Warpath (Rise of the Empire Book 4) Read online

  Warpath

  Book four – Rise of the Empire series

  By

  Ivan Kal

  Copyright © 2014 by Ivan Kal

  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.

  Table of Contents

  Timeline

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  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

  Epilogue

  Timeline

  November 2103 - A faction of humanity – Olympus – left 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.

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

  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 the Earth. Ra’a’zani weapon makes the planet uninhabitable.

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

  Prologue

  Year 2164 – Four years before the forming of the Empire – Outer rim of Ra’a’zani space

  Ten Ra’a’zani warships dropped out of hyperspace at the hyper-barrier of an inhabited system. The only planet with life in the system was a small water world. Usually the Ra’a’zani didn’t bother with worlds that were small and didn’t have intelligent life, but the planet in this system was different. The world was a home to a group of scientist from a star empire that Ra’a’zani hadn’t encountered yet, the scientists were there conducting studies on the emerging life of the small water world. But Ra’a’zani didn’t know that. The only thing that they knew was that another intelligent race had a presence on that world. And that if they capture them, they will learn the locations of their other worlds, and with that a new source of slaves for their Empire.

  The ten ships carrying troops to take the station on the surface of the ocean accelerated towards the planet, ignorant of the stations attempts to contact them as the Ra’a’zani communication tech was inferior and unable to even recognize the communication attempt. Hours later they arrived and entered the orbit of the planet, sending troopships down to take the station. The station’s weak defenses intended to fight off wildlife on the planet, proved insufficient to defend the station.

  Further encouraged by the apparent lower level of the technology from the aliens and the station, the Ra’a’zani landed their troops. The several thousand scientists, having been born and raised in a culture guided by war, blood, and death, fought the Ra’a’zani experienced soldiers. Their defiance cost the Ra’a’zani troops many of their numbers, and caused the deaths of even more of their own. The aliens, even though they were scientist were trained in the combat arts, their race was that of warriors. But even their prowess was insufficient to fight off the Ra’a’zani. They decided to fight to the death, no man or woman would fall into the hands of the enemy. So the scientist fought, taking as many of the Ra’a’zani before dying, ending their own lives if capture was imminent.

  And eventually all of the scientists were dead, not one of them was captured. But before their demise they tried to destroy all of their data, computers, and technology. But as such things usually happen, they couldn’t destroy it all. The Ra’a’zani got their hands on the data they were looking for, the locations of the aliens other worlds.

  With that knowledge in their hands the Ra’a’zani clan responsible for the attack believed that they would bring their race more resources and more power. But the only thing that they had done was ensure the end of the Ra’a’zani race. But they did not know that yet.

  ***

  April; Year 30 of the Empire – Unknown system – Sowir space

  Lurker of the Depths walked on to the central hub of his war vessel. His people didn’t name the vessels they used to traverse the great void, it was a thing of the ungifted. To his left he noticed one of the tools his people utilized, he pitied the animals sometimes. The animals had been given a great gift, they might not see/hear/sense the Spirit of the Universe like his people did, but they could at least taste it through the means his people were using to control them. But then these animals had always been the tools of his people.

  Ever since his people first awakened and became aware of the Spirit of the Universe, when they realized that it allowed them to talk to each other without the use of other primitive, animalistic ways, and then when they learned how to use it to exert their dominance and control over the lower life forms. They had used the tools to take control of their planet, and then as their understanding of the sciences grew they altered their tools to become more efficient.

  Now the numbers of their tools outmatched those of his people, and the blend of their technology and their gifts allowed them to control much more of them at the same time. The tools gave his people the means to spread to the stars. To reach out and search for the other secrets of the Spirit. It has been a long time since his people first stepped into the void. He still remembered those times, for his people had long since discovered the means to never ending life. The cost had been the rate of their growth, their reproduction cycles had been greatly reduced, but it was worth it. The universe was going to be theirs.

  And then they met with an obstacle. They encountered other life out there in the void. A life that was not from their own world. It was such a glorious occasion for his people, finally they had found someone else to share in the Spirit of the Universe with. But it was not long before his people realized that these others could not see/hear/sense the Spirit of the Universe, they were blind to it. Oh, what a disappointment that was for his people. These were only animals that had somehow learned the secrets of the sciences. His people could read their minds as easily as they could those of the animals. But control and dominance was harder, perhaps because of the level of intelligence that the animals possessed, they were highly resistant to the Spirit.

