by Ivan Kal
Adrian silently agreed as he took in the lines of the Empire’s latest-generation Sovereign. Hovering in high orbit of Mars near the ship that had inspired it, it dwarfed the other ships in the area. Though it in turn was smaller than the Enduring, it was clear that the larger ship was related in some way to the Sovereign. The Herald of War’s harsh lines were accented by soft curves in a melding of craftsmanship in a obelisk-like shape. Its back end was rounded with no exhausts for thrust-based drives—it didn’t need them, as the ship relied solely on its gravity drives. No one would ever mistake a Sovereign for anything other than a warship.
The nature of both the Empire’s and the Shara Daim fleets had changed a lot since the war with the Erasi. The number of ships in a fleet for one had increased up to four thousand. The dreadnought warships had once been the cores of the fleets, supported by the smaller ships and drones. The dreadnoughts were still powerful ships that held the lines and kept anything from getting through to the rest of the fleet, but the biggest addition had been the drone carriers. Once, the Empire had contemplated using fighters, but had quickly realized that they would not be viable. It would have been too difficult to make them small enough that they could be made both maneuverable and potent offensively—so much so that they wouldn’t be able to do anything.
That still hadn’t changed, but they had merged the concept of fighters with that of drone control ships. The drone carriers were massive ships, shaped a bit like an open ribcage, that could carry drones inside of them. They had fabricators capable of repairing them in the field, they carried the control teams that flew the drones, and the drones themselves had underwent a large change—they were smaller than they used to be. Now, down to 300 meters in length, around 100 meters in width, and 150 meters in height, each drone resembled a blade’s edge. The miniaturization of many of the Empire’s technologies allowed for them to pack a significant amount of weapons into them, as well as build drones equipped with specific systems for different situations. They had also removed any projectile weapon from their arsenal, making them purely energy-based platforms.
Each fleet had eight hundred carriers, each carrying forty drones. Another four hundred dreadnoughts had their main task changed from being at the front of the line against the enemy to being the line of defense for the other ships in the fleet. Six hundred battleships had had taken over as the tip of the spear, as they were the most powerful of the Empire’s ships. The core of their fleets were the battle cruisers, a class of ships designed to be a well-armored and armed variant of the cruiser class. And finally there were the missile cruisers, the progression on the Empire’s missile pods. These ships were the platforms for launching the Empire’s s-missiles and other extreme long-range weaponry. All of them were supported by the drones.
Sovereign warships, however, were in a class of its own—they were fleet-killers. The Empire had never had the need to use them alongside a fleet. The Sovereign ships were made to be independent, but if used in a fleet they were designed to be able to serve as command hubs for the fleets under their command. The Shara Daim had done something similar, and had adopted the Empire’s drone carriers, except that their fleets still relied a bit more on their super-battleships and less on the carriers, with their fleets having four hundred carriers and eight hundred super-battleships.
The shuttle neared the massive Sovereign and slowly its bay door melted away and let it inside. The shuttle passed through the field that kept the atmosphere inside and landed. Adrian stepped out of the shuttle and was greeted by the command crew of the warship.
Names and ranks appeared above their heads, read by Adrian’s implant, and he glanced at each. The highest-ranking officer stepped forward.
“Lord Sentinel,” Acting Commander Ruiss—a Guxcacul female—greeted him. “I relinquish the command of the Herald of War to you.”
“I accept the command,” Adrian said respectfully, taking a moment to study her impressive head-plate, which was filled with all kinds of colors and patterns—indicating that she was young, not yet out of her first century. “Is the ship ready for our trip?”
“We are fully stocked, and the Fleet has added a few things. Since we don’t know the nature of our mission, I have taken the liberty of outfitting the ship with standard provisions,” she said, her top set of hands twitching in annoyance.
“That will do. Now, let’s find a briefing room, and I will tell you what our mission is,” Adrian said. “Also, call the bridge crew and tell them to set a course for the access point. We are going to Shara Radum.”
Chapter Twelve
Two weeks later—Erebus
Jacob and Nkiruka stood at the colony landing site, waiting for the shuttle from the Erebus to come and pick them up. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Vas walking over to them. He had a backpack in his hand.
“You leaving already?” Vas asked.
“Yes,” Jacob answered. “There isn’t anything left for us to do here.”
“So, you are going to Sol…”
Jacob didn’t respond; the young man was obviously building up to something—and he was pretty sure he knew what that was.
After a moment, Vas finally spoke. “Take me with you.”
“Why would you want to come with us?” Nkiruka asked him.
“I…I thought that I wanted this life, but I’ve come to realize I don’t. There are opportunities in Sol.” Vas paused for a moment, seemingly gathering himself. “And I want to help you finish what we started. They killed my friend, and I…I need to see this through.”
Jacob opened his mouth to refuse, but the intense look Vas was giving him stopped him. Did he really need to refuse? It was not uncommon for the agents of the Hand to conscript local forces on missions. It was regular practice, actually—the Hand’s numbers were too few for the scope of their responsibilities. And Vas had been helpful, more than that in fact. He had saved Jacob’s life. And he was army trained, so he wouldn’t be a burden in combat. Jacob did owe him a debt.
