Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4)

by Ivan Kal

  Adrian watched his friend coolly, and then after a tense few moment raised his hand and flipped his palm from side to side agreeing.

  “Good.” Alexander said. They moved towards the room where the interface itself was. They entered the room over-looking the interface first. The room was filled with people, measuring equipment and computers. Through a glass window Adrian could see the interface down in the adjacent room. Only a simple chair, the rest of the interface was in the walls and below the floor.

  “What have you prepared?” Adrian asked, while his hand strayed to the back of his neck and the relatively fresh access point implanted there.

  “A Fictional scenario. You will be commanding a fleet of ten ships against fifty in an inhabited system.” Grace answered.

  “Alright. Let’s start.” Adrian said and moved through the doorway to the room below. He reached the chair and sat down. The chair restraints moved over Adrian and secured him to it, first his body, then his head. He then felt a prick at the back of his neck, at the access point for the Watchtower. The access point was a direct connection to Adrian’s brain and his implant, on its own it did nothing, but coupled with something like Watchtower it had great potential.

  Adrian felt it when the chair’s connector secured the connection with his access point. It felt like a bite from a small insect.

  “Are you ready Adrian?” Grace asked over the speakers.

  “Yes.” Adrian answered.

  “I hope that we come out of this whole…” Iris said worryingly.

  “Aren’t you the one that always wants to try new things?” Adrian asked.

  “Establishing the link!” A voice said over the speakers.

  “I like trying new things but not when-” Whatever Iris was about to say was lost, as Adrian felt something switch in his brain, he felt the link between the Watchtower and his brain initiate. And in the next moment he screamed.

  ***

  Sometime later Adrian became aware of himself again, he had no concept of how much time had passed, he could only remember the pain unlike any he had ever felt. He opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in the Watchtower room, instead there was nothing around him. He floated in nothingness. He could see his body, but nothing else. Then he became aware of two distinct voices calling out to him.

  “I’m here!” He yelled out, and something changed, he felt more like himself. And the voices became more solid.

  “Adrian? Are you alright? We detected a surge in your vitals.” Alexander’s voice asked.

  “I’m fine. How long was I out?” Adrian asked. He didn’t really talk, he thought about what he wanted to say and Watchtower and his mind did the rest.

  “Out? What do you mean, we just initiated the link.” Alexander said.

  “Oh. Good then.” Adrian said. Then another voice sounded out.

  “Adrian?” It said softly, timidly. Unlike Alexander’s voice, this one seemed to come from somewhere close to him. Adrian turned around and saw a shape standing behind him. It was female in appearance, its skin a living flame.

  “Iris?” Adrian asked, stunned.

  “Um… Yes, it’s me.” She turned her head – that was on fire, and looked down on her nude body. “Well, this is what you imagine me like?” She asked coyly.

  Stunned Adrian’s mind went into overdrive. He knew that the Watchtower was designed to give the brain the ability to shape the information and present it in a way that he could understand. But Iris wasn’t a part of the interface, she shouldn’t be able to manifest through his imagination as a person, only a voice. Then he took a better look at her. He was immediately certain that the body was created by his mind, her features were those of two women that influenced his life the most, Bethany and Laura. Iris was a mesh of the two of them.

  “Well, I guess.” Adrian answered weakly.

  “I’m on fire Adrian. Seriously?” Iris said in an annoyed tone.

  “Well, it isn’t exactly my fault.”

  “Whatever.” She said and then proceeded to inspect her body.

  “Wait, how can you even see yourself? I can understand me seeing you as a body, but you?”

  “I don’t know Adrian, I had stopped trying to explain things that happen to the two of us long ago.”

  “Adrian? We can bring the program online now, are you ready?” Grace asked.

  Adrian steeled himself, as much as he could now that he was within his own mind. He remembered what the Watchtower was capable of. He concentrated and without speaking sent the go ahead.

  “Bringing the Watchtower fully online in ten seconds. Five, four, three, two, one!”

  Adrian’s surroundings changed, he now floated among stars. Planets, space stations, ships, all appeared around him. And he knew everything about them, everything that his ships could scan. He knew his ships, he knew every weapon they had, he knew the ranges between every object in system, and he could see their movements, project their most probable courses. The information threatened to overwhelm him, he felt an echo of pain, but he ignored it.

  “Whoa.” Adrian whispered.

  “Whoa indeed.” Iris chimed in.

  “Let’s see what this thing can do.”

  Adrian started issuing orders to his ships. It was as easy as it was to use his implant, he controlled everything with his thoughts. The ships were simulated, just like their crews were, but he still got communications from the commanding officers, acknowledging his orders. He “heard” them all. He watched as ships under his commander moved on his orders.

  The orders were relayed via FTL comms and a system similar to the command board that commanders of fleets used. The difference was that by using Watchtower Adrian was able to focus on more things at once, he could send multiple orders at the same time and access information the moment it was available. Everything that the ship scanners saw he saw. Every detail about every ship under his control he knew.

  “This is awesome Adrian!” Iris said. She through him could see everything he could.

