Villain

by Ivan Kal

  They had to use everything that they had. They couldn’t afford to hold back—the Enlightened were not an enemy to take on lightly.

  The Sovereign crossed the hyperspace barrier and settled in its spot in the Grand Fleet, at the back of the Rimward Alliance formation, as Anessa had urged Kane and Vaana to do.

  Now they just had to wait for the rest of the fleet to arrive.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Year 718 of the Empire — Josanti League Territory

  Doranis of the Enlightened sat on his Living-ship Devourer. All around him the might of the Enlightened was apparent—the entire system was under their control, the last of the holdouts having been taken care of. It was hard work, taking a system completely, but in truth he had controlled the system for years. Some of the former occupants had remained in hiding, however: a few ships hiding in the asteroid belts, a mining group that ran deep beneath the ground. It took time to hunt them all down.

  The system used to be a manufacturing hub of the core power that called itself the Josanti League, but before that it had belonged to the People. There were no signs of that, of course, as the last incarnation of the AI had wiped it clean with its Swarm. But the system was still rich, and a perfect place for a base of operations. He had taken care not to destroy all of the system’s facilities, and some of their yards he had even captured whole. Others he had replaced with their own yards that they had brought from within their Containment Zone. Loranis had been providing biological material from her base in the rim, enough that he could begin construction efforts here.

  The yards captured from the Josanti League were perfect for the construction of the technological parts of his ships, but he hadn’t been focusing on building more of those. Instead, he had been building up defense platforms utilizing the access-point weapon. Loranis had brought half of her fleets, as well as all the newly constructed ships from the rim, here. Along with his own fleet, they now had a sizable force present in the system, and there was no need for them to build more ships. After all, all of this was just a distraction, giving the enemy a visible target so that they didn’t see the true danger.

  In any case, their Created would not survive what was to come. They, along with all other life, would die.

  He turned his attention to the Mindseer, Loranis’s Living-ship. She had returned from her assault against the races allied against them, and he was looking forward to hear how it went. He waited patiently for her to come to his ship. Sometime later, she walked into the room.

  “I assume that you were successful?” Doranis asked.

  Loranis walked over. Her body was nude, tinted with an orange glow. They didn’t care much for clothes, and their bodies had evolved past the need for such things. The horns on her head curved backward, and the six horns curving toward the sides from her back flashed with purple light.

  “A partial success,” she answered.

  “Partial?” Doranis frowned.

  “At least one of the three was in the system, and we underestimated their defenses. The ships were taken down far too quickly. Most didn’t make it to the ground.”

  Doranis tsked and stood up. “What was the result?”

  “We killed many, but none from the important nations.”

  “Will it delay them, do you think?”

  “Perhaps. I didn’t stay for long. I didn’t want to risk being discovered.”

  Doranis nodded his elongated head. They didn’t have the same capabilities to monitor the races in the galaxy without the AI. Their own stealth ships could only watch passively, and more often than not they were discovered. It took having one of them going with the forces in order to keep them hidden, which made it hard to know exactly what the enemy wanted to do. They hadn’t had their eyes on the galaxy since the AI went dark.

  “There was a large gathering of ships in the system. I believe that they are planning on attacking again,” Loranis said.

  “Here?” he asked.

  “I do not believe that they know about the core. If they did, I doubt that they would be wasting so much time.”

  “How many ships?”

  “Not as many as we have here, but their ships are more advanced, more powerful.”

  “It won’t matter. If they come, they will lose the same as last time.”

  “It looks like they have remedied the relationship with the three. We might face those who are as strong as we are.”

  Doranis paused at that. It was true that they had been wondering where the ones Aranis warned them about were. They had been operating under the assumption that they had went to engage with the AI. If that was the truth, then perhaps they had spent the time since recovering, as taking on the AI couldn’t have been easy. They probably no longer had a fleet. But if they joined with the galactic alliance…they could pose a threat. Doranis was aware that they were a risk, as he had faced one of them himself, but he also knew that they had held such power for just a short time, and that they didn’t know how to use it most effectively.

  “What do you want to do?” Doranis asked.

  “Aranis informed us that we are close, and that the Conduit will be done in a month. I don’t think we should risk fighting at all.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “We gather our forces and go to the core, reinforce Aranis.”

  “They are watching this system,” Doranis countered. “Suvri stealth ships are all over the outer edges. They would know that we left to go somewhere, and then they would be able to follow. We would lead them to the core, and we cannot risk that. In any case, they can’t hope to get through the defenses here, not with their amount of ships.”

  Loranis grimaced. “If they come here, we won’t be able to move to the core if Aranis needs us. If the three come here…you won’t be able to finish the battle quickly. It will be a war across the system.”

  “Then you go. Take some ships if you want. If they attack here, then they are not in the core, and in a month, it won’t even matter. I’ll stay here and keep them busy. You go and join Aranis.”

