Hand of the Empire (Rise of the Empire Book 8)

by Ivan Kal

  That was why she liked Vas so much. He was ignorant about the many ways of the Empire. Growing up in a remote part of Clan Kazalir, he knew little about them. It was refreshing, and a part of her knew that she needed that connection, that she needed people with whom she could be herself.

  Vas watched with a smile on his face as she slowly walked over to him.

  “You finally free to train? I must admit I missed your instruction, and if I am to join the Sentinel support staff I will need all the help I can get.”

  “What?” Ryaana asked, surprised, for a moment forgetting the reason why she was there. It was the first time she’d heard him declare interest.

  “Yes. I left the colony because I wanted to finish what we started there. And now that is finished with, but I don’t want to return to that life. I want to explore the stars, to do something meaningful.”

  “Well, I guess that you could try. With some more training I think that you could pass the initial tests. But you know that Sentinels usually hand pick their support staff? I suppose you could work on Mars, or any other Sentinel facilities in the Empire.”

  “Well, I did some research and I know about a Sentinel that currently has no support staff,” he said, a strange slyness in his voice. “I was wondering if perhaps she would take me on.”

  “Oh, really?” Ryaana asked awkwardly. “I wasn’t aware that you knew any other Sentinels other than me.”

  Vas narrowed his eyes at her in confusion. “I was talking about you.”

  It took a moment for his words to get through to Ryaana, and she stood there looking at him, stunned. There was a reason why she didn’t have a support staff—she had never found anyone that she trusted enough to see who she truly was rather than the image that the Empire had of her. That and no one had ever dared to ask. Her father had tried to give her a ship, telling her that in time she would grow to trust the crew, but she had refused. Ryaana had always been alone; trust did not come easily to her.

  “Perhaps,” she responded finally. “Before we can speak about that, however, there is something I need to know. On the pirate base, how did you withstand the Gatrey’s mental attack?” She spread her mind and gently touched his, being very careful not to be noticed, hoping to hear the truth.

  “In truth, I don’t know. I felt the attack, and I just pushed it out. It was not something that I consciously did. I doubt that I could do it again.”

  Every word that he said felt like the truth to her, and she relaxed.

  “There have been cases of latent abilities manifesting in people, usually in humans and Nel. It has to do with how we meddled with our own genetic code to unlock our Sha abilities, and didn’t gain them naturally.”

  She gazed down at him, thinking. If he did have latent telepathic abilities, she could teach him, although the perfect mentors would be either her father or the Lurker of the Depths. But of course they were far too busy to take on an apprentice. She on the other hand might not be as powerful a telepath as them, but she was more than capable of teaching him. And forming a support staff might be good. She had spent the last years during her mission in Erasi space alone. She had rarely interacted with the crew, spending most of her time hidden. There had only been a few situations where her abilities had been needed.

  And Vas was the first person she had ever met who didn’t know who she was, and didn’t care. She did like him; when she was with him, she felt…at ease to be who she was, to not wear any masks.

  “So does that mean that you will accept?” Vas said, smiling.

  “Yes,” she said, hiding her own smile from him. “I will. Just so you know, this means far more training.”

  She saw Vas wince, and she again smiled inwardly. She clasped his shoulder and turned him toward the center of the room.

  “Come—we start now.”

  Interlude II

  A long time ago

  “It worked,” Nariax said.

  Waiss looked down at the life form. It was a blob of gray-and-black matter—flesh. From the blob, tendrils of black spread to cover the entire containment unit. It was trying to get out. His wings twitched each time it struck the wall of the containment unit.

  “Are you sure?” Eroill asked, his voice barely being able to contain his happiness.

  “I am. There is no trace of the disease within it. Its cells are not deteriorating anymore,” Nariax answered.

  While the two of them spoke, Waiss was keeping his mind open, feeling the Sha around them. In that moment he wished that he had the ability to look through the Sha, to see the life form in a way that none of their instruments were capable of. But even without that ability he could still feel the Sha around him. The life form was draining Sha from its surroundings—it was pulling it all inside of itself.

  “It is pulling too much of the Sha,” Waiss said. “Something’s wrong.”

  “I’ve done some preliminary tests. I am speculating that such an amount of Sha was needed for it to cure itself. Its connection to the Sha had pushed its already fast natural evolution into a frenzy. It’s evolving faster than we can track now.”

  “And that doesn’t worry you?” Waiss asked.

  “It won’t be able to escape containment,” she said with certainty.

  “We should contact the rest,” Eroill interjected. “Now that we have finally made progress, they might be able to help. Axull’s insight alone could help us duplicate the cure in ourselves.”

  Waiss didn’t respond. He had abandoned all hope so long ago that now he could barely get himself to believe that they could finally find a cure. And even if they did, it would not return the dead. An entire race was gone, the first intelligent life in the galaxy virtually extinct, with only eight of them remaining. What hope did they have of regaining what they once were, even with a cure? The Universe had punished them, and this was their fate.