  Adrian watched as his ships neared the enemy. He saw a slight change in the enemy formation, and he could clearly see the beginning of a trap. He adjusted his ships formation to catch the enemy off guard. Then he waited as the enemy tried to spring its trap, only for his ships to turn it against them. The battle was in its full swing when the pain returned.

  “Adrian, how are you feeling? We are detecting some erratic brain activity.” Alexander said.

  “Just some pain, it’s nothing I can’t take it.” Adrian said.

  “Adrian -”

  “It’s nothing!” Adrian said. Alexander remained silent.

  But as more and more time passed, and more and more enemy ships came into range flooding the battlefield with their weapons and additional information for Adrian’s brain to handle the pain got worse and worse.

  “Are you alright Adrian?” Iris asked, worried. But Adrian couldn’t respond from the pain. He tried to push it aside, but the more he struggled the stronger it became. And then finally it intensified to such extent that he could no longer see anything on the battlefield, his mind froze.

  “I’m pulling you out Adrian!” Someone said, but Adrian was too far gone to respond, the pain swallowed him and he lost consciousness.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Adrian opened his eyes slowly. He had a painful headache and didn’t even want to try and move his head. The room he was in was dimly lit, for which he was thankful. He realized that he was in a hospital bed. He released a gasp as the pain intensified for a moment. Then he felt a weight on his leg and the pain dimmed a bit. Adrian turned his eyes down and saw Sora’s head leaned on his legs, and Akash standing with his two front legs on the end of his bed. He smiled at them.

  “Oh good, you are awake.” Iris’s voice said in his head.

  “Yeah… How long was I out?” Adrian asked via his implant, as he didn’t trust himself to try and speak out loud.

  “A little more than a day. I commed Alexander he should be here soon.”
Iris said. Then the doors to the room opened and Alexander walked in with a white coat over his skin-suit.

  “Well, it’s a good sign that you woke up at least.” He noted as he walked to the side of the bed and placed some kind of device on Adrian’s neck. “Your vitals are normal, there are still some fluctuations in your brainwaves but they are slowly returning to normal.”

  “What happened?” Adrian managed to ask.

  “The information load was too much.” Alexander said, in a tone that conveyed his ‘I told you so’ meaning clearly.

  “How long was I able to handle it?”

  “Thirty minutes from connection, twenty from the start of the simulation.”

  “I remember the pain, but not much else…” Adrian said.

  “We don’t know exactly what happened. What we do know is that at some point the load became too much for your brain to handle, your brain temperature started rising, and we detected a… alteration in your brain waves.”

  “Alteration?”

  “We don’t know what it was, no one has ever seen anything like it. It could be because of your already unique state, but we just couldn’t risk letting you stay connected any longer.” Alexander answered.

  Adrian just nodded, and suffered through one more stab of pain.

  “Anyways, you should be fine in a few days. Until then you are going to stay here in this bed where we can monitor you.” Alex said.

  “Yes mother.” Adrian said mockingly, Alex snorted and left the room.

  “Well guys, it looks like it is just you and me now.” He said looking at the two wolions. Akash came closer and sniffed him a bit, then turned and left the room. Sora watched him go, and then turned and settled on the floor beside his bed.

  “So… You think we are going to do that again anytime soon? I liked having a body.” Iris chimed in cheerfully.

  ***

  Two weeks later, Adrian was almost fully recovered, an unusual fluctuation in his brain waves persisted, but as no one knew what it was and it didn’t seem lethal as every other test they ran came back good, he was let go. His brain scans were sent forward to Sanctuary for further analysis. Now Adrian sat in a meeting with Isani and Warpath chief ship builders.

  “Have you gone completely insane?” Isani asked his palm making a gesture for a crazy person.

  “No.” Adrian said offended. “I am the same as I always am.”

  “Then you were always crazy.” Isani added.

  “I already told you why we need it, without it the fleet will never operate at its full capacity.”

  “The ships you are talking about are already the most advanced ships we have ever created! Actually, they are the most advanced ships built by any race we have ever encountered, and that includes the Ra’a’zani!” Isani yelled out. “In any case we can’t use it, and if you try you will end up in a hospital bed again!”

  “Just because we can’t use it now, doesn’t mean that we never will. We might figure it out before our ships even see combat.” Adrian argued.

  “Well then we can put it in later, when we find the solution.” Isani said.

  “Why? We can easily put it in now. Why make more work for ourselves later.”

  Isani glared at him, then finally sighed and relented. “Fine! You can have the system installed. But you will not try to use it again until we fix the problem.”

  “Of course. I am not suicidal.”

  “Then let us go on to the next point on the agenda.” Isani said, then cleared his throat. “The Titan, Tiamat, Specter, and Lighthouse will all be finished by the end of August. The Valhalla, Twilight, Retribution, my Invictus, and Ras’tar by the end of September. Your ship will be the last to be finished. The Harbinger will be done by the end of October.” Adrian was a bit needled that Isani’s ship Invictus would be finished before his but he nodded.

  “Good, the Sowir are still waiting, but I don’t think that it will be much longer now. They have over sixteen hundred ships not counting their auxiliaries, and the influx of ships had slowed considerably.”

