What War Had Wrought (Rise of the Empire Book 7) Page 19

  He turned to look at Laura. “You know that is true. The only reason they dared to do something like this is because they believe that we are not a threat, that their people are safe from any retaliation. But they are wrong.”

  “Tomas, we don’t have the ships to fight them,” Laura said.

  “We only need one.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I have Axull Darr’s ship, the ship built by the People. We had it for ten years, and I kept it a secret.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In Warpath. I didn’t want to tell people because I wanted us to develop things on our own, not copy the People. Warpath is building ships similar to it, but they won’t be ready for a while. We don’t need fleets; that one ship is so far beyond everything that the Erasi have,” Tomas said. “Don’t worry, I won’t let Adrian fight a losing battle.”

  ***

  “You want me to do what?” Isani asked for the second time, thinking the he must’ve heard wrong.

  “I want you to take the Enduring to Shara Daim territory,” Tomas answered slowly.

  “Tomas, we can’t fight in this ship. Our consoles can barely move it. We don’t have interfaces with the weapons or a million other things,” Isani said.

  “You are not going to fight it, Adrian is. I want you to give the Enduring to him.”

  “Tomas, I know that I said that Adrian probably could use the chair, but we need to run tests to get him ready.”

  “I am confident that there will not be any problems. I need you to do this. There isn’t much time, the Erasi are about to attack Kaleras, and Adrian and the Shara Daim need help.”

  “I will do it, Tomas, but you have held this ship a secret for so long. Are you sure?” Isani asked.

  “I am,” Tomas said resolutely. “I have a message that I want you to give to him, before he takes command of the Enduring.”

  “Of course, Tomas. I’ll see to it.”

  Tomas nodded and closed the channel. Isani stared at the empty holo for a moment or two before calling his second who was on the Enduring.

  “Clan Leader, how may I help you?” his second, a Guxcacul called Rivv, asked.

  “Get the Enduring ready for departure. All science teams are to leave immediately, all work is to halt. Make sure that the console interface is operational; I’ll be sending several shuttles with supplies immediately.”

  “Where is it going?”

  “To Shara Daim space,” Isani said.

  “You mean…”

  “Yes, just get it ready, we leave as soon as possible,” Isani said. “And send a message to Nelus, let them know that a Warpath ship will enter their territory and needs a path to their sun. We are using the Nelus access point.”

  ***

  Sol

  Aileen sat in Gotu’s office in Sol and reported her experience from Tarabat. Once she finished, Gotu stood and walked around the table to stand and look through a vid-screen that showed the outside of Olympus Mons.

  “We already knew most of this. We gathered that they didn’t want you to leave and trigger a war before they were ready,” Gotu said.

  “Yes, they didn’t even try all that hard to find us. Although it would be near impossible to do so had they tried; there are too many people and different races on Tarabat. And the Erasi are not really in control, it is more a balanced chaos that runs itself. They are only overseers that get involved when someone breaks their contracts,” Aileen said.

  “I’m sorry that we didn’t try to find you,” Gotu said remorsefully.

  “I understand, you couldn’t have known that some of us survived,” Aileen said. “What do you think about Jurr’s offer?”

  “I will relay it to the Lord Sentinel and the Emperor, but I believe that he might get his wish. Clan Leader Isani told me to expect a ship to come to Sol tomorrow, one headed to Kaleras. I am to put as many adepts and Sentinels on it as I can, as reinforcements for Adrian.”

  “That includes me?”

  “If you want to only. I will not force you just after you came back.”

  “No problem, I’m going. Those bastards have to pay for the deaths of my crew.”

  ***

  Gotu and Aileen waited in the Olympus Mons command. According to the comms from Sanctuary, the ship that was supposed to make a stop in Sol before heading to Kaleras was about to arrive. As they waited, one of the Adjutants approached Gotu.

  “Administrator,” he said, “we are detecting strange readings from the Sun.”

  “What kind of readings?” Gotu asked.

  “Fluctuations. We are not sure what they mean,” the Adjutant said, and then another spoke out, “Administrator, we are detecting something coming out of the Sun!”

  “Show me!” Gotu ordered, and the holo switched to show the Sun, and a massive object lifting out of the Sun’s corona, its shields clearly visible and blazing blue.

  “Administrator, we are getting a communication request from the object—it is Clan Leader Isani.”

  Gotu glanced at Aileen, his Nel face clearly showing shock.

  “I’m guessing that is the ship we were waiting for.”

  Interlude IV

  A long time ago

  Axull looked at the devastation before him in shock and confusion.

  “How could they have done this?” Waiss whispered, almost as if he was afraid to speak in the presence of such needless death.

  “I don’t know,” Axull answered.

  “We gave them everything, showed them the wonders of the universe. And they…they did this?” Waiss’s voice broke at the end.

  “They wanted more,” Ullax said while holding Waiss’s hand.

