by Ivan Kal
“Your wounds are too great to fix, but your death and your life will help my need,” the other him said. His hand moved over Vasily’s chest and started glowing with orange light. “This will hurt only for a moment.”
Vasily felt heat and a brief shock of pain, and then there was nothing.
Chapter One
Year 563 of the Empire; June—Sol—Olympus Mons
Administrator Gotu walked down the main hallway of the Sentinel Headquarters inside Olympus Mons. Walking beside him was a tall Sentinel—her dark skin and height made for a stark contrast to the pale skin of his people, the Nel, and betrayed her Shara Daim lineage. Around them the walls were lined with hundreds of symbols, flags, and crests of the races and empires that the Sentinels had encountered over the centuries—it made for an impressive sight. The two of them walked in silence, which was fine by Gotu, as it gave him time to think more about what he was going to say to the Lord Sentinel. He knew that Adrian would see the advantage of the technologies Gotu’s team had developed; the challenge was convincing him to convince the Fleet to have them developed further and then implemented into the mainline fleets, or have them replace the old technologies entirely. He didn’t want to see them delegated to special projects or used as support for the mainline when he knew that there was much greater potential if the technologies were adopted en masse.
He had brought the offers to the Fleet and the other Clans already, and all had refused them. The Empire’s industry had reached parity with the technologies of the People, and had improved on them in many aspects. But Gotu’s proposals would require something different: a step back, in a way, but one that he knew was necessary.
In many ways Gotu could understand why both the Fleet and the Clans refused, as changing their industry now would be a tremendous undertaking—to say nothing of the cost—all to change their warships for something that didn’t have the same proven history as their current ships of the line.
For hundreds of years, the compressed-matter-hull ships had reigned supreme. The might of the Sovereign-class warships allowed the Empire to smite any threat, to expand and dominate thousands of star systems. But an enemy existed that would require more than that. The Enlightened, three beings that were born as members of the People—predecessors of the Nel, Humans, and Shara Daim—now had become something else, bent on ending life in the galaxy for purposes unknown. They knew—and more importantly, had—all the technology of the People, the same technology that the Empire now relied on, and they had grown even more enhanced by bio-tech that not even the progenitor of the Nel, Humans, and Shara Daim—Axull Darr—could understand.
The Empire had enhanced the People’s technology—they had built weapons that they had never even imagined, aided by the knowledge from the sphere and the shadow of Axull Darr: a digital imprint of their ancestor’s memories. It was not really an AI; it was something more akin to a virtual intelligence. It could answer questions and hold conversations based on what Axull Darr himself would say. But Gotu knew that they couldn’t rely solely on that; they needed technology that the Enlightened didn’t understand, and had never encountered before. For that, Gotu knew, they needed to move in the direction of nanotechnology.
He only hoped that Adrian would see that. Gotu glanced at his companion—if there was anyone who could convince him, it would be her. Fortunately, Ryaana had been following Gotu’s research for decades and had just arrived in Sol from a long-term mission outside of the Empire, and when he had asked her to help him convince Adrian, she had agreed.
They reached Adrian’s office and the door opened, letting them in. Gotu was one of the few who had access and could enter unannounced. This time, however, Adrian knew that he was coming, as Gotu had made sure to schedule a meeting. The two of them entered a well-lit room that had a large wall-window at its far end that showed the view of the light-blue sky and the city of Mars Prime from the top of Olympus Mons. Gotu was told that the sky didn’t look quite like the one of the Humanity’s home—Earth—but it was close.
Adrian stood in the center of the room on a glowing, blue platform, his hands waving and swiping at the air around him, using his implant to project windows that only he could see. He could’ve turned on the holographic projector and had them visible to others, but there was no need when he was working alone.
Gotu and Ryaana stood patiently, waiting for a few minutes, until Adrian finally turned to look at them. The light at his feet dimmed and he stepped off the platform, walking over to meet them. He glanced at Ryaana, and his eyes narrowed for a brief instant—Gotu doubted that anyone who wasn’t a Nel or hadn’t known Adrian for more than five hundred years would’ve caught it. Gotu could already see Adrian thinking, wondering what she was doing here.
“So, Gotu,” Adrian began, turning to look at him, “what was it that you wanted to speak with me about?” Adrian asked as he gestured to the side of the room and two chairs put in front of a holo-desk. Adrian moved and took a seat behind the desk, with Ryaana and Gotu taking the two seats in front of it.
“I believe that you are familiar with my project?” Gotu asked.
“Yes.”
“I presented it to the Fleet, and several of the Clans. However, they passed on it. I was hoping that you could take a look and convince the Fleet to give it a chance.”
Adrian kept his face impassive—he didn’t answer immediately—and during the silence, Gotu had half-convinced himself that Adrian would refuse.
“Did you bring anything with you?” Adrian finally asked.
“Yes,” Gotu answered, and hastily brought out a small black cube from the pocket of his overcoat. He placed the datachip on the table, and almost immediately the air above the table filled with various windows.
Adrian efficiently and quickly looked through the data, and then paused on images of a ship. He moved the image to the side just enough so that he could see both Gotu and Ryaana.
