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

  HAND OF THE EMPIRE

  Rise of the Empire series

  IVAN KAL

  Copyright © 2017 by Ivan Kal

  Art/Cover Copyright © 2017 by Nikola Nikolic

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contact the artist - [email protected]

  If you liked this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Reviews are appreciated!

  Sign up to my mailing list to be notified when a new book is released: Mailing List

  Contact the author:

  https://www.ivankal.com/

  Facebook.com/ivankalauthor

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Glossary

  Timeline

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Interlude I

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Interlude II

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Interlude III

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Timeline

  November 2103 – A faction of humanity—Olympus—leaves to colonize a planet in a star system 600 light years from Earth.

  February 2159 – An alien race called the Ra’a’zani conquers Earth.

  May 2164 – Olympus arrives at their destination; they name the planet Sanctuary. They get involved in a conflict against an alien race called the Sowir. Ally themselves with the Nel of Nuva.

  March 2170 – Resistance from Earth contacts Olympus on Sanctuary, asking for aid.

  December 2171 – Olympus and Sowir Dominion make a pact of non-aggression.

  January 2172 – Olympus fleet arrives in the Sol system, engaging Ra’a’zani forces in the system. The battle for Earth results in narrow human victory, but the cost is Earth. The Ra’a’zani weapon makes the planet uninhabitable.

  March 2172 – Year 1 of the Empire – Tomas Klein, leader of Olympus, creates the Empire.

  December – Year 30 of the Empire – Sowir attack Nelus system, homeworld of the Nel. Empire breaks the non-aggression pact with Sowir by simultaneously sending aid to Nelus and invading the Sowir territory. Clan Leader Adrian Farkas overuses the Watchtower command interface, and falls into a coma.

  January–March Year 31 of the Empire – Adrian Farkas wakes up and hears the telepathic beacon from the sphere left by the originator of the human and Nel races, unlocking all the knowledge and technology contained inside.

  March Year 36 of the Empire – Empire wins the war against the Sowir.

  Year 36–Year 54 of the Empire – Empire at peace, focusing on exploring, developing technologies from the sphere of the People, and expanding their borders to reclaim Sol.

  June Year 54 of the Empire – Empire meets an alien star-nation called the Erasi.

  July Year 54 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel Adrian Farkas meets Dai Sha Anessa of the Shara Daim, the third race created by Axull Darr. Anessa attempts to capture Adrian; the fight ends in narrow victory for Adrian and his people. They take the Dai Sha prisoner.

  January Year 55 of the Empire – Shara Daim Elders recall all of their forces for an attack on the Empire, seeking the device left by Axull Darr.

  June Year 55 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel releases Dai Sha Anessa.

  August Year 55 of the Empire – The Empire defeats the Ra’a’zani, leaving their people abandoned on their worlds with no way of getting back into space.

  September Year 55 of the Empire – Three Shara Daim Legions attack Sol. Lord Sentinel defends, and defeats the invading forces, allowing Dai Sha Anessa and her remaining forces to leave Sol.

  December Year 55 of the Empire – Erasi invade Shara Daim territory.

  September Year 56 of the Empire – After finding out about a conspiracy by the Elders of the Shara Daim, Dai Sha Anessa removes them from power, taking the rule of the Shara Daim for herself, claiming the title Kar Daim.

  March Year 57 of the Empire – Shara Daim reach out to the Empire, inviting Lord Sentinel to their homeworld Shara Radum for diplomatic talks.

  June Year 57 of the Empire – Empire diplomatic task force is ambushed by the Erasi on their way to Shara Daim homeworld. One battleship is destroyed, but the rest of the taskforce manages to escape.

  July Year 57 of the Empire – The Empire and the Shara Daim reach an agreement, forming an alliance. The Empire obligated to help the Shara Daim against the Erasi invasion.

  November Year 57 of the Empire – A large Erasi force is detected at the border of the Shara Daim: more than one hundred fleets move to reinforce the Erasi invasion.

  July Year 58 of the Empire – The Erasi attack the Empire embassy on Tarabat.

  September Year 58 of the Empire – The Shara Daim begin operations to retake their territory back from the Erasi. An Erasi stealth taskforce infiltrates Empire territory.

  November Year 58 of the Empire – The Shara Daim, Empire, and the Erasi meet on neutral ground for negotiations. The Erasi break the truce and attempt to assassinate the Kar Daim and the Lord Sentinel. As the result the Empire joins the conflict fully on the side of the Shara Daim. At the same time, the Erasi taskforce in the Empire territory executes an attack on Sanctuary, killing millions of civilians and damaging the Hades Yards. Star-Guard station used for the first time, destroying the Erasi fleet.

