by Ivan Kal
When the response came, it was exactly what he thought it will be.
An angry Nel started speaking, “This system belongs to the council. You will leave the system immediately or we will open fire, and destroy your ships.”
Paul sighed, “They can see that they are outnumbered right?”
“I don’t think that they believe that the Nel ships on our side would fire on them.” Adrian said. Then he put on a calm commanding face, “Ship Master Isaacs, I believe that the Nelus ships had declared their hostile intent.”
“They have Fleet Commander.” Paul said.
Adrian nodded, “Order all ships to target the incoming Nelus ships with missiles. Missile package “warm welcome”.” Adrian said. He didn’t use the c-board, as the Nel ships in his fleet didn’t yet have their interfaces installed.
Paul acknowledged and relayed the orders to the fleet.
“Missiles locked.” Paul said.
Adrian nodded again, “Fire.”
***
Seven thousand Swarm Mk1 missiles launched from the First Fleet, from three times the missile range of Nelus ships. At almost twice the speed. The Nelus ships tried to take them down with their laser point defense, but the missiles were outside of their effective range, and their evading capabilities far too effective. Then, as the missiles finally entered the Nelus ships point defense range, and they started taking a few of the missiles down, the Swarm missiles engaged their secondary protocols. What was around seven thousand missiles suddenly became twenty one thousand. The Nelus commander knew that he was doomed his ships couldn’t possibly take down that number.
Their point defense firing frantically even as the Nelus ships tried to move out of the way. Then the missiles reached his ships. Nelus commander closed his eyes as he waited his death. After a few moments, he realized that he was still alive and opened his eyes in time to see the human missiles pass right through his formation and then explode behind them. Stunned, he looked at his crew. He realized that this was just a warning. Immediately he ordered his ships to turn and head back to Nelus.
***
“You think that they will be back any time soon?” Paul asked.
“Don’t think so.” Adrian answered,
“Yeah, probably not.” Paul added.
***
Sanctuary – ten days later
“The council will not take well to this.” Clan Leader Sumia said.
“No, but I doubt that they will do anything about it.” Laura said.
“Even if they do, we have sufficient defenses protecting the system to hold them back.” Tomas said. Tomas looked at Sumia, “When do you think that we should tell both our peoples about the sphere?”
“Let’s wait until Sestar Jusan gets here and we can verify it in person. Then we shall see.” Sumia said. Jusan and Isani would arrive at Sanctuary in eight months.
Tomas cleared his throat, “Well then let’s move on.” Tomas said, “The Second Fleet has started exploring the trans-lanes back to Sanctuary. They are carrying three thousand people rescued from Earth.”
“Three thousand… Out of so many.” Seo-yun said.
“There was no way for them to save more Seo-yun. The mega storms that are ravaging the planet don’t allow them to even land anymore. The people on Earth are probably already dead.”
“And what about those in the asteroid belt? How could the Fleet Commander let that maniac kill them all!” Nadia asked.
Tomas shook his head in sorrow. “Were they supposed to let them starve to death, or in desperation turn to cannibalism? It is a terrible thing that Jacob Kelly did, and he had surrendered himself to the Fleet Commanders custody. But I can understand the act. It was he that started the rebellion, he felt responsible for them, he failed them. And so he took it upon himself to end their lives before their suffering truly began. He will have a trial once the Second Fleet returns home.”
Elias nodded firmly, others kept their mouths closed. “Let’s move on from Earth. It will be a while until the wound heals sufficiently for us to be able to talk about it without so much emotion.” Elias said.
Tomas nodded, and turned to Laura. “Did you all get the chance to look at the colony proposal from Adrian.” Tomas asked.
Laura nodded her head, “It is interesting. I don’t know if he could pull it off. It is ambitious, and completely different from every other proposal. But that system isn’t on our plan, it will be dependent on Sanctuary for a long time before it could sustain itself. And the nature of the Clan itself…” Laura said.
“I think that we should consider it further.” Elias said. “When Tomas started that petition program this is what was he had in mind. And his proposal is the most detailed and fleshed out one of them. He had the plans drawn out for the next fifty years.”
Tomas scratched his head. “Yes, let’s check all his data and plans. See if it could work. Then we make our decision.”
They spent the next few hours going through Adrian’s proposal before finally coming to a decision.
“Well, that decides it then.” Tomas said, “I think that we are done here for today.” All of them got up and left quickly, each had a lot of work to do. They exited the conference room, Elias staying behind with Tomas at the exit. Tomas had sent him a private message via his imp to stay.
Tomas turned to his friend, “I think that it is time.” He said.
Elias looked at the backs of his friends as they each went their own way.
“I’m sorry Elias.” Tomas said.
Elias took a deep breath and turned to look at his friend, “Don’t be, it was my choice.”
***
Seo-yun stood beside Tomas, who was dressed in his black suit. Her eyes hurt from crying, but Tomas was being stoic, not letting anyone see his pain. But she knew how much Elias meant to him. He was more than a friend. It was such a stupid way to die. A shuttle malfunction caused Elias and twenty other men to crash into the ocean. They couldn’t even retrieve the bodies, the violent ocean life of Sanctuary had probably already taken care of that.
She looked at Tomas as he gazed at the headstone.
Here lies the memory of Elias Bakas;
Born on Earth – 13th of Jun 2018;
Died on Sanctuary – 28th of May 2172
A friend, a brother, a leader.
He will never be forgotten.
Saying goodbye to his best friend without a body was hard on him. She could see him being weighed down by something, but she didn’t want to push. He would tell her when he was ready.
