by Ivan Kal
Looking through the reports, he saw that his ships were all as ready as they would ever be. The ships under his command were mostly older models, with the exception of his light cruisers, but even they couldn’t stand up to a Sowir battleship alone. Only his Valor could, and it was an old ship, she was there in the opening of battles of the war. And she had served Isani well, but he knew that at most she could take out two Sowir battleships, if he was lucky. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t find a way to take out all of the Sowir battleships, he just didn’t have enough firepower. The only hope Nuva had were the humans, and he still didn’t know what kind of ships they were brining, nor what their capabilities were. Isani sighed, in two days the human ships would arrive, and then he would know whether there is any chance for Nuva.
Chapter Twenty Five
Sanctuary – Olympus city
Tomas Klein sat in the palace meeting room alongside the other leaders of Olympus. The last few days they had spent planning for the future. Now, they were trying to figure out how to allocate their resources.
“We need more ships.” Laura said firmly.
“I understand what you are saying Laura, but we can’t build more, not as fast as you want.” Nadia retorted tiredly.
“And how did we build the First and Second Fleets?” Laura asked, her voice rising slightly.
“For the one hundredth time Laura, we built them by drawing on our extra supplies and by halting progress of everything else.” Nadia said, her voice rising also.
“So do it again! We need those ships!” Laura said, almost yelling.
“We can’t! We spent all our reserves to build those ships, it will take months for our mining operation to replenish them. The fabricators we used for the shipbuilding were those designated for the mining operations, if we use them for building ships it will cut into our mining operations, which will in turn cut into our resources, which means no ships later!” Nadia yelled back.
Seeing another screaming match coming, Tomas slammed his hand on the table. “Enough!” He said. “This is not helping anything.” He turned to Laura, “I agree with you that we need more ships.” Laura started to say something, but Tomas cut her off, “But I also agree with Nadia. If building another ten ships now, will cut into our ability to expand and build much more ships later, then it is not worth it.” Then he turned to Nadia. “How about expanding our mining operations? How long will it take for us to reach a point where we can bring all our shipbuilding operations online permanently?” Tomas asked.
Nadia looked ahead for a moment with a blank look on her face meaning she was using her implant. “If we focus all our resources on expanding our mining operations, it will take us three months to reach a point where we will produce enough to satisfy both the needs of the fleet and our other projects. Then we will need an additional two months to build more fabricators for the fleet, we can’t have them keep using the ones that are needed for other projects.” Nadia said.
“Five months!” Laura said incredulously. She rose to her feet, “You can’t possibly think that we can wait that long!”
“Sit down Laura.” Tomas said firmly.
“But…”
Tomas gave her a stern look, “Now.” He said calmly. “Both of you need to cool off, and think about everything clearly.” He looked at them both until they calmed down.
“First,” Tomas started looking at Laura. “It will take at least nine months for the Nel refugees to arrive with the Traveler, and it is highly unlikely that anyone will find us here in that period of time. So there is no rush, we will follow Nadia’s plan. We will expand our mining capabilities and push other projects ahead, training more people at the Academy, although building facilities on Thanatos will need to be halted until our mining operations grow large enough to provide for all we need. Second, although we can’t divert resources to shipbuilding right now, you can still use the facilities that were built for that purpose. You will retrofit the eight ships we brought with us from Sol.”
Laura looked as if she wanted to argue, but then she nodded, “Alright.” She said.
“Good.” Tomas said and then he turned to Nadia. “I want all available resources focused on expanding our mining operations. Halt all city expansions, and make sure that you meet your five months projection. I am expecting our shipyards back to full operational status six months from now.”
***
Seo-yun entered Tomas’s private rooms, looking for Tomas. She found him in the library, sitting in his reading chair. Around him on the shelves where books, made from real paper, they were part of his collection brought with them from Earth. Most of people of Olympus had never even seen a paper book, even before the founding of Olympus, electronic medium had taken over. She walked over one of the shelves looking at the titles.
“You know, I never read most of these.” She said.
Tomas raised his head and sighed, “Most now alive didn’t.” He said sadly.
“Why do you think that is?” Seo-yun asked.
“Times have changed I guess.” He said.
“Hmm…”
“What?” Tomas asked.
“Nothing. What are you thinking about?”
He stood up and walked over to stand close to her. “Things will change again.”
Seo-yun angled her head, looking at him.
“The refugees, their presence here will upset everything. We knew that we are not alone in this universe, and now we will need to deal with the realities of other races. A lot will change.” Tomas said.
“It is the way of life, everything changes.” Seo-yun said.