  “What more could they have possibly wanted?” Waiss asked. Axull could feel his friend’s pain, could see how betrayed he felt. Axull shared that pain as well. Waiss trembled, his wings curling at his back. “We taught them, we uplifted them—everything that they are is because of us! And they repaid us by doing this!” Waiss pointed at the window and the remains of the World-ship and the combined fleets of three different species spreading in front of them.

  “We held things back…” Ullax said.

  “Of course we did!” Waiss said. “You don’t teach a child the most dangerous things you know! You teach them responsibility, you build on their knowledge over time. Were we supposed to give them the keys to all of our accomplishments? They were not ready, nor are they worthy, as they have just demonstrated.”

  “Waiss is right, this is not our fault, they made this choice,” Axull said.

  “We gave them intelligence, brother,” Ullax said.

  “And they chose to misuse our gifts,” Axull argued.

  “We need to act now. They cannot be allowed to use what we taught them to harm another of the People,” Waiss told them.

  “They have lost almost all of their ships in order to destroy the Nova,” Axull said. “They are still far behind us.”

  “Which is why we need to act now. They were always good students, and we have given them too much,” Waiss added.

  “We will. They will be punished for what they have done, I promise you that, Waiss,” Axull said.

  “You are not planning on wiping them out?” Ullax asked hesitantly. Among the three of them, she was the one who had been the closest to the three races they had uplifted. They were her children, in many ways.

  “No, but they don’t deserve what we have given them. If they want to join us as equals, they will have to do it on their own, without us to guide them,” Axull said, and turned to look at his attendant standing behind them. “Tell the command team to get the Enduring underway. We need to reach Aus Alar as fast as possible. And tell them to call every World-ship in the area and order them to meet us there as well,” Axull ordered.

  “Right away, Grand Exatt,” the attendant said, and exited the viewing room.

  “What are you going to tell the council?” Ullax asked.

  “The truth. They are unworthy of what we have
given them and need to be struck down,” Axull answered.

  “We are going to fight them,” Ullax said, distraught.

  Waiss put his arms around her and pulled her close. “They forced us to do this, Ullax. Don’t forget that. We only wanted to help them, and they repaid us with the death of a World-ship. They did not deserve our gifts.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  December; Year 58 of the Empire — Kaleras system

  Adrian stood and watched the round holo-table in the middle of the command center onboard the command ship Gallant. The Erasi ships had been coming into the system for several minutes now, and their numbers kept growing. Adrian regretted not attempting to lay a trap for them, but there was just no way for him to have known exactly where they would’ve exited hyperspace. The Erasi would enter the system unopposed. He was watching them from several monitoring drones that had been positioned all around the system, almost in real time. But what worried him was that they were two days late, according to their calculations. Which could only mean that they had made a short stop somewhere before coming to Kaleras, and he had some idea why that might be.

  “That is a lot of ships,” Iris said in his head.

  “Yeah.”

  “Think that you can win?”

  “There is always a chance.”

  “Want to know what percentage I give you?”

  “No,” Adrian scoffed at her mentally.

  “Suit yourself,” she puffed.

  Adrian shook his head and turned his attention back at the holo. He and Anessa had planned the defense as best as they could, but both of them knew that none of their plans would survive the contact with the Erasi. The best they could hope for was to reduce the Erasi numbers enough that they would have difficulties taking the rest of Shara Daim territory quickly, buying time for their industry to build up enough forces to defeat them eventually.

  They had also debated whether Anessa should command from the Bloodbringer or the Gallant, but in the end, the Gallant just wasn’t feasible. The Empire’s command ships didn’t have the systems that supported use of telepathy for command, and there was no time for her to learn how to use the Watchtower interface. In the end, they had decided to be on two different ships, with Anessa in the overall command of the defense, as it was her territory and she had the most forces.

  Then the Erasi arrivals slowly tapered down, and the computers calculated the final count of the Erasi ships. Two hundred forty-seven thousand six hundred sixty ships, with the auxiliary ships whose presence meant that they planned to stay here until they had taken the system. The Erasi still outnumbered the defenders, but after Adrian’s attack, the advantage was smaller. The Shara Daim had around one hundred thousand warships, with another seven thousand five hundred auxiliary ships, and Adrian had around twenty and a half thousand warships with three and a half thousand auxiliary. Together, they commanded almost one hundred thirty-two thousand ships, but were still outnumbered almost two to one.

  The Erasi force started to move deeper into the system, one massive cloud of ships coming to destroy them.

  ***

  Anessa watched as the Erasi formation divided, a large portion of it heading towards the fifth planet in the system and its defenses. The station there was mostly warehouses, with a few habitats that were mostly used for making trading deals. But close to the planet were two trans-points, both incoming and both defended. Unlike the Empire, which typically had one massive station as the defense of a point, the Shara Daim had four smaller defense stations surrounding the point. The points must have been a priority for the Erasi; the trans-points were the only reason why one would want to take a hub system.

