by Ivan Kal
“Yes, there are a few people on Nelus that he kept in contact with, covertly of course.”
“Do they know about Sowir?”
“Jusan relayed a message to his contacts, whether they will believe it or not is another thing. But there is nothing we can do about them, we need to decide what to do about the Sowir.” Tomas said.
“Why didn’t you bring this up during the council meeting?”
“Because there wasn’t the need yet, it will take Sowir months if not years to conquer Nelus system, not counting the months it will take them to get there. And the Clans have very little to offer, the Clan guard was never intended to protect the Empire, that’s what the fleet is there for.”
“What does Laura think?” Adrian asked. His adoptive mother Laura Reiss was in charge of the Empire’s space fleet.
“Both Laura and the Hand suggest preemptive strike.” Tomas said.
“Really? Our ships are better, but do we even know how many ships Sowir have?”
“An estimate only. The preliminary plans are not for us attacking them head on, we would use our advantage over them, the trans-lanes, to attack their less defended systems cutting their numbers, and shipbuilding capability down.”
“Sounds like you already have a plan. If you didn’t tell the other Clan Leaders, why are you telling me?” Adrian asked.
Tomas looked Adrian in the eye. “I need to know the status of your fleet.”
“You know that already, we are sending the Warpath guard reports monthly to Sanctuary Fleet Headquarters.” Adrian said.
“What I meant to ask is: What is the status of your other fleet.” Tomas said, looking at Adrian gravely.
“So you know about that?”
“There is little that the Hand of the Empire keeps from me.” Tomas simply said.
“Well, I didn’t really think they wouldn’t tell you in any case.” Adrian smiled. “So why do you ask?”
“There is another version of the plan, one that involves Nelus. But we are not sure that we can do it with our numbers. If your fleet is everything I heard it is, perhaps we could do it.”
Adrian sighed and shook his head. “The ships aren’t ready yet… Probably won’t be for years. We are still developing technologies for them.”
“I was under the impression that they were operational?” Tomas asked.
Adrian grimaced. “They are technically… most of them can move, but there is still a lot of work to be done. These ships are still being built, and we are using methods vastly different than the Fleet. They are modular, with the capability to be upgraded as we wish easily. And we laid ground work in them for technologies that we simply don’t have or haven’t perfected yet. And even what we put in them now is just so that we can run tests. Hell, two of the ships don’t even have their hulls completed.”
“How long would it take to make the fleet battle worthy?” Tomas asked.
Adrian didn’t respond immediately, the fleet had been his baby almost since the founding of Warpath. He has been working on it for the past twenty years, more even if he counted the designs and planning. “Two years, one at the minimum.” Adrian said, “But before I even consider committing the fleet I need to know your plan. My fleet isn’t like the others Tomas, it is… Specialized.”
“Of course, let me tell you what we have come up with, and you can then tell me what you think...” Tomas said. They spent the next hour talking, and then Adrian went to his home on Sanctuary, he would need to rest for tomorrow.
Chapter Three
Hyeon Seo-yun, Sanctuary’s Minister of Science walked through the Emperor’s palace after another hard day’s work. She was exhausted, she spent half of the day on the southern continent because they had a problem in one of their field research stations, and she needed to be there in person. And the other half of the day she spent in her lab in Olympus City, working on the same project she did for the past thirty years. The alien sphere, or as it turned out, not so alien. The sphere that the Nel Councilmember Jusan - now Clan Leader of the Clan Dai Ven - brought with him when he ‘defected’ to the Empire was in fact a highly sophisticated data container left on the Nel home planet by both the Nel and human ancestor, Axull Darr.
It came as a bit of a shock when they found out that the human and Nel races were in fact engineered. It wasn’t like they were made as a completely new life form, Axull Darr used most of his genetics - that of the race that simply called itself the People - to make them, in a way they were his children. And he did it in such a way that even with all of their technology they hadn’t realized it until they knew where to look. Presumably Axull Darr found suitable planets that already had life, and altered the organisms on them, imprinting the DNA of what would later become the human and Nel race, so that it would take hundreds of thousands if not even millions of years until they became what Axull Darr imagined.