  But they were animals still, no better than the tools his people used. They could not allow it. The animals moved through the stars in the darkness, never truly living, cut off as they were from the Spirit of the Universe and from each other. So his people decid
ed to go to war, because only those who were true beings could be allowed out in the universe. And then they realized what mistake they had made, the animals were powerful, and numerous, the infestation had spread too much for them to cleanse it. His people lost, and were forced to seek an end to the fighting. The animals agreed and eventually even invited his people to their little group, the Consortium.

  Lurker of the Depths still remembered the day they accepted, knowing that someday they will rise and finish what they began so long ago. And they did, the Consortium was broken. Most of the animals eradicated save for a few. And the time to finish one of the last of the ungifted was now. The ungifted animals had a name in their primitive ways of communication for the world, but Lurker of the Depths never bothered to learn them, it was such a pain, trying to translate the ungifted primitive communication into true speech.

  He couldn’t imagine being like them, unable to see/hear/sense the Spirit of the Universe. Not being able to communicate with others of his kind through the Spirit. He could exchange complex ideas in fractions of time it took the ungifted to even begin trying to explain themselves. He could share in the life experiences of any of his kind, if they allowed. The ungifted could never know another being as he could. There were no lies among his kind, no secrets.

  Lurker of the Depths moved on his three legs to the center of the hub, he placed his slender frame into the capsule that would enhance his gift and let him use the tools to guide his vessel as he wished. He watched as his vessel left the other-space, and exited into an empty system from which his people will stage the invasion to the last free world of the animals.

  He watched as ships started appearing beside his own, first dozens, then hundreds. It would take time for the full fleet to assemble from all the corners of their dominion. An invasion takes a long time to plan, and more than just the war vessels. They needed support, fuel, and extra ammunition, all of that was required. But once all were here, their invasion fleet will be the largest his people had ever assembled. First, they will cleanse the remnants of the Consortium, then they will move after the other ungifted.

  ***

  Adjunct Michael Jorgenson sat at his station on board the Jinn. The Jinn was a patrol ship, capable of trans-travel, fast and lightly armed. It was one of fifteen patrol ships that patrolled the Empire’s border with the Sowir Dominion. The border itself stretched across multiple systems, and while it was extremely hard for anyone to actually keep a border in space, the systems that were patrolled were closest to the Sowir controlled systems, and were most suitable as staging points for an attack. The Jinn was traveling through the mostly empty system, aside from a small refueling station, dozen or so sensor drones, and two planets orbiting a red dwarf, there was nothing else of interest in the system.

  The system was four light years away from the Nuva system, the capital system of the Nuvan Clan. And presumably the first place the Sowir would attack. The non-aggression agreement between the Empire and the Sowir had been in effect for thirty years. And in that time no Sowir Dominion ship was seen past the agreed border line. Empire’s exploration ships had likewise stayed out of the Dominion space. Focusing their explorations on the star systems that were rimward from Sanctuary, in other words towards the outer rim of the galaxy. While Sowir territory spread coreward from Sanctuary, towards the galactic core, when using Sanctuary as a reference point, which all the Empire’s maps did.

  Jinn had a small crew of fifteen. The patrol class ships were small, they have been made for the long term patrols with most of the cargo space inside them delegated to fuel and supplies. Which allowed them to operate for long periods of time without the need to return to base. They were around a hundred meters long, and shaped like a one-sided knife blade.

  Michael looked over the sensory data that the Jinn received from many sensor drones in system and from the surrounding systems through their FTL comms, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. He was just about to get up and grab something to eat when an alert flashed on his screen.

  Michael leaned closer and saw that something had triggered the emergency protocols in one of their sensor drones, in a system about fourteen light years away. Swiping with his hand Michael brought up the scans. After a mere few seconds of looking at them he swallowed hard and commed his Ship Master.

  “Ship Master, you need to get up to the command, there is something you need to see right away.”

