by Ivan Kal
“It never entered our thinking that you could one day become true beings. That we would not be alone,” Clear Waters sent, and Adrian could feel a river of emotions and thought go by too fast for him to identify them. But the stream calmed and he could feel her horror and shame. “We made a mistake.”
Adrian took a few steps closer, looking up at the taller Sowir, and yet he could feel her being intimidated. He locked his eyes with hers. “You did. Every life that you took was precious. Your belief might be wrong or it might be right; it is not on me to judge a belief. But you should not have taken it upon yourselves to wipe out other intelligent life just because they were different than you. But there is still time for you to help save lives. My people are about to start the last offensive against your kind. We will win. And if you force us, we will wipe you out completely.”
***
Emperor’s palace
Tomas Klein, ruler of the Empire, sat in his small office with three other people. Two of which were currently sitting on one of his couches, cowering under the wrath of Fleets Master Laura Reiss.
“The risk was minimal. I took all the precautions to make sure there weren’t any incidents,” Seo-yun, his longtime partner, defended herself.
“Minimal!” Laura yelled out. “There wasn’t supposed to be any risk at all!”
“Everything went according to plan, and I am perfectly fine,” Adrian chimed in.
Laura swung towards him and prepared to rip into him when Tomas decided that it was enough.
“Laura,” he said firmly. She stopped and turned to look at him. For a moment, he could see her debating whether to ignore him or not, but finally she turned and walked to the window that overlooked the city.
Tomas cleared his throat and then turned to the two sitting on the couch. “What did you find out?”
“For starters, I know why the Sowir started wiping out other races,” Adrian said.
“We already knew that, because we don’t hear the Spirit of the Universe,” Tomas added.
“I mean, I know what they think this Spirit of the Universe is.”
Tomas raised an eyebrow, and made a Nel gesture for him to continue.
“Well, they think that this Spirit of the Universe is what binds all life, or rather all true life, together,” Adrian started. “In reality, what they call the Spirit of the Universe is actually a telepathic echo, the background noise of the Universe. At least, that is what the People thought. But I didn’t tell her that.”
“And how does this help us?” Tomas asked.
Adrian started to speak, but Seo-yun interrupted him. “When she realized that Adrian now fits into their belief of what makes a being real, she felt horror. She knew that her people had made a mistake; they hadn’t taken into consideration that a being could eventually develop telepathy and the ability to hear what they believe is the Spirit of the Universe,” she said enthusiastically. “If we show them that Adrian can hear it, they will understand that all life has potential to become what they believe is to be ‘intelligent.’ We can start talks, make peace.”
Laura turned and looked directly at Seo-yun. “Peace?” she asked scornfully. “After all they have done? They have wiped out two other races!”
“So, what, we will wipe them out in turn?” Seo-yun threw back. “What gives us the right to decide that they cannot be redeemed?”
“We can’t just leave them be, Seo-yun.” Tomas said. “And how would we even give this information to them? They don’t respond to our comms, and even if they are listening, they would not believe in it, not even from their own. Not from those that were captured. They will suspect a trick. The only way would be to get to their bigger worlds, directly to their leaders. But how would we do that? They keep millions of their agents close to them.” Tomas shook his head. “Let’s assume that you get them to listen, and we come to agreement. What then? We just let them go? Why even get them to talk if we are not willing to let them go unpunished?”
“We have no right to judge them, Tomas,” Seo-yun said.
“Why not?” Tomas asked. “What gives anyone in the universe the right to do anything? Nothing; we take the right ourselves. And the Sowir have committed genocide twice, maybe even more. Those they killed deserve justice.”
“So we kill them all?” Seo-yun asked.
“I agree with Tomas that they shouldn’t be absolved of their crimes,” Adrian said, looking at Seo-yun with regret. “But I also think that we should try and communicate with them. They must realize that they can’t win against us. If we can make them see that we are equal to them, we might be able to get them to surrender and keep their word.”
“Surrender under what terms?” Laura asked.
“We follow the same plan we already have, only they do it willingly. They abandon all systems they control, they stop using their agents, and agree to be confined to their home system. Agree to have our forces permanently inside their system. They will be allowed to move around the system, but they will be forbidden to have ships with FTL capability,” Adrian said.
“This all rests on us being able to convince them that Adrian can hear this Spirt or whatever it is,” Laura said.
“Yes.” Tomas nodded. “Which is why we are going to continue with our planned offensive. Adrian can try and find a way to open communications. Otherwise, we continue with our original plan.”
Chapter Three
October; Guxaxac – Guxcacul homeworld
Company Leader Sahib Adin read through the last communiqué from the Fleet Headquarters, letting him know that they would be starting a new offensive soon and telling him the timeline for the liberation of Guxaxac. He’d received the message through an FTL communicator that they had brought from the Empire. It didn’t communicate through normal space, so it being deep underground didn’t add any interference. Sahib sighed. He had spent three years living underground, surrounded by Guxcacul, as one of the Empire’s liaisons to the Guxcacul government. And while he had grown to like the big arthropods, he needed to see more people that looked like him, other than his team. Although he had received a promotion for his actions during the initial invasion of the Sowir territory. But sadly, his expertise had been needed for the mission on Guxaxac, as his team was probably the most experienced one in the Empire.