He thought it over for a few more minutes, but the more he thought, the more he became convinced that it wasn’t a bad idea.
Finally, he nodded. “All right, you can come.”
Vas smiled widely. “Good, because I’ve already severed my contract with the colony. I’m ready to go.”
***
Jacob stood in the observation room on board the Erebus waiting for it to exit trans-space and enter Sol. With a flash of violet light, the Erebus exited the trans-lane and entered the system. The view-screen was suddenly filled with three massive defense stations, and as the computer made the connection with the Sol network, a small part of the screen changed and showed a selection allowing the viewers to choose and watch any part of the system. He glanced to his side at Vas—the young man was looking intently at the stations. Shortly thereafter, he started looking through the options of the feeds on the net.
Jacob smiled behind his helmet. It was probably his first time seeing Sol. Jacob had come to like the young man quite a bit—he was a great person to have a conversation with, although Jacob had noticed several areas where his education was lacking. Thankfully, however, Vas wasn’t afraid to ask questions, and he actually listened when Jacob explained. During the trip, Vas had confessed that he had slacked off during his school years quite a bit, thinking that he would join the military for life and that he would have no need for the knowledge the education system offered. Jacob understood that, of course; he had seen that same story play out on many of the Empire’s worlds. Not everyone took the advantage of everything that the Empire offered. Thankfully, not aging meant that most had the opportunity to make such mistakes and recover in time, and Jacob was more than happy to help. It was the only way he knew of making amends for his crime: helping as many people as possible.
Then the view-screen changed, and a sphere, wearing twisted shades of red, gray, and black, appeared. Jacob looked at the Earth with sadness and regret. It was his fault that it had been turned into a wasteland. It was
the one thing that he could never forgive himself for, no matter how much he did. Firing on the mining facilities and killing thousands he could somewhat justify to himself. He had done it to save them from a slow and terrible death, and to remove the choice from the fleet that would’ve certainly tried to save them, even though the effort would have been futile. But the deaths of billions on Earth weighed heavily on him. Not even an hour passed by without him remembering.
Jacob glanced at Vas, curious to see his reaction. The young man had been born hundreds of years after Earth’s destruction, in a world far different than the one Jacob called home. The look on his face was strange; for a moment Jacob thought that he was going to ask him something, but then it looked like he thought better of it.
Light flashed in the room, signifying that they were about to enter skim. They waited patiently until the ship dropped out of it in high Mars orbit. Vas looked around the interface, using his wrist unit to scroll through the net. The view-screen changed again.
Vas’s eyes widened, and he turned to Jacob.
“That’s…”
“The Enduring, yes.”
Vas’s eyes returned to the World-ship. “I’ve forgotten how beautiful it was.”
“You’ve seen it before?” Jacob asked, surprised. The Enduring hadn’t left Sol in two hundred years.
“Ah… I did, on vids of course,” Vas said.
“Of course,” Jacob said, turning his eyes to the World-ship. “Too bad that it serves only as a symbol now. With the Sovereign class, there probably won’t ever come a time when it is used in war again.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s obsolete. The Sovereign class are far more powerful. And they were made for war, whereas the Enduring was meant to be a city.”
Vas narrowed his eyes at Jacob. “Right. How long are we going to be here?” he asked as the Erebus slowly docked with a station.
“Hopefully not long. We only need someone with authority to act outside of our territory.” The Hand of the Empire’s authority was limited in that its agents could only act inside the Empire. Their purpose was to keep the law, to keep the peace, and to enforce the codes of the Empire across the Clans.
The location of the pirate base was not in the Empire’s territory. If it had been in the unclaimed space Jacob might’ve stretched his authority and ordered Erebus there, but it was not. The coordinates led to a system controlled by another star-nation—and in order to act there, he needed a Sentinel, as they were the only ones authorized to work outside of the Empire’s territory.
Coming back to Sol had cost them time. He had debated with Nkiruka about sending a message and meeting a Sentinel on the way, but they couldn’t be sure that their knowledge of the location of pirate’s base of operation wouldn’t get back to the Erasi. Even though there wasn’t any real proof that the Erasi were involved with the pirates and the liberation force, he couldn’t risk it. Not now when they were so close. It was known that Erasi had spies in the Empire. The only thing left to them was to come in person.
“Come, we should hurry,” Jacob said as they docked with the station. He had sent a message only to ask for an audience with someone high ranking in the Sentinels, and was supposed to meet them in Olympus Mons.
The two of them left the ship along with Nkiruka, and headed toward the space elevator.
***
Aranis followed the two inquisitors as they led him through the strange-looking city and into a complex carved inside a large mountain. But his thoughts were still focused on all the things he had learned since entering this system. Seeing the Enduring had brought out too many memories of his former life, when he had been Waiss—a Grand Exatt of the People.