Tomas smiled, “Yes.” And then after a minute, “How are things between Laura and Nadia?”
“Tense. But they will work it out.”
“Good. And the people? What is the mood like?”
“Excited. And anxious.”
“If we bring people from Nuva here, there will be more of them than us… And they don’t know yet that this is the only planet we have. We need to be very careful about this.” Tomas said.
“You think that they would try to take over?” Seo-yun asked, surprised.
“We don’t know them.”
“Why are we helping them then?”
“Because it is right. And because we look so much alike. There is a reason for that, I’m sure.”
“You really think that we are related?”
Tomas nodded, “We look too much alike not to be.”
“Well, I guess that we will see once they get here.” Seo-yun said.
“We will need to speak with them. I am willing to give them sanctuary, perhaps even integrate them into Olympus if they are willing. But I want it made clear to them, we are not interested in making anything like their Consortium. If they choose to join us it will be on our terms.”
Seo-yun raised an eyebrow. “Subjugating other races now are we, oh great Khan.”
He gave her an annoyed look. “No, they will have as much freedom as any citizen of Olympus. But as I said before, we don’t know them. And I have no desire to see corruption and greed infect Sanctuary as it did Earth.”
“I don’t know how they will react to that…” Seo-yun said.
“They won’t have a choice, if they want to survive. Don’t get me wrong, I will give them everything they need, but if they want to live amongst us, they will need to play by our rules. It’s as simple as that.”
“And if they refuse?”
Tomas didn’t answer immediately, keeping silent for a couple of minutes.
“If they refuse, we will send them away.” Tomas said.
Send them where? Seo-yun wondered, but didn’t ask out loud. Tomas didn’t become the most powerful man on Earth by being soft. For a while there, after they came to Sanctuary he was lost, unsure. But ever since the talk they had in the cave, more and more she saw the man she met on Earth. The man that had conquered a world, all for a dream of the star filled night sky.
Chapter Twenty Six
Nuva system
“Entering normal space in five, four, three, two, one.”
A moment later the violet and white surroundings of a translane disappeared, and the round view of Leviathans Command Center now showed star filled space.
“Thank god, we made it.” Ship Master Paul Isaacs.
“You don’t trust our scientists?” Adrian asked.
“No. I mean, yes, I trust them, but these sorts of things should be tested a lot more.” Paul answered.
“They sent a probe through.”
“An unmanned probe isn’t the same as a fleet of ships, filled with people. What if living things couldn’t survive passing through? They couldn’t have known.”
“Ah, but they did know. You forget that the Union used the translanes to travel, which means that living beings could pass through.”
Paul grunted unconvinced, and Adrian smirked.
“Contact the Traveler, let them know we have arrived. Set a course for Nuva.” Adrian said.
***
Sixteen days later
Retsar Isani stood in the operations center of the station, the eyes of everyone in the room were on the viewing screen on the far side of the room. The human ships had arrived. The ships looked impressive, rectangular in shape, their hulls brimming with weapons. But his attention was on the enormous ship. It was the largest ship Isani had ever seen, or heard of. It was massive, at least three times larger than his Valor. And its shape was slightly different than others, its front had a wing like appearance while the rest followed the rectangular shapes that all human ships had. Isani and his people had enough time to study their ships as they came closer. All ships had laser weaponry, and they noticed launch shafts on the ships that they believed could only be missile launchers, there were a few things that they couldn’t identify. Turrets that definitely were not laser nor particle weapons, and these appeared to be humans main weapons, they called them kinetic weapons. Isani assumed that there was something that he missed in translation as he had no idea what that could be, even though he understood the word. Then there were other things, these ships, although definitely made out some kind of metal like the Traveler, were obviously made for war. These ships were black, their hull coated with a material that dissipated light. Isani’s people guessed that it would also mitigate damage from laser fire, although they have no idea what it could be. And then there was the big ship, Leviathan. Isani has been in contact with the leader of human ships almost since they entered the system. They didn’t plan for the upcoming battle, they will do that in person. But they did share some info, the name of the ships, their class designation and such. The Leviathan was something they called a dreadnought class. The ship had a great amount of weapons, coupled with laser turrets with lenses that were at least twice as big as the biggest built by the Consortium. That told him that the power source on that ship must be much better than anything that Consortium had. After the ships settled into a safe orbit above Nuva, a shuttle left the big ship, on its way to the station. The human Fleet Commander Adrian Farkas was coming to speak and plan with Isani. As the shuttle neared Isani left to greet the humans. He arrived just as the shuttle docked with the stations ring. A few minutes later the pressure doors opened and three humans stepped on to the station. Isani immediately recognized Fleet Commander Farkas, he talked with him a few times via the FTL device the humans installed. Seeing him in person he was again struck with how young looking he was. In fact, every human he had seen was young. At first he assumed that the Traveler was a ship commanded by a younger crew, but as time passed, he became convinced that there was another reason. But Isani set that aside, there were more pressing things for him to worry about. Isani approached the humans and extended his hand. “I greet you Fleet Commander Farkas.” Isani greeted him in human language and custom, he had again gotten out of his way to learn a few more words of the human language, it was the least he could do. The Fleet Commander raised an eyebrow – Isani found the gesture strange, he was not yet used to seeing Nel like faces with hair on them, but he knew that the gesture could mean a surprise or amusement – then he grasped Isani’s hand. After, Fleet Commander bowed in Nel way,
“I am glad to be here Retsar Isani.” He said in Nel. Now it was Isani’s turn to be surprised, none of the other humans had spoken Nel.