  Loranis thought about it, then nodded. “Yes, that might be best.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Year 718 of the Empire — Josanti League Territory

  Adrian was sitting on the throne inside of Moirai. They had left the Josanti League system and were now on their way to the core. If his math was right, the Grand Fleet should hit the Enlightened any day now. His force still had a few days left in hyperspace. Already they had been traveling for a while.

  Travel through hyperspace was boring. There wasn’t much to do, and he couldn’t go and visit other ships, which left Adrian spending all that time alone with only Iris and Moirai keeping him company. It wasn’t all that bad, but there wasn’t much that they could talk about—both Iris and Moirai knew him as well as he knew himself, which was a real conversation killer.

  So, he had taken to training with Moirai, trying to establish their connection faster, and mentally practicing sharing their power. Every now and again he would take about an hour break from training and go inside his mindspace. In there he would spent several days while time in the real world trickled by slowly. It was a mental construct, an ability that seemed to be an evolutionary trait of humanity—something to do with the power of their imagination, or at least that was what the scientists had always told him.

  To date he was the only person who had achieved it, but the scientists believed that future generations of humans would eventually discover it too. It allowed him to put his mind in state where it was accelerated, could think at a speed far faster than any other being in the galaxy. He had honed it so much that he now could create an entire world inside his mind; he could walk in it, train in it, live an entire lifetime in it, all while barely an hour passed outside. It allowed him to recreate people from his memories; shadows, reflections of them. It had allowed him to train against them, to devise tactics and figure out their weaknesses.

  And so now he was doing the same—only now, he was fig
hting with Aranis. Everything that Adrian had seen the Enlightened do, he remembered, even if he didn’t quite know how the Enlightened had done it. By studying his memories, he could create a projection of what Aranis was like, how he liked to fight. Adrian had done this a thousand times since his last fight with Aranis. He knew that the Enlightened was powerful, more powerful than Adrian. He knew ways of utilizing the Sha state that Adrian could only dream about. Their first fight had gone in Adrian’s favor, but he’d had the element of surprise. With Moirai, he could gain incredible power, leveraging her monstrous strength with his guidance. It leveled the playing field a bit, allowed him to bridge the gap in their skill level.

  But from replaying and studying that battle, Adrian realized that, for all of his power, Aranis didn’t know how to fight. He had never fought against opponents who could seriously harm him. It was evident in the way he used his power and the way he allowed Adrian to gain the upper hand. He didn’t understand that Adrian could hurt him.

  That would have changed now—Aranis would not underestimate him again—but he still didn’t know how to fight with an equal. Adrian had far more experience there, as most people he fought were stronger than him. To that end, he and Moirai had come up with several different strategies for the battle. Aranis used his power skillfully, relaying on Sha perhaps too much. It was a tool, but technology was powerful as well.

  There were things that Adrian had done, such as expending his mental energy to create a warship that could do just as well as he, and with the added benefit of not exhausting him in battle. Moirai had a great array of weapons, from technological to biological to the Sha. She was his greatest weapon, a partner who could allow him to punch harder and further. With her protecting his mind, he wouldn’t need to fear a mental attack, and could focus only on the fight.

  Still, there were things that Adrian didn’t understand. During the last battle he had destroyed nearly half of Aranis’s body, and yet he had seen his body start to regrow nearly immediately after he was wounded. Adrian didn’t know how he had done that. If Adrian had suffered similar injury, he would’ve died on the spot. There was also the way that they could change their shape… It was as if they weren’t bound by their bodies at all. That enigma was why he had the question of souls on his mind. He wondered if there was something that he was missing.

  But there was always something that he didn’t know, and that wasn’t about to stop him from doing what he needed to do. Inside of his mind he watched the battle with Aranis for the hundredth time: every twitch, everything that Aranis did that he’d missed the first time, Adrian watched now. He knew his opponent, knew what movement he made before he sent a blast of kinetic energy at him, knew the small twitch of his left eye when he had put a shield around himself, knew how his wings moved when he prepared to summon a powerful attack.

  Adrian watched and studied it all. This was why he had prevailed over so many powerful opponents; this was why he relished the feeling of a fight against the strong, why he wanted obstacles to push himself over. It was one of the reasons why he enjoyed living life.

  And it was also why he couldn’t allow the Enlightened to win. If they killed all life, there would be no more obstacles, nothing for him to do. Although he would probably be dead alongside everyone else, so it might not bother him much.

  Lurker of the Depths had speculated that perhaps the four of them would be able to survive whatever the Enlightened did. But that was not something that Adrian would want. It would be a crime to end all the potential that life offered.

  And so he trained. He pushed himself inside of his mindspace, and hoped that it would be enough.

  * * *

  Several hours later he sat in the throne again, his mind open and connected with Moirai. They had just finished another training exercise when he began wondering about something.

