Sanctuary (Rise of the Empire Book 2)

by Ivan Kal

  ***

  Four days later Adrian was sitting in his ready room, as the last of the crew boarded, and with them came a package for Adrian, from Laura. The package came with a message, and Adrian was told to listen to the message before opening the package. So he sat in his ready room, package on his desk, with the message now playing on his holographic viewscreen. It was a video message, Laura looked straight out at Adrian.

  “Adrian, I know that you did not want this position. But you really are the best person for it. That being said, I am afraid that I need to put even more pressure on you. We planned on doing this differently, but the events have forced me to do it this way. Originally I would have come to inspect our new ship, but well… It doesn’t matter now. Adrian Farkas Reiss, effective immediately upon ending of this message you are promoted to the rank of Fleet Commander. And will take command of the newly formed First Fleet, which consists of four light cruisers, three heavy cruisers, two battleships and your own ship. All the pertaining data is included in the message attachment. The package holds your new insignia. Congratulations, Fleet Commander.” With that the message ended. Numbly Adrian opened the package, inside were new bars, to replace his old ones. A silver star and three silver V shaped bars. His old ones were dark blue. He took the old ones off, and put the new ones on. Then he opened the attached file that was in the message.

  It was a list of ship names, along with some additional information. Each ship was already named by their commander. He read down the list of ship names.

  - Olympus Light Cruiser Conqueror

  - Olympus Light Cruiser Swift

  - Olympus Light Cruiser Sting

  - Olympus Light Cruiser Talon

  - Olympus Heavy Cruiser Enterprise

  - Olympus Heavy Cruiser Freedom

  - Olympus Heavy Cruiser Valkyrie

  - Olympus Battleship Battle Song

  - Olympus Battleship Protector

  - Olympus Dreadnought –

  The empty spot where his ship's name was supposed to be made it all too real. He had an idea about the name. A name of a beast in ancient human mythology. Adrian typed in the name, and waited for the response from Fleet server, to see if the name was available. When the response came he was asked to verify the name. He did so, and the name was recorded.

  - Olympus Dreadnought Leviathan

  As soon as he put in the name he felt that it was right. He entered a few commands and a notification was sent to every crewmember, notifying them of their ship's name. He looked over the orders from the fleet, the coordinates of where Leviathan needed to meet with the rest of the fleet. The Second Fleet would be there as well, it was an exact mirror image of Adrian’s. They were supposed to practice maneuvers together, and participate in war games. Adrian sent out the alert to his crew, letting them know that they would leave the shipyard in two days. With that he leaned back in his chair, thinking of how much more responsibility was just put on his shoulders.

  Chapter Twenty

  Orbit of Nuva

  “I fail to see how this will aid us against the Sowir. Don’t misunderstand me, I realize that it is an amazing feat of technology, but it will not fight the Sowir Dominion for us.” Lanai Sumia said to Retsar Isani.

  “No, it will not. But it will give us an advantage. With this communication devices our ships will be able to communicate instantly, with no lag time, and in battle every moment counts.” Retsar Isani said.

  Sumia sighed. “If you say so Retsar, Warcraft is your domain.”

  “Trust me Lanai, it will aid us.” Isani said. The Humans had contacted their people, and have agreed to help. For now that help came in the form of the FTL comm devices. It was an amazing piece of technology, and even more astonishing was the fact that the Humans gave them as a gift, without asking for anything in return. They gave them two devices, one to study and reproduce and the other to use and communicate with their leadership. Isani and Suma were guarded, and had already made a list of what they were willing to trade, they did not want to give away Consortium technology, and the gift threw them off their guard. It made them reevaluate the way they treated with the Humans. But in the end no matter how amazing of a gift it was, ultimately it will not matter. Even with it, they only had 13 ships available to protect 10 million people on Nuva. His small force consisted of 4 frigates, 6 light cruisers, 2 heavy cruisers and his own battleship. The frigates were small ships meant to patrol and fight retrofitted pirate ships, not warships. His light cruiser were the newest models, they were fast, but had very little in term of armor. The ships were designed as supports for the larger vessels. The heavy cruisers were his most important weapons, with their long range weapons and moderate speed. And then there was the battleship. Isani has been in its command for years, it was an old ship, an outdated model. It was heavily armored, more so than newer models, his ship could take a pounding. It could go toe to toe with Sowir battleships in terms of firepower, but it was slow, it maneuvered poorly and it lacked in terms of combat effectiveness. Its lasers were power hogs, and it had a limited amount of missiles. It did not have the facilities necessary to replenish its supplies like the newer ones did. And the missiles it used were of older make, and were no longer produced. And it lacked particle beam weapons that newer ships had.

