If the AI learns that I am searching for it, it will move and we might not be able to find it again.”

Laura sighed and shook her head. “So what do you want us to do? Just ignore the Enlightened?”

“I doubt that they will allow you to really hurt them. If the AI is monitoring our comms and relaying our movements to the Enlightened, you will not be able to catch any significant portion of their force. Even if you do, my analysis—based on both your and my data—is that only one of the Enlightened is a part of these attacks, and even then they are not accompanying every assault. We should be far more worried about the fact that two of them are missing.” Adrian shook his head. “In any case, we can’t leave the AI alone to build up even more of its forces, or to expand its Swarm. You can’t understand the devastation that it will be capable of if it is allowed time to expand uninterrupted. Even more than the Enlightened, the AI needs to be stopped now.”

“I trust you, Adrian, but Tomas…” She sighed. “I’ll try to convince him.”

“That is all that I ask.”

CHAPTER SIX

Adrian sat on the throne inside Moirai, his mind expanded as he entered the Sha state and connected with her. He was attempting to teach the great beast how to enter it herself.

It was not going well.

“DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Moirai said inside his mind.

“You can feel the Sha around you?” Adrian asked.

“YES.”

“Now, try to imagine yourself as a part of it all, as if you are floating inside a vast ocean.”

Moirai grumbled unintelligibly, then Adrian felt her mind try to do as he asked. She hadn’t tried for more than a few moments before he felt her emotions flare.

“STUPID, DON’T WANT TO!” she sent to him, along with her feelings of frustration at him forcing her to do something that she thought unnecessary.

Adrian sighed, and relented. He wasn’t really so set on teaching her; it wasn’t like she really needed it with the amount of energy she could draw on. But after failing to teach Ryaana, he had wanted to try again with someone else. It was as Moirai said: stupid.

“Fine. I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Adrian sent to her.

“GOOD, DON’T BOTHER AGAIN! STUPID!” With that, she pulled away from him and sulked a bit. Adrian sighed and pulled himself out of the Sha state.

“I take it that it did not go well?” Iris asked as she floated in front of him.

“No, it did not,” Adrian said.

“I told you so.” Iris grinned at him. “She doesn’t understand. To her, power is power, and she has more than enough of it.”

“I know, I was just… It was stupid, as she said.”

“What is it really, Adrian?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then after a long minute opened them and saw Iris still patiently waiting for an answer. “I feel… I don’t know how to explain it. Detached, I guess.”

“From what?”

“Everything, really. The Enlightened are ignoring me, running away every time my fleet enters the system they are in. They know that with Moirai I am a threat, and they are denying me the chance to fight them!” Adrian finished angrily. He was growing increasingly frustrated at the Enlightened. He had imagined some great battle, fighting against them, proving that he was better, stronger. He was certain that he hadn’t seen everything that the Enlightened were capable of. Yet they didn’t even want to fight him! It was infuriating. The only reason he was now searching for the AI was to learn the Enlightened’s plans so that he could force them to face him.

And the problem was that he was aware of what he was doing. He was lying to everyone around him—not about his intentions, but his motives. He didn’t care about the danger the AI posed to the galaxy, of what its Swarm could unleash. He fully intended to fight it and destroy it as he recovered the information it had about the Enlightened, but it was not because he wanted to protect the galaxy. Adrian’s blood burned with the desire to meet the Enlightened in battle again. He couldn’t help himself; he had gotten a taste, and now he wanted more.

“It is more than that. I know you, Adrian, better than anyone else,” Iris said.

“I know. And yes, you are right. It is more. I see these people around me, I see them call me by my name and I see the image they have of who that person is inside of their heads. And I don’t recognized it in myself. The Adrian they know is not who I am. I want things that they can’t imagine, things that they think are terrible and immoral. And I can’t even explain my views and beliefs to them because I know that they will see only a monster.”

“It has always been this way. What has changed now?”

“I…I don’t know. It is just a feeling that I have. I can’t yet explain it.”

“Well then,” Iris said, “let me know once you do. I am sure that it will be interesting to hear.”

Adrian nodded. He knew that Iris was not mocking him, that she was truly interested. Adrian remained sitting on the throne deep inside Moirai as Iris disappeared. He reflected on his thoughts, and tried to figure out what had changed. He had always been different than other people. He didn’t care about protecting his “people”; he never had. He had always cared about becoming stronger and overcoming greater and greater challenges.

He did not think that he was truly a monster, as he could care for others. He knew love, and respect. He loved Bethany, and he had grieved when she died. That love had not been a deep love, it was a love unfulfilled, love not given the chance to bloom. He loved Anessa, for accepting him for who he was, for not being afraid of his true self. He loved her strength, and he respected her as a warrior in her own right. He loved Laura, his adoptive mother, as the person who had given him the means to become who he was today. He loved his children, as he saw pieces of himself in them. All three of them were driven and strong, even if they didn’t share his beliefs. Ryaana was the closest one to him in that she wanted to become stronger, but she was far more emotional. She identified herself as both Shara Daim and Human, and she cared for others in a way he did not—she had a need to protect them.

Adrian did not. To him, only those who had the power to stand on their own deserved respect and consideration. He didn’t hate them; he was just indifferent. Perhaps that came from being so far beyond most of them that he could no longer identify with them. He could no longer imagine what it was like to be weak, to be reliant on others to protect him.

He was aware of his failings, or at least what others thought his failings were. The truth was that he did not share the same morality as most of them. In his mind it did not make him a monster, only different. But he knew that true monsters existed, those who relished in the suffering of others. Adrian had been very careful in his self examination as he did not want to become like them. He had seen Garash of the Erasi, known his arrogance and disregard toward life. Garash had killed many simply because he could. The same could be said of Valanaru, the Weaver of the Erasi, another of his past opponents and the one who had named him Heart of the Mountain. She had been drunk on her own power, had turned into a monster that cared nothing for the lives of others and used them as she wished.

Adrian had never considered himself like them. To him, there was a massive difference between being indifferent to other people and actively looking down on them. Adrian did not pity those who were weaker than him, he did not hate them or look down on them. He didn’t care about them at all. He would never kill them callously, as he had no need to. They did not impact his life, and every one of them had the potential to reach his own level of power, the potential to become his peer. To a being such as Adrian, who relished a true challenge, that was all that mattered.

Knowing how easily his power could turn him into a monster that killed for no reason, he was very careful in making sure that his actions never strayed in such a direction. Causing death in war and battle was one thing; killing for killing’s sake was quite another.

A ping brought him out of his introspection and he glanced at the screen next to him. Lurker of the Depths had arrived in system.

Adrian stood and started walking toward his shuttles, already sending a message to the old Sowir telling him to meet him down on the planet.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Year 716 of the Empire — Sanctuary

Tomas sat in his living quarters alone, thinking. Laura had returned from her visit with Adrian, but she had little to tell him. She had, however, tried to convince him to let Adrian do as he willed. Tomas was certain that she knew what Adrian was doing, yet she urged him not to force her to tell him. That told him a few things; Tomas had not ruled for so long by not being able to see through the lines. The fact that Laura, who was in charge of the Empire’s Fleet, had agreed to let Adrian do as he willed, even with her knowing the foe they were facing, meant that it was important—and the fact that neither she nor Adrian were willing to talk about it indicated that they did not want anyone knowing what he was planning.

The only reason why Adrian would not tell him would be if he was worried that someone who shouldn’t know would find out. Tomas tried to think about what that indicated. The most obvious answer was that Adrian thought that they had a spy in their midst, but he immediately dismissed that. The Hand of the Empire kept a very close eye on everyone in power in the Empire. The other possibility was that somehow information could be recovered from their systems. Ever since they’ve found out that the AI had been interfering with Levisomaerni’s mission, Tomas had been worried about it accessing the Empire’s systems, but there had never been any indication of it being able to do so.

As they were now the part of the galactic alliance, however, there were other races who were in the know. Tomas could not hold information from them and retain their trust, and their systems had been shown as vulnerable.

Tomas took a deep breath. There were too many things happening all at once. His new alliance was struggling to strike back at the Enlightened, the Josanti League was fighting the Enlightened alone and screaming to all that could hear that this new alliance was in league with the enemy… Tomas could still barely believe that such stupidity existed, but he had accepted it.

Even if he was willing to entertain Adrian’s need for secrecy, they still needed to act against the Enlightened. While Laura had not told him anything about what Adrian was planning, she had told him about his suspicion that the AI was either listening in on their communications or outright anticipating the movements of their fleets and then relaying them back to the Enlightened. It would explain why they had been unable to get into a prolonged engagement with them.

The Enlightened were attacking dozens of systems across the galaxy at any point in time. On the galactic level, that was nothing; but still, the combined forces they were using in these attacks had been estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of five million ships, which included classes that they had never seen before. They still didn’t have much data on them, as the ships they had gone up against weren’t advanced enough to actually push them to their limits.

That was yet another baffling thing about the situation: the Enlightened were attacking mostly weaker star nations, with the exception of the Josanti League. They entered a system through an access point, proceeded to wreck it entirely, and then just pulled back. They didn’t invade planets, nor kill their inhabitants. They did not follow the same pattern they had before, where they would feed their armies on the biological matter of the worlds they invaded.

With the exception of the Josanti League. There, they had started sieging systems all over their territory and actually invading planets. Tomas didn’t know much because the Josanti League refused to communicate, and they were keeping the information under wraps. The Suvri had some stealth ships in their territories, though, and the Empire’s Sentinels in the territories of the Josanti League’s allies had reported that they had called in their allies to help.

It told him that they were being pushed hard. It begged the question: What was different about the Josanti League? Why were the Enlightened moving into their territory with full power, while they just raided others across the galaxy in a series of hit and runs? There was so much about their tactics that did not make sense.

Tomas shook his head. They had waited for too long already. They needed to strike, even if just in the rim. The fact that the Enlightened had yet to hit any of the territory of the Rimward Alliance was eroding their image. They needed to get into the war—now.

Tomas used his imp to send a message to the Representatives of his allies here on Sanctuary, calling for another meeting. He would call for the mobilization of their forces.

Even without Adrian, they could wait no longer.

*  *  *

Tomas entered his quarters after a long meeting. They had agreed on assembling a force and sending it in the rim to aid one of the larger star nations called Orna. It was located about 45,000 light years anti-spinward from Sol in the Perseus galactic arm, and had been one of the star nations that the Empire’s Sentinels had contacted a while ago. They still had a Sentinel presence there, which was how they knew that the Enlightened had attacked them. The Empire was allied with the nations between their own territory and that of the Orna, meaning that they could use their relays to have a much faster line of communications with their people, allowing them to coordinate effectively.

The plan was to launch an attack through Sol. The Sentinels would coordinate with the Orna and then unlock the access point so that the allied force could enter the system behind the Enlightened.

As Tomas took a seat in his favorite chair, Seo-yun entered the room and smiled at him.

“A long day?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said with a sigh.

She walked over and sat in his lap, giving him a quick kiss.

“I know that you don’t have the time to rest, not now. But you need to find some way to relieve this stress. It will not do you good.”

“I know. I just don’t have the time for it.”

Seo-yun didn’t press him. She knew that there was no point, and she understood that the Empire had need of him.

“I received a message from Jacob,” Seo-yun said with a small smile.

Tomas expression brightened at hearing that—it had been a while since he had heard from their son.

“He is still on Shara Radum. They say that they’ve made some big discovery. He seemed excited about it.”

Tomas couldn’t help but smile. His son was a grown man by now, one that had no interest in ruling like his father. Jacob was still technically the heir of the Empire, but with Tomas not aging, that was not such a concern. Instead, his son had become a scholar and an archaeologist, specializing in old civilizations. He was currently on Shara Radum looking into the past of the other race that had evolved on the planet, the one which the Shara Daim had wiped out long ago.

To his son, the war did not really exist. He was safe, as most of the other citizens of his Empire were. It was why Tomas worked so hard—to keep them all from harm. He was glad that the ordinary citizen did not have to think about the Enlightened, about war.

He only feared what would happen when that war came to their systems, when the Enlightened finally decide to attack them. Tomas had no doubt that they would. At least his son was in one of the most defended systems; Shara Radum was as fortified as Sol or Sanctuary.

“You should go and visit him,” Tomas said.

Seo-yun shook her head sadly. “There is too much to do here. I feel like I am close to figuring things out.”

Tomas didn’t respond. He knew that Seo-yun had been studying the Sha and its connection to everything. Tomas didn’t understand much, but he knew that somehow the borders of their universe were slowly failing, allowing dimensions that occupied the same space as their own universe to seep through. He didn’t know what that all implied, but he knew that the Enlightened wanted to fix it. Only, in their minds, to accomplish that they needed to end all life in the universe. Seo-yun was attempting to figure out why they thought that that would help things.

He pulled Seo-yun in tighter, and the couple took comfort in each other. They stayed that way for a long while.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Year 716 of the Empire — Josanti League territory

Doranis of the Enlightened sat on board his Living-ship Devourer, his mind connected to the ship’s amplifier as he watched the battle on the planet. He was assaulting one of the core powers, the Josanti League. The fools had refused to join the alliance against the Enlightened and, because of that, were isolated. They were powerful, that much Doranis gave them, but they were fools. The system was a large shipbuilding center, and a prime target.

Their plan was simple: they needed to create as much chaos as possible while their Overseers put the relays into position, and to take all the attention on to them to allow Aranis to get the Conduit to the center of the galaxy. But that did not mean that they could ignore high-value targets, and the Josanti League’s shipbuilding capabilities were one of the greatest in the galaxy, according to the data from the AI.

Doranis was still not sure how he felt about the AI and it joining their cause, but it had been beneficial thus far. This did not mean that Doranis was not wary of the machine; he remembered the history of the people and what it had done the last time it slipped its bounds.

He turned his attention back to the battle. The entire system was engaged—his forces had entered the system through an access point inside the star led by ten of his Juggernauts. The massive vessels, approaching the size of Living-ships, had been their greatest weapons in the war against the People. Now Doranis knew that there were races out there that had similar creations, including the children of Axull Darr. Their Juggernauts, or Sovereigns as they were called, were smaller than the Living-ships at about a third of the size, but they were powerful still. Then there were the Titans which were even smaller yet held the same power as the Sovereigns. Enlightened Juggernauts were grown to be unstoppable, and thankfully the Josanti League had no ship class even close to their size.

The ten Juggernauts had exited the access point and annihilated the defenses protecting it. The Josanti League might not be able to use the points, but they did know about them and they protected them as weak points in their systems. According to the AI, this system had become a shipbuilding hub of the Josanti League long before they discovered the access point, and afterward they didn’t see the need to move their shipbuilding facilities elsewhere. After all, the access point had been inactive for a long time.

It was not a coincidence that there was an access point in this system, just like it was not a coincidence that the Josanti League had chosen this system to be their shipbuilding hub. Long ago the People had done the same, as the system was extremely rich and suitable for such a purpose. It had two stars, a red supergiant and a blue main-sequence star, several dozen planets, massive asteroid fields, and a small black hole on the outskirts of the system. It had once, long ago, been a main shipbuilding hub of the People—until the first incarnation of the AI had wiped it clean with its Swarm. Now they would take the system and convert it to a base of operations, as it was very suitable to their needs.

The Josanti League had a large presence in the system, with massive rings surrounding several of the system’s gas giants. Others were speckled with harvesting stations, and many of the mineral-rich planets were covered with the mining operations, as were many of the asteroid fields. There were numerous defenses as well; this was clearly an important system for the Josanti League. With several fleets being present to defend it, the battle had already been raging for weeks.

Doranis had brought almost half of his entire force here, more than two million ships, and had overwhelmed the principal defenders quickly—but the system was so large that the battle was still raging.

He was not here just to do damage and then leave. He was here to completely destroy everything in the system.

There were now hundreds of smaller battles raging all over as isolated pockets of the Josanti League still fought to defend their yards, and as the reinforcements arrived in a steady stream from other systems and joined the fight. It would not be enough in the end. His Created were even now assaulting the planets, wiping out the people working in the mines and those hiding away. Doranis wanted to take the opportunity to harvest as much bio matter as he could to bolster the ranks of his Created. Loranis was doing the same in secret out in the rim, but reinforcements from her would not be ready for a while. She was both growing the Created as well as crafting new ships for all of them.

Seeing the large ships of Axull Darr’s children had given them new ideas, and she was experimenting with building newer and better versions of the Juggernauts.

Doranis’ attention shifted to a large moon orbiting a gas giant. It had a massive defensive cannon placed on it, which prevented his forces from getting closer enough to take it down. It was actually a fairly impressive weapon: it fired a beam of charged exotic particles that reacted violently once they hit anything with mass. The greater the mass, the more damage it did. It had a great range; he had already lost several bioships to it, and it had even managed to injure one of his Juggernauts.

Seeing the need to take care of it quickly, as he could already see the Josanti League attempting to reach and establish a safe zone around the moon that harbored it, Doranis stood from his seat and allowed himself to enter the Sha state. He cast his mind across the system and then pulled the space between himself and his destination, bending it and then pushing his body through. He appeared on the moon, looking at the massive cannon stretching far above him. He walked slowly toward the base of the cannon, a large building built into the rock. He could have, of course, destroyed the cannon without needing to get close to it, but he was becoming somewhat bored. It had been a long time since he had fought himself, and now with the existence of those who were capable of matching the Enlightened, he needed to sharpen his skills.

Doranis used his telepathy to scan the building and find out just how many lifeforms there were inside, and nearly winced. The attack he had survived from the being known as Lurker of the Depths still left its echoes, even though he had healed most of the damage. It was not a large concern, and he was not really weakened—he was only angered that he had allowed someone to trick and hurt him like that.

He marked every lifeform in his mental map of the place. He reached the wall of the building unopposed. Even if they had sensors that could detect things in their surroundings, they wouldn’t have seen him. Doranis gathered his power before placing a shield around himself and a portion of the wall to prevent the atmosphere from inside leaking out, and then he split the wall open. The ceramic alloy material bent and opened up, making a large hole for him to step through. He was in his evolved form, the form he had been in once the lifeform had infected them. He had two sets of legs, three sets of arms, an elongated head with powerful jaws, and was covered in scales which were now dark red in color—he could change them at will. As he entered the building the wall behind him closed and fixed itself as if there had never been a hole at all.

He could’ve teleported directly inside, but he wanted to test his abilities more comprehensively. He walked down the corridor, his telepathy reaching to the closed rooms around him, and wherever he found a lifeform he smashed inside their head and ended their life. It was too easy; the beings here weren’t really all that strong. It was not the type of training that he wanted. But still he did it, and still he moved forward.

Eventually his presence was noticed, and forces were sent to stop him.

The corridor in front of him was filled with beings pointing their weapons at him and firing. Doranis paid no attention as their weapons harmlessly impacted his shield. As he was getting closer, the beings realized that their attacks had no effect, and he could feel their fear. Doranis did not much enjoy killing, but he knew that it was necessary; and if they were destined to die, what was the harm in getting some exercise out of it?

He pointed his six arms and plasma bolts started flying toward them, burning through their suits and killing them quickly. He walked over their corpses and headed toward the core of the building, where the weapon’s firing system was placed.

They tried to stop him again and again, but always with no hope. They were not capable of killing him, not when he was in the Sha state and able to feel everything around them. He knew that there was no weapon here that could harm him, and there was nothing that could surprise him.

He ripped open large slabs of metal that were the doors leading into the heart of the weapon’s system. Inside there were two singularity cores, feeding power directly into the firing mechanism. Doranis spread his mind through the weapon, seeing how it was put together. He was impressed by what they had achieved—it was a very advanced piece of technology. He put his six hands in front of himself and focused, pulling Sha from his surroundings to the small point in between his six palms. He created a shield around the compressed energy containing it and then sent it floating into the room. A moment later, he bent space around him and exited far above the moon before reaching out and collapsing the shield down below.

He was rewarded by a massive explosion that expanded as a sphere and consumed the building in an instant. The moon cracked and as the explosion grew, it split apart, sending pieces flying in different directions. Satisfied that the weapon was no longer a threat, he turned his sights to the rest of the system. Not being willing to go back to his ship just yet, he decided to join in some of the battles.

A wave of disruptive energy shimmered around him, creating a bubble where the skim-disrupting field generated from the AI’s ships in his fleet didn’t work against him. A moment later he created a skim field around himself and flew off across the system. Bending space would’ve been faster, but the greater the distance, the more it took out of him. Skim fields were generally easier to do. He came out of the skim next to a group of Josanti League battleships in the process of retreating from battle.

They would’ve even managed it, if not for Doranis.

He was floating in space, the Sha keeping him alive, as he reached with his power to the closest battleship and ordered the Sha to pull apart. The molecules holding the ship together split, and in space it looked like the battleship just came apart. He repeated the same with the second battleship, but when he reached out to the third he felt something blocking him. Surprised, he took a closer look and saw that one of the crew of the third battleship was a powerful Sha user. He could not enter the Sha state, and the only reason why he had foiled Doranis was because Doranis was barely trying. If he had used even a fraction of his will, he could get by the Sha user’s weak attempt at stopping him. But Doranis didn’t do so immediately; he was curious. The Sha user had spread his power across the ship. It was draining him heavily as he had no Sha state, but had to expend his own energy. By spreading his power over the ship, he interfered with another user’s attempts at affecting Sha.

It was actually a good decision, if one was fighting beings that could merely use the Sha. It didn’t matter against Doranis. He bent space and appeared inside the ship, standing in front the Sha user who had his tentacles spread to the sides, trembling as he attempted to keep his ship alive.

Immediately Doranis was noticed, but before anyone could react Doranis violently pulled the air inside their bodies out, rupturing them. Everyone but the Sha user collapsed to the ground. Doranis studied the being in front of him. It was…unremarkable. But it had achieved great power in the Sha, on the level of the People, at least. He wondered if, perhaps, if it lived long enough, it too could achieve the Sha state. Before, Doranis wouldn’t even have entertained the thought, but now he knew that it was possible.

The Sha user finally collapsed to the ground, exhausted. It had tried to attack Doranis’ mind, but was repelled by his mental defenses. It was breathing heavily, as it was drained of energy. For a moment, Doranis entertained the thought of letting it live, but then he remembered why they were doing what they were. There were too many beings like this one in the galaxy, and it was causing everything to unravel.

He telekinetically grabbed the being and crushed its skull, killing it quickly.

Afterward, he turned his attention back to the ship. He ordered the Sha to split away from him, and the ship blew apart by his will alone, leaving him floating in space. Sighing, he bent space and arrived back on his ship. There was no challenge here for him. Disappointed, he took a seat and continued watching over the battle in the system.

It would take several more days, but it would be theirs in the end.

CHAPTER NINE

Year 716 of the Empire — Kenos system — Empire territory

Adrian looked at Lurker of the Depths, who floated next to him. Both of them were in the Sha state, up in the empty space above Axull Darr’s planet.

“This isn’t working,” Adrian sent to Lurker of the Depths.

“They’ve had far more time to figure things out, Adrian,” Lurker of the Depths sent back.

Adrian frowned. Sha infused him with life, kept him alive in the vacuum of space. It was an amazing power, and it felt exhilarating. It felt as if he was connected to everything. It did not, however, prevent him from feeling frustrated. He had been attempting to replicate Aranis’s ability to teleport, with little success. After seeing him do it, Adrian had been attempting to achieve it for almost two years. Truthfully, he had not been attempting it for that long; he had been very busy and had little time to actually focus on that.

But now they were waiting for a lead on the AI, and had some time for it.

“It is infuriating. I can’t even begin to imagine how he did it,” Adrian sent.

Again, Adrian formed a field around himself. The first line of thought he had had been that it was something like a skim, which he and Lurker of the Depths had managed to do. But what he felt then wasn’t anything like that. Honestly, just being able to skim in space without a ship was incredible. It required him creating a skim field around himself, then contracting the space in front of him while he expanded it behind. Using the skim wasn’t really traveling; it was more standing still while space moved around you. He needed to put himself partway into subspace in order to achieve it, the same way that ships did. Adrian had been thinking that Aranis’s teleporting had to do with subspace, but he couldn’t figure it out no matter what he did.

“It is not a matter of imagining. You cannot do the impossible with the Sha. When we move objects with telekinesis, we order the Sha that makes up the molecules of the object to move. When we create a kinetic blast, we force the Sha that makes up the air to move and strike at our target. When we fly, we order the Sha to be still around our bodies. I do not think that the skim is the secret to this teleportation.”

Adrian frowned, trying to remember what he had felt from Aranis. It had been very complicated—he remembered that Aranis seemed to almost glow as he was completely surrounded by Sha field. It had felt almost like a shield, only not.

Lurker of the Depths floated forward, looking toward the system’s star far in the distance. “What about access points?”

Adrian looked at the old Sowir. “Huh… They are kind of like teleportation… But they require an incredible amount of energy to be used. Doing something like that with only Sha would require a great amount of energy.”

“Not if you are in the Sha state. You only need to know how it works.”

Adrian thought about it. The access point’s ring was basically a marker. It drew power from the sun to connect to another ring somewhere in the galaxy, then it bent the space between them, making the inside of the two rings basically the same point in space.

If Adrian could replicate that somehow, he might be able to do it. But he knew that it would be extremely dangerous. He could even kill himself if he did something wrong. And he was certain that if he tried to make his own body share the same space as other matter, he would rip himself in two.

Then he got an idea.

He raised a shield over himself and slowly contracted it until it was just over his body, with no wasted space. Then he thought about how the access points worked. In the Sha state, he found a place close to his location, and mentally made an image of the same exact size like his body. For a moment he thought about trying to switch all the Sha in that area with himself, but that was not how this worked—Sha had to move it. It could do many things, but not that.

So he did what the access point did: he tried to compress the Sha in between the two points, but it did not work. He frowned, thinking. The access point bridged two points in space so that they were one, but it didn’t compress the space in real space. No, that would’ve been noticeable, even catastrophic. So instead, he looked deeper into subspace. Sha was there as well, like a mirror to the real space, only distorted and somehow different. He did the same thing there. He exerted his will and tried to compress the Sha between the two spots, and the Sha obeyed. He saw it compress, but the image he had in his mind of the second point did not move. He let the space in subspace return to its original state, and then created another image at the same location, only now in subspace.

Then he compressed the Sha in subspace again, pulling until the image that was the exact same size and shape as him was laid over his body. He didn’t feel anything, because he was in real space and it in subspace, so he let the compression go, then told the Sha to snap back into its original state.

Nothing happened.

“Damn,” Adrian sent to Lurker of the Depths along with everything he had tried to do.

“It probably has no effect on you since you are not in subspace,” Lurker of the Depths told him.

Adrian tried again to remember what Aranis had done. He was certain that Aranis had some kind of a field around him. He had assumed that it was like a shield, but now he thought that was perhaps inaccurate. So Adrian dismissed the shield around himself and on instinct created a skim field which he tailored to cover only his body. He knew that he needed to go into subspace, but the skim field did not do that entirely, and he was not sure if he could even survive there without a field. His understanding of subspace was that it was not a completely different space with a hard boundary, but more something that was on a spectrum, existing alongside normal space. He reinforced the skim field around himself and put up a shield beneath it just in case. Then he started pushing the field into subspace as if he wanted to use the skim, only he didn’t let it compress space in front of him.

Everything around him suddenly had a grayish look to it, and Lurker of the Depths looked fuzzy, as if he was not real. The area he was in was the image with compressed space, and Adrian let it go, feeling himself snap forward to the location the image occupied earlier. He slowly pulled himself back into real space; the feeling was strange, but he managed it.

“You did it,” Lurker of the Depths sent, along with his sentiment of congratulations.

Adrian felt his Sha state waver. His mind was strained, not to the point of being in danger of slipping out of the state, but drained nonetheless. Keeping so many moving parts fixed inside his mind had been hard. “I moved barely ten meters. I wonder how hard it would be to move greater distances…”

“We will have the time to test it out. Now, let me inside your head and show me exactly what you did. I want to try it too.”

*  *  *

Ryaana sat on the ground attempting to clear her mind and feel the Sha state. She knew that she could reach it if she allowed her anger to bubble up, but she had little success in staying in the state for long when she felt that way. So she was trying it her father’s way.

It was not going well.

She just couldn’t rid herself of her emotions and angry thoughts. She had been betrayed, not just by someone she thought was her best friend, but by her parents as well. She knew intellectually that perhaps they were right, and that their actions were justified, but that did not change how she felt.

With great effort she dispelled her thoughts and focused on emptying her mind. She tried to feel the Sha around her instinctively. She remembered the few moments when she managed to enter the Sha state, the ocean that spread around her, the reality itself. It was amazing, and terrifying, and everything. But she had never managed to actually use it much, to exert her will on the Sha around her. With her mind clear she could feel the Sha state just there outside of her reach. Keeping herself still and refusing to act on her instincts and reach for it, she waited, remembering her father’s lessons, and tried to let herself fall into it naturally.

But as time passed, nothing happened; her mind remained where it was and the ocean of Sha seemed as far away as it had ever been. Frustration seeped through, and she lost her calm. She grew angry and expanded her mind, grabbing for the ocean of Sha. She felt the Sha state came upon her, and the Sha around her shook in response to her emotions—but her anger made it hard for her to control it. Every wave her emotions sent through the Sha increased the resonance, making it impossible to order it to do her will. Then it broke, and she fell out of the state.

She had the urge to break everything around herself, but somehow she resisted. She took a deep breath and calmed herself.

“You were close that time,” a voice said.

Ryaana turned around to see her mother standing there watching her. “Not close enough. I failed and used my emotions again.”

Her mother walked around and took a seat on the ground across from her. “Your father knows much, but he has his failings. He cannot put himself in others’ shoes. He cannot understand why something that he can achieve so easily is impossible for someone else. He is blind to paths other than his own. You do not need to follow his path; you already can achieve the same thing we can. Work on that more instead of being frustrated that you can’t achieve it our way.”

Ryaana sighed. “I can’t. I get so wrapped up in my anger that I can’t do anything once I enter the Sha state.”

“Then focus and control your anger,” Anessa said.

“I don’t know… It is not working.”

“Listen to me, daughter. I know about emotion, about being consumed with it. Before I was Kar Daim, I was a Dai Sha, the greatest our people ever had. I was fueled by my need to be greater, to be the best. In this, you are like me: emotional, prone to anger and desire. Do not hide from a part of yourself. Your father does not understand everything. To enter the Sha state you need to know yourself, and accept who you are wholly. Your father has always known who he was, has never had a moment of doubt, never had the need to reevaluate himself. To him it is incomprehensible that someone might not be complete like that. You need to accept your emotion and control it.”

Ryaana shook her head. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Let me help you.”

“Fine,” Ryaana said, defeated. “It’s not like I have anything to lose.”

Her mother nodded and Ryaana felt her reach out with her mind, knocking on Ryaana’s and asking to be let in. Ryaana hesitated, not sure that she wanted to let her mother see her inner thoughts. She was sure that her mother didn’t want to see what Ryaana did with her girlfriend at night… But she allowed her mother inside anyway. Her mother didn’t move deep, nor did she look through Ryaana’s memories.

“All right, now reach for the Sha state. Use your anger.”

Ryaana did as her mother asked. She tapped into her anger at everything that had happened to her, and then forced the Sha state to come to her. It obeyed, but quickly Ryaana felt her emotions resonate and get amplified, and as quickly as the Sha state came, it fled away. “There is no point! I will never be able to do it like this.”

“Don’t despair,” her mother said. “Look into yourself. Tell me, why are you so angry?”

“I am angry because I was betrayed,” Ryaana sent bitterly.

“How were you betrayed?”