  “Let’s wait a bit more. We need to be sure, and the others are all engrossed in their own projects attempting to find a way for us to survive. We should not ask them to drop everything and travel here without an actual cure in our hands,” Nariax said.

  “So what next?” Eroill asked.

  “We should monitor it and adjust the code if needed. For now it seems that it is doing very well on its own.”

  The fact that it was doing well on its own was exactly what bothered Waiss.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  November—Herald of War

  Adrian sat in the command center and watched as his ship entered a new system, after they had spent almost a month sitting at the border of the Krashin systems. Adrian did not want to just enter their territory blindly. The Sovereign-class ships were large enough that they carried four smaller stealth light cruisers, and he had sent them out to explore Krashin territory and report back once they found a system where there was a significant Krashin presence.

  During the wait he had studied the Hasre information on the Krashin intently. But he hadn’t learned all that much. There were some very interesting scans and images of some six-hundred-year-old Krashin ships, but very little actual data, other than the fact that the ships were biological in nature. It was clear when one looked at them, their “hulls”—and Adrian was not even sure if that was even the right term—looked like flesh, or more like tough hide. There were several ship types but most were brown or dark gray in color. And it looked as if there were slits in the hide that revealed things like hollow spikes or even tusks, which from the records of the battles Adrian knew were in fact their weapons systems. They were very strange.

  For a moment he had even considered that perhaps the Krashin were an interstellar life form, that the ships themselves were the Krashin. But he knew that that was not the case. He had records recovered from their wars with the Erasi, where their troops had landed on the ground. The beings in those recordings were just as strange as their ships. They were the most “alien” aliens that Adrian had ever seen. He had tried to compare them to things he had seen before, but there was very little that co
uld be used as comparison. They were not bipeds, which meant that they were most likely one of the races that the People didn’t actively shape, but rather just nudged along.

  They did have distinct heads, elongated and shaped like those of crocodiles from Earth, with four eyes pointed forward and with several slits at the top, and two black horn-like spikes curved backward. Their jaws opened in three separate parts, with the lower jaw being split into two, and they had four serrated tongues. Their necks were powerful, although short. Their body was lean and muscular, and they carried large broad wings on their backs that reminded Adrian of what most reproductions agreed the wings of pterodactyls had looked like, if they had been wider and not attached to arms.

  Their top appendages were long and flipper-like, although Adrian had seen some recordings where short blade-like sharp bones had extended from the tips—and they seemed to have four joints from the “shoulders” to the tip of the flippers. The second pair of appendages was retracted inside of their body, and would push out of the slits in its side when necessary. They had more of what most races considered tool manipulators, although they were strange. The tips of the thinner twig-like appendages were tusk-like points with six holes in them, each with a small tentacle inside, which could come out when needed.

  The rest of their bodies was sinuous, thick, and snake-like, but even more muscled, tapering into a tail that split into two at the pinnacles of its fin-like endings. Adrian knew that they could both swim and fly, in addition to being able to move fast on the ground, especially for their size. From their heads to the tip of their tails they were around three-and-a-half meters long, and around two meters in height, when they straightened up.

  He had seen recordings of them hunting down Erasi soldiers. They were most certainly a predatory species. They were usually colored in some shade of teal, with their fronts being lighter and their backs darker, at least according to the records they managed to get from the Erasi—of which there weren’t all that many.

  About their technology and society, he knew almost nothing. The Erasi were religious about keeping any information they had about the Krashin a secret, and the Hasre just didn’t know. All this meant that Adrian was going to need to do this with very little information.

  Then, after the three weeks of waiting, one of the cruisers had reported back—they had found a system with a large Krashin fleet in the orbit of a gas giant, with massive station-like objects orbiting there as well. And as they hadn’t found any systems with colonies, Adrian decided to give that system a chance. And so the Herald of War had set a course and spent the next several days in hyperspace traveling to that system.

  Now, as the Herald of War’s sensors updated, Adrian could not help but feel excited. This was why he had created the Sentinels, to search out new and strange life forms. To make contact and explore, to find challenges. As soon as their sensors reached the gas giant, Adrian saw that his ship’s presence had not gone unnoticed.

  He stood up from his chair and walked over to one of the communications officers. Their station had the connector that allowed for them to use the ship’s telepathic amplifier. The sensor officer, a Sowir, got up and allowed Adrian to take a seat.

  Adrian was the most powerful telepath in the Empire—he was what the Erasi called a “mindbender.” It made sense for him to be the one to make contact. On the holo he could see the Krashin fleet move, arranging in various formations around their stations.

  Adrian placed his hands on the chair’s two orbs, and activated the amplifier. He pushed his mind and threw it forward across the vast distance to the Krashin ships.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Krashin system

  The Old Scar moved intently through the spawnery, seeing the progress on the new beasts. The last culling against the Betrayers of Oaths had been incredibly beneficial. The Betrayers’ cold and hollow tools had been understood and ways had been found to add them to the beasts. Such was the Krashinar way: to watch, to learn, to grow, to change. Always to change. To make the horde strong, and never again allow those like the betrayers to harm Krashinar.