  December Year 58 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel of the Empire executes an advanced attack on the massive Erasi force, hoping to reduce their numbers before their invasion of Kaleras system. The attack is successful, but not enough. The Erasi force moves against Kaleras with overwhelming numbers. The defending Shara Daim and Empire forces fight a losing defensive battle. After days under siege, help from the Empire arrives in the form of the World-ship Enduring, the personal ship of Axull Darr. Adrian pilots the ship and destroys the Erasi force.

  January Year 59 of the Empire – Lord Sentinel of the Empire uses the threat of the Enduring to force the Erasi out of the Orion spur. The Erasi agree to the truce under those terms and abandon all of their territory in the Orion Spur, and ced
e the control to the Shara Daim and the Empire.

  Prologue

  Year 42 of the Empire – Sanctuary

  Jacob Kelly, the former leader of the Earth Resistance, woke inside his cell just as the lights turned on. The word “cell” was a bit misleading, as the rooms he had been living in were nothing like what the cells on Earth had looked like. His permanent residence consisted of three rooms: a small bathroom, a main room, and a training room. The main room held the bed he slept in, one chair, and a desk with a computer terminal. The training room was twice the size of the main room, with enough room for running and a couple of weightlifting machines.

  And it had been his entire world for more than twenty years.

  In the time since he had been imprisoned, Jacob hadn’t seen another person. He received his food and water through the slits in the wall, and over the years he had become convinced that the entire process was automated. The computer didn’t have access to any network; he could only access files already on the computer itself, which included a large library of books and a form of writing software which he tried to use, but eventually dropped.

  It had taken him a long time to make peace with his sentence, and even longer to come to terms with his crime. When the fleet that had come to Earth’s rescue returned to Olympus—or the Empire, as it was called by then—Jacob was put on trial for his crimes in the Sol system. He was charged with treason and mass murder. Both charges were true, and Jacob had elected to admit his guilt and accept the sentence from the Empire. He had withheld information concerning the Ra’a’zani, which had indirectly led to the destruction of most of the Empire’s fleet and the death of almost the entire population of Earth. That action weighed heavily on him; but at his sentencing, it was made perfectly clear to him that he was not on trial for that crime.

  After the Sol system had been won, Jacob had taken control of an old Olympus ship and fired on the mining installations in the Mars asteroid belt, killing thousands of humans who had been brought there as a slave workforce. He had done it because he’d known that those people could not survive without support from Earth, and that the Empire’s fleet was in no shape to take care of them. He’d known that they would try anyway, and in doing so they would endanger the survivors from Earth itself. So he’d done the only thing that would have ensured the survival of the remnants. His punishment was imprisonment, rather than execution; he had been put through the immortality treatment, which stopped him from aging, effectively making his imprisonment unending.

  He knew that what he had done was monstrous—but to his mind, it was also merciful. He had spared the Empire from having to choose between a slow death for everyone, or the survival of the few. It was a terrible choice, and Jacob had made it fully expecting to be put to death for his crime.

  And yet he still lived. In a way, it was a far crueler punishment, because Jacob was not truly a monster. He felt the weight of all those whose lives he had taken; their screams and accusing eyes haunted his dreams every time sleep came.

  There were times when the guilt became too much, when he could not bear it anymore, when he was tempted to end his life. But every time he contemplated ending it, he remembered those accusing eyes from his dreams, and he knew that he didn’t deserve an easy way out. He would take his punishment; he would spend eternity inside these three rooms.

  Jacob got up from the bed and started going through his usual routine: the bathroom, then training, then breakfast. After he finished in the bathroom, he went to the training room for his morning routine. He didn’t know if it was really morning, but he did have a clock on one of the walls which showed that it was 06:20. The lights in his rooms always turned on at 06:00 and shut off at 22:00. So he used those times for night and day.

  But this time when he was finished with his morning routine, something happened. The wall in the main room slid open, and Jacob was looking at a figure, the first living being he had seen in decades. The figure was dressed in a black armor suit that covered its entire body, with a dark blue coat over it. There was a symbol etched on the armor’s chest: the back of a hand with an open eye drawn on it.

  Jacob stared in shock as the figure approached him. Then, as it stopped in front of him, a voice spoke out of the armor.

  “Jacob Kelly, I am here to give you a choice. You can stay in these rooms, spending eternity here as punishment for your crime. Or you can come with me, and start atoning for the deaths you caused, by serving the people of the Empire.”

  Jacob’s heart pounded in his chest. He looked at the figure. He knew nothing about what the choice meant. But he did know that he owed it to those he’d killed to do something more than simply survive in an endless and pointless existence. He steeled himself, and gave his answer.