  “Moirai?” he sent.

  “WHAT?” she answered. He smiled at her tone. She was always so abrupt and honest, which was refreshing.

  “What do you think about the coming battle?” Adrian asked. He had realized that while he had been planning this for a long time, he hadn’t yet asked her opinion. It made him feel a bit embarrassed that he hadn’t, and that he had only remembered to do so now.

  “FIGHT AGAINST ENLIGHTENED GOOD, YES?”

  “It is,” he sent back. “They want to do something terrible, to kill everything. But I want to know what you think about it. Do you understand why we want to stop them?”

  “THEY WANT TO KILL YOU, SO WE KILL THEM FIRST.”

  Adrian sighed. He should’ve expected as much. In many ways, her mind was as simple and direct as it was vast and strange. “We are defending ourselves, our right to live.”

  “STRONG LIVE, FIGHT, GROW,” Moirai said.

  Adrian nodded, her words the reflection of his own beliefs that those who were strong had the right to do as they wanted. He had always believed in that. He didn’t believe that they should protect others as they are children, and in truth he wasn’t going to stop the Enlightened for their sake. He did not want to protect their current way of life, but rather because some of them could become strong, could someday see the world as he saw it: a brutal and beautiful place, where there were no lies, no manipulations and hate. Just the truth, no matter how harsh; the truth, which was to be accepted and respected.

  “Yes, we grow, and we learn,” Adrian said. There were too many things that he wanted to discover the answers to. Too many things that he wanted to see and learn about. Secrets to uncover.

  He couldn’t allow the Enlightened to take that away from him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Year 718 of the Empire — Josanti League Territory

  Anessa was standing in her battle armor next to the twins when the Grand Fleet dropped out of hyperspace. One moment the space was empty, and then nearly four million warships dropped into real space. Immediately, the ships that were attached to others disengaged and spread out. The formation had drifted a bit in hyperspace and quickly orders came for them to find their positions.

  The Empire and the Shara Daim drone carriers released their drones. Both the Shara Daim and the Empire had around thirty two thousand drone carriers, each carrying forty three-hundred-meter-long drones. The number of contacts on the screen increased by another two and a half million. The drones were fairly advanced, pure warships with equivalent firepower of a light cruiser, and were more powerful than many of the ships here that had crews. The drones spread across the front of the formation, their purpose to shield the ships with the crews.

  Anessa dropped into Sha state, spread her awareness across the Grand Fleet, and waited. Her job was to ward off the Enlightened, to make sure that they couldn’t destroy ship with impunity. She watched the holo looking at the sensors and the image of the system. Suvri stealth ships had never left the system, and they had been watching everything, so they knew what to expect.

  Yet seeing it in person was another thing entirely.

  The Enlightened forces were spread out across the system, but the bulk of them was in the high orbits of two planets. One was a former mining planet, while the other used to be inhabited. They knew that it had been invaded, but they didn’t know if there were any survivors, as the Suvri stealth ships couldn’t get a really in depth look while they were hiding. At most they had known the number of Enlightened ships and that they were still here.

  As the holo updated, she saw that the yards surrounding two of the gas giants were still whole and appeared to be undamaged. They had discussed that if the yards were still whole they would be a priority target in the battle. If they could get them back, and form a safe zone around them, then they would have a place to repair and resupply their ships. The Grand Fleet had brought a support fleet, which was a few hours behind them, with repair ships and supply ships. They had planned for a war for the system, and so they needed to be able to rearm and refuel their ships.

  Then she saw several large objects around the gas giants, and a few momen
ts later similarly sized objects appeared all over the system, thousands of them. She waited for them to be matched, but they hadn’t been encountered before. Then she saw a visual image and she frowned.

  It took her a few moments to recognize what it was. The objects were one long platform with a ring attached on one of its side, and she would bet anything that those were the access-point weapons, only in platform form. They had prepared for that weapon, but they had assumed that it could only be used by combining their ships. Regardless, it didn’t change much for them.

  Then they had the full picture of the system, a few dark spots behind planets and the stars, but complete enough. The Enlightened forces numbered almost five million, which was more than what the Grand Fleet had without the drones. She looked through the data as the computers analyzed it all and saw that the alliance actually outmassed the Enlightened. She figured that that was because of the Sovereigns, Titans, and Erasi Devastators, maybe even the great beasts of the Krashinar. Those were the largest vessels in the combined fleet, and they had quite a few of them.

  The Enlightened relied on smaller, battleship- and dreadnought-sized ships, with the glaring exception being the Living-ship of the Enlightened, of which she saw only one in system. It was the largest ship in the system, almost half again as large as a Sovereign. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved that there was only one that she could see, or worried about what that meant. If there was only one Enlightened here, it made her task easier, but that meant that the other two were probably in the core.

  She shook her head, dismissing such thoughts. This was no time for doubts.