“A prototype?” he asked.
“Yes; we named the class Erebus. We haven’t had the chance to test it as extensively as we wanted, but during the tests we did manage to run, it performed far above our expectations.”
Adrian nodded and continued looking, reading amazingly fast through the data. Eventually he reached the core of Gotu’s proposal, and he paused there for a while before meeting Gotu’s eyes again.
“I can see why they passed on this. You are asking for a lot.”
“We need it, Adrian—you know we do. If these technologies perform as we hope they will, it will change the game completely,” Gotu said.
“There is no guarantee that this would work against the Enlightened,” Adrian said.
“Neither will what we are currently using. And there is more, here.” Gotu reached with his implant and opened another file. “These are other projects, other classes that we could build. The Erebus is only the smallest—a proof of concept, if you will,” Gotu said, before quickly skimming through more of the list until he found the one he was looking for. An image of a massive spherical object now appeared, alongside dozens of graphs and comparison charts. “This alone would be worth it. Even one of the Hephaestus class would be a tremendous asset.”
Adrian turned his eyes to the data, studying it intensively. Finally, after several minutes, he sighed. “Even if everything works, if the cyber-warfare suit performs as you hope it will against unknown systems, these ships would still be weaker than our current ones class for class. In order for your stealth systems to work you must limit the power, and that then means either less weapon systems, or less powerful ones. And the hull will be weaker than compressed matter, forcing you to rely more on the shields, which can’t be engaged in stealth…and because of power restrictions, they would still be less powerful than those of other ships in their class.”
“Yes, but the other systems will make up for it. The stealth alone would be a valuable trade-off,” Gotu added.
Adrian glanced at Ryaana. “I assume that you are here to convince me? What do you think
?”
“I agree with most of the Administrator Gotu’s propositions. While this might not be a sure thing for the future, it will give us a significant edge now. If we’d had an Erebus-class ship, I could’ve accomplished my mission without many difficulties,” Ryaana answered.
“This isn’t tested, Gotu,” Adrian told him.
“We did test the—” Gotu started, but Adrian stopped him with a raised hand.
“You tested it against our systems, and those of the Shara Daim, which are essentially the same. I know that you think that it will work against other systems just as well, but frankly it is too much to ask without extensive testing.”
“Then let me test it. Let me send the prototype to the Erasi territory,” Gotu said.
“And risk war if it fails?”
“The occupation zone, then—we can test it there just as well.”
“That would be against centuries-old Erasi tech—” Adrian stopped mid-sentence, his eyes glazing over in a way that told Gotu that he was talking privately with someone over the implant—most likely Iris, his AI. Adrian blinked and his eyes refocused on Gotu. “All right. Iris convinced me that there is merit to your proposition, and she has made me aware of an opportunity to test your ship in action.” Gotu beamed, not daring to question this sudden shift in tone. “Go—get the ship ready, and I’ll send you the information. Time is of the essence.”
***
Ryaana watched Gotu as he left the room, leaving her alone with the Lord Sentinel. In the end she hadn’t really contributed much to the argument; she assumed that Gotu had wanted moral support more than any actual help in convincing the Lord Sentinel, who could be very intimidating when he wanted to—although not to her.
She turned back and met his heavy gaze. He could make even the most powerful people in the Empire and outside of it squirm under his gaze, but it was completely useless against her. His mouth quirked upward in a quick smile, and his entire face changed from grim and foreboding to inviting and warm. He stood up and walked around the table. Ryaana did the same, and they embraced. They held each other for a long moment, before he leaned back and looked up at her fondly. Ryaana was of about average height for a Shara Daim, maybe a bit on the lower end at 232 centimeters, and he was about as tall as an above average Nel at 210 centimeters. He had been going through growth treatments over the last two hundred years, slowly adjusting his body. Ryaana knew that he wasn’t going to keep going—this size suited him just fine.
“So, you are back?” he said as he sat in the chair near her.
“Yes, I arrived a few hours ago,” Ryaana responded as she returned to her chair.
Now sitting on the same side of the table, she could study him more closely. His face looked the same, as young, as it always did. But his eyes were old, and there was a tiredness about them.
“And this is your first stop, I assume?” he asked knowingly.
Ryaana rolled her eyes at him. “It is.”
“You can’t keep avoiding her, Ry.”
“Sure I can, I just need to make sure never to enter Shara Radum’s system, and that will do it. She barely leaves it,” Ryaana said, harsher than she meant to.
“Your mother misses you, Ry.”
Ryaana snorted. “She misses telling me how wrong my choices are.”
“She loves you in her own way, Ryaana,” he said firmly.
“But she doesn’t approve of the way I live my life,” Ryaana said.
“She…” he began, then faltered, bringing his hands to rub his eyes. “You are the firstborn child of the Kar Daim. You were supposed to be her heir—when you were born, she had this idea of what you would be. When you chose a different path, it threw her. You need to sit down with her and clear the air. It’s been too long already, and I can’t serve as a go-between the two of you anymore. I’m your father—not your ambassador.”
“I’m not going to be roped into being her heir again. She can chose one of the twins for that. They actually enjoy all that crap,” Ryaana said.