“Let’s go home Tomas.” Seo-yun said.
Tomas raised his eyes to look at her, for a moment she thought that he was going to say something, but then he sighed, shook his head and said. “Yes. Let’s go home.”
Epilogue
Pinging in his implant, woke Adrian up. It was a priority one message from Sanctuary. He sat up in his bed. It was strange that he had received a message, instead of a call. Now that they had two way communication anyone on Sanctuary could have live vid conversations with anyone on Nuva. Adrian accessed his inbox and opened a message. It was a document, with the title “Petition”. Frowning at that he opened it. After reading a couple of lines, his mind froze at the words.
“Iris!” Adrian said.
“What?” She responded.
“Would you by any chance know how my proposal for a colony got accepted by the Emperor?” He asked.
“It got accepted? YES!” Iris exclaimed.
“Yes? What do you mean Iris? How did the Emperor see it in the first place?” Adrian demanded.
“How else? I sent it, silly.” Iris sounded puzzled.
Adrian groaned, as Iris continued to celebrate. He put his head in his hands and curled up on the bed. Then he opened his eyes and brought the document to his HUD.
[Congratulations, your proposal for the colonization of a new star system and the creation of a new Clan has been accepted. You are required to return to Sanctuary and prepare for the colonization.]<
br />
“What am I supposed to do now?” Adrian grumbled. He looked at the bottom of the document, at his new title and the name of his Clan.
[Clan Leader Adrian Farkas Reiss of the Clan Warpath]
“This is going to be so much fun!” He heard Iris say in his head.
***
Elias Bakas, allegedly deceased, took the long elevator down to the bottom level of the complex. Tomas had imagined the complex as the headquarters for the Sanctuary police, but now it will have a slightly different purpose. After some time, the elevator finally reached the bottom.
Elias exited the lift. There in the large living room he was met by twenty men and women, each recently deceased. He approached and they each stood up and saluted with their fist to chest. Elias returned their salute, and looked at them. He knew them all, trusted them all. Each of them, he and Tomas selected together, for their loyalty, intelligence, prowess, and most of all morality.
Elias took a deep breath, “You know why you are here. You have already made the choice. There is no more going back. Your lives before this moment are gone. You have forsaken your names and identity. This is a commitment for all time. From now, up until the end of your lives. You will have no friends and no family other than those inside this building. Those that have committed their lives like you did. Outside of this building we will be a single entity, a force of the Empire’s law. We will never venture outside of this building with our faces revealed. We will always wear masks, to show the Empire that we are no one, and everyone. We will be fair and just. Always.” Elias looked at them, saw the determination in their eyes. Elias raised his right hand and the black object in it, he activated the small holo-projector. A symbol appeared in the air in front of him. A metallic hand with an open dark blue eye tattooed on its back. “From this moment on, we are the Hand of the Empire.”
***
Ra’a’zani space – Fifty years later
Tig’r’an, Elder of the clan Ooruvan leaned against a broken wall on the ground. His limbs were shattered, his gut pierced. He knew that he would soon die. He wondered how it came to this. How did the Ra’a’zani fall this low. They had waged a losing war against an unknown race for fifty years. Tig’r’an cursed the name of the clan that found them and tried to enslave them. The devils had destroyed that clan first, and then started attacking the rest of the Ra’a’zani territory. At first the war seemed to be at a stalemate. The Ra’a’zani and the enemy ships matched closely in technology. And then the war changed. The cursed enemy wasn’t fighting with their full strength up until then. Their true warships arrived, and shattered the Ra’a’zani fleets. Laying waste to Ra’a’zani worlds. And now there were only a few clans left. And Tig’r’an would die here, on a world far away from his own clan. He was visiting for a war summit, trying to convince the other clans that uniting was their only chance at survival. But the demons attacked.
Tig’r’an heard someone coming, so he used as much strength as he could to raise his head and look. He saw a tall bipedal alien, almost as tall as a Ra’a’zani. It wore a strange pure black smooth armor. No Ra’a’zani had ever seen what their enemy truly looked like and lived to tell the tale. The alien pointed its hand at Tig’r’an, and then as if it was made out of liquid the armor on its hand moved and formed into a weapon. Tig’r’an made an effort and opened his mouth, “Let me see what you look like.” Tig’r’an rasped out. The alien hesitated, then the weapon melted back into the hand. It stepped closer, and the armor on its face started moving back revealing a an obsidian colored face, with black eyes that had several pure white pupils that shifted constantly.
Tig’r’an looked at the alien and his eyes widened in disbelief, “You…” He coughed up blood, and gazed at the alien, “Impossible… You are human…” Tig’r’an said, and spit out more blood. The alien angled its head at Tig’r’an and then its melodic female voice responded in perfect Ra’a’zani.
“I know not of whom you speak. We are the Shara Daim.” The human looking alien raised her empty hand and closed it in a fist, an invisible force crushed Tig’r’an’s skull. Then the alien turned around, her armor reforming around her bald head. She walked over to one of her subordinates.
“Report.” She said over their armors link.
“The planet is ours, Dai Sha.” Do Sun reported.
“Good, anything else?”
“We have found a lot of slaves. They are some kind of amphibian race, Dai Sha. They are thanking us for rescuing them.”
“They are insignificant. Kill them.” Dai Sha said.
“As you wish Dai Sha.” Do Sun said, bowing, “Blood and death.” He added.
“Blood and death.” Dai Sha responded.
*** END ***
Book 4 of the “Rise of the Empire” series coming Fall 2015
Contact the author: [email protected]
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