by Ivan Kal
“You should not allow yourself to become isolated from your friends,” Lurker of the Depths told her.
“I’m not,” she defended.
“You’ve been spending all your time with me or your parents, and have been since Vas.”
“I’ve been busy training. It isn’t like I do it on purpose,” Ryaana protested. She was aware of just how much she had been neglecting Marie. Ryaana didn’t even know why she still put up with her; Ryaana would’ve broken up with herself a long time ago if they kept doing the things she was doing to Marie.
“Being alone is not good for you,” Lurker of the Depths sent.
“I’m not alone. I have you and Mom and Dad,” she said.
“It is not the same, not for your kind.”
“Mom and Dad do well enough on their own,” Ryaana said.
“Do you think so? If that is what you believe, then you are sorely mistaken. Your parents have each other, true, but they have other friends, other people whom they talk with. What do you think Moirai and Iris are to your father? They are his closest companions, his confidants. Not even he is below asking for help.”
“You mean above asking for help?”
“What?” Lurker of the Depths sent her feelings of incredulity. “Of course not. Why would I think that? The lower one can swim in the ocean, the stronger one is.”
Ryaana grinned. She had spent enough time with Lurker of the Depths that she understood his people’s idioms.
“Ah, you are distracting me.”
“Yes, sorry. I know you’re right, I just…don’t know how to speak with others. Not after Vas.”
“You do not need to speak. Just being next to someone who cares about you is enough.”
She sighed and nodded her head. She really should go and apologize—she had been a pretty shitty girlfriend.
“Yeah, I’ll go see her.”
“Now is a good time.”
Ryaana turned her head to stare at the alien. If he were anyone else, her glare would probably intimidate them. Seeing that it was useless, however, she rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’m going.” With that she turned around and started walking, checking her imp and finding Marie’s location in the city.
Better that she do this before she managed to talk herself out of it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Year 718 of the Empire — Sol
It was night in Sol, at least according to the accepted time measuring system. Sol was one of those systems that never truly slept. The system watch was one of the places that was always awake, and the Trivaxian watchman whose job was to monitor the systems sensor grid was bored, as he often was during the night shift. Oh, there were always ships coming and going to and from Sol. There were hundreds—no, thousands—every hour, or perhaps even every half hour. They arrived by hyperspace, by trans-space, through the access point, all on different tasks and following different paths. For some, Sol was just a stop on the journey, and for others it was the destination. The system was currently filled with so many foreign warships that it was frankly mind boggling.
Ervis, the watchman on duty, was young compared to many in the system watch, only thirty years old. Born on Trivax, he had always dreamed of seeing more of the Empire. He remembered the stories of his grandparents, about a time before the Empire, when the Trivaxian people had not yet even gone into space, about the invasion of the Furvor. He couldn’t imagine such a time; he had been born in the Empire, and it was in his blood. The knowledge that once Trivaxians and Furvor had been at war was even harder to believe. His best friend was a Furvor, after all! They were both of the Empire.
Still, being given such an important job despite his age was an honor. True, there was little chance of anything going wrong; he was just there to monitor the outer system for anything unscheduled coming in, which never happened. All traffic was concentrated in the inner system. Nothing ever came from the deep space beyond the Oort cloud. The most they ever recorded was a rogue planet or a stray asteroid. There was little to do, hence all the boredom.
And so Ervis could barely believe it when his station updated. He looked at the data and frowned. It was an unidentified return; something had pinged the outer sensors for a split second, but then it was gone. He typed at his console, trying to see if there was something there, but he got nothing. He looked around, seeing that he was alone. Usually there were more people here, but it was the night shift, so it was empty save for him. He could disregard the ping as an error or an echo, but the protocol was clear. He sighed as he picked up the comm and woke up his superior.
A couple of minutes later a truly annoyed and half asleep Ssarath slithered into the room.
“What is it?” Supervisor Hessas asked, her tongue flicking out of her mouth to taste the surroundings.
“The system recorded a strange data ping in the outer system. I haven’t been able to find it again, but…”
“Show me.”
Ervis pulled up the records and pulled them up. Hessas looked at the screen and then frowned. “I don’t see anything. Where was it?”
Ervis looked back to the screen, confused. He looked at the exact point where the ping used to be but now he saw only the usual data stream. He blinked his eyes several times, his mind feeling sluggish. “I… I must’ve been mistaken.”
Hessas’ head swayed as she spoke. “A…a mistake, yes.”
“We shouldn’t record the incident,” Ervis found himself saying.
“Right,” Hessas nodded as if it was the most logical thing in the world. “No need. Back to work, then.”
Ervis nodded and continued to watch the system as Hessas walked out. When she left the room, he blinked his eyes, and could feel a headache coming on. What was I doing just now? he wondered, but then shook his head and focused back on his job.
It was a boring job, but someone had to do it.