  It stopped near one of the wombs and reached out to the life growing inside, its mind brushing against it. It looked deeper, to the design laid deep within its core. It had been a spawner once, long ago, before the Betrayers of Oaths had lain waste to the Seventh. It was there that it had been given its title, or name: Scar. A part of the name that it still carried—now it was the Old Scar. And it knew the spawning very well. The design taking shape inside the womb was good, solid work, though a small mistake became apparent to it. The Old Scar’s arms slipped out of the slits in its body and it placed them atop the spawning node.

  Its manipulators extended and grasped the access node. Its mind slipped inside the womb and the life inside. Carefully it altered the design, correcting the mistake. It took the chance to check over the design more in depth, and after a while it was satisfied. It pulled out of the womb and back into its own mind, its arms retracting as it slid away from the node.

  “Is it to your satisfaction, Hunt-master?” the spawner standing behind the Old Scar asked with the mind-speech.

  “It is now,” the Old Scar answered.

  “Shall the rest of the designs need updating?”

  “They shall. See to it immediately.”

  “As you command, Hunt-master.”

  The Old Scar watched the spawner slither away, its mind wandering. Its wondered how difficult the process of taming and teaching these new beasts was going to be. Each new design had its own quirks, its own needs. The quality of a tamer was in how well it was capable of adapting to those little things. Sometimes, it wished that it could do their work instead of its own. To be a tamer was…liberating. To ride with the void beasts, to be a part of the packs, that had once been the only things the Old Scar had desired.

  Unfortunately, it had been too good at its job. It had been placed in situations where it was forced to lead the pack itself, and eventually it was noticed by the Hunt-masters and taken under their wing. Now all of them were dead, and it was the oldest and the most honored Hunt-master. It was its duty to lead the Great Packs, to guide them in the hunts.

  Yet all the Old Scar wanted to do was to finish the Betrayers of Oaths, to end this long hunt. But the Six would never allow it. The dying screech of the Seventh still echoed in their minds, as it did in the minds of all born of Krashinar. The long hunt was going to continue—the Betrayers would die a slow death, knowing always that the Krashinar could hunt them to extinction at their leisure. At times, the Old Scar believed the Six foolish for allowing the Betrayers the time to improve on their hollow void tools. It would never dare say so to them, of course—but while it knew the Krashinar outnumbered the Betrayers significantly, it could not stop the feeling that they were playing with their prey by using only a single Great Pack for their revenge. A thing that every hunter knew was dangerous. But it was not the Old Scar’s place to say so. It was to bring a slow death to the Betrayers and avenge the Seventh.

  The Old Scar moved slowly through the spawnery, continuing its inspection. After finishing without finding any more things that needed its attention, the Old Scar went back to its great beast. It was very proud of the great beast from which it commanded the rest of the Great Pack. Araxi was grown in the latest generation, with many of the upgrades that the Krashinar learned from their last culling of the Betrayers. A truly incredible beast, Araxi was the largest ever grown: a hunter without peer. Not even the massive hollow and cold tools of the Betrayers were its match; it out-massed them as well.

  It pained the Old Scar to admit it, but the design for the beast had been inspired by the Betrayers’ largest hollow beasts. They had always been hard to deal with, requiring sacrifices of many beast to get through the thick metals they were built from. And so the spawners had decided to try their own version, and despite its misgivings, the Old Scar was more than happy with it. Araxi had been easy to tame—well, not exactly tame. It would follow orders i
n battle without problems, as it loved the battles; but outside of them, the beast could get restless. However, it was nothing that its tamers couldn’t handle.

  The Old Scar entered the innards of the Araxi, the beast’s mind brushing gently against its, bidding it welcome. The Old Scar returned the sentiment and the beast brought to its attention matters from the control den. It sighed and made its way toward the heart of the great beast, moving through the twisting tunnels. Eventually the Old Scar reached its destination and entered the control den. Three tamers laid curled in their cradles, their manipulators placed on the control nodes.

  The Old Scar’s First-tamer raised its head as it noticed the new presence.

  “Hunt-master,” the First-tamer greeted. “We’ve detected an unknown presence at the edge of the system.”

  “Let me see,” the Old Scar responded, and found its way to its own cradle. Curling the lower part of its body into the liquid, it extended its lower arms and placed them on the nodes, gaining access to the Araxi’s senses.

  Immediately it felt the presence of a hollow object of metals and cold. Its instincts battled for a moment with Araxi’s desire for combat, but it deftly and gently calmed the beast. The Old Scar went through the memories of the hollows they had encountered before trying to find a match. When it didn’t, it piqued its curiosity. It wondered if this was a hollow from a race that they had not met previously. It did happen from time to time, although rarely did they find understanding with the other races. How could they, when the first one they had encountered betrayed them and killed the Seventh?