by Ivan Kal
The Shara Daim envoy stood to Adrian’s side. He had managed to convince Va Dan Reisi that the trip to Shara Daim homeworld would go much faster if his ship was in the hangar of the Veritas and they skimmed across the systems they passed through. The trip to the Shara Daim border system of Var Dara would take about three to four months for a Shara Daim ship, and another eight months to Shara Radum. The Empire’s ships could get there in less than four months. The fastest route utilized both trans-lanes and a couple of hyperspace routes, but with the skimming, his ships could move across entire systems almost immediately, which cut into the travel time considerably. And as it turned out, the Empire had slightly faster hyper-drives.
Veritas and its escorts dropped from their skim right on top of the trans-station, and then they entered into trans-space on their way to Shara Radum.
***
Tarabat
Hanaru, Weaver of the Erasi, looked over the latest report from the ambassador to the Empire. A Shara Daim courier ship had arrived and a few days later left with three Empire ships, presumably on their way to Shara Daim. The only explanation was that they were envoys, and the Erasi could not allow for any kind of dialogue to take place, or even worse, the creation of an alliance. Especially now when they were at a critical point in their invasion. It would be another sixteen months before the second wave arrived. They couldn’t afford the Empire complicating things; they needed to hold on to the key systems in the Shara Daim territory and prepare for the arrival of other fleets.
His suspicions about the Empire and the Shara Daim grew daily, especially since they had learned about the change in Shara Daim leadership. Dai Sha Anessa had killed the Elders and taken over the rule of the Shara Daim. The same Dai Sha that had been a prisoner of the Empire, and then later attacked the system where, after they were defeated, she was allowed to leave. It made no sense, unless somehow the Empire had put the Dai Sha in position to take the power, but there didn’t seem to be any evidence of them meddling.
Changing a government of an empire was something the Erasi would do, but this seemed too fast. The Empire had just recently moved into the area; there was no way for them to have had the time to orchestrate a change in Shara Daim leadership. Unless everything that the Erasi believed about them was a clever lie. Already they had seen too much that didn’t make sense—false information, deceptive strength…Who knew what else that Hanaru believed about them wasn’t true.
Whatever their true motives were, Hanaru knew one thing: he couldn’t allow their ships to reach Shara Radum. An alliance between the Empire and the Shara Daim would be catastrophic at this time. And Hanaru had no time to let his superiors know and ask for guidance; he needed to act immediately, because he was the only one in position to intercept the fast Empire ships. He only had a small taskforce, one stealth ship, ten destroyers, eight heavy cruisers, and two battleships, but that would be enough to stop the three ships.
Hanaru started making plans, finding the perfect system to lay an ambush. The Empire ships would never reach their destination.
Chapter Thirty
Several days later — March; Year 57 of the Empire — Shara Daim border region — Har Aras sector
Dai Sha Garaam of the Fourteenth Legion walked into the meeting room on board her flagship the Soulsworn. Around the table were seated twenty-two other Dai Sha. All were there as holograms, comm-ing in from their ships that were around Garaam’s Legion. Garaam took her seat at the head of the table and looked over the other Dai Sha. There was an air of unease among them, and it had nothing to do with their upcoming battle and everything to do with the changes on Shara Radum.
A part of Garaam still couldn’t believe what her friend had done. They had known each other since they were children, and Garaam knew that Anessa had always believed in the Elders unconditionally. She had honed her skills for the sole purpose of serving and one day becoming an Elder herself. That devotion was why Garaam had never told her friend about the little cabal she and several other Dai Sha were a part of. Their group had had members across the Shara Daim, from every position, people who believed that there was something wrong with the Elders’ rule, or people that didn’t agree with the Shara Daim policies against other races.
Garaam herself had had dealings with other races, and she had seen honor among many of them. Yet according to the teachings of their Elders, they were not equal to Shara Daim. Now she knew that that was a lie constructed to use the Shara Daim for the Elders’ purpose. So when she and everyone else in the Shara Daim had received the message that contained the proof against the Elders, she had rejoiced, until the last part of the transmission, when all had learned that the Elders had been removed from power by Anessa and that she had taken the title of Kar Daim along with the rule of the Shara Daim. The transmission didn’t mention how she had taken the power, but soon enough the word had gotten out. Anessa had killed them all, and if the word was true, she had done it in a very brutal way, all by herself.
Anessa had demanded obedience from anyone who didn’t want to challenge her, drawing back to the old laws and customs of the ancient Shara Daim. And a part of Garaam was elated, while a part was horrified. The cabal had wanted to oppose Anessa; they didn’t want to replace the Elders with someone worse, and in their minds, Anessa was somehow even worse. And Garaam would have agreed with them if it had been the Anessa from before her return from imprisonment. Before, she had been a zealot, believing blindly in the Elders and their teachings. Now Garaam had seen how different she was. She was more open-minded. The fact that she had killed the Elders told her how different she truly was; Anessa of before wouldn’t have defied the Elders for anything. Garaam didn’t know what had happened to her, but something had changed her.