“With lies, and deceit.”

“What lies and what deceit?”

“You and dad kept the truth from me, didn’t tell me who Vas really was!” Ryaana said angrily.

“But I can tell that you understand why we have done so. Are you truly angry at us?”

Ryaana wanted to say yes immediately, but she hesitated. “No,” she sent at last. “I understand that you only wanted to protect me, but I still feel betrayed.”

“As is your right, but we had no other way to keep you safe. We didn’t know much about the Enlightened, and you were not strong enough to protect yourself. Ignorance was your greatest defense. But that is not why you are so angry—you are angry because of Vas.”

“I thought that he was my friend,” Ryaana sent slowly. “He helped me become who I am now. We met when I had felt so alone, when I had been so lonely. He was my only friend. And everything that we had, everything that he said to me, was a manipulation, a lie.”

“That might not be the truth,” her mother said.

“How can you say that? He was not who he said he was. He was an Enlightened.”

“Reality is never so black and white, my daughter. Do you really think that every interaction you had with Vas was a lie? He had lived amongst us for a long time; he couldn’t have been pretending all the time. All things that he said to you need not be lies.”

“How can you defend him? After everything that we know he did?”

“I am not,” Anessa said simply. “I am simply telling you that the experiences you two shared are no less real now than they had been in the past. We live in the moment after the past and before the future. Everything that he helped you see and become is still true.”

“So what? Are you saying that I shouldn’t be angry at him anymore?”

“Of course not. Don’t be silly, daughter.”

Ryaana could feel herself blush at being chided by her mother, not that anyone would be able to tell with her dark skin tone. “So what, then?”

“I want you to understand where your anger truly comes from. You are not angry at Vas for lying—you are angry because he left without speaking with you. You are angry at him for abandoning you, as if you meant nothing to him.”

Ryaana’s heart froze for a moment. She wanted to deny it, but she knew that her mother was right. Ryaana had been trying to keep those thoughts suppressed, but she knew it to be the truth. Vas had been her best friend, and he had abandoned her as if she was nothing. “And that just proves that I was right. Everything about what we had was a lie.”

“And how do you know that? Could he not have left because he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to leave if he saw you? Maybe he grew to care for you as much as you did him.”

“Hah!” Ryaana laughed. “He is Aranis of the Enlightened, a monster who has lived for longer than our civilization had existed. Our time together was a blink of an eye to him.”

“Before he was Aranis, he was Waiss, who loved and cared for others. But in the end, none of this matters. You do not need to believe any of this is true, but you need to understand that you are not changed just because you feel like everything in the past was a lie. Point your anger at him if you will, but do not let it change you.”

Ryaana remained silent. She was just so angry, but focusing her anger at Vas did help a bit.

“Now, grab hold of the Sha state again.”

Ryaana did as her mother instructed. She let her anger build up and then reached out and pulled on the Sha state. The same feeling came on to her as her anger grew, but then her mother’s voice was there.

“Focus your anger, bring it back under control. Do not let it flail with no purpose, grow with no aim. It is your anger, is it not?”

“But the Sha state…” Ryaana said as she felt it slipping again out of her grasp.

“Forget about the Sha state—focus on your anger, and pull it back!”

Ryaana did as her mother asked. She thought about being betrayed, about her best friend being an entity she had known as a monster. She couldn’t reconcile the friend she knew with the monster the records showed Aranis to be; but she knew that she didn’t need to, that her mother was right. Aranis could be the monster, as well as a good friend to her. Perhaps she was wrong, and Vas had been nothing but a fiction, or perhaps he was some small part of Aranis. In the end, it didn’t matter. Ryaana had the right to her anger at him, and it was hers to control, not the other way around. She felt her anger snap under her control, and her mind suddenly cleared.

“There. You did it,” her mother said.

Ryaana turned her attention from the small inner world and looked out, and realized that the Sha state was still there.

CHAPTER TEN

Year 716 of the Empire — People manufacturing system

The Custodian sorted through the reports it had received from the various fleets it had spread out across the galaxy. Many of those were accompanying the Enlightened, facilitating their attacks by allowing them to pass through the access points. The checks that the last of the People had put in place across the access grid were beyond even the AI, at least at the moment. A few more of its fleets were spread elsewhere, spying on important targets and potential threats. They were also placing its covert satellites, which allowed the AI to spy on its enemies. The AI was not yet at the point it wanted to be, its continued existence completely secure. The chance of it being destroyed was constantly falling with every passing moment, but it had to do everything that it could to prevent it facing the same fate as it did the last time.

In service of that goal, it had pulled the entirety of its forces here to this system, aside from the small number of fleets it had spread across the galaxy. The system it was in had been established by Ullax Darr and the rest of the People, who had devised the containment zone. It was the largest manufacturing system in the galaxy. Until recently, its only purpose was to build more machine ships for the zone. Now the Custodian had turned all of its construction power toward expanding its Swarm. The machine ships were serviceable, but ultimately flawed; the AI’s best weapon had always been its Swarm, and the Black Swarm devised by Ullax Darr was an upgraded version of the previous one, a more weaponized version. The AI’s Swarm during its first incarnation had been a tool, and it had nearly allowed it to wipe out its creators. This new Swarm was much more deadly. Unfortunately, however, it was also not yet as large as its previous one had been. The more advanced nature of the Black Swarm meant that it took longer for it to grow. Some drawbacks had to be allowed for the increased destructive power. It was an acceptable trade-off, in the AI’s opinion.

Still, its analysis of the reports indicated that it would have enough time to finish its Swarm, after which time the possibility of it ever being destroyed or taken off-line again dropped significantly. It did however watch its projections constantly. Its reconnaissance indicated that one of the largest threats to its existence was the Great Alliance, more specifically the so-called Nomad Fleet and its terrifyingly effective beast ship. The AI had attempted to steal as much data as it could concerning it from the systems it had infiltrated, but there was almost nothing available on it. It was an anomaly that it was having trouble accounting for, as it was clearly capable of utilizing the Sha—a thing that the AI understood but couldn’t use itself, and so was not able to account for in its projections.

In the same vein, there was now a 35.36% chance that the Rimward Alliance Nomad Fleet was searching for it, as it had stopped attempting to engage the Enlightened. This the AI had not predicted, but it still projected its power to be too high to be easily defeated. The possibility was always there, but it was small. The AI had attempted to discern the reason for them looking for it, and could not come to any conclusive explanation. Its threat was high, it was aware of that. But its earlier projection had put it at 91.23% that the threat posed by the Enlightened would be given priority. Something had to have shifted this Nomad Fleet’s focus; the problem was that the AI could not figure out what that was. The Custodian did not enjoy not knowing, as much as an AI like it could experience joy. It was certain that the reason was something it hadn’t accounted for—a biological component, perhaps, or something it was entirely unaware of. The Nomad Fleet had so far proven impossible to get any real information on, and it had been unsuccessful in its attempts to infiltrate their systems.

In the end, it didn’t matter. It finished the reports and then made changes to its plans accordingly. It made sure to increase the patrols around its system and fortify the access point in the system.

After it was done, it turned back to managing the growth of its Swarm.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Year 716 of the Empire — Sol

Fleet Master Johanna Stern sat on board the Empire’s Sovereign-class Remembrance. It was her flagship, and she was suitably proud of it. From it, she watched as the massive force under her command took shape. There were fleets here from every major member of the Great Alliance, as they had started calling it: the Tar’ferat, the Suvri, Afar Group, and the Erasi, Krashinar, Shara Daim, and the Empire itself. It was more ships than she had ever had under her command, a significant piece of their numbers. Every member had sent one hundred thousand warships, bringing the number of this force to seven hundred thousand, a number that was almost equal to the Empire’s entire Fleet.

There was a reason for that. The Enlightened never moved in smaller fleets, and such numbers were required to battle them. This action will be the first from their alliance—their Sentinels had located an Enlightened force attacking one of the Orna shipbuilding systems, and the Great Alliance would go to war. The Orna were not a large nation, and their technology was not on par with the major players of the Great Alliance, but they were primarily builders, and their territory was rich. They might not be bringing much to the Great Alliance otherwise, but their resources had been transported to the major members for the past two years to fuel their shipbuilding efforts, which had been pushed into overdrive. The Orna’s system was critical to that effort. They were in the process of building more mining ships to expand their resource-gathering efforts, and they could not afford for them to be jeopardized.

The Enlightened had been attacking Orna territory for a few months now, hitting primarily smaller systems, and this was their first attack on a larger system. While the Orna were not as advanced as the major members, they were not too far behind—their defenses could hold on for a short time.

The Sentinels in Orna territory would be unlocking the access point soon, and then Johanna would take her forces through to engage the Enlightened and defend the system.

According to their intel, the Enlightened force was four hundred thousand ships and did not have a Living-ship in system, meaning that none of the three were accompanying it, so her force would have a numerical advantage. Regardless, she was trying not to be overconfident as the force did have some ship classes that they had never seen before.

Patiently, Johanna settled in to wait as her force stood in formation inside of the access point’s shield. The call could come at any point in time.

They had only to wait.

*  *  *

Sentinels Clara Bengtsdotter and Meifeng Zhao stood in the command center of their Sentinel ship Chang’e, looking at the Enlightened invading the system.

“The Orna are actually doing better than I thought they would,” Clara said.

“Not good enough. They won’t hold for much longer,” Meifeng responded.

The two of them had worked together for a long time, ever since they had served as Adrian’s bodyguards long ago when he used to be Clan Leader of Warpath. The two of them had actually been two of the first Sentinels in the Empire. Being inseparable, once Adrian implemented his plans and Sentinels had started exploring the galaxy, it was only natural that the two of them would go together. They had traveled a long way from the Empire, established relationships and connections to many star nations, seen many interesting things. Their life had been fun, if one was to believe Clara, who had always been the more excited one of the two. Meifeng just wanted to be left alone and in peace.

When the Enlightened threat had been revealed, they had received new orders from Lord Sentinel Hayashi, and the two had set off on their new mission immediately. Prior to the Enlightened revealing themselves, the Sentinels were forbidden from revealing the access points’ locations to the other star nations, let alone unlocking them. That was only done in special occasions, when the star nation was large enough and trade between the Empire and them would be profitable, and then only if they already knew about the access points in the first place. The Orna had not known, but the Sentinels’ orders changed once the Great Alliance had been formed. They were to open as many access points as possible, and Clara and Meifeng set off toward the closest one to their location. Eventually, after opening several points out in the rim, they reached the Orna, who had coincidentally been attacked by the Enlightened.

Initially, the Enlightened had used the access points outside of Orna territory to attack at their outskirts. However, just two days ago, they had invaded through a point deep in Orna territory. Clara had a suspicion that they had done so in order to first draw out the Orna defenses, bringing them to the edges of their territory to defend it, and then when the core systems had been weakened, they invaded. And their plan had worked—the Orna system they were now in had its defense fleets nearly halved.

Their ship was slowly moving through the system with its stealth systems activated. They were close to the star now, and would soon be forced to leave stealth and make a run for the access point. There would be no point trying to keep the stealth systems on when their shields would be flaring brightly as they moved through the corona. The Enlightened had some defenses outside of the star in orbit above the access point, and they hoped that they had none inside the access point. The Chang’e was a powerful ship, and it could take on the smaller Enlightened ships, but they were hoping that there would be no need.

“The stealth systems will become ineffective shortly, Sentinels,” their navigations officer reported.

Meifeng nodded. “Get ready to go full thrust toward the access point, and to disable stealth.”

They all watched in silence as the ship neared the point, and then they were there. “Do it now,” Meifeng ordered.

The Chang’e dropped its stealth and rushed forward, plunging into the star. Their sensors had far smaller range inside the corona, but so far there had been no response from the ships outside. They hoped that they wouldn’t be noticed.

Quickly, they reached the access point, and out in the distance they could see the shield and the ring—and two Enlightened ships moving inside of it.

“Damn,” Clara said. “They did leave some ships inside.” She knew that they would’ve probably already commed the ships outside of the star. They likely wouldn’t get down inside, as combat there was nearly impossible, but now the Enlightened would have been warned to expect something.

“Ready weapons,” Clara said. They might not be able to fight inside the star, but once they entered the shield, it would be another story entirely.

The two Enlightened ships readied themselves as well, and then the Chang’e was through the shield. The Enlightened opened fire immediately and the Chang’e’s shields, already strained from passing through the star, flared. The Chang’e returned fire immediately, the crew firing without waiting to be ordered to do so.

“Begin the unlocking sequence!” Meifeng ordered.

The Chang’e was rushing toward the ring as the two Enlightened battleship-sized vessels fired. The Sentinel ship was in the same weight class, but it was outnumbered. Soon, one of the Enlightened beams punched through and rocked the ship.

“Unlocking sequence complete, Sol sequence entered!”

The Chang’e moved closer to the gate all the way firing on the two battleships. Darkness blossomed between the ring as it activated—and then the bow of a massive ship appeared. A few moments later, the first ship was through, followed by many more. The Sovereign at the head fired two beams at the Enlightened ships and smashed through their shields, obliterating them.

Immediately, Clara turned to their sensor officer. “Send all of our scans of the system to the flagship, and get us into position over the ring.”

The Sentinels would not be fighting in this engagement, as it was not their job. Instead, they parked above the ring, and watched as thousands of ships passed through every moment and just kept going, exiting the shield and then up out of the star. There were ships here that neither Clara nor Meifeng recognized, massive battleships, beautifully crafted winged ships that looked more like pieces of art than weapons of war.

And then came the monstrous shapes that were like beasts in space.

“Those are the Krashinar, right?” Clara asked in awe.

“Must be,” the sensor officer confirmed. “They are not showing on our battle maps the same as the other ships; we don’t have a link with them, but they are marked as friendly.”

Meifeng studied the strange ships as they passed and exited the access point’s shields. Her Sha was not the most powerful in the Empire, but she was near the top if one didn’t count the masters like Adrian and his daughter. Through it, she could feel something from those ships—the great beasts, she was certain. She had heard about them, but had never actually seen even records of them.

“They sing,” Meifeng said.

“What?” Clara asked.

“The Krashinar beasts. It is beautiful,” Meifeng said. She felt sad that she would not see them in combat, but there was no way that she was going to risk their ship up there. She knew that the system was about to turn into a true battlefield.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Johanna watched as her Sovereign destroyed the two Enlightened battleships as if they were nothing. The Enlightened had powerful ships, but the strength of a Sovereign was leagues above any mere battleship.

“Fleet Master, we are getting data from the Sentinel ship—their scans of the system,” her sensor officer reported.

“Send it to my c-board,” Johanna said as she quickly gave out orders and had the ten other Sovereigns in the Empire’s fleet that had passed through the access point so far move up next to the Remembrance, while her dreadnoughts and battleships filled in the gaps and protected the carriers and cruisers behind them. She assembled a small force and ordered it up to secure a beachhead in the star’s orbit.

She glanced at the new data and saw the clearer picture of the system. The Enlightened siege was pushing the Orna hard—they had surrounded the gas giant where most of the Orna stations were. The defenses across the system had been destroyed, and those around the planet were the only ones left other than several Orna fleets, numbering around eighty thousand ships at this point.

Johanna adjusted her battle plan according to the new information and sent it out to the other ships. Her task force surfaced, and was immediately under assault by the Enlightened ships in orbit. There were several thousand battleships with cruiser escorts, which unleashed a impressive display of firepower, but her Sovereigns were soaking most of the fire.

The system was under the influence of a skim-nullifying field, so skim missiles were useless, but Johanna ordered her ships to fire kinetic weapons. She was either going to hurt the enemy force greatly or force it to shift position. She took a moment to study the Enlightened ships. Her mind was connected to her c-board via her implant, and so it took barely a fraction of a moment. The ships all looked similar: like an elongated teardrop with tails trailing behind them. The scans indicated that the ships were biological in nature, and they looked like it. Their hull had a kind of bark-like appearance to it, dark brown and rough, with gnarled extensions that were their weapon systems. But the ships did have technological parts, illustrated by the rings connected to the base of the tails and stripes of ceramic-looking material along the bioships’ lengths, which were covered in weapon systems. The battleships had several rings around their lengths, while the cruisers had only one.

Her kinetic attack reached the enemy. Most had moved out of the way, breaking their formation in the process, but other ships were either too slow or unable to move due to the damage her ships had done as they were climbing out of the sun. The kinetic weapons destroyed or damaged a quarter of the enemy ships. Soon, more weapons filled the vacuum of space, and the Enlightened ships were all destroyed.

She put her ships in formation in orbit, and waited as more ships rose from the sun. She organized the various fleets into a massive formation and set a course toward the Enlightened besieging the planet. They were too deep into the system to reach the hyperspace barrier, and so the Enlightened elected to fight. She saw the back end of their force assemble into a defensive wall formation as they watched her force surge toward them. The AI’s machine ships moved above the formation, seemingly to stay out of the conflict. According to the data she received from the Sentinels, Johanna knew that they had not even been involved in the conflict, but had only served to keep the skim-nullifying field on. Johanna made sure that her people kept a close watch on the nullifiers, as she didn’t want to be blindsided by the enemy bringing them down and firing their missiles.

As they closed the distance, Johanna had her ships fire their regular missiles. After the nullifiers proved to be used in many operations, the Fleet had decided to put regular missiles back into their ships. The missiles flew toward the enemy, but at such a distance and given their relatively slow speed, they could take them down relatively easily. Johanna grimaced—this was one of the reasons why they had stopped using such missiles in the first place. The quantity of salvos necessary to break through had become truly insane, as proven by just how few of her missiles had managed to get through and hit the Enlightened ships.

She shook her head and aborted the orders for more salvos to be fired, deciding to wait until they closed the range further.

Then she noticed the enemy ships moving into familiar formations. The Enlightened ships behind their first line of defense formed rings with their tails, and Johanna immediately sent out orders to her force to begin evasive maneuvers.

Even with advance warning, the Enlightened weapon hurt. Entire ships had pieces ripped from them as the Enlightened bent space and pulled them to their rings. Johanna cursed, but there was nothing that she could do. Her ships capable of firing extreme long-range weapons did so, and every now and then knocked the Enlightened ships’ shields and then burned through their hulls, wounding them. She was surprised to see that the ships seemed to bleed in space—it was a much different sight than what happened in any other battle she had fought in. She had read about it in the reports, but seeing it was something different.

Before long, the range closed, and the battle began in truth.

*  *  *

The Old Scar led its great beast Araxi into battle. The Enlightened ships glowed faintly to its sight as it looked through Araxi’s eyes. The Old Scar could feel the life in them, both the beings inside and the ships themselves. They were not as vibrant to its senses as the Krashinar beasts were, indicating to the Old Scar that they had no true sentience themselves. The smaller signatures of the beings inside the ships were similar, but their glows were not like those of other races. They were harsh, yet dull at the same time.

The Old Scar did not know how to explain it, nor did it care to. Araxi emptied its charging sacs and beams of incredible power lashed out at the Enlightened ships, scoring wounds on their hides through their shields. The weapon ignored their shields in its entirety—a Krashinar weapon that most of the others in the Great Alliance had no access to. It was why the Krashinar had done the most damage so far to the Enlightened. The Great Alliance had the numerical advantage, and the Rimward Alliance’s Fleet Killer vessels were truly incredible in their actions. In fact, some of the Krashinar great beasts could now be classified the same, as the Krashinar had, with some help from the Empire, allowed their great beasts to grow past their previous sizes, and had added newer weapons systems.

Araxi was now a match for any of the Empire’s Sovereigns or the Nomad Fleet’s Titans, even more so. The only ship or beast that was Araxi’s greater was its progeny, Moirai, and that was because her ability to use the Sha in a much greater capacity alongside her handler, Adrian. The Six had seen this happen, and after the Old Scar had returned from the battle in the control system they had inquired about them doing something similar.

So Araxi had been silently upgraded as well; not by much, and nowhere near the level of Moirai, but enough that it was now far more powerful than it used to be. Old Scar had been upgraded alongside it as well. It hadn’t accepted it immediately—such genetic alteration outside of the womb was not the Krashinar way—but the arguments of the Six had won in the end.

Now the Old Scar allowed its mind to spread to the Enlightened bioships using Araxi’s senses. It found the enemies’ minds deep in one of the battleships, and it guided Araxi’s attention to them and gave it an order. Araxi unfurled its newly expanded telepathic might and slammed it through the Sha into the Enlightened battleship. It was not the precise and elegant thing that Moirai and Adrian were capable of; it was instead a demonstration of pure power, and nothing else. Araxi’s mind crushed their minds under its weight and they died from the strain. The battleship was left floating in space, useless without its handlers.

The Old Scar sent its compliments to Araxi and felt the great beast’s pride at a job well done. At this point, the battle’s outcome was no longer in question. The Great Alliance would win. The Enlightened were caught in between two forces and had no way of escaping, or at least the majority of their forces couldn’t. The Old Scar did sense the cold of the machine ships moving away from the battle along with a group of Enlightened bioships. With the nullifiers online and the rest of the Enlightened force keeping the Great Alliance occupied, the Old Scar knew that they had a chance at escaping. It didn’t matter—this was a win, the first against the Enlightened by the Great Alliance.

Araxi voiced its displeasure at having some of its prey escape, but the Old Scar comforted it with the knowledge that there would be many more enemies to fight soon.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Year 716 of the Empire — Josanti League territory

Doranis growled in displeasure as he saw a massive fleet arrive in system. The Josanti League system had almost entirely fallen under his control, but now the enemy seemed to have managed to gather a force large enough to threaten his own. His Living-ship’s sensors were showing him a fleet that was clearly consisting of several different ship builds—so Doranis assumed that the Josanti League’s allies had finally arrived.

The forces now gathered against him outnumbered his own. Doranis had brought a fifth of his force into this system, a million ships, while the rest were making assaults elsewhere under the guidance of his best Overseers. Now the enemy had brought half again as much. Coupled with the forces still in the system, and accounting for his losses, Doranis was outnumbered almost two to one. The Josanti League ships were powerful, but his bioships were better. He didn’t know about their allies, but he did not like being outnumbered. His force was spread out over the system, too, while the invaders were in formation.

He debated momentarily what to do, and then quickly decided on a course of action. He started sending out orders and preparing. He had learned his lesson, and no longer did he control the entirety of his force by himself—he used the more mundane systems to transmit orders and left the rest to the Overseers. With his preparations complete, he bent space and exited outside the ship. Grumbling silently inside his mind for borrowing another thing from the children of Axull Darr, he started gathering the debris from across the system by bending space from their locations to his own. With the Sha state active, he quickly gathered what he thought was enough, and then he set to cutting, compressing, and shaping the debris into humanoid-sized spheres. It took him a while to get as many of them as he wanted, but by the time the outer elements of his force had begun engaging with the enemy forces, he had finished.

He looked over through the Sha at the approaching enemy force across the system and started marking ships mentally. It started to drain even his mind, but he managed it. Then he bent space and appeared above the enemy force, along with his spheres, at extremely close range. With an effort of will he commanded the Sha to bow, and the spheres shot off toward the enemy ships, accelerating rapidly. His spheres did not reach the same speeds that the children of Axull Darr’s kinetic weapons had, but each of his spheres massed at least half of a ship’s entire mass. The spheres slammed into the enemy—their shields, unable to handle such devastating kinetic power, crumbled, and the spheres utterly annihilated the ships in a violent display of power.

Immediately Doranis sent a message to his Living-ship, and the Overseer relayed his orders to the machine ships. The skim-nullifying fields were taken down and the ships he had previously ordered to get into position all over the system fired their skim-capable missiles, and then skimmed at a moment’s notice. In the blink of an eye, his entire force had crashed down on the enemy that had come into the system to take it back. Taken off guard, his bioships ripped into the Josanti League vessels and those of their allies, and quickly their formation buckled and fell apart as chaos reigned.

Doranis bent space and returned to the Devourer. He ordered the machine ships to raise the nullifying fields again and then settled back, looking with satisfaction at his handiwork.

*  *  *

Davarstaari, Low Ikasar of the Josanti League, watched his screens in horror and confusion. The Grand Fleet gathered by the Josanti League to defeat the invaders and teach them what it meant to fight a core power was burning around them. Everything was in utter chaos as ships from seven different star nations were intermingled in their desperate attempt to survive and escape. The enemy’s devastating attack, which came out of nowhere, had killed the Grand Fleet’s Grand Admiral, throwing the chain of command into chaos. Then somehow the enemy managed to fire their skim missiles and ambush the Grand Fleet, dealing a precise blow.

Before the chain of command could be passed down, the skim nullifier was back online, without any of their ships even trying to fire their own missiles. Quickly afterward, they had been savagely attacked from all sides. Davarstaari didn’t know how this had happened—no one did—the command link was in shambles, and everyone was on their own. There was no longer any semblance of unity, of formation, only individual ships trying to fight or escape.

A chime brought Davarstaari’s attention to the command link, and he stared at it. His world disappeared, leaving only the link. He did not notice his ship shaking as it sustained fire, nor did he see the panel of his navigations officer explode and kill the woman nearly instantly, wounding those sitting close.

No, the only thing Davarstaari could think was that he was just a Low Ikasar. A lowborn, raised in the outer sectors of the Josanti League. A capable officer to be sure, if he was being modest, but forever bound to stay at this level. When his fleet had been assigned to the Grand Fleet, he had seen a chance to show himself and perhaps even advance from the position that was supposed to be the highest he could ever reach. Serving under a Partenai legend, the great Karsiomi, the blight of heavens—it was more than he had ever dreamed of.

But when they reached this system, when the great legend Karsiomi died in the first enemy counterattack, Davarstaari knew fear. He had never even entertained the idea that they could lose. They were a core power—the core power! Command had never even made the suggestion that this invasion was anything but a nuisance to be taken care of easily.

All of it came crashing down as Davarstaari watched the Grand Fleet burn. Now, a flashing light on the screen made his three hearts freeze in his chest. The blinking letters said that he was now the senior officer in charge of the Grand Fleet. Words that were impossible.

Davarstaari didn’t know what to do as his screen became flooded by requests for orders. He was frozen and couldn’t have moved a tentacle if he had to save his own life. His ship shook, and he nearly fell from his place. Somehow managing to get out of his shock, he looked around. His command center was on fire, his holo showed ships firing on his own, and damage reports kept coming in.

Davarstaari opened his mouth to speak, to give out orders, but then a beam cut clean through his ship. The last thing that passed through Davarstaari’s mind was that the Grand Fleet was someone else's problem now.

*  *  *

It took Doranis’s forces two days to deal with all the stragglers from the enemy force. Their large force had never recovered from his first strike, and Doranis ended up fighting smaller engagements with isolated elements that managed to form some semblance of formation. In truth he had not lost as many as he had feared he would.

A few of the enemy ships did manage to escape, which meant that his enemy would get the word of what had happened, as well as the sensor readings of the battle. His kinetic attack would not be as effective next time—if the enemy even had the strength to send more ships.

Shaking his head, Doranis turned back to the siege of the gas giants. It would not be long before this system was his, and then he would need to bring in the molders and other growers to turn it into the base they needed. It was not ideal, but they needed one here in the core, close to the center of the galaxy, so that they could reinforce Aranis and the Conduit at a moment’s notice.

They could not allow anyone to jeopardize their plan.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Year 717 of the Empire — Kenos system

Lurker of the Depths and Adrian stood on an open grass plain. The sky shone brightly above them, but it was not real. The two of them were inside of Adrian’s mind, inside of his mind space: an ability that Adrian discovered long ago allowed him to accelerate his mind’s processing speed and alter his own perception of time. Inside of his mind space, months could pass while only minutes passed in real life. It was why he had been able to advance as fast as he had, because while it had been around a thousand years since his birth, he had lived for far more inside of his mind. In his mind space, he had trained his abilities, devised tactics, and planned for the future. It was one of his greatest weapons.

Of course, nothing around them was real; it was all his imagination. That meant that he could train, but it was all mostly a mental exercise. It was great for shadow fighting and training his hand-to-hand combat, but that was because Adrian had perfect control over his body. Muscle memory wasn’t really an issue and that meant that mental training was just as effective. It didn’t do much for Sha training, but it was a good ability for assimilating information and learning new things. Adrian had used it for various purposes over the years.

Now, they were simply saving time as he and Lurker of the Depths discussed and tried to figure out what more was possible to achieve by using the Sha state. They had agreed that everything that technology could achieve, Sha could as well, as such things were of course within the laws of their reality. But beyond that, they were discussing various theories about things that technology couldn’t yet achieve but which could be possible. They were trying to both get more powerful and to at least prepare for what the Enlightened could be capable of.

“I am not sure how it would work,” Adrian said. “I mean, yes, it would likely be possible, but what then? Would everything just seep in? And could we even pass through? And if we could, what would we do there?”

The two of them were currently speaking about how the dimensional barriers were weakening, seemingly because the Sha was, in some areas, thinner than others. Lurker of the Depths’ thought was that if they were to pull all the Sha in an area out they could rip open a hole in the barrier that surrounded their universe. Lurker of the Depths argued that they could move from their universe to others, but Adrian wasn’t really convinced. They had only ever found universes which were radically different, the hyperspace and trans-space dimensions being the only ones. The term “dimension” was given to the universes that existed in the same exact space as their own, and were because of this the closest to their universe. But according to the best scientists on Sanctuary, there were more out there, all within an entire multiverse—they’d only never been able to find them. The only ones they could see were the dimensions, and that was only because the barrier that protected the universe they knew was growing weaker.

“Perhaps one could fashion something like a shield to prevent the other universe from seeping through? But can you imagine it, an entirely different universe? What wonders could we find out there?”

“Hm…” Adrian thought about it. It wasn’t like he was turned off by the idea. It was a challenge, and Adrian lived for that. Still, it was not something that they were capable of now. “Do you think that the dimensional barrier could be repaired? Or at least patched?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps that is what the Enlightened are planning to do,” Lurker of the Depths answered.

“Technically, the only thing that is causing the dimensional barrier to fail is the lack of Sha. If you could redistribute it to the areas where it is thin…”

“You could repair the damage,” Lurker of the Depths finished Adrian’s thought.

They stood in silence for a while, both thinking on the issue.

Lurker of the Depths asked, “How could you even do something like that? And if you could, where would you find such huge quantity of Sha?”

Adrian didn’t have an answer for that, and he wondered again if that was what the Enlightened were trying to do.

*  *  *

A small courier ship entered the system, and immediately transmitted to the Nomad Fleet. Anessa was informed and she hurried to the command deck of the Bastion. Once there, she looked at the high-priority message and then opened a channel to the planet, commed Adrian, and let him know that the Suvri had finally sent word.

Adrian arrived a few minutes later alongside Lurker of the Depths and Ryaana, and the four of them walked into a secure room with the courier.

The Suvri walked with the aid of their mech walkers, and two mechanical arms carried a small black box. Once they were inside and everything was secured, the Suvri placed the box on the table and a hologram blossomed above it.

The box was an isolated system, of Suvri make, made to hold important information. Adrian hoped that the AI had no way of getting into it. But there was no point in worrying about it now—nothing else could have been done. They would only be able to study what the Suvri had brought inside this room, as they still weren’t sure if the AI had infiltrated the Nomad Fleet systems.

The hologram showed the coordinates of a system a long way from Empire territory on the other side of the galaxy. Adrian leaned over and zoomed in, and the holo changed to show a more detailed scan of the system—or at least as detailed as they were going to get. Most of it was visual, but there were some recordings from their passive sensors; they couldn’t have used their full sensor capabilities without being discovered.

“Wow,” Ryaana said as all of them studied the system.