“And she won’t try to. I made her promise me that she would let you make your own choices and be whoever you want to be,” her father said. “And your mother would not lie to me, Ry.”
“I know, Dad, and that only makes it more frustrating,” Ryaana said heavily. There were times when she really couldn’t figure out why her father was with her mother. Growing up, her mother—Kar Daim Anessa, ruler of the Shara Daim—had always seemed cold, distant even. Everyone looked at the two of them with awe and a bit of fear, the Kar Daim of the Shara Daim and the Lord Sentinel of the Empire, two of the most powerful people in the Shara Daim-Empire alliance. Yet to her they had always been Mom and Dad. Growing up, Ryaana had spent most of her time with her father; her mother had been too busy leading the Shara Daim, who had been recovering from war.
She had been taught by the best teachers from both the Empire and the Shara Daim, raised mostly on the World-ship Enduring, and later at the palaces of Olympus Mons and Shara Radum. And she had hated living on Shara Radum; it felt as if she was suffocating there. The staff and the people of the Shara Daim waited on her every need and want, all looking to gain her mother’s favor through her. In contrast, in the halls of Olympus Mons, she was free. The Sentinels didn’t care to indulge her every whim—they looked after her, sure, but not because of whose daughter she was, but because she was still young and inexperienced. And she had fallen in love with their stories about other races, about exploration outside the borders of the Empire.
The happiest day of her life was when she managed to convince her parents to let her try and become one. Even then she knew that her mother wasn’t all that happy with the decision, but she was too busy with ruling to take an interest, and she believed that it would be good experience for the future, for a time when Ryaana might inherit—a time that might never come. Her mother, like her father, didn’t age, which meant that she would have most likely never succeeded her mother regardless. Yet at the time of Ryaana’s birth, Shara Daim had not been as stable as it was today, her mother’s rule not as established and certain. The people needed to know that there was an heir, and when Ryaana was born, she had been thrust into that role. A role that she had never wanted.
And Ryaana had served dutifully in that role for hundreds of years. Touring the Shara Daim worlds, reinforcing her mother’s rule, learning politics and ruling from the best teachers…but never her mother herself. At best she could have hoped to have her to herself for a day or two every few months or perhaps once a year, but Shara Daim always came first to her mother, and she had of course assumed that the same mindset would apply to Ryaana. Perhaps that was why they never really had as close of a relationship: to Ryaana, her mother was just the person who had given birth to her and somehow believed that that gave her the right to choose the way that Ryaana lived her life.
Ryaana still remembered the day when she finished her Sentinel training, some thirty-five years ago, when she had told her mother that she wanted to continue and serve as a Sentinel instead of coming back to Shara Radum. Her mother had crushed every piece of furniture around her to pieces in an instant.
“I can’t talk to her,” Ryaana complained. “Every time I try, we fight.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed at her, and she could see a spark of anger in them. She held her breath and waited.
“The two of you have been feuding for thirty years, Ryaana,” he said softly. “And I will not allow for our family to remain split any longer. Our life spans might allow us the luxury of time, but enough is enough. You are coming home with me tonight, and I will make the two of you speak to each other—civilly.” Her father rarely raised his voice; he rarely even got angry. But Ryaana and her siblings had learned long ago that it was not yelling that one needed to fear from her father, but rather it was when he spoke softly and slowly, dragging out every word out so that it was impossible for anyone to mishear anything.
Ryaana lowered her gaze to look at her palms. “She resents me, Dad,” R
yaana whispered.
“She does not resent you,” she heard her father say.
Ryaana shook her head. “Yes, she does. She resents that I chose to follow in your footsteps instead of hers. That I chose the Empire over the Shara Daim.”
Ryaana heard him stand and walk over to her, and she raised her eyes to see him kneeling in front of her and grasping her hands in his. “I’m not going to lie to you, Ryaana,” he said. “Your mother was…disappointed, yes, and she did not react as well as she should’ve. And she is proud. It is not easy for her to admit when she is wrong. But she does miss you, and I know that she wants to repair the relationship between you. Both her and I made mistakes. You were our first child, and we were in a period of time where our responsibilities often forced us to choose between you and other matters. You’ve inherited a lot from your mother—”
“Except for my eyes,” Ryaana interrupted. Her physical appearance was much like that of a Shara Daim, except for her eyes, which most definitely looked human with whites surrounding her brown irises, instead of the Shara Daim black.
Her father smiled affectionately. “Except for your eyes,” he agreed. “But that did make it easier for your mother to assume that you would follow the path of the Shara Daim. She knows that it was a mistake to assume that, and she wants to make things right between you.”
“All right,” Ryaana said. “I’ll come, but I won’t promise that it won’t end the same as the last time we spoke.”
Her father squeezed her hand. “That is all I ask.” He stood up, and then walked around the table to take a seat in his chair.
Ryaana took a deep breath and calmed herself as she looked at her father, who was studying her. The fact that he had returned to his previous place behind the table meant that family time was over. Now they would have a much different conversation.
“Report, Sentinel,” the Lord Sentinel said.