  Nuva was intended to be a farming world, and they had very little to defend themselves. Early, when the war started, every colony was given a guard task force, as they didn’t know where the Sowir would attack. The size of a task force was based on the likelihood of an attack and distance from Sowir worlds. Nuva was a colony farthest away from Sowir territory, but had a high likelihood of being attacked. Sowir tended to attack poorly defended planets in the opening of the war. And Nuva was in perfect position to be used as a staging base for Sowir, so it was assigned a 20 ship taskforce, before the home world recalled all ships back. Many colonies lost their protection and then fell to Sowir. The task force guarding Nuva, on the other hand was different, Isani refused to leave. He told his subordinates that he would rather commit Ras Tu, ritual suicide, than to leave innocents to die so that he could protect the rich and powerful. So he stayed, along with most of his taskforce. Some did go, and Isani didn’t hold it against them. It was their choice.

  Now Isani tried to figure out a way to save those innocents, even though he knew it was impossible. He knew that Sowir rated Nuva as a low priority, they weren’t any danger to them. He assumed that at the most they would send two taskforces against them, composed out of 3 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 3 battleships and one troop transport each. That was twenty ships, if by some miracle Isani and his 13 ships managed to defeat them, they would only get a small reprieve. The next time Sowir would send double that, four taskforces. And Isani knew exactly what would happen if his ships failed, he has seen enough recordings from colonies that had fallen. First the Sowir would clear the orbit, then they would bomb the biggest population centers if a planet had them, and finally send their troops to hunt down and kill those that survived.

  No matter what Isani said to Sumia, he knew that there was no way for them to survive. And deep down he believed she knew it too.

  “Is there anything else that we can do Retsar?” Sumia said, she sounded defeated.

  “No. When Sowir come we can send the civilian ships away. Perhaps they could survive, though without support from a planet they would perish soon after us. Maybe the Humans would be willing to take them, but we know next to nothing about the size of Human domain, Sowir will eventually expand and meet them. There is no way for us to evacuate the entire population. It would take a lot more ships and time. And even if we could there is nowhere for them to go.” Isani said. Sumia didn’t respond, she knew this all already.

  “Is there really nothing?” Sumia asked again. When Isani didn’t respond, she continued. “Do you think that Humans would send ships to help us? If we asked?”

  Isani didn’t respond immediately, he looked at the viewscreen to the side of the room, it showed the pla
net below them. After a while he turned back to Sumia. “I thought about that. But the impressions that Oferani Esama’s team got was that their ship was traveling for a long time, more than a year. Assuming their hyperdrives are as good as ours, still it would take them at least that long to get here. And I believe that we will see Sowir Dominion in our system long before then, a month at the most. They will want to isolate the home world, break their will before finally going there. And why would Humans fight for us, they just met us. They couldn’t even be sure that our side was right, perhaps they believe we provoked the Sowir.” He raised a hand when he saw Sumia try to say something. “No, I don’t really believe that they think that. Their gift tells me that they believe our side of the story. Although why they would take only our words for truth, I do not know. I wouldn’t if I was in their place. But I am thankful for them. But it is a great leap from giving us some technology, to dying for us.”

  “You are right, of course. I will at least try to negotiate for them to take the civilian ships with them, Mtural, and Guxcacul as well. They might be the last of their kind still alive in the universe. And as many people as those ships can carry.” Sumia said.