So Garaam had counseled the cabal to accept her rule. She had told them that Anessa was different, that she wouldn’t allow what the Elders had done to happen again. And thankfully they had listened, and had given Anessa a chance. And already the Shara Daim had seen the beginnings of change. She had shared everything, put all the secrets out there for people to know. She focused the entirety of the Shara Daim to defend against the Erasi. Already Garaam had heard about talks of changing the ways things were done. The teachings in the schools were being changed, children no longer taught that Shara Daim were superior to all. And she had assembled teams of the smartest people the Shara Daim had to offer in order to make them better.
Slowly, in these past months, Anessa had gained allegiance among the Shara Daim. Not from everyone, but most. Some truly believed in what she was doing, while others were too afraid to do anything. Garaam and the cabal had had a dream of wise, strong, and truthful leaders that worked for the Shara Daim. But she knew that that was just a dream; the Shara Daim were not a people that would follow just anyone. They needed someone strong and powerful, someone who could instill fear into their bones and loyalty into their hearts. They needed Anessa to bully and force them to change, and Garaam would do everything in her power to help her friend.
The first part in doing that was to stop the Erasi advance. Garaam focused on the Dai Sha around her and spoke.
“Our mission is simple,” she said calmly, reaching out with her mind and keying the telepathic interface on the table to bring up a hologram of the Shara Daim territory. “The Erasi must pass the Var Gares system if they want to take and hold the Har Aras sector. Their forces in this sector number at around thirty of their fleets, the equivalent of thirty of our Legions, with the forces in the Har Kaleras and Har Nara sectors numbering fifteen each. That brings their confirmed number in our territory at sixty fleets,” Garaam said, looking at the Dai Sha.
Garaam had twenty-three Legions at her command to defend the three sectors; the last nineteen Legions that Anessa had ordered to the front would arrive in two months’ time. Then Garaam would have forty-two Legions to defend, plus the system guards—the same number that the Elders had planned to send against the Empire. The Erasi had obviously planned for this attack for a long time;
their attack had come at three different sectors at the exact time when the Legions were out of position.
“The Erasi forces in the Har Aras sector are divided into three forces; eight of their fleets are guarding Var Tero, which they are using as a staging point. All their supplies arrive there, and it is where their fleets resupply. The other two forces, each eleven fleets strong, are currently on their way to two of our systems that they plan on taking next,” Garaam said. When she said that the Erasi were taking a system, she meant that they were moving inside, destroying any infrastructure, and then leaving. They were only actively taking systems that had strategic value, like Var Tero.
“We could move and take Var Tero back. That would deny their fleets resupply. But I don’t intend to go there just yet. Our first target will be here”—Garaam pointed at the system—“Var Harsi. That is where the biggest Erasi force is moving to attack, and we can get there just after they attack and pin them against the defenses. We will have the numbers advantage, and I believe that it is more advantageous for us to take out as many of their ships as we can now. As soon as they figure out that we have moved back in, they will start grouping more forces. Lowering their numbers now will give us an advantage,” Garaam said.
“But we will be leaving our other systems undefended,” Dai Sha Barask said.
“We need to cut their numbers now while we still can. After we take this fleet, we will be splitting our forces in order to defend as many as possible. And already the guard flotillas from our other sectors are arriving to bolster the defenses,” Garaam said. They had no hope of reaching the Har Kaleras and Har Nara sectors in time to help any of the systems that had already been attacked. Had the Elders sent the Legions to defend immediately, they might’ve had a chance of defending every sector, but for now they could only stop the Erasi in Har Aras. Once the reinforcements arrived, Garaam would be free to send more Legions to the two other sectors.
“Are there any questions?” Garaam asked, and no one spoke up; they already knew that this was the best plan they had at the moment. “Very well, then, we are off to Var Harsi.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Two months later — May — Shara Radum
Anessa sat in the room that she had turned into her office, inside the palace. A lot had changed since she had taken over. She had turned the palace into a hub for the government. She had created a group of advisors, both military and civilians, and she had daily meetings as they slowly adjusted some laws and started the transformation of the Shara Daim. For now, things had been going relatively smoothly. No one questioned her rule—at least not publicly—and she had the support of the military with the Legions and the system guards. The fact that they were under attack and on the defensive had made everyone compliant. But probably the greatest help to her rule was the support from Vallar Havasse; she had influence in many civilian areas, but it was her advice that was the most useful.
Anessa read a report from Garaam. Her forces had engaged the Erasi in Var Harsi and had managed to destroy half of the attacking forces, and they had successfully defended the system. The first battle between the Legions and the Erasi and it was a Shara Daim victory. Anessa knew that things would be much harder now; the Erasi wouldn’t allow themselves to be ambushed again. But the system guards’ ships would soon reach the Har Aras sector, along with another nineteen Legions, which would give Garaam more room to maneuver. She would need to spread the Legions in order to defend as many of the systems as possible. The Shara Daim were on the defensive now; Garaam’s job would be to stop the Erasi advancement until the shipyards could bolster their numbers enough for a counterattack.