He made two other races beside the humans, the Nel and one more that they hadn’t encountered yet. For all they knew the third race never had the chance to evolve into intelligent beings. Nel and humans on the other hand managed to evolve and survive. The brilliance of what Axull Darr did was not lost on Seo-yun. She would often tell Tomas that humanity’s greatest strength was their genetic knowledge, but compared to the father of their race it was nothing. Axull Darr managed to imprint a highly advanced and compressed DNA into a less evolved life forms, to change them and lay out an evolutionary path for them to follow, while he also took into consideration the environment that the organism would evolve in. He made sure that his genetic programing would allow for evolutionary variation, and that was most apparent in the DNA of Nel and humans.
They were closely related, their foundation was the same, but their home planets shaped them differently. Humans had lost their tails long ago, while Nel tails remained. Human eyes were different than Nel, who could see a lot better at night, their night vision coming on almost instantly when they went from light to dark. Their strange eyes with many small pupils that constantly shifted were in fact secondary eyelids that were highly reflective, giving them their superior night vision. But their vision was overall worse than that of humans. Their eyes had less focus, they didn’t have peripheral vision, and they saw everything in the direction their eyes were turned in at the same clarity. Human eyes on the other hand were much sharper, at least at the point they were focusing on, and able to see a greater range of the visual spectrum.
Nel were almost color blind, an effect of evolving in the caves of their home planet. And when they finally left their caves they were met with the bleak skies that blocked almost all of their sun’s radiation, resulting in them having pale gray skin. Humanity on the other hand evolved on the world were developing different defenses against solar radiation was a necessity.
There were other differences of course, Nel claws for example, a leftover from a time when they had to have strong and sharp tools to open hard shelled fruits that grew on their world and hunt smaller animals. Their mentality was also different, humanity was shaped by struggle, and later war. While Nel evolved at the top of their planet’s food chain with no competition. Humanity had to claw its way to the top of the food chain. But none of these differences were so big that they could deny what the sphere and the computer representation of Axull Darr told them. They were the same race, or rather sub races of the original race, the People.
When they let their people know the truth, it wasn’t as big of a problem as they first anticipated. The people accepted it, once sufficient proof was given. Things changed of course, what it meant to be human didn’t. Religion adapted, it became much more adept at doing that since they left Earth. The hand of God worked through Axull Darr, the core values of different religions stayed the same. People accepted and moved on.
And the sphere whispered of knowledge unlike anything they could imagine. But the program that kept the knowledge, while in some ways not as advanced as an Ai, and in some far more so, was not stupid. When it came in contact with humans, its higher functions unloc
ked, as per its programing in the event that the separated races find each other.
It realized that Nel had found the sphere by accident, and that humans haven’t found the sphere on their home world, nor possessed the technology to hear the sphere’s beacon. So it refused to give them technologies that they didn’t possess, but it did agree to share the knowledge it had on technologies that the Empire already possessed. It broadened and reaffirmed the knowledge they had, which in turn usually led to them inventing new things on their own. In a way Seo-yun preferred it that way. It made their advances more valid somehow. The knowledge wasn’t given to them, it was earned.
Seo-yun reached her and Tomas’ quarters and entered slowly, Tomas was probably already asleep and she didn’t want to wake him. As she made her way across the living room towards the bedroom, she noticed a light coming from the direction of Tomas’ private office. Seo-yun sighed and made her way to the light.
“Still awake?” Seo-yun asked when she entered the room.
Tomas swung his head to the door startled for a moment, and then after he realized it was Seo-yun his head turned back to the screens projected above his table. He glanced at them for a moment and then he leaned back into his chair, rubbing his eyes with his left hand. “I didn’t realize what time it is.” Tomas said.