  “Yes, that is all we can do. I just have no idea how to choose who will go.” Isani said. Neither one of them said anything afterwards. There was nothing else left to say.

  ***

  Kisaragi Hana sat in her ready room aboard Traveler, she was having a conversation with Oswald Mein. He was second in command of the Fleet directly under Laura Reiss. Their conversation was tedious as FTL comm wasn’t a link, but a way to send messages over vast distances. She would watch his video message, then record and send her response, and so on. It made for a different kind of conversation dynamic. Hana opened the newly arrived message from Oswald.

  “We are still hesitating to reveal our strength, or lack off rather. I don’t know how much safer those people would be with us. But tell the Nel that we are considering. Tomas is still trying to decide whether we should just tell them the truth. In any case, we all agree that it is better to fight away from our own world. We know that if we want to live in this part of space eventually we will have to deal with the Sowir Dominion. Their unprovoked attack on Voyager makes us believe that what Nel told us is true. But we are not going to completely abandon all attempts at peace. We are also not going to be naïve and trust them. For now, try to help them in any way you can while not revealing to much about us. And contact us immediately if Sowir arrive in the system. And keep up your regular reports.” Oswald said, and then the video went black. Hana sighed and shut down the viewscreen. Help them, without revealing to much about us? What does that even mean? Hana thought. She wasn’t sure how much more help she and her crew could provide. She assigned techs to help them recreate the FTL comm. Nel had the needed technology, but the construction went slowly. Without a fabricator, they needed to build every piece manually, and that took time. But they should have a working prototype in a week or two. They put one of the comm devices on the station where their diplomatic teams even now talked with those on Sanctuary. The other was down on the planet, along with her techs.

  The fact that Nel looked very much like Humans still spun Hana’s head. If they didn’t have tails she would have assumed that they were just Humans in makeup. But if someone took time to look deeper, they would discover that for all our similarities we are very different culturally. In public Nel conducted themselves reserved, keeping their emotions of their faces. It gave them a kind of blank look. They kept emotional responses and gestures private. It could be said that Humanity was the same, but on a closer look it was not. Most Humans were perfectly comfortable with public displays of emotion and gestures of affection, in moderation of course. Nel were more family oriented, while Humans were more individual oriented. Of course over the course of our history, we were also focused more on tight groups, tribes, families, even later nations. They were something that Olympus hoped to be, though not that extreme, a people united in purpose where everyone worked for the betterment of all, while still retaining their personal identities. It was a fine line, but Olympus succeeded in making it work. Nel still wouldn’t accept a test to determine if there is any kind of connection between them. Which told Hana that either it went against their ways, or that they already knew the answer. Or they simply didn’t yet trust them.

  Hana opened a file on Sowir, and scrolled down until she found the section about their ships. The majority of their fleets were comprised out of light cruisers. Ships meant to strike fast and hard against the enemy. The three ships that destroyed Voyager were light cruisers. Sowir light cruisers were the fastest ships in this conflict, with their top speed being even greater than that of Traveler, but not by much. These ships were also powered by a power system that was “cold”, and very hard to detect until they were close enough to have already fired their missiles, save getting lucky and catching light reflected off their hull. All Sowir ships and that of the Consortium for that matter, used missiles as a core of their arsenals. Missiles were long range and their trajectories could be adjusted. Then there were lasers, of varying kind. They were used as mid to close range, as prolonged exposure to the enemy hull was needed for them to inflict any kind of damage. And even with them being light speed weapons, they were not viable at long range. Greater distance meant in order to hit your opponent, you needed to anticipate where he would be, and fire accordingly, not to say anything about them losing their power the further they go. And last there were particle beam weapons. Humans knew about them of course, charged particles fired at near speed of light. They were devastating weapons. Olympus didn’t use them yet. At least not yet. The Consortium, including Sowir all built their ships with ceramic composites that Humans never discovered. But then again Human strengths were in other areas. Nel considered metals obsolete and primitive. Though Hana thought that would change once they realized the strength of Human ships. The Consortium fleet before the war mainly consisted out of a battleship core, with supporting cruisers. Each race had different variants of the same design, each race had their own needs, so there was no way for them to use universal controls. Though those races that could, did have joint crews, but those ships were in the minority. There were few differences between the ships, including the Sowir ones. Manly those were necessary changes, a Pouute ship was larger in order to contain more water, Nel and Mtural were the same on the outside while the inside was slightly altered. Guaxcacul and Sowir had designs that suited them, and their ships differed from the rest the most. By Consortium law, each race could have a maximum of 150 warships, with one more joint fleet of 30 ships per member, being under the command of joint government. Each race had its own government, though those were subject to the Consortium government.