  Chapter One

  May; Year 30 of the Empire – Sanctuary

  Elias Bakas sat and watched the meeting between the Clan Leaders of the Empire and the Emperor, although to them he was just a faceless figure. One of many such figures throughout the Empire. Elias was now the leader of the Hand of the Empire, an organization that was tasked with protecting the people of the Empire and enforcing the letter and the spirit of the Empire’s laws. In order to do that, no agent of the Hand ever showed his or her face.

  Their uniform was a black armor suit and a dark blue coat over it, the coat had the symbol of the Hand of the Empire on the back, a metal hand with an eye on its back. Their helmets completely covered their heads, and the face plate was smooth save for a thin horizontal silver line across the eyes. The only place where an agent could walk freely and interact with other people was on Sanctuary, in their sanctum. And that was the sacrifice that every member of the Hand made, so that they could be as bias as possible, and to eliminate things like corruption and bribery. No person in the Empire could ever be sure that they had talked to the same agent more than once, their voices were modulated and all sounded the same. And Elias made sure that all agent’s rotate around the Empire.

  But their isolation also posed a problem, people could come to distrust them, even hate them as they went around the Empire punishing those that betrayed the Codes of the Empire. In order to counter that, Elias made sure that the Hand of the Empire wasn’t seen just as enforcers of the law, but also as someone the people can rely on and trust. The Hand helped new colonies in their infant stages by providing help to the workforce, even though back then there weren’t that many of them, it was their presence that mattered. The Hand helped with relief efforts on colonies struck by disasters, and they made themselves available to the people, anyone could ask for the Hand to investigate if they felt their rights were being harmed.

  The Hand of the Empire had the trust of the people, and that was extremely important, considering the scope of their power, influence, and purpose. The Hand of the Empire had great power in the Empire, they were the Emperor’s failsafe. The Emperor wielded absolute power over all clans. The Clan Leaders had many liberties, they set the policies of their worlds and they could even make new laws, as long as those laws didn’t violate the codes. But the Emperor had the last word on everything, the fact that he rarely exercised that right didn’t take away from the fact that he could very easily become a tyrannical dictator. And Emperor Klein was fully aware of that. The Hand of the Empire was created as a check on his power, and on power of every Clan Leader.

  When the Empire was founded humanity was in a very fragile place. With most of the human population dead on Earth, strict reproduction laws were enforced, there were only about ten million humans left at a time. The new laws made sure that every able woman donated her eggs twice a year, just like men were required to donate their seed. The eggs were then artificially inseminated, and placed into artificial wombs. The laws worked, and in thirty years the human population had reached two hundred million. The Nel population of Nuva that had joined the Empire was exempt from the law during the first five years after the Empire’s founding, until the geneticists managed to create the immortality treatment for them.

  The Nel population in the Empire now almost equaled that of the human population. The Empire’s population was now close to four hundred million, not even close to the numbers humanity or Nel once had, but still much more than what they had thirty years ago. Although most of that number were children, the last decade saw a significant increase in every area of the
Empire, as the children born in the first ten years of the Empire grew up and finished their education. The Empire had worked hard to keep up with the growth, at times barely managing to follow.

  Now the Empire had sixteen colonized systems, including Sanctuary, and it consisted out of six clans. The six Clan Leaders met on Sanctuary in person twice a year, at the end and the middle of the year, to discuss various matters concerning the Empire with the Emperor. The last thirty years had been peaceful, which fuelled their expansion efforts greatly.

  An exchange at the table made Elias focus on what was being said.

  “Terran Clan needs more resources! The tidal season on the New Earth is coming soon, and we need to adequately prepare!” Clan Leader of the Terran Clan Barbara Brown demanded.

  “The yearly allotted resource quota for your Clan was more than enough to cover your projected needs.” Clan Leader Annbjörg Johansson of Clan Gudólfr said as she turned and looked pointedly at Clan Leader Brown.

  “The projected quota is obviously not enough, if this council had taken into account the harsh realities of New Earth’s climate we would have been allotted enough resources!” Clan Leader Brown said bitterly.

  “You know full well that those words aren’t true. We had discussed this in cooperation with your people and reached the conclusion about your quota. Your Clan is one at fault, this is the second year in a row that your Clan is requesting resources above your allotted quota. If you need more resources, then you should use next year’s quota to increase your own material gathering and processing.” Clan Leader Johansson said.