In the meantime, Anessa was moving system guards and defense platforms from the rest of the Shara Daim sectors to help the defense of the three invaded sectors. She wasn’t stripping all of the defenses, but she was still weakening the other sectors. The Erasi had twelve Shara Daim systems under their control, two of which were hubs—systems with an unusual number of trans-space points both to and from the system. Taking those back needed to be a priority, but they simply didn’t have the forces to take them back yet. The Erasi had moved their defensive platforms and fortified the systems too much for them to be taken quickly.
Anessa didn’t want to enter into prolonged sieges when she couldn’t spare the ships; every Legion engaged in a siege would be one fewer to defend other systems, and the Erasi would take advantage of that. Taking back their systems was going to be hard. The Legions would stop the Erasi expansion, and then it would be a slow war, with both the Erasi and the Shara Daim bringing in reinforcements as they were ready.
The Erasi had struck a big blow, and they now had an advantage; their lower members defended their systems while the fleets of their core members were free to keep the pressure on her territory. And as Anessa had realized since she had taken the ‘throne,’ Shara Daim manufacturing was probably not going to be able to keep up with the Erasi.
The Elders had made Shara Daim success dependent on fear and power of the Legions, on the technology they had been exploiting for thousands of years. There had never been a need to replace an entire Legion, and now she needed more of them, and fast.
But what she really needed was to finish the conflict with the Erasi quickly, push them out of her territory and make sure that they didn’t think on attacking again. And she knew that there was little chance of her doing that anytime soon, not alone. Ever since she had killed the Elders, she had been struggling with her rule in privacy. For so long she had been an instrument of the Elders, and then during and after her time with the Empire, she had learned a lot of things that had made her waver in her beliefs. Then when she had learned of the Elders’ lies, she had snapped, and had seized the power for herself because she was the only person that she could trust with it.
Adrian would be arriving to Shara Radum soon, and she hoped to get him to make an alliance between his Empire and the Shara Daim. She knew that in order to change her people, she needed to make them see other races differently, something that even she struggled with. But the Empire had Humans and Nel in their number, two races that were like the Shara Daim; it would be much easier to get her people to agree to deal with the Empire than with anyone else. But first, she needed to convince Adrian.
Chapter Thirty-Two
One month later — June — Shara Daim territory
Hanaru watched as a small taskforce entered an almost empty system in Shara Daim territory. The system itself was mostly barren, only a few planets orbiting a very old star. But what made it perfect for an ambush was the fact that the trans-space point that led out of the system rested close to one of the system’s moons. And that was the trans-point that the Empire’s ships that had just entered the system would try to use.
Hanaru had studied the data they had on the Empire’s ships’ FTL drives extensively, and had realized that they had never used them close to stations, or large stellar bodies. They always dropped out of FTL a certain distance away from anything. And he could use that.
If they followed the same practice, they wouldn’t drop from their FTL right on top of the trans-space point; it was too close to the moon. They would drop out a short distance away, giving Hanaru the opportunity to close the point and ambush their ships. As the Empire ships exited hyperspace, he made sure that his ships were ready. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Prepare the jamming system,” Hanaru said, and waited.
***
Veritas
Adrian entered the command center of Veritas just as the three ships dropped from their skim near to the system’s moon. Va Dan Reisi walked with Adrian, as he made a point of being present for every trans-space entry. Just as he set foot inside the room, his Sensors Handler spoke out.
“I’m detecting something inside the trans-station, Lord Sentinel.”
Adrian frowned. “What?”
“The sensors can’t identify it. We could go active with the sensors,” he suggested. Then his station chirped and his expres
sion changed. “Trans field detected!” the Sensors Handler said just as the holo showed a flash of violet light that signified a trans-station activation.
Adrian knew immediately that someone had just closed the trans-lane, just as his ships were approaching. He moved quickly to his command chair and keyed the comms to his escorts.
“Go to full battle stations immediately,” Adrian said over the comms just as his holo detected a hyperspace communications jamming field slide into space.
“We lost our FTL comms, Lord Sentinel.”
Adrian nodded. The last time that the Empire had encountered jamming technology had been in their war with the Sowir, and to this day they hadn’t found a way to counter it other than leaving the range of the field or destroying its source.
“Go active on all sensors,” Adrian said, and a tachyon burst left all three ships.
Adrian turned to Va Dan Reisi, who was looking at him nervously. Adrian doubted that this was an ambush by the Shara Daim; the Va Dan wouldn’t have accepted for his ship to be carried inside the Veritas if that were the case. “Do you have any idea on who this might be?” Adrian asked.
“No, Lord Sentinel. But I am certain that it is not any Shara Daim,” Reisi said.
Adrian turned back at the holo, waiting for the ambushers to show themselves. A few moments later, sensors picked up ships coming out of the shadow of the moon, and instantly the computers recognized their signatures.
Twenty Erasi warships moved to intercept Adrian’s force, ten destroyers, eight heavy cruisers, and two battleships.
“Erasi,” Reisi cursed.