  ***

  Year 112 of the Empire—planet Thorsius; Clan Gudólfr territory

  Nkiruka held her brother’s body in her arms. His lifeless eyes pointed upward, staring into nothingness. All around her, chaos reigned. People were covered in dust, blood, and debris. Nkiruka closed her brother’s eyes, the movement bringing her attention to the gash on her arm and the red blood flowing over her dark skin. Somehow, the pain seemed far away, insignificant compared to the horror in front of her. A few meters away, she saw the body of her caretaker, the person that had raised Nkiruka along with her brothers and sisters. Around her were the bodies of her remaining siblings.

  Her family group numbered seven. All were born from the progeny centers, all had different biological mothers and fathers, and yet they were a family, raised in the progeny programs by their caretaker. And now, on the day that they had finally reached their maturity, when they had been to set off into life to find their paths, their lives had ended. Nkiruka looked at the faces of her family; their bodies somehow didn’t seem real, their shapes twisted, red, and ugly. Her mind couldn’t reconcile the mangled flesh with the faces she had grown up with.

  The courtyard was filled with the dead. Wails of those still alive echoed all around her, mingling with the cries of pain from those injured but still alive. Then people wearing armor with the symbol of the Hand of the Empire came. One of them gathered her up and took her to a med-car, which carried her to the hospital. Her mind was still filled with the images of her siblings and her friends as the medical personnel put her to sleep.

  Hours—or days—later, Nkiruka woke, dazed from the drugs, hearing the voices of people talking just outside of her room.

  “I can’t believe that this is happening here,” a female voice said. “This is Gudólfr territory, not the damned occupation zone.”

  “I know, but ever since the Emperor allowed those from the occupation zone to join the Clans as individuals, we’ve been having an influx of people. And with all the resentment that the Erasi left behind, it was bound to happen,” a male voice spoke.

  “The Lord Sentinel should’ve just destroyed them all.”

  “You don’t mean that. They are people, like us. Only a small percentage have turned to terrorism.”

  “I know, but seeing kids dead… It gets to me, you know?”

  “Me, too. The Hand will catch them. They always do.”

  “Yeah, but there are too few of them, they don’t always get them in time.”

  “Maybe…go…if…” The voices grew muffled as the people walked away.

  Nkiruka gazed at the ceiling, thinking about what they had said. She and her brother had wanted to join Clan Warpath together. They had been preparing for the tests, and now she couldn’t imagine doing that without him.

  One image kept showing up in her mind: one of people dressed in armor moving through the wreckage—Agents of the Hand. There were too few of them, the voice had said. Perhaps Nkiruka could join them…and find and punish the people that had killed her family.

  ***

  Year 563 of the Empire—colony world Santis; Clan Kazalir territory

  Vasily was dying. Blood spilled from his stomach as he sat propped against the rock where his murderers had left him.
He was so stupid. He knew that he was stupid. He should’ve listened to Robert when he told him that they should wait for the Hand, but no, he’d wanted to be a hero. He’d grabbed his hunting rifle and gone after the pirates. So stupid. And he had even convinced Robert to come with him, and now his lifeless eyes glared accusingly at him from the forest floor. The pirates had played with him, forcing Vasily to watch as they had broken all of his limbs before finally killing him.

  And now Vasily was going to die on this backwater planet, alone in the forest, and his body would probably feed some animal after his passing. He shouldn’t have agreed to come here, not to a world so close to the occupation zone. He’d wanted excitement, and starting up a new colony had seemed like a good opportunity.

  He heard something coming, and dread gripped him. He knew that he was going to die. His legs were broken and his stomach was cut open. However, he did not have a desire to be eaten by an animal while still alive. The noise came closer and closer, until finally he could see what it was.

  It did not look like any of the animals from this world that he was familiar with. It stood upright, with large wings spreading behind it and a black, bone-like carapace growing out of its skin to cover most of its body. Its head looked eerily similar to that of a human’s.

  “Help,” Vasily managed to rasp out. His mouth was dry and his voice cracked.

  The being stepped closer and knelt in front of Vasily. One of its hands moved toward him, and two fingers pressed against his wound, making him hiss in pain. The being pulled its hand back and looked at his blood on its fingers, and Vasily saw the blood seep into them. Then its completely white eyes turned to Vasily, studying him.

  “I am sorry,” the being said with emotion, and Vasily felt a pressure build up in his head. For a moment, it was as if he were not himself, as if something had been taken from him, and then it was gone. “I am sorry, Vasily,” the being said again, its voice sounding familiar now, and its body started to shift. The carapace retreated inside its body, the wings curled and collapsed on themselves, and the being’s features changed. And after it was finished, Vasily was looking at himself.