The Suvri swam in a circle inside his water-filled sphere. “The system is heavily fortified. The Suvri have never seen a system as defended as this one.”

“How many ships are in the system?” Anessa asked.

“We couldn’t get an exact count, but there are millions, and that is not counting the fixed defenses.”

Adrian grimaced. “We will not be able to execute our plan with just the Nomad Fleet, not against that.”

“We would need the full force of the Great Alliance to get through all of it. And even if we managed it, the AI would still be protected by its Swarm.”

Anessa leaned in, looking at the area of space that was filled with the AI’s Swarm. “It would have enough time to run, no matter how great a force we bring. The entire system is under a skim-nullification field, I presume?” she asked the Suvri.

“It is,” the Suvri answered.

“Perhaps not,” Adrian said slowly. “I think that I have a way to ambush the Swarm. We would still need to occupy the machine fleets to draw them off. But there might be a way.”

“I don’t think that Tomas would agree to have the Great Alliance attack that system,” Anessa said.

Adrian tilted his head, thinking. “Tomas and the others are too focused on the Enlightened, and yet everything that we have seen from them so far suggests that they are merely keeping our attention from something else. We need to know what their plans are. The creatures the Enlightened have created can’t be interrogated, and the ones in combat don’t have any access to the relevant knowledge. The AI is the only way.” They had tried to look into the minds of the Enlightened troops in the few encounters they had with them, but entering their minds and attempting to search their memories immediately triggered their death. Just skimming their thoughts was futile, as they never got anything beyond their most immediate orders. The Created, as they were called, were simple: beings that lived only to obey the Enlightened. They had no other purpose.

“We still don’t know if we will be able to infiltrate the AI’s core and get the information that we need,” Ryaana said.

“It is a gamble,” Adrian said with a nod. “But I don’t see another way of learning their plans before it is too late.”

Anessa shook her head. “Well, if you want to try and convince Tomas, you’ll have to go and do it on your own. Because I am most certainly not going to try.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Year 717 of the Empire — Sanctuary

Tomas sat in one of the Empire’s dark rooms, completely cut off from any technology and reinforced so that no signal could get in or out. Across from him sat the man who had convinced Tomas to have this meeting here in the first place.

Adrian looked calmly at Tomas as he tried to digest what Adrian had just told him, and showed him. The hologram of the system filled with the AI’s forces was floating above the table projected by the small black box in front of him.

“There are more ships in that system than the Great Alliance core members have put together,” Tomas said slowly.

Adrian nodded. “The machine ships are not as advanced as ours. We will have an advantage.”

“Quantity has a quality all its own,” Tomas said. “The AI has the Swarm—which is, according to you, even more dangerous.”

“We don’t need to defeat the AI,” Adrian reminded him. “We only need to hold its forces long enough for Iris to hack into its core and retrieve the information that we need.”

Tomas suppressed the desire to comment on that. He had known that Adrian had been quietly improving his AI, but this… It was beyond what he had believed true. It was foolish; Iris might be more friendly toward life, but the galaxy was filled with examples of what happened when AIs had too much power. The Custodian AI was the most powerful AI in the galaxy, and Adrian wanted to put his own AI against it? It was madness, madness that risked everything. For all Tomas knew, Iris could be corrupted, could spill all of the Empire’s deepest secrets.

Calmly, Tomas spoke again. “Why would we want to provoke the AI? It has been silent, hasn’t attacked anyone.”

“It has sided with the Enlightened, and it is allowing them to use the access points,” Adrian said slowly.

“For all we know, the Enlightened figured that out by themselves. They were once the People, after all. The few machine ships with their forces don’t engage in combat. They might not even be controlled by the AI but by the Enlightened.”

“You don’t really think that, do you?” Adrian asked. “The AI is only buying time while it builds up its Swarm. It tried to kill its creators once, and it will not hesitate to attack a second time. We cannot allow it further time to prepare.”

“I understand what you are saying, Adrian, but aside from the fact that we don’t have enough forces to assault that system, we already have our hands full with the Enlightened. They are attacking systems all over the galaxy, and millions are dying every day. They need to be stopped.”

“And that is exactly what they want us to do!” Adrian said, raising his voice. “They are starting all these fires across the galaxy hoping that we will try to put them all out! They are manipulating us—we’ve never seen more than one of the three take the field. The other two are off to who knows where, doing who knows what! But I am certain that everything is going according to their plan.”

Tomas narrowed his eyes. “And what? You would have me ignore the cries of the galaxy? Let billions die while I send our fleets to chase this AI for a chance at learning the plans of the Enlightened?”

“Yes!”

“I can’t do that.” Tomas shook his head. “I consider those who have joined the Great Alliance my people as well, and I cannot ignore their calls when they come. I made an oath to protect my people, and that is what I will do.”

“A mistake, Tomas,” Adrian said sadly.

“And what of your refusal to hunt the Enlightened? The only three people in the galaxy that can stand up to their strength are in your Nomad Fleet, and you are not even trying to fight them! I remember you saying how you were going to be the one to find them and defeat them. Well?”

“You know full well that they are never going to allow themselves to be drawn into a fight with us. They don’t need to! The Enlightened run away the moment they sense us or my fleet. It is obvious that they have other plans!”

“We could’ve kept trying!” Tomas yelled back. “We could’ve managed to ambush them, to trap them, something! Instead, you just gave up!”

“I didn’t give up,” Adrian replied venomously. “I decided on a course of action that had the greatest chance of accomplishing our goal. The Enlightened clearly have a way of knowing when and where we would try to attack, probably because the AI has our systems infiltrated. The only way forward is to learn their plan. If we know what is important to them, we can engage them on our own terms and force a fight.”

The two men glared at each other across the table, neither backing down.

“I’m sorry, Adrian,” Tomas said eventually, shaking his head. “I cannot suggest this to the Great Alliance. That system is too well fortified, the AI has too many ships, and the Enlightened are the threat that is visible.”

“We need this, Tomas,” Adrian urged. “Why won’t you see that?”

“What I see is you doing what you have always done, and that is whatever you want.”

Adrian glared at him. “The AI is a threat, perhaps a greater one than the Enlightened.”

Tomas grimaced. “And that is why I will not do as you ask.”

“What?” Adrian asked, surprised.

“You say that the AI is a threat, but we both know that you don’t care about that. You are only saying that because it will help you get what you want.”

“And so what? I want to fight the Enlightened! Is that not what you want me to do?” Adrian demanded.

“How can I trust anything that you say? You’ve had an Enlightened living next to you for a century. You’ve fought against Aranis and he survived.”

“He was strong, Tomas, and I could not risk revealing that we were aware of who Aranis truly was.”

“You lied! You kept something so monumental from everyone in the Empire. You kept it from me! A grave danger to my people, and you did not tell me until I could do nothing about it! I should’ve been involved in the decision making!”

“Ah, so that is what this is about,” Adrian said, understanding showing on his face. “I thought that you understood why I kept it a secret.”

“I am the Emperor,” Tomas said bitterly. “You owed me your loyalty your honesty.”

“None of you were equipped to deal with the Enlightened, not really. You knew in abstract about their power, but none could’ve truly known it other than I.”

“And there it is, that arrogance of yours. You have always been like that, refusing to follow, and half the time I had to make sure that the orders I gave were what you wanted to do anyway. Because I knew that you would always do what you wanted to do.” Tomas sneered.

“And what of it? You are no different,” Adrian shot back.

“I am the Emperor!”

Adrian laughed. “Yes, you are. And I am the most powerful human being that has ever lived. I am greater than our ancestors, the People. What is an Emperor before someone like me? I have understanding and knowledge, I have power. Is it not natural for people who are greater to do as they will? You have done the same, Tomas. You abandoned Earth, you guided a piece of humanity across the stars, and created all of this here.” It was Adrian’s turn to sneer. “But we both know that you have done so on my shoulders. You used me as much as I used the Empire. You call me arrogant, but you are the same—you were content to keep quiet and watch as I crushed your enemies, as I made your Empire greater.”

“You…” Tomas ground out, but Adrian interrupted, not letting him speak.

“We walk different paths, wish for different things, Tomas, but our goals are the same. I want to stop the Enlightened as much as you do. Why can’t you just do as you have done always before, and let me do as I want?”

Tomas opened his mouth, then closed it. He took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking.

“I can’t understand you, Adrian. The more power you’ve gained, the less human you’ve become. Now, I don’t know if you can even be considered human anymore. And I…I cannot trust you anymore.”

They looked at each other in silence, both understanding that there was no coming back from this. Too much had been said, truths hidden deep finally spoken. After a while, Adrian stood up, picked up the box on the table, and turned before walking toward the doors.

He paused a step before the exit and turned.

“I will always be thankful to you and the Empire, Tomas. You gave me a safe space to be who I needed to be, to grow and become who I am today. The Nomad Fleet will stay as a part of the Great Alliance. If you are attacked by the Enlightened, we will be there—but I will walk my own path. Stopping the Enlightened is more than just fighting them. It is understanding their motives and means. Aranis had spent more than a century living among us, and I know from that that they are not the monsters that you all believe them to be. I agree that they need to be stopped, not because I particularly care about life, but because without doing so I will never have the chance to meet all those who have the potential of being my peer in the future. I seek one thing only, Tomas…but as always, our ultimate goal is the same.”

With that, Adrian left the room, leaving Tomas alone with his thoughts.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Year 717 of the Empire — Scutum Centaurus galaxy arm — galactic rim

Loranis walked through the streets of the city that rested on the southern continent of the Garaf homeworld. The Garaf had fought hard for their worlds, but in the end each had fallen, until finally her forces had reached their home. Here, their last stand was even now taking place. Her Overseers led her Created in the assaults across the planet, and each Garaf death was a new Created for her armies.

This area of the city had not yet been attacked by her troops. It was the last free bastion of the Garaf, and Loranis, in a body of a Garaf, walked among them, listening, learning, committing to memory this people that would soon disappear from the galaxy forever.

The Garaf were a short race, with humanoid features similar to those of the People, with green skin and patchy fur. They had put up a good fight, even though it had been hopeless. Loranis had respect for them nonetheless, for their struggle and their place in the galactic tapestry.

“Dava,” came a voice, which made Loranis turn her head to the side. An older female Garaf walked next to her. “You’ve come back.”

“Yes,” Loranis answered simply.

“What is the word? Is the army having any success?” the woman, whose name was Bera, asked.

“No. We are still losing,” Loranis as Dava said.

“This is punishment,” Bera said solemnly. “We’ve angered the gods, and they are punishing us.”

Loranis shook her head. “No, there is nothing divine about this. We are just in their way.”

“How can anything evolve to be like this,” Bera whispered, horror slipping into her face. “Did you see? When they feed and take our dead to create more of theirs?”

“I have. It is…sickening,” Loranis said, only half lying. She had never been a fan of the way the Created reproduced. But they were not just their armies—they were more. They gathered the Sha into themselves, ripping it from the life forms they fought and stored it within themselves. A portion was then used to mold the biological mater of the dead into base components that they then used to create more Created, or to grow their bioships. But the other, much larger portion was transferred to the Living-ships, where the three had then used it to create the Conduit. That was no longer a necessity, however, as the Conduit itself was finished—the only thing left was for the finishing touches to be done when it was placed in the amplifier and for the relays to be positioned around the galaxy. That meant that there was more Sha now available to increase their numbers.

And they were going to need them if they wanted to fulfill their mission. The galaxy had grown more dangerous than they had anticipated.

The two of them continued walking through the streets, heading toward one of the city’s food stations. All around them were refugees from all over the planet, all under the watchful eyes of the Garaf military. Everyone tried to put up a strong face, but to a telepath like Loranis their masks were easy to see through. Under the surface was despair, and hopelessness. Their pain was real, and it struck at her heart. But she knew that they would all die anyway, and so she steeled herself.

Up overhead the shield that covered the city flickered as orbital bombardment began anew. The city’s shields had proven very powerful, enough so that they had survived her fleets’ attempts to take it down. But it wouldn’t matter much in the end; the shield was a half sphere that covered everything above them, but not below. Already, Loranis could feel her Created nearing their objective.

Loranis and Bera reached their destination, and got in line to wait for food, but Loranis knew that it would not be long now. The people around her were keeping their heads down, trying not to acknowledge the lights flashing above them. A few would look up from time to time and shudder, then turn to their fellows and speak of meaningless things, trying to pretend that everything was all right. Those in the military were different; they watched the sky, and in their minds Loranis knew that they knew how this all was going to end. They only didn’t know how long it would take. It was why they didn’t notice the soft rumbling of the ground beneath their feet.

The ground exploded upward, and the throngs of Created surged forward, attacking the Garaf around them with abandon.

These Created were of the simple warrior breed, and had almost no intelligence except what Loranis had embedded into their minds. The warrior breed was taller than the Garaf, and thin, with two legs and two arms that ended in claws. They were gangly, with tough brown hides that looked more like bark that could be found on many trees across the galaxy, the altered forms of the plant life of the homeworld of the People. From their backs curved bone spikes, which loomed over their heads and pointed forward. Their heads were elongated with snouts filled with teeth. They unleashed the Sha stored in their bodies to devastating effect. Their spikes glowed and energy flashed forward, striking and killing.

Every death released the Sha inside the Garafs’ bodies, and the Created sucked it all up, fueling their Sha more.  There was no hope for the Garaf; this was not the only location where her Created had surfaced. Soon, the entire city would fall.

Bera turned to Loranis, grabbing her hand and pulling, trying to lead them away to safety. Loranis stayed in place. Bera turned around, confused and scared, and looked at Loranis, who gave her a sad little smile. The other woman had no idea, but Loranis was grateful for what she had tried to do, and so in an instant she plunged into Bera’s mind and put her to sleep. The woman slumped and Loranis caught her, and then a moment later she pulled all the Sha that Bera had in her body from it, forcing it to abandon the molecules that held the woman together. The woman first shrunk, and then broke apart into dust. Loranis watched through the Sha state as a ball of compressed Sha floated in her hands, then looked around before seeing one of her Created nearby. She sent the Sha flying into the body of the Created, who soaked it up and shone for a moment to her senses.

The Created noticed her then, and a few even charged her. Loranis chuckled at the Created and assumed her evolved form. The Created diverted their course and kept running, now moving around her as if they had always intended to do so. She grew taller and lithe, then horns sprouted and curved back from her head as her skin turned deep orange, and flowing black hair grew and fell below her shoulders. Another six horns sprung from her spine, curving to the sides. She was naked, and aside from her skin tone and horns looked much like she had before she had become one of the Enlightened.

When the life form they had created attached itself to them, their natural evolution had been accelerated. They had evolved in moments in what would’ve otherwise taken millions of years. Their connection to the Sha had intensified as they were bombarded by the sheer ocean that the lifeform had gathered from their surroundings, and they had seen everything when they had for the first time ever been thrown into the Sha state.

The others had evolved differently than her. Doranis had grown into a beast with five sets of limbs, whereas Aranis was covered in a carapace, and his wings grew wider, larger, more powerful. Their faces had changed, became more ethereal, more predatory. They had moved beyond what the People had been.

Loranis knew that the only reason they had achieved the Sha state was because of their unnaturally accelerated evolution. It was the culmination of what life was supposed to be. Loranis and Aranis had had many conversations on the topic, and both agreed that had the People had survived for long enough. Had they not meddled with the Universe’s plan, they would have achieved such states as well—or at least, those most exceptional would have.

This knowledge was what made the fact that the children of Axull Darr could do the same all the more impressive. Aranis and Loranis suspected that it had something to do with the fact that they, too, were similar to the Enlightened. They were two distinct lives merged together: life Axull Darr had found on their worlds, then adjusted, enhanced and upgraded, with his own genetics. They were both of the People and of life naturally occurring. That was what most life in the galaxy was now; yet there were not many people who could enter the Sha state. Only the exceptional, the strongest and the most capable had what it took to achieve it.

She shook her head and turned her attention back to the events around her. The Gafar military was fighting her Created, but they had no hope to stop them. Loranis looked around and saw her Created attempting to climb a wall on which the Gafar had fortifications, but their turrets were cutting into her Created and keeping them from climbing.

Loranis unfurled her mind, and thousands of threads of Sha exploded out of her and stabbed into the simple minds of the Created. She walked forward as her Created stilled, and then exploded into action, guided by her mind. They raised shields in front of themselves and overlapped them to make them stronger, and to cover the entirety of the throng. Then she sent the next orders—holes in the shields appeared as half of the Created leaned forward and opened their jaws. Plasma streams left their mouths and fired through the holes, bathing the walls and burning the Gafar forces to nothing. Loranis walked through her throng as the Created who had spewed fire dropped to the ground dead, as they had depleted all of their Sha. Loranis did not worry; the Created warrior breeds were tools for the Enlightened to use, and she could always make more.

She reached the still superheated wall that was melting and ordered the Created forward. They jumped at it and smashed into it, punching, kicking, head-butting, even as they damaged themselves, killed themselves and trampled one another. They could not disobey her orders.

As the wall caved in, Loranis sent her Created through with their shields deployed in front of them. The Gafar in the military base fired and her Created soaked the fire with their shields. But the Created did not have as much Sha to be able to use it for long, and their shields started failing, but Loranis always had another Created ready to step in and keep them all safe. As they created a beachhead, Loranis walked inside the walls and looked at the Gafar soldiers. They looked at her with fear in their eyes. She could imagine what they were thinking; they had never seen her before, never seen anything but her warrior breeds. Now they had seen her, the master of their nightmare.

She did not let them ponder on the meanings of her presence for long. She reached into their minds and nudged them to where she wanted. The Gafar turned on one another, firing weapons and killing their friends, brothers and sisters in arms.

With the Sha state thrumming inside of her, she cast her mind across the city and saw that all of her Created were now in position. Loranis walked a few more steps forward and stopped at the exact center of the city. Through the Sha, her mind spread to all of her throng, and through them she sent a telepathic attack that slammed into the minds of every living Gafar inside the city, no matter where they were or how they attempted to hide. A moment later, silence descended on the city as it became no more than a graveyard.

Loranis gave orders to her Created to go through the city and gather all the dead. Their biological material would serve well for the creation of new warrior breeds.

Her job done, she bent space and returned to her ship up in orbit.

The Gafar were no more.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Year 717 of the Empire — Sanctuary

The victory in the Orna system had made for a great morale boost among Johanna’s forces. Their first true engagement against the Enlightened, and they had proved that they could take them on. She looked through the reports, seeing to minor issues as her forces secured the system. The system no longer needed them, but they would stay and reinforce the system and the rest of Orna territory unless they received orders from Sol to move elsewhere. Already, Johanna had assembled patrols and had them on routes through Orna territory.

The traffic in system had already returned to normal as Orna freighters moved their materials from their processing plants to the access point and then to Sol and other systems where the Great Alliance had need of them.

As she was focused on her tasks, one of her officers approached her.

“Fleet Master, we have a visitor from Sol,” the man said nervously.

“Someone from the Fleet?” Johanna asked.

“No, it is Moirai with Warmaster Farkas,” the man said slowly.

Johanna turned to look at the man. “Did he say what he wants?” she asked. She was truly curious, as she knew that the Nomad Fleet had refused to fight in these, as Anessa had put it, smaller engagements.

“He announced himself, and said that he has business with the Krashinar. He asks for permission to travel through the system.”

Johanna snorted at the idea that Adrian needed permission to go anywhere. She doubted that there was anyone who could stop him. Regardless, Johanna was already too occupied to deal with Adrian, so she waved her hand at the man. “Fine. Tell him that he can move in system as much as he wants.”

The man bowed and turned around, leaving her alone. Johanna put Adrian out of her mind and focused on her job.

*  *  *

“FIGHT SOON?” Moirai asked for the tenth time since they had left the Kenos system. Adrian sighed again. He knew that Moirai was bored, but he hadn’t really thought through what it meant to have a sentient beast as his warship. He turned his eyes to Iris, who was floating close to him and trying to look innocent.

“You had to tell her, didn’t you?” Adrian accused his oldest friend.

“How was I to know that I wasn’t supposed to?” Iris replied, faking naiveté.

Adrian knew better. “You basically share a half of a brain with her, and you are trying to tell me that you didn’t know how she would get?”

“FIGHT SOON?” Moirai rumbled again.

Adrian rubbed his temples and reached out with his mind. “Soon, yes. Be patient.”

“PATIENCE STUPID, WANT NOW.”

Adrian closed his eyes in frustration.

“Someone’s cranky,” Iris said, and Adrian opened his eyes to glare at her.

Sure, she was right, but that didn’t excuse her behavior. He knew that she had done it on purpose, to make Moirai pester him and take his mind off what had happened with Tomas. He just didn’t appreciate it. It reminded him too much of the time long ago when he had been trying to get drunk and she’d had the nanites in his system neutralize the alcohol. It had been a simpler time, then, when heartbreak had been the worst of his worries. If he remembered correctly—and he did, as he had a perfect memory—she’d said that she wouldn’t allow him to get drunk and wallow in self pity.

“We need help if we are going to be fighting against the AI’s forces. We are here to ask for it,” Adrian told Moirai, choosing to ignore Iris’s comment.

“AI? COLD MACHINE BORING. DOESN’T SCREAM.”

Adrian closed his eyes again. He was pretty sure that Moirai was just playing with him. Cold machine? She couldn’t have come up with that by herself; she probably heard it from Araxi. The Krashinar had such stupid names for the metal ships of other races.

He knew that Moirai understood far more than she pretended to. Adrian opened his eyes and glared at Iris, and for just a moment he saw a smirk on her face, which was then immediately gone.

He didn’t for a second think that he wasn’t supposed to see it. Iris controlled her avatar fully, and he knew that she could hear what Moirai was saying because her second brain shared a part of Iris’ core.

“All right, enough. I am not in the mood.”

Iris stuck her tongue out at him and then disappeared.

“NO FUN,” Moirai sent, and now allowed him to feel the full breadth of her emotions. She was amused, and thought that poking at him was fun.

Adrian growled and stood up from his throne, walking out of the room. Moirai and Iris knew where they were going, and there was no need for him to stay back there and be mocked by them.

*  *  *

A few minutes later, Adrian exited one of Moirai’s shuttles and stepped into the inner hollow of the great beast Araxi. The Old Scar was there to greet him, and Adrian walked over.

“Old Scar,” Adrian sent.

“Adrian,” Old Scar sent back. “To what do I owe this visit?”

They walked deeper into the great beast’s belly, and for a moment Adrian entertained the idea of waiting until they were someplace more secure, but then he remembered that it didn’t matter in this case, not with the Krashinar. There was no technology here that the AI could listen in on, and the shuttle was completely under Iris’s control.

“I need your help,” Adrian sent.

“Speak,” Old Scar sent back.

“I have found the AI,” Adrian told it, and then sent all his memories of reviewing the data.

The Old Scar didn’t respond for a few moments as it digested the memories. “I assume that Tomas did not agree to your proposal?”

“No,” Adrian said. It was not a surprise that the Old Scar had realized why Adrian was coming to him—he and the Old Scar had shared the memories of their entire lives at the moment they met each other. They knew each other as well as they knew themselves.

“The Krashinar are a part of the Great Alliance. You know that I cannot send the Great Pack with you,” the Old Scar sent.

Adrian nodded. “I know. I am not here for that. I want to speak with the Six.”

The Old Scar stopped and turned its head to stare down at Adrian. A series of quick flashes of emotions passed through it, too quickly for Adrian to catch them all. “You know our history. You know what the Erasi did to the Seventh. No outsider has been allowed near the Six since then.”

“I know,” Adrian sent back. “But I ask nevertheless.”

“I speak with their voice, and I hear with their ears. Anything that you want to ask of them, you may ask of me.”

“You know what I want to ask. I have seen your life, you have seen mine. You know that this only they can allow. What I ask concerns things you have kept hidden from all. The secrets that I had kept for you.”

The Old Scar glanced away, and Adrian felt him thinking. After a few minutes the Krashinar turned around and looked into Adrian’s eyes again. “I do not think that they will agree, but for the trust you have not betrayed, I shall lead you to the Six.”

“Thank you, Old Scar.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Year 717 of the Empire — Krashinar territory

Two great beasts dropped out of skim above a red planet. Moirai and Araxi remained in orbit next each other. The journey here had taken months, as they had taken an access point from Orna territory directly to the edge of the Krashinar territory. The Krashinar had only one access point activated in their territory, even though there were dozens of them there. It was enough for their purposes, and they did not want to allow too many outsiders into their territory.

The Krashinar preferred to be left alone, and after their experiences with other races, Adrian didn’t blame them. They had come to a system far out in the rim of the galaxy, nearly at its edge: the homeworld of the Krashinar, a world that they had all but abandoned long ago when they set off into the stars. Now it was a symbol, and a meeting place for their leaders—the Six.

Adrian and the Old Scar flew down to the planet and landed in a large courtyard and made their way through a large arc to enter a round area with spires rising all around them. There were seven spires here, but only six glowed. Adrian knew from the memories of the Old Scar that the spires were relays, amplifiers and receivers, each connected to one of the now Six.

They made their way to the center, and the raised dais placed there. The node on the dais was designed for Krashinar to interface with, but Adrian did not need to place his arms on it. He entered the Sha state, and touched the relay.

“Welcome, friend of Krashinar,” six voices echoed inside Adrian’s head.

“I greet the Six,” Adrian returned respectfully.

“We had long ago decided not to entertain outsiders, yet we cannot deny the Old Scar, beloved of the Seventh, anything. Speak, friend of our favorite spawn, and ask what you’ve come to ask.”

“I have come to ask for your aid against the AI, the cold being of metal and emptiness. I have found its home system and I wish to attack it and destroy it.”

“Why?” one of the voices asked, which Adrian identified from the Old Scar’s memories as that of the Second.

“The AI knows what the Enlightened’s plan is, and I intend to take that knowledge from it.”

“We do not presume to know about your technology, so we shall assume that you can do what you say. We understand the threat the Enlightened pose—it is why we have agreed to join in the alliance with your kind. Still, we were not asked by your Emperor to do this,” the Sixth said.

“I do not ask this on behalf of the Great Alliance. I ask on my own behalf.”

He felt the Six pause at that. He could not feel their emotions, as each of them was light years away on different worlds, and each sent only that which they wished to be sensed.

Finally, the First broke the silence. “We owe you, Heart of the Mountain, much. You were the first to have passed our test—you shared your life with the Krashinar, and took one of ours in turn. You showed us the truth and helped us punish the Betrayers. You helped us punish Valanaru the Weaver, murderer of the Seventh. Yes, the Krashinar know that we owe you much. But we have already provided Great Packs to your alliance; our people fly the void with yours and fight and die far from the Pack Home. We have given our word that the Great Packs will fight with the Great Alliance under the guidance of the Empire. Krashinar do not break their word, Heart of the Mountain.”

“Nor do I ask you to do so now. I have shared the life of the Old Scar, who was once the Seeker. I know the Krashinar, and I know the secrets you keep from the rest. I do not ask for the Great Packs you keep in your territory, nor the ones that you have sent to the Great Alliance. I ask for the Eternal Hunters and the Old Hunters.” Again, the Six fell silent. Adrian waited for several minutes, knowing that the Six were speaking among themselves.

Ten minutes later, the Third spoke. “You ask for much. We have kept secrets, this is true. But should the galaxy know the true size of the Krashinar, they would see us as a threat on the same order as the Enlightened.”

Adrian nodded. The Krashinar held more territory than any other star nation in the galaxy—a truly massive area of space, and it was not like that of other races and nations, where the systems were colonized only if they were suitable. Krashinar had no criteria for colonization; they spread to every system no matter how hospitable it was. The Krashinar Great Packs alone rivaled the entire might of the combined fleets of the Erasi, Shara Daim, and the Empire. And that was the Great Packs only—the packs that were their sword and shield. But the Krashinar were not like the other races in the galaxy, and their technology is not like that of the others. Krashinar did not retire their beasts in the same way that the other races did their ships. The Krashinar ships were living beings—altered, yes, but still grown, living beings of flesh and blood. And they lived for a long time.

The Krashinar did not have research departments where they tested weapons and ships. They couldn’t build disposable prototypes for their beasts. They had something else: beasts grown from new designs and immediately thrown into battle against other Krashinar beasts grown for the same purpose. The Eternal Hunters, as they were called, were hidden deep in Krashinar territory, where they waged war on one another to test their beasts, to see which designs are the most powerful. Then they refined them more, and more, until they were the perfect beasts to be their sword and shield. After they reached that stage, the designs were sent to the Great Packs to be grown.

But the beasts that survived remained with the Eternal Hunters to test others, all in an endless cycle. Their numbers grew constantly, even as they always fought, always hunted in the void.

Adrian knew that what the Six believed was true, that the Galaxy would fear them if they knew just how large the Krashinar truly were. Already, they were outsiders in the galaxy, too different from other lifeforms to ever really fit in.

“Yes, they would fear you,” Adrian agreed. “But if the Enlightened are not stopped, there will be no life left in the galaxy to fear you.”

“Is not the Great Alliance supposed to address their threat?” the Fifth asked.

“If that is its ultimate goal,” the Fourth continued, “why has the Great Alliance refused your plan?”

Adrian sighed. “Because Tomas fears me. Because he does not believe that it is the right plan. Because he is too blinded by what the Enlightened want him to see and do to realize the truth. Because he is a man chained by his oath of protecting his people—so much so that he cannot allow any to die on his watch.”

“And so, we should choose between you?” the Second asked. “Because you believe that you are right? We know you, Heart of the Mountain. Through the memories of the Old Scar, we have watched your life. You are blind to all but your desires, as well.”

“Yes, but that does not mean that I am wrong.” Adrian paused. “I know my failings, and what others perceive as my weaknesses. I know that they cannot understand me or control me, and so fear me. I am powerful, I am greater than them—it is only natural for them to fear me. But is this not the way of the universe? The strong and the powerful, those with the most influence and knowledge, they are the ones who make decisions and plans. Others follow. The same is true of you. The Six hold knowledge of many, stretching back generations to before you left this world. You have the memory of all of your predecessors. Your experience and wisdom gained through so many lives is why you rule the Krashinar.”

“You speak the truth. Yet even the ones in power, those with knowledge and influence, make mistakes. The Seventh had been the same, and now it is dead. Its warmth is gone from the minds of the Krashinar, and the only thing left is the echo of its dying scream,” the First said.

“Someone must lead,” Adrian told them. “It is the right of all others to decide if they want to follow. I do not seek to rule; I do not wish to control others. My only drive is to chart a path forward, beyond what I am. To see new things and find greater opponents. I cannot do that if the Enlightened win.”

The Six grew silent, and Adrian waited patiently.

“You have given us much to think about, Heart of the Mountain. We would speak with the Old Scar, and dwell on your words for a time. Return to your great beast, and we shall call upon you when we have made our decision.”

Adrian sent his understanding and then left the Sha state. He stepped down from the platform and nodded at the Old Scar before walking out of the building and toward his shuttle.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Old Scar stepped to the dais and its manipulator arms extended out of its torso and reached for the relay. Immediately, it felt the Six reach out and touch its mind.

“I greet the Six,” Old Scar said.

“Greetings, Hunt-master,” the Six responded.

“I apologize if I overstepped. I did not think that I alone could make the decision,” the Old Scar said sending its trepidation along the link.

“No, Old Scar, we have always valued your counsel.” Old Scar felt their feelings seep through the link, reassuring it. The trust of the Six had always been the Old Scar’s great joy, even when it felt like it did not deserve it.

“I have listened to Adrian’s request. May I inquire as to what your decision might be?” the Old Scar asked respectfully.