* * *
Loranis of the Enlightened sat deep inside her Living-ship, the Mindseer, as it flew through deep space. She was deep in the Sha state, her mind’s tendrils stretched through the amplifiers of every single one of her spore ships and then out into the system before them. The amount of ships gathering was truly staggering. The system’s defenses were impressive, as was their detection grid. Already her ships had been detected numerous times, but each time her mind reached into those of the ones monitoring and altering their memories to keep them hidden. She couldn’t really control so many minds, not without drawing attention and probably being discovered, and even then true control of a mind was difficult without breaking them. Instead, she altered their senses, made them drowsy and open to suggestion. With her mind, she made a person looking at a screen blink, and suddenly what they were looking at changed. With just a bit of pressure she made them think that their mind was playing tricks on them.
And so discovery was avoided once more.
Their detection grid was only registering echoes, anomalous readings that wouldn’t trigger their computers to issue alerts. Her attack force was small, built specially for this task. Their stealth was incredibly advanced; her people had forgotten more about stealth than most races in the universe knew. Regardless, she knew it was impossible for them to hide forever, as the grid was too good, and eventually their computers would accumulate enough disregarded anomalous readings that their AI would notice that something was wrong. It was why she had been alternating between having people disregard the readings and filing them as echoes, asteroids and other completely mundane things.
This level of control and concentration was draining her quickly, but she didn’t plan on staying for a prolonged battle. This was a simple preemptive attack. The children of Axull Darr were preparing another massive fleet to attack them with, and while the core was safely guarded, giving them opportunity to learn about it or threaten their other forces was stupid. Distraction was the game now. Every moment they kept them from coming after them again was a moment closer to the Conduit firing.
This was a focused assault, not targeted at their wars
hips, as she didn’t have enough ships with her to seriously threaten them. But her targets were not on ships—already she had found them with her mind, those leaders of countless races, diplomats, emissaries. Their loss would throw them all into chaos. By the time the Conduit was activated, they wouldn’t even know what happened.
Then as her force drew close enough to her targets, she pulled her mind back and took a deep breath. The entire system was covered in a skim-nullifying field, preventing any ship from entering FTL inside of the system. She ordered all of her ships to gather close, and then she abandoned any pretense of stealth as she pulled deeply on her power. She formed a field around her ships, fixed it inside of her mind, and then gave the order. Several hundred of her ships, all except for her Living-ship, entered skim, and in seconds they passed through the system, bypassing most of its defenses.
As her ships arrived the defenses around the planet blossomed to life, far faster than she had thought possible. But her ships weren’t meant to fight—the spore ships were meant for a single thing only. They surged toward the planet, even as they were being blown up, pieces breaking off and falling to the planet. It didn’t matter that they were being cut apart, as the spores would reach the surface anyway. A few of the larger ships tried to ram the city, but the planetary shield held, producing massive explosions across the sky. Loranis was impressed; she hadn’t believed that the shield would hold under such onslaught. It didn’t matter in the end, however, as most of her other ships had already hit the ground around the city and gotten to work.
The shield did fail in a few areas, and small holes opened up within it. Her spores flew through, crashing into tall buildings and tumbling them down to ground level. As the last of her ships in orbit were destroyed, she turned her attention to the ground. If she was being honest, fewer ships had reached the city than she had planned for.
But it would have to be enough.
* * *
Anessa woke up suddenly. She sat up in her bed on Olympus Mons and looked around her room. There were no signs of any intruder, yet something had woken her up. She looked to the empty space next to her. Adrian had went off to Sanctuary to speak with Seo-yun and to visit Axull Darr’s facility before he left back for the system where their forces had gathered. They had agreed that Anessa would stay with the new Grand Fleet along with all the ships that Axull Darr’s facility had constructed since they left; the construction was mostly automated, and they had left it running.
She had spent her days familiarizing herself with the many fleet commanders. It was an annoying task, and many were—in her mind, if not elsewhere—imbeciles. But at least Urvu'ri seemed competent. She would’ve asked to lead the fleet herself, but it was not feasible. If they met an Enlightened in battle she would be too busy fighting them to lead a fleet.
She stood up from her bed, letting the sheets fall from her nude body and walked over to look out of the large window. The city was filled with light, even though the sky was dark. The night in the city at the base of Olympus Mons was even more colorful than the day. She looked at it for a long moment, but nothing seemed amiss.
Anessa frowned. She had learned long ago to trust her instincts; something had woken her up, and she wouldn’t go back to sleep until she found out what it was. She took a deep breath and dropped down into the Sha state. Immediately, she felt different, as if everything had just opened up to her. She stretched her senses over the city, then beyond. Range was still something that she struggled with; it was not that she didn’t have enough power to feel something far away, it was more the matter of how much her mind could take. Her senses expanded into orbit around the planet. She felt all the Sha users on the planet, their power glowing softly in her mind. Then she felt something brush against her.
She frowned. It was familiar, but not… And then she realized what it was: another person in the Sha state, and one whom she didn’t recognize. Immediately she reached for her comm and used the emergency channel to contact system command.
“Ma’am, how can—”
“Bring the system to full combat readiness immediately! We are about to be attacked,” she said quickly.