“You speak passable Nel.” Isani said.
Fleet Commander Farkas smiled, “Only a few words.” He said in humans language, which were then reproduced via the translator. Isani noticed that Fleet Commander didn’t have the earpiece that the other humans claimed served as a translator, and yet he responded to Isani’s words almost immediately, just like how Ship Master Kisaragi did. He didn’t comment on it, there would be time later to solve that mystery.
Fleet Commander turned to his compatriots. First, he gestured to his left.
“This is Ship Master Paul Isaacs.” And then to the human with the dark, almost black skin on his right. “And this is Company Leader Dayo Okoro.” Both humans bowed their heads in Nel way, and Isani returned the greetings. When they finished their greetings Isani led them to a nearby meeting room that had already been set up to receive them. Isani had opted for conducting the meetings with the humans while seated. They entered the room and sat on the backless chairs that Nel used to accommodate their tails. Few assistants went through the room offering refreshments. A few minutes later the assistants retired.
“We owe your people a debt, and you will have the gratitude of Nuva forever.” Isani said.
“There is no need for that, we couldn’t have stood by and watched.” Fleet Commander said.
“Nevertheless, we are grateful. Now at least we have a chance of survival.” Isani said.
Fleet Commander bobbed his head, “I’m surprised that there was no change with the Sowir ships. I thought that they would at least slow down when they saw us. Did they try to communicate at least?”
“No, they stopped communicating when they started the war, there has been no talks since then. Sowir don’t retreat. They will keep coming even if they were completely outnumbered. If they fail, they will just send a bigger force next time.” Isani said.
“Did you try contacting them?” Ship Master Isaacs asked.
“There is no point, they will not respond.” Isani said.
“Perhaps we should try.” Fleet Commander said.
“I don’t know if it will matter, even if they respond they will still come.” Isani said.
“We had no official contact with them. If they turn back, don’t return and stop the expansion towards our space, we are ready to set aside the incident with the Voyager.” Fleet Commander said.
“There is no lasting agreement with the Sowir. They will break any agreement as soon as it suits them.” Isani said.
“I agree. But our leaders want us to at least try.” Fleet Commander said.
“It can’t make things worse for us.” Isani said.
“Good, then we will send them a message. In the meanwhile we should start planning for the engagement.” Fleet Commander said.
“According to their practices in the past, I believe it is safe to assume that they won’t bomb the planet. Nuva is an agricultural world, they will want to keep it preserved if possible. That means taking control of the orbit, and then slowly taking control of the surface.” Isani said.
“Yes, that is what we determined as well.” Fleet Commander said.
“But we still need to meet them close to the planet.” Isani said slowly, “We can’t risk that a ship will get past us. While they probably don’t have plans to bomb the planet, if they realize that we will defeat their fleet and a sole ship remains at the planet, I have no doubt that they will open fire on the surface and destroy everything in the planets orbit.” Isani said, this was all assuming that human ships were on par with the Sowir. The Sowir usually wanted to take control of any assets in the orbit of the planet they were conquering, but if they see that they will lose they will destroy.
“Alrigh
t, we will meet them here.” Fleet Commander Farkas agreed. They spent the next hour talking about possible strategies, quickly they decided that the two fleets should act separately but try to support one another. As the meeting grew to a close, the humans stood and got back to their ship. Isani gave them an escort back, and left to for his office to contact Sumia. As soon as he entered, he opened a communication using the human FTL device. He still wasn’t used to the way it worked, where one needed to record and send a message, then wait for the other person to respond.