  “Yes I agree. But even if they started towards Nelus today it will still take them about six months to get there as they are limited to hyperspace. We will have plenty of time to finish the ships and get there at the start of their siege. Trans-lane travel form Warpath to Nelus is twelve days.” Isani added.

  “I doubt that they will wait until the end of the year. In a two, maybe three months they will be ready.” Adrian said. “Okay, let’s see what’s next on the agenda…” He quickly moved on to the next topic on his implant. “The MD cannon.” He said looking at Chief Lasani.

  Lasani cleared her throat and with a flick of a hand changed the holo image to that of the weapon.

  “Well, we ran into a bit of a problem. We still have no idea how the Ra’a’zani main weapon does what it does, if we had recovered the weapon intact we might have been able to replicate it. Our version of their weapon doesn’t “eat” through matter it impacts with, but rather weakens the molecular bonds. We don’t have the technology yet to break the bonds outright, but a weakened enemy hull will be much easier to defeat.”

  “I knew that already.” Adrian added.

  “Yes, well the problem we ran into is power. We greatly underestimated the power needed to fire the weapon. We can’t mount it on most of our ships.” Lasani said.

  “Most of our ships?” Adrian asked.

  “The only two ships that have enough power requirements are Titan and Tiamat, those two ships were designed as fleet’s bulwarks and their job is to take on enemy fire. For that reason we added three extra generators to help with the power requirements of the field defenses. The two ships can fire the molecular disruption cannon, but only if we also add dedicated power batteries for the weapons. And even if we did add them, they will only be able to fire once every ten minutes, that is the time needed for the ship’s power generators to recharge the battery enough for the weapon to be fired, without compromising the other systems.”

  “Can’t we put the batteries on other ships?” Adrian asked.

  “No, we can’t add any more power sources on the other ships, the Tiamat and the Titian were designed for more, and the others just don’t have the room. Which means that the recharge time would be around an hour. Perhaps if we ever get more efficient power generators, we could add them. For now there is no point, the weapon itself will not damage the opponent, just weaken the hull integrity.” Lasani said.

  “I really wanted those cannons on all ships…” Adrian said disappointed.

  “The two ships will be enough. All of our weaponry has been upgraded ways ahead of what we had thirty years ago.” Isani added.

  “You’re right. Anything else that we need to know?” Adrian asked

  “Not at the moment Clan Leader, everything else is on schedule.” Lasani responded.

  “Good.”

  ***

  Sitting cross-legged in his quarters, Adrian entered his mind space. In there he was attempting to train his brain to focus on many things at the same time. Trying to push his abilities to the point where he could use the Watchtower. The interface itself wasn’t necessary for any other fleet. But Adrian’s fleet was constructed with a completely different approach to battles. Each of the ships was specialized, each had its own strength and weakness.

  The Tiamat and the Titan were the largest ships, each was 2900 meters long, between 800 and 1200 meters wide and between 300 and 600 high. The largest ships that the Empire had ever produced. Both had ri-steel hulls and field defenses. The ships were massive with the purpose of drawing the enemy fire to them, shielding the rest of the fleet. Their offensive capabilities were traded in for increased defensive capabilities. Their rail guns were capable of screening the entire area in front of the fleet, their point defense lasers and anti-missile measures the best that the Empire had.

  Tiamat had flowing organic line, its front narrow and short, and its back was wide and tall. A few of the designers joked about how it looked lik
e a dragon’s head, and sometimes when Adrian looked at it for a while he could see it. Titan like its commander appeared as if it had a carapace. The hull was shaped as if it had a series of overlapping shells, although it was an illusion only.

  Specter was the smallest of the ships, at 1000 meters long. Its hull was made of highly light absorbing ceramics, coated with materials that prevented most scans. The Specter was a stealth ship, its offensive capabilities geared towards striking from the shadows with a single devastating attack, as well as moving around the battlefield unnoticed placing traps.

  Its greatest weapon however was the mean by which it moved without being detected. The Specter had gravity drives, based on the drives of the small shuttle that was brought from Sol. The shuttle was built by the League on Earth during the Great War, it was most likely a prototype as no other was ever found. It wasn’t even finished, the obvious room for weapons were left empty as the people working on it died in the war. It was left forgotten until the resistance found it.

  The gravity drives worked on the principle of creating a gravitational field that exerted itself on the already present gravity in a system. From planets, suns, and moons, it moved by amplifying and reducing the gravitational influence on the ship. And it was undetectable by any of the conventional sensors. The reasons why no other ship had these drives were many, but the most important one was power requirements. It took a lot of power to run the drives, and the bigger the ship the more power it needed. Which was also one of the reasons for Specter’s smaller size. For now it wasn’t viable for their larger vessels.

  Lighthouse was probably the most unique of the ships as it had very little offensive capability. Instead, the 2000 meter long ship was a ‘sensor ship’. The ship had twelve of the most advanced sensory drones that the Empire was capable of producing, with three Ai’s working in concert to interpret and gather all the information.