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

by Ivan Kal

  The last enemy ship attempted to run away, but the tamers had Araxi make a short skim trip, exiting right on top of the fleeing ship. Araxi’s graviton weapon pulled the ship toward its hide. The enemy ship was firing directly into Araxi now, as it was inside the area protected by the shields. But Araxi didn’t pay any attention; it would take far more than that to even scratch its tough hide. Two tendrils left the slits in its hide and struck downward just as it increased its pull. The sharp tips of the tendrils punched through the ship, and slowly, Araxi pulled the ship apart. It came to the Old Scar then, the reason why the enemy didn’t appear to know the capabilities of their beasts: these enemies had never met with the Krashinar, and they most likely had no knowledge of them. From Adrian’s memories it knew that most races were separated as individuals, much more so than the Krashinar. To them there would be no need to teach the forces on the other side of their territory how to fight the Krashinar.

  The Old Scar felt Araxi’s joy at a good hunt, and sent it its compliments. Immediately it asked if they could go hunt something else, and the Old Scar told it that they would have many chances for good hunts in the future, but they needed to stay here for the moment.

  That made it sulk for a bit, but ultimately the promise of more good hunts prevailed, and it settled down. The Old Scar had the tamers move Araxi back above the world where Krashinar troops were still fighting.

  The Old Scar glanced at the sensory feed of the system, seeing that its side was winning. It had been very impressed by the war mastery of the Empire and the Shara Daim. Their ships were things to behold, even if they were hollow—especially their Sovereign-class beasts. Old Scar knew now that if Adrian had decided to fight the Krashinar in the system where they had met, he would’ve won easily against the Old Scar’s pack. It was thankful, then, that they had avoided that.

  The fighting in this system had been fierce, but the Great Pack was fighting isolated from its allies. There just hadn’t been enough time for them to gain the same level of cooperation as the Empire and the Shara Daim obviously possessed, and the Betrayers of Oaths had attempted to take advantage of that. Thankfully, while they weren’t working together for the most part, the Empire and the Shara Daim had been ready to give assistance. Those few attempts by the Betrayers to gain advantage had ended in failure.

  It watched over the operations on the ground until the word came that they had secured the facilities. The Old Scar had one of its tamers relay that information to the Empire’s ships. It was they who would gain control of this system afterward—there was nothing here that the Krashinar wanted. The agreement between the Empire and the Krashinar stated that the Krashinar would get the territories bordering their territory back from the Betrayers. This was fine enough with the Old Scar and the Six.

  As the world was secured, the Old Scar sent word for the Great Pack to gather from their small hunts. They would now strike the next world on their list, another “military target.” It was also the last place where enemy warships were hiding behind many static defenses.

  Once the Great Pack had gathered, with a thought the Old Scar gave the order for it to move.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Herald of War

  The system had been won, the last of the Erasi warships were being chased out of the system. Since they were using their sublight drives Adrian assumed that their skim drives were probably still recharging, or had been damaged in battles. But in any case they wouldn’t be running for much longer, as his ships were about to overtake them. In the end, three of the planets in the system surrendered—both the civilian and the military populations, which had been a surprise. Erasi rarely surrender. But Adrian was thankful. It made his job easier.

  Already he had sent a ship to get back to Sol and inform the waiting occupation fleet that the system was secure and that they should get to the system as fast as possible to take possession of it. His own forces would continue attacking other Erasi systems. Anessa had already departed—she had been with his force only for the main assault, and now she would take command over the border invasion forces while Adrian kept the pressure on the Erasi systems deeper in their territory, as well as going around activating any access point he could find and take.

  He was very aware that this war was going to be won because of the access points. Without those, it would have taken them hundreds of years to get through enough of Erasi territory to deal them a crippling blow.

  Adrian glanced at the c-board in front of him. Without active fighting in the system, he didn’t need to use the interface, and he had instead been watching the information projected on the board. He saw that only one Erasi battleship was remaining and that it was damaged, and an idea struck him. He immediately sent orders for his ships to stop firing and leave the ship alone.

  “Commander, skim us to that position,” Adrian ordered. The crew obeyed without question, and the Herald of War skimmed to the still fleeing Erasi battleship.

  Adrian transmitted a request for surrender. The Erasi had received constant requests for surrender, and Adrian hoped that they would refuse. Which they did—the Erasi were proud, and many would rather die than surrender. Adrian smiled and stood up from his chair and walked over to the amplifier, drawing curious looks from his crew.

  Once he sat down and made the connection, he reached out, throwing his mind across the space to the battleship. The amplifiers were initially based on models designed by the Sowir, but later they had upgraded them with the knowledge of the People. An amplifier could not increase one’s power. It did however, increase a person’s reach, the distance that he could touch with the Sha. The original amplifiers had been made with telepathy in mind, but that didn’t really matter, the Sha was the Sha.