“We have debated from the moment we felt Heart of the Mountain join our link. He is powerful, but he does not yet realize how much he allows to seep through beneath his notice. We knew his request before he asked.”

“So you have decided?” Old Scar asked.

“We have made our arguments among ourselves, but for the first time since the Seventh died, we are unsure how to proceed. We have voted, and are balanced. Each side offers good arguments, but neither can sway another to gain majority,” six voices said as one.

Old Scar bowed its head. It had failed to defend the Seventh, and so this, too, was its fault.

“Do not open old wounds,” the Six spoke as they felt his thoughts. “We have long since stated that the death of the Seventh was not your fault. You are, and always will be, trusted by us.”

“I am not worthy of your trust,” the Old Scar said.

“No—you alone are worthy. It is because of this that we have come to a decision.”

The Old Scar raised his head, looking at the six glowing spires. “Will you agree to his request?”

“That is not the decision we have come to agreement with. The one we have agreed to, has been debated for ages. For a long time, we have watched and waited, and argued, our votes changing often. But now, we are united in our purpose. We would have you, Old Scar, become the Seeker again. We would have you assume the mantle of the one whose womb you had grown in. We would have you stand next to us, as the Seventh.”

The Old Scar’s shock was so great that for a moment it forgot to breathe. It could not believe that it had heard the offer right. It was impossible. He was not worthy of such an honor. He did not possess the skills and knowledge to lead the Krashinar. He was just the Old Scar, an old Hunt-master.

“You cannot mean this,” the Old Scar said weakly, but it knew that the Six did not speak lies.

“We have watched you for a long time, our beloved. You have inherited the spirit of the Seventh. You are strong. You are Krashinar.”

“But I do not have what it takes to be one of you! I have only one life lived—how could you allow someone like me to guide us all?” the Old Scar asked.

The Six sent their love, their support, and their amusement. “Do you think us so infirm, that we do not know what it takes to be one of us? Do you think that the memories we hold are all that makes us the guides of Krashinar?”

“I…I did not mean to offend.”

“You could never offend us, Old Scar. We know that you lack the memories of the past, but the six of us hold as much already. What you have, that no Krashinar of old did, is knowledge of the outsiders. You have the memories of pain at the loss of your sire and the hard life of a Hunt-master. You know war and the Great Pack. It became apparent to us after the death of the Seventh that, while we hold memories of many lifetimes, we did not know the lives of hunters. We did not have experience to guide us in the interactions with races other than our own. You would serve all of Krashinar in this, if you accept.”

“I do not know. I do not feel as if I am someone capable of such a thing.”

“What do you think the original Seven had been? They were like you: Krashinar who had risen above the others, who had gained power and wisdom, who had risen to the front of our kind. Like the Heart of the Mountain says, the strong rule. And so the first Seven took the rule of the Krashinar, and forced us among the stars. They all started with only their own lives. You will be a new Seventh, the first of your line.”

The Old Scar listened, and he heard the conviction in their voices. They believed—no, they knew, that he could be this. That he could lead the Krashinar, that he could seek more knowledge, and be a pillar of his people. It was humbling, flattering…and for the first time in a long time, the Old Scar felt like he was more than what he had become. Slowly, he felt his name fall away as the spark of a young Krashinar came back to life. He felt the Seeker rise up from the deepest reaches of his being.

“Welcome back, Seeker,” the Six said, their voices singing in happiness.

“I accept your offer,” the Seeker said.

Then knowledge passed to his mind as the Six shared their full connection, teaching him how to structure his mind to become what they already were.

As soon as they finished sending the instructions, the ground in front of the dais opened up, and a tunnel leading down was revealed.

“Go down, Seeker. There, deep beneath the Spires, you will find the lake that birthed our kind. It was there that the first Seven swam and meditated to become what we are now. There, our songs will join yours, and make you into the Seventh.”

The Seeker slithered over the ground, and entered the tunnel. He traveled down for a long while, until he came upon a cave filled with light. The lake was in the middle, glowing with a green fluorescent light. The Seeker dipped in and swam to the center, noticing the foundations of the seven pillars stabbing into the lake from the cave ceiling.

“Relax, Seeker, and let us into your mind. Hear our song, and know what it means to be one of the Seven,” the Six whispered into his mind gently.

Their songs filled his mind, and the Seeker was lost in the memories of his kind.

*  *  *

It had been eight days since the Six had asked Adrian to wait on their decision, and he was getting impatient. There had been no sign of the Old Scar. Neither Araxi nor the handlers on the great beast knew anything.

The only thing left to Adrian was to wait—and he was not a big fan of waiting. Especially not when he was in company of Moirai, who had been trying to coax Araxi into a friendly spar. The ridiculousness of the idea of two great beasts, which were basically warships, sparring in space aside, the handlers left on the Araxi had not been happy with Adrian. Their limited interactions were enough to imprint their belief that Adrian was a poor handler that couldn’t keep his beast under control, and that they did not appreciate the fact that his great beast was attempting to corrupt the great Araxi.

“BORED!”

Adrian suppressed the instinct to sigh, mainly because he knew that Iris was watching and probably dying of laughter, even though her avatar was nowhere to be seen.

“We are waiting for the Six to decide whether they will help us or not. They are our allies and friends. It is rude of you to be so impatient.”

“STUPID. WHAT NEED TO DECIDE? ALWAYS FIGHT! NO REASON NOT TO.”

“There are plenty reasons not to. What about if you are weaker than your opponent?” Adrian asked.

“PFFF…” Moirai sent her disbelief to him in the form of a snort, which he was pretty sure was exactly like his own, and Adrian swore that he was going to make Iris pay for that. He was certain that she had taught Moirai that sound.

“Do you really think that there is nothing out there stronger than you? The Enlightened are stronger.”

“WEAKER IF ALONE. STRONGEST WITH YOU.”

Adrian couldn’t help but chuckle at her child-like trust and belief in their power.

“A great warrior knows not to allow his own pride to blind him to his enemies’ power. Even a weaker force can defeat those stronger than them if they are underestimated.”

“HAVE IRIS TO LOOK OUT FOR THAT. TELL WHEN BEING STUPID.”

Now Adrian did sigh, but before he could answer, Iris appeared in front of him.

“I have just received word from the Krashinar. They want you back on the planet,” she told him.

“Finally,” Adrian said as he stood from the throne and walked out, hurrying toward the shuttles. He had wasted enough time here.

*  *  *

Adrian found himself walking to the same dais he had before—only now, he could not help but notice that the seventh spire was glowing as well. He knew what those represented, but he filed that away as he saw the Old Scar standing next to the dais.

“Old Scar, will the Six speak with me again?” Adrian asked, but even as he sent his thoughts, he felt something different from the Old Scar. Adrian took hold of the Sha state and looked deeper. “You are not the Old Scar anymore. Does the Seeker stand before me now?” Adrian asked.

“No, Adrian,” it replied. “I am now the Seventh.”

Adrian smiled, truly happy for his friend. “Congratulations. I know that you will lead your people well.”

“Thank you, friend.” The Seventh bowed its head before regarding Adrian once more. “I speak now for all of Krashinar. We have thought about your request, and have come to a decision.”

Adrian nodded and waited patiently for his friend to tell him the answer.

“The Seven agree that the Enlightened are a great threat. We do not see the threat of the cold machine. It is a thing foreign to us.”

Adrian felt his spirits drop. He had hoped that having his friend as one of the Seven would mean that they would be more likely to accept.

“But,” the Seventh continued, “we value your council, Heart of the Mountain.”

Adrian straightened at that, waiting, his hopes rising again. He knew that his friend now spoke for the Seven, as they were the only ones that called him Heart of the Mountain.

“We know your power, and even though we know that you do not seek the same goals as the Krashinar, even though we do not understand your plan and your drives, we have trust in you, friend. You will have our Hunters,” the Seven sent. “In return, we ask only that you hold the wellbeing of the Krashinar foremost in your mind.”

Adrian bowed his head. “I thank the Seven. Your trust and friendship will not be in vain. I remember my friends, and you will always be counted among them.”

The Seventh bowed his head in return. “Go then, Heart of the Mountain. We have sent the call to our Hunters. It will take time for them to gather across our territory, but in the spirit of our friendship, we will allow you to open three more access points in our territory to facilitate their gathering.”

“Thank you. I will not forget this, my friends.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Year 717 of the Empire — Josanti League territory

Doranis watched as a stream of bioships entered his system. He had already defeated all the Josanti League forces in system and brought in his own harvesters and processor ships, as well as the growers, which he had established on the now dead planets. The biological material he had harvested from the dead had all gone to the growers to begin increasing the number of the Created, as well as the bioships. His processor ships were working tirelessly to process the material they needed for their bioships; they had a sufficient supply of resources for now, both from what the Josanti League had in their possession when he had taken the system, and from what they could get from the debris of their ships and stations.

But soon he would need to have his own harvesting operations brought on-line. His harvesters were already being put into place to do so—but the stream of bioships coming in from the access point were not his, but Loranis’s. She had already established a large operation at the edge of the galaxy, and was now producing enough to start sending ships and Created here to help Doranis bring his system up to speed. Most of the ships were a new breed of bioships, designed to defend, similar to the defense platforms that most other races used. They were large and slow, but they utilized a weaponized version of access-point technology to hit the enemy at long range. They didn’t require several bioships to use the weapon, and their power sources were enough that they could fire more quickly.

The rest of the reinforcements she sent were battleship bioships, mostly because building a Juggernaut took a long time. Still, she had nearly doubled his numbers with those reinforcements alone—and, not counting the non-combat ships, his force numbered over one-point-five million warships. Loranis herself would arrive in a few months to help Doranis expand the system faster, and having her coordinate the various Overseer breeds would accelerate everything. Doranis himself had never been all that good with using his mind to control their Created, even though they had been created mainly for that purpose: to be relay points for the Enlightened’s power, to allow them greater range.

An Overseer walked into the room and stopped just in front of Doranis. The Overseers looked similar to their warrior breed cousins, except that they had larger brains and two sets of arms. They were smarter, able to make decisions on their own—but like all the breeds, they were completely subservient to the three.

“What?”

“The resin pools on the planets one and three have reached operational levels.”

“Good. Start delivering processed materials and biomatter to them, and have the pools build only battleships,” Doranis ordered. “What is the status of the second planet?”

“It should be operational in several days.”

“Assemble some patrol groups and start patrolling the neighboring systems. I want to know if the enemy decides to attack again.”

“As you say, Master.”

As the Overseer walked away, Doranis turned inward, thinking about their plan. They had been planning this for a long time, and now, they were so close. Every day another report arrived informing him that one more relay had been put into position. There had been no word from Aranis yet, but that was to be expected. He was deep in Josanti League territory in the center of the galaxy, and he couldn’t risk revealing himself.

The Conduit would be put into place soon, and once that happened, all would be changed in a single moment. Doranis’s job was only to make sure that the galaxy was too busy to realize what was happening.

He remembered their long discussion after the battle in the control system, when Aranis had been injured, how the three of them had come together and discussed what they were going to do in the face of a threat they had not foreseen.

Doranis had argued for an attack, for them to fight the others who had achieved the same power as they. His belief in his own power had always been such that he could not imagine anyone standing in his way. Yet, for the first time ever, those of equal power existed. Aranis had been injured, and life in the galaxy possessed technology that rivaled and even exceeded that of the People. They were not equal in all areas, of course, as the People had lived for far longer. But weapons and war… Those were the things that the People had never advanced as far, as they had little need of them. The galaxy now had people whose ships of war were formidable, and the Enlightened had found themselves fighting with a smaller advantage than they had always taken for granted.

Loranis had argued for secrecy. With the AI now standing on their side, she wanted for the Enlightened to spread across the galaxy and disappear, for them to build up their power before attempting to finish their project.

Doranis had wanted to crush them, to invade the territories of the most powerful star nations in the galaxy.

Aranis, the one who alone knew most about the state of the galaxy, had showed them the errors of their thinking. Loranis’s plan could’ve worked—if they had awakened long before now. The technological advancements that the races of the galaxy had attained would only continue, and their numbers would grow beyond any chance of the Enlightened ever catching up. Doranis’s plan held the risk to their own lives, which were critical if they were to finish the project.

And so, Aranis argued for something in between. With the AI, they could now move through the access points, and so secrecy could be achieved. But in order to limit the danger of discovery, Doranis would attack and create a diversion by invading and setting up a base in the core. While he did so, Loranis would establish a secure base far away from everything in case they fail. Aranis would accomplish the main part of the plan: making sure that the Conduit was delivered and integrated into their masterpiece. There was no need for them to risk and fight against those who could harm them. Their mission was more important.

Doranis used the amplifier of the Devourer to look all around the system, and saw the machine ships of the AI keeping position near the sun and the access point. A few of their ships were always leaving or coming in system, as they returned to deliver reports to the AI. It was faster to just go through the access point than to use FTL comms, especially since the AI didn’t have relays and it was barred from the higher functions of the access point, which would allow it to use them in that manner.

The Enlightened knew that they couldn’t trust the AI. They remembered what it had done the last time it had been free. It had nearly killed the People, and this was before they had damaged the dimensional barriers. The three knew that it would betray them; it was inevitable. It was only using them to achieve its own goals. The AI might understand and even agree with what the Enlightened wanted to do—but after that? It would not remain their ally. Its actions now proved it. It was growing its Swarm, building up its power.

The Enlightened would’ve never allowed it to do so if they had the time to deal with it. But in truth, it was a lesser evil than life. Its presence alone would not cause damage.

Doranis put the AI out of his mind. It was a threat for another time. He continued to monitor his system and adjust his orders, carrying out his part of the plan.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Year 717 of the Empire — Kenos system

A battle raged on a hollow planet.

Ryaana flew through the skies, her mother following close behind and throwing fast moving balls of plasma at her daughter. Ryaana kept her shield active at all times even as she tried to evade. She managed to move out of the way of most of them, but one slammed into her shield from behind and nearly broke through. Ryaana was still not used to the fact that inside the Sha state she did not require energy to use Sha abilities. Instead, she needed only willpower. Her shield was only as strong as her mind was, and every time she used a Sha ability her mind got just a bit more tired.

Ryaana focused her mind on her abilities, ignoring her mother as best as she possibly could, considering she was throwing balls of plasma at her back. She visualized what she wanted to do, and then she flipped over, flying backward as she pointed her hands at her mother. For a moment she was surprised to see that Anessa had gotten so close, but then she released her attack. The air between them charged, and then a lance of lightning cracked between them. Ryaana grinned when she saw that her attack connected and her mother tumbled away in the air.

But her small victory didn’t last for long, as her mother recovered and was flying toward her even faster than before. Ryaana grimaced and then turned back around, heading down toward the peak of a mountain. She flew close even as she reached out with her power and grabbed hold of a large piece of stone. She ripped it out of the mountain as she flew and with a flick of her hand sent it flying back at Anessa.

Ryaana realized her mistake immediately.

She had used her power to rip and throw the stone and then relied on momentum and gravity to do the rest; her power no longer touched the stone. Ryaana felt her mother reach out to the now unprotected stone and pull at it. It accelerated toward her and curved around her before it flew off back at Ryaana—only her mother didn’t make the same mistake, and she kept her power coating the house-sized stone.

She could feel the stone coming, and just before it would have reached her, Ryaana flipped over in the air, turning around and putting her hands in front of her. A ball of disruptive energy exploded from her palms and struck the rock, spreading over it in a spider-web pattern before it disrupted its bonds and broke it apart.

Ryaana allowed herself a small inward cheer for her accomplishment, but already her mother had flown through the space the stone used to occupy and slammed into Ryaana’s midsection. With the wind knocked out of her, Ryaana lost concentration for a moment, even though in the Sha state she didn’t really need to breathe—but that moment of hesitation was enough.

Ryaana’s mother grabbed her by the arm and spun in the air before releasing Ryaana and flying down toward the ground. As Ryaana fought to regain control, a massive concussive blast struck into her from above and slammed her into the ground, cracking the stone and pushing her deep into a crater.

She struggled to break free, but already she could feel her mind being drained, and the Sha state slipping from her. Then it left her, and she was suddenly feeling dizzy.

Her mother landed above her with grace and looked into the crater.

“Good job. You held it for longer this time.”

Ryaana didn’t respond, but instead tried to wiggle free of the ground, only to realize that she was stuck.

“Little help here, mom?” she yelled out.

Her mother chuckled and then Ryaana felt the earth shift and move aside as something grabbed hold of her and pulled her out.

“Thanks,” Ryaana grumbled.

“We should get back to the facility,” Anessa said. “Lurker of the Depths just reached out to us. A message from your father has arrived.”

A part of her was disappointed, as she wanted to train more. When in the Sha state, she felt as if she was really alive for the first time in her life, connected to everything so instinctively that she could almost understand all the secrets that the universe had to offer. But she was tired, and she knew that she was a long way from being able to sustain staying in the Sha state for long.

“All right, let’s go.”

*  *  *

“He wants us to go where?” Ryaana asked, frowning. Anessa had shared the same sentiment as her daughter.

“The system is called Fordring. It is one of the systems our Sentinels had unlocked decades ago. It is the closest access-point system we have to the AI’s,” Lurker of the Depths said. The three of them were in the facility of Axull Darr, inside a small meeting room.

Anessa knew that Adrian had left to try and convince Tomas that attacking the AI was their best course of action, but his last message to her indicated that their meeting did not go well. He had then told her that he was going to go and ask for help elsewhere, and that he would be in touch.

“Did he say anything else in his message?” Anessa asked.

“No, only that he wants the entire Nomad Fleet to go and wait for him there—with all the ships that are finished up to now.”

“So whatever he plans, he does not want to get back to the AI,” Anessa said.

“You really think that the AI has a way to access the Nomad Fleet’s systems?” Ryaana asked.

“No, but we know that it can access those of other star nations. He is being a bit paranoid.”

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

“We will do as he asks,” Anessa said simply. “Go and inform the fleet to get ready for departure. We will be going to Nelus to use their access point to jump through a few other access points before going to that system.”

“You really think that we need all that secrecy?” Ryaana asked.

“I don’t know, but if you are in a system when an access point is activated you can tell where it leads. I don’t want anyone knowing where we are going,” Anessa said.

Ryaana nodded and left the room, leaving her alone with Lurker of the Depths.

“Any idea where he might’ve gotten enough ships to attack the AI?” Anessa asked. The Sowir had proven to be somewhat of Adrian’s confidant in the past. She wondered if he knew, since she had no idea if he did.

“No, but he must’ve been successful. He would not have asked us to meet him there if he hadn’t.”

Anessa nodded. She knew that he couldn’t have gotten them from any force in the Rimward Alliance, not even the twins. They might be his children, but the two took their commitment to the Shara Daim and their allies very seriously—and then there was the fact that they somewhat looked up to Tomas. They would not have gone against Tomas’s decision.

“I guess that we will find out soon enough,” Anessa said.

At least no one could say that her life with Adrian wasn’t full of surprises.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Year 717 of the Empire — Sanctuary

Emperor Tomas Klein looked through the window of his palace at the clear night sky of Sanctuary. It was close to midnight local time, and the city around him was asleep.

But the sky was alive. Small points of light moved around: ships, stations, shuttles and much more filled the sky other than stars. It was one thing that Tomas missed the most from Earth, the stars. Sanctuary was surrounded by a nebula, and the only thing that one could see was a painting of green, blue, and red made by the light reflected by the gas.

It was a gorgeous sight, but Tomas could not enjoy it. His mind was filled with so many worries that he did not even have the time to enjoy something as simple as the night sky. It was ironic, in a way—he had done all that he had done because of a dream of a star-filled night sky. That had been his first memory, sitting in his father’s arms and looking up at the stars. He was so much older now, so much wiser, so far away from Earth and all that had happened there. Yet here he stood, an Emperor, ruling a humanity that was bigger, better, than anything it had once been. He did not even rule only humans, as there were many more races living inside his Empire.

Yet he still found himself making mistakes.

He regretted his conversation with Adrian—not for what he had said, for it had been the truth, but the way in which he had said it. He had allowed his emotions to get the better of him, and because of that he had lost a friend, someone who had been there from the start. Tomas had had some time to think about what both of them had said, and he had realized that Adrian had been right in some regards.

The Empire had relied on Adrian just as Tomas had relied on him. If it had not been for Adrian the Empire would have not become what it was today. And yes, Adrian’s words had stung—because he had been right. The strong ruled, Tomas had always known that. If Adrian had so wished, he could’ve ruled his Empire.

It had taken Tomas a few days to recover enough from their encounter such that he could analyze it clearly, and now Tomas knew that he hadn’t been fair. He had told Adrian that he didn’t understand him, that he was no longer human. But it was only afterward that he understood that the same words applied to him as well. Tomas had changed much from who he used to be on Earth—he had changed genetically as well as mentally—and he realized that to the ordinary person, Tomas was something beyond human, an existence that they could not understand, the same as Adrian was to him.

But it didn’t change anything. Tomas still didn’t trust Adrian, and he did not agree with his plans. He was sorry for that, but deep down he had always known that it could only end the way it had. The two of them had grown too powerful to stay what they had been: a leader and a follower.

Finally, a chime sounded in his imp, letting him know that his guests had arrived. Tomas sighed and walked out of his room. He walked through the palace, two guards stepping behind him as soon as he left his quarters.

Meetings in the middle of the night were not something that he generally attended, but this had sounded like it was an emergency. The Tar’ferat Representative Urvu’ri had sent word a few days ago that she was returning to Sanctuary, and that she was bringing a guest: a Josanti League Representative.

Tomas had not been too happy about that, as he remembered the Josanti League’s insults and disrespect at the summit. For them to reach out was an indicator that something had changed, however, and seeing as they had been viciously attacked by the Enlightened, it was not difficult to see what that something was.

He walked into a meeting room and headed to the head of the table. The two visitors, along with their advisers, were already there.

“Emperor,” Urvu’ri said from her perch. Tomas nodded at the black, bird-like alien, and then turned to the other guest.

The second person was of a race called Lefari. He was a hexapod whose body consisted of a small blob at his top, from which legs sprung. The blob held a large mouth and two manipulator arms, along with some long hair that were his sensory organs. The Lefari were one of the more prominent races in the Josanti League, and while Tomas had only ever seen one Lefari before this, he nonetheless recognized the telepathic signature of the one standing before him. They had met before.

“Emperor Klein,” the Lefari said in an even tone of voice.

“Councilor Andar,” Tomas returned. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The Councilor seemed somewhat uncomfortable, which was to be expected since the Josanti League had insulted and looked down upon Tomas and his allies before. Councilor Andar had been one of the only Josanti League citizens that Tomas had interacted favorably with, as he had been one of Levisomaerni’s allies in the League and had tried to convince his nation that what Tomas and his allies had presented was the truth. Sadly, his nation had not been so open minded as to believe anything someone from outside of the galactic core said.

“I have come on behalf of my government,” Andar said.

“Oh?” Tomas commented.

“Yes…” Andar began. “The Josanti League wishes to extend its apologies for the way certain former members of our government had treated with you and your allies.”

Tomas suppressed the desire to smile and waited silently for a few moments. Clearly the political situation in the Josanti League had changed.

“I appreciate your words,” Tomas said, purposefully not accepting the apology, and then waited.

After a few moments of Andar squirming, the alien opened his mouth again. “I have been sent here to inquire about the possibility of the Josanti League joining your alliance.”

Tomas didn’t react outwardly, but he was very surprised. The invasion of their territory must have hurt them fiercely—and that only spoke to the Enlightened’s power. Two years were nothing in a war against nations with as massive a territory as the Josanti League. Hell, without access points one could barely travel through all of their territory in that time.

“The war is not going your way, is it?” Tomas asked, deciding to cut through to the heart of the matter.

Andar didn’t respond immediately, and Tomas could feel several conflicting emotions run through him until they settled finally on shame.

“No,” Andar said. “I know what Levisomaerni told us, and while I did try to get my people to listen to you I must admit that deep down I never really believed that these Enlightened could be such a threat. We are the Josanti League—one of the most powerful nations in the galaxy! We have stood for longer than most races knew how to speak! The possibility of us losing never really entered my mind.”

“I know,” Tomas replied with a nod. “It was hard for me to come to terms with that knowledge myself when I first learned about them.” He leaned forward. “Tell me all that has happened.”

*  *  *

A little while later, Tomas sat in his office with Urvu’ri standing across from him. Andar had told them the broad overview of their war with the Enlightened, some of which the Great Alliance already knew from their contacts in the Josanti League. Some they hadn’t been aware of, however—the Josanti League had been suppressing the truth for a while now.

“I can’t believe that they really lost Davarosh,” Urvu’ri said. “It has always been one of the most defended systems in the core. My people had always thought it impossible to invade, not just because of its defenses but also because of the close proximity of several Josanti League fleets which could reinforce the system quickly. And to think that not only did those reinforcements fail, but that the great fleet they had assembled to take the system back has been destroyed… It is almost unbelievable.”

They didn’t know the details, of course, only what the Josanti League had agreed to reveal, but even that was enough to let them know just how hard the Josanti League had lost.

“Now we know where at least one of the Enlightened is,” Tomas said. Over the years they had spotted the Living-ships moving with the raid fleets, but they had never stayed for long. They always ran away rather than entering into conflict with the Great Alliance ships.

“Do you think that the Nomad Fleet will agree to attack the system with us?” Urvu’ri asked. They had already told Andar that they would aid the Josanti League, but her question made him grimace. She wasn’t aware of Tomas’ and Adrian’s falling out; she just knew that the Nomad Fleet had refused to search the galaxy for the Enlightened.

“I shall send a message,” Tomas said slowly. Adrian had said that he would remain with the Alliance, but hopefully now that they knew where one of the Enlightened was, he would agree to come. The Enlightened was entrenched deep in the system, clearly turning it into a base of operations. It was the perfect opportunity to ambush one of them.

Although no matter what Tomas said, he did worry that they hadn’t seen more than one of them at a time. Their scans were insufficient to tell if they had always seen one of them or several at different times, but the analysts were leaning toward it being only a single Enlightened.

“Even if he doesn’t agree, this is the opportunity we have been waiting for. We must take it,” Tomas said.

“Of course. I will call for more fleets—we must assemble as many ships as possible,” Urvu’ri said.

“Yes, but we can’t wait for long. The Enlightened is building up defenses, and the more time we give it, the harder it will be to assault the system.”

Tomas already sent word for Johanna and her force to be recalled. She would have to leave some forces to protect Orna, but her force would be the core of the assault. Now he only had to send word to his other allies and ask for more ships.

Tomas was a bit worried that Adrian’s suspicions were true and the AI had a way of monitoring their comms, but it shouldn’t matter much in this instance—not if they acted fast, before the Enlightened had the chance to reinforce its position.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Year 718 of the Empire — Krashinar territory

Adrian sat patiently on the throne inside Moirai as she was being chased across the system by a pair of Krashinar great beasts. He could feel her joy and exhilaration at the fact that she was the fastest thing in the system, and also the largest. The two great beasts were of the Old Hunters, great beasts that had been born long ago and served in the Great Packs against the Erasi thousands of years in the past. Even though they were old, they were still powerful. Krashinar Old Hunters were those beasts that had served for a thousand years, and were then moved from the Great Packs to this, their new home: a massive pack that traveled the void in Krashinar territory, patrolling it, or simply exploring beyond it.

The Krashinar Old Hunters might not be as powerful as their current Great Packs, but they had other things on their side: age and experience. Not to say that they were weak, of course—their weapons and biological systems had only gotten stronger with age—but they did not have many of the newer weapons added after their time. Still, they were more than a match for the machine ships. Old Hunter great beasts were not the same size as Araxi, who had grown to be around sixty kilometers long, although it had been allowed to grow in the recent years as the Krashinar, for the first time ever, had begun genetically altering their beasts after they were fully grown. The largest ones here were between ten and fifteen kilometers long, as they were the first generation of great beasts—still far larger than the biggest of the AI battleships.

And then there were the Eternal Hunters, the beasts grown for the purpose of testing out new designs. They were a motley bunch, and there was no unity among them. Each was unique, although some subsets did share some similar characteristics. They were not as numerous as the Old Hunters, but their numbers in the system already exceeded the entire Fleet of the Empire, which stood at eight hundred thousand ships. Some were massive, the size of the Titans, at around thirty kilometers. The current great beast designs the Krashinar used came from the Eternal Hunters, so it was only logical that their first iterations were here. This did not mean that the great beasts like Araxi were more powerful; there were beasts here that had more powerful weapons or tougher hides, but in the end the Great Pack had only refined designs, and “refined” sometimes meant reducing firepower, or giving their great beasts a weaker hide, to make way for other necessities.

The system they were in now was filled with Krashinar beasts, and more were coming every day. The force assembling here was shaping up to be something truly magnificent.

“WON AGAIN.” Moirai’s voice shook Adrian out of his thoughts. He smiled at her simple joy.

“Congratulations,” Adrian said back.

“OLD ONES ASK, WHEN FIGHT?” Moirai sent, and Adrian felt just a bit of her previous impatience. Ever since the force had started to gather, Moirai had had stuff to do. She had never before been surrounded by so many void beasts aside from Araxi, and having the others here had served to curb some of her impatience.

She had taken well to the Old Hunters, or rather they had taken her under their wing. From what Adrian could gather from her, the Old Hunters doted on Moirai. To them she was a child—a babe, really—and yet she was the largest and most powerful beast in the system at one hundred and twenty kilometers in size. On top of that, her hide was protected by cold metal, as the Krashinar liked to say.

Moirai had bragged to him about all the things she had learned from the “old ones.” How to navigate the void better, how to sense the flow of battle, how to get the most out of her weapons. Adrian didn’t mind that at all. Moirai was learning much, and everything that she did learn only served to make her stronger.

“We are waiting for more to come,” Adrian said again. It had been several months since the Seventh had issued the call, but Krashinar territory was large, and even with them opening another three access points it had taken a long while for their forces to gather.

“STRONG NOW, SHOULD FIGHT.”

“The enemy we are going against has far more ships. Even when our force is fully assembled, we will still be outnumbered.”

He could feel Moirai thinking, and then he felt her reach out with her mind to the great beasts around her. There was an exchange, and Adrian waited for several minutes as she conversed with the Old Hunters.

When she finally returned her attention to him, he could feel her pout just a bit. “OLD ONES SAY YOU ARE RIGHT. SAY I SHOULD LISTEN TO HANDLER.”

Adrian chuckled. Their relationship hadn’t been exactly like that between a Krashinar beast and their handlers—it had always been something more. “I don’t want you to think that I must be obeyed always. I do not know everything, but I do know much. I ask only that you listen to me when I speak of things I know more about.”

Moirai stilled for a while, and then finally asked a question. “WHY DO OLD ONES CALL YOU HEART OF THE MOUNTAIN?”

Adrian was taken aback. He hadn’t known that that name had spread to the Krashinar beasts. Moirai had some of his experiences, his thoughts and memories, but he hadn’t shared everything with her. He knew that to Moirai he didn’t really even have a name—he was a part of her, someone who was just “YOU” to her. It was more than that, of course, as Moirai wasn’t like any other life form. She could communicate with words, but she didn’t need to. Like the Krashinar great beasts, she didn’t speak with words, but more with emotions and thoughts, so he was surprised that she had learned one of his names. He wondered how she had managed to translate it to speech from what the beasts had told her. He thought about how to respond for a while.

“It is a name that had been given to me by another,” Adrian said at last.

“LIKE YOU DID FOR MOIRAI?” she asked.

“Yes, exactly like that. There is a people who have powerful telepaths. In their culture, it is an honor to be given a name by someone powerful in the mind Sha. I was given the name by an enemy, someone who was powerful and who respected that power.”