They had been relatively safe, and had seen little action over the last three years. The Guxcacul population had already been cut down to a small number, barely five million. And they all lived in the oldest Guxcacul city on the planet, Gaxasas, buried deep underground.
Before the Sowir had invaded Guxaxac, the city had not been occupied, aside from a few caretakers. The city had been a kind of a museum, and every Guxcacul would visit it at least once in their lifetime. Now it was their last refuge. After the Sowir invasion of the planet had started, a faction of the Guxcacul had taken it upon themselves to fortify the city. And they’d had enough time; the Sowir war had lasted a long time. Now this city held the last of the Guxcacul race. All other cities had fallen over the decades.
The only reason that the Sowir still hadn’t located the city was that its location hadn’t been recorded in any files. The city was sacred to the Guxcacul, so everyone who wanted to visit it would need to go on a pilgrimage, and the only clues of the city’s location were passed down orally. Now, the city was a fortress, reinforced over the decades to serve as the last bastion of the Guxcacul. And they had planned on making it their last stand. To them, it was poetic; the place of the birth of their civilization was also to be its end. Until Sahib and his team had given them hope. And soon, Sahib would be able to make good on the promise he had made when they’d arrived.
The Empire needed time to prepare to take the planet; they had never attempted anything like it. Time was needed to manufacture equipment designed for fighting underground, to train troops in its use, and come up with a plan. The easiest part was for them to clear the Sowir ships in system, but the ground was another thing entirely. The Sowir had hundreds of thousands
of their soldiers—the animals they had genetically altered to be their slaves, and controlled via telepathy to be used as tools and agents—on the ground. The Guxaxac tunnels were filled with them. And now the Empire was finally ready.
Sahib got up from his improvised bed and exited what had been his home for the last three years. He didn’t need any special equipment to survive, as the Guxcacul lived in very similar conditions. The air here was dry and hot, which he could survive in, but thankfully the Guxcacul had rigged devices that cooled and moisturized the air inside the chambers for his team.
Stepping out into the city was always a bit of a shock, even after all of this time. First, there was the dry air, the heat, and the dim lights. But all that paled to the look of the city. The Guxcacul city was unlike anything that Sahib had ever seen. It had been built inside a spherical cave, with some buildings buried inside the walls, while others were suspended in the open space of the cave, connected to the “walls” of the city by bridge-like pillars. There were a kind of plateaus carved inside the walls, which was where his and the houses of his team were. The plateaus were the only areas of the city that were horizontal; the rest were all at an angle, which didn’t really bother the Guxcacul.
Sahib walked towards the edge of the plateau and one of the many “bridges” attached there. Once he reached it, he placed his feet and hands in the holes placed there and started climbing. The bridges were all at an angle, so it wasn’t as dangerous to climb as it would be climbing a near vertical mountain. After a couple of minutes, he finally reached a building attached to a few bridges and carefully moved from his bridge to the building, entering it through a rounded wall. The inside didn’t look anything like what the rustic appearance suggested. It could have passed for almost any house in the Empire, except for the fact that there weren’t any walls inside and that it wasn’t floor-oriented.
“Hey, Riss,” Sahib said to the Guxcacul that was hanging on the left wall by the computer console. The Guxcacul didn’t move, but he did respond.
“Sahib.” Riss spoke in his language and Sahib spoke in standard. Both of them understood the other one’s language, so they rarely used a translator to speak. The Guxcacul couldn’t reproduce many of the sounds required to speak standard—the language of the Empire, which was mostly English with a few words taken from the Nel language. The experts on Sanctuary predicted that in time it would become a complete blend of the two, as the majority of the Empire were Nel and human.
“I got some news,” Sahib said as he moved to the center of the room, where he sat down on a large pillow.
Riss turned the console off and then moved across the wall to the floor and joined Sahib. “Is this the kind of news I will be happy to hear?”
“Of course. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have bothered climbing all the way up here,” Sahib said. “I received a message from the Fleet Headquarters. They will begin the offensive in five months, and Guxaxac will be the first world targeted. Five more months and the Guxcacul will be free.”
Riss stilled, but Sahib had known him for a long time now and could see that he was affected emotionally.
“Finally,” Riss said. “I will need to inform the Elders. Did the Fleet send any plans for the offensive?”
“Yes, I have them all in my imp. We can go see the Elders whenever you want,” Sahib answered.
***
Sahib and Riss entered the large chamber. It too was strange to his eyes. It was rounded, with nine pillars grouped together in the middle of the room. A small platform stood below them. The two of them made their way over to the platform, while nine of the Guxcacul Elders already waited on their pillars. The Guxcacul didn’t use chairs, or anything similar, so the nine stood with their two front legs on top while the four back were placed in small holes in the sides of the pillars.