  Ever since Axull Darr had told him about what the Enlightened were capable of, had told him what Doranis did, Adrian had wondered: What were the limitations of their power? Had Doranis really reached across such a vast distance with his own power alone? Or had he used an amplifier like the one Adrian was using now? Adrian’s reach right now was large, on the order of several hundred kilometers, yet it was nothing compared to what he had been told Doranis had done. And already Adrian felt like he was close to the edge of where he could actually do anything. He knew that he could use his telepathy to throw his words much further, but that was not the same.

  He looked at the ship and wondered: Could he do it? He knew that there was no chance of him crushing the ship with raw power like Doranis, and that alone told him just how far behind he was. Doranis had crushed a ship that had been far more powerful, and more than twenty times larger than the battleship in front of Adrian right now. No—he was not even in the same class as the Enlightened.

  But he had learned a lot over his life. He knew that power didn’t mean everything. He was best with telepathy, and although his other skills followed very close behind, it was his mind’s power that he really took pride in. And he knew that being a great telepath didn’t require a massive amount of power, but rather a great deal of skill. Mastery of the craft. He tried to reach to the minds of the Erasi crew—he could feel them, but he doubted that he could actually enter their minds, not at this distance. Range mattered with the Sha, especially with telepathy. The amplifier gave him more range, but he was at the edge of his amplified range now. If they took the Herald of War closer, perhaps then he could do something.

  So, if he couldn’t crush the ship like Doranis, and couldn’t break the crew’s mind, he wondered about what he could do. He might be able to crush a beam or two, maybe collapse a room. But that would do nothing to a ship of that size. He kept looking, trying to find something that he could do. He needed to know that he could reach out for the Enlightened, and that he could eventually rise to their level.

  Then he got an idea.

  He found the ship’s drives, and he felt the Sha, wondering if he could do it. The Sha was the thing that bound everything—it was what held all bonds together—and he could manipulate it at will with his psionics. He
reached deep inside the drives, and he surrendered himself to his Sha sight. He had never before seen like this—the amplifier made his sight so much more. He found the center of the drives, and he felt its containment.

  Will it really work? he wondered. He focused on a single point, a single particle out of thousands that the Erasi drives kept in perfect alignment and stability. He reached for it, but felt his grasp slip away. It was too far away, he knew. If the ship was just a little bit closer he knew that he could do it. But it was not about that—it was about pushing himself forward. About reaching for something outside of his scope and grasping it in his palms.

  He closed his eyes and tried again, focusing as hard as possible. His hand raised up and pointed toward the ship. Somewhere in the back of his mind he felt the confused reactions of his crew as they looked at him with his eyes closed and his hand reaching forward. He didn’t care; he kept concentrating. Time passed, but he still kept his focus, trying to grasp the particle with his Sha.

  Then, finally, he felt and saw the threads of his power wrap themselves around it. Adrian’s mouth quirked upward in a half smile. He made sure that he had a good grip on the particle, and then he closed his hand in a fist—pulling with the Sha and breaking the bonds that held the particle together. To his Sha sight, the result was immediate—an explosion ripped out of the point he had touched, causing a chain reaction that had enveloped the rest of the particles in the Erasi battleship’s drives. The Sha churned at the violent explosion and he was forced to pull his sight back. He opened his eyes and looked at the holo in the middle of the command room.

  For a moment he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, and then he realized that the things floating around the holo were the pieces of the Erasi battleship. The room was silent, and he turned slowly to look at his crew. Each of them had the same look on their face: part amazement, part horror and fear…and part reverence.

  Adrian ignored them.

  He used his imp to rewind the record and privately look at the battleship’s destruction. Its destruction was much more violent than what he had imagined. In a single moment, the battleship had gone from being whole to being a large ball of white flames, and in the next it had been blown to pieces that flew in all directions. Not a single piece larger than several meters remained.

  “Adrian… That’s…”

  “I can do it, Iris. I can reach them,” he said, relieved. A part of him had been afraid that he would never be able to contend with the Enlightened.

  Suddenly he felt extremely tired, and he noticed sweat dripping into his eyes from his brow. He was exhausted, actually, depleted. But a grin appeared on his face nonetheless. He looked at his command crew, who still had the same expressions on their faces.

  “Skim us back to our previous position,” Adrian said, his voice hoarse.

  The commander stared at Adrian for a second, then glanced back to where the Erasi battleship had just been, and then back to Adrian again.

  “As you command, Lord Sentinel!”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Erasi core

  O’fa Valanaru, the Weaver of the Erasi, raged inside of her sanctum. None of her attendants had dared come near her after she had killed the last fool that had attempted to calm her down. All of her planning had been turned to nothing. The Empire and the Shara Daim had struck first, mere months before her own plan had been set to begin. And somehow they had allied themselves with the Krashin. That alone would have been enough to send her into a murderous rage, but it was not even all that they had done.

  Immediately after she learned of their attacks she had sent word to the star-nations bordering with the Empire, and others that were close. She used all of her old contacts to urge them to attack the Empire while it was distracted. All of them had refused her, save for the Nauira—who were less than useless. She couldn’t believe what she had heard. It had taken her hundreds of years to build up the trust and to craft their governments so that they would be under her influence, yet all of them refused her.