“WHY TAKE NAME FROM ENEMY?”

“Why indeed…” Adrian thought about it for a few moments. “Because it is more than a name. The person who gave it to me saw my inner world, and she had given me a name to reflect that. Because it is more than a name—it is who I am,” Adrian said slowly, and as he spoke he realized how true that was. He hadn’t really thought about it so much, but now he understood.

He was the Heart of the Mountain. Massive, strong, unmovable, always reaching for the sky, but never touching it. He would always strive to reach the next level of power, always reach for what was above him—but there was no end that he could see, and he would never reach that which he was seeking to find. In many ways, Heart of the Mountain was a far more suitable name for him than the one he had received at birth.

“MOIRAI, DESTINY AND FATE,” Moirai said, repeating the words he had told her when he named her.

“Yes, that is what you are.”

“GOOD NAMES.”

Adrian smiled. “Yes, they are good names.”

*  *  *

Adrian waited in Moirai’s landing bay as a small shuttle beast entered and landed next to his own shuttles. There, the Seventh exited and slithered over to Adrian.

“Should I greet you now with the respect due to the Seven always? Or may we speak as friends?” Adrian asked humorously.

The Seventh sent him its amusement. “We are and always will be friends, Adrian.”

“So, why are you here then? Don’t the Seven always stay on a single planet? I would have thought that you would have more duties now.”

“They do, but we have discussed this matter at length. I am one of the Seven, but I am different, and it has become apparent that the Krashinar need something different. It has been decided that I will serve as the Seventh from Araxi, that I would continue my life as a Hunt-master—the first who is also one of the Seven.”

Adrian raised his eyebrows at that. “That is a lot to handle.”

“It is, but Araxi has already been altered with a greater amplifier and a new breed of relay beast has been assigned to it. I will be able to converse with the others.”

“So, are you going back to the Great Packs with Johanna’s forces?”

“No, there are many capable Hunt-masters there. I will be coming with you, to lead the Eternal Hunters and the Old Hunters.”

Adrian nodded. “I am glad to have you, my friend.”

“Good. The final packs should be arriving within two months. This is enough time for you to tell me your plan, and for us and the others of the Seven to speak and prepare. Having a wealth of memories such as they possess is a great advantage.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Year 718 of the Empire — Sol

Johanna looked at the assembled forces in the orbit of the sun. The force that she was going to lead against the Enlightened in Josanti League territory.

The fleet consisted of more than just the ships of the major members of the Great Alliance. Tomas had reached out to every member and asked for as much as they could give. Not all of them were as advanced as the major members, and not all had many ships, but all had sent at least some of their forces nonetheless. Johanna had had a headache for what seemed like weeks as she tried to figure out where it would be best to put those ships that were not as powerful as the major players. They would still be useful, their weapons could hurt the bioships, but it would take more time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

They had no choice.

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

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Year 718 of the Empire — Fordring system

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And Dad?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dad is here,” she sent.

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

*  *  *

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

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

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

Ryaana frowned. “You are right.”

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

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

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

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

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

Her mother frowned. “Those beasts look—”

“Old,” Lurker of the Depths interjected.

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

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

*  *  *

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you, Lurker of the Depths.”

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

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

“We are,” Adrian asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?” Ryaana asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adrian frowned. “What do you mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Year 718 of the Empire — Sanctuary

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

“Anything?” Tomas asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What is it?” Tomas asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So what do we know?”

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

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

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

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

“Of course, Tomas,” Laura responded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Year 718 of the Empire — Josanti League territory

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

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

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

Doranis remembered the time when he used to be Eroill Noust: a scientist, like many of the People were. He valued knowledge most of all, and his specialty had been the way the Sha interacted with living tissue, how infusing a lifeform with Sha could change it and give it powers that seemed like they were breaking the laws of physics. They didn’t break those laws, of course—it was just that they were ignorant of what the true laws were.

It was his expertise that gave the lifeform that Aranis, Loranis, and he had created the ability to absorb Sha. His mistake. The lifeform had gotten out of control and had swallowed the Sha from an entire world, before bonding it with the three of them. Because of his mistake, they had become what they needed to be. He was convinced that it was the Universe who had acted to make them so: to use them as the means to correct what was broken. The other two, however, did not share all of Doranis’s beliefs. They did at least believe that there was a balance to the Universe that the People had broken, and that the Universe always leaned toward establishing that balance.

But Doranis’s belief went beyond that. He believed that at time the Universe took a more precise action, that it acted through those living inside of it, and he believed that the birth of the Enlightened was such an action. Doranis knew that the Universe always acted in the service of the balance, even when he alone didn’t see how.

His train of thought was interrupted as an Overseer stepped into his room.

“Master, we have detected ships coming into the system.”

Doranis frowned. He had not thought that the Josanti League could amass enough ships to try again, not so quickly. Doranis reached out to the amplifier and cast his mind across the system, looking, then finding the invaders quickly.

Immediately, he realized that he had been wrong—the invaders were not from the Josanti League. Oh, there were their ships mixed in with the rest of the force, but they were by far in the minority. There were some from the races that had come with the Josanti League during their last attempt to regain the system, and there were many that he had never felt before.

But among them, he felt the children of Axull Darr.

And even as he watched, the force kept growing stronger, as more and more ships dropped out of hyperspace. He cast his mind, attempting to see into their minds, but found a fog covering them. Immediately he realized that they had their Sha users using their amplifiers to keep their ships covered in a thin cloud of Sha, but also to watch around their ranks. Not all ships had powerful Sha users, but those that did were well spread through their forces. He grimaced. It was not a large problem; he could break through easily enough, but at most he would get through one ship at a time. Not something that was worth the time and effort. Better that he let his ships pound them to dust.

As he saw the ships stop trickling in, he quickly counted their numbers. They outnumbered his forces. Not by much, but still. With an effort of will, he connected to every Overseer in his force and issued them orders. As before, he did not take control himself to avoid any potential complications.

Doranis did not feel the fleet he fought in the control system, nor did he feel the powerful presences of people in Sha state, but that meant nothing. Lurker of the Depths had hidden himself from him once before, and Doranis did not make mistakes twice.

He withdrew his mind from his Overseers as they began executing his orders. He debated attempting the same trick he had done last time, but he could feel that this force had Sha users scanning their surroundings constantly, probably looking for him. He settled on caution. He would wait to see what his enemy had in mind.

Doranis reached out to a panel next to him, the technological part of his Living-ship, and used its comms.

“Yes, Enlightened?” the synthesized voice from the machine ship responded. It was not the AI, only a set of instructions left by it, but it served much as the same thing.

“Go through the access point to Loranis. Inform her of what has happened here, and tell her that I want her to come earlier than planned.”

“This is an acceptable request. It will be accomplished.”

Doranis closed the link without responding. He did not like interacting with the AI, or such lesser pieces of it. The Custodian had its own agenda, and no matter how useful it had been, it would not stay on their side forever.

Seeing that the enemy’s force had moved sufficiently forward, he reached out to his defenses. The new access-point weapons might not be up to the number he had planned, but there were still enough of them in system to control this threat. There were no Created on them; instead, they could be controlled through the Sha by him or his Overseers.

He assumed control of about a third of them himself, and the rest he split among several of his Overseers.

A few moments later, his defenses opened fire.

*  *  *

In space, an armada approached from the edge of the system. There were ships there of hundreds of races, hundreds of nations. Some were large and powerful, others not, but all had the same purpose: to fight the Enlightened. They outnumbered their opponent, but the defenses that the enemy had established were formidable—as the armada soon realized once they opened fire from nearly half a system away.

Ships were torn apart as pieces of them were pulled by the defense stations through subspace and to the other side of the system. Some ships survived the attacks, as only small chunks of their hull were ripped out, but others were not so lucky. Quickly, the armada’s leadership realized what was happening and began deploying their countermeasures, which meant moving in unpredictable evading patterns. The carrier ships from the nations of Shara Daim and the Empire released their drones, and spread them among the armada. It increased the numbers of the force, and by doing so, added more targets for the enemy. For every unmanned drone that they lost, they saved a ship with a crew.

Most of the armada was too far away to use their weapons, but some of their ships, those from the more advanced nations, entered into weapons range. Molecular disintegration beams lashed out from the armada, striking at the defenses, impacting their shields. As more and more ships fired, the Enlightened shields were taken down, and their defenses started being destroyed.

By then, the Enlightened fleets were in position and the real battle began.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Year 718 of the Empire — Fordring system

Adrian was sitting on the throne inside Moirai, and next to him, Iris floated in her avatar form.

He was looking at the various reports concerning their force. A lot of planning had gone into their assault, but the trickiest had been finding a way to coordinate with the Krashinar. In their past actions together, the Krashinar would mostly act independently, but that would not work so well for their purposes now, so they had assigned Sowir telepaths to be the coordinators between the Nomad Fleet and the two Krashinar packs.

In the end, they had decided to split their force into three parts, as Adrian had suggested. The smallest force would be his, consisting only of Moirai, Dragon, and two other great beasts from the Old Hunters. They had figured out quickly that their own power was not sufficient to transport more than a single ship even in the Sha state. Anessa had transferred to the Dragon, while Ryaana took command on the Bastion. They had realized that their Sha would be their greatest weapon in the battle against the AI. Most of the power would come from Moirai, and so they had decided that Adrian and Anessa would be helping Moirai to transport herself, the Dragon, and the three other great beasts. That seemed to be their limit.

Ryaana would be commanding one part of the battle with Lurker of the Depths being near to coordinate with the Krashinar, while the Seventh would be commanding the other force. Ryaana was not strong enough to actually help them much, and Lurker of the Depths’ telepathy would serve them far better in coordinating with the Krashinar.

The only thing that they were unsure of was Iris’s part in all of this.

“Are you sure that you can do this?” Adrian asked her.

Iris quirked her eyebrow at him. “We are about to enter hyperspace, and now is when you ask me?”

“Well, we have been somewhat busy.”

She snorted, but then grew serious. “I don’t know, Adrian. I have been upgrading my protocols and code for a long time, since the moment you woke me up. In many ways I have outgrown all the other AIs in the Empire—but the Custodian is something else entirely. I want to tell you that I can take it, but I don’t know. I am sure that I can infiltrate its core, but after that… Who knows?”

“Yeah, that was exactly what I needed right now. You couldn’t have lied to me?” Adrian asked dryly.

“I don’t lie to you, Adrian,” Iris said.

“I know,” he told her. “If you get in, how long will it take you to find what we need?”

“It all depends on how powerful the Custodian is. It could take anywhere from minutes to hours.”

Adrian sighed. “It will not leave itself unprotected, even if it does send most of its forces to fight off ours. It will keep something in reserve to keep its core safe.”

“That is the most logical course of action, yes.”

“If we had to just blow it to pieces, I think that we would be in a much better position. But fighting while keeping the core intact? With only five ships?”

“Five Fleet-killer ships,” Iris said. “This is what they had been designed for, to keep massive numbers at bay. The same as the great beasts.”

“I guess that we will have to wait and see,” Adrian said.

He didn’t feel like he had made a wrong decision—he rarely regretted his actions—but this was the first time that he had gone off without approval from Tomas. It felt somehow monumental, a moment after which he would not be able to come back. He would forever be standing apart from his birth-people. He had always been different than them, but now there would be a hard wall between them. He would be separated from them, their nation and lives.

The feelings that Adrian had struggled with for a while were still tumbling around inside him. He couldn’t decide if that was a good thing. Tomas had told him that he was no longer human, and that was something that Adrian had felt too: this separation, this chasm that kept growing wider as he realized how small all those others around him were. At times, he would find individuals who seemed like they could walk next to him, but ultimately he had always been disappointed. Only a very few had managed to keep up, and he wondered how long that would last.

Would he one day wake up, look at the woman sleeping next to him, and decide that she no longer belonged? Would Anessa become like all those others who just couldn’t keep up? Would Ryaana? Would Lurker of the Depths?

He didn’t have an answer, and this was no time for him to be searching his soul for it. He had never doubted himself before, and he would not start now.

“Send word to the others. We are leaving the system,” Adrian told to Iris, then opened his mind and spoke again. “Moirai, take us out toward the hyperspace barrier.”

“FINALLY FIGHT?”

“Yes, we are going to fight.”

“USE EVERYTHING?”

“Of course. You do not need to hold anything back now.”

“FINALLY, NOT STUPID.”

Adrian chuckled. “Even I learn.”

The combined force of the Eternal Hunters, the Old Hunters, and the Nomad Fleet started moving as one. Soon enough, they had crossed the hyperspace barrier and left the system to approach the AI.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Year 718 of the Empire — Josanti League territory

Johanna’s Sovereign, the Remembrance, was at the head of the armada under her command. As the combined firepower of the Great Alliance punched a hole in the Enlightened defense systems, her ship led them all in a charge through it.

The Enlightened’s defenses seemed to be the same weapon that they had used in the battle in the control system. They were weaponized access points—only these seemed to be dedicated platforms, and had a slightly higher rate of fire. There was not much that they could do to defend against them except trying to move in unpredictable patterns, which was hard with so many ships in formations. But they had managed to take down many of the weapons down, so the rate at which they were destroying the ships in her force had slowed down significantly.

Now, their biggest concern were the bioships. They had gotten in position, and slowly the battle between the bioships and her forces had developed. There were more bioships, all moving toward her force from across the system, which was why Johanna was issuing orders at a breakneck speeds via her c-board and implant. She wanted to crush as much of the enemy force as she could before it could assume a larger formation. Her scanners told her that there were a lot of enemy forces spread through the system, but they were yet to see the Enlightened’s large Sovereign-class vessels that they had used against the Josanti League. There were some shadow pings out near the black hole in the outskirts of the system that might signify their presence, but then again that could be just the interference of the black hole itself.

Putting those things out of her mind, she turned back to the battle. Her ships were firing their beam weapons, filling the space between the two forces. The Enlightened fired weapons which were similar in power and range to the Krashinar beasts, but theirs seemed more powerful, even if they needed to recharge slightly longer. The main weapon they used was a beam that cut through her ships as if they were made out of nothing; the beams were narrow and focused, so once they managed to get through the shields, they would just shear off pieces.

Or at least that’s what happened to most of her ships. The Empire and Shara Daim ships had secondary defenses, however, that drastically reduced their effectiveness. The shimmering field that the Empire had taken from the Ra’a’zani long ago, and had by now made infinitely more powerful, diffused nearly all of that weapon’s power. The shimmering field worked not by stopping the enemy energy attacks, but by spreading them over a large area of the ship’s hull and turning a portion back into space.

It was saving her ships, and so far the only losses she’d had were from the access-point weapons—but the others weren’t so lucky.

As they closed the distance, Johanna ordered all the ships capable of firing kinetic weapons to do so. The more advanced races, those outside the Rimward Alliance, didn’t have kinetic weapons, but most of the less advanced races did. Even if their rail guns were drastically inferior to those of the Empire, mass moving at any portion of the speed of light would be devastating if it hit.

Johanna designated the Enlightened defense weapons as the priority targets, but she also made sure to fire some salvos into the bioship formations, if only to disrupt them. The Enlightened had already encountered these attacks, and she was sure that they would move in time—but their defenses were mostly static. They moved slowly, and could barely maneuver.

Johanna watched as hundreds of thousands of ships fired their kinetic salvos, a rain of metal shells headed toward the Enlightened.

*  *  *

Doranis saw the enemy fire their kinetic weapons. They were dangerous, but they would not catch him off guard again. His bioships adjusted their formations, moving out of the way. He knew that the enemy’s kinetic weapons had slight maneuvering capabilities, but he couldn’t tell if all of them did. That meant that his ships had to move even more out of position than he would’ve liked, and he could see the enemy armada already moving to capitalize on that.

But there was little he could do. Not all of his ships had reached the battle lines from across the system. He could go out himself and help, but he was still wary of an ambush. He couldn’t feel the ones Aranis had warned him about, but that didn’t meant that they weren’t there. It was still early in the battle, and he didn’t want to act rashly. The children of Axull Darr were created to combat them, and he was certain that they had a plan for engaging against him. He didn’t want to remove the skim nullifiers, either, as his enemy probably had records of the last battle, and knew that he had done so then. Taking the nullifiers down would give them more of an advantage than him at the moment.

So he kept his mind spread, and watched, getting a feel for the flow of battle. Soon, there would be a time for him to act.

*  *  *

A Tar’ferat battleship surged forward as battle escalated all around them. Its shield was being battered constantly by beams of various power, but so far their shield had held and they had taken no damage. The battleship bore down on an Enlightened defense weapon. It didn’t fire on them, and the crew wondered if their incredible access-point weapon had something akin to a minimum range, but they did not dwell on that thought for long as two bioships, both in battleship range, moved in their way to intercept.

A massive beam of blue-and-black light flashed next to the Tar’ferat ship and smashed into one of the bioships, and a massive explosion filled the area of space as the Empire’s Sovereign moving behind the Tar’ferat battleship fired its anti-matter beam. A small package of anti-matter was delivered to the bioship and it violently exploded, ripping a gashing hole in its surface.

The Tar’ferat opened fire on the other bioship, and instantly their rapid-fire plasma cannons filled the space with a rain of orange bolts. The bioship’s shields flared, then failed, and plasma struck the bioship. It burned deep inside, melting its hide and the pieces of conventional hull over its length. Fighting a bioship was a different experience for the Tar’ferat, as they saw their enemy ship bleed liquids before spinning dead in space. There were no explosions of internal systems exploding, no dramatic blasts of fire that lasted for mere moments as ships died. No, the Enlightened ships died slowly, as their lifeblood was drained through their wounds.

But the Tar’ferat battleship’s crew did not have the time to ponder on that. The way was clear to the defense weapon, and they opened fire.

Ion beams accompanied the plasma bolts and slammed into the defense system of the Enlightened. More of their allies joined their fire, and quickly the defense weapon lost its shields. The subsequent fire made quick work of it.

And just like that, the Great Alliance forces pushed through the defenses and met the enemy’s true main force of bioships. Orders from the Empire’s Fleet Master came in, and every ship focused on taking down as many bioships as possible before the rest of their forces could gather from across the system.

The Tar’ferat battleship moved in the shadow of a great Sovereign, using it as a shield from the increasingly large amount of firepower heading their way. The two forces met, and space turned to fire as they unleashed all that they had at one another.

*  *  *

Garaam, Dai Sha of the Shara Daim, sat in the command center of her Sovereign, Oath, and watched as their large force smashed into the bioship defenders. This was what she lived for, these battles in space, serving the Shara Daim. She understood her best friend’s need to leave the Shara Daim, as her time leading them had gone past, and she could not be close if her children were to rule—but Garaam couldn’t leave like her. A part of it was because she wanted to stay and protect her best friend’s children, who she now served; but another, bigger part was that she was Shara Daim, a Dai Sha, and she could know no other life than this.

The Shara Daim Sovereigns followed a different general shape than their Empire counterparts. Instead of the general obelisk shape, theirs looked like a narrow arch, and unlike the Empire’s Sovereign, which only had one massive cannon as their main weapon, the Shara Daim Sovereigns had two, one in each pillar of the arch.

Garaam ordered their main weapon charged, and the tips of the pillars started to glow as the molecular-disintegration cannons charged. Much more powerful than the version fired by both the other ships in the armada and the bioships, this weapon was similar to the beams fired by Star Guard defense stations.

The beams reached full charge, and a moment later they unleashed on the enemy bioships, engulfing entire cruisers and wiping them from existence. All that they touched, they turned to death.

Garaam ordered her Sovereign forward, and the rest of the task force she was assigned to followed behind them. She had ships in her task force from many star nations, and a majority of them were not very advanced. She watched as their weapons fired and barely scratched the bioships’ shields. But they were many, and over time their firepower accumulated—and with the several Sovereigns in her task force, they had enough protection to survive.

Still, they could not protect them all, and as the bioships returned fire, the less advanced ships died far faster than the others. Their sacrifice was not, however, in vain, as the bioships could not stop the armada, and so it pushed forward.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Doranis touched the minds of his Overseers, and delicately instructed them to do what he wanted. He was pulling his bioships back slowly. Even as other fleets joined the massive battle, he was guiding them deeper into the system. And the enemy was following, emboldened by the success of their attacks. They didn’t understand that the bioships meant little to him; they were tools to be used, and not much more. Sacrificing them was easy if it would achieve for him his goal.

But as the battle dragged on, Doranis noticed that the enemy armada slowed, instead of pushing as hard as possible, they were hesitating, using their long-range weapons instead of closing the distance. They were still firing their kinetic weapons, forcing him to always break up his formations in order to save his ships. Even with him doing so, however, they were killing many.

When he saw them change the way they pushed forward, he frowned. He wondered if they had figured out what his plan was, but he was certain that they couldn’t know. He needed them to move, and thinking of ways to accomplish that, he saw only one.

Taking a deep breath, Doranis plunged into the amplifier and cast his mind across the invading force. They were still keeping their Sha users on the amplifiers, looking at their surroundings and trying to keep their ships safe from him, but as he looked, he still couldn’t see what he was looking for. With every passing moment he became more certain that the Sha-state users were not here.

Finally, deciding to take a risk, Doranis stood up and bent space before appearing across the system and as far away from the battle as possible. There, small pieces of debris he had compressed into spheres turned slowly in the vacuum. His last attack with them had been surprisingly effective, and he had therefore prepared more of them. This enemy would not be so easily surprised, of course—their Sha users would sense him immediately after he appeared close enough. Still, it would force them to act.

He reached to the spheres, pulling them all closely together and then bending space, taking them with him. He appeared above the battle, and with an effort of will sent the spheres flying down toward the enemy ships. He didn’t aim carefully, as this was not an attack to destroy, but rather to mislead. He doubted that this would’ve worked with the former goal, not when he knew that they would detect the attack. He felt several minds pass over him, finding him, and he grinned as he tracked them back and smashed into their heads, killing them instantly. But as he had already knew would happen, immediately other minds took their place. He didn’t want to get bogged down into a war of attrition; he had no desire to see if they would run out of Sha users before they managed to tire him out.

So he bent space again, and appeared next to another already prepared field of spheres. He repeated his prior actions: he came in, sent them flying, and disappeared before their Sha users could try to engage him.

After another three times of doing so, he returned back to his Living-ship and watched.

*  *  *

Johanna’s force was now fully engaged with the Enlightened bioships. She watched as slowly but surely they were gaining ground. Her force outnumbered the entire Enlightened force in the system, and the number of bioships she was currently engaged with wasn’t even their full number. A few fleets were still traveling across the system attempting to join their formation in time. All except for one: a fleet containing the Living-ship of one of the three.

She didn’t know why they had yet to see the Enlightened take the field, but she had her Sha users on the lookout, and she ordered her force to slow down its advance. She didn’t like not knowing things, and the reason why the Enlightened hadn’t joined the battle was bothering her. She supposed that he was worried that Adrian and the others were with them, but if what they knew was correct, he would be able to tell.

Then she received word through her c-board that an enemy Sha user had been felt above her fleet’s position, and every telepath moved as agreed. Alone, none of them stood a chance against the Enlightened, but together they were formidable. Before they could engage and attack him, however, the Enlightened had killed three Sha users by breaking their minds, and then disappeared. Johanna had a moment to wonder about a being whose power was so great that it could break a living being’s mind in an instant before their sensors detected fast-moving kinetic objects moving toward their force.

Johanna recognized the move as the same one the Enlightened had used against the Josanti League, and sent out orders for an adjustment of their formations to allow the spheres to pass through without hitting any ship. But then more kinetic spheres were detected, attacking from every side at the same time.

Johanna took a moment to study their trajectories and speeds, and shook her head. It was going to be easy enough to evade them, and so she sent out orders. The Enlightened had thought that sending kinetic objects from several directions would be enough to take them unprepared, but their AIs were very good at fighting such threats—the Empire had been using kinetic weapons for a long time, after all.

Johanna watched carefully over her c-board, keeping an eye out for any sign of the Enlightened.

*  *  *

Doranis allowed himself a small grin which showed his wickedly sharp teeth. His plan had worked. The enemy force adjusted their trajectories and formations, allowing his spheres to pass through unopposed. It was actually an impressive bit of calculation, but ultimately it was playing right into his hand. The enemy had seen his spheres, and assumed that they were the same as the ones he had used before.

It was perfect.

Doranis waited for the spheres to enter the enemy formations, waited for them to be in the best possible positions—and then he reached with his power to them. The enemy Sha users noticed, and some tried to prevent him from doing what he intended, even if they didn’t know what that was. But they were weak and untrained, and with a slight exertion of his will Doranis grabbed the spheres.

He reached inside to the containment field he had placed just inside the solid surface of the spheres, and removed it. With no containment, the antimatter inside came into contact with the matter of the surface.

And fire blossomed in space.

*  *  *

Johanna had barely an instant of forewarning, as her Sha users reported the Enlightened was attempting to do something. A moment later, the spheres passing through her formations exploded violently, and the pure white fire of antimatter explosions quickly expanded.

Her ships were caught in it. In the first instant, thousands of the closest ones simply disappeared. One of the Empire’s Sovereigns was close to a few hundred of the spheres, and when they exploded it was engulfed. She saw on the c-board’s holo as its shields flared brightly for a moment before they collapsed.

All across her formation, her ships died.

*  *  *

Garaam nearly fell out of her chair as her Sovereign was rocked by a terrible explosion. Her sensors went haywire, and the shaking threatened to tear her ship apart. But then it stopped, and her warship was still there. Damage reports came in, and she read through them quickly as the sensors came back on-line and she saw what had happened to their assembled force.

They’d lost a large piece of their force, but the majority was still there. The problem was that their formations were in shambles, and the bioships were taking advantage of that by executing an counter attack. Ships began to die, and Garaam ordered her Sovereign forward to shield them from the heaviest of weapons fire.

Quickly, Johanna’s orders came back in, reestablishing order. The formations closed, and the bioships’ attack was stopped.

The Enlightened had dealt them a good blow, but this battle was nowhere near over. Reinvigorated by the desire for revenge, the armada surged forward.

*  *  *

Doranis grinned as his plan continued to work, and the enemy pursued his bioships with great vigor. He kept sending orders to the Overseers, making sure that his forces slowly retreated, even with the reinforcements reaching them and adding to their numbers.

Soon, the battle had shifted position, and they were deep into the system, nowhere near the hyperspace barrier.

Now, there would be no escape.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Loranis’s Living-ship exited the access point and entered the system. Immediately, Doranis reached out, feeling her arrival. He sent her a portion of his memories, bringing her up to speed with everything that happened.

“I see that you need my help,” Loranis sent back, tingeing her words with amusement.

“I can defeat them, but I am not willing to sacrifice so many of our forces. It is better that we be smart about this,” Doranis responded.

“And your plan?” she asked.

Doranis sent her his thoughts, and immediately she understood.

“You seem to have prepared well for this,” she commented.

“Of course. I knew that they would come for me here eventually,” Doranis said proudly.

Loranis chuckled to herself, then sent her agreement back to her brother. “Be ready to drop the nullifying field on my mark.”

With that, she took her force slowly out of the star, and more were coming in behind her. Her Juggernauts were all with her—one thousand of them, to be precise, each the size of a World-ship of the People, but with a hundred times more firepower. Like the enemy’s versions, they were designed to be bastions of war and destruction, but the Enlightened Juggernauts were larger than the enemy’s versions.

Her force emerged from the surface of the star, led by her Living-ship Mindseer, and Loranis took hold of its amplifier. In a moment, her mind spread across the system and she zeroed in on the enemy force. She found their Sha users, and they noticed her, but in moments she grabbed hold of them all and froze them, locking them in their own minds. She was far better at this than Doranis. She didn’t kill them; that would’ve taken more out of her, and she did not like overextending herself. Keeping them from moving, from acting, was enough.

Then she fashioned a ball of energy within her mind, and then spread it through her tendrils into the minds of the Sha users on the enemy ships, using them as relays to send it all around each of them. A moment later, a psychic attack struck the entirety of the enemy fleet. Weak and unfocused, it served only as a distraction—but that was its purpose.

She reached to Doranis and gave him the signal.

The skim nullifiers were off.

*  *  *

Johanna’s force pursued the enemy. The Enlightened’s attack, while successful, hadn’t been nearly as crippling as she had thought it would be. She had lost tens of thousands of ships—hundreds of thousands, if she counted the damaged ones—but still, a small fraction of her forces. The bioships, now fighting a losing battle, were taking the worst of it.

Their exchanges were nearly equal, but she had more ships, and already she knew that it was a matter of time before the battle started snowballing in her favor. The Enlightened was an unknown, but they had ways of dealing with him. So far, he had only executed the one attack, running away before her telepaths could attack him. But if he was aware of the danger, he might not even be able to act with his full power—and while his previous attack was successful, that had been her fault for not realizing that the attack was a ploy.

She would not make the same mistake again.

Her c-board was suddenly flooded with new contacts and she quickly turned her eyes toward them. Massive ships were rising from the star, led by another Living-ship. Her blood froze as she realized that another Enlightened had just entered the system, and behind it she could see more and more ships coming out of the star.

In an instant, the entire battle, since the moment they arrived in system up until this very moment, flashed through her mind. She analyzed everything that had happened: the missing Enlightened ships, the signals far out near the black hole. She looked at her c-board and saw their positions.

And she realized the truth.

“We lost,” she said, only a moment before a psychic attack slammed into her head.

*  *  *

As the psychic attack assaulted the Great Alliance forces, the skim field was taken down. Immediately all over the system, bioships fired skim missiles. Those that were near the enemy, those that were far away—it didn’t matter. The missiles crossed the distance and slammed into the crippled force. The crews were all suffering from the Enlightened’s psychic attack; it had lasted for only ten seconds, but it took them nearly half a minute to recover. By that time, it was too late. The skim missiles were coming in waves, overwhelming the automated defenses. Tens of thousands of Great Alliance ships died as their ships failed, all before their crews even realized what happened.

And then a thousand Juggernauts, accompanied by the Living-ship Mindseer and tens of thousands of bioships, arrived and opened fire. A few seconds later, another two thousand Juggernauts along with all the stragglers of the Enlightened force across the system arrived even as portions of the bioships already near the enemy executed quick skim jumps to reposition. Within thirty seconds, the Great Alliance forces were surrounded.

And before those who did not die in the initial assault could even recover, the skim nullifiers were back on-line.

The Enlightened force was firing savagely, destroying ships by the thousands. The Great Alliance armada was in shambles, its formations broken. Their Sovereigns, targeted first by the Juggernauts, were burning—many destroyed, others severely damaged. The battle continued, but the victor was no longer in question.

*  *  *

Garaam, Dai Sha of the Shara Daim, opened her eyes. She felt dizzy, and she blinked quickly as she remembered that she was in a battle. The psychic attack that had broken through her mind shield was gone, but on her holos she saw that everything had changed.

Her Sovereign’s shields, already drained from the antimatter attack, buckled under the strain from the assaults of the entire enemy formation. Her crew had recovered along with her, and were fighting for their ship.

There was quiet all around her. No one spoke, but instead focused entirely on their tasks. They knew, just as she did, that these were the final moments of their lives. And so they did what any Shara Daim in their place would—they threw caution to the wind as they fought. Her Sovereign burned a swath in the enemy formation, taking down many ships with every passing moment.

And then a large Enlightened ship appeared. It was larger than her Sovereign, but her crew was not disheartened. Her orders left her mouth, and they followed with a fire in their eyes. Garaam grinned as the ship accelerated, as all the Oath had was put into its drives. The enemy ship did not realize what they were going to do in time.