Out of the nine, five were female. The difference between the two sexes was obvious. The males had carapaces in shades of gray and brown, and looked a bit bland, while the females had widening bone crests on their head plates, which were in various shades of red and green.
The chamber itself was brightly lit, a courtesy for Sahib more than anything else. The Guxcacul had very poor eyesight, but then, they relied on other senses to ‘see.’ In the middle of the platform was a chair, another courtesy. Sahib sat down, and Riss stood to his left. In front of them was a small table with one of the Empire’s translators, which the Guxcacul scientists had improved over the three years.
“Greeting, friend. We are told that you have good news for us,” one of the Elders, identified by Sahib’s implant as Sisstra, spoke in her language. Sahib heard her words in standard directly in his mind through his implant, which was aided in translation by the bigger device on the table.
“Yes, Elders, that is true,” Sahib spoke in standard, not bothering to speak up so that the Elders could hear his words; it was enough that the translator could. His words were translated into Guxcacul and played to the Elders on the devices placed on their pillars. “I have received a message from my people. The offensive will start in three months, and your world will be one of the first targets.”
“After all this time, our world will be free,” another Elder said.
“The Fleet will take care of the Sowir ships in orbit, while our troops attack their positions on the ground. The plan is for your troops to attack at the same time from underground,” Sahib said.
“We will be ready.”
***
A few hours later, Riss and Sahib sat in the middle of Sahib’s home. The meeting with the Elders had been surprisingly short. For a long-lived race, the Guxcacul where surprisingly quick to act. Already, their troops had started preparing for the coming fight.
“Do you plan on living here, once we free this world? Help in the rebuilding?” Sahib asked.
“No…” Riss said after some thought. “This is no longer my home. That place is Warpath. I have changed; the Empire is my home now.”
“Do you think that they will ask to join us?”
“Not at first. They will want to rebuild the homeworld, regain something of what we have lost. But, in time, yes, I think that they will ask that of the Emperor,” Riss answered.
“You know the plan, right? To imprison the Sowir in their home system? We haven’t told your people that yet. I must confess that I thought you would tell them.”
“There is no point, they have no power to do anything about it. I know that they will ask for a harsher action, but they have been living in fear for a long time. And they are not like you Humans; before the Sowir, we never knew so much death and war.”
“And what do you think, should they pay a greater price?” Sahib asked.
“I do not know. All that I am screams for vengeance, for their death. And yet I have spent a long time in Warpath. I am a Sentinel, and have studied Human history, and the history of the Consortium through Human eyes. I have read about the things you did to yourselves, in your own wars. I know that if we get what we want, if we do to the Sowir what they did to us and the Mtural, and the Pouute, we will not be the same. Your kind is younger than mine, but in this you are our elders. I support the Emperor’s decision.”
Chapter Four
Sanctuary
Adrian stood in his room on Sanctuary, surrounded by holograms. All of them were concerning the Sowir. Information on their population, their military, and their government—or rather, the closest thing they had to a government. Holos of their system spun around him. The Empire had scouted all of their remaining systems, of which there were eleven, except for their home system. Every time they sent a probe through the trans-lane, it was destroyed. Their remaining fleet outside of their home system numbered about two thousand, spread across those eleven systems. The same as the fleet they had gathered for the invasion of Nelus. Out of those eleven, the most fortified was their home system, at least according to the little they’d managed to get out of the Sowir prisoners. Even now, when they were willing to talk, the Sowir never revealed
anything of substance about their home system. Apparently there was a limit to how much they were willing to reveal as amends for their crime. But still, Adrian knew that they could defeat them with little to no casualties, especially now when the Empire had upgraded all of their old ships.
And yet, he could see no way to get to them and show them that they had been wrong in attacking other races. From Clear Waters, who was a lot more cooperative now, he’d learned that the Sowir had very small population, barely ninety million. A price for their longevity; their solution for aging had not been perfect. But their tools and agents numbered in the billions. One Sowir could command hundreds of thousands from afar; perhaps not with the same effectiveness as if he or she was close to them, and they were fewer in number, but when you threw a million expendable solders at the opposing force, it didn’t matter that they weren’t as organized.
The problem Adrian had was how to get close enough to the Sowir for them to sense him. Their maximum range was around two hundred meters for their more powerful telepaths. That range was increased exponentially if they used an amplifier, but those were designed specifically to send instructions to their tools; it was only one-way. Sending a prisoner to them wouldn’t work, either; Clear Waters had assured him that they wouldn’t believe her memories, not unless Adrian was there too. But the problem was getting to the Sowir. Early attempts in the war to send back prisoners with surrender offers had proven unsuccessful. Sending previously captured ships back had led to them being destroyed from afar, or by the prisoners destroying themselves, as they suspected a trap. The Empire had shown them that they were capable and willing to break their word, and also to use subterfuge. After all, the Sowir and the Empire had had a non-aggression agreement. That the Sowir would have broken it if they’d had the chance didn’t matter. The Empire had broken it first.