  Anessa started giving orders. Her fleets had been divided and placed strategically across the system, as they hadn’t been sure where the Erasi would arrive. She ordered two of her forces, each consisting of ten fleets, to move to support the defenses at the points. The rest of the Erasi formation was moving slowly, almost unconcerned as they moved to take positions above the sun’s plane. Then another two formations moved away from the main Erasi force to attack other points of interest in the system and she sent out more orders. The main force even without those three formations numbered almost as much as Anessa’s and Adrian’s combined fleets. Anessa knew that this was a delicate dance; the Erasi wanted to force her to overextend, allow them to take a large part of her force with overwhelming numbers, and she needed to poke at them and take down their numbers. The Erasi couldn’t allow themselves to be caught unaware, so they were going to be moving slowly, working their way through the system destroying any threat and taking control of the trans-points, setting up defenses to prevent any reinforcements that would come behind their back.

  Then the first Erasi formation began their attack on the defense stations. The Erasi had launched kinetic projectiles, rocks, at her stations, and Anessa grimaced as she realized that Adrian had been right. The Erasi had a way of dealing with her fixed defenses. The crews of the defense stations tried firing at them, but they were extremely hard to see; the only reason they even knew they were coming was because they had been watching the Erasi ships and saw them being launched. Then the Erasi ships started firing missiles, which made it even less likely that they would manage to take the rocks down. Her own ships started firing their own missiles, and the stations fired their own.

  The space between them was filled with exploding missiles, as both sides’ point defenses started taking them down. Her side seemed to have an upper hand, as fewer of the Erasi missiles passed through the combined defenses of the stations and her warships. Then the kinetic weapons hit. Rocks smashed into the stations’ shields, illuminating them in bright showers of fire as they broke apart on impact. The stations held for a time, until they didn’t. The shields failed and the rocks hit the stations, blowing through them and taking them apart.

  Grimly, she gave the order for her ships to start retreating slowly while firing at the Erasi, who were now moving to take the orbit of the planet, destroying the few defensive platforms there and taking possession of the warehouses in orbit.

  The second Erasi taskforce was attacking another incoming trans-point and there, instead of taking shots from range, they had pressed their attack, surprising her forces. The Erasi ships surged forward once the stations and the defense platforms were gone, engaging her forces. Her taskforce started suffering losses and she opened a channel to Adrian’s ship, asking him to help them. The Empire’s fleets and her own First Legion were her best weapons, the only ships in the system that had the skim technology. And she needed to use them wisely. Adrian sent his acknowledgment, and four of his fleets disappeared on their way to help her Legions.

  ***

  Four of the Empire’s fleets dropped out of skim flanking the Erasi fleets. Immediately, they started firing proton beams and kinetic shells into their flank, forcing them to evade the shower of metal slugs. The Shara Daim ships, seeing a chance, pressed a counterattack, forcing the Erasi to begin a retreat. The Empire and the Shara Daim forces followed them and fired at them until another Erasi force detached from the main force and set a course towards them.

  Seeing a much larger force on its way, the Empire and Shara Daim ships turned around, executing a retreat of their own.

  Chapter Thirty

  Kaleras

  A day later, Adrian woke from his short two-hour nap, which was all he generally needed to be rested, and rushed to the command center. Thankfully, nothing major had occurred while he slept; there were a few skirmishes as the Erasi and Shara Daim ships got too close to each other, but other than that, the Erasi had been happy to bombard another trans-point from afar, and secure the points they had captured. Their auxiliary ships obviously included cargo ships, as they had brought defense platforms of their own and had placed them at the incoming trans-points, ensuring that any force coming through them would be met with instant response.

  An hour later, the situation changed, as Adrian noticed a very big chunk of the Erasi
formation moving, signaling another big push. The fighting until now had gone mostly equal; both had suffered almost equal losses, with the Shara Daim of course losing their defenses at an alarming rate. The new Erasi formation headed towards an area where there were several incoming and outgoing trans-points, and significant defenses protecting both the points and the stations in the area.

  Adrian knew that this was going to be the first larger battle of the siege. This was a point where they could hurt the Erasi. And the Erasi knew it. The force they were sending was almost half of their total number, almost equal to the entire defending force in the system. Anessa’s orders came through to the Gallant, and Adrian started relaying them to his fleets.

  The thing that bothered him the most was that this was the first time that the Erasi’s new type of warship was joining the battle. Adrian assumed that that was the flagship of the O’fa. The problem was that they knew very little about its capabilities. From the scans on Numvani, he knew only that their shields were far more powerful than anything that the Empire or the Shara Daim had, that its hull was made of an unknown material, and that it possessed a weapon capable of cutting right through their shields. They weren’t sure if any other Erasi ship had those weapons, but so far they hadn’t used them, which didn’t mean anything.