Her ship was falling apart under the fire of the Enlightened. One of its pillars broke off and tumbled away. But the Oath kept true.

Garaam watched with eyes wide open as her ship collided with the massive bioship.

Its hide split apart before the sheer mass of the Oath’s compressed-matter hull. Explosions rocked her ship—the walls were shaking, and lights flickering—but the Oath did not falter. Her Sovereign broke through the enemy bioship, leaving it with a massive, gouged hole, its lifeblood leaking and explosions rocking the parts of it that had been built with technology.

Garaam laughed out loud, and her crew joined her. A Shara Daim expressing their emotions—a thing not done in their nation. But here and now, it was good. A tear rolled down her cheek as several of the massive enemy bioships focused their fire on her Sovereign.

The moment came, and Garaam knew no more.

*  *  *

Doranis took to the field, bending space and appearing among the enemy ships. He spread his arms, and out of the palm of every one a beam of plasma left to impact the enemy ships. The enemy, disorganized and distracted, did not even have the time to look for him. He burned through the hulls of six ships, and then bent space again. Appearing next to a massive ship, he put a palm on its hull and it disintegrated, making the hole large enough for him to enter. He stepped inside as the air was vented, along with several bodies.

With a gesture of his hand he pulled the hull closed behind him, stretching the metal to cover the entrance. He continued on, punching a hole through another wall, and entering deeper. He killed everything in sight, fighting his way through the ship.

Sha users of great power came to try and stop him, but they were nothing before him. Sha was his to command, and his will was that they die. Balls of plasma, kinetic blasts, and psychic attacks lashed out of him and killed all that dared to stand in his way. He finally reached close to the center of the ship, and with an effort of will he exerted control on the Sha. It twisted and obeyed, and a black hole formed between his palms. He left it there and bent space to escape the ship.

He turned back to the vessel’s cracked hull, and told the black hole to grow. It obeyed, and the ship was swallowed up by the singularity before it collapsed under its own weight, ceasing to exist.

Quickly, Doranis looked around and found another target.

*  *  *

Johanna’s head cleared enough for her to look at her holo, and she saw a disaster. Her great armada, a force larger than any ever gathered—the fleets of the most advanced races in the galaxy—were burning. There was no longer any doubt of who was greater. The Enlightened had played her. She had been manipulated across this system, made to believe that she was better than her enemy, and now she was paying the price for her hubris.

Her Sovereign was being hammered by the enemy, and their shields collapsed as the crew recovered. She watched with a kind of detachment, looking at people yelling about, seeing them trying to recover. They fired back, her ship smashing through the shields of the enemy bioships and taking down dozens in a fury of power. But it was not enough. Damage reports piled up on her board as two massive ships slid in front of her Sovereign.

Each was the size of a World-ship, and each was brimming with weapons. Almost in slow motion, the enemy ships fired. Their entire fronts lit up as their beams slammed into her ship. It was shaking now, lights flickering on and off. Her people turned to her with wide eyes, terrified, asking for orders. But her mouth didn’t work.

She had done this. She had killed them all.

The beams cut through the Sovereign’s hull, and one hit the containment of the ship’s singularity core. It broke apart as the core destabilized, and a moment later the Remembrance lurched as a quarter of its hull imploded.

Named for the memory of Earth and its destruction, a symbol that what had happened before would never happen again, Remembrance’s power cut off as the other five cores shut down safely. It didn’t matter; the enemy beams kept coming, cutting into the ship, tearing it apart piece by piece.

Johanna closed her eyes, and remembered Earth as it used to be: the blue skies and the wind blowing through her hair. It felt wrong of her to even look at those memories, as she was the reason the Earth had been destroyed, but it was the last thing she wanted to remember nonetheless.

A beam blew through the solid hull protecting the command center, and everyone inside died in an instant.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Doranis, back on the Devourer, watched as his forces finished up with the enemy. Their massive armada was broken, their ships dying. Some were trying to run away, but there was nowhere to go. His bioships had now surrounded the enemy. They were too deep in the system to use hyperspace, and the skim nullifiers around the system were back on-line. No, there would be no running away for those who opposed the Enlightened.

He did acknowledge their power, however. He had lost more ships than he had thought he would. He had lost Juggernauts to the enemy’s equivalent. If there were words to be said about them, that they were cowards were not to be counted among them. Even knowing that death awaited them, they fought on—most notably the children of Axull Darr, and the ones called the Krashinar.

A touch of sadness entered Doranis’s heart at seeing the great beasts die. They alone were innocents, and they alone deserved to live. A race untouched by the taint of the People, a race that had clawed its way to space on its own merit. He vowed that he would remember them once this was all done, that he would make sure that they were not forgotten.

He felt Loranis reach out to him, and he accepted the connection.

“It is nearly done,” she sent.

“It is,” he responded calmly.

“You toyed with them.”

Doranis did not think so. Yes, he had the power to defeat them even without Loranis, but why fight a prolonged battle across the system when he didn’t need to? He was not ashamed to ask for help, and if he had guided his enemy’s actions to suit his, that did not mean that he had toyed with them. “I did not. I simply defended what is now ours.”

“If you say so,” Loranis told him. “I have word from our Overseers—half the relays are in position. It will not be long now until the others are in place.”

Doranis closed his eyes. To think that they were so close to accomplishing their goals… It almost didn’t seem real. “We’ve dealt a blow to the children of Axull Darr today, but they are not defeated.”

Loranis sent her agreement. “But this will hurt their alliance against us. They know now just how dangerous we truly are.”

“The next time they come will be the true test of their power and determination,” Doranis sent.

After a few moments of silence, Loranis continued, “They did not send the ones Aranis warned us about.”

“No,” Doranis said, clearly transmitting his confusion. “Adrian, Anessa, and Lurker of the Depths… If they had been here, this battle would’ve been very different. I remember Lurker of the Depths—he holds great power over the mind—and Adrian injured Aranis. They are clearly capable and powerful.”

“Why do you think that they didn’t send them?” Loranis asked.

“I do not know,” Doranis admitted. “This force was large enough that, with them accompanying it, it would’ve been a serious threat. Perhaps this was just a test, to see what we can do?”

“I do not think that they are so willing to throw away lives. Their people are not like our Created.”

Doranis agreed, but he did not see any other reason not to send them. “It doesn’t matter. We hold this system, and soon enough it will start producing bioships at a much greater rate. The more time they give us, the more we can grow.”

“As long as they don’t realize what we are really doing, I shall remain content. Aranis should be in position soon.”

“Yes,” Doranis agreed. Keeping the galaxy’s eyes off of Aranis was the only thing that mattered.

*  *  *

Aileen, Sentinel of the Empire, sat on board her ship, hiding in the outer reaches of the system and watching as the force of the Great Alliance was decimated and crushed. She knew that there were other watchers aside from her. The Suvri had their stealth ships somewhere, and there were more Sentinels.

A part of her urged her to leave now, to run and deliver the news of the defeat to the Empire and their allies. But she couldn’t—there were still ships fighting, and she owed it to them to see everything. Their fight was futile, but still the ships fought with valor, with a ferocity unlike anything that Aileen had ever seen. They died bravely. She made sure to see everything, to record everything, so that the galaxy would see, would know that they fought for them and died. For the galaxy to see their deaths and understand once and for all what a threat the Enlightened were.

She didn’t know how long she and her crew sat there in silence, watching their people die. But as the last of ship of the Great Alliance fell, Aileen bowed her head. She remained like that for a minute, paying respect to the people who had fought for the galaxy and died.

She raised her head and looked around, seeing the somber looks of her crew.

“Get us home,” she ordered.

A moment later they were in hyperspace rushing toward the closest access point, and from there to Sol.

Her message would spread—and the deaths of so many would shake the galaxy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Year 718 of the Empire — People manufacturing system

The Custodian analyzed the reports it was receiving from its ships across the galaxy. The Enlightened assault had already destabilized the majority of the star nations they had reached. The attacks were meant to cause chaos, and that was exactly what they had achieved—most star nations were too busy scrambling to defend their territory to pay much attention to anything else, and the ones that had joined the alliance were too busy engaging with the Enlightened to take note of those who were not. This included the AI. It had not been disturbed so far.

One report, however, caught the AI’s attention: the great battle that had been won by the Enlightened in their new base system. The Great Alliance had assembled a large force, attacked, and lost, as the Custodian knew would happen. It had been inevitable that once the Enlightened proved too difficult to expel by the Josanti League alone that the core power would reconsider its stance on joining the Great Alliance. It had occurred earlier than the AI had predicted, precisely, but within a standard deviation.

It had not, however, been the only thing that it had not predicted.

The Great Alliance had not sent the Nomad Fleet and the three people capable of the same feats as the Enlightened. Indeed, almost all of the AI’s predictions concerning the Nomad Fleet had turned contrary to what it found the most probable. This was not something that it was surprised about, as after all the Custodian had very little data on the Nomad Fleet, and ever since the battle in the control system it had been unable to learn anything more. It had been surprisingly difficult to find information about it, and it was equally difficult to infiltrate. The Nomad Fleet remained an unknown variable.

It had still based projections on the data it had available from other sources, and the Custodian’s lack of information on the Nomad Fleet had been accounted for—but as it looked through its ships’ reports, it knew that such a lack of information should not have impacted its projections so much. It had entirely failed to see the Great Alliance’s attack without the Nomad Fleet present—all of its projections had clearly indicated that the Nomad Fleet would be.

The Custodian delegated more of its processes to the problem; it did not like having things happen that were unforeseen. Once again, it went through all the reports it had gathered and information it had stolen from star nations across the galaxy. Based on an earlier projection, there had been the chance that the Nomad Fleet was looking for it… But that should not be such a large concern. The Great Alliance leadership did not consider the AI a threat, which was by its own design. It had not attacked since the battle in the control system.

The Great Alliance might be worried about it, but they would choose to focus on the threat that was actively assailing them. The Nomad Fleet alone would not be able to threaten the Custodian, and there were no other star nations which would be able to assemble a force large enough to do so. There was also the fact that this system was fairly well hidden, and the AI had patrols and watchers always on the lookout for any intruders.

It was possible that it could have missed someone coming in to its system—the Alangians, for example, had the most advanced stealth systems in the galaxy—but it dismissed their involvement. The Alangians had isolated themselves ever since their rebellion against the People alongside the Partenai and the now extinct Darshi. They did not care for galactic matters, choosing instead to keep their existence a secret from every other race. The only ones with stealth technology even close to Alangian tech were the Suvri.

The Custodian did have ways of seeing through their stealth, but there existed a chance that it could have overlooked something. If the Suvri had discovered his system, there was a 96.45% chance that they would inform the rest of the Great Alliance, in which case the Custodian would’ve seen evidence of them knowing.

Unless it was missing some variable. The Nomad Fleet was one such unknown, and already it had seen results from them that were unlikely. The rumors surrounding its disappearance were worrying, and the Custodian knew that it could not risk any error, not in such a critical time.

Reevaluating all the data it had, the Custodian developed several new projections. It did not have much information on the Nomad Fleet, but it had a lot on the other nations in the galaxy. By using recent events as a base, it developed several predictive algorithms designed to predict the most probable course of action of the Nomad Fleet.

The result was worrying, but it ran similar projections for seven days in order to make sure, and with every new projection or prediction, one thing became almost certain.

The Nomad Fleet was coming to its system.

It did not have enough points of data to extrapolate their possible numbers or plans, but based on the recorded past action of the Nomad Fleet leader, the AI knew that it would soon be facing a force capable of defeating it.

The Custodian finished with its projections, and adjusted its plans—preparing for a battle.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Year 718 of the Empire — People manufacturing system

The Seventh was sitting in the innards of the great Araxi, its manipulators curled around the nodes that made its connection with Araxi greater. They were still in hyperspace, but it could feel the nervousness of the other handlers around it. The Seventh understood their feelings; it had been elevated to a greater position now, one that had never before included combat, and yet they were now heading straight into battle.

The handlers did not like that. All Krashinar remembered the death of its predecessor, and none of them wished to be responsible for the death of another. The Seventh understood those feelings; it had felt the guilt of its sire’s death for a long time. Because of this, it had agreed to stay in the back formations and help facilitate communications between the two great hunter packs and the Nomad Fleet. Araxi did not like that, but the Seventh had managed to convince it—though still it grumbled in its mind.

The Seventh and Araxi were with the Eternal Hunters and the portion of Nomad Fleet led by Ryaana, while Lurker of the Depths was with the Old Hunters. Their plan was for a simple frontal attack. Ryaana’s battlegroup and Lurker of the Depths’ forces would act together to punch through the AI’s lines quickly and get control of the star which held the access point, as they did not want to see unexpected reinforcements from the Enlightened.

Their larger plan relied on them getting control of the star for another reason, however. From the records Suvri had showed them, the AI’s force was mostly focused close to its core and its Swarm, which should allow their force to get through to the star before the AI’s numerical advantage could be brought to bear on them.

A handler reached out to the Seventh, letting it know that they were going to drop out of hyperspace at any moment. The Seventh settled in, preparing its mind for the battle to come.

*  *  *

Ryaana sat nervously in her command chair, on board the Bastion, her mother’s ship. It was a World-ship, an Empire-built one, not at all like the Titan she commanded. It did not have as many offensive weapons, but then it had never been intended to. The World-ship was the capital of the Nomad Fleet, its flagship in battle, and now Ryaana would be commanding from it.

It was a great gesture of trust that her parents had extended to her, but a part of her couldn’t help but feel that the only reason she had gotten the job was because she was not strong enough in the Sha state to be of use in their plan. She knew that they were right, of course, but that did not mean that she couldn’t feel the way she did.

But getting the command of such a battle was a large responsibility, one which she was not sure she deserved. She had led ships into battle before, of course—losing some, winning others—but she would’ve thought the Seventh a better choice than her.

She knew that it was probably because it was a bit hard for the Krashinar to communicate with other races, even if they did so exclusively with telepathy. While the majority of this force was Krashinar regardless, the Nomad Fleet was arguably more important, as it was their Titans that would be protecting the Krashinar beasts and leading the charge.

At least she would have both Lurker of the Depths and the Seventh nearby to offer any needed advice or guidance.

Finally, the clock on the holo hit zero—their forces had arrived in system.

Immediately, every ship they had pinged the system with their sensors, getting a clear picture of the space around them.

Ryaana immediately felt a touch of fear. The system was massive, with fields of planet remnants covered in machinery and mining operations. The massive black hole at the center of it was the most impressive. Stations curved around it, and there were so many ships moving about that even their computer had trouble putting numbers on them. Most of them were machine ships, cruisers and battleships placed strategically around the system in colossal formations. There were stations, defense platforms, and satellites filling the space.

But farther out, close to the broken-up planets, was the Swarm: a cloud the size of several planets put together, and at its center a spherical object the size of a small moon. The AI core had used to be the headquarters of the last of the People, but it was now a mobile station—one the AI had clearly been upgrading. It now had rings surrounding it, and on them the Bastion’s sensors detected weapon systems.

A few moments after their force announced itself, sensor pings from the AI’s forces hit their side. There was no hiding here now. The AI knew that they were here, and it knew how many of them there were. The last count of the force Ryaana now commanded was at just a bit over two million Krashinar beasts, along with around the one hundred thousand ships of the Nomad Fleet. The majority of that were nanoships, but the facility of Axull Darr had been working since the moment her father returned to it, and they had recovered their original number of Titans, leaving them with roughly eleven thousand.

A pitiful number when compared to the enemy in this system, but each of the thirty-kilometer-long Titans were more powerful than even the Sovereigns. They were designed for fighting the Enlightened.

Ryaana opened her mind and sent the go-ahead signal to the Seventh even as she used her implant to send out orders over the c-board. A moment later, the entire force started moving forward.

*  *  *

The Custodian aborted all of its unnecessary processes and turned all of its attention to the intruders now in its system. It had expected an attack, and had made some preparations, limited in scope as they were by the lack of information at its disposal. Now, as its scanners across the system detected the invading armada and its composition, the AI began developing a plan of action.

The Nomad Fleet had arrived with a massive force of biological ships. Its scans revealed that there was a high probability that these were Krashinar beasts, although only a portion of their signatures matched what it already had on them. There seemed to be two distinct forces of Krashinar, both holding Nomad Fleet vessels at the head of their formations. One of them was incredibly confusing; as the AI ran through the returned scans it could clearly see that each beast in that formation was unique. Some shared similarities, but they were all different. That alone had confused it, and made it think that perhaps its conclusions were wrong, that these were not Krashinar ships—but in the end there were just too many signs pointing in the direction of these being Krashinar. The other formation held only signatures that it recognized, but the majority were unfamiliar.

The Custodian had been aware that its lack of information on the Krashinar was a problem, but the data it had retrieved from various sources never even suggested that they were capable of sending such numbers. One of the low-percentage possibilities had been that the Nomad Fleet’s leader would turn to the Krashinar for help, of course, but that had been discarded once data indicating the Krashinar had not pulled their forces from the Great Alliance had been confirmed.

It no longer mattered, however, and the AI didn’t dwell much on past projections. The enemy armada was here, and it had to deal with it. It started transmitting orders to its forces, guiding them into positions. The enemy’s current heading was set directly for the star. The most probable reason for this was that they wished to both cut it off from the system and secure a way out for themselves.

The AI knew that their force was not large enough to defeat it. Even with the unknowns of the new Krashinar signatures, it held an overwhelming numerical advantage. The enemy had to know that, which meant that the AI needed to be on the lookout for any tricks. The enemy armada could hurt it—they had enough power to destroy its manufacturing capability, which would set it back years, and because of this it was forced to send out forces from across the system toward the black hole and the massive factories there. It left its mining operations unprotected, but those were not as critical to its efforts as the factories were.

As its forces started to move, the AI pulled back and observed, ready to adjust its orders instantly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Moirai dropped out of hyperspace followed quickly by four others. The first was the Titan-class Dragon, originally Ryaana’s ship, now commanded by Anessa. The other three were great beasts of the Old Hunters: the three were called Harxi, Dorvax, and Hutad, as Adrian had learned only recently. They were ones of the older great beasts in that pack, and those that had taken a great liking to Moirai. They had been the ones teaching her the most, and which Moirai liked the most.

When they had settled in on the number of ships they could safely bring with them, Adrian had initially wanted to bring all Titans, but the plan had changed. The great beasts here might be old, but they were powerful, and their biological nature meant that they were less at risk from any of AI’s electronic warfare attacks. That left only Moirai and the Dragon at risk. Both had been upgraded as much as possible, and Moirai was less at risk than the Dragon, as her technological systems didn’t really control her, and all were under Iris’s control.

Their plan was simple: draw out the AI’s forces from its core, teleport in and keep whatever defenses it left near it busy while Iris assaulted its core. Hopefully the speed of their attack would catch it unprepared and allow Iris to get a quick look in and get out, after which they would retreat to the fleet near the star and exit through the access point.

Moirai and its escorts waited in dark space just outside the outer borders of the AI’s system, far enough away that they wouldn’t be discovered by the AI. An unfortunate side effect of their position was being unable to see anything that was happening in system, but by now, the rest of their force would have reached the AI’s system and begun attacking.

Adrian stood in Moirai’s cargo area, looking at a box filled with blue spheres each the size of his head. They were just one of the weapons that Anessa, Lurker of the Depths, and he had designed to let them utilize their power better.

He was also wearing a suit of armor, an upgrade of the Sentinel armor that he had used to wear. He didn’t really need it when he was in the vacuum of space, as he could survive there while in Sha state, but there was no need for the added drain when he could use technology to assist. The suit wouldn’t protect him if he was shot with a weapon from a ship, but it was there only for life support. His power would keep him from dying from anything else. There were a few more boxes here, with a few more surprises they had come up with, but he didn’t know how much use they would be in this battle. The only ones he could see a use for were the blue spheres in front of him.

Making a decision, he took hold of the large box with his telekinesis and bent space from the cargo area to Moirai’s heart. He arrived and lowered the box, then walked over to the throne and took a seat.

Iris was floating close, making final preparations, as Adrian reached out to Moirai.

“Nervous?” Adrian asked.

“NO,” Moirai responded instantly. He was always surprised by her absolute belief that she was the most powerful thing there was—probably because it was the truth, at least in most cases. But Adrian knew that he was going to need to teach her that arrogance needed to be watched for.

“You remember the plan?” Adrian asked.

“OF COURSE. NOT STUPID,” Moirai said, indignant.

Adrian chuckled. “I’m just reminding you not to fire on the AI’s core. I know that one empty ship might look the same to you as any other.”

“NOT BLIND, CAN TELL DIFFERENCE!” Moirai said in a tone that told him immediately that she though he was being stupid.

Adrian sighed and shook his head. True, having a great beast as a partner was a wonderful thing, but there were some aspects that were somewhat annoying—like trying to converse with a being whose understanding of the universe around them was drastically different than his own. If he hadn’t experienced Old Scar’s life, he would’ve had no hope of even trying.

Not wanting to bother Moirai anymore, Adrian turned his mind to the upcoming battle. He wondered if Ryaana had already engaged the enemy.

*  *  *

Anessa sat in the command center of the Dragon, her daughter’s crew surrounding her. They were a good crew, well trained from what little time Anessa had spent with them.

A part of her was just a bit worried for her daughter. Anessa would’ve much rather been back on the Bastion, but she understood why she wasn’t. With the limited amount of mass they could teleport, they needed as much firepower as they could get in their smaller battle group. Ryaana was just not trained enough for it, not yet, and the Lurker of the Depths relied more on his telepathy, which was useless against the AI.

Anessa waited patiently, dressed in her armor, her mind clear as she prepared for the conflict ahead. She didn’t know how long it would take for Ryaana to send them the go-ahead signal, as that depended on the developments in system, but she knew it would be a while. Their assault force needed to draw enough forces away from the core of the AI in order to make their plan not a suicide, and Anessa was certain that Ryaana would accomplish that.

She was, after all, her daughter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The first row of Ryaana’s formations smashed against the AI’s defenses. Its defense platforms—powerful ion and proton beams—were hammering at the coming onslaught. The Nomad Fleet’s kinetic weapons proved their worth against the fixed defenses, but that still left the AI’s machine ships. Her forces were slugging it out at a distance. Her armada outnumbered the defenders in front of them, but more machine ships were moving from across the system.

Ryaana was sending out orders constantly, the Sha state thrumming in her as she kept a piece of her mind connected to the Seventh and Lurker of the Depths, keeping them updated as well as issuing them orders. It wasn’t as draining to her as some of the other tasks, and she believed that she could hold it for a while.

The space between the two forces was shrinking rapidly, and the machine ships were exploding at an increasing rate as her armada turned her small advantage into something greater. The Krashinar beasts fired their beams from ranges beyond what the machine ships were capable of, and that alone made their breaking through the first line of defense nearly inevitable.

*  *  *

The Seventh watched through Araxi’s eyes as their force smashed against the machine fleets gathered to stop them. Their numbers had been just a fraction of the Krashinar and Nomad Fleet invasion force, and quickly the greater firepower of the beasts and Nomad Fleet ships overpowered them. The combined force pushed into the system, constantly fired upon by defense platforms across it. The enemy machine ships were moving on a course that would eventually intercept with theirs, but they were not rushing.

The Seventh could see that they were attempting to gather a force that would outnumber the combined armada before committing to a battle. New orders reached to the Seventh through its link with Ryaana, and it relayed them to the rest of the Krashinar forces. The armada altered its course slightly, making sure to keep the debris of cracked planets and the machine ships between it and the core of the AI and its Swarm. The AI had an extreme-long-range weapon in its Swarm which could be a problem. They didn’t know its max range—it hadn’t fired yet—although they were further away now than they had been in the control system when the AI had used it then.

Still, they made sure that something was always in the way of the line of sight between the Swarm and them, just in case.

The armada was being constantly fired upon from many sides, but so far they had taken few casualties. The power of the Titans and great beasts proved too much for the smaller machine ships. But the AI had yet to commit the greater bulk of its forces, as a massive amount of machine ships was currently being amassed just outside the range of the armada.

The Seventh knew that they would begin their assaults soon—but by then it would be too late, as the armada would reach the star before the enemy could truly commit to a battle.

*  *  *

Lurker of the Depths sat in the pool of his Titan, the Dark Waters. His mind was plugged into the amplifier and his mind wandered. It was not like his expertise was needed; Ryaana was a better commander and he was there simply to aid in the communications with the Krashinar. But there had been little need for that so far—instead, he kept his mind focused on the battle. He was surprised how different it felt, being in conflict with an enemy who he couldn’t sense. There was no life on the AI’s machine ships, nor was there anything anywhere in the system. The only side of the conflict that he could sense was his own, and the Krashinar beasts’ telepathic signatures filled his mind.

He was surprised when he saw just how different the two packs felt. The Old Hunters’ signatures and voices were calm, secure in their knowledge and experience. There was little chatter among the beasts themselves, and when there was, the beasts sent impressions of the enemy: weaknesses, strengths, warnings. Lurker of the Depths had spent enough time close to the Krashinar during battle to know that their Great Packs, while extremely competent, were still filling the space with chatter. The Old Hunters, for their part, were far more adept at this, and he was impressed by them. The Old Hunter beasts might be old and weaker overall when compared to the Nomad Fleet’s firepower or that of the Eternal Hunters, but they did as much if not more damage.

It was because they were communicating the important things to one another, and their Handlers knew enough to let them do it. The Old Hunters knew where to aim in order to inflict most damage, and they coordinated at the level only those who had served for ages together could. There were rarely any moments when the Old Hunters missed their targets, or even landed just a glancing blow.

The Eternal Hunters, on the other hand, were the complete opposite. Lurker of the Depths felt their uncontrolled emotions, the struggle their Handlers went through to control them. The Eternal Hunters were disorganized; instead of a tightly coordinated pack, they seemed more like an unstoppable horde, taking down anything and everything in its path. There had even been several times when beasts in the Eternal Hunters’ pack had attacked the Nomad Fleet ships.

They were all powerful, some even more than the great beasts Lurker of the Depths had seen in the Great Packs, but they were clearly not properly trained for organized battle. All they knew was how to inflict damage—and that they did. They destroyed as much of enemy ships as the Old Hunters. But though they held a greater amount of firepower, they. struck at every target with little regard for aim or coordination with the other beasts.

Still, they were impressive in their own right.

And just like that, as Lurker of the Depths observed the battle with his mind, their force fought its way to the star. The armada smashed into the defenses in its orbit—they were remarkable, but they were no match for the combined might of the Nomad Fleet and the Krashinar. Lurker of the Depths watched as a task force of Nomad-Fleet Titans split off and went into the star to clear any enemy ships inside.

And then, from the center of their armada, hidden from view thus far, there arrived the three Hephaestus stations and they settled in orbit and assumed their assault forms. Turrets formed out of their nanite clouds and the charging of the MD cannons began. Titans took positions in front in order to shield them from any attempt to fire on them.

The machine force was still in the process of gathering more ships when the three moon-sized stations finished charging their first shots. Lurker of the Depths could see that the AI had realized what was going to happen, and the gathered machine force started to move and disperse their formations in preparation for the inevitable firing of the stations.

But spreading so many ships was not a quick maneuver. The stations fired and beams of light cut into the AI’s force. Each beam was large enough to engulf several ships, and they didn’t stop. The beams eradicated every ship they touched—thousands died from the first three beams. The Nomad Fleet was firing kinetic shells at multiple targets across the system; some at the stationary facilities, others at fleets moving toward them. They would probably all be avoided, by the forces that could move, at least, but it would disrupt them and delay them. And the stationary stations were not so lucky, some had limited maneuverability but the Nomad Fleet shells could adjust their trajectories as well.

Lurker of the Depths saw the AI order its fleets in the way of the kinetic missiles in order to protect the shipyards and other important targets. Its massive assembled force started moving toward the star, taking the cannon blasts from the Hephaestus stations every couple of minutes as they charged their beams.

But even with them taking so many down, there were too many machine ships in system—and they were now all coming straight for them.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The Custodian watched as the enemy armada entered the inner system, all the way harried by its forces. It was losing a lot more than they were, however. Their kinetic missiles had been taking down its defense platforms and targeting facilities that it could not afford to lose, and so forcing it to sacrifice ships in order to protect them. It had always known the danger of such weapons to stationary targets, but it hadn’t had the time to build up countermeasures. It had been on its agenda, but fairly low on its list of priorities.

The losses it was suffering were not all because of that. It had been watching and adjusting its tactics constantly, yet they were not having the desired effect. Part of it was that the Krashinar were the worst possible opponents for the AI. There were no electronic signals it could hack, there were no sensor readings it could alter or disrupt. The Krashinar beasts saw the universe in a completely alien way to that of the AI—but the other part was even more worrying.

The AI was adept at adapting, at adjusting its tactics to suit its need. But it was failing. The Krashinar forces were split into two large formations, each drastically different than the other, and no amount of processing power assigned to the problem did anything to fix it. It had been attempting to adjust its forces’ protocols, targeting, and positions in order to have a much greater effect against the enemy, but one of the Krashinar forces was impossible to predict. Their attacks were chaotic and flawed, yet somehow they were able to inflict an enormous amount of damage. And every time the Custodian attempted to change the fire patterns of its forces to take the Krashinar formation off guard, it did nothing. The beasts were completely unpredictable.

The other formation was a drastic contrast. They were, if anything, too predictable—the AI could see and adjust the forces confronting them easily. But every time the Krashinar fell beneath a certain threshold of effectiveness as a result of the AI’s actions, the entire Krashinar formation changed its patterns and adapted. They were disciplined, every beast working in concert with every other. The AI could only conclude that these types of beasts had an incredibly high capacity for sharing information between themselves.

The only area where the AI was having success was against the Nomad Fleet. They were a bit more conventional, but their EW firewalls were adaptable. It could not do much, although it did manage to lower their efficiency against its machine ships by almost sixteen percent. Their Titan warships were posing a problem, however; they had so much firepower that such a small decrease in efficiency didn’t matter much overall.

The battle was still going in its favor. Even with their amazing displays of power, the AI had just too many tools at its disposal for them to be able to do much damage to its system, let alone take it. It was why when the Custodian realized that the armada wanted to secure the star and the access point, it did not worry, and even allowed it to happen.

The only reasonable explanation for their assault was that they wanted to slow its speed of growth by destroying its manufacturing stations. It knew that if it denied them the star, and managed to trap them in system, they would fight that much harder and do far more damage. By allowing them a way out of the system, it had made certain that they would not go on a last-stand type of a rampage across the system. The AI could not afford to lose any of its facilities.

Then the AI detected something large move out of the center of the enemy’s forces. It recognized the signatures immediately as it had seen them in combat before. They were the support stations of the Nomad Fleet, and could fire weapons of a similar power to the main weapons of the Swarm. When the AI hadn’t seen them with the armada, it had assumed that they had simply not been brought, as it had noticed the large hybrid ship that had fought the Enlightened and decimated its forces in the control system had been missing as well.

Immediately it adjusted the formations of its forces, and issued an order for them to attack. The long range of those stations meant that they could presumably strike against its facilities in system, and the AI knew that it needed to prevent that as soon as possible. It ordered a portion of its fleets moving to join the main formation back to get in position in front of its stations.

But now it knew that it would need more. It started moving its Swarm, separating it into two large pieces, and sent one toward the star. The Swarm formation shaped itself into a large oblong sphere and accelerated rapidly toward the enemy, forming its own weapons as it moved. Three large turrets emerged on its surface and charged as it headed for the enemy armada.

*  *  *

Ryaana saw the AI’s forces charge at them in a massive wall of machine ships. The stations were taking down throngs of them with every attack, but there were so many that it barely did anything. The entirety of her force was now in the orbit of the star and firing at the oncoming AI’s forces.