It was a moment before the person on the other side of the comm responded. “Right away, ma’am,” they said. It was a credit to their professionalism and trust in her word that they didn’t argue.
But then she felt a surge and knew that it was too late.
Through her senses she saw hundreds of strange ships skim into the orbit of Mars. She could feel that they were filled with tightly packed Sha. She had no idea what they were, but they immediately accelerated toward the planet and the city as the defenses in orbit came alive. She didn’t know if her warning had anything to do with the speed of their response, but it was impressive nonetheless. The ships were shredded by tightly focused molecular disintegration beams, proton beams, plasma bolts, and anti-matter beams. They were blowing up faster than she had ever seen ships disappear.
But it just wasn’t enough. The ships didn’t seem to be made out of any kind of usual material, and whatever was inside of them didn’t explode. They fell apart, the pieces seemingly able to move independently as they accelerated toward the ground. A few ships passed through the defenses and headed toward the city, and she turned her eyes to the sky and saw them as the burning balls of light fell toward her. They struck the shields and bathed the city in the light of day. It was an enormous amount of power.
The shields held, but sections failed, and pieces of the ships fell through, hitting buildings and falling down to the streets. One of the large pieces came down some distance away from her on the mountain, hitting an exposed area that was Olympus Mons’ landing bay.
Anessa looked at the carnage, the burning buildings and the smoke rising. With her mind, she pulled a large case from the corner of the room to her, opening it midair and pulling out her armor. She put the torso on and the scale-like plates started expanding out of it until they covered her entire body. She bent space in front of her and stepped into the air above the city, looking down on it.
She focused her senses. The presence of the Enlightened had retreated, and the ships in space had been taken care of. By now the system would be brought up to combat status, and they would be watching for any other attack.
Anessa focused her senses on the city and the wreckage. She could feel Sha moving—something was happening there—and then her eyes widened. She saw the Enlightened Created creatures grow out of it, and in seconds the blobs of plant-like material grew to form fully grown monsters.
And then they moved, killing anything near them. She saw a woman die at the hands of one of them. It stood over her for a second, then moved on. The woman’s body twitched, growths coming out of her body, and Anessa saw as the woman’s body was cannibalized to create another one of the monsters.
She knew that they couldn’t let this get out of control. She opened her comms and put out a blast to every system in the city.
“Attention: the city is under attack by Enlightened forces. Created are growing out of the wreckages. All military personnel proceed immediately to impact sites. The Created use dead to grow more of their own in a short period of time. Containment and eradication is a priority,” Anessa said. Immediately after she finished she got a dozen comm requests from various departments. She answered the military channel first and explained the situation again.
She tried to use her power to kill them from a distance, but there were too many of them, and her power too massive for such a thing. She could wipe the entire city of the face of the planet, true, but target the Created from among the populace? She didn’t have the control for it. Adrian or Lurker of the Depths might be able to do it, but she had always been better in utilizing the Sha state for large-scale destruction and enhancing her own strength.
Seeing no other course, she flew down to the street. She would help as much as she could.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Year 718 of the Empire — Mars
Sahib Adin, Tea
m Leader of the Special Response and Assault Team, had fought in many wars. He had been on the forefront of every war the Empire had ever been involved in since its conception more than seven hundred years ago. Even before then, when it had been called Olympus, he had been part of the military. He loved the lifestyle it provided him, and he was very good at his job. According to many, he was one of the best in his field, and so it was no surprise that he had been attached to the Grand Fleet. Even wars that were conducted mostly in space needed grunts like him. Taking over ships and stations was a nasty business—the enemy rarely just wanted to give their property away.
What was a surprise was that they were not in battle in space, or on an enemy warship or station. No, the battle was taking place on the surface of Mars, in Sol: a system that had rarely been attacked, and only once conquered. The last time alien troops stood on the soil of any of Sol’s planets was when the Ra’a’zani had conquered and enslaved Earth. This time, Sahib doubted that the enemy wanted to enslave them.
“What do you see, Eagle Eye?” he asked over the comms.
“Four Created moving down the street, will be on us in twenty,” Misty “Eagle Eye” Rhyss answered.
Sahib had commanded many different squadrons, teams, even platoons. The people he worked with changed often, but Misty had been with him since the beginning, since the first battle in the Sowir war on the Nel world of Nuva. Most people thought that the two of them were together, but they were wrong, of course. Sahib played for the other team, but still the rumors persisted. When you lived for so long, relationships that lasted for centuries were rare in the first place, but he and Misty were family.
“All right,” he said on the team comms. “Everyone in positions, fire on my mark.”
Series of affirmatives came over the comms and Sahib settled in behind a barricade to wait. It was a welcome change to fight in a city that was designed with a siege in mind. With the press of a button, the people in the city hub could erect ceramic barriers from the floors or side of the buildings. Entire streets could be closed or moved. All of the Empire’s cities were the same, of course, but one never got to fight on the Empire’s soil.