  Sowir light cruisers, the ones that now consisted the brunt of their fleets, were a relatively new design, made specifically for the war. The Consortium didn’t know about them until they unexpectedly attacked. Looking at the information in front of her, Hana could see that the war was lost even before it started. The Sowir planned for a long time. The first attack came simultaneously against every major fleet of the Consortium. Sowir hidden ships attacked from the dark, while Sowir ships in the joint fleet turned against the others. It was a slaughter. Sowir had a lot more ships built secretly, and with them they managed to overwhelm the other races. Not that they didn’t take heavy losses, they did. That was one of the reasons why they still fought the war. The ships they had were on the same technological level. And even their new light cruisers couldn’t stand up to a Consortium battleship one on one, not even four to one. But they had built many. And so, slowly they started cutting into the territory of other races, cutting them off from each other. That gave them even more advantages that they used ruthlessly. Now they were content to slowly rebuild their forces, while they kept a constant pressure to keep the Consortium from rebuilding. In the opening strikes on the Consortium, Sowir focused on those systems that held their shipbuilding facilities. Taki
ng them for themselves, or destroying them where they could not. According to the last information Nuva received from Nel home world remaining Sowir forces were estimated at around 250 warships. The data indicated that they started the war with around 500. They lost more than half of that, but have slowly been replacing those losses, while Consortium couldn’t. At least not as fast as Sowir could. Nel home world currently had 80 ships. And Nel government believed that was enough to protect them until they could build more. Their projections indicated that Sowir couldn’t have yet conquered the other races, and that they were spread thin. They didn’t believe that Sowir could spare more than 100 ships to attack their home world, not without giving ground on the other fronts. That made them believe that they had time to rebuild. Hana was not convinced. Sowir managed to defeat them with inferior numbers, through guile and surprise. They were not an opponent that would give them enough time to become a threat again. Not when they went to great lengths to neutralize the Consortium’s greatest strength, their unity. Sowir had been dismantling Consortium territory piece by piece, dividing and conquering. They will take every world until only the home worlds remains, then they will bring enough force to beat them.

  No matter what way Hana looked at it, she couldn’t see a way for Consortium to win. Sowir had expanded too much. And no matter how much she wished it, she knew that Olympus couldn’t beat them either. Their technology might be better, their shipbuilding faster, but their one weakness was that there just wasn’t enough of them. Olympus could build ships faster than Sowir, but didn’t have enough trained people to crew them. They could recruit from other areas, but that would only mean that their other fields would suffer. Perhaps if they had enough time to grow, but that could only happen if they managed to stay hidden. And she was sure that Sowir would not stop their expansion. They were conquerors, when they met with the Consortium they reached an obstacle. They tried pushing and when they failed, they pulled back, reassessed, and patiently waited for a time when they would be able to smash that obstacle to pieces. From everything she read, Hana could see that Sowir were a terrible opponent, they were experts at adapting, at deceit, they did not care about other races. They would never stop, any peace with them would only last for as long as it suited them. And that meant that Olympus would need to fight. And unless something changed, they would lose simply because they were too badly outnumbered. Hana finally sighed and got to her feet, she made way towards her quarters, and went to bed. Thinking how she could help Nel survive long enough to give Olympus a chance.