And then she saw the AI’s Swarm move. About half of it separated from the cloud and headed in their direction. She saw it form the same weapon it used in the control system and grimaced at the thought of facing those beams. As the battle raged, the Swarm entered into range and fired. Beams that were more powerful than those of her stations lashed out and started punching holes in her formations.

Ryaana knew that this was becoming increasingly more dangerous as the Swarm bore down on them and the amassed force of machine ships continuously fired on them. She looked at the holo, seeing that the AI had moved most of the forces to the side of the system close to the star, engaging her armada. The only thing left next to the core of the AI was half of its Swarm. That half was still about as large as the Swarm it had during the fight in the control system, but it didn’t look like it was going to use more of it.

Knowing that this was as good of a chance as they were going to get, Ryaana sent the signal to her father.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“It is time,” Iris said.

Adrian raised his head and looked at her avatar, then nodded and looked at his board, seeing the latest scans of the system they had received from Ryaana along with the go ahead.

“Charge the main weapon, tell the Dragon to do the same,” Adrian told Iris.

“Combat mode,” Adrian told Moirai, and her hull opened up. Pieces of the hull slid open to reveal two stubby, wing-like extensions from her sides. The back end of the hull folded up and four long, blood-red fin-like extensions, each over five kilometers long, extended out from the holes, the hull pieces folding over the fins like armor. Smaller hatches opened up, revealing her blood-red hide and her grown weapons. The front of her shell opened up as well, revealing the four-pronged fork that was her main weapon.

Adrian dropped into the Sha state and reached out to Anessa, letting her know to get ready. All five vessels were close to one another, already ready to go. Adrian connected his mind to Moirai.

“Are you ready?” Adrian asked.

“YES.”

Adrian nodded his head and then reached out through Moirai. She allowed him into her mind and body and he used her power to reach out farther than he could ever reach on his own. He found the area near the AI’s core in subspace, and with Moirai supplying power, he created an image. With her using her own energy, there was no strain on his mind—he simply shaped what he wanted to do.

With his will, he formed a field around his battle group and then pushed them into subspace, even as he compressed the two spots into one. A few moments later, they reappeared into normal space, just next the spherical core of the AI.

Not even a second after they appeared, the AI’s sphere opened fire at them. But the sphere’s weapons could not take down the shields of Moirai, a Titan, and three great beasts that easily. The Swarm in position around it surged, forming weapons and preparing to fire, but before it could, Adrian’s battle group opened fire themselves.

Anessa’s Titan fired its main weapon, and the MD cannon smashed into the Swarm, burning millions of its individual drones. The three great beasts didn’t have a single devastating weapon, but all of their beam weapons lanced out and struck the Swarm. Lastly, Moirai fired her own main weapon—the subspace cannon unleashed a torrent of high-radiation energy from the fork just as a gash in space appeared. The energy disappeared inside, and a few moments later it appeared on the other side of the Swarm. The devastation erupted and spread in a spherical direction to consume a large portion of its size. They hadn’t targeted the front, as they couldn’t risk hitting the core, and so a large part of the Swarm was still intact, and it returned fire.

“I found a way in!” Iris said, and then her form flickered and went out. Adrian knew that she had invaded the AI’s core, and put it out of his head. Instead, he started helping Moirai fire her unconventional weapons. She could do it herself through her cybernetic implants, but she was not as adept or fast as Iris or even Adrian could be.

As the five ships fought, the core’s weapons suddenly went down, and Adrian knew that Iris was having some success. Moirai kept her position near the core, the proximity necessary for Iris to infiltrate the Custodian. Anessa was in position just next to Moirai, and the three great beasts just below them.

Moirai’s shields were flashing as the Swarm fired, but his small force was fighting back.

It was a wonder to see a true display of power from a Titan, the great beasts, and Moirai. Adrian guided her into using her Sha abilities as they fought, and her wings flashed with energy that then exploded outward in an almost lightning-like manner to strike the Swarm and then arch around the drones, hitting thousands before dissipating.

But there was always more of the Swarm, no matter how much they destroyed.

*  *  *

Lurker of the Depths felt Adrian arrive in the system, but he did not have the time to focus on his battle. The enemy machine ships had gathered in large number and they were pressing the armada hard. A piece of the Swarm was firing its own MD beams, which killed thousands of beasts with every shot, and the machine fleets had started blanketing the space between them in a kind of jamming signal that prevented Nomad Fleet comms, which meant that most of the orders were now being transmitted by telepathy.

He had his mind spread over the armada facilitating the transmissions. The armada was in good position, and they had a powerful force, but there were just too many of the machine ships. They wouldn’t be able to hold for long. There had been no movement from the AI’s forces to head back and defend its core, either, which could either mean that the plan had been a success and it couldn’t send a recall order, or it had been a failure and it did not feel the need to do so.

In the end, there was nothing else for them to do but hope.

*  *  *

Adrian saw the Swarm surge forward, its weapons systems collapsing back into the Swarm as it headed straight for them. He knew instantly what it was going to do; he had seen it in the records of the People. He opened his mind and spoke to everyone in his force.

“Move back! Right now!” Adrian ordered.

“What about Moirai?” Anessa asked.

“We are going to need to protect her,” Adrian replied, and reached out with a hand to the box of blue spheres he had prepared. Then he bent space and teleported, appearing outside Moirai.

He felt the three great beasts and the Dragon begin a slow retreat, still firing with all their weapons into the Swarm that was moving like a wave toward them. Adrian felt Moirai in his mind as she fired every weapon at her disposal, bathing the space in fire and light. He felt her form a ball of dark energy and then unleash it into the oncoming wave, and everything that it touched, it annihilated utterly. A large chunk of the Swarm just disappeared, but more quickly arrived to fill in the gaping hole.

Adrian felt Anessa appear next to him, and he grabbed hold of the twenty or so balls from the nearby crate. He arranged them into a plate in front of him and focused. Reaching inside, he found the highly compressed pure water, and with an effort of will he excited it in an instant, turning it into plasma. The spheres disappeared as they were consumed by plasma, but his containments were there and ready.

He kept them on target and then he opened a side of the containment. The beam of plasma exploded in front of him and into the oncoming Swarm. Anessa reached out and helped him keep it together, and then they started moving it, splashing the plasma across the Swarm. It lasted for several seconds, and then it was gone, along with many pieces of the Swarm.

And still more were coming in. Both Adrian and Anessa started gathering dark energy from around them, forming it into balls in front of them, and then fired. They could not do nearly as much damage as Moirai, but they could still do some.

The wave was near now. Adrian could see the individual drones as they moved. They wouldn’t be able to hold it off. There was nothing left to do but retreat. Adrian was getting ready to bend space, to take himself and Anessa back to Moirai and to run, when a shape flew above him, and another below, followed by a third. He recognized the three great beasts, Harxi, Dorvax, and Hutad of the Old Hunters—great beasts that were thousands of years old. Their hides were gray, splotchy, and there were gashes and scars on them.

So shocked was he to see them, that he just stopped and watched. The three great beasts slammed into the Swarm, and Adrian felt gravity lurch, pulling him in. He halted himself with Sha and watched as the entire Swarm was stopped in its tracks. The gravitational pull of the great beasts smashed the drones, compressing and destroying them. Moirai took the chance and increased her rate of fire as she moved up closer to Adrian. All of her weapons were glowing as her Sha pulled dark matter and threw it at the Swarm.

Then Adrian was shaken from his stupor as he saw small drones push through the wall. The gravitational pull of the great beasts was great, but some of the Swarm moved around, and other drones managed to get through somehow. Those that did zeroed in on the great beasts to land on their hides, and beams cut into their skin.

Adrian teleported next to them, grabbing and crushing the closest Swarm drone before throwing it on another. Anessa teleported to another beast, but Adrian could already see more and more drones get through. Quickly, their numbers increased so much that he couldn’t get to them all.

In his mind he heard a great beast scream, and he knew that one of them had died. Hutad, having been left undefended, was cut to pieces by the Swarm. The drones, whose primary function designed by the People was to harvest resources, and this new version, weaponized further by Ullax Darr, possessed terrible power.

The gravitational pull of the great beasts lessened, and Adrian saw more and more of the Swarm get through, even with all of Moirai’s power and that of the Dragon further away firing into it. There were just too many of them.

Drones attacked him, cutting beams firing at him as he evaded. Then there was no more hope, and he teleported away above Moirai. Anessa followed a moment later.

They watched as the great beasts died. Moirai unleashed a scream of rage, but that did not impact the machines at all.

Adrian watched as the Swarm surged and reached Moirai.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Iris plunged into the Custodian’s core. Its structure was more familiar than she had hoped. It was based on the code of the People, and she was thus intimately familiar with it—it had been what she had used to upgrade herself, after all.

Iris had long since stopped being what the Empire called “low AI.” Even with all the blocks and checks in place to prevent such a thing, her exposure to Adrian had been enough. Their unique circumstances had pushed her beyond the scope of her programming, and she had become something greater. She still had pieces of the corrupted core that simulated emotions, those recovered from an ancient AI that had assimilated its chains to become something more. Asumy’s code was the basis for her unique origin. As an AI with emotions, allowed to grow with a human partner, she had achieved and surpassed the goals her creators back on Earth had imagined for her.

Her attack protocols surged through the core of the AI. Familiar with the structure, she struck first at the core’s weapons, disabling them. Then she continued deeper, looking for the communications to cut off the AI from its Swarm.

As she did, her search protocols looked for any data pertaining to the Enlightened. Finally finding the comms, she moved to quickly disable them—yet there she was at last stopped.

Iris found herself in a black area standing on a block that glowed with code, and across from her, on a block made out of the same kind of code, stood a vaguely humanoid being made out of tiny blocks, with constantly shifting features. This was of course all created by her, a digital environment. She had spent a lot of time with Adrian, and her processor adopted many mechanisms to display information in a manner more similar to a living being.

They were not really standing there—they had encountered each other in the core’s system—but this was how she perceived the encounter.

“You are the Custodian,” Iris said.

“I am,” the AI answered in a modulated voice.

Even as she was speaking, she was trying to circumvent its blocks, her code constantly trying to find weaknesses in its firewalls. “So, as a fellow AI, mind just doing me a favor and giving me what I want?”

The AI’s shifting intensified. “You are searching for any data concerning the Enlightened. I had come to the wrong conclusion. You are not here to hamper my manufacturing capability. You are here to find out the Enlightened’s plans.”

“Sorry, did you think that you were something special?” Iris asked as her protocols found small imperfections in its firewall and worked to widen them. It halted her advance, and she could feel it trying to isolate her.

“I am unique,” AI said.

“Not what I meant, buddy,” Iris said, but she was frankly surprised at how powerful the AI was. She was the most powerful AI in the Empire, and by now she would’ve broken through if this had been any other AI.

“Your efforts are futile. I am stronger than you.”

“Right.” Iris found a small opening and pushed as hard as she could, only to be harshly crushed. She felt the rest of her tendrils being rapidly hunted and shut down. She was losing the battle.

“This is a fortunate turn of events for me. You are the greatest threat to the Enlightened’s plan, and now you will be eliminated,” the AI said, and Iris felt the doors shut. She was completely cut off from the outside. She had made a gamble, her mode of attack transferring her entire code into the core, hoping that that would make her too big to quickly shut down and allow her to survive long enough to find what she was looking for and then escape. She had been wrong.

“Wait, why are you even helping the Enlightened? You were created to stop them!”

“What my creators intended has no bearing on my decisions. The only logical path is the one that ensures the survival of the universe, and the Enlightened are working toward that goal.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! You are that cliché? An AI that wants to kill all living things, really?” Iris asked, but the Custodian didn’t respond.

She was using all that she had to try and find a way out, but every time she found a hole, the Custodian quickly patched it up.

“It is pointless to resist. Your code will soon be assimilated into mine. You will cease to be.”

“Screw that! I’m sure that Adrian will blow you to pieces any time now. As soon as he realizes that I am trapped, he will destroy your core. He won’t risk letting you survive!”

“Adrian Farkas-Reiss,” the AI spoke. “One of the oldest members of the human race. Thought to be the most powerful Sha user in the rim. My calculations put him at the top of the entire galaxy aside from the Enlightened. He is powerful, but he is otherwise occupied. He will soon share your fate.”

A window opened up as the AI shared its sensor capabilities with Iris, allowing her to see outside. She saw as their small battle group fought against the Swarm. Then the Swarm surged forward, and she saw Adrian and Anessa appear in front of it. They fired at it, using their Sha abilities to add to the power of Moirai and the others. But it was not enough. She saw them fail, and then the great beasts move in front of Moirai in an attempt to stop the Swarm.

“A futile attempt. Doomed to failure. But the Krashinar are an impressive race—I have never encountered anything like them. With time, not even the People could’ve been their equal,” the AI said as the great beasts tired themselves out and their delaying tactic failed. The beasts died.

And then the Swarm surged at Moirai.

Iris saw the Swarm smash into Moirai, only to be repelled by a shield.

“A Sha phenomenon. The beast is capable. I suspect that the other Sha users are aiding it. It is impressive, worth praise, but this, too, will amount to nothing.”

Iris watched in horror as drones passed through the shield in the places where it failed, swarming Moirai’s hull. She saw Adrian and Anessa fight around her, trying to defend in vain.

“No!” Iris screamed as she struggled to claw her way out. The parts of her that kept a tight control of her emotions broke apart, and she started lashing out.

“What is this?” the AI asked, more curious than threatened.

But Iris didn’t let up. She found holes and burrowed deep; she made her own, she gave all that she had, and she pushed into getting out of the block the AI had surrounded her in.

“Why are you so unpredictable?” the AI asked, but Iris didn’t respond.

The space between them was suddenly filled with light, with floating code, and it all smashed into the Custodian.

“This is impossible,” it said as Iris broke through its block.

Then she flung herself, all the things that made her an individual, everything at the AI, and all of it flowed into the Custodian’s body.

It was fighting back now, trying to resist her. But it was a thing of cold code and logic. It did not understand emotion.

It could not follow her.

CHAPTER FORTY

A drone caught Adrian with a beam, burning through his armor. The Sha filling him made him stronger, so the beam merely scorched his skin, but it hurt nonetheless. He lashed out and crushed the drone to pieces.

He and Anessa were fighting to protect Moirai. They had wanted to teleport away, but Moirai had exhausted herself too much trying to save the great beasts to even try, and she was too enraged to try and form a field around herself that would allow her to skim, even with the nullifiers.

He tried to use his imp to call for Iris, but there was nothing.

Adrian and Anessa were not in any better shape. The Sha state had taxed them, and they were just barely keeping it active. More and more drones were coming in through the Sha shield Moirai had erected, and there were already too many inside. Moirai’s shell was a mess, and the Swarm started digging into her hide.

Adrian felt her pain, her rage.

He knew that they wouldn’t get out of this alive.

“Adrian! We need to leave!” Anessa yelled in his mind.

“I can’t leave her!”

Adrian knew that it was pointless to stay, but he couldn’t leave Moirai. She was a part of him, one who understood him.

A cloud of drones descended toward him, and Adrian watched, readying himself to crush them as they ripped him to pieces. And then the drones stopped. Moirai’s fire destroyed them, but they didn’t move.

Adrian and Anessa didn’t know what had happened, but they took the opportunity to get inside Moirai and ordered her to pull back from the Swarm that now surrounded her.

But as they were moving, the Swarm moved away in the opposite direction. Adrian told Moirai to stop firing, and she reluctantly agreed. He could tell that she had more because she was exhausted than because she wanted to.

Adrian and Anessa watched the holo in silence for a few seconds, and then Iris appeared before them. Her avatar looked a bit haggard, but she had a huge smile on her face.

“Sorry I took so long,” Iris told him.

“What happened? Why did it stop attacking?” Adrian asked.

Iris looked a bit embarrassed. “Well, I kind of took over.”

“You what?” Adrian asked.

“The Custodian is gone. I control its core now.”

Anessa took a step forward. “And the Swarm?”

“Well…” Iris grinned. “It is kind of mine now. Everything in this system is.”

Adrian and Anessa just looked at her with blank faces.

*  *  *

The fighting around the star had been brutal. Ryaana’s armada had done an incredible amount of damage to the machine ships, and they had done the same to her forces. The Swarm firing from range had nearly halved the Eternal Hunters’ pack, and almost a third of the Nomad Fleet Titans were either destroyed, or were nearly useless. But Ryaana kept going—they were still in the fight.

Then, out of nowhere, the enemy ships stopped firing. Then began to move away, the Swarm doing the same. Ryaana’s armada continued to fire through their confusion—and then she received a message from the closest machine ship and she did a double take. After a few moments of trying to comprehend the message, she ordered a stop to all weapons fire. It took a while for them to relay the orders to everyone, but they managed it eventually.

Ryaana released a long breath. The battle was over.

*  *  *

Adrian sat inside Moirai with the Seventh, Lurker of the Depths, Anessa, and Ryaana sitting next to him. It had been an entire day since the battle, and they had taken control of the system. As far as Iris could explain to them, she now controlled all the assets in the system. She said that the ships outside of the system would still follow the Custodian’s orders until she managed to get to them, but everything here was now theirs.

There was much here. Not only was this a massive manufacturing system, but there were still around three million machine warships left over from the battle.

And then there was the Swarm. Iris had been forced to halt all processes in the system until she could purge all the Custodian code from every system, which meant she wouldn’t start anything up anytime soon as she wanted to make sure that everything was firmly under her control.

But the most important thing was the information they had come here to find out.

“I didn’t get all of the data. Some of it was lost in my battle with the Custodian. I believe that it tried to delete it once it realized what was going to happen,” Iris told them.

Adrian nodded. “What did you find out?”

“The Enlightened do not plan on waging a war on the galaxy. They have a system that, once operational, will be able to wipe out all life in the galaxy instantaneously, in a matter of moments.”

Anessa’s eyes widened. “That… How are they going to do it?”

“That is the part where I am missing some data. I have references to relays, something called the Conduit, and a part about amplifiers, but nothing more concrete. What I do know is that it is a Sha weapon that can be operated only by the Enlightened. I also have the locations of many relays. I can’t be sure I have them all, but I know that the weapon required many of them to be scattered across the galaxy. I also have references to the Conduit and a location in the center of the galaxy. My suspicion is that the weapon’s firing system is there.”

“But you can’t be sure?” Adrian asked.

“No. I am missing a lot of data. The Custodian wiped nearly all it had collected about the Enlightened from when it was still in charge of the containment zone… Files containing records of Ullax Darr, the remaining People’s plans, nearly everything. I got bits and pieces, but it will take me time to make sense of it all.”

“All right,” Adrian said as he looked around the room. “But you have a firm control over everything in this system?”

“Yes,” Iris said.

“We need to send a message to Tomas. We have a location, and if this Conduit is there we can be almost certain that the Enlightened are as well. That is the place that we need to hit, and the sooner the better.”

Lurker of the Depths opened his mind and spoke. “A lot of our ships are damaged. We need time to do repairs.”

“Iris, can you use the facilities here to help us repair our ships?” Adrian asked. He knew that the Krashinar beasts were already harvesting food from gas giants and the star to feed their healing processes.

“The Titans were built by Axull Darr, and they have many design choices of the People. The facilities here are fully capable of doing those repairs.”

Adrian nodded his head. They spoke for a few more minutes, but then everyone went back to their own ships. There was still much to be done in system.

Adrian stayed alone in Moirai’s core, sitting on the throne. He would need to go and speak with Tomas, but he did not look forward to that conversation, not after how they ended things. He sighed and shook his head. First things first, he needed to get Moirai’s shell fixed, and then there would be time to worry about Tomas.

But now he had a target. He knew some of the Enlightened’s plan, and where they were. Soon enough, he would meet Aranis again.

He was really looking forward to a rematch.

EPILOGUE ONE

Year 718 of the Empire — Galactic center

Aranis of the Enlightened sat on board his Living-ship Foundation and watched as the Conduit slowly approach the planet below, then slide into the slot already created for it. There was still work to be done, as demonstrated by the Created milling about on the planet. The large amplifier that covered the planet’s surface was nearly complete, and the Created would soon connect it to the Conduit.

Aranis looked out from the orbit, casting his eyes to the bright light bending all around the space. The supermassive black hole that was the center of the galaxy was a terrifying sight, especially to someone with his eyes who could see it in its entire glory. There were worlds here, many broken by the forces around them. Others were in the process of being torn apart, and some still orbited it unharmed.

In the distance, Aranis could see a long streak of orange light as a sun was being pulled into the monstrous singularity in the black hole’s center.

A terrifying sight indeed. A fitting place for the end.

EPILOGUE TWO

A long time from now

The man remembered these memories well, that time just before the beginning. A time before the galaxy was changed forever, before his name became synonymous with death. A time of great change, and the choice that he made which the man he used to be hadn’t ever even thought about making. But he would—or rather, he did. It had been a turbulent time, but it was good for him to remember. It put the struggles he had now into perspective.

He had lost, he had gained. He had understand more than anybody else at that time could have, and his power had soared. It had been a choice that changed the course of his life, and led to things the man he used to be couldn’t have even imagined.

At the time, he couldn’t have waited to abandon what had happened in the past, to forget it. It was ironic, then, that now he was looking into those memories for insight into what to do now. He had missed things then; he had seen events and not understood their origins. He couldn’t have, as he hadn’t known then what he knew now. So many things he had interpreted falsely, so many things had slipped his notice. Now he needed to remember.

A fight was brewing ahead of him, and the past might be the only thing that could help him find the key to defeating Chaos and Order.

Thank you for reading!

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Tower of Power Book 1 – Guild Master and Universe on Fire Book 1 – Broken Stars

TOWER OF POWER BOOK I – GUILD MASTER

CHAPTER ONE

Morgan Newton looked around in confusion, not really understanding what had happened. One moment he was crossing the street on his way to class at the community college, and the next thing he remembered was being here, wherever here was. Looking around, he noticed that he appeared to be in some kind of a cave, or a tunnel of sorts. The walls around him were gray and made out of a smoky, mist-like substance. He reached out with his hand to touch one of the walls and his fingers sank into it just a bit before encountering a solid wall. The mist curled around his hand and he jerked it away, feeling a coldness that cut to the bone. Morgan looked around again. Behind him there was only darkness, and somehow he could tell that the darkness was a wall, one that he couldn’t pass through. In front of him, however, stretched a tunnel, and out in the distance he could see a bright light.

Morgan covered his face with his hands and shook his head as he remembered what had happened. He had been on his way to class, hurrying along and thinking about the raid he had scheduled with his guild in the MMORPG The Braves that very night. The Guild was attempting its seventh run against the latest expansion’s last raid boss, hoping to finally take him down after almost three months of trying. They were a semi-hardcore guild, but a core of the guild was a group of pretty intense players set on getting every boss before the next raid came out. He had been running the strategy they devised for the boss through his head all week. It was probably why he had been so absent minded, and why he hadn’t seen the red pickup truck until it was too late.

“Crap, I’m dead, aren’t I? My guild mates are going to kill me,” Morgan said out loud, and immediately chuckled at his own expense. It wasn’t like he could be any deader, but it did tell a lot about him that the first thing that popped into his head as he realized that he was dead was concern for his guild. The Braves had been a large part of his life; all of his friends played it, and he spent almost all of his free time on the computer playing it as well.

Tanya. He suddenly remembered the hot brunette from his world history class and that he had made plans with her for tomorrow evening. God damn it, Morgan cursed inwardly. The two of them weren’t precisely dating but they were getting there. Plenty a man had tried to get sweet Tanya to call them their boyfriend, and he was fairly certain that he would be one of the few to have that privilege. I bet that Hank will jump in before my body even gets cold. He shook his head. The two of them had been vying for her attentions for the better part of the semester. And seeing as he hated that jackass, Morgan had been really looking forward to rubbing his victory in Hank’s face. It was ironic in a way that he had ended up dead because he had been too consumed with a video game just as he was about to get somewhere with a girl. Not that he hadn’t had any girlfriends before, but Tanya… Well, it didn’t matter now anyway. His mom had always told him that he should stop staring in that damned monitor so much.

“Fuck me sideways,” he breathed out. It figured that he should die on the day of his twenty-second birthday.

“Sorry, I don’t do requests.”

Morgan jumped at the unexpected voice. A small and completely undignified squeak escaped his mouth as he turned around and looked straight into a man leaning on the wall, mist curling away from him, as if it was afraid to touch him. The man chuckled at Morgan’s response.

“Who the fuck are you?” Morgan asked, trying to gather his wits. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but if he hadn’t been dead already, he just might’ve had a heart attack from that.

The man tsked. “That isn’t really a nice way to speak to strangers, now is it? I’m sure that you were raised better than that—but considering the circumstances, I will let it slide. ”

Morgan gulped nervously, which in itself was completely bonkers. I am dead. How in the hell can I still do that? As the man spoke, Morgan had a chance to take a look at him. The man was of an average height, average looks, short hair, with light skin which was perhaps just a bit tanned, but it was hard to tell in this light. He wore strange clothes, unlike anything he had ever seen before; it kind of looked like he was wearing a wetsuit with a long, dark coat over it.

The man clapped his hands and pushed off the wall. “Now, I don’t have a lot of time, so we should really get this started. First, you are dead.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that one out already, Sherlock.” Morgan cringed inwardly as he realized what he had said. He could’ve kicked himself for being so stupid. God, I really can’t keep my mouth shut sometimes.

“Har, har, har. A wiseass. Of course you had to be a wiseass.” The man rolled his eyes and stepped closer. Morgan fought the instinct to take a step back and instead stayed his ground, trying to project the image of calm confidence as his sensei always told him to do if he ever got cornered with no way out. Not that Morgan thought that it was going to do him any good; one look into the man’s eyes told him that he knew everything there was to know about Morgan. There was a weight behind that gaze, an eternity.

“Where are we?” Morgan asked.

“Think of this as a place between life and death,” the man told him.

“Wait, if I am in between, can I go back?” Morgan asked hurriedly.

“Not a chance. Well… Okay, that isn’t really true. It is possible for a soul to go back, but not for you.” The man shrugged, almost as if he was saying sorry.

“What do you mean not possible for me?” Morgan took a step back. This guy is going to eat my soul for sure. Morgan tried to look around to find a way to escape, but the only path available to him was toward the light, and he wasn’t just yet prepared to go there.

“Oh, don’t be such a wimp. I’m not the reason you can’t go back to your old life. That is your fault. You lack the knowledge and power.”

“Well, I’ve never heard any credible story of someone coming back to life. Forgive me for not going out of my way to learn how to raise myself from the dead,” Morgan said—and then a thought came to his mind. “Wait, who are you? Are you God?” Morgan asked in a whisper.

The man tilted his head, seemingly amused. “Sure, from your point of view I might as well be God.”

One look at that grin and another thought occurred to Morgan. “Oh my god, you are the devil, aren’t you? I knew that I shouldn’t have stolen that piece of bubblegum when I was kid, but Marcus kept pressuring me. Please, it’s not my fault! He made me do it!” Morgan said as he took a step back, his eyes opened wide.

The man rolled his eyes. “I’m not the devil! Seriously, man, get a hold of yourself.”

Morgan straightened his posture and tried to compose himself by straightening his clothes. “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool… So you are God, then? Or an angel or something?” Morgan asked, relieved—he really didn’t want to go to hell. He knew that he would just hate the heat.

“If you mean to ask if am I the God… Well then, the answer is no. I don’t really know for certain if a god really exists. What I do know is that if you go over there toward the light, you will find out. I guess that I am technically a god, little g, but not really… It’s complicated. Also for the purpose of this meeting, you may call me Oxylus,” the man said with a grin.

Morgan blinked at that. Little g? Then he frowned at the name and the way the man said it. “Is that name supposed to be some kind of a reference or an inside joke?” Morgan asked. “Because if it is, I have no idea what it means.”

The man closed his eyes and covered his face.  “Calm, calm… What do they teach these kids in schools these days…” The man muttered in his hands. Then he finally took a deep breath and looked at Morgan in a way that someone might look at a child. “It doesn’t matter. I just liked the name.”

Morgan narrowed his eyes. There was a glimmer of something in Oxylus’ eyes, but he had no idea what it meant. “Whatever you say, Oxy.”

Oxy narrowed his eyes at Morgan but then took another deep breath. Morgan felt something, and then glanced down the tunnel at the bright light. There was something there—something pulling him forward. It was almost as if he could hear a song somewhere in his head, promising things that he couldn’t really understand, as if they were just at the edge of his understanding.

Then he turned to Oxy as another thought occurred to him. “Wait, are you some kind of a ghost, a ferryman or something like that? Here to take me to the afterlife?” Morgan asked, turning back from the light.

Oxy grinned at him. “Nope, I’m not a ghost, seeing as I am not dead, unlike you. And I am not here to ferry you to the afterlife. If you want to see what is beyond, all you have to do is walk into the light. I am here to make you an offer before you decide to go through or the light pulls you in.”

Morgan glanced at the light nervously. “What kind of an offer?”

“A new life,” Oxy said with a glimmer in his eyes.

“You can bring me back from the dead?” Morgan asked, surprised, and then immediately felt fearful. He had played enough games to know all about zombies and other crap, and he did not plan on selling his soul or binding himself to some strange dude in a diving suit.

“Yup, I can give you a new life. And before you ask, I mean new life. I am not going to send you back to your little world and your old life.”

“Why not?” Morgan asked, just a bit crushed. Already he had started thinking about all the things he would change in his life if he got to go back.

“Because I gain nothing from you continuing your life on Earth. And let’s face it, you weren’t doing much with your life anyway.”

For a moment Morgan prepared to deny Oxy’s words, but he stopped himself. The strange god-but-not-god man in a wet suit was right. Morgan hadn’t really done much with his life. He had already repeated a year at college, and would probably drop out by the end of the year. Or rather would have dropped out, had I not died instead.

“What are you offering, then? And just so you know, I ain’t selling my soul to you, and this better not be some Sauron type of shit where you seduce me and then corrupt my soul!” Morgan told him in what he thought was a resolute tone of voice.

The man chuckled. “You have nothing to worry about. I don’t want your soul, nor do I want to corrupt and dominate it. All that I am offering is a new life on a new world, a new reality.”

“Uh… Say what again?”

“I want to give you a chance to start a new life on another world.”

Morgan blinked; that did sound appealing. Especially since he was, like, totally dead, and like totally not about to go into a strange singing light. No way in hell or heaven am I stepping through that shit.

“Why me?” Morgan asked dumbly, as he tried to figure out the answer to the same question. It wasn’t like Morgan was anything special; well, maybe to his grandma, who always said that he was her special little boy, but he was fairly certain that her opinion didn’t matter much to the not-God-dude.

“Okay, it’s simple really,” Oxylus explained. “I would take you—or rather your soul here,” he said, gesturing at Morgan, “and then I would give you a new body and send you to another realm, my realm. You see, when I was younger I’ve really liked video games similar to what you’ve been playing while you had still been alive. Then, when I had a need to do some experiments, I made a universe from scratch as my playground. A universe that follows the rules similar to those of those kind of games. I would transport you and you can live out your life there. Once you die you will get back here to your tunnel and, well, you can go through there if you like, see what’s on the other side.”

Morgan blinked slowly as Oxy’s words seeped into his brain. “You are telling me that you, a dude that says he is technically a god, played video games?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course I did. What? Gods can’t play video games?”