“So, what is keeping you from sleep now?” Seo-yun asked.
“Sowir.” Tomas said seriously, “Ships are still arriving at their staging system. And not only warships, there are transports, support ships, repair ships. They plan on sieging Nelus.”
“We always knew that they would do that.”
“Yes… I thought that with our fabricating technology we could out manufacture them, but those numbers mean that we are still behind them. Our projections put their remaining forces at around two hundred ships at the point we arrived in this region. Their border worlds are protected by one hundred and sixty ships, and the fleet they are amassing already numbers more than a thousand. That means that their production is at least fifty percent larger than ours, if not more. We have no way of knowing what they have deeper in their territory. Not to mention what we now know they really are.”
“Our technology does give us an edge. But remember that they had most of the infrastructure of the Consortium, that’s dozens of worlds. Not to mention anything that the Sowir built in secret in their territory before they started the war, or maybe even outside it. Their industrial base was far larger than ours. Thirty years ago we were two systems, now we have sixteen and our industry grows by the day, as does our work force.” Seo-yun said.
Tomas nodded, “I know, but I also know that as soon as Sowir deal with Nelus they will start planning their attack on us.”
“Again, we knew that already. And even with their greater numbers, they have very little chance of taking us now, our technology has advanced, even with what we know about their genetic knowledge, our shipbuilding capabilities are such that we could replace any losses much faster than they could. What is really bothering you Tomas.” Seo-yun said.
Tomas looked her in the eyes, “The ‘why’ bothers me Seo-yun.” Tomas said.
“‘The Why’?”
“Yes.” Tomas nodded gravely, “Why are they doing this? There is no sense in anything that the “Sowir” do. Their first incident with the Consortium could be looked at as an isolated incident. As far as we are aware it was their first contact with alien life. So they attacked, perhaps they were frightened to discover a life form so different than them, and then when the Consortium showed its power they changed gears, asked for peace and eventually joined the Consortium. They prospered and grew, and then they turned on the other four races. Why? There was no reason, I looked over the records from that period there was nothing to set them off, they just attacked for no reason. They refused to communicate for years, decades. They just killed anyone in their way.” Tomas shook his head.
“And then we come along, we had better ships, better technology, we protected one Nel colony. They knew nothing about us other than that we defeated their forces in a battle. And they had records of that battle, they knew that our ships were better, but not by that much. So we send ships to their system trying to intimidate them, hoping to open talks. And what do they do?” He asked.
Then continued talking. “They accept our terms, no negotiating no nothing. Any sane being would have tried to learn more about this new opponent, tried to negotiate and make a deal that was more favorable for them. And they didn’t, everything we know indicates that they followed our agreement to the letter, they didn’t even try to infiltrate our territory, to learn how much of a threat we truly were. We had only one system then, two if we count Nuva, if they just tried to learn something they would have known that we weren’t a threat then.” Tomas shook his head. “It makes no sense. Why? Why, would they accept and then keep their word? The fleet they are amassing now to attack Nelus tells me that they were far more powerful than we initially thought. So tell me why didn’t they fight us on the treaty? Why did they agree so readily?”
“I don’t know Tomas.” Seo-yun said, “They are alien, we can’t possibly understand their motives.”
Tomas grimaced, “Nel are alien,” Seo-yun started to say something, but Tomas kept going, “Yes, we and Nel are related, I will give you that. But, what about Guxcacul and Mtural? Their survivors live in the Empire now, as citizens. We have much in common with them, and while they are alien, we understand each other. The four Consortium races lived in peace for hundreds of years. So why are Sowir so different?”
“You are right, but we have much more in common with Guxcacul and Mtural than with the Sowir. Both Guxcacul and Mtural communicate using sounds, they can both perceive light, both can see and hear. We have no idea how the Sowir perceive the world around them. For all we know their perception of the world is so different than ours, so alien, that we might never understand them. You need to realize that you might never get the answer to your question.”