He had walked the street of the Enduring’s city with Axull Darr, and it was where he and Ullax had spent most of their time together. It was where they’d had a life, a family. Now it was in the hands of these…unworthy, abominable children, this marvel created by his once best friend. Yet the things he had learned worried him; the inquisitor had said that Enduring was inferior to these Sovereign ships, and that could prove to be a problem.
The Enlightened had advanced ahead of the People, and anything that these people had that was better could be a threat. Only, it was so hard to judge anything he had seen. The memories he had stolen gave him little context to the things he encountered. The older the memories, the less clear they were. The time Vas and Aranis’s first victim spent learning in their education programs was fuzzy, unclear, bits and pieces that meant little to him now. He needed more firsthand information.
Once inside the mountain complex, they were met by a strange-looking man, his skin pale, his fingers clawed, and a long tail trailing behind him. After a moment, Aranis recognized his race as Nel. He led them even deeper inside, through a hallway filled with crests and banners, with a few that Aranis actually recognized as belonging to the races he had encountered on his trip here. As they neared the door at the end of the hallway, a nagging sensation kept intruding on Aranis’s mind.
They were ushered to a room, and Aranis felt it. They stepped up to stand in front of a table occupied by a single person. By his attire, Aranis knew that he was someone important to this Empire, and his suspicions were confirmed when the inquisitors bowed low. Aranis followed their lead, being extremely careful not to do anything that could give him away. The man in front of him was powerful. And that was worrying. His power wasn’t near to that of Aranis himself, nor the other two Enlightened, not even close to what power Aranis held before he became what he was now, and he most certainly didn’t have the same connection to the Sha now as he had—but it was still a shock for him to encounter someone so strong. He knew too little and couldn’t afford to get found out here, not in such a public place by such a visible person. He redoubled his efforts to act as normal as possible.
“Sentinel Hayashi,” Inquisitor Jok said. “I wasn’t expecting for you to meet with us in person.”
The man behind the table raised his head from the holograms above his table and looked at the inquisitor, dismissing the holograms with a gesture. He glanced at Inquisitor Norr, and then turned his eyes at Aranis. Their eyes met, but the man quickly dismissed Aranis as inconsequential. The man turned back to Jok.
“The Lord Sentinel informed me of your mission before he left. I assumed that because you asked to meet, you have something important to report and that discretion is important?”
“Yes, sir,” the inquisitor said. “We found the location of their base. It is in Nauira territory.”
“Ah… That means that you will need to work with the Sentinels, assuming you want to see this operation through?”
“We do.”
“Well then, I think that I have just the right sentinel for this task. Go back to the Erebus. I’ll send her there to meet you.”
“Thank you, Sentinel,” the inquisitor said, and they bowed again before turning and leaving the room, going back toward the ship.
Chapter Thirteen
Erebus
Ryaana entered the Erebus through a strangely smooth corridor that led to the ship proper. She only had a short time to read up on the ship and its capabilities, as Sentinel Hayashi had assigned her to the mission. She had been familiar with nanotechnology and its application in a general sense only, and was very excited to see it in action. She followed the crewmen as they guided her through the ship and to a small briefing room. The people inside stood up as she entered.
“Sentinel Ryaana, please sit and we will begin,” Ship Master Quas said.
Ryaana nodded to the three other people, the two inquisitors and the ship’s second in command, and they resumed their places.
“If you will, Inquisitor Jok,” the Ship Master said.
The inquisitor put a datachip on the table and a hologram appeared above it. “We are relatively certain that this is the location of the pirate base of operations.”
Ryaana nodded, she had already learned the location from Hayashi. “Nauira territor
y… That is problematic. How certain are you that this is their base?” The Nauira were a race that held territory bordering with the Erasi, and had actually been very close to gaining membership to the Erasi. When the Empire forced the Erasi out of the Orion Spur, the sector had collapsed, and the Nauira who had put a large part of their resources in the trade with the Erasi had been left without a future. They did not take kindly to their new neighbors. The relation between the alliance and them had always been shaky.
They weren’t a large player; they had only controlled several systems, and were technologically behind the Empire, so they had been marked as unimportant. The Empire and the Shara Daim had been too occupied with the chaos that the Erasi had left to deal with the races that had been dealing with and relied on the Erasi to survive.
“It was the first thing they deleted, but we recovered it by chance. This and a few other half-corrupted files lead us to believe that this was, or is, the location of their base. At the very least it is an important site. Sending in a fleet would look bad,” the inquisitor said.
“And if it truly is their base?” Ryaana asked. “They will have defenses.”
“The Erebus is top of the line. The pirates have never demonstrated anything that could seriously threaten it,” Ship Master interjected.
“I would still be more comfortable with at least a taskforce accompanying us,” Ryaana said.
“I did ask the Sol Fleet commander. His answer was that the Fleet was unwilling to allow our Fleet vessels inside foreign territory,” the inquisitor said.
Ryaana grimaced. That meant that the Emperor was not willing to allow it. She could understand that—many star-nations were just waiting for the Empire to do something that they could use to condemn them as bullies. Already they had been at a disadvantage, having to work against the reputation of the Shara Daim. “We don’t even know how large this base is, and what if we encounter something that we are not prepared to handle?”