  It hadn’t made sense to her, not until word of the second wave of the Empire and the Shara Daim invasion force reached her. Their forces were attacking across the borders from the staging points in those same star-nations. And then she knew that they had betrayed her. All of her work and effort supplanted by an upstart—and she knew that it was him, the Heart of the Mountain.

  She cursed the day that Garash had decided that they were nothing, and she cursed the fact that she had agreed with him. Both of them had underestimated them, and Garash had paid for it with his life. And most of all she cursed the fact that she had named him, that she had allowed him the honor of the name Heart of the Mountain.

  She reached with her mind and ripped a lighting source from the ceiling, smashing it against the floor. She knew intellectually that her reaction was not something that she would’ve normally allowed herself. But then again, she was not herself. She hadn’t been herself since the battle with the Heart of the Mountain and his teacher.

  The Lurker of the Depths. She spat at the name in her mind. The alien had wounded her, he had made her weak. It was because of him and his fool of a pupil that all of this had happened. Still, after five hundred years, she woke screaming in fear and pain from what he had done to her. She had killed the Lurker of the Depths hundreds of times in her dreams, and she had been waiting for the moment when she would finally have her revenge.

  But now the Heart of the Mountain had tricked her, had cut the strings of her web and weaved his own. She would not forgive this betrayal. Every star-nation that had sided against the Erasi would pay for it, and dearly. But for now, she needed to find a way to defeat her enemy.

  The blow that they had struck was a large one, but it was not yet crippling. The Erasi still had massive industry. Their core worlds alone had five times the output of both the Empire and the Shara Daim combined—the problem was the Krashin. She needed to halt them in their tracks. But that was going to be extremely hard, as this was the first time ever that they had used such numbers. She didn’t know what it was that the Heart of the Mountain had offered them, but she would make them pay for agreeing to it. If they thought that killing one of their Seven was bad, then they had seen nothing yet.

  She couldn’t stop their advance from the coreward border, not quickly enough. But she could send ships to attack their territory. That would force them to pull back. She would need to send the Devastator-class ships; those were the only ships that could survive long enough to force the Krashin to pull back.

  As for the Empire and the Shara Daim, she would need to increase the production rates of the Erasi fabricators tenfold if she was to build up enough forces to overcome them. Since they had been invaded, she would be able to get the council to waive the rights of the workers. Having them work around the clock would kill many, both in the yards and in the mines, but in the end it would be worth it.

  She calmed herself slowly, pushing the anger behind the barriers where she kept the gift the Lurker of the Depths had given her during their battle. The combined feelings of his entire race, the horror and the sadness that they had felt after they had learned of what they’d done. If Valanaru had been anything less than what she was, she would’ve been long dead. Such was the power of that attack.

  Finally, as if they could feel her calming down, two of her aides walked in, taking great care to walk around the corpse of their fellow.

  “O’fa,” they greeted her meekly.

  “Speak,” she sent to them, not trusting her voice just yet.

  “You asked us to give you the report on the Crescent.”

  Immediately her mind jumped to the topic. Yes, that was exactly what she needed right now. “Give it to me.”

  One of the aides approached and gave her the datachip. She walked over to the holo-table ignoring the two aides who slowly retreated. She put the datachip on the reader and the hologram blossomed above the table. She read through the data quickly, making calculations as she read. By the time s
he finished, she knew that it wasn’t ready. Not yet, but it was operational, just barely. And with it she might have a chance to strike a blow against her enemies before they managed to push further into the Erasi territory.

  Yes, with the Crescent we have a chance. More than a chance—with it, I will see them all burn!

  Epilogue

  World-ship Everlasting

  Ullax Darr looked at the latest reports from her machines. The AI had been following her orders and had been collecting information on the people that her brother had created. It had broken her heart when she had realized that the Enduring’s appearance didn’t mean that her brother was alive, but that a race designed by him was using it. It had been quite a shock. Once her brother had left, she hadn’t known what he had planned on doing. But after seeing the races in possession of the Enduring, she immediately knew that they had been created by Axull.

  She couldn’t imagine his plan, or the reasons why he thought them the answer to the Enlightened. But she needed to know more. So she had them watched as she went back into stasis. She had precious little life left to waste. A part of her had wondered if she should’ve went there, revealed herself to her brother’s children. But she didn’t have the strength, nor the will.

  She couldn’t have taken looking at them without seeing her brother and remembering their parting. It would be too painful for her. So she ordered her AI only to keep watch, and to not contact them. Once she had finished reading the reports, she saw just how rapidly they had advanced—to the point where they had even managed to harm a few of her scout ships.

  That kind of progress was not normal—which she assumed was the point. That was why, after all, her brother had created them. They were his weapons against the Enlightened. Yet even with all that her machines had seen, they weren’t up to task, not yet. She set aside the reports on them and turned to those on the Enlightened.