“So what? We are destined to go to war with them? If we can’t make a lasting peace, something other than this non-aggression treaty, then it will come down to that.”
“Even if you could make peace, would you?” Seo-yun asked. Tomas looked at her confused.
“Of course I would!”
“Truly? You know that you can’t trust their word. They lived as part of the Consortium for a long time before they struck. They could do the same with us. This non-aggression pact we have with them will last only for as long as they want it to. You know that they will attack us. We might not be able to understand their decisions, but we can anticipate them from their past actions. They will attack us.”
“So even if we make peace it will last only until they gather enough strength to attack us.” Tomas said raising his eyes to look at the ceiling.
“Most likely.” Seo-yun said.
Tomas remained silent for a while, Seo-yun studied him. She saw a leader and Emperor, thinking, trying to find a path for his people. Finally, he turned and looked at her. “I made a vow Seo-yun.” He said, and the tone of his voice made Seo-yun shiver.
“I promised to myself and every being in the Empire that I will protect them. That I will never allow what happened to Earth to happen to us. I swore that we will never again be weak, that I will never allow our people to disappear from this Universe.” Seo-yun watched him as his expression turned hard. “I will not let Sowir be a threat to us.” The finality in his words made Seo-yun uneasy, but she believed in Tomas, the man she loved. She believed that he would do anything to protect his people, human or otherwise.
Chapter Four
Jun; Year 30 – Warpath system
The small ship arrived in Warpath system with a small burst of violet light as it exited the trans-lane from Waypoint system. Adrian sat on the bridge of his small transport ship, looking at the holo of the system he was the leader of. Warpath system was an enormous asteroid belt, or field, orbiting the system’s sun. The Empire’s best scientists were st
umped to explain how the belt was formed, but all agreed that it once had planets, and that something catastrophic occurred that resulted in the planets destruction and the creation of the asteroid belt.
Whatever it was that caused it happened a long time ago. Now this system was the perfect place for his Clan, and what he wanted it to become. The holo showed the entirety of the Warpath system, even though the light from it still hadn’t reached the ship. The ship’s sensors gathered the information gathered by many passive sensor platforms scattered throughout the system. The small platforms constantly relayed their sensory data to every ship, station, or habitat in the system by FTL comms. A few seconds after Adrian’s ship exited the trans-space they received a challenge, which Adrian’s pilot answered, immediately after they were cleared to enter move towards the Warpath habitats. The challenge came from a massive asteroid battle station that guarded Warpath’s only incoming trans-station.
The Empire had two ways of traveling faster than light, hyperspace – which currently allowed their ships to move at around 30 times faster than the speed of light; and trans-travel. Traveling by using trans-space was much faster and very different than by using hyperspace. The only thing that ships need to do in order to enter hyperspace was to be far enough away from the star’s gravity influence, usually that was on the outskirts of a star system. To travel via trans-space, a ship first needed to find a trans-station. An area in space which was filled with what they called trans-particles, then project a sufficiently powerful trans-field onto the area in order to enter a trans-lane, the strength of the trans-field depended on the mass of the objects inside the trans-station. And the required field strength increased exponentially based on mass.
As far as they knew, trans-lanes were a natural occurrence, completely random, and could only be used to travel in a single direction. That is why relative to the system they were in they could be either incoming or outgoing. The trans-space that connected to points in space was called a trans-lane, and the two points trans-stations. Trans-lanes were similar to the theoretical wormholes. Warpath had two outgoing, and one incoming trans-station. It was also one of the more rare systems, in that it had connection both to and from another system. The system that it was connected to was Waypoint system, which was under control of clan Dai Ven, the trade center of the Empire. The Waypoint system was what they had come to call a hub. A system that had many trans-lanes, Waypoint had nine outgoing, and eleven incoming trans-stations.
