by Ivan Kal
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.
&nbs
p; 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 do
ne 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.