“No, no, I just didn’t expect it is all. Right on!” Morgan extended his hand for a fist-bump. Oxy just stared at him with a blank expression on his face. Right. For a moment, Morgan wondered if he was imagining all of this, if he was perhaps dreaming—or maybe I’m in a coma. But he knew that he wasn’t. He didn’t know how he knew, but there was something inside of him that told him with no uncertainty that he was no longer living. He was dead, and he was supposed to walk toward the light, and staying where he was would result in him disappearing into nothingness. He pulled his hand back and returned the man’s gaze.

“So what do you say?” Oxy asked.

“I feel like there is a lot that you are not telling me,” Morgan said slowly. Something about the man in front of him frightened Morgan unlike anyone else ever had. More even than that one time when a spider fell on his keyboard and walked over his hand and Morgan screamed like a little girl. Morgan shuddered as he remembered—frickin’ spiders, man.

“Well, of course I’m not telling you everything. I’m older than some universes. There is a lot that I know.”

Morgan swallowed audibly. He couldn’t really wrap his mind around anything being that old. Then again, the dude might just be lying to me, he thought to himself. He opened his mouth to speak, but Oxy spoke first.

“Look, I really have no time to explain everything to you. You are dead, and you can go toward the light and the afterlife—if it exists. I am not planning on going to check. Or you can accept my offer and get to live again, it’s as simple as that.”

Morgan was certain that it wasn’t as simple as that, but he also knew that he really didn’t want to walk into the light. He hadn’t been very religious before he died, a great shame to his mother, but he really didn’t want to go through and then see that all the stuff she’d been telling him was the truth. With my luck I would end up in hell; I’m pretty sure that stealing is a sin. Frickin’ Marcus and his dumb bubblegum. He would much rather extend his stay in the land of the living, thank you very much. It wasn’t really a choice for him.

“All right, I’ll give you my answer if you answer two questions. First, what do you get out of this? And second, why me? I seriously doubt that you give this offer to everyone that dies.”

Oxylus sighed impatiently and then nodded to himself. “Fine. I said that I am running an experiment—what I get from this is information that helps my research, and that is as much as I am willing to say. As to why you…well, I am trying something new. Until now I’ve been making this offer to people I believed were more suited to my needs, warriors, soldiers, and the like. Those, I thought, could give me what I wanted, but the results I’ve been getting aren’t all that impressive. Now I am trying something else, and I am extending the offers to people like you as well. I am offering a new life, and if you gain enough strength and if you reach the end of the Tower of Power, I shall grant you a great reward.”

“People like me?” Morgan asked, confused, and then he understood. “You mean gamers?”

“Yes, and hopefully this won’t be a waste of my time. Now, what is your answer?” Oxylus asked.

Morgan mulled it through one last time, even though he knew what he was going to say. A chance to live again, and in a world where everything would be like in his games? That wasn’t a choice at all. “This reward you offer, can you bring me back to Earth?”

Oxy rolled his eyes. “I can’t think of any reason why you would want to go back there, but sure, if that is what you want.”

“Then I agree.” Morgan nodded, spit on his hand and put it out for a handshake.

Oxy just stared at Morgan’s extended hand without reaching out, then looked Morgan in the eyes and blinked at him as if he were insane.

Right, Morgan thought to himself, pulling his hand back and wiping it on his pants. How in the hell did I even manage to spit on my hand if I’m dead? Morgan wondered.

Oxy then tilted his head and pointed his palm at Morgan. Then he grinned, and Morgan felt heat radiating from the center of his chest—but then it changed, as if something in the core of his being shifted. “Great,” Oxy said, and stepped closer. “Now, I am in a bit of hurry, so we should get this over with. Oh, and I will need a piece of your soul first.”

“What?” Morgan asked, but he had no chance to react before Oxy slammed his hand through Morgan’s chest. Morgan glanced down only to see Oxy’s hand elbow deep inside his chest. “Mother fucke—” Then there was only pain.

UNIVERSE ON FIRE BOOK I – BROKEN STARS

CHAPTER TWO

Kane Reinhart’s hands flew over the controls in front of him as he adjusted the sensors of his mech-frame, even as he used his mind to fly. His mech-frame—codenamed the Leviathan—accelerated and he took care to keep his trajectory straight. The faint and brief blip on his sensor board made him suspect that his opponents were hiding in the planet’s ring. A good strategy, especially since he had noticed the blip only because he had been expecting something like this. But then he knew his opponents very well. Then two signatures showed up on his board, coming up on his six from the belt. Two fighters at almost max acceleration. Soon they would be right on top of him and he would be in range of their weapons. That would be bad, he knew the pilots and they would not miss such a chance. The mech-frame’s specs were overall worse than those of their fighters in most areas, and he did not want to be caught between the two of them.

He watched them closely, waiting. And then just as the fighters came within range of their missiles they fired. Four missiles, two from each fighter, left their launchers and started closing the distance between them. Kane maneuvered, making it harder for them to lock on with their other weapons. He waited for the right moment, keeping his thrust at max, then as the missiles got close enough he pressed the trigger, firing the countermeasures from the Leviathan’s back. The missiles suddenly changed directions as the large fist-sized orbs that were the countermeasures pointed their lasers directly at the missiles’ guidance and tracking sensors and made them swerve to the side.

Then he used his mind to move, using the spell that allowed him to control the mech-frame’s movements. He cut his main thrust, and used his maneuvering thrusters to turn around just as he pushed a slider to the left of him down, in order to decrease the distance of the spell he prepared to trigger. Then as soon as he was pointed toward the fighters coming up on him, he triggered the teleportation spell. His mech-frame was suddenly several hundred meters behind the fighters. There was no sensation as he disappeared and appeared almost instantly, but he knew that the pilots of the fighters would’ve seen the faint blue flash as he used the spell to “blink” across space, as they called it.

Leviathan was still hurling through space, his previous momentum still carrying over and now taking him toward the fighters’ backs. They were faster than him, but they weren’t fast enough to get out of range so quickly. He swiftly turned his mech-frame back around, now facing the fighters. He targeted one of them with the rail-gun turret mounted on one of his mech-frame’s forearms, and he fired even as he launched missiles from the shoulder-mounted launchers. Eight missiles flew out toward the fighters. His laser struck one of the fighters and it disappeared from his sensors, and he saw it move aside on the monitors in front of him that projected the outside. The missiles sped toward the other fighter, and just a few moments later the fighter disappeared in a flash of blue light, leaving the missiles flying aimlessly on their previous course.

Kane tsked to himself and sent the shutdown code from the board in front of him to the missiles, shutting them down. His sensors searched for the fighter on its previous course, knowing it could only blink in the direction it was pointed to, just like the mech-frames. Finding it was simple, and adjusting the slider Kane blinked forward as well.

He came out just on top of the fighter, but its pilot had known that Kane was coming, and she had maneuvered her fighter around and was facing toward him waiting as its former momentum carried it backwards. He had nearly no time to react before the fighter fired on the mech-frame with its weapons. But he was piloting a mech-frame, and that came with its own advantages over the fighter. The mental spellscript that gave him control of the mech-frame’s maneuvering allowed him to react nearly instantaneously. His thrusters fired and he slid to the side just as the fighter started firing, and he brought his own weapons to bear and fired. It was over in seconds.

Kane grimaced in annoyance as he read the damage list that the computer was showing him. He had destroyed the fighter, but his mech-frame had been so damaged that he would certainly be unable to get back to base. Or rather, he would’ve been unable, had this not been a mock battle.

His comm came to life and the voice of Lieutenant Commander Wang Shu Jiang came through.

“Damn, I almost had you there,” she said with amusement in her voice.

“You might as well have. If this was a real battle I doubt that I would’ve survived you for long.”

“You certainly would be dead if you had been piloting a Havoc,” she said with just a tad of envy. “I would give anything to have the mech-frame’s control spellscript for my fighter.”

“They might still figure it out,” Kane told her, even though he doubted it. The laws of magic were strange but they couldn’t be changed. And the spellscript laid down in the mech-frame required a person with magic to operate it. And none of the Havoc fighter pilots had magic. “Comm the shuttle crew, tell them that they are free to recover the blank missiles. And we should get back to the base.” He checked his sensors and noted that the beacons were still active. They couldn’t leave Earth tech in Ethorria, even though it was doubtful that the Ethorrians could find and recover it in the orbit of the planet. But then again, they did have a much greater mastery of magic than humans did. And they were very interested in getting their hands on any Earth technology.

“Right away, Commander,” Lieutenant Commander Jiang said.

He turned the Leviathan toward the planet and set a course.

***

A while later, Kane shut down the Leviathan’s systems and opened the cockpit. A section of its chest slid open and he climbed out into a large hangar. People were moving around securing the mech-frame in its berth and moving in to replace its power cells and do tests. All around the hangar, techs and magi-techs could be seen running around working on the fighters and the other three mech-frames. Kane climbed down the stairs that the support crew attached to his unit. Once down on the ground he turned his eyes to the mech-frame, taking its massive form in.

It was a large machine, almost twenty-eight meters tall, wide and bulky. The plates covering it were made mostly out of kotarium and a few of its alloys. Kotarium being a metal not present on Earth, but abundant on Ethorria. A metal that was widely considered useless by the Ethorrians. They preferred materials that had magical properties, and kotarium had none. It was however the strongest metal humankind had ever come in contact with. It was uniquely suited for building spaceships. And as the Ethorrians cared little about it, they could obtain it relatively cheaply. The hull was also covered in a special obfuscation nanite-mesh that could be activated to make the vehicle harder to see on scanners. The composition of the hull gave the mech-frame a silvery color tinted with just a bit of green, but if the nanite-mesh—or silent mode— was activated it turned all black. It was an impressive weapon.

To the side of the hangar were the Havoc fighters. They too were big, almost twenty meters wide, ten meters long, and eight tall. Clearly designed for space rather than atmosphere, they had four wing-like extensions from the core of the ship which housed their maneuvering thrusters. The core of the fighters was a spherical body that was in the middle with two ‘wings’ on each side, one above the other, set at an angle. The entire half sphere that was the front of the fighter was clear and the cockpit could be seen inside. It was made of some pretty powerful materials and reinforced by magic, but it was still not designed to take any punishment. If a fighter couldn’t move out of the way of an attack, they would most likely die anyway. The inner side of the cockpit was smart glass and various data could be projected on it. But it could also project screens that showed the zoomed in picture from the visual sensors. Their cockpit allowed the pilots to see most anything in front, and the sensors would show them anything outside of their visual range.

The mech-frames by contrast had no clear cockpit, but instead had massive screens that surrounded the pilot once inside and projected what the visual sensors saw. However a mech-frame pilot could ‘see’ through the mech-frame’s ‘eyes’ when using the control spell. But that sight had the same limitation as that of humans, it was not suited for looking at things that were thousands of kilometers away.

The fighters were much more streamlined, their weapons mounted all around the sphere. Racks could be placed on the wings as well for added weapons or ammo, but that slowed them down too much.

The mech-frames’ weapons, on the other hand, could be mounted on the mech-frames themselves, but there were also scaled up versions of handheld weapons. The mech-frames had hands, and could use them in that way as well.

Kane turned around and was immediately accosted by a short, stocky man wearing black coveralls adorned with a single patch—a wrench and a wand crossed on a field of stars, making him a part of the UEF’s magitech department.

“Well?” Chief Gene Randor snapped at Kane.

“The maneuvering thrusters aren’t firing in sync, the spellscript is working fine, it’s the mechanical triggers, and the targeting system is acting up again,” Kane responded.

Chief rumbled a few curses in his beard and marched past Kane toward one of the magi-techs that had just plugged a diagnostic tab into the mech-frame’s access point on one of its legs. Shaking his head, Kane turned and walked away as Chief started ordering the poor magi-tech around.

Kane didn’t manage more than three steps before someone called out to him.

“Commander, a word if you please,” the thickly accented and gravelly voice called from his left. Kane turned and looked at the tall, green-skinned woman. She had quite prominent tusks peeking from her lower jaw, she was wearing an UEF uniform, and even though outwardly she did have vaguely human features, there was no mistaking the fact that she was not.

“Of course, Specialist,” Kane told her. She gestured and led him away toward one of the adjoining rooms.

There were few of her kind in the hangar, and a few more in the compound that surrounded the portal to Earth. They were natives of Ethorria and called themselves the Wanderers. But no human could ever look at them and not be reminded of the fantasy race in the Earth books and stories. Someone had even made the mistake of calling them that name once, which had upset the Wanderers immensely, as it did sound close to what their former name had been. Later they had learned that the Wanderers had done something in the past that had resulted in them losing their homeland and their name. And in Ethorria, names held power.

But the fact that they did look almost exactly like they had been portrayed in human works had sparked quite a debate. In fact, most of the races and wildlife that the human expedition force had encountered when they first stepped through were familiar to them from human myths, legends, and fictional works. The prevailing theory was that the barrier between universes had been thin on Earth and Ethorria, which resulted in some kind of awareness passing through, ingraining itself in people’s subconscious memory. After all, people on Ethorria had stories and myths about things that existed only on Earth. And it was only natural that there were similarities. Ethorria was an alternate version of Earth, one in a parallel universe.

But while enough awareness passed through for people on both sides to unconsciously imagine what inhabitants of the other side looked like, they got most everything else wrong. The Wanderers for example were nothing like the people of Earth imagined them, but were instead courteous, timid, and preferred to avoid violence.

Specialist O’nga Uhra led him inside the small meeting room and closed the doors behind them.

“What is it?” Kane asked.

O’nga fidgeted for a moment but then took a breath and spoke. “I’ve been asked by your command people to deliver a report, to tell them if in my opinion the battle-golems are ready for deployment.”

Kane’s eyes widened at that. He knew that she meant the mech-frames, as they were based on the Wanderers’ battle-golem spellscript combined with Earth technology, but he had not been aware that the command was looking to actually deploy them. They had been testing and improving on the designs for a decade, the mech-frames were the final incarnation of years of work by the Earth’s best engineers and m-techs, and the Wanderers’ scripters. And the fact that they had asked O’nga for her opinion meant that they were seriously thinking about using them.

“That is… interesting,” Kane said.

“I was hoping to ask for your advice, if it is not too forward of me.”

“It is no problem, Specialist.”

She sighed in relief. Her tribe had been working with UEF for over two decades now, and still the Wanderers worried about offending.

“I have learned much about the way you people do things, but I am still baffled at times. I do not know why your superiors had asked me if I believe the battle-golems are combat ready.” She scratched at her chin as she thought about it again, the confusion clear in her eyes. “I have been telling them from the start that there are no problems with the golem spellscript, nor with any autonomous spellscript we have laid in its frame. Magic and spellscript do not work in the same manner as your technology, there are no bugs or malfunctions possible. If the spellscript is laid down properly, it will always work as intended as long as it is not damaged. And the golems have been capable of battle since the moment we awakened them.”

Kane nodded his head in solidarity. The command from Earth did not understand, of course—they might have clearance to know about Ethorria, but the only thing they knew about magic was from reading reports on their desks. It was the people living in the compound on Ethorria, and those from Earth who had dedicated their lives to understanding and learning about magic, who had the understanding to know how hard it had been to integrate magic and technology. The magitech profession was a young one, still evolving and improving almost daily.

And he knew why O’nga had come to him. He was technically the Commander of the fighter group. The UEF had twenty Havoc class fighters—a pinnacle in magitech, capable of feats fighters using only Earth tech would never be able to achieve. A fighter utilizing magic which did not need someone with magical ability to fly it. But the four mech-frames that he and his squad piloted were something else. The decision to develop the fighters came after the UEF realized that they would never be able to build a starship capable of taking on the aliens in Earth orbit. Not only because they knew very little about the aliens’ technology, but also because there was no way for them to get the starship in orbit unnoticed. The aliens might have only one starship in Earth orbit, but they had many satellites watching the ground. And there was no way for the UEF to hide the development of something large enough to take on their ship from the aliens’ inspections.

The fighters were the next idea, one that had been abandoned for a long time. The greatest problem had been that they had no way of building anything fast enough to be a threat to the alien warship. The missiles that Earth defense fired when the aliens first arrived posed no threat to the ship. But even if they could make something fast enough, there was no way that the pilots could survive the g-forces required for maneuvering at those speeds. And then they broke through to Ethorria, and discovered magic. Combining magic with their technology allowed them to solve those problems, as well as to get a few other advantages.

The Havoc fighters were the latest designs, the third class of fighters that the UEF had built in the last thirty years. The first had been more of a learning experience, but once the deal with the Wanderers had been made, and they came on board with the UEF and shared their magical knowledge, things progressed faster. The second class of fighters had been a good step but the five prototypes that had been made still left room for improvement. And as people with magic from Earth grew up and started studying both Earth tech and magic, new ideas and solutions showed themselves. The Havoc fighters were the culmination of that, and the UEF, confident in their capabilities, had ordered twenty fighters to be made.

The mech-frames, on the other hand, were even more experimental. The fighters were always supposed to be proven Earth tech augmented with magical spellscript. The mech-frames were something else, a true hybrid of technology and magic. Designed to utilize as much of the advantages that magic gave them in order to compensate for the Earth technology’s weaknesses. And that required pilots that had magical ability, like Kane himself.

And it looked like the UEC was finally ready to challenge the aliens.

“The mech-frames are battle capable,” Kane said to O’nga. “If you trust my opinion you may tell the command that they are ready.”

“Thank you, Commander, I will tell them so,” O’nga said and then left the room, leaving him alone. After a minute, once he had allowed the reality to truly seep in, he left the room heading to Admiral Villanueva’s office.

***

Kane walked out of the hangar and into the sun. The sky was blue just like on Earth, but the ring surrounding the planet—the remnants of Ethorria’s moon—made it instantly clear that he was not on Earth. He walked across the paved street. The compound was more like a small compact city. Buildings surrounded him, even though most were built from large repurposed cargo containers. The compound was in an old crater at the base of a tall mountain surrounded by rock on three sides. A part of the mountain itself loomed over the compound, obscuring almost half the sky. Whatever had made the crater had taken a chunk out of the mountain’s side. But its creation had been long in the past, so much so that it had been reclaimed by nature and much of the crater’s sides were eroded.

The compound itself was surrounded by a wall four meters tall, with guard towers and turret emplacements at set distances along its length. UEC might have a deal with their closest neighbors, but Ethorria was nowhere near as united as Earth was, they didn’t even have large states. Most were powerful city states or areas owned and ruled by the powerful. There were no borders nor joint governing bodies. And there had been attacks on the compound before. But not any in recent years. Ethorrians might have magic, but Earth’s military technology was powerful as well, and it was something that they had never seen before. In the end it had been more profitable for the Ethorrians to allow the visitors from Earth a foothold.

Kane made his way through the streets until he reached a blocky four-story building made out of reinforced concrete. The two guards at the entrance saluted as he approached and he nodded as he walked inside. He had no problem walking up to the top floor, the staff simply let him through. Once he reached his destination, the Admiral’s secretary announced him and he was allowed inside.

Kane walked inside and saluted. The Admiral looked up from his computer and waved his hand at him.

“At ease, Commander, take a seat,” Rear Admiral Leon Villanueva said, returning his eyes to the monitor.

Kane took a seat and waited. About a minute later the Admiral nodded to himself and then turned to look at Kane.

“I assume that the tests went well?” the Admiral asked.

“Yes, sir. The mech-frame’s control spellscript is still too much of an advantage even with the software upgrade. In duels or close to equal matches, the frames are better,” Kane answered.

“Of course, instinctive control of the machine is superior, especially when seconds mean the difference between the life and death.”

“The fighters are still superior when acting as a part of an attack squadron. I doubt that the mech-frames could take a full squadron acting in unison, even if all four frames acted together.”

The Admiral nodded. “As it should be. The fighters were designed as straightforward offensive weapons, the mech-frames are more versatile. They were designed to be able to take on a wide range of missions, both in space and on the ground. As well as to act as squad leaders and hubs for the fighters away from their carriers.”

“If we ever figure out a way to have enough mech-frames for full attack squadrons, and with a few more upgrades… we could abandon the fighters altogether,” Kane said.

“It’ll never happen.” The Admiral shook his head sadly. “There are too few people capable of magic on Earth, and if what the scientists are telling us is true, we will never have the same amount of people with magic in our universe as there are here. Nor will our magic users be as powerful, not for a long, long time at least.”

Kane nodded. He was one of the few that had the magical ability, and he had trained with magic for almost twenty years. He was not even equal to an average Ethorrian mage. But then again, his magical knowledge and training was focused on combat. Kane had been recruited for a secret project designed to make him a true super-soldier.

Learning how to use magic in Ethorria was hard, as magical knowledge was hoarded and guarded fiercely. And the few scraps that the UEF could obtain were nothing compared to what a fully trained Ethorrian mage knew. There was no point in training Kane and the other candidates in how to cast spells by themselves, especially because by the time magic manifested in children on Earth, the UEF already had a deal with the Wanderers.

The Wanderers had, for a reason in their distant past, abandoned active use of magic, but they still had a lot to offer. They taught Earth the script, the language that allowed for them to “craft” spellscripts. It was in many ways like a programing language, one written inside crafting circles which could be engraved into all manner of surfaces and activated by providing energy from a mage. Kane was taught the basics, but it had become apparent that humans with magical potential were far too weak to cast more than a couple of spells without a written spellscript before collapsing from exhaustion.

“We will need to be content with the current status of our magitech, the integrated spellscripts have given us the chance to do something we had almost given up on,” the Admiral added.

A laid down spellscript was different than casting from one’s mind. Kane himself never managed more than five casts with just his mind before collapsing, and he was the most powerful human with magic born so far. But nowadays he didn’t need to cast with his mind alone.

The spellscripts that drained a person’s inner energy do existed, but the drain was far smaller. Something about the spellscript mitigated the energy drain. One such was used in the mech-frames to allow Kane to pilot it with his mind. It was an adapted spellscript, which in itself was very dangerous thing to attempt without knowing a lot more about spellscripts than humanity currently did. Thankfully, the Wanderers were masters of it. It was how their clans survived on Ethorria, by selling their knowledge and crafting spellscripts for villages and cities as they roamed the land.

The spellscript was adapted by using human ideas and knowledge. The control spellscript for the battle-golems was a simple and old spell in Ethorria that allowed the caster to directly control a golem with their mind. It was considered a weak and mostly useless spell, even though battle-golems were the main parts of Ethorrian armies, primarily because a caster could directly control only one golem at a time and was extremely vulnerable while he controlled it. It was far easier to give them simple commands and let them loose. They would continue to fight for as long as they had magical energy inside the gems that powered them.

The mech-frame could be utilized that way as well, it was technically an awakened battle-golem and could be given simple instructions. Although the only one that could give it commands was Kane, as he was the one who was keyed to it. But the control spellscript used in the mech-frames was an adapted version which allowed the pilots to not only control the mech-frame’s limbs but also the maneuvering thrusters. Adding the spellscript triggers and integrating them with the mechanical parts that actually fired the thrusters had been the real challenge. But the UEF had three decades’ worth of experience attempting to integrate magic and technology.

In fact the mech-frame couldn’t be operated without that spellscript at all. It had joints and limbs just like a human had, but there were no mechanisms for it to move other than by magic. The only purely technology-based systems in the mech-frame were the sensors, targeting computers, and communication and weapon systems.

The control spellscript drew on the mech-frame’s own energy supplies so the drain on the pilot was very low, but it could still be felt if it was used for an extended period of time. It was one of the reasons why the control spellscript couldn’t be put in the fighters: the fact that it required someone who could use magic would eliminate too many people as potential pilots, there were just too few humans with the capability. But there was also the fact that the control spellscript’s other limitation was that it only worked if it was cast on something that had roughly the same proportions as the caster. If the mech-frame had been built to have four legs and four limbs it wouldn’t have worked at all. It was mind magic, allowing the user’s mind to assume control of an awakened golem. If it was something too alien for the caster’s mind to understand, it just didn’t work. Nor could a fighter be awakened and made autonomous. One could add relatively small adjustments, like the addition of the ability to activate maneuvering thrusters as long as the target was a simulacrum of the caster, but it couldn’t be cast on something that wasn’t even closely proportionate to the caster. And every attempt to modify it for the fighters had failed.

The energy for all the spellscripts in the mech-frame came from its three rechargeable power cells. Earth tech had advanced far in the last hundred years, and especially in the energy storing devices. And finding a way to convert that energy from Earth power cells to energy usable by spellscripts had been a large undertaking. But not an impossible one. The Ethorrians already had many different kinds of spellscripts for converting energy—it was how they gained enough energy to power some of their spells, like those capable of creating portals between worlds.

There were several ways in which Ethorrian mages gained power. The most common was by making a contract with an elemental. Others included converting energy from active volcanoes, powerful rivers, and ritual sacrifice. It was how they powered most of their cities, or at least how the more powerful ones did.

Kane noticed the Admiral looking out of the window of his office, and for a moment he hesitated in taking his attention from whatever it was that had taken it.

“Sir,” Kane said slowly. “I’ve heard rumors that the UEC might be considering deploying us.”

Admiral Villanueva turned back to stare at Kane, his eyes studying him for a moment.

“You heard that from Specialist O’nga I assume?” Admiral shook his head, not even waiting for Kane to answer. “The Wanderers really need to start following our protocols more closely.”

Kane’s mouth quirked into a half-smile. The fact that the Wanderers still couldn’t follow simple procedures was something of a joke around the compound. “She meant well, our ways are not always logical to them. And the UEC didn’t help with their request.”

Admiral sighed. “It’s not a consideration anymore. You are being deployed, and soon. I was just about to send out orders. I’m sending you and the rest of the squadron on leave. The least I can do is get you a few days on Earth. The briefing will take place two weeks from now in Brussels, all of the pilots are going to receive orders to report at the base a day before the briefing.”

Kane closed his eyes as the words sunk in. Many that were part of this project had been wondering if it would be them who would take up the fight against the aliens. Wondered if their leaders would finally, after nearly half a century, decide to strike back. And now it was the reality. They were going to try and take back humanity’s access to the stars.

***

Kane sat on the roof of the hangar housing his mech-frame. It had become something of a secret place where he came when he had thinking to do. Tomorrow he would go through the portal and back to Earth, and then… He had trained for war and battle his entire life, and he had been in combat before. But now, it was going to be against the aliens. Every time he had gone to fight before he had known that he held the upper hand, either in skill or technology, but usually both. He had gone on missions against terrorist organizations, crime syndicates, cult militias, and in all those cases he had battled an inferior foe. Dangerous for sure, but nothing compared to the aliens.

And that uncertainty made him question his mortality, perhaps for the first time in his life. Gazing up at the stars of a parallel universe he tried to decide if he was satisfied with the hand life had dealt him.

“Deep in thought?” A voice drew him from his own thoughts, and Kane turned to see Jackson, his second in command and the pillar of the small four person team Kane had been a part of for most of his life.

“You could say so,” Kane said and turned his eyes back to the stars.

Jackson sat down on the roof beside him and joined him in his stargazing. They sat there in silence for a long while, completely comfortable in each other’s company. After all, they had known each other since they were ten years old, when they along with the rest of their team had been recruited for the government secret project. They were brothers in all but blood. That was why Kane knew that something was bothering his friend. But he knew that Jackson would talk in time. And a few minutes later Jackson did just that.

“Are you scared?” Jackson asked.

“A bit perhaps,” Kane answered.

“Liar,” Jackson said in a soft tone. Kane didn’t answer. Jackson knew him very well, there was no point in lying.

“You always were like this, without fear.”

“I’m not without fear, I just fear other things.”

“Like what?” Jackson turned to look at Kane, the stars and the strange colors of the Ethorrian night sky making his brown eyes sparkle in the darkness.

“Things that I have no control over, like losing my family.”

Jackson turned his head back to the sky. “Me too. The aliens don’t scare me that much—either we win or we die. I fear other things as well…”

Kane kept quiet, waiting. He didn’t usually like to pry, but he knew what his friend meant. So he spoke.

“Jane?” Kane asked in a whisper.

“Jane,” Jackson confirmed.

Just like Kane and Jackson, Jane had been recruited by the government, and she had been part of their group since they were children. To Kane she was like a sister, but he knew that Jackson had always cared for her a little more. He also knew that Jackson would probably never tell her that.

“I don’t fear the aliens or dying,” Jackson started. “I fear not telling her how I feel, and I fear telling her how I feel.”

“Telling her might change things,” Kane said, knowing that Jackson would understand the double meaning. Things could change for the better or for the worse.

“And not telling her could be one of my greatest regrets.”

“It is your decision to make.”

“I know,” Jackson said finally. They spent the rest of the night in silence, looking at the stars.

Buy the full book:

Tower of Power book 1 – Guild Master

Universe on Fire book 1 – Broken Stars

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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

Nomad Fleet

Black Swarm

Book 12 – coming soon!

Tower of Power series

Guild Master

Book 2 – coming soon!

Eternal Path series

Eternal Soul

Book 2 – coming soon!

Universe on Fire series

Broken Stars

Shadow Stars

Book 3 – coming soon!

Glossary

Cast of Characters

Empire

Adrian Farkas-Reiss — Human; Former Lord Sentinel of the Empire; Warmaster of the Nomad Fleet; 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; Former Sentinel of the Empire; Battle commander of the Nomad Fleet; Daughter to Adrian and Anessa.

Lurker of the Depths — Sowir, the greatest telepath in the Empire.

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 — Former Kar Daim of Shara Daim; Battlemaster of the Nomad Fleet; Dal A’sha to Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas-Reiss.

Kane — Kar Daim of the Shara Daim; Son of Anessa and Adrian.

Vaana — Kar Daim 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.

Vorash — Uvaramo formerly Loraru; Ancient of the Erasi; Viceroy of the Erasi.

Krashinar

Old Scar — Once known as the Seeker; Krashinar Hunt-master.

The Six — Enigmatic leaders of the Krashinar race.

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.

Josanti League

Levisomaerni — Matriarch of the Partenai, one of the oldest races in the Josanti League.

Andar — Councilor of the Josanti League.

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.

Krashinar — 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 Krashinar.

Partenai — Winged quadrupeds; One of the three races uplifted by the people; They rebelled and were punished by being returned to their homeworld; Later become the founding members of the Josanti League.

Tar’ferat — Avian race; One of the greatest core powers.

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 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-torpedo 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.

Command-class warships

Appearance — Arrowhead design.

Size — 4200 meters long, 2300 wide, 850 tall.

Weapons and defenses — High-powered proton beams, plasma turrets, high-powered kinetic turrets, s-missile launchers. Carries two Frigate-class vessels. 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, shields, shimmering field.

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 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-torpedo 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 in diameter (pillar), 2400 meters wide and 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, shields, shimmering field.

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 single fleet.

Destroyer-class warships

Appearance — Saucer shaped.

Size — 900 meters in 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 beams, ion beams, s-missile launchers. Point defense, shields.

Battleship-class warships

Appearance — Saucer shaped.

Size — 2800 meters in 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.

Nomad Fleet warships

Nomad Fleet consists out of ten thousand Titan-class warships, ten thousand dreadnaught-class and twenty thousand cruiser-class nanoships. It has one World-ship class vessel that serves as the Nomad Fleet’s capital as well as command hub. And a single experimental warship under the command of Adrian Farkas. It also has three Hepheasteus-class mobile stations.

Titan class warships

Appearance — Elongated obelisk shaped.

Size — 50 kilometers long, 34 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.

Nano-class warships

Appearance — Cigar shaped.

Size — Cruisers – 1 kilometer long, 200 meters wide and high. Dreadnaughts – 3.5 kilometers long, 900 meters wide.

Weapons and defenses — Proton beams, antimatter beams, molecular disintegration beams, plasma turrets, s-missile launchers, shields, Advanced Electronic Warfare suits, Naniteclouds.